(One of those admin notices: I'm going to be farming for about a week. Do farms have internet? I don't know, I've never been to a real one before. So comment moderation may be slow or nonexistent...just sayin'.)
Oh Lucksmiths, you were just so witty and lovely, and to top it all off, your singer actually enunciated. Too bad you broke up, but at least you have a large back catalogue to peruse. They tended to be great lyricists, and their music is perfect for, well, summer. Like this song. I found it here, while looking at some of the Matinee Recordings releases. The song is about something that has probably happened to all of us, regardless of orientation-- a friend that falls in love and suddenly becomes too busy to spend time with us anymore. However, as someone that doesn't do the whole "falling in love thing", I've always felt a little left-out that I'd never be on the other side. (Not like I would purposely ditch my friends, but it would be nice to know what the fuss was all about.) Now, it does sound like the narrator is actually in love with the person he's singing about...but it always hurts to lose a good friend, whether they're your secret crush or strictly platonic.
"Friendless Summer"
by the Lucksmiths
transcribed by me
Today of all days you decided
that you'd drop in uninvited
You were ever-so excited,
you were never so in love.
This time it's requited,
if i looked less than delighted
I was trying hard to hide it
but not trying hard enough.
Do do do do do do do do do.
That's fantastic, that's sarcastic
but forgive me the theatrics
I've been catching up on classics
and the springtime's been and gone.
And I didn't see the dangers
in hoping nothing ever changes
'til we said good bye like strangers
for the first time in so long. So long...
There's only me to blame,
but I'm lonely all the same.
Forgot to mention about the Lucksmiths: Australian accents! I mean, if that's a selling point for anyone.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Age of Innocence (and Anxiety)
"I just wasn't made for this world, but I wouldn't like to meet someone who was."
--Of Montreal
--Of Montreal
I'm always so shocked when I enjoy a "classic" novel. I guess I'm always expecting them to be unbearably dull. Admittedly, a lot of them are, especially when you're forced to read them in high school. But when I finished The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton, 1920), I felt significant sadness. To me, this doesn't just mean the book was "good", but that the world-building was impeccable. When I finished the book and left its world, there was a sense of loss.
[Image: Daniel Day-Lewis played Newland Archer in the film adaptation. I would have done the casting very differently, going much younger with all the main characters. But meh.]The Age of Innocence is about Newland Archer and his various First World Problems. He's a young man living in New York City's high society in the late 1800s. While he's engaged to a "respectable" girl, he falls in love with a "fallen woman", i.e., one who fled her abusive husband. Their love affair was barely an "affair" at all, consisting of just a few brief conversations and a lot of fantasy. But I was surprised by how intrigued I was with the social milieu. While it was hard to dredge up much sympathy for these people's problems, Wharton's descriptions intrigued me anyway. The people are stuffy and boring, but Wharton gets into their heads in a way I found really remarkable. The characters are the country's most privileged people, but they also seemed very fragile, existing in a permanent state of social anxiety. They exhibited extreme distress and paranoia over "trivial" matters like wearing the wrong dress or being uninvited to a dinner. It was oddly comforting to me. Maybe in 100 years, our own social concerns-- "How long do I wait to e-mail her?"..."Hmm, should I 'like' his 'I'm single' Facebook update?" will seem just as silly.
Had the Age of Innocence characters lived today, they might be diagnosed with a variety of conditions. Check out these traits of Victorian-era socialites, which map over Asperger's:
- Rigid thinking
- Obsession with a narrow range of topics
- Focus on minute details
- Adherence to arbitrary routines
- Continuous need for structure
At its heart, the book seems to be about theoretical vs. actual opportunity, something that is timely for me. What dreams do we choose to pursue, and which do we let die? What is reality and what is truly fantasy? I don't know if today's culture, with all our additional freedoms, makes that question any easier. Apparently it's a dilemma that has been bothering Americans for some time now. Same exact theme, with a very different conclusion, set in the 20th century:
[Image: The novel Revolutionary Road]
Friday, April 1, 2011
Only the Good Die Young
Wow, who knew virginity was such a hot topic...what can I follow it with? Well, here's something that incites passion among us all (maybe): Wrongly canceled TV series!
