The Problem with Sex-Positivity

July 11, 2013 Eli Heinagender, sex, sexuality84 Comments

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I am a feminist. Among the many other labels that I occasionally affix upon my person is “slut” (only in contexts where the word is recognized for its reclaimed value). I believe in full reproductive rights and agency, comprehensive sex ed, the valuing of sex for pleasure, the destigmatization and full legalization of all forms of sex work, and the end of STI-shaming.

So you’d think that I’d be against the notion of sex-negativity in feminism. Sex-positivity a good thing for people like me, right?

Sex-positivity might mean something different in an academic and/or political sense, but I will address the ways in which self-identified sex-positive people manifest that particular ideology. In other words, I’m exclusively dealing with sex-positivity as it exists, not as we hope it exists. I intend to reflect lived realities, not to straw-man sex-positivity. The attitude that we cannot ever judge anyone for consensual sex acts (or even judge the acts themselves outside of the individuals participating in them) has become the de facto one among the sex-positive types I’ve met, read, and otherwise encountered.

I find the notion that all sex is awesome as long as there was consent to be more than a little troubling.

On the surface, it does seem awesome. We live in a society that pathologizes mere sexual attraction when it falls outside a very narrow set of norms (let alone acting on those attractions) as well as de-prioritizes consent. Not being judgmental about anything and emphasizing consent appears to be a great counter to all that — and it can be. The problem is that we should be able to express criticism of consensual acts, especially when considering their greater context. At the very least, we should feel okay with expressing our discomfort about them. Sex-positivity can be used as a bludgeon by which to silence criticism of anything sex-related.

When I’ve expressed my discomfort regarding dominant poly men who date lots of submissive women who aren’t allowed to date anyone else (with the men often excusing their sexist behavior towards other women via their kink), I’ve been accused of being sex-negative. When I’ve brought up how sexist it is that porn, i.e. the way that most people learn about sex, primarily features fairly cis male-centric sexual acts, I’ve been told that those women consented, therefore I was being condescending towards them. When I’ve brought up the effect that depicting only a single body type as attractive might have on people’s expressed preferences, I’ve been told that I was shaming people for their sexual preferences and that I should just accept them.

Initially, all that wasn’t enough for me to abandon sex-positivity. Believe me, I wanted to stick to the sex-positive label. At first, I wanted to believe that consent was really all that mattered. Then, I wanted to believe that there was room in sex-positivity for thoughtful criticisms of consensual acts. Wanting for something to be the way you’d prefer it to be rarely transforms it, however. I felt that, especially as a woman of color, I needed to stop identifying as sex-positive.

Indeed, what ended up getting to me was an issue that almost drove me from feminism: the big r-word. Nowhere have I witnessed more open “benevolent” racism, exoticization/fetishization, and cultural appropriation than among members of the sex-positive community. While this probably has something to do with the crossover occurs with sex-positivity, New Age, kink, and so on, sex-positivity is used as an all-too-effective silencing mechanism for criticisms related to race. How dare I be upset by someone’s assumption that the Kama Sutra represents all of Indian culture? How dare I feel uncomfortable around people who mocked the renaming of the “Asian Room” at the local sex-positive space to “The Red Room?” How dare I take issue with a perfect stranger telling me that their primary source of attraction to me is my “cinnamon skin,” a phrase this perfect stranger incessantly repeated throughout the night as if it were the only means by which to identify me? Those are people’s kinks. Who was I to judge?

It’s as if “sex-positivity” has come to mean “you must instantly and without criticism accept others’ sexual preferences and choices.” When exactly did sex become the one topic that’s above reproach among feminists?

The answer, I’d wager, lies in the origins and use of the term “sex-positive.” To characterize those who aren’t sex-positive as anti-sex is similar to characterizing those who are not “pro-life” as “anti-life:” it’s a way to shut them down. Sex-positive feminism, or “pro-sex” feminism, arose in response to anti-porn feminism, not any alleged strain of “sex-negative” feminism. The way I see it, “sex-negative” is a deliberately provocative counter to the “rah rah, judge no one for nothing ever as long as they said yes before they got naked and got off” sex-positivity that is way, way more common than most feminists want to think about or admit exists.

For excellent yet brief coverage of the history of different kinds of feminism, check out Bitch’s feature.

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A Window Into Lookism & Why Your View Matters

July 10, 2013 Eli Heinabeauty myth, body image, lookism20 Comments

TW for Body Image Issues

When you change your clothes, take a shower, or otherwise do things in the nude in a private space, and that space has a publicly-facing window (i.e. a hole in your wall where the only thing separating your bare flesh from the outside world is clear glass), do you close the blinds or draw the curtain?

