Continue reading »]]> A recent blog post in The Atlantic entitled “Is Sex Still Sexy?” bemoans the loss of eroticism in today’s youth culture (I swear if I see another one of these “those dang youths get everything wrong” articles I’m going to flip) and concludes that current young people with their propensity for over-sharing, hooking up, and lame (sidebar: if realistic) portrayals of sex lack eros. That our current culture’s understanding of sex is anything but sexy and that it “if we want sex to be sexy again, perhaps we should speak less about it.”

As examples of our culture’s lack of appreciation of the erotic, she chose the HBO show Girls and, oddly, Speak About It, which is a live performance piece originally written by college-aged students to address an issue they found important – sexual assault is shockingly pervasive on college campuses, but there is a lack of relatable, well-conceived programs that attempt to address this issue. A recent review paper elaborated on the problem: though estimates of prevalence vary, the accepted hypothesis is that anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of women on college campuses will be sexually assaulted before her senior year. A Congressional study found that only 6 in 10 colleges surveyed offered safety-related educational programming, and only 60% of those programs addressed sexual assault. The study reports that:

This disheartening finding led to the recommendation that all colleges provide comprehensive education about erroneous beliefs about rape, general rape-related information (e.g., common situations in which rape occurs, perpetrator characteristics, and the effects of rape on survivors), prevention strategies, campus resources, and support sources.

That is a bit of real-life context that is lacking from the author’s piece in the Atlantic. She dismissively calls Speak About It a “play” and says that “It’s meant to foster ”healthy relationships” on campus by addressing the issue of consent and sexual assault.” Sure, that’s one tiny part of it, but lumping Speak About It in with Girls displays an unfortunate ignorance on the part of the author for the reason why Speak About It was created. Speak About It is attempting to solve a culture-wide crisis by creating content that is based upon sadly lacking research, which means that the language will at times be reductive and simple. If the author of the post wanted to see over-the-top sexy dialogue, she should have turned to (a well-written) porno, not an educational program.

Members of the cast of Speak About It, casually ruining sex for everyone

When I first read the piece, I was temped to write a derisive and dismissive post, pointing out the somewhat bizarre thought process behind contrasting a thirteenth century poet’s work with a contemporary television show (not to mention an educational program designed to raise awareness of college sexual assault, but we’ve already covered that). Yes, please, let’s all go back to the thirteenth century where sex was so good because wealthy people could just rape all the slaves they felt so much eros about. However, I think that her piece is indicative of a pervasive problem in the way that people perceive sex and how sex should exist in culture, and I think it deserves a more thoughtful response.

She claims that truly erotic sex must have elements of mystery, privacy, longing, and urgency. She writes: Eros is passion, longing, and yearning. It is magnified by mystery and intrigue. Cultural constraints and taboos intensify erotic sex: The less you can have something, the more you want it.

Let’s take a minute and think about this. Yes, passionate sex does have elements of longing and of yearning. But this passion can exist even in situations where the person that you’re yearning for gives you permission to do something about it. The veneration of cultural taboos in the above quote is extremely disconcerting to me. Cultural constraints (like burkas, for example) do intensify the longing part of erotic sex – and result in a culture where one gender is routinely commodified, objectified, sexualized, and, yes, raped. This is a lingering problem with the historic repression of women’s sexuality – the idea that the erotic must be coupled with resistance – that nothing is worth having if you don’t have to fight for it.

Yes, we have a culture today where sex is more openly discussed, and of course that will yield instances (some scenes in Girls, for example) where bad, lame, and “banal” sex is portrayed. But to omit those aspects of sexuality from the discussion in the interest of preserving the “erotic mystery” of sex is to silence a very real and very valid part of human existence. Not every sexual experience is going to be good, even with a partner for after whom you’ve been lusting forever. Shutting down this dialogue is not productive to encouraging a discussion of positive sexual experiences, and allowing it to have a place in popular culture doesn’t mean that young people “have a limited understanding of the eroticism of sex.”

The author disparages the “hook up” culture – going so far as to imply that humans having “casual sex” (which goes undefined in the piece) are dismissing their human-ness in chasing anamalistic desires instead of eroticism. Once again, this is dismissing vast swaths of the human experience. Sex within a caring, committed relationship is an extremely wonderful and erotic human experience. But so is casual sex. It is extremely arrogant to imply that one type of sex is less “humanistic.”

The author expresses this common fundamental misunderstanding that great, erotic, passionate sex is born of longing. That wanting someone enough will make that moment when you finally get to be with them perfect. However, though sex is natural, that doesn’t mean it is easy. That doesn’t mean that you just know how to do it well. And, perhaps most importantly, just because you’ve been lusting after someone for years does not mean that they want to have sex with you. To get to a point where you know these things – you need communication. Additionally, the idea that longing is key to good sex breeds ultimate dissatisfiaction in long-term relationships. If all you need is longing, what happens when you’ve been sleeping with this person for three years? If you aren’t an advocate for sexual communication or education, then my bet is you start longing after someone else.

