Gay Marriage or No Marriage At All

I was facinated by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's "Why One Queer Person is Not Celebrating California's Historic Gay Marriage Decision" on AlterNet this morning. While I'm always glad to see different perspectives on issues, particularly issues that might effect the person expressing the opinion, I do feel that this is another instance of people choosing the wrong issues to fight at the wrong times. Allowing civil marriage for same sex partners is an extension of civil rights which had previously been restricted. Even if Ms. Sycamore feels that "marriage is depressing, period" that doesn't mean that she has to engage in it.

She argues that "Gay marriage does nothing to address fundamental problems of inequality" and she goes on to discuss the need for health care, housing, addressing those in poverty. She brings up the issue of those who choose not to enter into marriage and how there are inequalities between those who marry and those who do not. Absolutely there are inequalities between people who choose to marry and those who do not - but now, it is a choice that more citizens can consider.

Marriage has had a long history of both good and bad. Has it been about oppressing women, protecting land, or other none-too-romantic ideas? YES! But that doesn't mean that it is all bad or that it will continue to be what it once was. Marriage can be a wonderful partnership between two loving, mature adults who want to go through life as a team. It has made many people's lives less lonely and more soft and comfortable. Further, marriage as it stands in today's society is open to interpretation and will be whatever the couple makes of it. Marriage doesn't have to be '50s style white-picket-fence normalcy, nor is it for most people.

Personally, I'm happy that California has allowed some people the option of normalcy that they had previously been excluded from. Marriage might not be for everyone, but at least now it is something to consider.

Men are ALLOWING Women to take over the world

From the Women's Media Center:


Wow - "I know that's a sexist comment but there is truth to it" Well, what is the truth? Why aren't women as involved in politics? Certainly there are numerous reasons, but consider women's political history:
1917 - Jeannette Rankin became the first female elected to Congress
1920 - The 19th Amendment is ratified, extending the right to vote to all female citizens of the United States of America
1922 - Rebecca Latimer Felton was appointed to fill a US Senate seat, becoming the first woman Senator, but also serving for a very short period of time before a male was elected
1931 - The second female Senator, Hattie Wyatt Caraway was appointed to the seat, but won the special election to keep the seat in 1932, making her the first female to be elected to the Senate
1949 - Chase Going Woodhouse is the first female elected to a leadership position in Congress as the Democrat Caucus Secretary for the House
1967 - Margaret Chase Smith is the first female elected to a leadership position in the Senate as the Chair of the Republican Conference
1985 - Lynn Martin is the first female elected to a Republican leadership position in the House
1995 - Barbara Ann Mikulski is the first female elected to a Democrat leadership position in the Senate
2007 - Nancy Pelosi is the first female Speaker of the House

The United States has had 245 female members of Congress, 89 of whom are currently serving. So, with less than a full century since the 19th amendment was ratified, I think we are doing pretty well. Maybe what we can do better is providing an environment that doesn't criticize women for expressing opinions or asserting themselves. While I'm sure that there are plenty of wonderful wives (first, second, or otherwise), I'm fairly certain that the references made by these men were not intended to be flattering.

Once more, criticize the policy, the message, or the platform itself, not the physical appearance of the person behind the message. It is petty and childish of these political commentators to be so focused on gender. Personally, I'd like some commentators who could act professionally and provide some intelligent analysis of the election... but maybe that sounds a little like a "nagging wife."

I Kissed a Girl... the Next Generation

Recently I was flipping through the channels on my radio when I stumbled upon a song with the lyrics " I kissed a girl and I liked it." I was particularly excited because I thought it might be a remake of a 90's fav "I kissed a girl" by Jill Sobule:


But... no... "I kissed a girl" by Katy Perry is not quite what I was hoping for:


One could argue that they are basically the same song: experimenting sexually, concern about boyfriends, drinks, girls tasting sweet, etc. But, (and please correct me if I'm wrong) it seems that Ms. Perry's song is less about an actual desire for girls, and more about further objectifying women. The girl is just her "experimental game" and "its not what good girls do."