If you don’t for whatever reason, this isn’t for you. Also, I hope you don’t get arrested, since exhibitionism is genearally frowned upon in the eyes (or should it be the mouth) of the law in most places.

If you do obscure the world’s view of your body, why do you do so?

If you’ve never thought about it, this might be for you. If your answer is something along the lines of “peeping Toms” or “creepers,” then this is definitely for you. You assume that someone who hopes to do so might catch a glimpse of your flesh.

Some people don’t expose their bodies for general consumption not because they fear others’ arousal in response to our exposed flesh, but because they fear something else. They fear the viewer(s) may become disgusted.

There are certain body types that are demonized and stigmatized in society. Bodies that are hardly, if ever, depicted as delicious, enticing, inviting, and/or beautiful. Bodies that are hardly represented in the visual media that we consume. Bodies, in the rare instances that they are depicted, as portrayed as ugly, smelly, disgusting, awkward, horrible, even monstrous. Any individual’s personal feelings on the attractiveness of those body types doesn’t invalidate how the majority (or perceived majority) of society doesn’t feel that way — and isn’t exactly shy about letting people with those body types know how gross they are.

Disgust and arousal aren’t mutually exclusive, either. If a woman’s body is outside society’s widely-accepted norms and yet found be attractive by a man looking at her, he might take his disgust at being attracted to her and project it onto her. That sort of resentment is, at best, distasteful, as when men refuse to be seen in public with certain types of women with whom they have sex. At worst, it can be a dangerous thing.

Women who can, most of the time, safely assume that their bodies will be considered desirable rather than disgusting lead different lives from those for whom such is not the case. Much of what is described by Men’s Rights Activists as “female privilege,” like paid-for dates, free drinks, and other preferential treatment, would more accurately be called “ways in which certain types of women are treated favorably by men.” Both men and conventionally attractive women often fall into the trap of assuming that conventionally attractive women’s experiences apply to all women, effectively erasing the lived reality of women who aren’t conventionally attractive.

It can be very difficult for conventionally attractive women to acknowledge that they have looks-based privilege. Part of this is the social training that makes women feel that they must deny any compliments they receive. As difficult as it can be to do so, being sensitive and cognizant of these differences is key to ensuring better and more accurate communication and understanding. In already-fraught conversations about gender, sexism, and harassment, avoiding the assumption that what applies to conventionally attractive women applies to all women is key in ensuring that women who aren’t conventionally attractive aren’t further devalued

In a world where calling a woman unattractive is considered an expected, if not quite valid, rebuttal to her ideas, it’s accurate to acknowledge lookism. In a world where all women, hot or not, are subjected to misogyny, it’s critical in ensuring that we see problems in an intersectional, rather than reductive, fashion.

When the “Experiment” Never Ends

July 9, 2013 Eli Heinacultural appropriation, hijab, Islam, modesty, ramadan6 Comments

Tonight (or last night, depending on whom you ask, as the whole Hijri calendar thing is very complicated) marks the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. Too many people think that Ramadan is Muslim Christmas. It isn’t: Eid ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, is. Ramadan is more like Lent or Yom Kippur, except longer and involving less in the way of the permission to drink water during the day.

There are those who misconstrue Ramadan, and then there are those who see only part of it and decide that it would be fun to try it out. Similarly, there are non-Muslim women who try out their own versions of Islamic “modesty” for set time periods (it’s a little played at this point). Lacking a Muslim background means that such people get to waltz into and then out of their own personalized versions of Islamic practices. Invariably, they are praised for their open-mindedness by fellow non-Muslims and by Muslims alike . They adopt the most showy (read: Other) aspects of Islam, like “modesty” or fasting, abandon them, and then write about it to the applause of the audience.

How brave. How novel.

Except that there’s nothing novel about it. Plenty of people engage in Islamic practices that they later stop doing, and then start again, and then stop again. They’re called “Muslims” and they’re far from an insignificant portion of the world population. As for the alleged bravery, some people leave Islamic practices behind not to the praise of all, but to severe consequences. My personal “modesty experiment” lasted for about a decade and a half. It was my life. I couldn’t walk blithely away from it when I was done, Salon feature in hand. Due to filial pressure and its accompanying personal guilt, I wore a headscarf and dressed according to Islamic law for quite a while after becoming an atheist.

The difference between the experimenters and me is that I actually belong to the community from which such practices originate. When I was a Muslim, taking up a religious habit and then abandoning it meant experiencing a great deal of shaming and even threatening behavior from the community. As an apostate of Islam, while I do not personally subject myself to Islamic rules, I still have to adhere to them to some extent in order to interact with the Muslims in my family and my community. When I don’t, it’s painfully obvious that I am a pariah.

