Month: March 2016

The City in Her Flowers

Miri, , , , , 5 Comments
Washington Square Park, spring.
Washington Square Park, spring. I walked this way to work from the subway every day.

At first I didn’t understand why New York has been on my mind so much lately, even more than usual.

It’s been almost seven months since that awful weekend I spent there, packing up my stuff to leave for good. It’s been ten months since I left it to spend the summer in Ohio with my family, expecting at the time that I’d soon be back.

Things here have been as good as they’ve ever been, and truly, they’ve always been good. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t paused at some point to think about how lovely my life in Columbus is. It’s not just the individual components that make up a good life–my friends, my partners, my family, a decent job, a nice place to live, interesting things to do, and so on–it’s the way my entire mental structure seems to have shifted shortly after moving here. I became less cautious, more optimistic, more able to connect with people, more willing to give to them, more willing to accept what they have to give. I’m able to treat challenges as learning opportunities. I’m genuinely curious about the future. I think I will generally succeed at things and accomplish what I set out to accomplish, and those are all very new abilities for me.

I never expected that leaving what I love most could be so good for me.

I think I know why I keep thinking about it. It’s undeniably spring now, and the warmth and sunlight and flowers naturally remind me of the last time it was spring, and where I was at that time. In a way I think I will always remember New York by its spring, same way you remember your ex in the dress she wore on your last night together.

My city’s dress was all flowers, and her hair was sunshine on skyscrapers.

Nothing about my feelings made any sense until I started thinking of New York as an ex. You might love an ex but leave them anyway. You might miss your ex but know it’s best for you to stay away. You might regret leaving them, but, what’s done is done and you’re with someone else now and living your own life and that’s good enough for you. I left New York out of necessity, but I’m staying away–I think–because I want to.

Since coming to Columbus, I’ve started my first Real Adult Job and kicked ass at it. I’ve started dating people who actually live locally and it’s been amazing. I’ve started performing burlesque. I’ve started biking regularly again. I’ve started making my own ice cream and subjecting my friends to it. I’ve (re)started hosting big dinner parties like I used to, before New York with its tiny kitchens. I’ve started getting involved in all sorts of local groups. I’ve started playing in a community band–a queer community band. (I can’t even express how excited I am to be marching in a Pride parade for the first time this summer.) I’ve started making peace with my own weird form of queerness. I’ve gotten over my anxiety about driving and making phone calls and going to events where I don’t know anyone (but, unfortunately, not about dating). I’ve met more people and gone to more events and seen more cool things than I could even try to list. My family, to whom saying goodbye used to completely break me every time, is now a mere hour down the highway and I see them all the time, and the fact that my little siblings no longer cry when I leave at the end of a visit feels like it means more to me than a thousand New Yorks. And yet.

And yet, and yet, and yet.

“New York it is not,” I say to myself, biting into a bagel with lox, eating a bowl of ramen, entering a used bookstore, walking down High Street, shopping for clothes, watching the skyline grow on the horizon. It’s kind of like everyone knows you’re not supposed to compare your partners to your exes and everyone does it anyway. This is not a city you fall in love with and do desperate things for; this is a city you learn to love because it’s the city that’s there.

And yet it’s precisely in its not-New-Yorkness that Columbus comforts, delights, and ultimately captures me. It’s the ten-minute drive home from work to my comfortable apartment with a kitchen big enough to actually cook in. It’s reading on the couch and hearing the rain through the open window. It’s the long bike rides through woods waking up from winter as if from a dream. It’s the way people here bring you into their circle, a phrase my mom uses in Russian that seems to mean not just including someone in your social group but letting them into your life. It’s falling asleep to the whistling of trains and waking up to the singing of birds. It’s 5 PM on Friday and all the promise that it brings. It’s Saturday night at a bar with a partner, running into people we know and catching up. It’s having a calendar so overflowing with burlesque shows and dinner plans and comedy nights and yoga classes and happy hours and band rehearsals and activist meetings that I barely have time to think about what I’ve lost.

