Remote Intimacy

In Relocations, an awesome book, Karen Tongson writes about "remote intimacy", a term she credits to Jennifer Terry.  (Terry defined it as the "transmission of sentiments through designed uses and creative appropriations of telemediating devices".)  Wish I had page numbers, but I read it as an ebook and every page was Page 1.  Ain't technology grand?  You've probably experienced remote intimacy, even if you don't know the term.  The classic example is listening to a favorite song and feeling like somewhere out there, another person is listening to the same song and loving it, too.  It can also be experienced in groups, as in that scene from The Perks of Being a Wallflower that launched 10,000 "infinite" tattoos. The kids in that book, who presumably live in some uncool suburb, listen to the Smiths together and "feel infinite".  (The Smiths seem to have launched a disproportionately high number of remote intimacy moments.)  Tongson writes:

"...Listening as remote intimacy brings people, things, and concepts together, even if suburban space and time dictates their dispersal and isolation."

and in greater detail:

"In a pre-digital age, remote intimacies were practiced through the shared consumption (or some would say overconsumption) of broadcast television and popular music, as well as by "hanging out" live, at differently situated chains or even at amusement venues like Knott's [Berry Farm, a southern California theme park].  Sometimes the resonance of these activities and of these shared popular objects is only discovered belatedly, thus recreating intimacies in the present based on the shared, remote gestures--some experienced in isolation--in the past.  I would venture to describe such asynchronous echoes as remote intimacies across time."

Remote intimacy is especially important to the suburbs, because it can take away the inferiority of being in "a suburb of [some larger city]", allowing people to connect with faraway places that might have more in common with their own.  For instance, Tongson describes how music connects Birmingham, England with Riveside, California.  By identifying with a place like Birmingham, you can escape the feeling of living in a "lesser version" of LA.

But remote intimacy is older than this implies; predating recorded film and sound.  In her notes to the book, Tongson uses a quote about how morning prayers connect people with millions of unseen others doing the same thing.  It's one reason why these rituals are so powerful.  You feel remote intimacy with people across time (because your ancestors did the same thing) and in the present time, with people across the world.

Of course, the internet has caused remote intimacy to take up a much more prominent place in many of our lives.  The interesting thing is, Tongson never says that remote intimacy is an inferior copy of other intimacies, or that it is unhealthy in some way.  (This is how people alone in their rooms with music or the internet tend to be perceived.)  To Tongson, it is a way through which people fight isolation, rather than a way to become more isolated.  When talking about intimacy, relationships are always privileged, but they are not the only place to find intimacy.  I think it would be hard for most people to get by on remote intimacy alone.  But these little moments of connection?  They matter.

Oh, To Be Queer in the Suburbs

I've lived in the suburbs for most of my life.  Often, people have asked me "Which do you like better--the East or West Coast?"  But between the suburban towns that I lived in on both coasts, the main difference is probably the climate.  Until a certain book made me question it, I took this view of suburbia, which is shared by many both inside and outside it:  That the suburbs are a tragic, boring, isolating place where creative people experience "aesthetic peril*".  At the same time, I accepted the view of cities as superior and unique.  I never thought about the fact that "great world cities" are grouped together based on many similarities.  And a lot of what makes cities "great" tends to be based on Eurocentric standards.

Enter the book Relocations.  It might actually make me feel slightly better about living in the suburbs, which is no small feat.  The author, Karen Tongson, writes that for too long, studies of queer life have privileged the city, even though many queer people (especially women and people of color) live in the suburbs.  The prevailing idea is that after coming out, queer people need to migrate to the city or risk the sad and irrelevant life described earlier.  That queer people might choose to stay in the suburbs, or actually migrate from cities to suburbs, is rarely examined.  

While there is no city with an asexual community on par with San Francisco or New York's gay communities, I accepted the same narrative of suburban to urban migration.  I always pictured myself living in a city, since it was what seemed "normal" for a young, single person from the suburbs.  It's true that the suburban demographics are changing.  They're no longer places that are solely composed of heterosexual couples with kids.  However, while there may be a certain number of people "like me" in the suburbs, the difference is that they're less visible than they might be in the city.  When I visit a vegan anarchist cafe (as I did in London), I can assume that many of the people present share some of my interests, whatever their age or appearance.  At a Starbucks in the suburbs, there is no way to guess about the interests of anyone present.  While in my personal experience it's harder to meet new people in the suburbs, its lack of niche activity might actually yield a more diverse group of friends for the suburban person, which is something that I value.

Tongson writes that there is something fundamentally queer about the suburbs' odd juxtapositions of time periods, architectures, forgotten histories, and groups of people.  While the suburbs are usually seen as boring, in many ways they're also very strange, surreal places.  One of my biggest problems with the suburbs is being seen as culturally irrelevant.  After all, cities are promoted as the site of alternative culture, and suburbs the place where people escape from it.  And this is why, according to Tongson, suburban queers of color love the Smiths (I could not believe that this was A Thing, but apparently it is).  While I am white, I could relate to this British pop admiration, although maybe for slightly different reasons than the ones Tongson posits.  We love bands from unlikely places, such as Manchester, because they show that you don't have to come from new York or LA to be relevant.  (I have always loved the fact that Yo La Tengo is from Hoboken, New Jersey.)  While some bands could be from anywhere, the Smiths are very grounded in what Tongson would call "the imaginary" of Manchester.  To suburban Americans, a place like Manchester is exotic, but at the same time, we can relate to it in a way that we can't relate to, say, London or Paris.  We do have suburban culture, although it is so overlooked and devalued (by residents and city folk alike), that it has a hard time thriving.  In some ways, the cultural wasteland of the suburbs is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Driving in your car through lonely stretches of Southern California or elsewhere.  Driving in your car with someone else, with significant others (not necessarily lovers--or are they?).  Rollin' deep with your homies, sisters or bros, real or conjured, desperately seeking excitement elsewhere, somewhere, but realizing that it might just be all about the ride, the inevitably aimless transport of accidental reverie--and all about who you're riding with."  --last page of Relocations

(*this term is from Relocations.)

This one's for all you losers...

...and I address you as "losers" lovingly and with admiration, as Judith Halberstam does in the book The Art of Queer Failure.  I was skeptical at first, since the book and its references (Finding Nemo, Dude, Where's My Car? as well as academic sources) seemed weird, random, and unlikely.  However, I'm kind of weird and random myself, so Queer Failure and I ended up getting along well for the most part.  While I don't think the book necessarily forms a cohesive whole, the parts are valuable.  The general premise is potentially life-changing, and I don't say that lightly.  Halberstam writes that based on what we symbolize in society, queers fail.  In fact, we're so good at failing that we turn it into an art form and even a way of life.  Failure isn't something to run away from (says Halberstam), but to embrace, as can be seen in the phrase "good at failing".  Rather than a success/failure binary (another binary?  Will it ever end?), where success is good and failure bad, now I can better see that both have something to offer.  While success can provide comfort and social status, failure can open up new ways of learning and of knowing.

Failure also needs to be recognized, in some cases, as something that is imposed from outside.  For instance, Occupy is consistently portrayed as a failure in my local media--the term "moribund" in particular comes to mind.  However, I've found it very successful as a way for politically-minded people to find community.

"...There is something powerful in being wrong, in losing, in failing, and that all our failures combined might just be enough, if we practice them well, to bring down the winner" (127).