No time is this more true than during Ramadan. I can’t say that I miss the fasting, but I do miss the sense of solidarity, of collective ritual. I could pretend to fast but that might give the Muslims who love me some unfair and totally unrealistic hopes regarding my converting back to my former faith.

My “experiment” with Islam wasn’t chosen by me, lacked in cherry-picking, lasted for 18 years, and hasn’t ended even though, more than seven years ago, I publicly declared myself to be an atheist.

There isn’t necessarily something inherently unethical with trying out different things, even if those things are originally sourced from another culture and/or religion. Visiting another place doesn’t instantly make you a bad person. That said, there is a reason tourists haven’t exactly the best of reputations among natives — and that they are especially maligned for cluelessness.

Scam Alert: Bacon Bullets

July 1, 2013 Eli Heinabacon, Islam, jihawg77 Comments

Revised to add in the information about the Sepoys.

It has come to my attention that there exists a company called Jihawg Ammo (and no, I’m not linking them. you know what to do).

If you happen upon their site, you will notice some pretty, ahem, questionable rhetoric. Some of it’s paranoid, at the very least. Is there really an “ever growing threat of radical Islam and Sharia Law” in the United States? I mean, the last I heard, it wasn’t Muslims who were making a concerted effort to impose their religious views on the American people.

"Marriage was created by the hand of God. No man, not even a Supreme Court, can undo what a holy God has instituted." — “Marriage was created by the hand of God. No man, not even a Supreme Court, can undo what a holy God has instituted.” — Michele Bachmann

Ahem.

But hey, what do I know about how dangerous American Muslims could be? I’m just someone who was born into and raised within a Muslim community in the United States.

What I’m here to talk about is the product claim central to Jihawg’s marketing strategy: that it is a deterrent against violence for terrorists of the Muslim persuasion.

Jihawg Ammo is certified “Haraam” or unclean. According to the belief system of the radical Islamist becoming “unclean” during Jihad will prevent their attaining entrance into heaven. Jihawg Ammo is a natural deterrent to radical and suicidal acts of violence.

To break down their claim in (sloppy) syllogistic fashion.

Pork is haraam.
“Radical Islamists” think that they won’t go to Jannah (Islamic heaven) during their “Jihad” if something haraam is in their bodies.
Therefore, pork-laced bullets will give “radical Islamists” who intend to commit “Jihad” pause.

Right off the bat, we have a problem: haraam does not mean “unclean.” Think of the word “harem” as in women’s quarters or the term “Masjid al-Haram” as in the mosque that houses the Kaaba in Makkah — would Muslims really call Muslim women or their holiest site “unclean?” Haraam means forbidden and/or off-limits (as opposed to halaal, which means permitted without reservation). Just as pork (and, according to many Muslim scholars, pork products of any kind) is off-limits for the consumption of Muslims, a harem is a space that is off-limits to men and Masjid al-Haram is off-limits to non-Muslims.

Because I recall just how much my non-Muslim/non-Desi friends loved to learn bad words from other languages, here are some fun ones related to the word “haraam.” Urdu and Hindi have two choice insults based on the concept of the forbidden: “haramzada,” as in “bastard,” as in “someone born as a result of off-limits (i.e. out of marriage) sex”; and “haramkhor,” which has no direct English equivalent and means someone who obtains their sustenance/income from forbidden sources.

As for the premises, the first is correct. Pork is forbidden in Islam. And, to throw them a (ham?)bone, pig skin is indeed considered naajis, which does mean impure or unclean, in Islam. The second is where the assertions fall apart. Only pig skin is naajis; pork fat, on the other hand, is off-limits for Muslim consumption. Embedding a bullet that has traces of pork product on it isn’t exactly getting them to willingly consume it. Furthermore, pork products are not considered so unclean to Muslims that they aren’t allowed for Muslims in emergency situations; they indeed are. Sins in Islam have to be deliberately committed and prohibitions are often considered flexible in emergency situations.

There is absolutely nothing in Islamic theology that would lead to the belief or even the implication that being shot by bullets greased in pork fat would ensure that a Muslim wouldn’t be able to enter Jannah. Even if you are paranoid enough to worry about the brown hordes, Jihawg Ammo won’t help deter anything. By the company’s own arguments for its existence, the product is a rip-off, pure and simple.

Aside from being a rip-off, if history is any indication, such measures would backfire, not prevent violence. The British imperialists in India had native units whom they called the Sepoys. When a rumor circulated among the Sepoys that pork and beef fat was being used in their ammunition, the response was not for the beef-averse Hindus and pork-shunning Muslims to cease committing violence. Au contraire — there was a rebellion.

Oh, and for the record? Halaal certification exists, but not Haraam certification. Perhaps I, as the most haraam kind of person of all, could start up the service. Why not profit from the ignorance of racists?