The normalization of accurate sexual communication in pop culture is good. I’m not saying that all sex portrayed in Girls is super hot or even acceptable (there are instances of sexual assault reflected in the show) but they reflect what is happening in current culture and that is important. All the evidence points to the fact that truly satisfying sex depends upon communication with your partner, as well as a thorough understanding of what you like sexually. People who are dismissive of the hook up culture as nothing more than “meaningless instant gratification” ignore the fact that throughout your life your most important sexual relationship is the one that you have with yourself. All those random hook ups? Making out on the dance floor? Deciding the minute your pants come off that you actually don’t want to go through with sleeping with your best friend? These are moments that can give you information about yourself and what you like. You can explore desires with a new partner, even a first time one. The people that we let into our lives (and our bodies) bring with them their own experiences and can teach us new things (of course, they also bring with them their own STI’s so safe sex is always a must).

So how do we really make sex sexier? Do we silence people who are attempting to portray sex as it occurs in real life, because it saps eroticism from our cultural understanding of sex? Or do we support programs like Speak About It which empower people to have honest discussions with each other, with their partners, and with themselves about what they want, what they like, what they don’t like, and what they want to try? Do we give people credit for understanding that sex can be “erotic” and empower them to have that initial, “banal,” slightly less sexy conversation where they ask for what they want in the interest of the more erotic, consensual, ultra-hot sex that will follow?

I think you know where I stand.

Continue reading »]]> I haven’t quite gotten over this high school compulsion to imagine meeting a boyfriend as meeting a guy through some shared activity, and then slowly forming a friendship, and then slowly transitioning gracefully into a “relationship,” probably by way of some heartfelt, passionate kiss in the moonlight. This is the paradigm that is played out constantly on television shows and in movies. We need to watch the development of sexual tension between friends in order to be interested in a given plot. We need to know, before the characters do, how perfect they will be together and how great it would be and OMFG will they just MAKE OUT ALREADY?!?

This, as many people know, isn’t always how it plays out in real life. In real life, you are often required to get to know someone with the implicit expectation that there will be making out afterwards. There isn’t a fun, no-pressure, bouncy mystery of will-they-or-won’t-they; rather, there is a finite timeline (ie the duration of a date) to decide whether or not you want to kiss this person. That’s how I gauge the quality of my dates: if we both want to kiss each other at the end of the night, there’s potential. If one party doesn’t want to (I don’t mean would prefer to wait until a later date, but genuinely does not want to put lips on lips), well, then, see ya later. No long glances in the rain, no fraught conversations with mutual friends about your obvious chemistry. Instead it’s just: Hmm… Eh…? Nah. Bye.

I am not someone who naturally forms tight-knit groups of friends which hang out all the time and navigate the muddy waters of our twenties in tandem. Instead, I invest in communities that are based around shared activities. I join social sports clubs. Ultimate frisbee teams. Beer appreciation clubs. Running clubs. These clubs become my community; not the people that I necessarily spend all my waking hours with a la How I Met Your Mother, but a group people that I know I can count on when I need them. A group of people who get my passions and care about me.

Naturally, it is within these communities that I wind up finding guys to have crushes on. In my constant quest for comfortable relationships, guys that I can see in low-key situations in the context of a shared activity are perfect. Which brings me to the reason that I have had a hard time attracting men of late: running.

Since moving to Boston, running has become my primary activity, both in terms of fitness and socialization (and in terms of self-awareness and knowledge). There’s something about the city that speaks to the runner in me – no matter where you go, you will always see people running by. The city seems to be designed to accommodate runners, from the lovely path around the Charles River to the copious footbridges that allow you to hop over gross thoroughfares like Storrow Drive. I love running around Boston so much that it pains me to blame it for my single-hood, but there it is.

When I go running, I imagine that I look pretty darn awesome. There’s nothing like getting out and running a few miles to make you look fresh and vibrant. In my mind, I run around looking utterly and completely cute, like this:

Everybody! Come and see how fit and casual I look!

I mean, come on. That’s adorable. Having a great time, staying fit, enjoying the outdoors. Who wouldn’t go for that?

The problem comes in the context of these wonderful running groups. Within a group of runners, there will always be a few who are faster than me. Sometimes, a lot faster. And while I might be able to look cute and fun when I’m running at my own pace, there’s no way I can stay sexy when I’m trying to keep up with guys who run over a minute faster per mile than I do. But there’s also no way I can chill out and let them just run ahead of me, because I am too damn competitive. It is a disastrous combination, because even during the most laid-back casual runs with my club, I wind up pushing my self so hard I look like this:

Urrnnnngh.

Or this:

Want to cuddle on the couch and watch a movie?? WANT TO???

(Also, you can’t really tell from these photos but I am perilously close to peeing in my pants because I am running so fast that bladder control can’t keep up).

This charming woman is the person to which all of the cute guys in every running group that I join are exposed. Not goofy, fun, lighthearted me, but the me that sees someone running ahead and rabidly tries to keep up until my bodily systems fail one at a time. If I were them, I would be terrified too.

There are many benefits to having a community of like-minded people, but in the context of me and running attracting a partner may not be one of them. I’m cool with that. Sure, I could try to be a little less competitive and chill out and have a good time. But unfortunately, that just isn’t me. So until I meet a runner who is attracted to someone who finishes a “casual jog” looking like she fell down a storm drain, I’m just going to enjoy the friends I meet and work on getting faster. I have a personal record to break, anyway.

Continue reading »]]> I am pleased to present the second post in our series of guests posts by Carlo the ‘S’ is Silent. If you missed the first, you can read it here. Enjoy!

