12 posts tagged “tigi speaks”
It seems whenever the discussion of disliked words comes up, the two most maligned words turn out to be "moist" and "panties." I feel that I stand alone in thinking these words are perfectly fine apart, and evidence of sexy fun times when together, and thus should not be so hated as they are. There are many words that ought to be avoided, but both moist and panties have delightful connotations, and the rancor against them baffles me greatly.
Those who hate panties as a word claim that it infantalizes those clothes of a lady's lower parts, but to them I ask, what should we refer to them as? Am I always to call them "underwear?" Or "underpants?" Or, heaven forfend, "drawers?" As a women who struggles with my self-image, nothing makes me feel more like a bipedal rhino than referring to my under-things as "drawers." I am not some ambulatory dresser, I am a woman! When preparing for a hot date, what do you prefer to wear? "Sexy drawers" sounds absurd, "sexy underpants" is hardly any better. "Sexy panties?" It trips off the tongue, a veritable pep-squad cheer for a delightful and sexy evening. (I also like to add that I am quite fond of the portmanteau of "fun underwear": "funderwear.")
And moist! What has this word done to so many people to make them squirm to hear it? Some claim it is the "oi" sound, but I call foul on that. Many harmless words have the "oi" sound (point, joint) and some even combine the "oi" and "st" (cloister) without offending. Also, I point to the word "oink" as evidence that "oi" is a darling dipthong enjoyed by cute little piggies all around the world. No, "moist" apparently suggests discomfort for people - humidity, smelly un-wrung sponges, sweat. But look at the good things moist provides -- moisturizing lotion, moisture gathering in clouds above for a refreshing rainshower, a moist cloth dampening and cooling a fevered brow. And dare I suggest that moisture makes it easier for us to come together in conjugal ways? It is moisture that reminds us that we are not unchanging, dry blocks of cement but teeming bits of humanity, subject to change. Perhaps that is why it is so hated?
Sometimes I'll go weeks without injuring myself (although when I pointed this out to LBCS she said, "Will you?" in a doubtful tone, and I had to concede the point) and then I'll injure myself a bunch in a short span of time. Behold, in the past four days I've had a bowl of dip fall on my head, scratched my arm on broken glass, and biffed in the parking lot at work, creating scrapes up and down my legs that look worse than they actually are. A friend of mine also sustains as many injuries as I do, but she does Roller Derby. I just exist.
Sometimes, I'll go months without strange things happening, and then in the span of twenty minutes, a myriad of strange events will happen. Witness, last Wednesday on campus I saw a shirtless guy chasing a squirrel, a random middle-aged asian guy take my picture for no reason, and another young man skateboarding towards Hewitt Ave, singing what I supposed to be opera. I end up going to class with a perplexed expression, wondering if these were all signs from a god I may or may not believe in.
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And sometimes, I'll go weeks without blogging, because I have a fairly small audience and a fairly regular life -- by regular, I mean I have tasks and habits that detract from my public show of self reflection. I have fallow periods with my private journal, too. Sometimes it is my lifeline, and sometimes I can go weeks without needing it. For a time, I think it is because I'm getting older and maybe "outgrowing" these things, but I'm not, because I've been doing this -- writing to myself, that is to say -- since I was eight. That's almost twenty years of talking to myself. I didn't save the earliest efforts, partly -- actually, entirely -- because I feared my brothers would read them. And they did, once that i knew of. To my cousins, who were the COOLEST people in the world and it sucked to have my inmost thoughts betrayed to them.
This brings me to my point.
A while ago, Lyz did a series on that which made her cringe from her old journals, inspired by the book Cringe (which is delightful). I've been thinking about copying her, especially since the comparison between Young Lyz and Young KT is entirely hilarious. Young Lyz was very religious in her writings, Young KT was writing through her last days as a Catholic in a blaze of profanity and incoherence. Young KT drew pictures -- that were intended to be LIGHT-HEARTED, mind you, of Young KT destroying her enemies in myriad ways. This was all pre-Columbine, I must point out, and I know that while I was a lonely soul through my junior high and high school years, I was still fairly well-adjusted and had no real designs for chaos. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy imagined chaos.
Also, I had the penmanship of a mildly psychotic adolescent boy (to which I can picture LBCS and Pineapple raising their eyebrows in unison and saying, "Had?")