Dialects Aren’t “Ignorant,” You Are

June 27, 2013 Eli Heinaaave, classism, dialects, language, racism44 Comments

Edited to clarify that I, too, was an ignorant asshole once.

In case you weren’t paying attention, George Zimmerman is finally having his day in court. The way things are going with Rachel Jeantel, the witness giving testimony today, it seems almost as though Trayvon Martin and his friends are the ones actually on trial. You can show love for Rachel by tweeting using the appropriate hashtags, as she is facing some real hostility based on, among other things, perceptions of her language.

If you think that “Ebonics” isn’t “real English” or that its use signifies ignorance, you’re really just showing off your own linguistic ignorance: African-American Vernacular English, or AAVE, is a dialect with a rich history, origins, internal grammar, and so on. Period. It is not “broken,” “incorrect,” or “wrong” Standard American English any more than Standard American English is “bad” Queen’s English.

The first time I heard of AAVE, I reacted out of my own linguistic ignorance on the matter. I scoffed at what I saw as a transparently bleeding-heart attempt to make me feel bad for people I thought were inferior — until I realized something about my own linguistic heritage.

I may look super Desi in this pic, but even my Gujarati is actually terrible. — I may look super Desi in this pic, but my Gujarati is actually terrible.

The Indian language I speak with the elders in my family, Gujarati, is a dialect of Hindi. Gujarati and Hindi are close enough that I can understand much of non-poetic/non-literary Hindi in context. At the same time, when I try to speak in Hindi, it comes out as Gujarati. Furthermore, it’s incredibly frustrating for me since they’re so darn close and yet not quite the same as languages. Hindi speakers can generally understand what I’m trying to say, but there’s definitely a gap there both in their and my understanding.

Enter AAVE, a dialect of English.

The same people who offer no argument as I tell them about Hindi and Gujarati will immediately bubble up in pseudo-intellectual frustration at the claim that AAVE is a dialect of English. Furthermore, native speakers of AAVE aren’t exactly afforded any sympathy or help when it comes to the specific challenges of working in a different dialect. Instead, they are labeled “lazy” or some other word that, coincidentally, is all too often used to demonize and stigmatize non-white Americans.

Why the hell is it controversial to say that dialects exist? Again, no one ever argues with me when I, a member of a model minority, relay facts about Indian dialects. What’s the difference between Hindi having dialects and English having dialects? I have a sneaking suspicion that racism, along with classism and linguistic snobbery (it’s not Shakespeare’s English, but Appalachian English is a dialect, too), is at play.

Therefore, when most people hear Rachel’s testimony, all they really hear is their own ignorance. Due to that ignorance, there is a strong stigma attached to using AAVE. As a result, people who speak it usually have to communicate in and/or understand Standard American English as well. This means that they are bi-dialectal. As in more linguistically accomplished than many other Americans.

It shouldn’t have to be said, let alone be a controversial statement, but dialects are real. Even English ones.

Please Don’t Try Again Later

June 25, 2013June 25, 2016 Eli Heinaconsent, kickstarter, misogyny, pick-up lines, pickup artists, sexual assault24 Comments

TW for Sexual Assault & Sexual Coercion

If you haven’t yet heard, Kickstarter was used as a platform to launch a so-called “seduction guide.” Not long before the Kickstarter ended (and funded well above and beyond its goal, to boot) some of us started to notice that there was something very, very wrong with what was being said by the author of the work. The feminist blogosphere blew up with posts on the matter and outrage pervaded, especially as the project ended. While the calls to Kickstarter to cancel the project were not heeded in time to prevent the project from funding, Kickstarter issued one heck of an apology.

The book is happening, which is what the author and his defenders want, but Kickstarter made steps towards bettering itself as a platform, which is what the pro-consent side wants. As an added bonus, he’s working with anti-rape orgs to ensure that his book is less rape-y than his posts made it sound. That’s that, right?

Wrong.

Apparently, the idea of grabbing someone’s hand and placing them to your genitals is perfectly okay “in context.” Furthermore, some people started to defend him against charges of writing a rape manual thanks to this gem:

If at any point a girl wants you to stop, she will let you know. If she says “STOP,” or “GET AWAY FROM ME,” or shoves you away, you know she is not interested. It happens. Stop escalating immediately and say this line:
“No problem. I don’t want you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

Memorize that line. It is your go-to when faced with resistance. Say it genuinely, without presumption. All master seducers are also masters at making women feel comfortable. You’ll be no different. If a woman isn’t comfortable, take a break and try again later.

All that matters is that you continue to try to escalate physically until she makes it genuinely clear that it’s not happening. She wants to be desired, but the circumstances need to be right. With some experience, you will learn to differentiate the “No, we can’t… my parents are in the next room… OMG FUCK ME FUCK ME HARD” from the “SERIOUSLY GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME, YOU CREEP” variety of resistance.