The last time we talked about finding love, but just because you find that partner it doesn’t mean you get to keep his or her love.  Keeping the love of your partner takes respecting her, nurturing him, paying attention and more than a little bit of forbearance.

Once again, I’ve seen parallels between what it takes to keep the love of your romantic partner and what it takes to keep your dance partner happy.  If you indulge me one more time, here’s a list of what salsa taught me about keeping love:

1) Pay attention to your partner.

I took formal lessons in order to learn how to dance salsa.  In the beginning I learned the count of the music (it’s an eight count) and the basic step (first move is a step back for the men, step forward for the women).  Within a few lessons I learned combination: a synchronized pattern of movements led by the leader (usually male) and interpreted by the follower (usually female).  When you watch skilled dancers execute a combination, it looks fantastic.  When you watch Dancing With The Stars, what they are doing is executing a series of combinations.

As a beginner, I couldn’t wait to to lead a woman into a combination.  I was going to lead her into a cross body lead, and then spin her, and then do my own fancy little spin, and then put her right hand behind her back, and then spin her again, and then I would comb her hand over her face…you get the picture.  It’s complicated.  In fact, it was so complicated that the woman looked like someone just attempted to speak to her in a language she had never heard–she was confused.  I was ready to show off my newly gained knowledge.  She was ready to walk away.

Salsa is a partner dance, you see.  The leader and follower work together.  You can know all the moves in the book and can have more rhythm than the island of Cuba, but if you are not paying attention to your partner–what move your partner wants to do, what kind of lead your partner needs and is what level of push or pull your partner is ready to accept–it will not work.  If you look good and your partner doesn’t, neither of you will feel good.  And in the end, that’s what it’s about on the dance floor.

In a relationship, it is easy to take your partner’s thoughts and feelings for granted.  At the beginning, when you are in love, the object of your desire occupies your whole world.  Your brain is awash in dopamine, putting you in bliss, convincing you that you know all you need to know about your love.  As your relationship advances, the dopamine fades, you’ve learned much more about your beloved–her history, his quirks–you feel like you don’t need to think as much about their needs.  You already know your partner, what is there to think about?  In both cases you can be wrapped up in your own world that you forget there is someone else in this partnership whose thoughts and feelings matter at least as much as yours–that is, if you want the relationship to work.  Your partner’s need for you to pay attention never abates.

2) Respect and appreciate what your partner has to do to make it work

In salsa circles, there is an ongoing debate: who has the harder job, the leader (usually the man) or the follower (usually the woman)?

Ladies, here’s what the man has to do in a salsa dance: he has to keep time.  He has to keep coming up with combinations.  The man has to be completely focused not only on what he’s doing but what you’re doing.  And when you do something unexpected, he has to adjust, because, sister, sometimes you just don’t make any sense.

Gentlemen, this is what the woman has to do: she has to keep perfect form.  She has to interpret your lead since you may not know how to articulate what you want.  She has to execute a complete 360 degree spin every ten seconds.  And all of this while wearing three inch high heels.  She not only has to focus on what she’s doing, she needs to figure out what you’re trying to do.  Because, brother, sometimes you just don’t make any sense.

So who has it harder?  Well, gentlemen, try spinning in place three times without getting dizzy and falling down.  And, ladies, try getting some man you’ve never met to do exactly what you want him to do.  It’s difficult for both us.  So instead of complaining that it’s so easy for the man or the woman, show some respect for your partner.  It’s at least as hard for her or him.

And once in a relationship, we are, at times, tempted to think that we are sacrificing so much, working so hard, and are so unappreciated.  Maybe.  But before you come to those conclusions, try and put yourself in your partner’s shoes and see how hard or easy it is to do what your partner is doing for you.  Brothers, maybe you should be grateful a beautiful woman decided that the she would rather go with you to that baseball game instead of having a night out with her best friends.  Sisters, maybe it’s not such a small thing that you got that strong man to hold that purse for you while you try on that dress at the department store.

3) Something will go wrong.  The best partnerships recover.

The two people on the dance floor who are happiest dancing with each other are most likely the two who are most evenly matched in experience and ability, whether they are both beginners or both are at instructor level.  You can tell who they are.  They are the ones I talked about before that are smiling uncontrollably and widely.  Neither of them may be the perfect dancers, but they are perfect for each other.

But even when those two manage to find each other in the club, at least one thing will go wrong.  For a brief moment he might miss the beat and try to lead her into a spin on the wrong count.  She just might have thought that he raised her hand to turn her around, but he was actually trying to comb her hand over her head.  It’s all good.  If it’s a good partnership, you both look at each other when something goes wrong, you realize someone made a mistake–then you both laugh and continue dancing.

Even the healthiest of relationships–she gets you, he listens, you each communicate clearly, you know when to grant space, you do P90X together until you both pee blood–will encounter some kind of rough patch.  Something will go wrong.  As long what goes right greatly exceeds what goes wrong, it’s all right.  That one time out of many when it’s not like heaven, you look at each other, your realize someone made a mistake, you fight, you forgive and then you continue being with each other.

4) There’s always another dancer, there’s always another dance.

She was fantastic, wasn’t she?  Her form was perfect, her technique was first rate.  And wasn’t he so good?  His lead was gentle and firm.  His combinations were creative and enjoyable.