Yet think about it I do, in those spaces between one thing and another, in the car, in the shower, in bed, in line. I’ve thought about it every single day since I left. I’ve thought about it so yearningly, so painfully, so viscerally, like I’ve never thought about any person, or really any thing, before.

In those moments, it’s like I’m still there. The metallic smell of the subway tracks, the screech of the train, the rush of wind around a corner, the architecture of all my favorite places, the exact taste of a proper slice or bagel or bowl of ramen, the softness of the Central Park lawn beneath my bare feet. The way I felt when I showed the city to my best friend and fell in love with them both all over again. The way I felt on New Year’s Eve. The way I felt sipping too-hot tea in my aunt’s apartment on a cold night, more times than I can count. The way I felt on my last night in the city, taking a few steps into that same apartment before collapsing, sobbing, in my aunt’s arms. The way I felt coming up the subway stairs into the light. The way I felt when I was so connected to the city that it was like its pulse was my pulse. The way I felt when it seemed like the city was all I had. The way I felt when I drove over the bridge into Manhattan for the first time, to stay. The way I felt when the bus emerged from the tunnel in New Jersey, the sun setting over the city for the last time.

At their best these memories are a nice distraction from daily life, but at their worst they haunt me. I even had a dream a few nights ago that I was still there, in a subway station, trying to find the downtown C and failing. I woke up angry. I always knew how to find the right train. I am terrified of coming back and finding that my mental geography of the city has faded and frayed so that I can’t do something so simple as finding the downtown C, let alone remembering how to get to Broadway from any given point.

Sometimes I think that New York is the closest thing to a romance I’ve ever had. I’m not given to thinking about other human beings in those terms; while I’ve loved many people, I’m not sure I’m capable of being in love with anyone for longer than a few days. People are wonderful but they’re indecisive and undependable. A city will always be waiting for me, which is probably exactly why I can’t seem to move on. How do you move on from something that can’t move?

I’m not so simplistic in my thinking as to assume that any of this means that I’m unhappy here, that this isn’t “the right thing,” that I should definitely go back, that whatever. I know I’ve never, ever been as happy as I am now and I’m not about to fuck with that because of a weird obsession with a city I ultimately only got to stay in for two years.

And maybe it’ll get better once spring is over and merely stepping outside stops reminding me of my last days there. Summer was always for Ohio, and I think it’ll help me feel more grounded in where I am rather than floating around in memories of where I once was.

But right now it’s particularly hard. I close my eyes and all I see is the city in her flowers, the city in her sunshine.

Central Park, spring--probably my last time there.
Central Park, spring–probably my last time there.
The City in Her Flowers
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Boundary Setting vs Tone Policing

Miri, , , 12 Comments

Lately I’ve been disturbed by the tendency among many progressive folks to conflate boundary setting with tone policing.

When I tell people that I have a very strong preference not to be yelled at or called names, they say, “But isn’t that kind of tone policing?”

If it is, then I’ll have to admit to tone policing, because being able to set boundaries in my own space is important enough to me to risk pissing people off. In fact, as anyone who sets boundaries with any regularity knows, it’s a surefire way to piss people off no matter what kind of boundaries they are.

This is a complex topic so I will do my best to be nuanced about it. I’m going to state upfront (and I will return to this later) that tone policing is a real and harmful phenomenon, and that sometimes (not always) setting boundaries can include tone policing. That is true, and it is also true that the concept is sometimes misapplied in ways that are intended to justify cruel or even abusive behavior.

What is tone policing?

Tone policing is when more-powerful people dismiss the real concerns and call-outs of less-powerful people because of the tone they use. For instance, if I see a person of color posting “FUCK these racist-ass cops” and I respond, “You may have a point there but aren’t you being a little too angry about this?”, then I’m tone policing. Either the person has a point or they don’t; the tone is irrelevant to that. More-privileged people tend to assume that if someone is being really angry about an injustice that affects them, then their assessment of the situation is not to be trusted because it’s too clouded with emotion. In fact, the opposite is probably true; they’re probably so angry because it’s so damn awful. Not only is it perfectly healthy and appropriate for them to express anger at situations that are truly infuriating, but that anger can be an important signal to those who don’t experience that particular injustice, because it lets them know: pay attention. There’s something going on here.