Our current mode of success/failure is closely tied to our economic system, as Queer Failure mentions.  For one person to succeed, others must fail.  In fact many of us are set up to fail, since while we all want to "win", this is impossible.  Halberstam quotes Guy Hocquenghem:  "Capitalism turns its homosexuals into failed normal people [exactly what I believed I was, pre-asexuality], just as it turns its working class into an imitation of the middle class" (103). In this social framework, I'm already so far behind that I may never win.  Either I acknowledge that, or I try to pretend that I'm someone who can navigate this world with more ease than I actually can.  Maybe if we deny failure, then we give it more power than it really deserves; it becomes too scary to ever risk.  For so long, I've been trying to figure out some philosophy of life under which I could succeed, or somehow alchemize my losses into wins.  It's been extremely exhausting.  Perhaps it's the labeling--"succeed", "fail", "win", "lose" that needs to go, in favor of more dynamic, personalized language.

"You don't learn from a situation where you do something well. You enjoy it and you give yourself credit, but you don't really learn from that. You learn from trial and error, trial and error, all the time."

--Suzanne Farrell.  Quote seen on the wall of a dance studio.  Failure central, amirite?

Whipping Girl

"Too much gender for one man to handle, when I all need is a one-night scandal."

--Akon...sort of

Let me tell you, pop-cultural blogs are eyestrain inducing, since we have to read or watch things and then blog about them.  Recently I got a job (hurrah!) which for some reason made me get an eye exam.  A few years ago, I was told I had 20/15 vision, which is "better" than 20/20.  But now, when I covered up one of my eyes, everything was blurry!  So yeah...it seems like the universe is conspiring against me when it comes to blogging more regularly.  Although now I'm actually using a wireless keyboard, with my back to the screen.  God bless technology.  Well, sort of.

Anyway, this is the long way of saying that I'm sad I have to take frequent eye-breaks from my reading of Whipping Girl (which I can't yet do with my back to the book).  It's really fierce and intelligent.  Julia Serano is very persuasive; if I was having a debate tournament, I would definitely want her on my side. 

[Image: Cover of the book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity]

One point the book has made so far is that rather than "smashing the gender binary" (which I've admitted I would like to do), what we really need to smash is gender entitlement.  I don't want everyone to be androgynous, which is how, Serano tells me, "smashing the binary" can be interpreted.  What I want is for the binary to not be so rigidly policed, so that people aren't judged for their gender expression, however they identify.  The gender binary has caused me a lot of pain, to the point that I don't want to be associated with it.  But when I speak about my distaste for the binary, I speak for myself alone. 

This book might also illuminate to me why, while I feel genderqueer, I can't give up identifying as a woman.  I see myself as a "genderqueer woman".  Maybe this is too contradictory to be accepted by most, even though some would say it's possible to have more than one gender.  The truth comes out in my discomfort with being referred to as a woman alone, by people who aren't aware of my complicated feelings about my gender.  However, I am treated as a woman.  My femininity is silly and frivolous, and my masculinity is some sort of aberration because it co-exists with my femininity.  But why this scarcity mentality when it comes to gender?  I want it all...the gender I was assigned/raised as, and then some.

(PS to Fellmama-- There's PLENTY more to discuss about this book, if you're game...I haven't even gotten into the feminism parts at all.  I'd be interested to know your thoughts!)

TW: The F-word, British for cigarettes

Hello!  It's been a while, hasn't it?  And it's been an especially long while since I've done any book reviews.  This weekend I picked up a book called Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?  The subtitle is important:  "Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform".  I'd read the other two anthologies by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (Nobody Passes and That's Revolting), and enjoyed them, so I wanted to give this one a try as well.  I'm only on the second essay, but I can tell that the book is going to be educational and thought-provoking (although, it should be said, some of the content is sexually explicit, if that bothers you).

[Image: The cover of the book]

The first essay is about a cruising website called Dads and Lads.  Now that, I cannot relate to, but it did have some things to say that mirrored my own experience with online dating:

Worse yet, [the dropdown menu] suggests there's something wrong with anyone or anything that doesn't fit into those clear-cut, self-explanatory, "natural" options.  Sure, you can express in your profile's personal statements the scope of your sexual tastes and practices as fully and with as much imagination as the text field's character limit will accommodate.  But when you first encounter that dropdown, when you first look at the choices available and note that there are none with which you cleanly correspond, there is a moment of creeping doubt, of uncertainty, of a nagging sense that there is something wrong with you.  You should be one or the other.  (D. Travers Scott, "Imagining a Faggoty Web", 6)

and also:

The example of this humble and by now much-maligned dropdown menu is an illustration of how the web is not neutral.  The technologies that constitute the online experience did not appear out of thin air or descend from Olympus as gifts from the gods.  They are not separate from culture, somehow innocent and pure, but as deeply intertwined with culture as an episode of The Hills.  The design and functioning of online technologies is far from immune to racism, sexism, homophobia, and other social ills.  (7)

It hadn't really occurred to me that people with more well-known orientations might have the same dropdown menu problem that I do (apparently I haven't been spending enough time on Dads and Lads).  But dropdown menus seem to function similarly to those pants you try on in the dressing room.  They don't fit, so you must be too fat.  We seem to have this habit of blaming ourselves first, and once we've done that, it can be hard to see other options.  If you want to be pissed off about dropdown menus, I'll stand behind you.  It might seem "small", but you have a right to be frustrated about people who will sacrifice human diversity for some dating algorithm.  

Although they may be different from my own life experience, reading these sorts of anti-assimilationist queer accounts often feels very refreshing to me.  I feel like asexuals, myself included, are often hesitant to take up space.  Like the "flaming faggots" in this anthology, we're often told that no one wants to hear about our sexuality.  With gay men, the perception is that there's too much to tell, and with asexuals, there is presumably not enough.  I would like to be flamboyantly asexual, although I'm still trying to figure out what that is.  Books like this remind me that there's value in that attempt.  As the introduction states, "Existing simultaneously outside queer and straight norms is liberating and constantly exciting in ways I had never anticipated".  This sense of liberation and excitement is what I wish for us.

Expect a part 2 to this post!

Big Big Love

So it's Big Big Love time! The book is "a sex and relationships guide for people of size (and those who love them)"; Hanne Blank is the author. I really liked it, even though a lot of it didn't apply to me personally. I'm what's awkwardly known as an "inbetweenie" i.e., I am somewhere between thin and fat. A lot of the book, of course, is targeted towards people who are larger than myself. But, most of us have loved ones of varied sizes, and if you want to be an ally to all of them, it's important to know some of the issues your fat peeps may contend with.

Certain sections might seem skim-worthy if you're not actually having sex. Some of it also seems a wee bit basic...I would assume that if you're going to pick up this book, you probably know that fat people don't all smell bad or are desperate (there's a section debunking common fat myths). But, I could be wrong about that. Here are my favorite parts/parts I found the most interesting:

• Section on asexuality! It's well-done, it includes quotes from asexuals ourselves, and it's included in a chapter with all the other sexual orientations. YEAH!
  
• What Hanne says are her two main take-aways: "Stop putting your life on hold" (until you're thin...or anything else, really) and "Don't expect love and sex to heal your entire life" (pgs 26 & 27).
  
• A discussion of weight distribution/shape, and how this affects perceptions of someone's sexuality and gender. For instance, a pear-shaped man is quoted as saying that people just assume he's gay because his shape is traditionally considered "womanly". Apparently, apple-shaped women (that's me, I guess) "may feel like they are sexually invisible" (36). You know...I think there's some truth to that. I do have breasts, but I don't have much in the way of hips, butt, or thighs. When I was slightly heavier, I had no defined waist. I am rarely approached by anyone in a sexual manner. From hourglass-shaped asexual women, I hear different stories.
  
