Sex-Pozzie.

Recently I've been criticized by other feminists for being a "sex-pozzie"--a sex-positive feminist, someone who believes that unraveling our culture's sexual repression is a key part of fighting women's oppression.  On this MetaFilter thread, for instance, there's quite a few accusations that I'm "pointing out that she loves trotting merrily back into the kitchen and that being in the kitchen is what feminism is all about."  Or in this article I was linked yesterday, which is positively dripping with disdain for women who appeal sexually to men, and full of conflation between women whose "sexy" pictures are being used without their consent and women who are intentionally presenting themselves as sexy.

This hearkens back to those "Twisty Faster Is Fucking Insane" posts I did, and I admit, if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't have called them that. "Fucking insane" is ableist language; Twisty Faster and similar-minded feminists who look down upon "sex-pozzies" are merely obnoxious, elitist, sexist, and counterproductive.

Here are some of my dogs in this fight:

Most critics of sex-positive feminism have not bothered to figure out what sex-positivity is.
It's not the giggling, hair-twirling exclamation of "it's feminist to be sexayyy!"  It's really not.  I'm not going to defend that strawman.  (I also think it's funny how often I get accused of being a Hooters-girl-bot, when I'm about the least Hooters-looking-person ever.)

This is what a sex-pozzie
funfeminist looks like!

Nor is it the demand that everyone be sexy or have sex.  Nor is it the claim that everything that involves sex is beyond criticism.  Nor is it the suggestion that sex will fix all the problems of feminism.

Instead, sex-positivity is the belief that sex and sexiness are... okay.  It's the belief that people shouldn't be judged by the sex they have.  It's the belief that consent matters and social norms do not.  It's the belief that porn and erotica are valid media of expression (not that the current porn industry is hunky-dory, cause it's not) and that sex work ought to be just work (not that it currently is).  It's the belief that neither "slut" nor "prude" should be an insult.  It's the belief that every sexual and gender identity is valid.

Sex-positivity is, in a nutshell, the belief in sexual freedom as a key component of women's freedom and of having a better world in general.

If you want to argue with that belief, we can talk.  But if you want to argue with "everyone should be a Hooters girl because showing men your boobies is like totally the most feministical choice!" you're not really arguing with me.  I just think that I'm in no position to judge Hooters girls or assume that they're dimwits, sexists, or helpless victims because of what they do for a living.

Criticism of sex-positive feminism is often sexist.
A lot of criticism of sex-positive feminism is really criticism of sexy women.  It's hard to find a piece that isn't dripping with disgusted descriptions of women who wear high heels and shave their legs and then they giggle and they act all flirty and give blowjobs, oh my God.  And it's hard for me to see the difference between this and plain old slut-shaming.  It always seems undercut with the implication that sexy women aren't just unfeminist, they're icky.

If you treat sexy women with disgust and pity, you're not protecting their rights; you're just gleefully participating in their public humiliation.  (You're also often attacking them on a subject that's highly intertwined with culture, class, age, and even body shape. Not everyone who looks "sexy" to you is doing it on purpose, much less doing it to serve the patriarchy.)

And you're falling into the old sexist trap of judging women by their sexuality.  A woman being sexy doesn't make women part of "the sex class"; refusing to see a woman as a powerful individual because she's sexy absolutely does.  It says that her sexiness speaks louder than her actual voice, that who she is sexually tells you everything you need to know about who she is as a person.  It's hard to get more sexist than that.  At least Playboy publishes little interview blurbs with their sex objects.

This criticism goes beyond mere criticism, and into denying sex-positive feminists' agency.
If you tell me that I'm wrong, I can talk to you. I'll probably use bad words and too many italics, but I'll talk to you. We disagree.  But if you tell me that I don't really think what I'm saying, that the words coming out of my mouth aren't mine, how the fuck do I answer that?

Here's a bit from the XOJane article:

So you should go ahead and do things that are patriarchy-approved, if you want to. Buy new nail polish! Care about celebrities! Have a giant wedding! Wear a thong in your hair! Put your picture on the Internet! Look good according to particular patriarchal ideas of what looks good! Be flattered when men wolf whistle at you, literally or metaphorically! Whatever aspects of being a “Hot Chick” work for you, enjoy them. Maybe except the hair thong. But don’t fool yourself that you’re doing so of your own unconstrained free will.

That's right; women who are sexy are victims of mind control. You can tell by looking at them.  There's no way a woman can choose to wear nail polish or care about celebrities.  I know I've been harsh on femininity myself at times (mostly I'm just harsh at the idea of me being feminine), but this goes beyond criticism of femininity.  This is a claim that femininity is a symptom of Borg assimilation.

(Even worse than the Borg claim is the claim that feminine women are deliberately sucking up to men to get cookies from their oppressors.  Ugh.)

It's also, implicitly, a claim that women who reject femininity aren't influenced by patriarchy, which is even more unfortunate.  You don't break free from our entire social system and all the behaviors and preconceptions that come with it just by growing out your armpit hair.  If we are all blinded by the culture we live in and the privileges we have, then it's the height of arrogance to claim that you're so enlightened you've risen above all that.  If women don't have full agency in the patriarchy, where the fuck do you get off claiming that you do?

Sex still matters.
So these are all reasons that people who think it's okay to call me a stupid cock-sucking bimbo under the guise of "feminism" are poopyheads.  But what's my reason for remaining a cock-sucking bimbo?  Why do I think sexual freedom is important to feminism?

Well, for the long answer, see this entire blog.  But for the short answer: because it's impossible for women to be accepted as human beings if we aren't accepted as sexual beings.  If women's dignity is contingent on our not being too sexy, we're never going to have dignity.  We have to accustom ourselves to the idea that someone can be highly sexual, publicly sexual, sexual in a way that we would totally never do ourselves because whoa... and still have dignity.

If there's a secret motive to my making my sexuality public, it's that I want to show someone can be sexual and also other things.  I want to show that I can be sexual and also funny and interesting; I want to show that I can be sexual and also ornery and argumentative; I want to show that I can be sexual and also save lives and get colds and play with guinea pigs.

Finally, part of making life better is about making sex better.  I don't just talk about sex to say "HEY EVERYBODY I'M INTO SEX"; I talk about it in terms of promoting enthusiastic consent, promoting body acceptance, promoting the idea of finding out and coming to terms with your own sexual desires.  I think having the sex life that's right for you is an important part of being a self-actualized person.  And I'm not going to avoid these discussions just because someone might think they're titillating.



And beyond finally, I do like sex.  I do think about sex a lot.  That's not a political position; it's hormones or something.  It's who I am and I'm not going to hide it.



...Wow, that got long and preachy.  Next post is about buttsex.

Ten shades of "false rape accusations."

[TRIGGER WARNING for rape and post-rape legal/social mess]

There's a lot of talk out there about "false rape accusations," which tends to come up in every discussion of a rape that did not involve a virgin in a prairie dress screaming "NOOOO" while being beaten on videotape in front of thirty-eight witnesses who were all members of the clergy and decorated war heroes.  The statistics on how many rape accusations are false range from above 40% to under 2%, and (as is usually the case) which number someone chooses to use in their argument tells you more than the number itself.