Of course if you’re really unclear, back off. Better safe than sorry.

Hold the fucking phones. This, to me, is way worse than advocating the moving of a hand to a dick (in almost any context), since it’s an obvious ploy. This was someone straight-up advocating trying again after being very clearly rejected, i.e. not leaving someone alone who had just told him to do so. When I talked about how appalling the Kickstarter was, I was most focused on that notion, not the hand-on-dick line. It plays into the woman-as-other narrative that poisons male-female relations and leads to pick-up artistry as a phenomenon on the first place. Women are mysterious bizarre creatures who lie and deceive so men have to figure out formulas and tricks and coercive strategies to make sense of them, dontchaknow.

it's not like they have facial expressions or distinct features or anything — it’s not like they have facial expressions or distinct features or anything

Except I don’t. What I do know is that enough men don’t take no for an answer that many women I know completely ignore or shut out most men who attempt to make any kind of contact with them because they fear that a “no” or any other kind of resistance will be read as a challenge. Better to give no response, they reason, than any that might be used against them. PuA guides like this one prove their point: any kind of interaction with a man is apparently fair game for him to try all kinds of non-consensual things.

It’s hard to say “yes” to anything at all when you know that a single “yes” you issue can be taken to be a “yes” to anything and everything at all. More frighteningly, it’s hard to say yes when you know that any “no” you issue, even one as dramatic and clear as a “STOP”, “GET AWAY FROM ME,” or a shove, would be taken seriously. That’s the world in which we live and it sucks. It sucks for women and for men. I’d like to imagine we can build a better world than one where straight men and straight women are pitted against each other in some kind of epic battle where one side thinks the other doesn’t want them while the other feels it has to constantly fend off unwanted advances.

So yes, Esther Tung, I did read the actual posts on Reddit. They disgusted and appalled me far more than the hand-on-dick thing. I’m just glad that, despite having so many defenders, this guy is revising his wording and the strategies he advocates. As cliche as it had become now, it bears repeating: yes means yes and no means no.

Why Atheists Say “God” When They Have Sex

June 19, 2013 Eli HeinaIslam, masturbation, sex, sexuality2 Comments

This NSFW post is part of the blog book tour for Greta Christina’s book of erotic short stories, Bending. Also, this was more than partially inspired by Chelsea Cain’s reading of her story on Bitch Magazine’s Popaganda podcast.

Once upon a time, a veiled girl grew into a decidedly bare-headed young woman. As criticisms based on sexual pleasure were usually levied against, rather than by, the religious, she paid attention when religious folk criticized atheism in that way. Namely, certain theists claimed that without taboo, sex couldn’t possibly be as much fun. If they had been serious, she would have pointed out that the argument was the more benign cousin of the notion that sex is only good and healthy within the confines of monogamous, heterosexual marriage (her old religious, pedantic habits had yet to truly die).

As they were generally being playful, her mind went in a more pleasant direction. This isn’t to say that all of her religion-tinged sexual memories were good ones. She felt no goosebumps on her skin, just a wry smile playing upon her lips, when she recalled how her first partner once insisted she wear a headscarf during sex. She ended up feeling overheated and annoyed, not aroused. Darker were her memories of a tortured adolescence, one where an injunction against masturbation was delivered to her all too late to break the habit but soon enough to instill guilt. Flick, fret, flick, fret.

But she didn’t want to dwell on that. She recalled how lovely it was to feel the gentle warmth of the spring sunshine on the back of her neck and shoulders as she awaited a date for the first time. The accompanying breeze added to the tingling already coursing its way up and down her spine as she waited for her date to show up. Later, the fear of being caught fed the hunger with which her mouth tore into the one against it as the movie credits rolled.

Suddenly, she realized that she hadn’t violated a sexual boundary in years. Well, fuck, she thought. How could she get her spine to tingle like that again? She had no boundaries left that weren’t truly based on ethical considerations. Her feminism couldn’t provide any for her, either, since it was intersectional and sex-positive. It was clear that she needed to go on a quest for answers.

She first asked a hedonist, who said that she should just relax and enjoy it. She did so, and it was good, but not good enough. She next asked a philosopher, who said that she could always attempt to set up universal rather than contextual ethics. Such rules, the philosopher declared, were bound to lead to actions that could be considered wrong at some point (drowning babies, amirite?). Try as she might, though, she could not feel that she had willfully broken any meaningful rules. The same thing happened when she attempted to follow the advice of the kinkster who told her to set up power exchange rules with her partner. While the games were great fun, she could ultimately control the situation and opt out at any point. The next person she asked, a sex worker, told her to feed off of the invariably married clients’ deep wellspring of cheaters’ remorse, but the impersonal nature of the transactions enforced too much of a distance for that to work. At her wits’ end, she finally asked a therapist, who said that just as she had eliminated rather than accommodated her god-shaped hole, she needed to destroy her guilt-and-shame-shaped hole.