And, yet, somehow, it didn’t work.  You two just never got in synch.  Someone’s timing was off.  He tried to lead you into a spin, you really just wanted to rest and do some shines.  She just couldn’t understand what combinations you were trying to lead her into.  It’s disappointing because you thought you would dance the night away with each other.  Where did the dance go wrong?

Here’s the thing about salsa dancers.  They keep making new ones.  So if it doesn’t work with one partner, well, there’s another waiting for you.  If you decide to pass that one up because you’re not quite ready to return to the dance floor, that’s okay.  There’s going to be another one waiting to dance with you.  And there will be more potential partners for you tomorrow, too.

When we get rejected–whether it’s by someone new or someone we’ve been with for a while–it hurts.  We also often convince ourselves that the one who turned us away was so perfect for us.  If that person wasn’t, why would it hurt so much right now?  We sometimes convince ourselves that there will never be another.  That last woman was so pretty.  And she laughed at all your jokes.  How could anybody ever be better than her?  He was so handsome.  He really listened to you.  He’d read that obscure French novel you loved in college.  How can anyone ever be better for you than him?  And where did you go wrong?

Here’s the thing.  They keep making new men and women everyday.  It’s true.  You think that brown-eyed left handed woman who can quote lines from Die Hard is the only one like that you’re ever going to meet?  Hell, there’s at least ten of those right now in the Lower East Side.  That man who loves kids, has the physical strength of a grizzly bear and always thinks the jeans make you look thin, I promise you I can find at least one of those in every Starbucks on this City.

So when you risk your heart and it gets handed back to in an act of rejection, go ahead and lick your wounds.  Let yourself heal.  When you recover–whether it takes a day or it takes a year–there will be more than one person out there waiting for what you have to offer.  Go get her.  Go find him.

Dance to the rhythm of LIFE people!

Continue reading »]]> In response to my post “What Running Taught Me About Love,” my friend Carlo, The ‘S’ is Silent, a longtime and accomplished salsa dancer, offered to write about his experiences with dancing. I am pleased to present “What Salsa Taught Me about Finding Love.” Keep your eyes peeled for Part Two, coming up in the next few days!

It is a rare person who has not wondered at one point in their lives, in one way or another, how to find love. It’s a yearning that we share as human beings.

Most of us will have learned where to look through trial and error.  Many of my own trials have been on the dance floor.  I’ve danced salsa long enough and in enough places in the world to see parallels between what it takes to find a good dance partner and what it takes to find the right romantic partner.  If you’ll indulge me, here’s a list of what salsa taught me about finding love:

1) You can’t tell how well you will dance with someone just by looking at them.

On any given night in New York, there are thousands of women and men out dancing salsa.  Some are trying it for the first time, others have been dancing for years.  Many are dressed for show, others look like they just rolled out of bed.  And, of course, more than a few are outrageously attractive.  And some are not.

The question for you is, with which one of these these thousands of people should you dance?  With whom will you enjoy dancing until the music stops and they throw you out of the club?  Should you dance with the pretty one?  The tall one?  The one who looks like they were trained by Alvin Ailey?  The one who still hasn’t figured out which is their left foot?

When you dance well with someone, you know it.  Your movements are synchronized with each other and with the music.  You anticipate each other’s moves.  It looks like you are communicating without words.  And you smile uncontrollably and widely.

But you can’t tell how well you will dance with someone until you actually dance with them.  There’s no such thing as “she’s too pretty” or “he’s too good looking” or “she’s not pretty enough” or “he needs to lose weight” or “she’s more coordinated than the US gymnastics team” or “he has more rhythm than Justin Timberlake”.  So until you’re on the dance floor and you have your hand on the small of her back or your right hand is resting gently in his, you have no idea how well it’s going to go.  You’re going to need to take a chance.

In the search for love, there is no denying that we are drawn to someone’s appearance.  That perfect facial symmetry.  The waist to hip ratio that denotes fertility.  That strong jaw.  Height.  Status.  Two million years of hominid evolution has taught us to seek such obvious markers of genetic fitness.  And that’s fine.  But if you’re old enough (i.e., you’re out of high school) you know that nothing about how someone looks or how you look will tell you whether you two will be happy together or not.  So the first step is actually talking to each other.

2) You need to dance with a lot of partners.

I’ve been dancing salsa for many years.  After all this time, I’ve discovered the kinds of partners I prefer.  I like to be subtle, so I prefer partners who want a gentle lead.  There are women who are drawn to the technique, athleticism and showmanship of the dance, but I prefer those who just want to enjoy themselves and be happy.

It took a while for me to understand that these are the kinds of partners that would work best with me.  I had to dance with many partners on many different nights in many different places.  I had to endure lack of chemistry, bad timing, and poor dance etiquette before I figured out what works on the dance floor and with what kind of partner.  Not every woman will be happy dancing with me and I will not be happy dancing with every woman.  I accept that.  But even in this narrowed set, there are hundreds of women to dance with.  That is precious knowledge and that knowledge only came with experience and dancing with a lot of different women.