In the middle of this mess, of hearing that Julian Assange and Dominique Strauss-Kahn and whoever the fuck it is this week are victims of our Giant National Epidemic Of False Rape Accusations, I want to offer a point of clarification.  When someone says "false rape accusation," it can mean any of the following scenarios.

1. Alice goes to the police and falsely accuses Bob of raping her. Bob is arrested, tried, and convicted.
This one's the boogeyman.  And for good cause; it is horrible.  I'm sure it has happened.  Unfortunately, by its nature we can almost never know when it's happened--which should make you very suspicious of someone who claims it happens constantly.  A handful of people have been cleared by new evidence, but only a handful--nowhere near a significant proportion of the people in prison for rape.  Obviously there are people who are innocent and we don't know it, but you can't get statistics on a thing nobody knows.

Therefore, when people talk about the prevalence of "false rape accusations," it never ends there.  Here's some other things that phrase can mean:

2. Alice goes to the police and falsely accuses Bob of raping her. Bob is arrested but the charges are dropped.
3. Alice goes to the police and falsely accuses Bob of raping her. Bob is arrested, tried, and acquitted.
In these cases, the justice system is working exactly as it should. An innocent person is found to be innocent, and the horrifying possibility of a man thrown away for a crime he didn't commit is averted.  If there's an epidemic of these, then there's also an epidemic of them being appropriately dealt with.

Does Bob's good name get besmirched anyway?  Sometimes it does, and that sucks.  But it's no excuse for not taking rape accusations seriously--you don't know they're false until after they're investigated.

4. Alice does not go to the police, but falsely tells all her friends that Bob raped her.
This is the only one that's happened to anyone I know.  Again, it sucks and it really can fuck up Bob's life.  But since it doesn't involve the legal system in the first place, changes to rape law would do nothing to prevent this.  This is slander, but it's not exactly an "accusation."

5. Alice falsely tells the police that someone raped her, but does not name names.
6. Alice falsely tells all her friends that someone raped her, but does not name names.
It's fucked up, but it's a victimless fucked up.  Believing Alice wastes police time and friend sympathy, but no one is seriously harmed.  A lot of cases touted in the media as "false rape reports" are actually Type 5, and while that's a wrong thing to do, it's definitely not "innocent man thrown in prison as a rapist" wrong.

7. Chuck rapes Alice. Alice tells the police that Bob raped her.
This is usually an innocent mistake, and often one that has more to do with bad police work than with Alice being dishonest.  And Alice really was raped, so any solution to this problem that comes down to "just ignore her" is inappropriate.

Note that this is the case in almost every situation where someone was cleared by DNA evidence.  If there was DNA to test, then it's very likely that someone raped Alice, and calling her a "false rape accuser" is wrong.

8. Alice and Bob have sex that Bob thinks is consensual. Alice does not. Alice accuses Bob of rape.
I think a surprising proportion of rapists are in such severe denial about what it means to have sex with a deeply drugged person, or a person who said "no" until they were cornered and held by their wrists and then they said "yes," that they honestly believe they're victims of false accusal.  All they did was have sex with someone who didn't want it, and here they are, being falsely accused of rape!  The injustice!

9. Bob rapes Alice. Alice goes to the police and Bob is arrested, but the charges are dropped or he is acquitted.
When you see the wildly huge statistics claiming 40% or more of rape accusations are false, this is almost always what they mean--40% or more of rape accusations are not proven true. However, if you think that means they were proven untrue... um, I don't have a witty simile here but you're wrong.  Guilty people are released all the time and sometimes for terrible reasons.

10. Bob rapes Alice. Alice goes to the police and Bob is arrested, proven guilty, and convicted. But some people still think Bob is innocent.
And this is where all this talk of false rape accusations ends up.  It ends in a place where rape can never be discussed, under any circumstances, even in the most clear-cut cases, without people crying "false rape accusations are everywhere!"  It ends with "innocent until proven guilty"reinterpreted as "the accuser is guilty until proven innocent."  It ends with "a court of law should not convict on this evidence" being confused with "we should not show the victim any sympathy on this evidence."

Ultimately, all too often, it ends with a huge number of rapes going unreported, because sometimes it's easier for a survivor to live with the knowledge that their rapist is free than it is for them to go through years of being under constant suspicion of being an evil false accuser.  It ends with misogyny justifying and reinforcing itself, as the concept "women lie about rape" becomes both proof of and proven by "women are untrustworthy, manipulative, and malicious."  It ends with rapists who tell their victims "no one will ever believe you" being right, with society standing behind them.

Every time we reinforce the common wisdom that "women lie about rape all the time," rape gets a little easier to commit.


Do I have an awesome, pat solution for this whole mess, an idea that would totally fix our judicial system and society to ensure justice for all?  Fuck no!  I'm not Professor Fucking X. Nothing short of psychic powers will ensure that the guilty are always punished and the innocent never are.

But I do have this to say: if someone tells you they've been raped, and you are not acting in official capacity as a judge or juror, just go ahead and believe them.  The odds they're lying are a pretty small minority, and the odds they're lying in a way that hurts someone are even smaller.  Just go ahead and take that risk.

I'd rather live in a world where a hundred false accusers are told* "I believe you, I care about you, and I'll stand up for you," than where one rape survivor is told "gosh, this story has two sides and I really need to consider him innocent until proven guilty."


*not in court, but by their friends, families, and people who figure they have a right to comment because they read about it on the Internet and everything

Four years!

Today is my fourth bloggiversary! That's 1264 posts spanning across 5 homes, 4 relationships, 3 jobs, a move across the country, and a massive refocus from "my vagina: let me tell you about it" to "my vagina: it is a tool for liberation." Also, 43 issues of Cosmo.

I'm looking back at my archives from the very beginning, and it strikes me, to the point of cringing, just how much I've changed. Changing minds is something I wonder about a lot--sometimes I worry it can't be done at all, that people who are now assholes will be forever assholes.

So it's good to see that I used to be an asshole. Not a complete one, but I used to be a very different person, and I learned and changed. There was no one moment where someone said something to me that made me go "holy shit, I've been wrong all along, and I must change everything!" Instead, it was water dripping on a stone; over time, though I often looked very resistant, I was changing bit by little bit until I'm so different I don't feel like the early entries are my own voice any more. (And not just because I used to throw out "lame, retarded, crazy" insults like they were candy. Sorry about that.)



I mean, look at this asshole:
I feel like sexuality has no legitimacy unless you're hot. If you're hot it's sexy, if you're ugly it's just ridiculous.
Sure, she admits that she's voicing her own insecurities, but those insecurities are leaking out into judgement of everybody on some completely unspoken beauty standard, and people who don't meet that... aren't allowed to be sexual? Christ, past-Holly.