“But,” she pleaded. “I worked so hard to fill that god-shaped hole! And really, part of what plugged it was the shameless, sin-free sex!”

“Indeed,” nodded the therapist sagely. “Welp, time’s up, and I’m on vacation for the next two weeks, but feel free to book with me for after that.”

Drat, thought the young woman. What now?

Never one to Hamlet her way out of sex, she found her sweat mingling with another’s not too long after the therapy session. Hoping to fuck her way to the elusive thrill with the most intense sex she could muster in herself (and coax out of her partner), she let herself go. She swallowed and was swallowed, touched and was touched, pounced and was pounced upon, bit and was bitten. At the very height of her pleasure, she cried, “Oh, God, yes!”

Suddenly, the sheets at which she clutched were a deeper red, all that she was pressing into her lover and what her lover was pressing into her felt heartbreakingly beautiful, and the eerie light from the monitor that provided the only illumination in the room threw everything into sharp focus.

Maybe it was the fact that she was taking a deity’s name in vain in the throes of decidedly heathenish sexual congress. Maybe it was the naughty recollection that saying “God” was safer than saying a name, since it would be all too easy for her to moan the wrong one. Perhaps it was the implicit deification of her partner (“god” rather than “God”) or of the sex itself. It could have even been the very meaninglessness of what she was crying out.

Whichever way it might turn out to be, it felt great.

Well pleased, she spread the word as far and as wide as she could. After all, she argued, the non-religious should be able to do whatever ethical things that they needed to do to get there. What was the harm in invoking a non-existent being? Others heard her words, and some tried it out, and for many, it wasn’t good — it was great.

And that’s why, to this day, more than a few atheists say “God” when they have sex.

A friend bought Bending for me for my birthday and it was, ahem, truly a gift that kept on giving. You can buy it for Kindle or Nook or via Smashwords.

Thanks for the Feminism, Nice Guys!

June 17, 2013 Eli Heinabeauty myth, misogyny, misogyny online61 Comments

I grew up in the girl power 90s; my motto was “Anything you can do, I can do better.” I thought the need for feminism was over.

Of my nearly two dozen first cousins, the boys were closest to me in age. As the girls were teenagers too cool to willingly deal with a grubby-fingered tomboy, I spent most of my childhood playtime with three of my boy cousins. They taught me about soccer, the Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers, and Nintendo. Later, we spent our joint time collaborating on creating Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style QBasic programs and 3D Movie Maker films as well as on perfecting our Force-moving and lightsaber dueling skills. Though it meant that many of the delicate young ladies at school refused to accept me, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

So I was more than fine with the Internet being a male-dominated space. It didn’t bother me. I was one of the boys, right? It would be fine. I didn’t need special treatment like those other women, whether they were prisses or feminists.

Then, the Nice Guys came along, both online and as friends of my teenage self. At first, all I learned from them was that I wasn’t woman enough. I lacked all the hallmarks of the basic level of attractiveness as per their comments: small, pink, upturned nipples; a small mons with tiny bubblegum-hued labia (as they called it, “tight pussy”); hairlessness; large and “natural” (i.e. non-surgically-enhanced) yet very pert breasts; and overall thinness, perhaps with some ass (hips were acceptable only to the more adventurous and kinky men). Fair enough, I thought. I was a chubby, grubby-fingered tomboy, not exactly some kind of desirable woman.

prettywoman — Google search results for “pretty”

Who would want to be a desirable woman, anyway? I knew what those women were like. The Nice Guys told me all about their wives and their girlfriends and their female “friends” (as in women they secretly wanted to have sex with, which, they strongly implied, meant that they weren’t actually friends). Women, as per them, are obnoxious creatures only worth putting up with for the sex. They take too long to orgasm, annoy men with their requests for cunnilingus and cuddling, friend-zone nice guys while dating and sexing up jerks, waste men’s time by never giving an straightforward “no,” can get sex whenever and with whomever they want, stop giving blowjobs and get fat after marriage, demand free meals and drinks but still won’t have sex, and are fussy and high-maintenance.

The Nice Guys were wrong on both counts.

There were men out there who found me to be desirable — not as an attainable consolation prize or a symbol of “settling,” but actually desirable. And, because they saw me the way that the Nice Guys saw those more conventionally-attractive women, i.e. as an object of sexual desire, I was subjected to the same judgments and accusations. More importantly, I learned, in short, that there’s a reason the women at whom I scoffed act the way that they did. There’s always another way to look at it.

