in praise of the slutwalk: let’s stop rape culture, mpls!

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Anna

last night, i was having a lovely dinner with my parents on a
perfect summer evening. we had a lot of good discussion on a
range of topics close to my heart, including the stupid uproar over the new hustler store
that is planned to open in my neighborhood. this led to a larger
discussion of pornography and the adult industry, which then led to a
discussion of agency in different areas of sex work.

i was telling my parents about different reasons it is important that
as a society we change our long standing perceptions of sex workers,
and why sex workers deserve the same legal rights and protections that
any other worker would have. i told them that one of the most
critical reasons why sex work needs to be legalized, is so that when a
sex worker is raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, they have the all
of the legal rights necessary to bring their attacker to justice.
this led to a discussion about victim blaming and the slutwalk.

if you don’t know what the slutwalk is, read the following excerpt from the website of slutwalk toronto, the original slutwalk:

on january 24th, 2011, a representative of the toronto police
gave shocking insight into the force’s view of sexual assault by
stating: “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”.

as the city’s major protective service, the toronto police have
perpetuated the myth and stereotype of ‘the slut’, and in doing so have
failed us. with sexual assault already a significantly under-reported
crime, survivors have now been given even less of a reason to go to the
police, for fear that they could be blamed. being assaulted isn’t about
what you wear; it’s not even about sex; but using a pejorative term to
rationalize inexcusable behaviour creates an environment in which it’s
okay to blame the victim.

historically, the term ‘slut’ has carried a predominantly
negative connotation. aimed at those who are sexually promiscuous, be it
for work or pleasure, it has primarily been women who have suffered
under the burden of this label. and whether dished out as a serious
indictment of one’s character or merely as a flippant insult, the intent
behind the word is always to wound, so we’re taking it back. “slut” is
being re-appropriated.

we are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged
by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result. being in charge of our
sexual lives should not mean that we are opening ourselves to an
expectation of violence, regardless if we participate in sex for
pleasure or work. no one should equate enjoying sex with attracting
sexual assault.

we are a movement demanding that our voices be heard. we are here
to call foul on our police force and demand change. we want toronto
police services to take serious steps to regain our trust. we want to
feel that we will be respected and protected should we ever need them,
but more importantly be certain that those charged with our safety have a
true understanding of what it is to be a survivor of sexual assault —
slut or otherwise.

we are tired of speeches filled with lip service and the
apologies that accompany them. what we want is meaningful dialogue and
we are doing something about it: WE ARE COMING TOGETHER. not only as
women, but as people from all gender expressions and orientations, all
walks of life, levels of employment and education, all races, ages,
abilities, and backgrounds, from all points of this city and elsewhere.

we are asking you to join us for slutwalk, to make a unified
statement about sexual assault and victims’ rights and to demand respect
for all. whether a fellow slut or simply an ally, you don’t have to wear your sexual proclivities on your sleeve,
we just ask that you come. any gender-identification, any age. singles,
couples, parents, sisters, brothers, children, friends. come walk or
roll or strut or holler or stomp with us.

i was delighted to find out last week that there is going to be a slutwalk in minneapolis on october 1st.
i encourage everyone who has ever questioned wearing a certain outfit
out of fear of getting cat called or assaulted to please, please, please
come to this event. the only way that we will stop rape culture
is by coming together and collectively stating that the bullshit of the
past is going to stop in the 21st century. we’re not going to take
it anymore. that stories like the 11 year old who was gang-raped in cleveland, texas, and then victim-blamed by the new york times, need to never fucking happen again.

let’s make this big, minneapolis. we are the gayest, most
hipster, most bike-friendly city in the country, and if anyone can have a
successful slutwalk, we can.

my parents were very excited about the slutwalk after i told them
about it and invited them to come. my dad asked me what i’m going
to wear. i told him that i’m not sure, in part because, with
minnesota weather/global warming these days, i probably won’t know what
the temperature is going to be until the day before. i also am
debating making a t-shirt with some sort of slogan like, “slut rights
are human rights.” my mom said she wanted to shop for my
outfit. they are pretty hilarious and awesome parents. i’m a
lucky slut.