Lesbianism isn't a sport or hobby, nor should it be viewed as trying different flavors of ice cream. Kiss someone out of passion, lust, and desire. Don't kiss someone out of "curiosity" or an "experimental game." That's degrading to everyone involved.

Love the Body

Like a lot of young women I put time in with an eating disorder when I was a teenager, and while I didn't reap the deleterious effects of many young women it hurt me in ways that I was not fully aware of for years after the fact, and to this day I have to be mindful of my tendency to transpose whatever life-craziness that was going on onto my poor body.

That's actually one of the reasons I really enjoy yoga: it's good for every-body, and any-body can be good at it. As I look around the room and see everybody working, and am impressed with everybody's strength and abilities, it makes me feel good about my own strengths and abilities as well.

Also, I love the Dresden Dolls & Amanda Palmer is my celebrity crush, so when I found this on her blog it really touched me. The youtube comments were great too.

A (Retro) Hot Tranny Mess

Not long ago I was drinking with a bevy of boys of varying degrees of charm, and in addition to fruit-flavored hookah they also introduced we to the "dose this make you gay?" game. For those of us that live under a rock, this game goes like this:

1) one boy outlines a highly improbable and convoluted sexual situation, often involving trannys and strap-ons, which he concludes with "...dose that make you gay?" (I associate exclusively with queer historians, who like the colonists/Puritans see homosexuality as a behavior rather then an identity)

2) the other boy decides whether that, in fact, confers a homosexual identity upon him.

3) the assembled laugh: "you're gay! you're gay!"

So, anyway, all that came to mind when I saw Esquire's latest effort to subvert the gender paradigms of popular American culture:

So I guess this is my contribution to the game- If you are intrigued/aroused by Jessica Simpson posing as a hot tranny does that make you gay? To what extent does Simpson's assigned female status over-ride an actual or implied Y-chromosome? What if, like Tula, she came packing an extra X along with that Y? What if she wanted to "do" you with a strap-on? How about the other way around? What if nobody would ever find out?

And if it dose make you some permutation of gay, dose being intrigued/aroused by Jessica Simpson posing as dead actress Virna Lisi posing as a hot tranny make you a necrophiliac?

& in the local news, Transgender Teen's Cami Causes End of the World

I’m visiting the old hometown for the week, and I’m not there ten minutes before my grandmother starts telling me about this local transgender teen. “…and the administration wanted to suspend him but all of the classmates dressed up too, to support him. Or her,” she reports to me.

I have to admit, I’m surprised… though this area of Putnam was, according to my high school psych. teacher, a known swinger-haven in the seventies, it’s not otherwise a hotbed of progressive thought, or pleasantness.

“That’s good to hear,” I tell my grandmother, “it’s very difficult for those kids.”

“Yes,” she agrees, “it’s very nice.”

According to the LoHud article, the teen Michael Loscalzo (male-to-female) was called in because the camisole she was wearing was “inappropriate,” and the whole thing was a dress-code issue rather then a cross-dressing issue. Truthfully, I could see that being the case, because in this area overt "-isms" are considered to be pretty darn crass. What interested me more was the apparent generational divide (my grandma excluded) between the attitudes of the students who support Loscalo and the (presumably older?) commenters/detractors to the article:

"He can do whatever he wants. It doesn't affect me, and it shouldn't affect anyone else," said Casie Byrne, 18. "It's just another person walking through the hallway."

"I believe this is an attention-grabbing person. I think there's something wrong. It's a cry for help," said 11th-grader Atticus Connors, 16. "He has every right to do what he wants to do, but I'm allowed to think it's not OK."