Or, oh jeez, what was she thinking?
There's a well-known sex/BDSM club with a relatively low skeeve factor in town and I've visited a couple times. I suppose I should join but I just never make the commitment. Partly because the median age is kind of "hi there, dad," but partly because I don't want a community. I like being a little furtive, a little unhealthy, a little freaky. Nothing ruins the illusion of being an outlaw like going to a "spanking enthusiasts social."
Not only is she being incredibly snobby about age (and not even correct about the demographics, as it turns out), but she's so dedicated to feeling like an "outlaw" that she won't deign to talk to her own community and get actual friends and allies who understand what she's doing. Is her little fantasy really more important than learning anything or connecting to anybody? Cripes.

And then there's this post where she really gets going:
Call me a rich white het cis privilegebunny, but I don't feel very oppressed. Sometimes insulted, sometimes worried, sometimes concerned for the oppression of people in other places, but in my own life I just don't feel the boot on my neck. At work, at school, socially, nobody acts like I'm less than human or tries to enforce the Patriarchy on me directly. For me, in my daily life, I don't feel like being female is difficult or painful.
I still have my issues with the concept of "privilege," but I don't just disdainfully make fun of it and then deny that there's any oppression of women as well. I mean, we've got the vote and everything, right? What more could you need once they let you vote?

Overall, though, there's less in the old entries that's "asshole," and more that's just "ouch":
Sometimes I think that if I were strong enough to say "I'm not seeing you unless you treat me well, and I'm not fucking you unless you treat me like a goddamn princess," my relationships would go a lot better. But the problem is that I'm so damn happy to be seeing/fucking the guys at all, I can't stand to withhold it for any reason.
It's incredibly clear that she knew from the beginning that Benny was treating her horribly. I thought there was a "honeymoon," some sort of time when the relationship was going well, but there really wasn't. The first entries about him make it clear that he's a huge jerk but at least he'll deign to fuck her. That she stuck with him for years until he actually assaulted her is... a major source of shame for me and frankly one of the reasons I'm hesitant to talk much about it. I don't think she "should have seen it coming"--who does?--but I think she should have long since dumped him for all the other reasons.

I can't believe she went and just threw this in as an embarrassed little parenthetical (well, I can, but I feel terrible for her):
(Benny, always happy to be on the worse side of any comparison, once actually fucked me against a "no," and not in scene or anything--we were just hanging out naked in bed and he got on me and I wasn't really ready and said so and he started anyway. Again, it was mere moments until things got sorted out, but... I could swear I was audible the first time, goddammit.)
Holy shit, past-Holly.



I'm not here to lick the wounds of my past. I'm here to marvel at just how much growth and change and learning is possible. I'm here because what I said here was my belief and no longer is:
I've been a little wary of feminism, because my initial exposure was way too academic and way too unrealistic. No, I don't feel that my life is unbearably suffused with phallic energy, and no, I don't believe that the world used to be a utopian matriarchy, and no, I don't think that having sex with boys--including nasty filthy sex, including sex on camera--is betraying the Sisters.
So I stand as living proof that people aren't lost causes if they don't agree with you, and they aren't lost causes if you try to teach them and they spit it back at you. Change is something that happens on a person's own schedule and not on yours, and often when they do change you won't even hear about it, but it happens. People really can learn.



I hope that what I'm writing now will embarrass the hell out of me in another four years.

Naming, shaming, and victim blaming.

[Because this issue has already been addressed elsewhere, all names in the following story have been replaced with names from Saturday morning cartoons. DO NOT discuss details of the original issue in comments on this post. DO NOT name the group or event or use the legal names, scene names, or usernames of anyone involved.]




There's been a problem recently in a BDSM group I belong to, the Thundercats, with a particular member, Captain Planet, inappropriately touching or creepily hitting on people at Thundercats meetings and events. This had been ongoing for more than a year, had scared me and other people away from attending certain Thundercats meetings, and several people had talked to Captain Planet with the only result being that after several talking-tos he would switch targets. The Thundercats has had a couple other creeper incidents, but he was one of the most persistent, although relatively less severe--he was more inclined to creepily stroke women's hair or backs than to go for the "swimsuit area."

Then a couple days ago I heard that he had been creeping on my friend April O'Neil to the point of triggering PTSD symptoms, and I just snapped. We'd talked before in the Thundercats about having trouble with "some people" violating "some boundaries" and it always just ended in the conclusion that tsk, tsk, that was very naughty of "some people." I was fucking sick of this culture of silence, of sheltering someone just for being "one of ours" and of throwing women to the wolves of "personal responsibility" if they were too intimidated to confront him or too new to know who to watch out for.

In short, I was sick of worrying myself too damn much about his feelings.

So I posted basically what I wrote above to the Thundercats website, only with his (scene) name and a lot more details on specific incidents. It was a rehash of a lot of the "some people" posts, but I went ahead and said "no, not 'some people.' THIS DUDE."

A lot of people, Thundercats and bystanders, were very supportive of this. Three other women came forward to say they had also had problems with Captain Planet. And Captain Planet himself came on, took it with relatively good grace considering that I was pointedly not gentle in my writing, fessed up and promised to change his behavior. I have to say I'm impressed by that, hope he stands by it, and it makes me feel that I might have actually accomplished something.

But then something weird happened. Even though the person accused had already confessed and apologized, third parties took it on themselves to explain why I, and the other women complaining, were in the wrong. I got a mountain of hostile comments and emails. These fell into three broad categories:


1. "Are we supposed to take the word of a woman?"
There wasn't a ton of this, but I got a few. Funny thing was, Captain Planet had already confessed. (God only knows where things would have gone if he'd denied it.) But I still got people speculating that I was making things up, that I was blowing innocent casual touch out of proportion, and that perhaps people should watch out for me since clearly I'm the sort of person who's dangerously prone to going around accusing men of... um, things they did and admit to doing.


2. "Whatever happend to personal responsibility? For you, I mean. Not him."
Quite a bit of this. People noted that he'd picked on women who didn't seem "strong-willed," which is not entirely true anyway--I'm a noted marshmallow rollover, but some of the other women complaining were pretty tough. Or they said that we were just responsible for setting our own boundaries and dealing with our own problems. But the problem here is threefold:

a. If I'm having to exert a strong will, there's already a problem. Not having to defend myself is vastly preferable to getting good at self-defense.
b. Some women are, because of past events or simply by nature, "weak-willed." They still don't deserve to be creeped on.
c. By making this all about the women, Captain Planet and his actions kind of... disappear. He becomes this weird force of nature, like a pressured fluid naturally rupturing weak spots, instead of a person making choices. That isn't the case. He's much more able to control himself than anyone else is able to control him.


3. "Okay, that's bad, but how dare you talk about it."
This was a really, REALLY depressingly common opinion. I was accused a bizillion times on the thread and in private emails of acting "childish," because apparently an adult shuts up and takes it. I was also told that because the accusations weren't "that bad," weren't sexual assault or anything, I shouldn't be making them.