• Good stuff about body image and acceptance. Hanne suggests this exercise: "Try finding something to compliment in every fat person you see (72)". (You don't have to say the compliment out loud unless you want to.) I can tell you, this kind of exercise really works, and it can improve your whole mood for the day. We can often be really judgmental of other people's appearances, sometimes without even realizing it ("she's wearing that?"). To change that casual criticism into something positive can be a powerful thing to do for ourselves, even (especially) if the other person doesn't know what the heck we're thinking.
  
• Responses to rude comments about size. This one amused me the most: "Why am I so fat? Because every time I fuck your mom, she bakes me a pie." Of course, it hinges on someone yelling, "Why are you so fat?", but in the event that it happens...you'll be ready. (More comeback ideas...and I want all her clothes.)
  

Happy 2012, folks! My resolution will be to not end posts with bullet points.

Alone Together

"Oppression is depressing."--Miriam Greenspan

A while back, I read the book A New Approach to Women and Therapy by Miriam Greenspan, who I think is pretty brilliant. It was published in 1983, so parts feel dated now. But, other elements are still relevant, sometimes scarily so. Recently I rediscovered the book on my shelf, and remembered that at least one section of the book was very relevant to stuff I've blogged about. It dealt with gendered ideas of "aloneness". Of course asexuals don't have a monopoly on "dying alone!"-type worries, but it's an idea that tends to be foisted on us, whether or not it's a personal concern. (Warning: Gender binary ahead.)

Greenspan gives two scenarios. In the first, she's sitting at a bar talking with a female friend. Two men approach them and comment that they are out alone. When Greenspan responds that they aren't alone, but with each other, the men assume that they're lesbians. In the second scenario, a woman is sitting by herself at a sidewalk cafe, reading a book. A man approaches and asks her if she's waiting for someone. Greenspan writes that this women is "perceived in relation to an absent other (214, emphasis hers)."

She claims that "Women in relation to other women are both culturally understood and actually perceived as being alone...Women internalize this social definition; in the company of women and children, we often experience ourselves as alone. Only with a man are we not alone (213-14)". Of course, she mentions the disparity in the images of bachelors vs. spinsters. My own mental associations support her point: When I think of the images that come to mind around the word "bachelor", I envision a man who is active, surrounded by women, male friends, or activities. On the other hand, I agree with Greenspan that "spinster" brings to mind a woman sitting alone in a dusty attic. She writes that "the very word [spinster] evokes black spiders in a corner weaving webs for no one...Solitude is a male virtue, a female affliction (213)".

(For another example of the above, see the unsolicited issue of Women's Health magazine that arrived at my house. In an advice column, a woman asks how she can get her boyfriend to respect her wishes for alone time. The response is something like, "Point to your stack of Glee DVDs and say it's your version of the fantasy football draft." This is problematic on more levels than you probably have patience to read about, but here, female aloneness finds legitimacy through stereotypically male terms, and it's assumed that men can only understand a woman's desire for solitude through a "male" analogy.)

In my own experience, I've seen this "alone together" concept borne out again and again. I find that often when women are talking with supportive groups of people, that's exactly the time when they're most likely to bring up how alone they feel. When someone of any gender says "I'm so alone" in a group, I know they're referring to their desire for a romantic relationship. But I think it's significant that general aloneness is mentioned, rather than the lack of a specific relationship.

Men can also feel alone without women, especially older or more isolated men who have internalized the idea that emotional intimacy is only appropriate or possible within a romantic relationship. But, I would agree with Greenspan that a man alone at a cafe table is still sending a very different social message than a woman. Over the years, I've blogged about the many social messages that I've internalized. This, oddly enough, isn't one of them. I've felt disrespected and marginalized for my lack of "a man", but never lonely for this reason. When someone assumes that I'm waiting for a man, it jolts me out of my own imaginary world where my gender is secondary to my personhood. Since childhood, I related to our gendered-male ideas about solitude: "But a man alone is a great artist, or a brave adventurer, a mind unshackled by convention, a free spirit (213)". This is no more inherently male than the color blue, but it's coded as male anyway.

Greenspan goes on to explore the concept of "ego boundaries" as they relate to gender. Basically, it's hard to have a strong sense of self if one is always waiting for an "absent other" to show up. Weaker ego boundaries can indeed have advantages, but they're devalued in this culture. Even though I don't feel like I'm waiting, I still wonder how much of my anxiety over external approval and disapproval relates to my gendered experiences.

Dykes to Watch Out For

"...I've never intended my cartoons to be only for dykes. Yes, they're about dykes. So? Surely if I could sit through a Bruce Willis movie, Joe Blow could read a lesbian comic strip."
--Alison Bechdel

This is slightly random, but has anyone read Dykes to Watch Out For? Yesterday I picked up Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life Forms to Watch Out For, which I believe is the last book in the series. Usually that would make a book unbearably confusing, but all the characters are explained in the beginning so it's not too hard to follow. I would've read it all in one sitting, but I had to go somewhere. While I was out, I just kept thinking, "I want to go home and finish the book!" Although the comics are amusing, I think I liked the political aspect the most. It isn't preachy, but it's there. I can't remember ever reading a work of fiction that dealt with the issues around coping as a leftist in America and all the inevitable disappointment and frustration that it brings. Okay, that was a long sentence. There are also other layers, like the characters' attempts to reconcile their radical queer identities with the fact that "Best Lesbian Erotica is now sold at 7-11" and many in their group are marrying and having kids.

[Image: Comic panel depicting, among other things, one drag king asking another for a tampon.]

I also loved the density of the comic panels themselves. You can see what's on the character's shelves, such as St. John's wort and "Tom's of Finland curry-flavored" toothpaste, as well as the headlines of the newspapers they read ("Disease will be eradicated! Static cling banished!"). While the comic is often hailed as being very true to life, is there really any enclave where everyone works at a non-profit, college, or feminist bookstore? (Although, the bookstore is in danger thanks to "Medusa.com".) It seems like no matter how much the characters are doing to live out their values, it's never enough. For instance, Mo wonders why she's going to a class rather than "doing non-violent direct action!". It seems funny on the page, but I've wondered the same type of thing. There's an interesting tension between the insularity of the characters' progressive friend group and the current events they can't ignore.

A Room With A View

"For all his culture, Cecil was an ascetic at heart, and nothing in his love became him like the leaving of it."
--My favorite quote from A Room With A View, E.M. Forster, pg. 204

This book is from 1908. It may be a classic, but if it was written today and not by E.M. Forster, it would surely be the fluffiest of chick lit. Sometimes I wonder where ideas come from--say, that we have one true soulmate who will understand us completely, or that a woman in a story will usually end up marrying the first man she interacts with, or that spinsters will always hold out some measure of romantic hope deep in their stony bosoms. (Yes, there will be spoilers here, but there were actually spoilers printed on the back of my copy of this book. You know what will happen from the first few pages anyway.) Do these types of ideas come from A Room With a View? Probably not, but it seems like every idea of the modern romantic comedy is also represented therein.

I thought I would love this book because I tend to love comedies of manners. And I liked the writing style; it could be very clever and quotable. But after spending 27 years absorbing romantic storylines, the plot itself was very predictable. It even involved one of the pop culture tropes that bugs me the most--characters for whom we're not just supposed to believe a strong attraction, but that they're going to spend the rest of their lives together because they exchanged one meaningful glance. Like, this is what happens:

--Lucy and George are tourists, previously unknown to one another, staying at the same hotel in Florence. They happen to both be at the scene of a murder that takes place there.
--Lucy faints at the sight, and George helps her.
--Then, George throws Lucy's photographs into the river because there is blood on them.
--They share a companionable silence.
--They are madly in love with each other (although Lucy tries to ignore her feelings for a while).