parents of gender creative children: lonely today for creating a better tomorrow

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Anna

raising my rainbow
has been slowly turning into one of my favorite blogs. even
though i don’t have kids, am not sure if i want kids, and definitely
don’t think that anyone should be privileged for choosing to have kids
or stigmatized for not having them, i think this is one of the most
honest, moving, and important blogs out there today. reading about
the monumental challenges and heartaches involved in raising a gender
creative child creates a vivid illustration of the many battlefields the
burgeoning gender revolution is going to spill onto.

when i was lost in the twitterverse yesterday, (i only ever go in
briefly, that place is like a rabbit hole), i saw a tweet linking
to raising my rainbow’s most recent post, “the loneliness of raising a gender creative child.”

i don’t want to excerpt this or even talk about it too much here just
because i feel like it’s one of those emotional pieces that everyone
should get to read and have their own reaction to it first before
discussing it.

as i was looking for a picture to put with this post, i decided to
google “gender creative kids,” which resulted in a picture from another
raising my rainbow post and not much else. when i tried for “gender neutral child,” the following picture came up:

this picture, which to most people would probably seem pretty
innocuous, is rather horrifying to me, because it speaks to a very large
and looming question of why we are so obsessed with putting every human
life, even before it has been born, into one of two very limiting
boxes. it’s depressing. how do you know that just because
your ultra sound revealed some male sex characteristics that your child
is going to just automatically go with being cisgendered? it’s pretty
fucking presumptuous if you ask me. which is why parents of gender
creative children get my salute, because not only are they not
presumptuous about their child’s identity, they endure a lot of fucking
bullshit from our society and receive scant praise for their efforts.

when i think about c.j. and their family, it makes me want to be gender friends
with them. no one should have to feel lonely for being awesome,
genuine, supportive, loving, or doing the right thing. from what i
can tell, c.j. , like myself, has been really into skirts lately.
if you’re ever in minneapolis c.j., hit me up buddy and we can go
shopping for some marvelous skirts.

dads, lock up your daughters and your dvd collections. bachmann is coming for you.

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Anna

michele bachmann wants your porn. or to be more specific, she
wants to take your porn away from you, all in the name of protecting us
poor, innocent, logic-lackin’ women who can’t figure out sexuality for
ourselves. we need men to decide how that shit’s gonna go down.

i’ll back up a minute and explain the details of the latest bachmann lunacy. at the end of last week, conservative iowa group the family leader put forth a 14 bullet point pledge that any republican candidate that wants their support must sign by august 1.

the bulk of the bullet points are along the lines of “i believe gay
people are a threat and ruining society.” it’s some pretty ugly,
hateful language going on there, but i guess what else would you expect
from that type of organization.

the 9th bullet point of the pledge is written as follows:

pornography should be banned: vow 9
stipulates that the candidate must “support human protection of women
and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy” and protect them from
“seduction into promiscuity and all forms of pornography…and other types
of coercion or stolen innocence.”

i just love it when conservatives use flowery language when talking
about women’s sexuality. innocent fruit of conjugal
intimacy? i feel like any woman who finds that phrase appealing is
the same type of woman who fantasizes about doing it in the overly
styled and unimaginative rooms they see in a pottery barn catalog. or in
other words, the type of women who actually like porn for women.

it’s this kind of shit that really makes you wonder exactly how far
conservatives would go with banning and censoring material were they not
restricted by the constitution they claim to love so much. would
all racy romance novels vanish from bookstores and airports? would
sexy, high-end fashion shows and advertisements get shut down?
the problem with censoring “porn” is that because overt and commodified
sexuality has worked its way so far into the mainstream, censoring
becomes a very slippery and steep terrain to navigate. oh, and
also because censorship is fascism. that’s another big problem with
censoring porn.

i don’t know what some conservatives think happens exactly when us
lady folk watch porn. if by “seduced into promiscuity and
pornography in all forms,” i don’t know if they’re trying to say that
women who are single are going to try and have a fulfilling sex life by
sleeping with the (potentially numerous) people she thinks are going to
satisfy her needs, and/or maybe throw on a porn and (gasp!) masturbate,
or if what they’re really talking about here is fears of a married,
straight, christian woman getting one glimpse of evan stone in who’s nailin’ paylin?, (a personal favorite of mine) and heading off to san fernando valley
to let loose. the first scenario sounds like a lot of girls
i know. the second sounds like a highly preposterous, though very
funny, paranoid conservative fantasy.