Taking too long to orgasm? The mainstream heterosexual script for intercourse often de-prioritizes pleasurable activities associated with cis female pleasure — like non-genital touch and cunnilingus.

Friend-zoning? Some straight men seem to believe that they are entitled to love and/or sex, sometimes without ever having even asked for it.

Not giving a straightforward no? Being a woman means that responding to certain men overtures at all is an invitation for rebuttals, while ignoring them doesn’t give them the opportunity to engage further. In addition, there’s the issue of female socialization where women know that they will be seen as rude or mean for issuing outright refusals.

Sex on demand? Only if they’re willing to lower our standards (and men could probably have sex as frequently as women if they did so as well).

Fat and frigid? Men are, on average, fatter (not that it should even matter), and women’s sex drives aren’t exactly as frigid as they are rumored to be.

Demanding of free stuff? All those free drinks don’t exactly rectify the wage gap. When it comes to fat women, we both earn even less than our thinner counterparts and aren’t exactly bombarded with free drinks at Ladies Night (if we’re even allowed in). Plus, women generally have to put much more in the way of time and resources into our appearances in order to be seen as even baseline presentable. And then, of course, we’re berated for being high-maintenance for maintaining the accepted standard for female appearance.

It was through all those realizations that I began to question exactly why women are so widely reviled and wonder if it wasn’t that there is something especially wrong with women but that women are held to impossible standards. I fell down the questioning-the-status-quo rabbithole and ended up a feminist.

So thank you, Nice Guys. You turned one of you into one of them with your bile. May your thinly-veiled misogyny lead legions of other women to freedom from internalized self-hatred.

Let’s Play a Love Game: On Orientation & Options

June 4, 2013 Eli Heinabisexual, dating, LGBT, love, pansexual, queer, sex6 Comments

Note: I’m going to use more than one term to describe similar things. All less usual terms regarding gender and sexual orientation are linked to explanations of their meanings.

Of all the misguided things Woody Allen and his movies have stated about gender and sexuality, the most grating to me is his quip about nonmonosexuals:

Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.

This was perhaps intended to be tongue-in-cheek but sentiments along those lines are often expressed in earnest, resentment, envy, or some combination of the preceding feelings. Essentially, the claim is that people who can be attracted to more than one gender identity must be multiplying their number of potential non-platonic options.

On its face, it seems to make simple mathematical sense. Let’s pretend that I’m a woman who is only interested in men. As a straight woman, I’m limiting myself to less than half the population, i.e. excluding all non-male people. Now, let’s say that I’m bisexual, pansexual, or otherwise into not only men. The more gender identities I’m potentially attracted to, the more people are options for me, right?

Also cookware, especially when sexily stacked. — Also cookware, especially when sexily stacked for the pansexuals.

It ain’t necessarily so. Love (or lust or attraction) is not a straightforward lottery system. If you’re calculating your perception of someone else’s odds, you may not be seeing all of the factors at play.

If by “options,” you mean “people that person could be attracted to,” perhaps such is the case. However, the word “options” (as well as what Woody Allen is saying) quite strongly implies that the attraction is reciprocated. Someone is only an “option” for you if they’re into you, too. This complicates matters significantly. Just because a person could potentially be attracted to more members of the human population doesn’t mean that more members of the human population are attracted to them in return. It could mean that for some people, perhaps, but such is not necessarily the case. Monosexuals, even the queerer ones, aren’t always the biggest fan of nonmonosexuals.

Further limits may arise when considering the preferences that nonmonosexuals may have. Specifically, I will venture to guess that many people who identify as pansexual (as opposed to those who do as bisexual) have political reasons to limit their dating pool. Pansexual people both acknowledge and could potentially be attracted to people who aren’t cis men or cis women. This could mean that they would be far less likely to accept intolerance of trans* and non-male/female-identified people in their partners. Basically, my conjecture is that fewer pansexual women will brook bigoted boyfriends and vice versa.

To be fair, I definitely know of pansexuals who experienced an increase in options when going from identifying as straight to identifying as pansexual. Such is not universal, however. To cite my personal experience, I had far more options (albeit only male ones) available to me when I was a straight-identified woman than after I started identifying as bisexual. While the culturally-assumed straight male fetish for female-on-female “action” might have just caused a collective eye-roll, consider the important difference between reality and fantasy. Plenty of men who enjoyed porn featuring only women expressed insecurity about my leaving them for another woman, believed that homosexuality is generally wrong, or otherwise felt uncomfortable with dating a bisexual woman. Then there were the fetishists: men who had a pre-made fantasy about femme women performing sex acts on each other for his viewing pleasure rather than for their own pleasure (i.e. the ones scared off by my talk of butch lesbians).