The truth is, dating is a pain in the freakin’ ass.  Ladies, just how many backwards-hat-wearing, beer-swilling, ass-farting, chest-thumping clowns do you have to endure before you meet that man who will help you move your furniture, glower menacingly at men who creep you out, support your ambitions and quote you love poems from Wordsworth (assuming you’re into that kind of thing)?  Gentlemen, how many women who don’t know their own ass from their elbow and who think that the highest intellectual aspiration is choosing the right nail polish do you have to deal with before you meet that one who will listen to you and support you as you dream of larger things?  The answer is: A LOT.

Finding your love–like finding a good dance partner–is a volume business.

3) Learn from the disappointments.

My goal when I started learning how to dance was to become good enough to dance with any woman on earth.  The first time I went out by myself to dance was in Barcelona.  The Spanish women were very easy going and friendly.  I had a great time.  New York women are a little different.

I still remember the very first woman I ever danced with in New York.  She was dark blonde.  Tall and slender.  Very pretty.  I have never forgotten the look of disappointment on her face when she danced with me.  She was distinctly and irrevocably unimpressed.

That was not the only time I disappointed a partner.  I’ve been asked, point blank, “Where did you learn?”  The worst thing you can be told as a salsero is “you’re off beat” meaning that your motion and your lead are not timed to the music.  I used to hear that all the time.

Disappointing all those women did leave me dejected at times, but it also forced me to learn.  What could have I done better?  Was my lead too strong?  Did I really understand the combination?  Did I read her properly and understand her skill level?  So I made myself better by practicing and dancing more often.  The alternative would have been to give up on dancing, of course, and leave the dejection on the dance floor, but I wasn’t going to do that.  I enjoyed it too much for the disappointments to overwhelm the magic.

In the pursuit of love, heartbreak is inevitable.  If you’re not willing to endure the full spectrum of rejection–from not being called back to being told after years that it’s just not working out–you will not experience the magic of being deeply connected to another human being.

But there is no need to endure the same kind of pain over and over.  If it ends (or doesn’t even begin), there’s a reason.  It’s the wrong time in her life.  He’s not all that you imagined.  Or–gasp–it really was you and you needed more seasoning as a person and as a lover to deal with someone like the one who sent your way.  Examine yourself with honesty, brutality and compassion and find out what you could have done better.  And then go back out there, armed with your hard-won lessons, and make different mistakes.

Continue reading »]]> Yesterday I was completely bummed that I had to head into Boston on Patriot’s Day to go to work in the Prudential Center. Since my company isn’t Massachusetts based, they don’t recognize the awesomeness of Patriot’s Day and so made us come to work. The commute was full not of suited businesspeople, but with excited tourists and families headed towards Boylston Street early to get prime seats near the finish line. Being around them filled me with a happy excitement, because I love it when people come out in droves to cheer on runners, but also made me exceptionally cranky because I wouldn’t be joining them.

Yesterday was never going to be an ordinary day, because the Boston marathon was finishing one block away from my office, but it is incredibly sad to think about how a day that is usually so remarkable because of the abundance of joy, pride, and happiness was usurped by terror, pain, and sadness. People all over the world are reading about the tragedy in Boston, but here is one more story from someone who was there.

From the beginning of the work day, we were distracted by the events on the ground below. People had lined up on Boylston Street early and the cheers floated up to us on the 21st floor. The handcycles and wheelchairs came in first, flying down Boylston Street to exuberant cheers. It was an amazing feeling to see athletes of different physical abilities celebrated so emphatically. At the finish line of the Boston Marathon (or any marathon really) everyone finishes to the same happy yell. This picture was when the first women started to come in.

My co-worker and I went down to Boylston Street near the finish line so I could try to see my friend finish. The Boston Athletic Association has a running tracker feature on their website, so I knew when to expect him. I didn’t know at the time, of course, but I was there almost an hour before the bombs went off. The second one exploded a few feet to the right of this picture. The part that I want to remember is how incredibly happy and excited everyone was. Some runners looked strong, others looked exhausted, but everyone in the crowd was thrilled to be there to help them cross the line. All of the pictures being circulated of the day show the terrified, the wounded, and the brave. The point of terrorism is to make everyone forget that for almost four hours, the above happened too. People who had been training for months cycled or ran 26.2 miles, and strangers from all over the world cheered them to the very end.

The explosions were completely disorienting, even from 20 stories up. My colleagues and I wondered aloud what could have happened – whether it was some sort of cannon or fireworks – but as we saw the plumes of smoke and heard the cheers turn to screams it became obvious that it was not celebratory  From our vantage point on Boylston, we saw people running in the opposite direction. Sirens started wailing – and they didn’t stop for the next three hours. The above picture is the same shot of Boylston street, except that where there were spectators there are now only cops and K9 units. If my camera were better, you would be able to see the people streaming away from Boston on the Mass Ave bridge towards Cambridge.

Ambulances lined up on Huntington Ave as policed worked on evacuating the crowd of finishers and their families that traditionally gathers on Stuart Street (to the right).

By 4:30 PM, Huntington Ave (which runs sort of parallel to Boylston) had been turned into police headquarters and was filled with police cars, FBI agents, SWAT vehicles, the National Guard, and bomb squads. We watched them from our windows because the emergency system told us not to leave.