Note that I and other people had talked to Captain Planet in private previously, and it hadn't worked. Here are some other justifications for naming names:

a. Not everyone can be assumed to be "in the loop." New people or people not in the rumor mill deserve to know who to watch out for.
b. People who thought it was just their own problem with Captain Planet are helped by knowing it's not just them.
c. If you don't have the right to violate people's boundaries, you sure as hell don't have the right to violate them in private. We avoid "outing" because being outed as kinky could hurt you even though it isn't a bad thing. Being outed as creepy doesn't meet the "isn't a bad thing" criterion.
d. All I did was say what had happened and what I thought of it. If people want to do this with my actions ("She sat in a chair and talked to some people. I was pretty okay with this."), they're welcome to.
e. As consequences for bad behavior go, simply having people know about it is a pretty mild and natural one.
f. People who are tempted to violate boundaries should have something to be afraid of. Being politely talked to in private isn't very scary. Hopefully, being publicly shamed is.


So for everyone saying that victim-blaming doesn't happen, that it isn't that bad, or that the victims deserved to be blamed (whoa), there's my little story about what happens when a woman speaks out about a relatively minor and non-criminal issue.

On Eating Our Own.

Here's something I'm still conflicted about: finding a statement that is basically feminist, basically accepting, but has some flaws, and tearing it to fucking shreds. It's the old problem of "homophobia is retarded"; do you say "hell yes, thank you for accepting gay people," or do you say "do you have some kind of fucking problem with mental disabilities or have you just never considered you're insulting real people there?" The second is more fair, more correct. But it also runs the risk of making someone who's just starting to come around to your side decide that your side is a bunch of unpleasable Language Police who derive more joy from proving others wrong than from actually doing anything right.

I'm honestly torn on "homophobia is retarded." I have the feeling that I "should" come out against it, but I think it depends on context. If the person saying it is pretty new to the idea of not being homophobic, and if they're using "retarded" thoughtlessly and without intended malice, I'd really let it slide, or be very gentle in correcting them. I'd rather have an imperfect ally. On the other hand, if someone is an established ally and is just throwing words around, then it is the time to call them out on "hey, that language really isn't okay."

And then again, I'm sorry, but there really are people who are do spend all their time eating their own, who never found a statement so open-minded that they couldn't call it "TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT" for not being open-minded enough. There's an example here. I like the comic. I think it's sweet and funny and so gay. It's envisioning a better world. And then in the comments underneath it gets ripped apart as "shitty and cissexist" with "so many fucking problems."

I don't prioritize gay rights over trans rights. But I prioritize rights movements over the endless internal criticism of those movements. Sometimes that criticism is right and necessary (as when feminist movements veer toward being Rich White Straight Ladies' Liberation), but it should never eat the movement. Progress should not be abandoned in favor of perfection. SMBC is a comic with a wide audience and probably quite a few of them do say "that's so gay." Getting them to think about that literally is a really good thing. If it could be done in a way that included some more permutations of "gay," I guess that would be better, but this isn't bad.

If someone is 98% on your side, you know what? Cut them some slack. Otherwise you might have to actually deal with the people who aren't on your side at all. They're a whole lot meaner.

Seven Points On Rape, Prevention, and Blame.

Okay. That one post seemed to provoke a bit of a clusterfuck, and although one obnoxious dude was about 75% of it, he wasn't all of it. So here are some clarifications about why "I'm not blaming victims, but women should follow some common sense advice" is bullshit.



1. Preaching rape prevention at or about a rape victim is like telling a 9/11 widow "you know, he shouldn't have been on a plane that day." Thanks a ton, Reverse Nostradamus. Everyone is stunned by your brilliant ability to predict the past consequences of actions in the past. For an encore will you tell me the lottery numbers I should have picked last Wednesday?



2. Rape prevention tips are almost never effective against partners and friends. You can be as twitchy as you like on the sidewalk or in the parking lot, but there's a 65% chance (of reported rapes, so you can kinda imagine) that it's the person you come home and sleep next to that you have to worry about.

Anecdotally, all the victims of sexual violence that I know personally were victimized by someone they already knew, in their home or their attacker's. (And none of them have formally reported it, because of the perceived--probably real--impossibility of going to the police with a story about "I've had sex with this guy lots of times and I was in his house and he didn't leave any marks and I didn't call 911 but it was rape." All this Stranger Danger bullshit about avoiding parked vans and keeping your keys in your hand wouldn't have done shit for a single rape victim that I know.



3. Rape prevention tips tend to overlap suspiciously well with "be a proper little lady" tips. Gosh, dressing conservatively and not getting drunk and not being out on my own and not getting too close to strangers will protect me from rape! I'll buy my prairie dress and arrange a suitable male escort home from my 7PM prayer meeting at once!

Having freedom of movement and expression isn't worth getting raped, but frankly, it is worth a 0.0001% chance of getting raped. This tends to be discounted by people who drive on highways and take plane flights without a second thought.



4. These tips disproportionately come from guys who don't see any such restrictions applying to themselves. Sucks to be you, ladies, but I don't make the rules! ...I just enjoy declaring what they are.



5. The implication sometimes arises--in rape as with no other crime--that if the victim can be blamed, then it's no longer rape at all. A robbery victim who acted incredibly reckless and gullible may be called stupid, but they won't be accused of giving their money as a gift. But rape seems to be somehow diminished if the victim was taking an extraordinary risk of rape, as if "I'll take a shortcut through the park, even if I am still dressed for clubbing" was an equivalent thought to "I'd like to have sex with just anyone who comes along."



6. The resulting discussions invariably make rapists out to be some kind of inevitable force of nature. Rapers gonna rape, what can you do. The idea that anyone can be educated about or deterred from committing sexual violence is dismissed out of hand. The discussion of rape becomes all about the victim and her choices, and despite some "rape is bad, yo" lip service, the rapist's choices go unremarked upon until they disappear and some chick apparently raped herself.

To the response, "well, do you think rape is just totally random and can never ever be predicted, huh", I refer you up to my friend Reverse Nostradamus in point 1, since you two seem to share a talent for predicting rapes that already happened.

Yes, one could technically construct an actuarial table correlating certain behaviors with an increased risk of rape, but:
-No one's actually done this, to my knowledge, so Internet know-it-alls are just going with the "common sense" approach involving prairie dresses.
-Most of the differences would likely be tiny, and arguably not worth the cost to the potential victim's freedom and quality of life. (I.e., if you decide avoiding rape is worth a million dollars, but something only decreases your rape chances by 0.0001%, then if that something costs more than $1, it's not worth it. Yes, you voluntarily increased your rape chances, but infinitesimally, and rape is not the only variable in your life.)
-All those pesky rapes by friends and partners would skew the data so hard you'd think the riskiest behavior of all was sleeping in your own home.



7. "But" is the ultimate bullshit word in these discussions. You know how someone who's not "I'm not racist but" is about to spout some Klan talking points? Someone who's "I'm not blaming the victim, and the rapist is a horrible person, and in her case maybe there was nothing she could do, but" is hiding a whole lot of misogyny and rape-apologism and blame in their but.

Grouchy Post, back by popular demand.

(I always forget about those sneaky bastards with RSS readers whenever I try to un-say something. Oh well. Cats and bags.)