There seems to be something missing here. When George throws away the pictures, Lucy imbues it with a ton of meaning: He is unconventional, truthful, humble, and a host of other traits. And we don't even know why George is quite so taken with Lucy. From their first short exchange, Lucy is able to feel that she knows George completely. Although they've spoken maybe five times ever (and kissed twice), never ONCE does Lucy mention that she wants to know George better, or vice versa. So, after one singular incident that lasted a matter of minutes, these two people knew each other intimately. As a reader, I got the feeling that they would never discover anything new about each other that they didn't already know. Is that even possible?

We're also supposed to believe that a lasting relationship can spring, fully formed, from a few romantic moments. But even with my limited experience, I don't think life is like that. Of course, lasting relationships can contain romance or begin with romance, but one doesn't necessarily beget the other. Maybe things were different back then...young men and women didn't have as many opportunities to encounter each other, and there was more pressure to choose someone. Perhaps on some level, Lucy was choosing to love George, although this was in no way implied by the book. George is portrayed as her unavoidable fate. As crotchety as it makes me sound, I can't "just enjoy the fantasy". I'm too frustrated by the fact that a lot of people feel bad about themselves when these kinds of events don't become their realities. Even I've felt bad about it at times, although I know that I'd probably be pissed off if someone threw my bloody photos in the river without asking.

I felt like this book was a strange blend of two different attitudes. On the one hand, Forster has the ability to dissect social norms with a scalpel. He shows no mercy in describing the futility of tourists who are trying to recreate home in a foreign land (be sure to pack enough digestive bread!). But at the same time, the concept of a soulmate remains unquestioned. Contrast this to The Age of Innocence, which I felt had a more subtle and complex treatment of romantic ideals vs. convention.

(Also, while he's celibate and not necessarily asexual, when I read the following, I felt that I could sort of relate to Mr. Beebe's character in that moment, on some personal ace level. Since I couldn't really relate to anyone in the book, I'll take what I can get:

Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips. Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of the past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the Santa Conversazione, in which people who care for one another are painted chatting together about noble things--a theme neither sensual nor sensational, and therefore ignored by the art of to-day. Why should Lucy want either to marry or to travel when she had such friends at home? (221) )

Still, I might watch one of the film adaptations.

Communion Conversation (Part 2)

bell hooks (no caps on purpose) wants more feminists to talk about love. Fellmama and I tried to oblige, but we ended up conversing about a lot of different topics, including body image, dating younger men, and Otter Pops. Please check out Part 1 of our discussion on bell hooks' Communion here at The Feminist Book Project. This is the second part! (If anyone knows how to do spoilers on Blogspot...do tell.)

Ily: Well, I get the feeling that men in general don't like me, but that's another story.

Fellmama: Let's talk about that, because it sounds interesting. Why do you feel that men don't like you?

Ily: Women are usually friendly towards me, but men tend to ignore me for the most part. Like in a mixed gender group of people, I'll end up talking to women 95% of the time, because they're the ones who want to talk to me (or so it seems). I know some men like me, but I haven't been able to have a close male friend since elementary school.

Fellmama: Huh. I wonder, and this is just speculation, so feel free to sit on me. Do you think they sense your lack of sexual interest and interpret that as lack of holistic interest?

Ily: No, because the same holds true for gay and asexual men. Granted, there are many more out asexual women than men.

Fellmama: But, and this is linking back to bell hooks: How many men are emotionally able to separate sexual interest from other kinds, regardless of personal sexuality?

Ily: I really don't know, but there could be some truth in that.

Fellmama: Not that women are necessarily able to do this as well, but in our culture women are socialized to show non-romantic interest in people a lot more thoroughly. For example, my boyfriend has a friend, Mark. (I will use his name because this is a positive example and whatnot) And he's really ~interested~ in people. He'll ask them what they do, why they study what they study, what they think of global warming . . . weird stuff, even and he's genuinely waiting for the answer. It doesn't come across as sexual or weird, just friendly.

Ily: In my experience this is extremely rare for men.

Fellmama: EXACTLY! It is SO BIZARRE FOR A DUDE. It's like he's a trained 50s housewife. I find it surprising every. single. time. I interact with Mark, because it's just not what I expect from a man.

Ily: But it's like...I don't want to associate with people who can't or won't listen to me.

Fellmama: Agreed. And this leads back to the problem of finding men for feminist women. Do we just pretend they're listening? Or do we demand more? hooks actually phrases it that way, doesn't she . . .

Ily: Like hooks says, it's hard because we worry that if we demand more, the men will just go off and find a woman who doesn't make those demands. I saw some parallels with the asexual community actually, because women far outnumber men.

Fellmama: Ah yes, here it is: "Women are afraid to hear patriarchal men speak their thoughts and feelings when what they reveal expresses a reality vastly different from how we imagined them to be." (171)

Ily: I liked that a lot. Because a lot of time, we're led to believe that if men would just talk about their feelings, it would solve everything.

Fellmama: And so in the asexual community I'd bet there's even more pressure to conform if you find a male partner."Why do you have to be so picky? He's asexual, isn't that enough?"

Ily: Yeah. I've never heard of an asexual couple breaking up.

Fellmama: That part really resonated with me, as well. Because as a het woman in a relationship with a man, I'm simultaneously afraid of what I'd get if I saw what he was really thinking and anxious that he embrace feminism and progressivism. So it's a constant struggle between the temptation to take the lid off in hopes of growth and the weariness of having to do Feminism 101 again and again and AGAIN.

Ily: Theme of this book: No easy answers. (Isn't that the theme of every book on feminism?)

Fellmama: Guh, seriously. Someday, I'm going to publish a book called "Easy Answers"

Ily: I'd read it. (I want to make sure we have enough time to talk about the body image section, btw)

Fellmama: And the contents will just be simple math and history questions. oh oh yes very much so. anyway, body image omg I <3 bell hooks

Ily: Because I know we're both into the fat acceptance movement.

Fellmama: If for no other reason than she is all "you can't be a feminist mom and tell your daughter she looks fat, WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY"

Ily: It was interesting because she said, "Passively accepting your body isn't enough" and I was like, "Damn, I passively accept my body".

Fellmama: I think what she meant there (and again with the vague), is similar to what she said of women who "give up". Just because you've given up trying to mold yourself into patriarchal forms doesn't mean you love yourself.

Ily: Well, I agreed with her, although (again with the vague) she doesn't say how we're supposed to love our bodies in spite of all the messages to the contrary.

Fellmama: So you have to reach actively for some form of bodily love, even if that love means not shaving your legs. And furthermore I think [hooks] falls a bit into the trap many fat acceptance [FA] advocates and feminists are wallowing in which is: she talks a lot about how many women come to make peace with their bodies in midlife, but she avoids that many women come to that peace through ~sustained sexual relationships~. Speaking personally, the FA train is a lot easier to ride once you've been validated as sexually attractive, even if only once.

Ily: That is my struggle. No one is going to affirm my body, let alone affirm it in a nonsexual manner.

Fellmama: I think I've reached a point in my life where I don't need a dude to validate me. I affirm your body in a nonsexual manner! Well, I could if I were there in person.

Ily: Thanks! :) I'm smiling IRL. It's sort of like the tree falling in the forest. [ie, is my body lovable if no one ever sees it?]

Fellmama: But as I was saying, I think a lot of women in middle age get to that point and think "you know, I AM hot, lots of guys want/ed to do me."And while that is a path to self-acceptance . . . how, as you say, does someone who's asexual get to that point? Or even how does someone sexual get to that point without a lot of pain and suffering?And how do we teach children, who shouldn't BE sexualized, not to hate themselves before they even hit puberty?