That dark blob near the top of the steps is a backpack that police took from a man, threw on the ground, and then gave a wide berth while they waited for the K9 unit. The dog didn’t find anything amiss with the backpack, and the K9 policeman opened the backpack and emptied it. I was watching all of this from my window, not particularly worried because I was so far up, but half-expecting the whole thing to explode. It was a strange new normal, watching potential bombs being investigated from my office window.

When they finally let us leave, I passed by a familiar ad on my way out of the Pru. There have been ads featuring the marathon all over the mall where I work for the past few weeks, and I always loved walking by them. In my adrenaline-addled state as I finally left the mall, I saw this ad next to a large television screen live-streaming images of the wounded and I finally lost it a little bit. We had all, as a city, been so excited for this event. It is such a special day for Boston.

Ultimately I am extremely grateful that I, and all of my family and marathon-running friends, are alright. But I am in mourning – mourning for those who were or knew someone killed or injured, mourning for the runners who trained so hard and didn’t get to finish, mourning for the runners who did get to finish and had their accomplishment overshadowed, mourning for the loss of innocence of one of our country’s most amazing sporting celebrations.

It is tempting to respond to these events with anger and hate. It makes us feel safer to have someone to blame, and enemy to “wipe out” so we can feed our need for vengeance and feel as though we can control or prevent this kind of senseless, random violence. I heard many people talking about “terrorism” as though it meant a specific group of people (defined by ethnicity or religion), and that the wrath of the United States would be swift and merciless. In truth, terrorism can come from anywhere, and at its heart it is designed to incite hateful overreactions because it puts our sense of personal safety, and the safety of those we love, at risk.

I’m not mad, personally. I am really sad. But I hate being sad, so instead I am going to work on being proud. I am proud of the medical professionals who only expected to deal with dehydration, muscle fatigue, and probably some barf and instead got handed wounds you would expect in a battlefield. I am proud of the race officials and volunteers who stepped up and ran into the chaos alongside police. I am proud of law enforcement officials, because they came in from all over the city on their day off. I am proud of Boston, because we are back on our feet today. And mostly, I am proud of runners. We are a peaceful group in general – our sport at its most violent means passing someone when they’re struggling on a hill and then congratulating them at the finish line. Our competitions are almost always events that are designed to raise money for charity. Think about that – the world’s largest and most popular sporting events are designed to raise money for companies, television studios, and athletes. But almost all road races are held for a charitable cause. Even runners who qualify for elite media-popular races like Boston still often raise money for a charity they care about. Those of us who aren’t fast enough to qualify have to raise money for a charity that we care about. The runners in the Boston Marathon expected a challenge – but a challenge that they had trained for. Instead they were handed a terrorist attack. But, as runners do, they stayed calm and focused and prevented mass panic and chaos in Boston. Tens of thousands of them, exhausted, exhilarated, and sweaty, cooperated with police and gracefully watched their day transform into something terrible.

Terrorists can take lives and limbs and make people feel unsafe, but they can’t take away the fact that today, though Boylston Street is still closed, Boston is back at work. And all over the city, thousands of runners are walking around, some sore and aching, already thinking about their next race. If you were going to try to pick a group to bully, Bostonians and runners may be two of the worst groups to choose. Today, instead of dwelling on being sad, especially as I go on one of my last training runs before my half marathon on Saturday, I am going to focus on that.

Continue reading »]]> University of Rochester professor (whose book More Sex is Safer Sex I have read and enjoyed) Steven Landsburg published a thought experiment to this blog recently that has been garnering some negative attention. The post, titled “Censorship, Environment, and Steubenville” throws out three “hypothetical” situations and asks the reader to identify whether their implications should be incorporated into public policy. Here’s one:

Farnsworth McCrankypants just hates the idea that someone, somewhere might be looking at pornography. It’s not that he thinks porn causes bad behavior; it’s just the idea of other people’s viewing habits that causes him deep psychic distress. Ought Farnsworth’s preferences be weighed in the balance when we make public policy?

Here’s two:

Granola McMustardseed just hates the idea that someone, somewhere might be altering the natural state of a wilderness area. It’s not that Granola ever plans to visit that area or to derive any other direct benefits from it; it’s just the idea of wilderness desecration that causes her deep psychic distress. Ought Granola’s preferences be weighed in the balance when we make public policy?

And here, the piece-de-resistance, is three:

Let’s suppose that you, or I, or someone we love, or someone we care about from afar, is raped while unconscious in a way that causes no direct physical harm — no injury, no pregnancy, no disease transmission. (Note: The Steubenville rape victim, according to all the accounts I’ve read, was not even aware that she’d been sexually assaulted until she learned about it from the Internet some days later.) Despite the lack of physical damage, we are shocked, appalled and horrified at the thought of being treated in this way, and suffer deep trauma as a result. Ought the law discourage such acts of rape? Should they be illegal?

What a fascinating question – should the rape of an unconscious person be illegal?

When analyzing these three scenarios, he concludes that they are in fact the same. His justification is:

As long as I’m safely unconscious and therefore shielded from the costs of an assault, why shouldn’t the rest of the world (or more specifically my attackers) be allowed to reap the benefits? And if the thought of those benefits makes me shudder, why should my shuddering be accorded any more public policy weight than Bob’s or Granola’s? We’re still talking about strictly psychic harm, right?