Sometimes I wish I lived in the alternate universe where men were "socially bi," in the sense that any guy who could possibly stand to choke down a cock was pressured to do so to be sexy. And not with guys he was attracted to, but with the ones his female friends shoved him at. Don't worry, he loves it, it's a total party atmosphere and dudes kissing dudes is just good clean fun. I think dudes naturally tend to be more bisexual anyway. And naturally more inclined to put on little shows for women's entertainment with no thought of reciprocation. Anyway no one's being forced into it, it's just something guys have to do to get female attention and fit in as a sexual outlaw and not be treated a Little Mister Buzzkill.

I want to go to more parties where someone yells "hey, there's two dudes makin' out in the kitchen!" and everyone comes running to gawk and hoot and whoop like they're at a football game. Then the guys don't have to worry about getting female attention for the rest if the night, although depending on the party they might end up in a threesome and the girl is probably gonna want to see some buttfucking at that point. You're not comfortable with that? Well, you really ought to TRY it, or just let him do you at least. I'm sure we can get you used to it.

The funny thing is that I do like chicks sometimes. But when I'm actually attracted to a woman, I want to impress and get attention from HER, you know? (Making out with a dude in front of her never seems to do the trick.) My first sexual urge with her is definitely not going to be "we should totally do some dude together!", either.

Yes I do but not with you.

I want to have dirty wrong demeaning sex. I also want to have just plain a lot of sex. I want to have sex with a lot of people. Sometimes I dress slutty. Sometimes I let people I don't know so well grope me or even fuck me. I am horny, slutty, kinky, and sometimes a little bit indiscriminate about it.

And none of this means I'm going to do it with you. "You" in the generic, that is. You unless otherwise specified. "You" as in a person who is aware of my existence, but has not received my consent.

Because I am asking for it. Just not from you. Check out my short skirt, my pushed-up tits, my giggle and my ass-wiggle--I'm gagging for it... but not from you. The fact that I'm out for sex does not imply that I'm out for sex with you.

Does this mean that you must never hit on me, that you have no chance at all? No! But it does mean that you can't see me across the room--or read my blog--and take me as some sort of given thing. There's a huge difference between approaching a woman with "hi, let's talk and see if we get along... baby" and approaching her with "welp, seems you're looking for a guy to fuck, and I am technically a guy, so let's get this over with." The second case has been happening a lot to me lately and they tend to take rejection poorly.

If they invented a short skirt that could only be seen by attractive, available, acceptable-smelling, personable, respectful dominant men and butch women (and appeared as baggy sweatpants to everyone else), I'd wear that. Until then, I'm stuck with omnidirectional short skirts, and all the "even though she doesn't know my name, she wore that for me" that seems to come with them.

Grouchy quiz!

1) You see a girl at a BDSM event and you notice people coming up and manhandling her without so much as a how-do-you-do, to which she reacts with amusement and delight and offers of oral gratification. You should think:

A) "This girl has pre-existing 'manhandle me anytime' understandings with certain people, and if I have to ask I'm not one of them."
B) "This girl is a community manhandling resource and I will be treated just as nicely if I manhandle her."



2) You read a blog written by a woman who's very open about her sexual desires and adventures. Writing her "What is your deepest darkest fantasy?" is:

A) A terrible idea, because you're asking a total stranger to write erotica for your private use for free.
B) A great idea, because the poor lonely girl has probably never gotten the chance to reveal her secret kinky side to anyone before, and opening up about this will flood her with arousal as she's finally able to tell someone--anyone!--that deep down she dreams of someday putting a man's wee-wee in her nu-nu.



3) You know a girl who has fairly ready access to penis, but is still single. This probably means she is waiting for:

A) Someone with a strong personality and attractive body with whom she can form an emotionally intimate bond and also fulfill her rather specific kinky desires.
B) Your penis.

A Grand Game.

[This was the "too grouchy" post. Since people are talking about it anyway, what the hell. Just let me note that I don't think all guys are like this and I don't play stupid games with all guys--this applies only to guys who answer "you're nice but you're not my type" with "no, no, you need to give me a chance."]



I invented a game to play on OkCupid! It's called the...

Get A Guy To Stop Talking To You Game!

Here's how you play:
-Have an OkCupid account with a reasonably appealing picture and profile, identifying yourself as a straight woman.

-Log on to the IM system, and wait for a guy to message you. Doesn't take long, generally.

-Talk to him in good faith long enough to determine what sort of guy he is. If he seems like a cool and attractive guy, ask him out or arrange to talk again. If he's not your type, let him down easy. If letting him down easy doesn't work, play the game.

-The game has only two rules:
1) Promptly reply to all of his IMs. Within a couple minutes at the most, preferably instantly, write something back to whatever he says.
2) Try, without hitting "ignore" or logging off or ceasing your responses, to get him to stop talking to you.

-Within the framework of "keep replying," you can say anything. You can make yourself sound bugfuck insane or hilariously bitchy--usually both! You can tell stories about being dangerously obsessed with all your previous partners or speculate how tiny the guy's penis is. You can whip out racist jokes, confessions that you never bathe, and direct insults against the guy and everything he cares about. You can even tell the guy that you're playing this game! And you can most certainly say every variation on "No, I'm not interested, please stop talking to me."

-The game can go on for hours, and I usually run out of time and have to hit "ignore" or shut down IM before I win. My win rate is definitely well under 50%.



I think this game teaches us two things: first, that sometimes I'm an asshole on the Internet; and secondly, that this is what they call "rape culture." The acting crazy/mean is just fucking around, but the shocking part is how my stated wishes don't count for shit. It's truly amazing how many times I can say, in so many words, "stop talking to me," and yet as long as I keep responding the guy will never do what I explicitly asked him to. (And if I merely act very uncomfortable and chilly and reluctant but don't actually say no... forget it, that never stops anyone.) As long as I stay "in the room" with him, it doesn't matter how many times I say in clear blunt words to leave me alone, he never will.

I think the reason this happens is because I don't open with "fuck off"; I do the initial feeling-out stage in genuine good faith. So they get this image of me as a relatively nice and open person before I turn into a person who's repeatedly telling them to fuck off, and somehow the mental transition never happens. I can't be nice and not want to talk to them! DISSONANCE! So they persist, literally forever, and disregard my stated wishes over and over in doing so.

There's probably also some sense that I'm "shit testing" them, that I'm making a game of pushing them away just so they can prove their ardor. I suppose I am, in that I keep talking to them at all, but still--why would a guy want to play this game with a woman? And isn't it a little scary that there's literally no way I can use words to tell him I'm not playing?

And this is why women don't smile at strangers.



After I lose the game and have to hit "ignore" or "log off", most of these guys send me followup emails, saying they'd really like to talk some more or clear up any misunderstandings.

Saving America.

I went to a class yesterday that was part rifle marksmanship and part Revolutionary War history, and we spent about eight hours lying on our bellies in very cold mud (and it's always a good way to remind yourself of what soldiers sacrifice to go home afterward and take a hot shower and realize how lucky you are), and it was pretty fun for the most part.