As for women, many of the lesbians I met were wary of me, fearing that I might leave them for a man — that I was just “experimenting.” Validation for their fears existed with some of the bisexual women I met, the ones who were only interested in sexual play with other women, not necessarily anything beyond a casual encounter (and sometimes one that had to involve her male partner, no exceptions).

Later, when I started identifying as pansexual, my pool shrunk even further to preclude the option of people who think “pansexual” is a silly and pretentious orientation (you wouldn’t believe how many people there are who think that way) and those whose transphobia was revealed when they realized that some of the people to whom I am attracted are trans*. Good riddance, certainly, but still a limit placed upon number of options. My lived experiences as a radical queer, atheist, and feminist woman of color further constrict my options: I am wholly uninterested in anyone who opposes or questions the rights of my friends and I to exist and live as we do.

Orientation aside, one’s attractiveness (or perceived attractiveness) plays a significant role in the number of one’s options. A very attractive straight person would likely have more options available to them than a less-attractive pansexual person.

Individual experiences notwithstanding, saying that pansexuality or any other nonmonosexual orientation by definition and by default means more options available is a false generalization The number of available options really depends on the person in question.

Why Are You an Ally, Anyway?

May 30, 2013 Eli Heinaallies, ally, class, classism, privilege130 Comments

No, really. What’s your motivation to call yourself one, and maybe even to act like one?

This is the part where I talk about myself in an attempt to make it less about me (and you, if you’re also an ally rather than part of a marginalized group when it comes to one or more forms of oppression).

I have class privilege and was utterly blind to it for a long time. Oppression of every kind’s favorite mask (especially in America), the myth of the meritocracy, fit my class privilege pretty well. After all, had my father not come to the United States as refugee and worked his way up? Well after being granted entry into affluent North American countries, had my parents (and, later, my siblings and I) not lived frugally? I grew up watching families with much lower income than mine participating in activities my father dubbed “too expensive” and concluded that we must not be as well-off as others.

Much later, as a young adult, I discovered that such was not the case at all. My family was and is actually quite comfortable. We always lived in nice houses and my parents drove brand-new cars. My father earned enough to make such large purchases; his assessment of priciness with regards to smaller things like karate lessons or sodas at fast-food joints was a reflection of his personal preferences rather than our financial situation. My mother had both the desire and the financial freedom, thanks to my father, to be a homemaker.

I suddenly knew that I’d grown up in pretty cushy surroundings — and, privileged asshole that I was, I felt bad for myself. I couldn’t complain about my childhood anymore! Hell, who knew if the classism police would ever let me complain about anything anymore? Though that initially deep discomfort soon faded, it left behind a sticky residue of defensiveness, one that saw “you have class privilege” as an “I’m going to assume that your childhood was awesome and you got to have and do lots of stuff, you spoiled brat.” I didn’t even realize it until I had a relatively benign and silly Twitter exchange with someone whose upbringing couldn’t be more different from mine. She joked that we were “the princess and the pauper.”

Princess?! How dare she assume that my life had been charmed and that I’d gotten all that I’d wanted?! I started firing off Tweets about how much my childhood sucked. The more I typed, the more I realized that I was whining — acting like the spoiled brat that I was trying to prove that I was not. I was derailing by being the worst kind of so-called “ally:” self-centered and self-absorbed instead of open to listening to the people I was allegedly trying to back up.

Oops.

I deleted some things and ended the exchange with a simple acknowledgment: “I have all the class privilege.”

I’m still working on it. This is a process, not an instant, magical transformation. If someone ribs — or even derides, is dismissive towards, or is mean to — me for my relatively cushy upbringing, I consciously work to quell the urge to go “but but but–“. I shut up and feel grateful that I only have to feel such a little bit of discomfort. On top of that, that tiny smidgen of discomfort, unlike the actual suffering of class oppression, is helpful to me: it reminds me of my position and keeps me on my classism toes.

It’s really easy to forget that “ally” is not a title that earns you free brownie points; it is, in theory, a state of being. The real me me me problem isn’t characteristic of a particular generation, it’s among those allies who really don’t help much and care more for their status as allies than about actually acting like allies. To appropriate an internet-famous quote, allyship doesn’t mean putting coins into oppressed groups in the hopes that friendship, forgiveness, or status falls out.

To quote a writer who will problematize the word “ally” for you in the most brilliant way:

Falling back on words and phrases that are intended to convey some sort of ideological purity won’t ever trump the transformation you’ll experience within yourself (and others) if you truly put yourself out there, be vulnerable, admit wrongs, take responsibility for your blind spots, hold your damn self accountable, not for show, but for real.

— Spectra on Straight Allies, White Anti-Racists, Male Feminists (and Other Politically Correct Labels That Mean Nothing to Me)

Heinous Dealings

Here to disrupt your narrative.