Tone policing can also happen in a more interpersonal context. If a man I know refers to another woman as a slut and I say, “Whoa, what the fuck, don’t ever call a woman that!”, it would be tone policing for him to totally dismiss my concern and respond by criticizing my tone. Tone policers often also add a patronizing little bit about how “if you’d said it differently I would’ve listened to you,” proving that they are, in fact, perfectly capable of listening, they’re just choosing not to in this moment.

Anger vs meanness, intent vs impact

Sometimes the concept of tone policing is over-applied. For starters, people sometimes conflate anger and meanness. It’s possible to express anger without being mean. For instance, you can say, “Fuck you for saying that, you worthless piece of shit,” or you can say, “What you just said is really messed up and really pisses me off.” Part of the problem of tone policing is that people will often misinterpret the latter statement as mean and overly angry, too, but they would be wrong. The latter statement is honest and direct and not intended to hurt anyone’s feelings. It’s intended to express anger.

If someone hears “Fuck you for saying that, you worthless piece of shit” and responds with, “Whoa, it’s not ok to speak to me that way,” they’re often told that they’re tone policing and trying to prevent someone else from expressing anger. That’s not the case. The fact that someone has a boundary around being referred to as a “worthless piece of shit” doesn’t mean they’re unwilling to hear that someone is angry with them, or that they think the other person’s feelings are invalid.

And yes, sometimes the person who’s angry is so hurt that all they’re able to say is “Fuck you for saying that, you worthless piece of shit.” It happens, and I think we should all, if we can, try to practice compassion for people who say mean things from a place of deep (often structural) hurt.

However, that doesn’t actually negate someone else’s boundaries. As we’re all fond of saying, intent isn’t impact. I don’t have to accept being called a worthless piece of shit just because someone else is legitimately upset.

Continue reading “Boundary Setting vs Tone Policing” →

Boundary Setting vs Tone Policing

Should Therapists Decline to Work With Clients They’re Bigoted Against?

Miri, , , , , , 12 Comments

armchairs

[CN: homophobia, thought experiment-ish discussion of bigotry]

The topic of therapists refusing to work with particular clients due to differences in values is one that came up often when I was in graduate school, and continues to come up often as therapists–many of whom come from traditional Christian backgrounds–confront the reality of practicing in diverse settings.

“Differences in values” usually refers to homophobic therapists not wanting to work with lesbian, gay, and bi/pan clients, but it can actually apply to tons of different marginalized identities: trans, poly, kinky, atheist, Muslim, and more. Differences in values can also impact therapeutic work with clients who are making decisions that the therapist strongly disagrees with for whatever reason, such as getting a divorce, getting an abortion, accusing someone of sexual assault, and so on.

Although it might seem counterintuitive, competent and ethical therapists occasionally choose not to work with particular clients for all sorts of reasons. They may feel that they lack sufficient knowledge or experience to help a client with a particular niche issue or disorder, and that they can’t make up for it with extra training quickly enough to avoid harming the client. They may be triggered by some aspect of the client–for instance, some therapists cannot work with convicted/admitted rapists, especially if pedophilia is involved. They may realize they’re too closely connected to the client within their community–for instance, the client is the parent of the therapist’s child’s best friend, or the client is dating a close friend of the therapist. (Although in these situations, openly discussing it with the client and setting some boundaries and expectations also goes a long way.)

Regardless, if a therapist chooses not to work with a client, it’s their ethical responsibility to refer the client to another professional who can work with them effectively. So it’s never just like, “Nope, can’t help ya, sorry.” And if you ever get that response while seeking therapy, know that you’re entitled to get some help finding someone else.