preposterous? paranoid? who does that remind me of? oh, yes. michele. on thursday, bachmann became the first presidential candidate to sign this ridiculous, insulting pledge. i guess i shouldn’t be surprised whatsoever that she’s pandering to iowa. after the gacy gaffe,
she’ll give iowa whatever they want. oh, except gay
marriage. i’m pretty sure she’d try to take that away from them
given the rest of the pledge she agreed to.

on a gay marriage and paranoid conservative fantasy note,
archbishop timothy dolan has now officially stated that since new york
has emerged victorious in a hard-won fight to secure equal rights for
gay people to marry, polygamy is next. i have written here before about dolan and his bigotry about anything that isn’t totally heteronormative.

it’s funny and not at all surprising that what got dolan all riled up
is the exact same article that made me incredibly happy to read
two weeks ago in the new york times magazine. mark oppenheimer’s article, “married, with infidelities,”
is a fantastic, even handed look at how our culture is shifting towards
the acceptance of nonmonogamy in its many forms, and how this will
improve our lives and save marriages and families, rather than destroy
them. my only complaint about it was that they did not mention
such great resources as opening up and the ethical slut. it’s a long article, so i won’t get into it in this post, but i encourage everyone to read it when they get a chance.

listen up, michele. if you’re not giving up your guns, i am not
giving up my porn. sex not violence. love not hate. don’t
tread on my fucking porn.

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Posted on July 6, 2011 by Alison

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Cher Volunteers to Strangle Michelle Bachmann’s Husband With Boa

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Alison

It’s rough being from Minnesota sometimes. It’s so politically
polarized here that liberals and conservatives alike are both horrified
at the other side. I couldn’t be more pleased with Keith Ellison and Al
Franken but almost every time Michelle Bachmann or Tim Pawlenty opens
their mouth I’m at least cringing, if not outright angry almost
immediately.

Many of us have heard about Michelle Bachmann’s various gay-hating
moments, from hiding in the bushes during a pro-gay rally to any number
of quotes about how god will be swooping in any minute now to save
conservatives from the lawlessness of modern day America.

Michelle Bachmann’s husband is just as bad. Bachmann’s husband,
Marcus, runs a Christian counseling clinic and is a believer in
converting and deprogramming gay people. The video that got Cher up in
arms (below) features Marcus Bachmann talking about his stance on gay
people. He says, “We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated;
they need to be disciplined.” Just the idea that barbarians = gays is
terrible.

Cher saw this video recently and had a few things to say about it on Twitter.

What I love about Cher’s response is how completely indignant and
enraged she was about this. She is throwing a full-on queertastic hissy
fit on twitter. Later in her twitter feed, she has to calm herself down
by eating some avocado.

I really hope Cher sends the Bachmanns a broom and some sequins. If
we can’t be rid of these insane right-wing gay haters, at least we have
people like Cher on our side.

we are the super (gender) friends.

Posted on July 3, 2011 by Anna

after a long week, i super was happy to have some time this
morning to catch up on my favorite blogs, and finally get back in the
habit of posting here again.

in the process of interweb cruising, i came across a great article on feministing
from thursday written by jos. the article is about the concept of
gender friends, and if you’re not familiar with what that means, jos
does a great job of explaining:

a gender friend is someone i feel comfortable talking through
gender issues with. i’ve got a range of gender friends, from folks i
like to have nerdy theoretical conversations with to a few folks with
whom i talk through incredibly personal issues. they’re people who share
some important common understandings about gender, who i know i won’t
have to explain basic concepts to when talking about something i’m
struggling with or excited about. they’ve helped me process my feelings
and experiences around gender, helped me explore my genderqueer identity
and then come out as a trans woman. and i’ve helped friends through
similar experiences.

my gender friends don’t necessarily identify the same way i do –
in fact, my best gender friends are genderqueer and trans guys, and i’ve
got cisgender gender friends. but they are people who know me well, who
think seriously about gender at a political, cultural, and personal
level, and who are great, compassionate listeners who are also willing
to open up. we don’t always see eye to eye on everything either, but
they’re the kind of friends who care about me and can support me where
i’m at. i first had this sort of conversation in a genderqueer
discussion group at college – some of the members of that group are
still close gender friends today.