Ily: I've been trying to actively love my body for 3 days now, I'll let you know how it goes.

Fellmama: My advice, if you want it? Look at yourself in the mirror, and instead of focusing immediately on your ONE HEINOUS FLAW, focus on something you wouldn't normally, like your ears or your nose. It really, really helps, me anyway. When I look at myself in the mirror, it takes an act of will not to look at my tummy blubber, but if I sort of cross my eyes and just glance back, I see what other people see, which is not the Beluga Queen of the Northern Seas, interestingly.

Ily: I read a blog comment once from a fat woman that was something like, "when I look at a photo of another fat woman, the first thing I see is her smile". For me, there is definitely some kind of gender and sexuality component tied up in my body acceptance, more so than just my appearance. It's definitely complicated.

Fellmama: Yes, I see this all the time working clothing retail. There are all sorts of rituals and hedges around our bodies,and we're supposed to propitiate the Fat Gods by performing the ritual.

Ily: I don't want to be seen as a "woman" before a "person", but I'm trying to blame sexism and not my body. What is the ritual? Like going, "Urrr, I'm so fat"?

Fellmama: Oh geez, so many to choose from: "I need a new bra--I'm having a baby!"

"I need a new bra--I just had/am nursing a baby!"

"I need a new bra--I've lost [Large Number] pounds!"

Ily: Ahhh, I getcha.

Fellmama: You can't just gain some weight, you have to have an Excuse. And if you've lost weight, you can't leave it your own damn personal business.

Ily: Is this the, "OMG I LOST 5 POUNDS!" people?

Fellmama: To give them credit, the clientele at my fat lady store laughs at the 5 pounds people. Given that most of us can lose 5 pounds by sneezing, it's not considered a "significant" weight loss. I would say that the least amount of weight I've heard bragged about is 30 pounds, but dear lord Jesus, it is SO BORING.

Ily: Yeah, that's a fair amount. It's extremely boring. In my sewing class, there are a bunch
of "midlife" women who talk about weight a lot.

Fellmama: Yes, my knitting group is the same way. Let us make a pact, you and me. When we are old, not only will we wear purple with a red hat that doesn't go, we will not talk nonstop about our weights as if that is all that mattered ever.

Ily: Yes :) I think we're already past that, go us! We cannot unsee what we have seen.

Fellmama: I bet bell hooks doesn't approve of it either. If only because I'm pretty sure she'd rather talk about love.

Ily: Ha, yeah, she would.

Fellmama: But I think a lot of feminists have made this argument: There are many more important things to talk about. Not only is diet talk boring, it distracts us from meaningful conversation, and, dare I say it, genuine human connection? I don't know about you, but when the knitting ladies go off about the diet stuff, I sit there in awkward silence.

Ily: Yes, because it immediately sets up a competition. As do I [sit there in awkward silence].

Fellmama: I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings,but I honestly don't give a shit. And furthermore, I feel attacked for refusing to conform. I don't diet, I won't diet, and while I don't care who knows it, I don't talk about it because it is BORING.

Ily: It could also be so triggering for someone with an eating disorder. And they don't know I don't have one!

Fellmama: I KNOW RIGHT "I lost ten thousand pounds on the Dr. Oz Seaweed cleanse, but you there the recovering anorexic, don't listen to me! You're beautiful as you are!"

Ily: Don't 1 in 8 women have an eating disorder? That's a lot.

Fellmama: I don't know the numbers offhand, but that certainly sounds plausible.

Ily: (Although I'm sure people, when looking at me, would think I couldn't possibly have an ED...because there is the ED= thin myth)

Fellmama: I've also heard convincing arguments that every woman in US culture has disordered eating or has engaged in it.

Ily: I could believe that.

Fellmama: To which I say, amen, because while I may not be full-blown disordered, I have DEFINITELY engaged in disordered eating. Especially as an adolescent, surprise surprise.

Ily: It seems "natural" to be a little weird about food (like, for women in our culture). So it's hard to know what is actually disordered.

Fellmama: Truth. But there's, I don't care for steak, and then there's, I don't eat red meat because it is too fattening and if I get fat no one will love me.

Ily: Yeah, intent matters.

Fellmama: And again, I've noticed it's not all right to dislike food without a ~reason~. You can't simply say "I don't eat shrimp". You have to pretend to be kosher or vegan or a recovering fisherman or some shit to get people off your back.

Ily: Tell me about it. WHY DON'T YOU EAT MEAT TELL ME NOW!

Fellmama: I was going to say, surely you, as a vegan, have some insight here.

Ily: it's just bizarre because there are a limited amount of reasons for someone to become vegan, surely educated people will know them [at least where I live--a vegan-heavy area], and yet people still insist on asking.

Fellmama: I think I would go with "I don't eat meat because my entire family was killed in a tragic cowjacking gone wrong" but again, this isn't something I face on a daily basis.

Ily: I have said that I own stock in Gardenburger.

Fellmama: Frankly, as long as someone's reason for veganism or whatever isn't "so I can be self-righteous about YOU," I don't care why.

Ily: I think some people ask because they WANT me to be self-righteous towards them, so that they can feel superior to me. FOOD IS WEIRD. But really, where do feminist men hang out? (I just had to come back to this!) How do we meet them?

Fellmama: I . . . don't, I guess?

Ily: It was funny because hooks was all, "They are out there! Just date younger men!”

Fellmama: I guess she's talking about like . . . my boyfriend.

Ily: Your boyfriend is younger?

Fellmama: No, he's just about my age ,but he'd definitely be younger than bell hooks!

Ily: bell hooks is a cougar, no way around that.

Fellmama: That is my new facebook status SO FAST. But anyway, when I go to knit night or hang out at the yarn store, I'm around a lot of middle-aged women. And I listen to them talk and a lot of their achievements are like "I got my husband to do his OWN laundry! I do my own and the kids', but he does his own!"And I'm like . . . "this is the best you can do, seriously?" TI and I do laundry together, in common.

Ily: Ahh, I see where you're going.

Fellmama: if anything, he's better about it than I am, at least in terms of the "not letting it sit in the basket for days". And like chore equality, we do roughly the same amount of housework and we cook dinner together, or take turns. And my other housemates who are a couple do this, too and so do my housemate and his girlfriend who doesn't live here, at least when it comes to stuff like cooking. So she's definitely got a point in terms of LIVED gender equality. Like, my boss at the yarn store, she stayed home with her children, the youngest of whom is fifteen.

Ily: I do feel like men our age do more around the house.

Fellmama: and when her older kid went off to college, she was like "okay, no more staying at home for me!"so they bought the yarn store and whatnot. but like, she still cooks dinner ~every~ night except for Saturdays, when she's at the store.

Ily: Second Shift, yeah.

Fellmama: And then, if she doesn't like put it in the crockpot, she won't have dinner at home. Yes, very much so. And in a way it's more than second shift, it's a fundamental difference in worldview. In TI's worldview, if I'm working all day and he happens to be home, he should feed me, whereas if I'm at home, I should feed him. I honestly don't think gender enters his mind there at all.

Ily: That's probably an improvement over most men bell hooks' age.

Fellmama: Definitely. My dad only learned to cook out of self-defense when my mom went back to work (although you will note, he actually did it, and did it well, rather than whining or eating out every night). TI cooks very well, and he knows how to clean stuff, and, most importantly to my mind, he doesn't view it as ~someone else's JOB~ to do these things for him.

Ily: Good!

Fellmama: So I see a lot of hope there. And something that makes me even more hopeful is that we never actually had to discuss anyof this. We naturally fell into a pattern that more or less works and actually IS egalitarian, it didn't have to be negotiated or anything.

Ily: I wonder how common that is.

Fellmama: I'm not sure, I should conduct a survey. At any rate, anything else to say about bell hooks?

Ily: Not much, although I think a lot of what she says about "powerful women" is just a response to whatever people have said about her personally over the years.

Fellmama: I agree to a certain extent. I will say, though, I felt like I got a lot more personal pushback as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated discipline (classics) than I do as a woman working retail. So part of it might simply be that as I'm already viewed as powerless on a class/gender basis, and in a job where everyone else is a woman anyway, I'm not seeing the kind of abuse hooks is talking about.

Ily: I guess I feel like there aren't really that many powerful women out there.

Fellmama: That's true as well, although look at the horrific stuff women perceived as powerful are subjected to. Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Angelina Jolie.

Ily: Well, maybe that [my comment that there are few powerful women] isn't so. It's hard to really know what "powerful" means in this context.

Fellmama: That is a very good point. "Powerful" in terms of sexual agency? In terms of politics? Or just "powerful" in terms of "not willing to be pushed around"?

Ily: Sorry, person hassling me...I am sitting in "her chair"[in the public library].

Fellmama: Oh dear, well, you must move at ONCE or the aliens will probably reduce you to cinders.

Ily: Yeah, I tried to ignore her and she moved to the other side of the room.

[At this point, the conversation wandered apace from bell hooks.]

Mr. Masochistic

Mary's Feminist Book Project inspired me to take a look at Flux by Peggy Orenstein. In that book, there were profiles of educated, successful women who were horrified by the prospect of being 40 and single. However, based on their life choices so far, it seemed to me that they were headed squarely towards the fate they wanted so badly to avoid. Their sheer terror at being 40 and single, coupled with the fact that a number of these women had had chances to marry, made me wonder...Is a glorified "Mr. Right" just another impossible ideal designed to frustrate and distract women, like being a size 2 or having perfect hair? (See The Beauty Myth for more details.) Women expect to marry these difficult-to-find men (nurturing and sensitive, yet ambitious and assertive), however we are terrified of being single. We are put in a position where we cannot win, and where we are pressured to spend vast amounts of time and energy in pursuit of this elusive ideal.

Another form of self-torture illustrated by Flux is "The Perfect Mother". Whatever a woman does for her children, it is never seen as enough--to the people in her life, to society, and to herself. Contrast that to her husband, who is praised as an "involved father" just for helping out with the kids once in a while. Even in couples who share the parenting equally, women still bear the vast majority of the judgments, expectations, and if something goes wrong, the blame. The women interviewed in Flux claimed to have no time or energy for self-awareness until they were in their 40's (!). Like the Beauty Myth or Mr. Right, women are so overburdened by being Perfect Mothers that they can lose their sense of self in the process. For eons, women were solely defined by their relationships to men and children. But in our current culture, where women have more choices but can never make the "right choice" (Stay home with your children, but have a career!) it can feel like we've just replaced one prison with another.

Yes, Flux is kind of depressing. However, the author didn't include interviews with anyone who didn't prove her thesis. I feel lucky to know a number of people who have rejected society's standards for what men and women "should" be. As time goes on, will they become the norm or remain the exception? Right now, giving up the quest for Mr. Right is a radical choice. But people are starting to make it, so maybe that speaks well for a future of more real options. What remains crucial is that people making these "radical" choices actually discuss them, so people will know that the option exists.

"Pre-Gay Patterns"

How many great stories have started out with, "So I was reading this amazing book about heroin addicts..."

Okay, not many. The book, Righteous Dopefiends, is remarkable, though. Two anthropologists spent twelve years with a group of homeless heroin addicts living under a freeway in San Francisco. It's an easy group to vilify (the government of San Francisco has certainly done it enough), but the book really shows you these people's humanity and the complex web of factors that led them to their lifestyle. It's very eye-opening. In a chapter called "Male Love", there's a short section about the seemingly contradictory sexual identity of some of these "dopefiends". Some of the men are involved in homoromantic or homosexual relationships, but they remain openly homophobic and retain their identity as heterosexuals.

(Before sharing a quote from the book, I have to explain the word "lumpen". This is the authors' re-imagining of a term from Marx, "lumpen proletariat", referring to the most marginalized people in society.)

Historians have argued that gay identity in the United States emerged after World War II. Formerly, men who had sex with one another might maintain a fully masculine social identity (Chauncey 1994). In fact, sex between men was relatively common in the largely all-male communities of the marginal lumpenized working class. (Phillipe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg, 214)

And

In the 2000s, these same "pre-gay" patterns persisted. Lumpen and poor working-class men might, under certain conditions, have sex and fall in love with one another without altering their masculine self-conception. They could even remain aggressively homophobic. Sex between men who do not self-identify as gay or bisexual has been well documented in a range of contemporary lumpen settings [prisons, sex worker strolls, and transient labor camps are given as examples]...Although it is frequently described, this form of masculine sexuality remains undertheorized, and it is not generally analyzed as a class-based phenomenon. (214)

The authors also mention that "class dynamics have been, for the most part, absent from [queer theory literature]." (215)

I tried to talk about asexuality and class here, but it was a pretty awkward analysis, with my attempts to discuss both race and class at the same time. In Righteous Dopefiend, the authors sleep outside with the homeless, having an experience of class that's very different from their own. I would guess that such things are rare. The truth seems to be that for some truly "lumpen" groups, the concept of sexuality as we know it today is largely irrelevant. I think that's definitely an idea worth noting; we often talk about something like sexual orientation being universal in scope. But little, if anything, really is.

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

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

(I'm not sure where I'm going with this, aside from pointing out that it helps to demonstrate the futility of viewing autistic people as somehow apart from "us", whoever that is.) Newland and I share some of these traits, but also long for change (kind of like my theory of the Anglophile). Although I can pass as neurotypical, sometimes I feel like the stereotypical autistic, trapped inside my own mind. But isn't that where Newland was also trapped, more than just within his society? While he seems capable of imagining some sort of life outside his little world, he has no idea how to enact such a life, apart from strangely dramatic and sudden measures.

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]

Singled Out (it's a book review, yo)

Some people call Valentine's Day "Singles Awareness Day". I prefer to view it as a day to worship almighty Chocolate. However you celebrate (or don't), you should read this awesome post that Lanafactrix showed me. I love the title: Living Single, and was glad to see that the writer doesn't like the term "single", either.

And now, a related book review where I'll be forced to use the word many times.

I'll be honest...I picked up Singled Out due to a sense of obligation. I was expecting it to be full of "well, DUH" information, and to therefore be boring. Luckily, I was wrong on both counts. It ended up being a fairly absorbing read, and author Bella De Paulo has a sense of humor. For example: "Still, compared with women, men get a break. They can turn on Monday Night Football in full confidence that the game will not end with a wedding (16)". (I'm sure plenty of women watch football, and maybe that's exactly one of the reasons.)

In terms of new information, I was glad to learn more about the experiences of single men. Apparently, they get paid less than married men for doing the same work. The "breadwinner bonus" still applies, even though so many women work. Common stereotypes were also explored. To me, one of the more interesting ones is the idea that men need to be "civilized" by marriage. This manages to be insulting to men and women alike: To men, because it assumes that if they're single, they're just sitting around eating pizza all day. And to women, because it assumes that rather than partners, we're just looking for DIY projects.

Additionally, I'd always assumed that most single people were "looking", and I was an exception. Not so. According to a 2005 survey, 55% of single people were not looking. Another good point from the book: Why aren't single parents just called "parents"? Married parents aren't referred to as "married parents". If the name is a holdover from days when single parents were unusual, then it's definitely out of date now.

Unless you're Betty Friedan, it's hard to talk about a problem that has no name. One helpful thing about Singled Out is that it introduces the term "singlism". While not as dangerous as sexism or racism, De Paulo still shows how single people can face discrimination in terms of health care, wages, and obtaining housing. After reading this book, I immediately identified some singlism on a TV show I watched that night, which I doubt I would have recognized before. It is indeed insidious. And, finally, I would call the book ace-friendly: "Apparently, there is little room in the mythology of singlehood for women who are getting exactly the amount and kind of sex they desire-- including, for some single women, no sex at all (147)".

Things Asexuals Like: Long-Distance Relationships

Damn flu season, messing with my blogging. The viruses have whisked away my inhibitions, leading me to admit that I've read both of the "Stuff White People Like" books. I thought the second one, Whiter Shades of Pale, was funnier. At any rate, in that book, Christian Lander writes that white people like long-distance relationships. He calls LDRs "extremely slow breakups" and writes that "an incredible 1oo percent" of LDRs have failed. This, of course, is not the case for asexuals.

The main reason why asexuals like LDRs is a practical one-- if you're asexual and want to date another ace, finding such a person in your general vicinity is very difficult. So, why not expand your search criteria to include "the world"? Last time I was on Acebook, I believe there were only one or two people in my entire state who were interested in women. And we're not talking Rhode Island here. Once the LDR has begun, it's probably easier for two asexuals to maintain it, since there is less concern about cheating and with people getting their sexual needs met.

Apparently, the viruses also cause me to state the obvious.

While I've never been in a romantic LDR, I have many long-distance friends. I value and care about these friends, and don't want our relationship to die just because of distance. But, there are some particular issues to the long-distance friendship. Like with friends, there's no standard for frequency of communication. While I don't want to impose on people by talking to them too frequently, I also don't want people to think I've forgotten them. And, unlike romantic LDRs, where you are probably planning to live in the same place at some point, you may never live in the same place as your platonic LDRs. In these days of increased mobility, most people seem to have long-distance family as well. But for some, of course, that might be exactly how they like it.

White Blackbirds: Reviewed

So I got the White Blackbirds zine (about "women who aren't married and don't want to be"), and it was really cool. One thing that surprised me was that most of the women profiled were in romantic relationships, or had even been married in the past. I know that being in a romantic relationship isn't the same as marriage. However, if you're been with someone for a long time and live together, certain aspects can become similar. So most people in the zine aren't talking about the everyday experience of marriage, but its legal/religious/social connotations on a broader scale. Katie, the zine's editor, wrote in her introduction that unmarried women, in her opinion, need role models (one of hers is Morrissey!). And I definitely agree with that.

The interview I could relate to the most was with Hannah, age 21, from the UK. She talked about Boston marriages and when asked what she was passionate about, had this to say:

Creating community and community feeling-- it's become a cliche to say, but it's true: there's a lot of distance in modern life. We've never been so connected via e-mail, phone, the internet and on and on and on, but the biggest malaise of our time seems to be how we feel isolated from everyone. Community isn't automatically there because of family, heritage and roots anymore. It has to be built and worked on and thought about, and people are busy and absorbed in their lives- which have a gap. Generally a community-shaped gap. Whether it's a community of people who happen to share the same sexual orientation, religious beliefs, political beliefs or an interest in baking, gardening, or BDSM, that sense of community is important to our lives.

A lot of other people made interesting comments as well, like one woman, Nine, who observed that "...I don't think men get quizzed quite so much about whether they want kids, and if they don't want them, I don't think they're so likely to get that patronizing smile and 'You'll change your mind, once your biological clock starts ticking...'". There was another interviewee, Ciara, who got "Spinster" tattooed on her knuckles to "remind myself to continue to be critical of traditional romantic myths. i feel that these concepts are especially damaging to women, encouraging us to postpone other significant parts of our lives for love and romance." I thought that was a pretty badass tattoo idea, however, I decided to take my cue from Queen Christina:

Although with these Paint skills, I agree, it's astounding that I could still be single.

Apparently, there was so much interest in the zine that there's going to be another volume. I'm going to be in it! Which is pretty exciting. Doing my interview brought up some thoughts that I'd actually never considered before. For awhile, I've had a vague suspicion that marriage may not be "for me", however, no one had ever asked me to articulate why this was, until now.

Representation (Now with Extra Flibanserin!)

I recently finished the book No Logo by Naomi Klein. I highly recommend it-- not only is it about an important topic, but Klein has an absorbing, conversational style of writing that actually made me laugh out loud a few times. In one chapter, Klein talks about her days of involvement in the "identity politics" movement of the 1990s. As I read that part, I couldn't help but think that there were potential lessons in her story, somewhere, for the asexual community.

Basically, at some point in the late '80s, people in Klein's social and academic circles, and folks in similar ones, all started to become preoccupied with the idea of "representation" in the media and advertising. Rightfully, people were sick of looking at advertising, which was increasingly dominating their landscape, and seeing no one that looked like them. So they pushed for the inclusion of women, queer people, and people of color. Not just onto college reading lists, but into the commercials and billboards of the time. And they got exactly what they wanted. This ad for Diesel jeans, featuring two male sailors kissing, was shown in No Logo as an example of their "victory":


In the end, corporations and their billion-dollar marketing budgets didn't see identity politics as a movement that threatened their supremacy as cultural arbiters. Rather, they saw these activists as one more source of "cool" to be mined, like the hip-hop or grunge scene. Suddenly, even the most staid brands were being told that "diversity" is what sells, so "diversity" is what they started to deliver, en masse. Looking back at her past efforts, Klein wondered what had really been accomplished. Seeing legitimate social movements re-packaged and sold back to the people (ie, feminism --> "Girl Power!") didn't seem like such a big victory after all.

Klein went further, describing later examples of corporate co-option of the very figures that fight against them. In one ill-fated plan for an ad campaign, Nike approached Ralph Nader, asking him to be in one of their sneaker commercials; Nader would hold up a shoe and say "Another shameless attempt by Nike to sell shoes" (302). (He declined.) I couldn't help but think that a weirdly visionary adperson could easily use asexuals to sell products to a populace that is sick of sex being used to sell everything. Obviously, that's a very far-fetched scenario, but then again, I never would have thought that Nike would approach Nader to sell their shoes.

Asexuals talk a lot about representation, although not usually in those exact words. But let's not reinvent the wheel here. I think there are pros and cons to a lack of asexual representation. I'm pretty sure we all know the cons by now. But as to the pros, at least our identity remains uncommercialized, for now. It isn't being used to sell anyone anything. Without representation, we're more free to create our own identities, which I think is an amazing opportunity. And it's all the more so, if it may not last.

If you'll bear with me a little longer, I'll try to relate this to the proposed drug Flibanserin, covered here and here. I don't have anything new to say about the drug itself, but maybe I can speak to the multi-million dollar marketing campaign that would no doubt follow it, focusing on telling women in emotionally fraught situations how bad their lack of sexual desire is*. My first impression of this possibility wasn't a good one, but it could actually have a bright side. Maybe opposing these advertisements could give asexuals the visibility that being asexual alone has not yet gained us.

In the identity politics chapter of No Logo, there is this quote: "...Daniel Mendelsohn has written that gay identity has dwindled into 'basically, a set of product choices...At least culturally speaking, oppression may have been the best thing that could have happened to gay culture. Without it, we're nothing" (114). While Klein says that "The nostalgia, of course, is absurd" I think that Mendelsohn brings up an interesting point. While I don't want asexuals to be oppressed more-- that would indeed be ridiculous-- if we are oppressed in the future, by no fault of our own, it may not be all bad. Yes, it will be bad, but there might be ways to draw something positive from it. As you probably know, I'm not often quite this optimistic, so again, best to enjoy it while it lasts. *wink*

[*Do any other Americans find our constant advertising for hospitals, drugs, and medical procedures a little odd, at best? Especially considering a great number of people don't have enough money to make those choices?]