But the instructors gave a big speech at the end about how America was in trouble and the government wasn't going to save America, the educational system wasn't going to save America, it was up to people like us to save America.

...Save America from what?

My friend whispered "the blacks and the gays," and I hope she wasn't right. I'm guessing it's maybe a little of that (and the feminists, and the immigrants, and the liberals, and the atheists, and the Je... "Hollywood and finance types," and whatnot), but a lot more of the idea that the government is intolerably oppressive, and just some free-floating feeling that things are getting worse all the time.

Which I don't share. I know I have a Pollyanna streak, but I don't see America as a nation in distress. We have plenty of problems, yes, but this is still basically an amazing place. We have more liberties than anywhere else in the First World and more privileges than anywhere that isn't First World. And I certainly believe in defending those liberties but I don't believe that they're going down the drain that fast.

In a weird way, the "oh no America is in ruins" rhetoric reminds me of paranoid Christians talking about the evil of "the world" or paranoid feminists talking about how patriarchy is eeeeeverrrywhere. There's a certain mindset that sees the outside world as degraded (and themselves glorified by contrast), and I want nothing to do with that mindset.

Maybe my context is a little different because I'm Jewish, and I've heard my grandmother's stories about what it's like when they really take your rights away, and to hear her tell it, it's not some subtle thing you'd have to read just the right blogs to know about. Taxation may be "holding your grandmother at gunpoint," but buddy, my grandmother's been held at gunpoint.

That's a nation in distress. And frankly that's the only political reason I'm learning to shoot. Because as long as guns, and the knowledge of how to use them, are distributed among the people, it'll be a lot harder to run a Holocaust. Nobody--not the government, not another government, not a group of crazy people of any stripe--will have an easy time taking over a country where any citizen has the power to fight back. If there was a war on our soil, the doorstep of every armed household would be its own front line.

But don't go telling me that because they passed a healthcare bill and you had to pay taxes and there were some scary blog posts that the war is on now. This is a great nation--right now, as it is, this is a wonderful place and if you think this is distress you've never seen distress. If you think that there's cause to take up arms right now, well--frankly, buddy, you're part of the reason I have guns.

I believe in readiness, but not paranoia. I am prepared for threats, but I'm reasonable enough to know when there really aren't that many and I'm free to live my life. My gun is by my bed, but it's not in my hand.

Munching.

I've gone to a couple munches here in Boston and they have been pretty good. There's always people you don't like, that's inevitable whenever you meet a lot of new people, but the vast majority of munchers have given me the feeling "wow, I'd want to hang out with these people even if they weren't into weird sex."

This is in contrast to Seattle munches, which--maybe I picked the wrong ones, maybe I didn't present myself well, maybe I've just hit a streak of luck here--sucked ass. They came in two flavors, cliqueish ("You can't sit there, my friends are sitting there. ...You can't sit there either.") and intrusive ("HELLO FRESH MEAT!"). I found myself either desperate for any attention, or fending off overbearing attention.

Particularly the second. Cliquishness happens sometimes, lots of kinksters are socially awkward and I'm one of them, it's dissuading but not offensive. But I went to a couple of munches where the instant I was in the door, someone was cornering me and demanding to know my orientation, role, what I was into, and am I interested in playing with them. People were asking about my vagina before they'd asked my name.

It's kind of a weird thing, because on the one hand, I do want to find play and sex partners, and that is some of my motivation for attending munches. As I've often said myself, this ain't doubles tennis. So maybe it's dumb to complain about people wanting to get in my pants? But I prefer people to have a little tact in these matters. Call me totally irrational and hypocritical, but I'm more inclined to take my pants off for someone who doesn't use "wanna take your pants off?" as an opening line. Although actually that would be awesome.



Maybe it's just that if you want to fuck me before we've barely spoken, I get the feeling that a microwaved papaya would serve your needs equally well. (Wait, this is kink. A microwaved papaya that can say "ow.") As I grow ever more old and cautious and vain, I aspire to feel like I'm more special than a papaya.

Princess complex, I know.

Leagues.

The concept of "out of your league" in dating is one of those areas where my ideals sometimes get muddled up with my real-life experience. On the one hand, it's absolutely not true that if you're physically different or just not conventionally beautiful you need to stick with your own ugly kind. All kinds of different people can and do come together. On the other hand, people who are very different-looking but insist on a swimsuit-model partner are being, if not hypocritical, at least unrealistic.

It's a sticky situation to talk about, since of course people are attracted to traits they don't have themselves. Lots of pretty people have ugly (er, frequently-socially-considered-ugly) partners, and then again lots of pretty and ugly people aren't attracted to ugly people and I'm not about to tell them that it's their civic duty to get attracted. But at the same time, our partner preferences aren't determined entirely by random dice-roll. When an ugly person is unhappily single because they will only consider gorgeous people as partners--well, they shouldn't date someone they don't schwing for, and it's certainly not impossible... but. But. You know? But. Sticky.



God, I wish I was an asshole blogger. I wouldn't be tying myself in knows with this shit about "it's not my place to tell anyone what to do" and "everyone's preferences are different" and "we shouldn't assume younger and thinner is prettier" and all these other things--that I do actually believe--that make it so damn hard to be blunt.

If I were an asshole blogger I could just come out and tell people that you've got no goddamn business saying "I'm fat and 50 and I'm only attracted to thin 20-year-olds," and no, that's not insensitivity to fat 50-year-olds, that's just the slightest connection to Planet Fucking Earth. And you're insensitive to fat 50-year-olds if you won't date one, jerk! And then I'd stick my tongue out. And fart.



Man, the other day I read a blog post saying you shouldn't use "stupid" as an insult because that's insensitive to mentally disabled people and to people who've had fewer educational opportunities. And the horrifying part was that I found myself going along with it for a bit, nodding in agreement because of course I don't want to hurt innocent people with my words--and then I realized how... how stupid it is to be so goddamn sensitive you can't say anything more opinionated than "I like bunnies." Now, I won't use "retarded" as an insult. I'm not committing myself to insensitivity as a lifestyle. But I can't walk on eggshells around everything that isn't bunnies.

The Gentleman's Guide to Sending Dick Pictures to Random Women on the Internet.

1) Consider the wisdom of sending a dick picture. If the relationship she is seeking could be construed as a "dating" or "friendly" one, sending your dick at all is mega creepy. And even in the context of casual sex and cybersex, women aren't necessarily aroused by penis JPGs. You might want to wait for her to ask for a dick picture, rather than using it to introduce yourself.

2) Make sure your equipment is suitable. The proper condition for dick photos is clean and dry (seriously, ewww), fully erect, and with well-groomed pubes. If it can stay fully erect without you death-gripping it around the base, so much the better.

(I admit here I don't know exactly how these things work. Is it uncomfortable to let an erect dick flop around freely? Or is the grip necessary to keep it at full hardness? Or does the grip just keep it pointed at a more impressive angle?)