this article got me thinking about my own gender friends who, like
jos’, do not necessarily identify the same way i do. it is through
conversations with gender friends that i have come somewhat close to
realizing my own gender identity. being cisgendered
obviously makes processing my gender not as complicated as it is for
people who are trans, genderqueer, or gender non-conforming, but it’s
still taken me a long fucking time.

during adolescence i remember struggling with mainstream concepts of
femininity, and a lot of time was spent figuring out exactly how i was
going to circumnavigate the usual trappings of make up and tight,
revealing clothing and still maybe possibly get laid. turns out
thrifted men’s polyester slacks were not the answer, but damn it if they
weren’t surprisingly comfortable.

i also remember having debates with my mom over make up, and how the
establishment was trying to suck our money away and make us feel bad
about natural blemishes at the same time, so why give in to that.
she made the argument, one that i’m now pretty on board with, that if
wearing make up makes you feel good and empowered, there’s nothing wrong
with it, outside of all of the dangerous chemicals they put in that
shit.

i was fortunate that my best friend, kara, was much like myself in
that we were both clueless about “girly” stuff. so since neither
of us were particularly interested in that, i did not feel like i was
extra weird for my inability to do my hair or apply any sort of
eyeliner.

my man feet, which i have already talked about in depth on this blog, were also a hindrance in me figuring out what looking like a lady was going to mean to me.

once i got to college, i still fluctuated quite a bit with gender
presentation, especially with make up and whether or not i would wear
it. my one fashion constant from late-high school to mid-college
was that my wardrobe was mostly filled with vintage t-shirts, and the
most flattering jeans available to a girl stuck between straight and
plus sizes.

the real shift came, not surprisingly, after switching majors from
linguistics to gender, women, and sexuality studies, where a veritable
department of gender friends was now my everyday reality. there
was lot of talk about reclaiming make up and sexy threads for the sole
purpose of feeling awesome about yourself, and not in order to drive the
men (or women) wild or to suggest that women need make up in order to
be attractive. these conversations definitely helped me work
through a lot of the reluctance i had over wearing make up or
provacative clothes in spite of wanting to.

my discussions with gender friends have not shifted my gender
presentation to any specific look. now i just wear what i feel
like on that day, and wear make up if i want to and know it’s not going
to melt off my face, all of which is possible daily because I can wear
whatever what I want to at my wonderful new job. it’s a major step
up from the requisite, soul-strangling khakis and polo that i donned at
a previous job for so much of this last, long winter of ours.

on friday morning, after picking up the a/c that alison has
generously given me, i had to run across the street to ace hardware to
get an extension cord. i intentionally picked the cashier who is
soft butch/genderqueer/gnc, not because of that, but because they’re
super nice and really good at their job. i decided to sign
up for the ace rewards card, because it’s right across the street from
me and eliminates my need to ever go to target by a whole bunch.
when i was filling out the form, i was kind of bowled over by the fact
that they include a box to check male or female. i was going to
write about how stupid this is, and why an interest in tools should not,
even more so than just about anything else, require you to disclose
your gender identity. but that post will have to wait for another
day.

i asked the cashier if they knew why this was on the form, because it
doesn’t make any fucking sense, and they said they didn’t know.
after a short pause, they told me, “but you could mess with them and
check both boxes.” i replied, “good idea,” and proceeded to do so.

i encourage anyone and everyone to find a gender friend. even
if it’s not to discuss your own identity, you could find someone who has
a different perspective than you on the role(s) gender plays in our
lives, and what actions we all can take to keep gender from limiting our
lives. and believe me, that is worth discussing.

happy 4^th everyone.

find a super gender friend today!

Gay 4th of July, Gay Independence Day

Posted on July 3, 2011 by Alison

It’s almost the 4th of July, time to celebrate the independence
of the United States from Britain. That’s the point right? Sometimes I
think the holiday is really just about hot dogs and fireworks.

I did a bit of holiday themed google image searching this morning for my own entertainment. Below are the results: