Theme of the day: implied consent.

Another one of my favorite books is called Yes Means Yes, which is a compilation of essays talking about rape, the prevention of rape, and basically about consent. The major theme throughout the book is that implied consent isn't good enough. If you're on a date, and the person seems really into you, and you start making out and you end up on their bed and you don't hear yes, it means no. Always. Every time. It doesn't matter if you've had sex before. It doesn't matter if you're both naked. It doesn't matter if you're married. What matters is an enthusiastic "yes."

If you have sex with someone who said no, it's rape. That's clear enough. But so is sex without anyone saying anything. No one asked, no one agreed, it just happened and now it's done. How are you supposed to know if someone is uncomfortable at that point? You don't, and there's a very large opportunity that someone's going to end up feeling hurt and used. You cannot just go along with it.

The point with "yes means yes" rather than "no means no" is that people should always feel able to say yes. Starting off sex-ed with NO MEANS NO seems - is - very negative. Sex is something to be enjoyed. It should never make you feel bad about yourself later because the point is that it's so much damn fun. And the focus shouldn't be on just protecting yourself, but enjoying yourself.

Check out:
Yes Means Yes, by Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/ (the blog associated with the book)
this essay, which was published in Yes Means Yes


Also, remember that this isn't a male-to-female based thing. Having sex with your boyfriend if he hasn't agreed to it is still rape. There's rape within the lesbian community, and the gay community, and with white men and black women, and with older women and younger men. Rapists aren't only older white guys jumping out of bushes.

Always, always get a "yes."

Beth Ditto and things I don't understand.

I was on Perez Hilton (horrifying, but occasionally I too am bored) and came upon a post about The Gossip and how they're back together and how great they sound. Which they do! And there was a picture up with it, which included Beth Ditto. I then looked her up, because she is kind of gorgeous.

Exhibit A:
Yeah, she's pretty, right? And she's a feminist and openly queer and kind of fantastic. Several designers are fans of hers, and everyone agrees that her voice is amazing.

But the BIG THING about her, apparently, is that she doesn't shave her armpits and she doesn't wear deodorant. That's all. That's everything anyone chooses to notice. Oh, and that she's fat and disgusting. The coverage from progressive media outlets is adoring, and everyone else spends all their time saying things like "Ditto, who’s already hideous enough without adding body hair to the equation, has expressed her adoration for the unshaved and natural look."

One site says "Beth Ditto wants Kate Moss to lead an Anti-Shaving Campaign. No, I’m not joking. The Big front woman has seen the Supermodel potential, and she said Kate is a perfect model to encourage women to stop removing their body hair. Ditto thinks the natural look is sexy, you know, with all the body hair (??) and she’s sure that La Moss is perfect to change women’s attitude to shaving. OMG! This is disgusting. But Kate is too, so I think she’s perfect for this campaign."

Another says "Ditto’s idea is definitely weird and seems to be inspired by the hippie era. And if this was for the sake of publicity, the lady should have resorted to something better."

Why is not shaving automatically disgusting? Seriously. I don't understand. Yeah, not wearing deodorant is a little far from the social norms we're all used to. A lot of things are. But not shaving doesn't go straight to "smells bad" or "doesn't care about oneself" or anything like that. It just goes to "is slightly hairier."

It truly doesn't mean that women who shave less - or not at all - aren't sexy. In fact, shaving your body hair off desensitizes you to a lot of things. Shaving has a part in desexualizing you. Most women's body hair is pretty fine, and for white people it's usually blond. And since we can all agree that white people are the most likely to get all up in arms about this... what? What is the problem here?

Yes, models are waxed and airbrushed and Photoshopped and closeups on actresses in magazines never show any facial hair and there's a booming industry based on hair removal. But that's the thing: it's an industry. The companies that make hair-removal products wouldn't make money if they didn't reinforce the idea, over and over, that being hairy is bad and you're ugly if you have any hair but the stuff on top of your head. Hair is a thing we all have. It's a beautiful, natural thing. And I don't understand how the only important thing about someone can be that they have too much of it.

Hey, shock: this is a thing that frustrates me!