3) Make sure your other equipment is suitable. Take your dick pics with a real camera; a low-end cellphone photo or webcam stillshot always has that "surveillance footage" look to it, especially in low light. Even with a proper camera, all photos look creepy when there isn't enough light (and flash makes skin look unappealingly flat and pallid), so try to get it in as much light as possible. Natural light is really nice if you have a way to get it without scandalizing the neighbors.

4) Use a self-timer or a (clean!) mirror. The top-down perspective never flatters, and frankly, women aren't used to seeing dicks from that angle.

5) Put the penis in context. In my experience, the more of your body in the shot, the better--even if you don't have an amazing body, seeing a naked man is more fun than seeing a free-floating cock in space. Whether you're comfortable putting your face in the photo is up to you, but cropping out everything but genitals is going way too far unless you have a very distinctive lower-stomach tattoo.

6) Don't forget the background. Make sure there isn't weird clutter in the shot that makes you look like a slob or reminds the viewer of an unsexy part of your life. And remember that photos taken while you're in the computer chair, then uploaded onto that selfsame computer, tend to imply that maybe you never get up. Your bed generally makes a nice suggestive setting, if it's tidy.

7) If your camera takes enormous photos, scale it down to something moderate in size so it doesn't display on her monitor as MONITOR FULL OF COCK WHAM. This also hides minor imperfections. And while you've got it in the image-editing program, you might try to get the skin tones to resemble skin--dicks seem prone to photographing in horrible colors like "fishbelly yellow-white" and "roast beef gray-brown," and that's never pretty.

8) Look at the photo you've just taken. Think, seriously, if you were a woman, would you want to see this? Seriously. You can always back out now and tell her about your personality instead.

Confessional.

Bless me, sex-positivity, for I have sinned.

I have practiced monogamy.

I have nodded approvingly while secretly being bored to tears by "feminist porn" from the "female erotic perspective," then gone home to beat off to Extreme Anal Insertions 5.

I have worshipped the Judeo-Christian God.

I have gotten ever-loving sick of the word "problematic" as a completely generic sensitive-sounding way to say "I don't like this, or at least feel like I shouldn't like this, but can't be bothered to make an actual judgement about it."

I have been overemotional about casual sex and underemotional about committed sex.

I have given misogynist entertainment a pass just because it was really frickin' funny.

I have consented to sex that I wasn't really into, to maintain a relationship or follow through on a promise or frankly just to humor him; I have put my partners into the same position themselves.

I have had my own consent violated and let it slide because it wasn't like a super big deal, really.

I have groped.

I have felt crappy about masturbating, because a really hot chick would be getting laid right now, and no, it's not "sex with yourself," it's just stupid old masturbation.

I have lied about my "number," in both directions.

I have been a party to cheating.

I have yearned for a tiny blonde big-titted body.

I have given blowjobs without condoms and lady-blowjobs without dental dams, and wondered, seriously, does anyone really use dental dams?

I have voted Republican.

I have had sex completely shitfaced drunk and/or high.

I have not insisted on foreplay, or on my own orgasm, or on stimulation of my own fetishes and sensitive places.

I have been creepy.

I have patronized the sex shop that's 5% cheaper, rather than the one that's women-owned and well-lit and friendly and destigmatizing and based on sound feminist principles.

I have considered penis/strapon-in-vagina/anus intercourse the "real thing" and everything else "just messing around."

I have worn makeup and girly-ass clothes and high-heel shoes, not because they were "really me" but because I figured my appearance needed all the help it could get.

I have lived caught between the raging storm of emotions and desires within me and the fucked-up complicated world outside me, and I have found one simple set of beliefs--any one simple set of beliefs--utterly inadequate to guide my confused, defiant, frivolous, inconsistent, selfish, independent, practical, irrational, cynical, fallible, human life. When I have the luxury to pontificate about it I may be a good sex-positive feminist, but when I go out and live my life I am not sex-positive nor sex-negative, but sex-fucked-up in all kinds of crazy ways.



I shall say three Hail Susie Brights and an Our Betty Dodson.

'Splaining.

So I guess the hot new word in the blogosphere is mansplaining. Mansplaining is "when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about, or miscellaneous and inaccurate 'facts' about something you know a hell of a lot more about than he does."

My take: I find this sexist. I don't like the idea of a word that can be used against someone who disagrees with you while being male. I know it's only supposed to apply when he's being really unambiguously condescending, but including gender in the word seems unnecessary and inflammatory. Therefore, I propose a new word: "douchesplaining."

I've been 'splained to, there's no question. Just the other day I was changing an oxygen tank, quite happily and correctly cranking away at it, and a man walking by just had to drop in helpful advice like "you're gonna want an O-ring in there," oblivious to the fact that there was already an O-ring in there, and I had done this 5000 times, and it was only my goddamn job, and I'm not an idiot. But this wasn't a gender conflict incident; this was a douchery incident. I've had women 'splain to me too, plenty of times. I've caught myself 'splaining.

Do men and women 'splain with equal frequency? Do men sometimes 'splain for sexist reasons? I don't care. It's the act that's wrong, not the actor's gender. Being condescending is wrong; being a condescending man is incidental. And hey, there are some annoying behaviors that women are more frequently accused of, but I don't think anyone wants to hear them insultingly renamed after our gender. Like if "complaining" was called "bitching"... oh fuck. Anyway. We're better than that. It's fair to accuse a douche of being a douche; it's wrong to accuse a douche of being a man.

Now don't nobody douchesplain to me why I'm wrong.

The Gentleman's Guide to Ogling.

Between working at a job where I see a shit-ton of violent crime and reading umpty-billion Internet posts on rape, sometimes I feel a little overprotective. Like I have to be on my guard against men who show any sexual interest, because being attracted to a woman is basically a threat against her. A guy I don't know just up and looked at me? AAUUUGH MACE AND RUN.

But no. Sometimes a "hey there" really is just a "heeyyyyy there." Sometimes it's flattering, even empowering. There really is such a thing as a Friendly Ogle. These are the qualifiers for staring at a strange woman and being uncreepy, the Gentleman's Guide to Ogling:

1) Keep a neutral or happy expression on your face. Scowling and ogling is mega-creepy.

2) If she looks back and "catches" you, be friendly--make eye contact and smile, or even wave or say hi. Then leave it at that (and stop ogling) unless she decides to extend the contact.

3) No touchy. EVER. Even a little, even on somewhere totally neutral. Personally I don't think even tapping someone on the shoulder without their permission is ever okay, but if you are the sort of person who does that, at least don't do it to anyone you're thinking about sexually.

4) Only ogle from a reasonable distance; don't loom. Don't ogle in an elevator or narrow passageway or somewhere else where she's stuck with you.

5) Talk to her like she's people. Guys who say "I'm sorry, I just was noticing that you're very pretty" get laid sometimes that way, or at least get treated nicely; guys who go "whoooo hot mama!" I'm pretty sure do not ever. (I think these guys don't really want or expect the woman to react positively, so I don't really know what the fuck they are thinking, other than "I'd like to make it a little more difficult for her to walk down the fucking street.")