So here is episode one of that which makes me cringe -- 14-year-old me making her "I AM" statement to no one in particular when she should be paying attention in English class.
"Still 5/20/97 (just thought you'd like to know)"
Well. Hafta be a useful part of society. Back in a second.
Alright, I was a useful part of society, now I can be normal. I had to do math problems and learn something.
I wonder if anyone who gets a hold of this notbook in the future will wonder what I was like and if I really accomplished anything in school. Why yes, I did. Hello, person reading this. I'm here to tell you I did accomplish good grades my freshman year. I'm just rather apathetic and prefer to write in my notbook or write to my friends. That part of life always seems more interesting. But yes, I do get As and Bs. Every once in a while, I get a C. Those teachers usually retire after they give me a C. Mainly cauz they're all old. No wonder they gave me Cs. THey gave me Cs cauz they're old and blind and suffering from old timer's disease.
(Shut up, justin. Yer stupidity personified. There, I said it) [Note from '09 - I probably didn't.]
I'm not an over achiever or an under achiever, I'm just another being wandering aimlessly through my life, a person on this continual journey, wondering where the hell will this end up. For the moment, I'm ona happy strech of life where things seem okay. But it's kinda spoiled by my enemies and people who don't like me. Why don't they? I dunno but that's their loss. I don't like not liking people from the first meeting,s o I try being nice and if they don't wantto be my friend fine whatever just don't bug me, I won't bug you if you don't bug me. So. Person reading this, that is me. I'm Bored.
I'm kinda getting sick of all this Romeo and Juliet hype. It's starting to get on my nerves."
So I guess two Californians have decided that since a legal document says "Party A" and "Party B" instead of bride and groom, they're taking their ball and going home. Not without some publicity, mind you.
Bird and Codding said they didn't intend to become part of the culture debate. They didn't know about the change when they applied for their marriage license in August. When they saw the terms, Codding wrote "groom" next to "Party A" and "bride" next to Party B and submitted their license. On Aug. 16, they married at her father's church.
On Sept. 3, the couple received a letter from the Placer County Clerk-Recorder Registrar of Voters informing them that their license did not comply with California law and that the state did not accept licenses that had been altered. The couple had 10 days to complete a duplicate form.
The couple say they have no intention of signing the forms.
"We feel that some things are worth fighting for," said Gideon Codding, 29.
Boo-fucking-hoo, pretty white people. Boo-fucking-hoo. You had a wedding day, people called you bride and groom, there was a bride and groom on the cake, you can call yourself bride and groom all you want. This is not a fight, folks, this is a publicity stunt. Like hell you didn't want to be part of the culture debate. You're standing right in the middle of it shouting, "BUT WON'T ANYONE THINK OF THE POOR HOMOPHOBES?" Meanwhile, you refuse to turn in a form that will help you qualify for shared health insurance, and basically laying any blame for what happens next on those who are in favor of gay marriage.
“Those who support (same-sex marriage) say it has no impact on heterosexuals,” said Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute. “This debunks that argument.”
Except it fucking doesn't. Sorry, folks. As a fellow hetero, I gotta say you two are being fucking stupid.
I think the best argument in this case has to be one I read on Pandagon. A commenter pointed out that this is a matter of religious marriage versus civil marriage. If I were still Catholic, and married someone else in a Catholic church, and we got divorced -- the United States would view us as divorced, but Rome would view us as still married. Likewise, certain churches will not recognize gay marriages, but the state will. But only two other states in the US will recognize it. To the rest of the country, you'll just be a couple of dudes hanging out.
But if you're heterosexual, all you have to do is fill out a piece of paper and turn it in and, tah-dah! The whole USA says you're married. And you can have a party WHENEVER. One of my brothers got married in a civil service in February, and is having the ceremony next month. One cousin of mine got married in the Bahamas and had a party three months later in Wisconsin. My other brother and his wife got married in Minnesota, then three years later had another ceremony in Bangladesh. See, hetero couples, we can get married any goddamn time we please, any goddamn way we please, however goddamn many times we want to. I can meet someone tomorrow and get married next week. I can dress up like Princess Leia and the groom can dress up like Chewbacca and we can elope in Vegas, then have another ceremony in London, then have one more ceremony right in front of the statue of Leonidas Hamline on Hamline Campus in St. Paul.*
This couple doesn't even have to get married in California. They can get married anywhere they damn well please, get a license, and bring it to California and be like, "We did another ceremony in South Carolina because WE CAN."