He then goes on to add, for all of those commenters who claimed that these scenarios are not the same because in this case, a woman has a clear right to control what happens to her own body where these other two don’t have the right to control 1) other people’s computers or 2) Alaskan forests, respectively:

Some commenters have suggested that Question 3, unlike Questions 1 and 2, involves a violation of property rights. This seems entirely wrong to me; in each case, there is a disputed property right — a dispute over who controls my computer, a dispute over who controls the wilderness, a dispute about who controls my body. To appeal to a “respect for property rights” solves nothing, since in each case the entire dispute is about what the property rights should be in the first place.

In response, I found myself thinking about why rape is “bad” and why it is illegal. Is it only because of the risk of STDs or pregnancy? Is it also because of the psychological harm done to survivors of assault? I realized two reasons why this thought exercise upsets and offends me, because it is representative of greater issues that permeate our culture and how it treats women and rape.

Firstly, I am sick and tired of this “debate” over who owns women’s bodies. We are constantly battling legislation that is aimed at taking away our freedom to control our own reproductive tracts. States across the country, notably North Dakota in recent news, seem to have limitless energy for trying to restrict women’s access to abortions, and to grant fertilized eggs (a collection of cells so tiny you can count them on your fingers and toes) equal rights to the full-grown women who house them. To his credit, Landsburg was careful to keep his language gender-neutral because we know that anyone can be a victim of sexual assault, but I feel that his casual comment about a “dispute about who controls [the] body” fits neatly into the cultural and political attitude that women’s bodies, specifically in a sexual context, somehow need to be controlled by someone else.

This = Me?

Women are adults too. Simply because we can get pregnant and wind up responsible for tiny pre-human beings for the first nine months of their existence does not make our bodies somehow less our own and more in the public domain. The question here seems to be – who actually owns my body? I do. Unconscious, conscious, sick, healthy, running, dancing, sleeping – I. Own. My. Body. And you can’t touch it unless I say so. That goes for everyone.

Secondly, and perhaps more worrisome, is the attitude that rape is inevitable when it is available. Landsburg writes, “why shouldn’t the rest of the world (or more specifically my attackers) reap the benefits?” This is an incredibly insidious attitude. That the majority of people, the rest of the world, would perceive raping an unconscious person as a BENEFIT?? How did we get to this point, where sex with an unconscious person, for all intents and purposes a breathing corpse, is okay as long as no one finds out about it? And that it would be DESIRED??

This is indicative of a greater cultural problem that feeds directly into our societal issue with rape. It is the assumption that men are crazed for sex, and that unless a woman is consciously and loudly fighting them off, they will take it whenever they can get it. It isn’t just women who should be offended and upset by this attitude (because we are expected to police ourselves and them men around us all the time, as discussed in this post), it is men! How many men do you know? Now, how many of them, when confronted with an unconscious man or woman, would look around slyly and reap the benefits?? Some of them might. But certainly not all of them.

These hypothetical discussions, in my opinion, tend to miss the fucking point. Why are we talking about rape as some inevitable factor? Why can’t we imagine a society where people are taught to respect other people’s physical boundaries? Where sex isn’t how we keep score, it’s something to be enjoyed equally by two parties? Where men aren’t conditioned to be brainless sex monsters and women the lion tamers who have to keep them in check? Sure, hypothetically, the rape of an unconscious person who never finds out might not cause any harm. But what would be harmful is to live in a culture where rapists feel they are allowed to take what they want as long as no one finds out. Because, in a depressingly large number of cases, we do live in that culture. And instead of figuring out how to explain and justify the actions of rapists, we should be figuring out how to create a culture where people don’t rape.

Continue reading »]]> Today I am thrilled to publish a guest post in response to the recent marriage equality discussions that have permeated our national dialogue. Major thanks go to Mr. Isa Abney, future world leader, for being willing to contribute to the blog.

First, thank you JB, for letting me piss on your territory. Today’s topic is going to be a lil’ divergent from her typical posts about whether it’s appropriate to fart on a date (Julia’s note: Yes, but quietly); or, more importantly, why she is too cheap to buy her lover a cheeseburger. (Julia’s note: Because of society).

But, don’t be alarmed: we’re still talking about sex – however, not of the Salt N’ Pepa variety. I am talking about “queer sex,” currently in the news due to the “marriage equality” debate plaguing my life. Last week, the SCOTUS heard two cases (Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor) regarding gay marriage (now known as “same-sex marriage,” because the latter is ostensibly a little more digestible than “gay marriage,” “queer marriage,” etc. Titles matter to the gays—if anyone knows anything about “voguing,” bitches love titles. House of Diamonds, House of LaBeija, House of Waxx, etc.)

In the first case, Perry, the merits of the argument focused on the petitioners’ assertion that gay couples and hetero couples are different because heteros can make babies and queer couples (inherently, physically) cannot, and it’s in the interest of the State of California to regulate procreation—you know for responsible hetero child-rearing and cute shit like that.¹ In Windsor, as Solicitor General Verrilli stated, the crux of the argument was whether “the exclusion that DOMA imposes” on queer couples “violates equal protection” under federal law.²

In addition, there are constitutional ramifications outside of gay marriage that are important to note. Both cases dealt with the issue of what happens when and if lawmakers choose not to enforce the law — California lawmakers in Perry, and Obama et al. in Windsor. For instance, in California, dudes ignored a law that a majority of citizens voted for –that’s cray.  But who really cares about what powers legislative executors have over our lives, as long as Cam and Mitchell are allowed to have a “real” wedding on Modern Family.