…both of which seem like reasonable opinions, especially since Attucus makes a distintion between doing and thinking that seems pretty far beyond a lot of the adults in the area who seem to interpret this kid's tank top and mascara as an assault on their gender, like these fine folks [sic]:

"Ok this is strange, sick, or bad enough, (take your pick). But in Pa. There is THIRD grade kid who has decided that he is really a she and the school board, and administration, (who have no balls themselves PUN INTENDED) have decided to have a talk with all students in the elementary school and let him wear a dress and use the girls bathroom. Is that what you mothers of real girls want, or will stand for?" –pigeon (no age/location)

And:

"You know this kid has gotten enough news for this show.The thing that no one has said anything about is were is DADDY with all going on ?The story does say a few things that MOM has said but it didnt say how she is handling this .You all know people are pointing the finger and say LOTS BEHIND HER BACK. Hay kid think of what your poor mother is going through maybe you should have come out whren you got to college people would have cared less and your MOTHER WOULD NOT HAVE TO HIDE!!!!! THINK ABOUT SOMEONE THAN YOUR SELF!! YOU MUST COME FROM A HOME WITHOUT A DAD BECAUSE THE WAY YOU TRAET YOUR MOTHER IS THE WAY YOUR DAD PROBILLITYTREATED HER ALSO.MY HEART GOES OUT TO HER NOT YOU!!! YOU LITTLE MORON!!!!!!" –jlewis (who posted a few times and seems pretty traumatized-for-life about the whole situation)

Then there is ball2 ("the right number, and in the right place," as he claims on his profile), who seems to have a great deal of prior concern (*I* haven't even seen "Paris is Burning," and I've watched a lot of queer documentary):

Go out and rent the movie "Paris is Burning", to see where its gonna take you to.

I've seen lots 'n' lots of TG's, pre-op, ... post-op...., between several ops, and as far as "passing" , it never ever happens. There's the size of hands, knees, adams apple, jaw, ears, and length of thigh, and the general grossness and roughness of originally-male facial features, coupled with small nipples, deep voice, and male-oriented stance and walk.I see them around sometimes, and they always stand out like a sore thumb. They just ain't feminine.

You can take any run-of-the-mill little teenage girl, and do a side-by-side comparison, and even the homeliest of little ladies are softer and more natural by far, than the world's champion TG, whoever that might be. So as far as BECOMING a woman, it can't happen. This kid will not , by any stretch of the imagination, become female.

So where is it, that $100,000 and ten years of agony are gonna bring him to? He will never have a normal female life, and he is throwing away a male life.They used to call these people castrati, and they were slaves, with their gender parts cut off, so as not to be a threat to their master.

There's a kind of inevitable role awaiting castrati, in every society. This society has no official slot for them, so they tend to get the unofficial slots: Jailhouse "girlfriends", 12th avenue "Comfort Boys", etc.,,,, but never wife, never mother, never father, never a success role, always a failure role, and always a pain role, a humiliated castoff of one kind or another.I challenge all those posting in support here, to list the ten most successful TG's alive in the world right now.GO AHEAD !!Real short list, friends.

(cough)

& as a Bond Girl in "For Your Eyes Only," center, back row.

The funny thing about this thing for me is that it’s not as if this is either new ground or a common topic of conversation: “public transsexual” Renee Richard’s optometry practice is in the same town (or one over) and I’ve yet to hear anybody complain about her office. On the other hand, Brewster is an interesting mixture of Those Who Pay a Lot of Taxes, Those Who Are Supported By Those Taxes, Those Who Pay No Taxes, and Those in Residential Treatment Facilities. It also boasts (or at least it did) a migrant community living in the woods, at least one dead body tucked away somewhere, and a train-station.

A Countdown of Misogyny

Misogyny I Won't Miss by Marie Cocco in today's WashPost is basically a list of the anti-woman comments, novelty items, or reactions to Clinton that have been seen in this election. Obviously this is not an all inclusive list, but I thought it was a good start to show what women (in particular, Mrs. Clinton) might have to deal with when seeking a position of power:

• T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho)
• the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts
• television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item
• liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a "big [expletive] whore" and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro.
• Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone
• magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: "Obama did great in February, and that's because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary's doing much better 'cause it's White Bitch Month, right?"
• political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction."
• comments that liken Clinton to a "she-devil" (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns)
• [Commentators] who offer that she's "looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court" (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC)
• Clinton is more like "a scolding mother, talking down to a child" (Jack Cafferty on CNN).
• "White women are a problem, that's -- you know, we all live with that" (William Kristol of Fox News).
• To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."
• deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats… haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled
  

“There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.”

I'll be honest, I've probably giggled at some of those things. I know that my response to the Hillary nutcracker (which I believe has been around much longer than this election) was a small groan, but not in a "you shouldn't do that women" way. It was more of a "I can't believe people buy that crap" way. But seriously, we shouldn't find it acceptable or funny to talk about any woman this way.

We argue against this woman because she's a whore, Citizen UNT, she-devil, ho, scolding mother, and (the worst of them all) white woman? Obviously she's being attacked because of her gender, like many women everyday. The difference is that this is a nation wide spectacle that we are watching with glee.

Shame, shame on us! She's not a whore, she's a socialist and in my book, that's far worst anyway.

Phyllis Schlafly's Honorary Degree

Washington University Students have been protesting the honorary degree for Phyllis Schlafly, and rightfully so. She best known for defeating the Equal Rights Amendment and fighting the feminist movement. Schlafly claims that "American women are the most privileged, fortunate class of people who have ever lived." It makes me wonder if she doesn't understand the lives of many American women and perhaps can't look beyond her own privileged life.

This could be the reason for her insistence that there is no such thing as marital rape:
"I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That's what marriage is all about, I don't know if maybe these girls missed sex ed." Perhaps it never occurred to her that some women don't consider the "I do" of the wedding vows to mean "I do want to have sex anytime you want to have sex." Listening to her talk about feminism and "feminist issues" (the " " is because many feminist issues are really just people or family issues from a feminist perspective) gives a lot of insight into her arguments. While I disagree that putting children into daycare and women going to work is only a feminist issue (in fact, it is actually an economic issue for most families), she does bring up some good points that feminists probably ought to consider.

The one I found most interesting is the "Big Turing to the Left" of the feminist movement in 1977. She begins to talk about it at 1:25, take a listen:


Now, I'm not opposed to the Gay Rights Movement, but a lot of people are. I'm not suggesting that we embrace the opposition, but we shouldn't exclude people who have different opinions on other issues. Feminism and the Womens Movement isn't about sexual orientation, nor is it about environmentalism, globalization, socialization, labor unions, or many of the other "leftist" issues. The Womens Movement is and should be about equal rights and opportunity for women - that's it. By aligning it with all other liberal or leftist issues, feminists have restricted the number of women who are willing to call themselves feminists.

In the last thirty seconds of this clip, Schlafly says "Young women, make up your mind, what you want your life to be twenty or thirty years from now." She is mostly referring to babies, but it is a good point for anyone. Where do you want to be twenty or thirty years from now? How do you want to live your life? Maybe for some people it is just about having babies (my use of the word "just" is not to suggest that this is insignificant, rather that it is the most or only important thing) but maybe other people want more? Obviously everyone has priorities, but I think that our younger generation is more aware of different life styles and perhaps more capable of juggling multiple aspects of life. Perhaps we can't "have it all" but certainly we can get relatively close if we work at it.

Another 1 in 4

Today's female fear of the day: unwanted pregnancy!

One in four women (and, I'd like to just note, it amazes me how much happens to one in four women) is likely to have an unplanned pregnancy. And why? Inconsistent use of contraceptives. This is something we can actually fix. Use condoms, use birth control pills, use diaphragms... just use something.The Guttmacher Institute suggests that it may be partially due to access: "Many women report difficulty accessing contraceptive services or say they cannot afford the more effective, prescription methods of contraception." Of course this is ridiculous, because you can always just use condoms. They are particularly effective if used consistently and correctly! Also, they are cheap and easy to find! They come in different colors, flavors, textures, thicknesses, and styles of lubrication (or not). One more great thing, they protect against many sexually transmitted diseases and, since earlier this season we found out that one in four teen girls have a STD, it might be good to start pushing that particular benefit.

Protesting Sexual Freedom

June 7, 2008 is the 43rd anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the US Supreme Court case that allowed use of contraceptives. While most women (and probably men too) would consider this a day to celebrate, the American Life League has put together a protest.