If memory serves, gay people can get married in the following places in the western Hemisphere:
California
Massachusetts
Canada
Urbana, Illinois (But not Champaign)**
...that's pretty much it.
So, go on ahead and have a fight with the world over a gender-neutral marriage license. Go on. Do it. Because you can always get unmarried, remarry different people, divorce those people, get married again to each other. On and on and on again, anywhere in the USA and most of the Western world. You can get married hanging upside down, underwater, wearing only underpants, wearing each others' underpants, whatever. You are heterosexuals. THe world will generally regard your marriage as a marriage.
I can meet someone tomorrow and marry him next week and the whole of the United States would regard it as a marriage. My cousin, who is gay and has been in a committed relationship for years, cannot marry the man he's with because he lives in Wisconsin. If they decide to schlep up to Canada and get married, very few states will recognize it as a marriage. To me, this is injustice.
*The invites go out tomorrow.
**Then you'd have to live there. Blecch. Although, there's always C-Street.
This is being discussed over at Jezebel right now, and I take the stance that the "concern" aspect of it is bullshit, as well. Thank you, Dodai, for rocking.
Take me, for instance. My weight has fluctuated my whole life. I come from a long line of thick folks who are prone to gain and lose weight constantly. Depending on what is going on in our lives, my brothers and I have alternately been chunky and lite versions of ourselves. I've been fatter and thinner than my current size. I lost weight in college when I was away from my mom's delicious, delicious cooking. I gained weight when I studied abroad, I lost weight the summer after, when I was working all the time and running five miles every few days with my dog. I gained weight in my first round of grad school when I was depressed and drinking heavily, I lost a little bit of weight when I stopped drinking almost entirely. I'm fully aware of my size at all times. No, really, I am. NO. REALLY. I've knocked shit over with my thighs, so I KNOW they are a force to be reckoned with. None of my friends have ever felt the need to approach me with concern over the times when I gain weight because they respect the fact that I'm a grownup who can take myself to the gym when I'm feeling a little too doughy. My friends know they don't need to stage some sort of fatty intervention when I get more plus-sized than usual, because they know my weight fluctuates with stress and season. They also know that I am built larger and that it would be ridiculous to expect me to be a size four, about as ridiculous as expecting Shiphrah the giant dog to one day look like a whippet:
But my boobs are huge, so, you know. That's coming along.
As for eating disorders, well, I think there's very little one can do to intervene. If someone really does have an eating disorder, I don't think it will really help for you to sit down and say, "girlfriend, yous gots a big ol' fat ass now and that make me CONCERNED." Concern should probably be separated from the weight issue, I think, and one should focus on the other symptoms, like... withdrawal from social situations. You know, "I never see you anymore, and you don't seem happy when I do see you. Please tell me if something is wrong. I love you no matter what." But as with any disorder, they have to be the one to admit they've lost control. It sucks, but "supportive concern about weight" doesn't usually go over well in a situation where disordered eating is involved.
Weight is so tied up with self-esteem and health, but also with this panic that being "overweight" is a death sentence. Really, it isn't. The healthiest I've been was at a size 16, and that's not the smallest I've been -- that was a size 12. I've been overweight my whole life, and probably will continue to be, but as long as I'm living a fairly healthy life, why should I care if I'm a little fatter some years? I lost a lot of weight my freshman year in college, but gained some of it back that summer, and I remember my dad commenting on my "regain" in a positive way -- "You looked too thin, you didn't look like yourself. Now you look comfortable and happy." And shouldn't one want their friends to be comfortable and happy?
ETA: Read for more.
It's my understanding that the narrative still exists that I, being a left-wing liberal,have no pride in my country. Pineapple and I were just talking about this and decided that, not only is this patently false, but it also means nothing to say we are proud of every action by virtue of it's being done by the same country. That expressing pride in something rings hollow if the action does not really warrant "pride." "Proud of you no matter what," is a potentially harmful statement.