"The Basic Daily Obstacle Course"

The whole book is well-written, but I really liked this passage in particular from "Rose of No-Man's Land", a novel by Michelle Tea. The narrator is Trisha, a 14-year-old girl living in a small town:

The television was on, always on, always turned to talk shows or news, something real, no chipper family sitcoms or emergency room dramas, only the real dramas of real living, everything going wrong all the time, everywhere. And yet I see very little on TV about how creepy men are in the streets or about the basic daily obstacle course a female is forced to run through. About how you can be walking along absolutely not thinking about your pussy your ass your tits, but then, wham, thanks to the drooly curbside dude, now you are. Now your mind is consumed with the idea, the reality of your pussy, ass, tits; the possibility of blow jobs, of getting fucked. I wish more attention would be paid to this phenomenon. That there would be long-term psychological studies on the mental effects of this, the changes in brain waves it produces in girl-brains. I can go days without leaving my room and never think of my boobs once. Then I leave the house and it's all anyone wants to talk about (155, emphasis is the author's).

Well I'll pay it some attention. Right now, I live in the 'burbs, where people pretty much leave you alone unless you get too close to their lawns or Suburban assaUlt Vehicles. But it was interesting that I was visiting a small town, probably one that's similar to the one Trisha lives in, while reading "Rose of No-Man's Land". While a friend and I were walking down the street, we heard some guys yell at us from their car. What they were saying was completely inarticulate; I couldn't make out any words. Even so, I was surprised how unsafe it made me feel. I think Trisha was right to wonder what these little incidents can add up to when they happen to you frequently.

Men can get harassed on the street, too. But it usually isn't just because they're men who deigned to leave their homes. And the big city is not immune from random harassment, either. There's an organization, Holla Back NYC, that encourages people to take pictures of street harassers. A lot of the stories on that site are really shocking, and would make comments about "tits" seem tame in comparison. The idea that anyone would find men shaking their penises at random women in public (as in one Holla Back story) to be "just part of city life" seems a comment on how far feminism still has to go. We're still living with the idea that a woman is public property-- that anything can be said to us, at any time, much like someone would make a casual comment on a piece of public sculpture. Our sexuality in particular is fair game, and that's one reason people can react with such hostility to female asexuals. (People can react negatively to male aces too, but for other reasons.) While I think the vast majority of men have gotten the memo that unwanted advances are not okay, there seem to be a problematic number of holdouts.

If you want more reading on the topic, "A Guy's Guide to Approaching Strange Women Without Being Maced" is a very awesome post for all genders to read. There are also various tips out there directed at men on "Ending a Street Harassment Incident".

Aces in Fiction: Animythical Tales

This is an exciting post, but first, a little background: Last year, I wrote about "unnamed" asexuals in fiction. The basic idea was that "... it's still realistic for an asexual person to have never met another ace, and to not know that there is a word describing their sexuality that is in use for other people. If writers want to be realistic, the unnamed asexual is much closer to the truth than the 'out' asexual." However, that's not always an easy description to write. I didn't expect to get an e-mail from a reader saying, "I wrote a book like that, and it just got published"! Would I want to read it? Uh, hells yeah!

Animythical Tales is the book, which is a collection of 10 short stories in the fantasy or speculative fiction genre. Its writer, Sarah Totton, who is ace, told me that "...most (but not all) of [the stories] deal with asexual characters or themes. I'm thinking that other asexuals would 'get' what I was talking about when I wrote those stories in ways that a sexual reader might not..." I actually don't think I've ever read a short story in fantasy before, and I was impressed by the amount of invention that had to be condensed into a few pages.

So speculative fiction I am far from familiar with, but asexual characters...yeah, I'm a nerd. There were two stories that had obviously asexual characters, Henry in "Bluecoat Jack" and Bellan in "The Bone Fisher's Apprentice". How is this described, you may ask? In the latter story, the Bone Fisher is able to glance into Bellan's dreams and see that "there was simply no desire of that type for men or women in this man at all. And yet he was neither innocent nor damaged (93)." I liked the Bone Fisher's response to this "unusual" man: "He did not understand Bellan, but he was intrigued enough to let him sleep, at least another night, perhaps longer, so that he could study him". Henry seemed more distressed about his asexuality: "You don't know what you are. If it even has a name" (55), he says, after recounting his frustrating experiences with both women and men. Usually, real-life asexuals tend to shout about how passionately we nonsexually love things, just so people don't get the wrong idea. These characters are a lot more enigmatic than that.

Up until now, I've read a few vaguely asexy novels-- what asexual hasn't? But now that I have 10 self-contained, ostensibly asexual stories in my hands, I notice patterns emerging. I'd had no idea how much, as a reader, I'd relied upon, and expected, sex and sexualized romance to move a story along. The first time I ever noticed this was while watching the HBO series "In Treatment". It was very slow and plotless at times (yeah, yeah, my kinda thing), so when I saw that two characters had a growing attraction to each other, I was practically yelling at the screen, "Just hook up already!".

Because as we've explored, sex and romance serve as shorthands. No matter how random a story is, sex acts as an anchor of sorts and makes you think something meaningful is occurring. Whoever made "In Treatment" knew that holding off on what we expected to see would keep us interested (okay, that and Gabriel Byrne's voice). Animythical Tales is similarly challenging. The characters don't act how you might expect them to, which I think is a good thing. Without some of the typical signposts, I never quite knew where the stories were headed, so I wanted to keep reading to find out.

The Lonely Crowd, Second Half

While I don't know if anyone's chomping at the bit to hear about the second part of The Lonely Crowd, it's sad to have, well, a lonely First Half without a Second Half. I'd recommend the book, although I think that you can stop reading in good conscience after the first section.

The Lonely Crowd has 3 parts: "Character", "Politics", and "Autonomy". While David Riesman captured my attention in "Character", he lost it in "Politics" and then had a hard time getting it back for "Autonomy". Autonomy is what you might expect-- a desirable state where you can form your own opinions, and in some way separate yourself from the dominant mode of conformity. Go figure that this is the shortest chapter-- Riesman admits that developing autonomy can be extremely difficult, and he only gives a few suggestions. Among these are making the workplace "less strenuous emotionally" (gee, does that sound familiar?), letting "avocational counselors" help us direct our leisure time, and letting children develop individualized interests by creating free "stores" for kids stocked with hobby materials. But my favorite suggestion of Riesman's is one to bring back utopian thinking. I believe that as children, we're all utopian thinkers. But somewhere along the way, a lot of us lose that ability. Riesman writes:

However, since we live in a time of disenchantment, such thinking, where it is rational in aim and method and not simply escapism, is not easy. It is easier to concentrate on programs for choosing among lesser evils...Both rich and poor avoid any goals, personal or social, that seem out of step with peer-group aspirations. (305)

Although the book, sadly, seems outdated in parts, the statement about "lesser evils" sounds like it could have been written today. Sometimes I try to visualize the world or life I want to see or have, but I tend to step back mentally because it's too overwhelming or seems impossible. Utopian thinking is intimidating, although if I allowed myself to do it more, maybe I'd be able to get a better idea of where in life I should put my efforts. Riesman would say I've been constrained by "other-direction" without even realizing it. Maybe it's important to know how and why we conform before we can start on the project of realizing our autonomy.