So choosing not to work with particular clients due to lack of knowledge/skill, personal triggers, and boundary issues is accepted in the field. How about choosing not to work with particular clients because you cannot accept their identities or lifestyle choices?

Continue reading “Should Therapists Decline to Work With Clients They’re Bigoted Against?” →

Should Therapists Decline to Work With Clients They’re Bigoted Against?

Welcome to Brute Reason at The Orbit!

Miri, , 6 Comments

As I wrote over at my old address, Brute Reason is now part of The Orbit, a collective of progressive secular bloggers (many of whom you may recognize from their old homes at FtB, Skepchick, Patheos Atheist, and independent blogs).

So, hi!

Miri holding a sign reading "Welcome to The Orbit!"

If you want to learn more about The Orbit, I suggest checking out our About Us page or our Kickstarter (please support it, by the way!). And if you’re here primarily because you follow my writing, do check out our front page and meet some of the other writers here, because they’re awesome.

And if you’re not here because you follow my writing, well, hopefully you do now! To introduce myself: I’m Miri, a writer and therapist based in Ohio and originally from Russia/Israel. (Plot twist: I’ve never been to Russia. My parents left it shortly before I was born. So I was raised Russian/Jewish/Israeli/American.) I write about social justice, psychology, sexuality, and sometimes other stuff too. My particular interests within that are mental health, queer stuff, polyamory, interpersonal skills (i.e. setting and respecting boundaries), and related topics. Here are some of my favorite pieces that I’ve written within the past year:

Besides progressive/secular issues, I’ve got a ton of passions and hobbies that don’t make it onto the blog much, but I’m hoping that this new home will help me feel a bit more free to explore those in writing. I recently moved back to Ohio from New York City in what turned out to be the most surprisingly amazing that that’s ever happened to me (if you read my writing back when I was obsessed with New York, you’re probably like whaaaaat), and that’s allowed me to recenter a bunch of hobbies I’d let slide and get into some new ones too. Currently I spend large chunks of time on performing burlesque, biking, otherwise working out, playing in a community band, cooking (especially making my own ice cream), participating in local meetups and other events, reading (I try to find a balance between reading SF/F novels/comics and non-fiction about topics I’m interested in), and watching Star Wars over and over as many times as I can. It’s a busy life.

Since my day job is not particularly lucrative, I rely on my income from writing to help pay the bills. To that end, please consider supporting me on Patreon. You can give as little as $1 per post, and it makes a huge difference to me.

How to follow this blog

Besides Patreon, there are a few ways you can keep up with me and my writing. You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. You can follow this blog’s RSS feed, and you can also subscribe to it via email by clicking on the sidebar button at the top left and scrolling down till you see the email subscription box.

How to comment on this blog

Well, you just type your comment and hit submit, right?

Not quite. I have a comment policy:

Comments that do not contribute to what I view as a productive, interesting conversation will be deleted. Commenters who are abusive or who consistently make nonproductive, non-interesting comments will be banned. This space belongs to me, and I don’t owe anyone a platform.

I’ve given this a lot of thought over the years and ended up realizing that I don’t owe anyone anything except kindness. Kind isn’t the same as nice, and if you are unkind to me, I don’t have to sit and listen to it. Especially not in my own space.

Be kind, listen to others, and take responsibility for yourself, and you’ll probably have a pretty good time not only on this blog but in life generally.

I hope you stick around and check out some of our other blogs! I’m so excited to see where this goes.

Welcome to Brute Reason at The Orbit!

A Guide for Straight and Cisgender Allies in LGBTQIA+ Spaces

Miri, , 3 Comments

And here’s my other Everyday Feminism piece that I forgot to post. Enjoy!

A few weeks ago on December 31, I was getting ready for a wonderful New Year’s Eve with my friends and chosen family. It was a bittersweet night, too, because it was the night our local lesbian nightclub, Wall Street, would be shutting its doors for the last time.

Although I wouldn’t be there at its last show because I’d decided to host my own party, I knew I would treasure my memories of it — the burlesque, the drag shows, the drinks, the dancing, and, of course, all my lovely queer friends that I went there with.

But that very morning, I heard it — a man’s arrogant voice coming from somewhere in my office building: “I’m definitely going out to Wall Street for New Year’s tonight to look at the freaks!”

The freaks? I thought. Oh, right, that’s what he thinks of people like me and my friends, and all the lovely and fabulous performers we’ve seen on the stage at Wall Street.

Most straight cis folks would never say something like that about a LGBTQIA+ space, but I’ve observed similar attitudes playing out in all sorts of small ways throughout the times I’ve spent in these spaces.

While the man I overheard clearly has some deeply-ingrained bigotry I couldn’t hope to dislodge anytime soon, most straight cis folks I encounter in LGBTQIA+ spaces are liberal allies, there to support friends or experience something new. Yet, as well-meaning as they are, their intentions don’t always translate into appropriate, non-oppressive behavior in these spaces.

Here are some guidelines for allies who want to attend queer spaces in a respectful way.

1. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is (If You Can)

If you’re at a gay bar or club, tip well. If you participate in a queer-centered space or event, donate to the organization that maintains or sponsors it.

Among the queer community, it’s a sad and well-known fact that queer spaces, especially lesbian bars, are on the decline. One reason for this is that LGBTQIA+ people are increasingly accepted in “mainstream” society and have plenty of ways to safely hang out and meet potential partners than ever before.

While that’s a positive thing, of course, those benefits aren’t shared equally by all LGBTQIA+ people. Queer and trans people of color, for instance, still face disproportionate violence just for being themselves out in the world.

When safe(r) spaces like LGBTQIA+ bars and clubs disappear, it hurts all of us, but especially those who may still not be safe in other social spaces.

There are other reasons queer establishments are shutting down. As the formerly inexpensive neighborhoods they’re in gentrify, owners often can’t afford to pay the rent anymore. That seems to be what happened to my beloved Wall Street here in Columbus.

But cis straight “tourists” play a role, too. Last year, journalist Peter Lawrence Kane investigated the decline of LGBTQ bars and interviewed a few bartenders:

“‘We get a lot more tourists these days. It can feel like we work in a circus sideshow than a neighborhood queer bar,’ [barback Daniel Erickson] says, explaining that the influx of well-heeled newcomers into Williamsburg has led many longtime, ‘alternative’ regulars to move elsewhere. ‘I’ve noticed queer, drag or performance parties opening up in random spaces that move from month to month. Illegal, unconventional queer spaces that allow for a much more intimate expression and interplay between artists and the local community.’”

These “illegal, unconventional queer spaces” may be difficult to find for those not in the know, who have no choice but to watch as their favorite gathering spots shut down one by one.

So, if you’re a straight/cis ally entering these types of queer spaces, you need to be aware of the fact that, well-intentioned as it is, your presence there may be contributing to their slow decline. Help offset that by tipping generously.

Read the rest here.

A Guide for Straight and Cisgender Allies in LGBTQIA+ Spaces

How to Make Hookup Culture More Empowering

Miri, , , , , , , 4 Comments

I’m catching up on pieces I’ve written for Everyday Feminism but forgotten to post here! So here’s one about how hookup culture can be super sexist, and how to make it better.

When I was in college, I held a belief I’m a little ashamed of now: that casual hookups are intrinsically disempowering and demeaning for women.

It was a sentiment echoed by many conservative commentators whose books and articles I eagerly read, feeling that they affirmed my own feelings and experiences.

Looking back on it, though, I can understand why I believed that: I thought that casual sex was degrading because I had felt degraded every time I had it.

But as I later realized, the reason I felt degraded wasn’t because casual sex is inherently degrading. It was because my hookup partners had treated me like an object, like a means to an end. They didn’t care about my pleasure, they disrespected and ignored me afterwards, and they were often pushy and coercive.

The more I learned about feminism, the more I realized that my experiences with casual sex with men fit into a much broader pattern of structural sexism. They treated me that way because that’s how they’d learned to treat women (often not just in hookup situations, either), and the reason they’d learned to treat women that way was because they, like all of us, were raised in a sexist society.

Unfortunately, while there are real and important critiques to be made of the way that hookup culture tends to function, many of the critiques we hear most often are coming from a place of sex negativity and a fear of young people’s sexuality.

Through their coded language and their failure to look at hookup culture through a feminist lens, these critics reveal the fact that, ultimately, they think that people (especially young people, and especially young women) having casual sex is just kind of immoral and icky.

Well, it’s not. The problems we see in hookup culture aren’t there because it involves casual sex, but because it involves sexism – and sexism is deeply embedded in our society.

Of course hookup culture is sexist. It’s sexist for the same reason that serious relationships are sexist, and TV shows are sexist, and workplaces are sexist.

In order to completely remove sexism from hookup culture, we’d have to completely remove it from society, and that’s a tall order – for now. There are still things we can do to make our hookups less sexist and more empowering.

Before I get started, though, I just want to note that I’ll primarily be examining heterosexual dynamics here because that’s what criticisms of “hookup culture” have primarily focused on. But some parts of this article will also apply to queer hookups.

Let’s look at five ways sexism plays out in hookup culture and how we can address it:

1. There’s a Lack of Focus on Women’s Pleasure

In many heterosexual hookup situations, the focus is on the man having an orgasm, and when he does, the hookup is over.

One study of college students found that 80% of men had orgasms during their hookups, but only 40% of women did. By comparison, 75% of women in relationships had orgasms during sex.

That’s quite a substantial gap, but it doesn’t mean we all have to commit to serious relationships in order to get the pleasure we want.

The researchers of that study pointed out that women may not feel comfortable asking for what they want in a hookup situation because they don’t know the person well. But being upfront about your sexual desires is always okay, whether you’ve known the person for years or minutes.

If you still feel awkward talking about sex, these tips may help.

However, when it comes to sex, it takes (at least) two to tango. Even when women ask for what they want, their male hookups may not always care enough to make the effort. One young man quoted in the New York Times article about this study said, “I’m not going to try as hard as when I’m with someone I really care about.”

Men (and everyone): if you don’t care enough to give your partner a good time, maybe you shouldn’t be having sex with other people.

And if your partner doesn’t care enough about you to bother asking you what you’re into or making sure that you’re enjoying yourself, it might be time to find another hookup. Casual doesn’t have to mean careless or boring.

2. Men Are Expected to Conform to Unrealistic and Toxic Standards

What do I mean by unrealistic and toxic standards? Let’s start with the fact that men, straightand queer, are expected to want tons of casual sex all the time.

Men who are asexual, have low sex drives, prefer sex in committed relationships, or feel too shy to initiate sexual encounters are seen as less “manly” and often find themselves ridiculed by other men (and sometimes by women, too).

Men are also expected to “perform” sexually in ways that aren’t always possible (or preferable).

If cis women’s orgasms are supposed to be “complicated” and difficult to achieve, cis men are expected to be “easy to please” and to have orgasms readily during a casual hookup. At the same time, they’re not supposed to orgasm too quickly, or else they’re viewed as inexperienced and not in control. They’re not supposed to be sexually submissive or unsure of what they want.

If you hook up with men, remember that their needs and desires are as diverse as those of folks of other genders.

Some men may not be interested in casual sex (or any sex at all), and that doesn’t make them any less male. Some may have a difficult time reaching orgasm and may need a particular type of play or stimulation in order to get there.

When you meet a guy who breaks your expectations of what men are “supposed” to be like in hookup situations, treat him with kindness and an earnest curiosity, not ridicule. And if it turns out that you’re not sexually compatible with him, say so honestly and directly, without putting him down in a gendered way.

Read the rest here.

How to Make Hookup Culture More Empowering