Take, for instance, a child. If you see the child sharing with a friend or classmate and you say, "I am proud of you," that means something. If you see the same child taking a shit on the library floor and you say, "I am proud of you," that sends a completely different message. It's the same child, yes, but the actions are quite distinct. It doesn't mean you no longer love the child, but it doesn't mean that actions shouldn't be taken to prevent the child from shitting in the library again.
Same rings true for this country, I'm afraid. I may be proud of some actions, and ashamed of others, and likely to speak out about actions or traits I would like to change, but it doesn't mean I don't love my homeland. I just don't want it shitting in libraries.
I didn't get a chance to hear Obama's speech, so I read the full text of it this morning. And tears are running down my face if only because it's a moving speech from the first presidential candidate I've ever really believed in before the election (my respect for Al Gore came years after I actually voted for him, but that's another story -- besides, I was only 18 when he ran). And while I truly believe that any of the three candidates would do well by the country (I may not agree with McCain, but that doesn't mean I don't respect him, and of course I'll vote for Hilary if she gets the nomiation), I believe Obama is the best choice. I make this decision, one, because I'm in sync with him on the issues (incidentally, I'm also in sync with Hilary, which is why I'd vote for her, too) and two,I think he is ready, far more ready than a former governor/ failed businessman ever was.
And three, I'm a young American skeptical of the old and eager for the new. I won't deny it. But I grew up in an era of political divisiveness and insanity. I watched the 24-hr news cycle explode into this endless three-ring-circus of pundits and melodrama. I sat in my mom's car at the age of 16, listening as the reports of Bill Clinton's impeachement came in, wondering still why his private, marital issue needed to exploded into a federal offense when there very clearly was so much more going on in the world right about then. I watched from a hill in Athens, Greece, as hundreds of thousands of Europeans stormed the streets angrily, mad at my country because it was invading another country -- something else I didn't understand. And I've watched overzealous protesters crowd a Planned Parenthood in St. Paul while ignoring the very real, very difficult lives of actual children in North East Minneapolis, where I work everyday. And I've wondered if my country has gone apeshit.
And then I hear Obama speak, and I think, no. It hasn't gone insane, because people like him live here.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
- His middle name is Francesco
- He apparently wrote the theme song for The O.C.
- His mom is Talia Shire
- He is exactly four days older than my brother, Sunshine.
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One thing I did know about him is that he once visited the Austin ice cream shop where Tex worked. How she didn't lean over the counter, touch his nose and say "Boop!" is beyond me. I would do that in a second.
I understand that I'm clearly not in "Maxim's" readership and I'm happy not to be. Nonetheless, it chaps my ass to even consider that a number of even slightly intelligent heterosexual men out there consider their lists and decrees to be acceptable (oh, I read Pajiba and those boys, normally very respectful, occasionally let me down with the misogynistic link or two). I just recently stopped rolling my eyes over the fact that they decided a decent retort to Ann "Lookatmeeee" Coulter was "Haha, you're ugly" (again, class, why do we dislike Ann Coulter? Because of the crap she SAYS, not because of what she LOOKS LIKE. She SAYS racist and classist things. She LOOKS fairly decent actually, if a little thin, but that's not the point. She SAYS horrible, terrible things and THIS is what we should call her out on. Listen to Miss Tigi.).
Imagine my shock to discover that they have a list of the top "Most Unappealing Women." First of all, you'd never see a list like this in a women's magazine -- not because there AREN'T unappealing men, but because both mens' and womens' mags have a few things in common -- 1) mens' opinions come first, and 2)women should never ever EVER feel good about themselves. Ever. Das ist verboten! (I could go on and on about this but I'm not on Feministe or Pandagon or Feministing and if you want some thoughtful essays on why feminism is important, those three blogs have loads of them, Jill, Amanda, Jessica and co. are more articulate than little Rage Machine Tigi can ever hope to be. And Maxim isn't the cause of misogyny but rather a symptom of it, so anyway.)
Back to the list, though. There's the usual suspect, Britney, on said list, because she's the media whipping-girl du jour, owing to a few disasterous career choices and her inability to cope with life-after-superstardom (but you see, she's not sexy! how dare she!). I don't want to talk about Britney. No, what annoys me is that Sarah Jessica Parker and Sandra Oh were on the list. This isn't just because 1) I would lance off my right breast Amazon-style to have a body like Carrie Bradshaw and 2) Sandra Oh is fucking gorgeous. It's more than that -- it's always more than looks.