Protest the Pill Day '08: The Pill Kills Babies! is encouraging people to "gather for peaceful protests in front of facilities that distribute birth control products." Hmmm... facilities that distribute birth control products? Well, that's pretty much any pharmacy that I'm familiar with, including Walmart, CVS, any grocery store with a pharmacy attached, Rite Aid, Target, Walgreens, etc. Perhaps they should extend it to places where contraceptives are prescribed, so that they can also protest outside of nearly every doctor's office as well.

Saving babies always seems like a noble cause, but this is just another blatant attack on sex.
Q: Isn't it better to be on the pill when you are sexually active?
A: Better for whom? The pill does not prevent you from getting a sexually transmitted disease, it is not 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy and you could conceive a child who gets chemically aborted before the baby’s presence is even known to you. Moreover, sexual activity outside of marriage is seriously wrong.

Who said outside of marriage? There is a HUGE number of married couples that use contraceptives. Not every one wants to have a baby every time they have sex. But, for those of us who aren't married, why is it "seriously wrong"?

Q: I’m for reducing the number of abortions, but isn’t using the birth control pill the only way to do that?
A: The birth control pill does not reduce the number of abortions. The only difference is that you are killing the baby earlier. It is estimated that over 70 million chemical abortions have taken place in the United States in the last 10 years alone. If you’re single, abstinence is always your best choice. It isn’t always easy, but it always works. By abstaining from sex, you eliminate the possibility of pregnancy and catching a sexually transmitted disease. What birth control has done for our society is turn little babies into disposable objects. Pregnancy is no longer seen as a blessing, but a curse.

Pregnancy has frequently been seen as a curse, contraceptives or no contraceptives, marriage or no marriage.

It bothers me how many other issues this website brings into the argument (abstinence, STDs, possible medical side effects of the pill - most of which are rare). If the point of fighting birth control pills is to stop abortion, as suggested in the "The Pill Kills Babies" banner, then these other issues only soften the point. As I read the Protest the Pill literature, what I see is people who are against premarital sex, not people who are actually afraid that hormonal contraceptives are killing babies. If the killing babies was really the point, they'd be concerned about married couples using contraceptives too.

Johnny Vegas and Personal Responsiblity

There is a bit of a fuss being made over a "comedic" performance by Johnny Vegas last week. I " " the word comedic because there seem to be plenty of people who didn't find it very funny, and by all accounts I've read, it doesn't sound like something I'd laugh at.

So, more or less, here's the joke: Johnny rounds up 6 guys from the audience, whom he calls pall bearers, to pick up a young woman (18-19ish) from the front row and bring her on stage. He tells her that she needs to act dead and that he will bring her back to life with a kiss. Except, that's not all that happens. He straddles her, gropes her, and, as one journalist describes it, "fingers" her. While all of this is going on, he makes remarks about wanting to be inside her and for her to keep still, threatening to kick her in the ribs at one point. Now, it should be noted that Johnny is a rather large man, so for him to be on top of a woman is likely to be intimidating and possibly physically threatening in itself.

Now, here is the dilemma, several members of the audience are calling this sexual assault and other people are saying that this young woman should have stopped this if she didn't like it (or at least approve of it). As a big advocate of personal responsibility, I am certainly on the side of believing she should have stopped this - or that any concerned member of the audience should have stopped this or walked out or talked to the management. But, this is a difficult situation. He apparently took some time to get her to submit to being carried on stage and since he said earlier that he was going to wake her with a kiss, certainly no one was expecting this.

Mostly, who is going to be the party pooper? Who will ruin the fun for everyone? Is this girl going to stop this giant man on top of her while an audience full of people watch?

I'm just saying, it sucks to always have to be the person who is responsible, assertive, and overly cautious. Yes, she should have stopped him - but even more importantly, she shouldn't have had to. It isn't acceptable for anyone to go around touching stranger's genitals, particularly a large man touching a woman's vagina and breasts. If she was uncomfortable at all, as many people seem to think she was, then lets place the blame where it belongs - with Johnny Vegas, who did obviously inappropriate things to a member of his audience who wasn't prepared for this kind of maltreatment.