6) Even if she doesn't seem to have noticed you, restrain your ogling time to a reasonable once-over, not an unbreakable Death Stare.

7) If she scowls or curses at you, even if you were being totally nice and nonthreatening, just let it go. She didn't agree to this interaction, so she doesn't owe you politeness. Explaining how you were just paying her a compliment, geez is never helpful. (And I don't think I have to point out that the "you think I was looking at you? don't flatter yourself" denial is all kinds of fucked up.)


So yeah. It's okay to be attracted to women. It's okay to hit on them and even ogle them. If you're respectful and friendly and treat them like people, it's just fine by this Humorless Feminist if you stare at total strangers in the street. You have my permission.

The Unfriendly Ogle.

The creepiest look in the world, seriously the creepiest way one human being can make eye contact with another, is the Unfriendly Ogle.

There's a couple breeds of ogles, and I don't necessarily mind them all. There's the Ogle With A Permission Slip, where a guy you're partners or close friends with makes a show of looking you up and down just to tell you he likes what he sees. There's the Hey There Ogle, which turns into a smile and frequently a pickup line when he sees you looking back. There's the Shy Ogle, which instantly evaporates and turns into intense contemplation of a nearby blank wall when he sees you looking back.

Some ogles are a little more uncomfortable. Like the Titanium Ogle, which cannot be broken by disapproving looks or the passage of time; those eyes stay locked on until you either start a fight with him or hide behind something. And its close cousin the Drive-By Ogle, where the body is just passing by but the eyes don't move until his neck won't physically turn that far. And the super-awkward Over The Girlfriend's Shoulder Ogle.

But few ogles are straight-up frightening like the Unfriendly Ogle. This is where the guy ogles with a really stone-serious face like he's reading the obituaries, and when he realizes you noticed him, he scowls at you. What the fuck is that? I've gotten it a few times (and yeah, I'm pretty sure it was a bona-fide ogle and not just a glare for other reasons), and I don't even know how to interpret it. My best guess is "I know you'd turn me down like the other bitches so why bother trying." But there's also the charming alternate possibilities of "what a slut you are for turning me on like that" and "being horny for me is actually the same feeling as being mean."

Whatever it means, I don't like it. At least smile when you look at me like that, creepo.




It's funny, I used to feel like I never got ogled or catcalled, but in the last year or so I've been getting a lot more. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe I'm just more aware of it?

The Scariest Monsters in the World.

The False Rape Accuser

She stalks the streets at 2 AM, blackout drunk and clad only in pasties and a G-string, waiting for a respectable gentleman to come by and strike up innocent conversation. When she finds one, she seduces him, uses him for his body, and leaves. The next thing he knows, he's in handcuffs as she laughs evilly in his face. He has no chance at a fair trial, no one hears him when he speaks the truth, and no one cares for him when he is thrown in jail forever.

The Sexual Harassment Complainer

A close cousin to the False Rape Accuser, this slimy beast lurks in the offices and workshops of the world. She crouches behind cubicle walls and listens at doors for the slightest hint of men being men, and flies into a rage when they dare to express heterosexuality or a sense of humor. A word from her can end your career and cast you homeless and disgraced into the street, and like her cousin, she will laugh and laugh.

The Man Hunter

This creature doesn't merely want to destroy a man; she wants to own him. For this reason, she will fail to permanently disappear after a man's orgasm, even when he has no further use for her. Beware, for merely speaking to her will draw you further into her trap. Every time you let her think she means anything to you emotionally, another tentacle wraps around you. Something as simple as being seen with her in public makes the spell permanent. The next thing you know, you're fifty years old in the suburbs with a mortgage, a beer belly, and two delinquent teenagers.

The Divorcer

The Man Hunter evolves into this in time. When the time comes for her to release her captive, she greedily hoards the money that she earned or enabled him to earn and the children that she bore and raised. Her avaricious desire to own possessions and support and care for her children knows no bounds, and she may steal away as much as half of a bank account that was half hers.

The Menstrual Monster

Twenty-four days of the month, she is a human being. But then her vagina begins to bleed. She goes on a rampage, tearing to shreds any man she sees. She hungers for sex, but her vagina is repulsive to human eyes; she hungers for human flesh, and that she devours. She also hungers for chocolate. In her state of animal irrationality, she is physically and mentally unable to take on the work of a human being, and any responsibilities given to her will be ignored or abused. She can't help herself, her vagina is bleeding.

The Cocktease

This unspeakably horrible monster appears in the form of an attractive woman, deliberately forces men to be attracted to her by walking around all attractive-like or even speaking to them, and then she... ugh, it's too awful... doesn't have sex with everyone who wants to have sex with her. She's like Hitler.

My Secondary Virginity.

My name is Holly, and I'm a secondary virgin. I've been a virgin for... two weeks now. Or three days depending what you count. I was a secondary virgin before that too, but I lost my virginity for a couple hours, and now, like Aphrodite, I have bathed in the sea and become a virgin again.

Secondary virginity is really the best kind, because it comes without the whole inexperience and physical unreadiness thing. When I give my secondary virginity to my future husband, it'll be bundled with an impressive skillset.

But the really special thing about secondary virginity is how alone I get to be. Until my future husband comes along, I get to end every night all by myself in a twin-size bed, staring up at the ceiling blankly until sleep comes. I get to not date any guys who might have, you know, expectations, and that means so much less dating in general. I get to live without the feel and smell of warm skin. I've never had more time for my jewelry projects. I'm making a citrine pendant.

All the cool ladies are virgins. Danielle Staub, whoever that is, is a secondary virgin! Even though she has two kids! That's so totally meaningful! She's not having sex until she gets married, but don't think she's some husband-hunter, because get this: she believes the right one will just come to her! I wish I could be that strong, but unfortunately, I'm attracted to men!

Secondary virginity is not like just deciding not to have sex for a while. Because that would be a personal decision, and you wouldn't get to judge people who made other personal decisions. People who don't have sex are just people, but secondary virgins are better people. They don't make mistakes. I know it's very important not to make mistakes, so I don't do anything with risks. That's why I don't leave my house. But then I heard that most accidents occur in the home, so now I live in the carport.

Did you know that a woman is like a candy bar? Not just because it's an inanimate object you can buy, but because a candy bar can only be unwrapped once! After that it's filthy and no one wants it. But with secondary virginity, you can rewrap the candy bar! A rewrapped candy bar is still kinda gross but at least someone tried.

Sex is like any other activity--the less you do it, the better it is. Like jewelry-making. The first time I made a pair of earrings, I was super great at it and the earrings were even better because I'd never made another pair. But now that I've made tons of jewelry, I guess it is less likely to be lopsided or scratched, and I guess I have had tremendous fun making all this jewelry over the years, but dammit, it's not special. (Plus, no one would let me work with good metal, because I've made too much cheap nickel-silver junk, and you know what that means.)

In conclusion, secondary virginity is way better than adventure and exploration and multiple screaming sweaty delicious orgasms because [remember to figure out a reason before hitting "publish"]