At night I tend to drift in to sit with my mom, who scratches my head while I read. It's an idyllic setting. I feel as though I should be living in 1954. Anyway, tonight I was reading Full Frontal Feminism and a broadcast from Lakewood (the mega-church headed by ultra-creepy Barbie and Ken Learn To Preach couple Joel and Victoria Osteen) was blaring on the television. I don't know if that is some sort of lethal combination, or if earlier conversations today about feminism and the unspoken truth brought it out, but I became furious listening to them preach, or what they call preaching.

Victoria started off with a declaration that they were going to focus on the family this weekend (no, really. I thought you couldn't speak that phrase aloud without the (TM) and perhaps a grimace, but apparently James Dobson really can't ascend from the fiery pits of hell to smite you for it. I guess he isn't actually dead. Whatever.) and that focusing on the family was all about love and acceptance and loving everyone no matter whether it was popular or your Aunt Betty agreed with it, because family is about love. Which is great! I love that. Except, of course, she didn't stop there.

She started into several minutes of talking about how a friend of hers felt so broken because her son had "embraced an alternative lifestyle" (here's a hint: this delicately phrased euphemism does not mean "he's started doing a lot of yoga and talks about Buddha's teachings a lot" or "he's taken up listening to polka and liking it" but rather "he's one of them homosexuals." I know! I was shocked too!) and she didn't know how to handle it and she knew that God didn't like it and everything was RUINED FOREVER.

And Victoria told this friend to believe in what God could do to change her son, and that good things come of bad times, and just because you love them doesn't mean you're condoning the offending behavior.

This makes me want to hit someone.

If family is about love and acceptance, the first thing you do when you hear of a change in someone's life is to learn about whatever they've gotten into. If you disagree with it on principle (which I understand that some people do, even if they know good people who are taking part in the villianous behavior, have done objective research and seen the good and bad sides of it all) then above all you accept them. You don't have to accept the thing they're into, no. But you continue loving that person and you don't spend all your time trying to think of how you can change them.

Especially frustrating to me is how many people form opinions based on the opinions around them without doing research or even attempting to learn the facts about the subject. And they then stick with that opinion come hell or high water, and anyone who disagrees with them is just sadly, sadly misinformed. I'm thinking of all the kids I know who are having to write pro-choice or pro-equal marriage or anti-war papers for debate classes right now, who preface everything with BUT YOU GUYS THIS ISN'T WHAT I REALLY THINK BECAUSE THAT WOULD CLEARLY BE SILLY AM I RIGHT.

I recently watched a clip from the Today Show in which they allegedly interviewed Jessica Valenti (author of Full Frontal Feminism, The Purity Myth, and several other feminist books I really, really like). The other side of the debate - which is what this turned out to be - was a woman who was intensely into abstinence. She had apparently waited for thirty-something years until she got married, which I have no problem with, depending on her reasoning, but... anyway. The interviewers started the segment off with an incredibly biased statement ("It's a lot easier to give it away than to keep it, a ha ha! What do YOU think, author on this subject and randomly chosen abstinence advocate? WHO WILL AGREE WITH US") and from then on they barely let Jessica talk at all. Clearly, talk shows are not the best venue for your equal chance to talk anyway, but they kept directing all their questions toward the TLW advocate, and eventually the entire thing became the interviewers making (awkward) sex jokes with her.

She actually compared Jessica's sources on abstinence to members of the KKK studying black achievement.

Anyway, what's infuriating is the way that no one listens. No one tries to listen. People decide that they have this opinion and it is RIGHT and they protest and they demonstrate and they never try to learn. So the people who need to hear it most never do. The people who needed to see Milk never did, because they were opposed to the idea on principle. The people who need to read books like The Purity Myth never will. Because people become so stubborn, especially when they're backed by such a huge amount of people who believe what they do.

Here's my opinion:

The point of the Bible is to teach us not to let anything get so big in our field of vision that we lose sight of God. It's when things start taking over our lives that it's a problem with God. But if you focus on losing your heart in Him, and you honestly try but you know that you can't without help, and so you lean even more on God, and you love him as much as you can possibly imagine loving anyone and that shows and without even having to try to convert anyone people start getting closer to God through your presence (and therefore His) in their lives... I feel like that's the point. I don't think he's concerned about your birth control choices or whether you wear your hair long or whether there's some ankle showing, because all that pales in comparison to the huge, huge things that you are and will be doing for His children and His Kingdom. And I don't think the big thing to Him is who you choose to love, because love is the important thing.

I don't know. I'm trying to stay open-minded.