There are different parts of us that are every age we've ever been. But I have to say that for me, a disproportionately large part has always been about 15. Maybe that's one reason why I liked My So-Called Life so much. While the show (which only lasted one season) became iconic after its original airing in the early 90s, I saw it for the first time this past month. While I couldn't really relate to the crushes and sexual anxiety of the characters, I thought that they seemed more human and realistic than most, giving me a more genuine window into the average teen experience than, say, Gossip Girl. In some way, we are all Angela Chase, whether at the end of a hard day we lie on our beds listening to the Cranberries, hip-hop or death metal. None of us are perfect, but we're all doing our best to make sense of a confusing world.
[Image: Rickie and Angela]
My favorite character was Rickie, who is sort of like the queer, shy, high-school version of Prince. Before "the gay friend" became a cliche, Rickie seemed a lot less stereotypical and his issues were handled with more subtlety than, say, Kurt's (from Glee). That occasional subtlety is what makes My So-Called Life seem artful at times, like a good movie, when it could have easily fallen into Degrassi-style after-school-special territory. I feel strangely wronged that it only lasted one season. There is so little on TV, past or present, that actually tells people something about their lives.
So, what series do you think died too young? (Everyone always mentions Freaks and Geeks--even so, Judd Apatow has managed to do okay for himself-- and I was also miffed that Huge was canceled right after a character came out as asexual, even though I never got around to watching the show.)
There are different parts of us that are every age we've ever been. But I have to say that for me, a disproportionately large part has always been about 15. Maybe that's one reason why I liked My So-Called Life so much. While the show (which only lasted one season) became iconic after its original airing in the early 90s, I saw it for the first time this past month. While I couldn't really relate to the crushes and sexual anxiety of the characters, I thought that they seemed more human and realistic than most, giving me a more genuine window into the average teen experience than, say, Gossip Girl. In some way, we are all Angela Chase, whether at the end of a hard day we lie on our beds listening to the Cranberries, hip-hop or death metal. None of us are perfect, but we're all doing our best to make sense of a confusing world.
[Image: Rickie and Angela]
My favorite character was Rickie, who is sort of like the queer, shy, high-school version of Prince. Before "the gay friend" became a cliche, Rickie seemed a lot less stereotypical and his issues were handled with more subtlety than, say, Kurt's (from Glee). That occasional subtlety is what makes My So-Called Life seem artful at times, like a good movie, when it could have easily fallen into Degrassi-style after-school-special territory. I feel strangely wronged that it only lasted one season. There is so little on TV, past or present, that actually tells people something about their lives.
So, what series do you think died too young? (Everyone always mentions Freaks and Geeks--even so, Judd Apatow has managed to do okay for himself-- and I was also miffed that Huge was canceled right after a character came out as asexual, even though I never got around to watching the show.)
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Virginity: No Excuses
This post is for the Virgin!Roar feminist blog carnival.
If I said I was a 26-year-old virgin, what responses might I tend to get? Pathetic, lonely, unattractive, repressed, super-religious, weird, or just hopelessly uncool. Maybe my fate is terrifying, unfathomable, or even worse than death. After high school, no one really asks "are you a virgin?" anymore. But if it stopped mattering, there wouldn't be all these negative stereotypes. Luckily, I have a handy excuse: I'm asexual! No sexual attraction to anyone! So it's totally okay for me to still be a virgin! Right, folks? Right, folks?
In my rush to neatly explain my virginity though, maybe I'm doing a disservice to all the other adult virgins out there. We shouldn't feel pressured to provide reasons in a quest to convince others that our choices are valid. It can be hard to own a status that some people may consider embarrassing, but then again, it will always be embarrassing unless people own up. Whether we were "too busy" or "career focused" or "waiting for the one", we just did not feel like having sex.
I wanted to answer the question "is virginity my choice?" but gave up in frustration. The usual reasons why people have sex--romantic love or sexual attraction--don't apply to me. There is no personally relevant reason for me to have sex, although this might relate to my chosen priorities as much as my asexuality. I want to avoid sexual pressure, I don't want to be the subject of someone's desire, and I don't want to engage in sex as a means to power or an expression of gender roles. You know those feminists that people tend to be scared of, who bandy around stuff like "heterosexual sex is oppressive?" Well, I think that any form of sex can be oppressive, or not, depending on the people and situation. Sex of any kind would feel oppressive to me personally, outside of a very narrow range of hypotheticals that I am unlikely to encounter. This doesn't mean I'm repressed. To me, the most "traditional" sex is also the most unappealing. Nor am I against anyone else having sex. As they say, do you.
If being a virgin was so awful, I could find a sexual partner. But virginity is not so bad, and despite what this post might convey, it's pretty much irrelevant to my personal identity. Having sex for the first time is not a major rite of passage in my life, which would be the factor giving virginity much of its meaning. I would guess that by our late 20's, most people who really wanted sex have found some way to have it. So virgins, as we get older and fewer in number, might get more content with their status rather than more frustrated. That's been my own experience, and it's the complete opposite of what the media portrays. At 2o, I was confused and distressed by my lack of sexual experience, but at 26, I know that for me, this is normal.
If I said I was a 26-year-old virgin, what responses might I tend to get? Pathetic, lonely, unattractive, repressed, super-religious, weird, or just hopelessly uncool. Maybe my fate is terrifying, unfathomable, or even worse than death. After high school, no one really asks "are you a virgin?" anymore. But if it stopped mattering, there wouldn't be all these negative stereotypes. Luckily, I have a handy excuse: I'm asexual! No sexual attraction to anyone! So it's totally okay for me to still be a virgin! Right, folks? Right, folks?
In my rush to neatly explain my virginity though, maybe I'm doing a disservice to all the other adult virgins out there. We shouldn't feel pressured to provide reasons in a quest to convince others that our choices are valid. It can be hard to own a status that some people may consider embarrassing, but then again, it will always be embarrassing unless people own up. Whether we were "too busy" or "career focused" or "waiting for the one", we just did not feel like having sex.
I wanted to answer the question "is virginity my choice?" but gave up in frustration. The usual reasons why people have sex--romantic love or sexual attraction--don't apply to me. There is no personally relevant reason for me to have sex, although this might relate to my chosen priorities as much as my asexuality. I want to avoid sexual pressure, I don't want to be the subject of someone's desire, and I don't want to engage in sex as a means to power or an expression of gender roles. You know those feminists that people tend to be scared of, who bandy around stuff like "heterosexual sex is oppressive?" Well, I think that any form of sex can be oppressive, or not, depending on the people and situation. Sex of any kind would feel oppressive to me personally, outside of a very narrow range of hypotheticals that I am unlikely to encounter. This doesn't mean I'm repressed. To me, the most "traditional" sex is also the most unappealing. Nor am I against anyone else having sex. As they say, do you.
If being a virgin was so awful, I could find a sexual partner. But virginity is not so bad, and despite what this post might convey, it's pretty much irrelevant to my personal identity. Having sex for the first time is not a major rite of passage in my life, which would be the factor giving virginity much of its meaning. I would guess that by our late 20's, most people who really wanted sex have found some way to have it. So virgins, as we get older and fewer in number, might get more content with their status rather than more frustrated. That's been my own experience, and it's the complete opposite of what the media portrays. At 2o, I was confused and distressed by my lack of sexual experience, but at 26, I know that for me, this is normal.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Totally Romantic! And yet, not!
People tend to think I'm on drugs, when I'm not ("Duuude, isn't water weird?"). The following thoughts won't help my case, but here goes:
Reading some thoughts on sensuality, I realized that what sensuality is for the physical, romance is for the mind. When you're smelling a flower, sensuality is the smell of the flower, the pleasure that it gives you, and your mindfulness of that experience. Romance is the emotion that the flower brings about, the other places and times that it might transport you to. While sensuality is a full experience of a present moment, romance, in a way, is an escape. It transports you from the drudgery of the everyday, making a simple moment into something you might always remember. Romance is the act of imbuing a sensual moment with special and personal significance.
I feel like I finally understand why someone would fly to Madrid just to weep in front of a painting. She wasn't crying because the painting was beautiful or well-executed. She cried because the painting had become a repository of emotion for her, and to see it brought all those feelings to the forefront. Whatever the emotions, they were ones she wanted to feel. Romance was whatever made her choose that particular painting as the most significant one.
So while I'm barely romantic in the asexual sense, I'm romantic in my own conception. If romance can be genuine rather than Hallmark-holiday, and freely felt rather than foisted upon us, then I have no qualms with it. I'm more interested in romance itself than in romantic relationships, which is why I was able to enjoy having an unrequited crush-- something many people would find painful. So while I'd consider myself a romantic, it's unlikely that at any given time, there's another person who I specifically want to be romantic with.
In asexual discourse, romance is often described as an analogue for sex. This is what gives a logic to the aromantic/romantic distinction. While asexuals are some of the few people who don't conflate sex and romance, we often talk about romance as if it is to us what sex is to everyone else. However, I don't see romance as a parallel to sex. I'm not the romantic equivalent of an asexual with a libido directed towards nothing, because I would guess that to me, romance is more significant than libido is to that asexual.
Dictionary definitions of "romance" are so circular, so I feel happy that I was finally able to come up with my own definition that makes sense to me. Whether it will resonate with others, I'm not sure, but I wanted to put it out there.
(Why yes, I am an enneagram #4--"the romantic"--, how did you know?)
Reading some thoughts on sensuality, I realized that what sensuality is for the physical, romance is for the mind. When you're smelling a flower, sensuality is the smell of the flower, the pleasure that it gives you, and your mindfulness of that experience. Romance is the emotion that the flower brings about, the other places and times that it might transport you to. While sensuality is a full experience of a present moment, romance, in a way, is an escape. It transports you from the drudgery of the everyday, making a simple moment into something you might always remember. Romance is the act of imbuing a sensual moment with special and personal significance.
I feel like I finally understand why someone would fly to Madrid just to weep in front of a painting. She wasn't crying because the painting was beautiful or well-executed. She cried because the painting had become a repository of emotion for her, and to see it brought all those feelings to the forefront. Whatever the emotions, they were ones she wanted to feel. Romance was whatever made her choose that particular painting as the most significant one.
So while I'm barely romantic in the asexual sense, I'm romantic in my own conception. If romance can be genuine rather than Hallmark-holiday, and freely felt rather than foisted upon us, then I have no qualms with it. I'm more interested in romance itself than in romantic relationships, which is why I was able to enjoy having an unrequited crush-- something many people would find painful. So while I'd consider myself a romantic, it's unlikely that at any given time, there's another person who I specifically want to be romantic with.
In asexual discourse, romance is often described as an analogue for sex. This is what gives a logic to the aromantic/romantic distinction. While asexuals are some of the few people who don't conflate sex and romance, we often talk about romance as if it is to us what sex is to everyone else. However, I don't see romance as a parallel to sex. I'm not the romantic equivalent of an asexual with a libido directed towards nothing, because I would guess that to me, romance is more significant than libido is to that asexual.
Dictionary definitions of "romance" are so circular, so I feel happy that I was finally able to come up with my own definition that makes sense to me. Whether it will resonate with others, I'm not sure, but I wanted to put it out there.
(Why yes, I am an enneagram #4--"the romantic"--, how did you know?)
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Have Sex, Become Annoying
That's not a value judgment, but a small piece of character development from the show Lost. When it originally aired, I got up to season 2. Now I'm re-watching it (although I'm close to giving up), I've reached season 4 (spoilers for seasons 1-3 are to follow), and somehow I'm finding it much harder to suspend my disbelief. This post from Shakesville comes to mind:
Although I love Lost with the fiery passion of ten thousand suns, that not a single one of the female characters on the Island has ever, in all her interactions with people who all started out as total strangers, faced even the faintest threat of sexual assault is an absurd omission. The only reference to sexual assault that I even recall on the show is when one female character refers as the "rape caves" to an area where another female character is abducted (though she is not sexually assaulted). The female characters routinely find themselves isolated with unknown men, many of whom are violent and unethical, but never is there a suggestion that the women would be in any particular physical danger separate from their male allies.
(It's a short post, so I recommend reading the rest.) While Lost is full of plot confusions, the characters' personal hygiene habits are even more baffling to me. Although the women aren't trekking around in makeup-caked faces, where do they get hair products? How do they shave their legs? And of course, why would anyone have consensual sex on a "deserted" island where there is no birth control and the one doctor is constantly in danger of being killed? Sure, people do crazy things in moments of passion, but I doubt many women would welcome the possibility of pregnancy on the island. Also, anyone willing to have sex with Sawyer without a condom is a damn fool, as he himself might say.
So how does Lost deal with these inconsistencies? Why, by killing many of the women who do have sex. It's that old horror-movie adage moved to the South Pacific. Here is a hopefully-accurate catalogue of people who've had sex in seasons 1-3, and their fates so far:
Sayid & Shannon: Shannon is killed in an accident, Sayid is still alive.
Sawyer & Ana Lucia: Ana Lucia is killed, Sawyer is still alive.
Sawyer & Kate: They're both still alive, but after she has sex with Sawyer, Kate becomes noticeably more annoying.
Hurley & Libby: Okay, they didn't have sex, but apparently, the sheer prospect was viewed as too disturbing (desexualization of fat characters?), so Libby was killed before they were about to depart on a romantic picnic.
Sun & Jin: They're both still alive, BUT Sun becomes pregnant. And she's told that all pregnant women who conceive on the island are doomed to death. I'll see how that one pans out.
Bonus: In a flash-forward that takes place in Berlin (early in season 4), Sayid and a woman have sex, they shoot each other, and only Sayid lives. He's like the Typhoid Mary of sex.
Note-- You can kiss on the island without anything bad happening to you. Thank goodness. (Also, pleeeze don't tell me how the show ends...although honestly, I doubt it's going to make much sense anyway.)
Although I love Lost with the fiery passion of ten thousand suns, that not a single one of the female characters on the Island has ever, in all her interactions with people who all started out as total strangers, faced even the faintest threat of sexual assault is an absurd omission. The only reference to sexual assault that I even recall on the show is when one female character refers as the "rape caves" to an area where another female character is abducted (though she is not sexually assaulted). The female characters routinely find themselves isolated with unknown men, many of whom are violent and unethical, but never is there a suggestion that the women would be in any particular physical danger separate from their male allies.
(It's a short post, so I recommend reading the rest.) While Lost is full of plot confusions, the characters' personal hygiene habits are even more baffling to me. Although the women aren't trekking around in makeup-caked faces, where do they get hair products? How do they shave their legs? And of course, why would anyone have consensual sex on a "deserted" island where there is no birth control and the one doctor is constantly in danger of being killed? Sure, people do crazy things in moments of passion, but I doubt many women would welcome the possibility of pregnancy on the island. Also, anyone willing to have sex with Sawyer without a condom is a damn fool, as he himself might say.
So how does Lost deal with these inconsistencies? Why, by killing many of the women who do have sex. It's that old horror-movie adage moved to the South Pacific. Here is a hopefully-accurate catalogue of people who've had sex in seasons 1-3, and their fates so far:
Sayid & Shannon: Shannon is killed in an accident, Sayid is still alive.
Sawyer & Ana Lucia: Ana Lucia is killed, Sawyer is still alive.
Sawyer & Kate: They're both still alive, but after she has sex with Sawyer, Kate becomes noticeably more annoying.
Hurley & Libby: Okay, they didn't have sex, but apparently, the sheer prospect was viewed as too disturbing (desexualization of fat characters?), so Libby was killed before they were about to depart on a romantic picnic.
Sun & Jin: They're both still alive, BUT Sun becomes pregnant. And she's told that all pregnant women who conceive on the island are doomed to death. I'll see how that one pans out.
Bonus: In a flash-forward that takes place in Berlin (early in season 4), Sayid and a woman have sex, they shoot each other, and only Sayid lives. He's like the Typhoid Mary of sex.
Note-- You can kiss on the island without anything bad happening to you. Thank goodness. (Also, pleeeze don't tell me how the show ends...although honestly, I doubt it's going to make much sense anyway.)
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Things Asexuals Like: Anglophilia
Now, I'm just going to go with an instinct here: I think asexuals are into Anglophilia. (Doctor Who, tweed, Alan Rickman, Sherlock Holmes?) I don't think you can be a -phile for your own country, so English readers might have to sit this one out...sorry. (I don't know if Anglophila specifically refers to England, or whether it applies to the UK in general; please forgive me for that.)
America has always been a country of escapists, and certain faraway places tend to capture our imaginations. England, Japan, India, and France seem to be eternal favorites among certain subsets of the population. Why would asexuals like England in particular? Maybe it's because we can somehow relate to more of their character creations, or because it seems to be the biggest hot spot of asexual activity in meatspace, a title it's seemed to hold for quite a few years now. Or maybe we just think that authentic Cadbury chocolates are better than sex. I don't think I'm truly an Anglophile myself, although I do have a soft spot for the place, gained from my study abroad experience and the myriad English/Scottish references of indiepop music. While I'd love to revisit England someday, I know that plenty of English people are as dissatisfied with their country as some Americans are with ours. But that's not really the point of --philia, is it?
Some Habits of the American Anglophile in its Natural Habitat:
[Image: John Simm isn't quite sure what to make of your Anglophilia.]
America has always been a country of escapists, and certain faraway places tend to capture our imaginations. England, Japan, India, and France seem to be eternal favorites among certain subsets of the population. Why would asexuals like England in particular? Maybe it's because we can somehow relate to more of their character creations, or because it seems to be the biggest hot spot of asexual activity in meatspace, a title it's seemed to hold for quite a few years now. Or maybe we just think that authentic Cadbury chocolates are better than sex. I don't think I'm truly an Anglophile myself, although I do have a soft spot for the place, gained from my study abroad experience and the myriad English/Scottish references of indiepop music. While I'd love to revisit England someday, I know that plenty of English people are as dissatisfied with their country as some Americans are with ours. But that's not really the point of --philia, is it?
Some Habits of the American Anglophile in its Natural Habitat:
- Refers to apartments as "flats", lines as "queues" and cell phones as "mobiles". Further, says "cheers" a lot, perhaps using it as an e-mail sign off.
- Spells words differently, as in "humour" or "behaviour"
- Drives a MiniCooper with a Union Jack on the roof
- Knows how various English accents vary regionally, perhaps even adopts one themselves
- Drinks black tea incessantly, with "sugars".
- Watched every episode of the original "Life on Mars", even though it was so slow-moving that you, the viewer, thought that you were the one in the coma...(okay, maybe that was just me)
[Image: John Simm isn't quite sure what to make of your Anglophilia.]I wonder...can you tell something about people based on the countries they -phile over? I sense a personality quiz in the works. If I was forced to make such a quiz, I would say that the Anglophile is someone who may be uncomfortable in their own culture, however, they still crave familiarity. If they were into trends, they'd say something like, "Well, this week I'm really into Cambodia", but the Anglophile remains loyal throughout the years. The desire for change and stasis at the same time--This is the dilemma of the Anglophile.
(As far as the personality quiz, recently I got a package in the mail and was enchanted by how cute the box was. Something about its size and shape was just so...kawaii! I wanted to cuddle it. So I had to ask myself...am I secretly Japanese? Well, apparently the official line in Japan is concern over their low birth rate. They might need to take in lots of foreigners! Those of you with a discerning eye for design and a love of soba might want to consider that.)
(As far as the personality quiz, recently I got a package in the mail and was enchanted by how cute the box was. Something about its size and shape was just so...kawaii! I wanted to cuddle it. So I had to ask myself...am I secretly Japanese? Well, apparently the official line in Japan is concern over their low birth rate. They might need to take in lots of foreigners! Those of you with a discerning eye for design and a love of soba might want to consider that.)
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