Stay with me, now.
Say what you like about Sex and the City --- Sarah Jessica Parker is someone I totally respect. She's got balance. She has a family life and she's in control of her career -- she made herself a producer on Sex and the City and produced two-and-a-half good seasons as such. And she was invested in the character of Carrie. As whiny and self-absorbed as Ms. Bradshaw was, SJP made her likeable. And, come on. She's got a unique style, she's got class, and she's never spilled out from a limo dead drunk for all the world to see. To reiterate -- she's in control.
Sandra Oh is an amazing actress. She's captivating, she's smart, and she's dedicated to her character. I know I said Justin Chambers was my main reason for sticking with the recently craptastic Grey's, but I lied a little. Sandra Oh makes you want to know and like Dr. Yang. Her character is what scared little Maxim boys would call a ball-buster and she's utterly convincing as the bold, no-holds-barred and yet infinitely fragile Cristina. I can't take my eyes off of her -- same when I watched her in Sideways (hell, same when I watched her in friggin' Under the Tuscan Sun, and the delectable Raoul Bova was in that saying he wanted to make sex all over Diane Lane). And a lot of this is because Sandra is protective of Cristina -- she goes into the writers' room and she makes sure this character is consistantly written and well-written. Again, this woman takes control.
So why are SJP and Sandra Oh "unappealing?" Say all you want about "horseface." The truth is, these are high-powered women in control of their lives and careers who play characters that intimidate the crap out of the little boys at Maxim. I didn't read Fark for a year without learning that a certain subset of men are terrified of women. Nothing scares those bedwetters more than the idea of a strong woman, and so they keep shooting their little arrows of mockery, always equating a woman's worth with her fuckability.
One day, and in my lifetime, I hope that a woman will be recognized first for her personhood. And if you're reading this, I hope you agree.
And Sandra Oh is the shit. God, I love her.
So, Maxim? A big, fat, Cornelius Bear "Fuck along, now" to you.
Anyone who knows and loves me knows that I have read the literary corpus of L.M. Montgomery so many times that I refer to Anne of Green Gables as an actual childhood friend. This isn't about my love of LMM, though it's interesting how she still provokes me to approach my world through the sprectrum of her own. On my last trip to my parents house, I retrieved some of her books that I'd left there (along with my winter clothes) so I could re-read some of them while I job-hunt (a job in itself -- 3-5 resumes and coverletters submitted a day, M-F, but at least I have one part-time job) and work on my applications for school. What can I say? Prince Edward Island circa 1910 is where I go when I need to calm down.
Right now, I'm re-reading Magic for Marigold, another one of her books about an imaginative young girl distinguishing herself in her family. I like Marigold because she's not sugary sweet and her childhood fears stem partially from her gullibility and mostly from a too-impressionable imagination. LMM writes her fears both as a little ridiculous (because come on, a lot of our fears were like that) but as entirely real to Marigold -- she pokes a little fun at her, but not too much. One chapter that sticks out to me is entitled "It," in which Marigold is on a visit at a relative's house -- one of her first trips out alone -- when her fussy aunts discover IT on her head. They don't explain to Marigold what IT is (a small bug thought to be indicative of an infection of lice), but instead banish her from the rest of the family until such time as they can take her home. LMM mocks the aunts for their foolishness in concealing the true nature of IT to Marigold, who, having overheard only parts of her aunts' conversation, concludes that she's caught an unspeakable disease and vividly imagines herself dying of it. It pretty accurately describes how children fill in the blanks when they only get a little bit of information. In her journals and books, LMM comes across as being set against concealing things of this nature from children. Children are naive but they are not always dumb, and sometimes the impressions they get can be much worse than the truth.
Which made me think, of course, about sex.
I was pretty lucky growing up -- my mother was a nurse. and she didn't leave a lot of blanks for me to fill in on my own. Not to get too graphic, but I'd had some kind of kidney-related condition when I was very young, and had to go in for regular check-ups that were a bit like pelvic exams. So I had "good touch/bad touch" explained to me very early on -- what the doctors were doing was good because it would make me healthy, but if someone did this without my wanting them to, that would be bad. It was my body and only I had say about it. This colored my ideas of consent and sexuality for the rest of my life. And like I said, my mom explained things to me when I asked, or she helped me find answers on my own. When I was eight or nine, my grandmother was in the hospital a lot and so my family spent a lot of time there. This was about the time I started having a lot of questions, and so my mother let me peruse some of the hospital pamphlets about sexuality and puberty. Again, the impression I got was positive -- there wasn't anything for me to think of as bad. I giggled at these pamphlets, yes, because I was eight, but at least I knew. And I think this is why I have a pretty healthy perception about sex and relationships at 25. Is it perfect? No, I still do dumb things like making out with the wrong person. But that's because I have an unhealthy relationship with melodrama and, to use Chuck Klosterman's term, "fake love." (query: how often are LMM and Chuck Klosterman described in one blog entry? Yet I love them both dearly for entirely different reasons!)
I wonder how it is that some kids develop any healthy idea about sex and relationships, with the way we treat sex in the media. Take, for instance, the recent outrage over some Disney-channel starlet caught with her pants down. Apparently, she sent private nude photos to her boyfriend and co-star -- not overtly-sexual shots (yes, I saw them on IDLYTW) but definitely nude. It was a stupid move, yes, because she's a star and people love nothing more than to rip young female stars to shreds for existing.* But people in love and lust do stupid things, like sending each other nude photos or getting married. These photos got leaked to the public, and parents are OUTRAGED, simply OUTRAGED. Terms like "dirty" and "damaged" are being tossed around. And this is what irritates me, because THIS is what I think sends the wrong message to kids. She's "damaged" because probably had consensual sex with her boyfriend? It's like those damn abstinence-only classes that use suckers, gum, or tape to beat the message home to girls that the more sexual partners you have, the fewer men will want to marry you, so keep your sucker wrapped or you'll regret it! This has got to be fucking up little boys' and girls' heads. This girl is dirty and damaged because she sent nude photos to her boyfriend, and then there's a huge blank for kids to fill. "Therefore, sex is dirty?" "Therefore, sex damages you?" "Therefore, nothing is more shameful than a woman's body?" It's like that skit by Lewis Black about "Nipplegate 2004." The millisecond that Janet Jackson's breast was exposed on national television wasn't the problem, he says. The problem was the month we spent playing that image over and over again screaming, "LOOK AT THAT! LOOK AT IT! IT'S DISGUSTING!" And yet, they don't explain why it's "disgusting,' because there is no explaination, because it's not disgusting. It's a breast. People have them. I've got two of my own, and "disgusting" isn't what I'd use to describe them.
What's disgusting is this: giving kids the vague idea that sex is dirty and using that to conceal facts about sex from them. They fill in the blanks on their own, and the answers are seldom correct, and sometimes these wrong impressions lead to unnecessary consequences.
What also blows my mind is -- the average eight year old wouldn't see the nude photos of this young woman, or even know of its existence, if parents weren't screaming "LOOK AT THAT! IT'S DESTROYING YOUR MIND!" Um?
*Not just Lohan and the other unspeakables, but stars I actually like, like Kelly Clarkson, who is repeatedly ripped apart for being "fat" and occasionally liking to go out and sing drunken karaoke with her friends. Jesus, ladies. Too fat, too thin, too sexy, not sexy enough -- we can't fucking win, can we?
(via feministe)
I'm so glad I'm not going on for my PhD. I have been so frustrated with grad school the whole time I've been here that I may need a severe blow to the head to make me forget how irritating it's been and get me to go back. It's a combination of politics and my own shortcomings and constant "So close and... yet..." experiences. There's only so many socks in the gut you can take. And it's not like I've failed, really, just fallen short of my own expectations. Flailed, maybe. But I've had some successes that make me think, you know, maybe with a little more determination and maturity I could really succeed. I'm so impatient, though. I've taken a lot of socks in the gut since I started here and lost a lot of focus while I try to make sense of continuing when I don't know if I feel it anymore. And you know, when there's a setback you think, "Was I just fooling myself? Am I really just a total moron?" Nothing like graduate school to make you lose your aim and confidence.
Then again, I've been in school my whole life without a break. No wonder I'm insane.