Let me be clear, if two queer adults want to get married, buy a farm in Skowhegan, and raise sheep – totally chill. Do your thing, boo. Should major queer organizations (Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Marry, etc.) be spending millions of dollars in honor of “marriage equality?” No.

I know their headlines are convincing. The leading gay publication, the Advocate, called the fight for “marriage equality” as the “The Last Great Civil Rights Struggle.” What a powerful statement. I mean, who doesn’t want to get married? It’s the shit. Gay hero, Andrew Sullivan, drools over it all the time: “[Married couples] make a deeper commitment to one another and to society; in exchange, society extends certain benefits to them. Marriage provides an anchor, if an arbitrary and weak one, in the chaos of sex and relationships to which we are all prone. It provides a mechanism for emotional stability, economic security, and the healthy rearing of the next generation” (my emphasis).Yes, because nothing says healthy like I’m leaving your mother for my secretary and her turtle.

Even Obama, the Great and Powerful, spoke out in favor of gay marriage a few days ago, reassuring the masses that gays are safe to be around: “”I’ve known a lot of same-sex couples who are committed, who are raising kids. For them to be treated differently – I think it’s not fair. And I think an increasing number of Americans agree with that…And so, my hope is, is that the court reaches these issues and that we end up living in a country where everybody is treated fairly. That’s what I think is the most important thing about America.” Thanks, B. Glad to know those ever-changing poll numbers didn’t have an influence.

Moreover, I find it interesting that these champions of gay marriage rarely mention the financial benefits queer married couples can expect to receive if the Supreme Court rules in Edie Windsor’s favor. As the NYT rightly stated, “The 1996 law did not allow the Internal Revenue Service to treat Ms. Windsor as a surviving spouse, and she faced a tax bill of about $360,000 that a spouse in an opposite-sex marriage would not have had to pay.” I think we can all acknowledge that that’s fucked up.

However, if Windsor wins, the Treasury has to shell out over $300k (for better or for worse) and queer married couples in nine states and in the District of Columbia can, as Justice Ginsburg stated on Wednesday, file joint tax returns, claim marital deductions, etc. Which, is all fine and dandy – but it makes me wonder if what would have happened if Ms. Windsor had that same hefty tax bill but without the additional resources for the legal services that have since gotten her to the SCOTUS and grabbing national headlines – only three-years after she filed her suit. Just sayin’.

Supporters of “same-sex marriage” speak of “marriage” as the end-all-be-all remedy for all plights facing queer citizens. How many openly gay politicians do you know? How many gay Tom Cruises and Carmelo Anthonys do you know? How will marriage affect the larger discriminatory position of queers in society other than providing more than a few tax credits for married queers? The average wedding costs roughly $30,000 thousand dollars – yeah, that’s easy to come by in this economy.

And, for my benevolent liberal friends – yes, you, the one with the red profile pictures. Many queer theorists, writers, and bloggers have written ad naseum about the schism in the queer community between those who support gay marriage and those who wish we can focus on something else (for example, see here, here, and here, and definitely watch this). For further reference, this division exists because gay activism has moved from a grassroots, revolutionary base to a more normative, neoliberal base controlled by mostly upper-middle class queer same-sex couples who want their love to be recognized by their peers and the Internal Revenue Service. Reluctantly then, the mainstream audience largely views gay life through the eyes of a privileged few (e.g. Glee, Modern Family, and The New Normal) rather than a more encompassing look at the complexity of the queer community.

Have you seen the latest covers of Time Magazine? If not, here they are:

Do you see the patterns emerging? Do you think these guys and gals were on the last season of RuPaul’s Drag Race? The strong insistence on marriage as the most pernicious form of queer discrimination blinds us to the other pertinent issues affecting queers—I’ll get to those in a second—because we’re too wrapped up with this one issue.

Even Roberta Kaplan, the attorney representing Mrs. Windsor, slipped up in front of the Justices when she said, “You’re having discrimination for the first time in our country’s history against a class of married couples.” Kaplan’s comment provoked an immediate counter from Justice Sotomayor: “Now, the—the discriminations are not the sexual orientation, but on a class of marriage; is that what you’re…” (my emphasis). Kaplan answered, “It’s a class of married couples who are gay.”³ Did you catch what happened there in that exchange?

Well, if you didn’t, Marc Solomon, executive director of Freedom to Marry, brings it home when he answered Amy Goodman’s question about the effects the potential repeal of DOMA will have on the queer community. He declared, “It means that couples like—you know, like Edie Windsor a couple of years ago, couples who are married in New York and in the nine other—eight other states where there is marriage for gay couples, are eligible for all of the same protections that straight married couples get, so from Social Security to tax benefits and tax treatments.” Nothing says love, like “look baby! A $3,500 tax-credit!”

Imagine if all this money and attention was given to other issues affecting queer individuals, for example, the lack of affordable housing for queer youth, since 40% of homeless youth identify as queer. Or, maybe focus on why queer youth are four times more likely, and questioning youth 3 times more likely, to attempt suicide as compared to their hetero peers. Or why it’s socially permissible for parents to kick their kids out of their homes because they disagree with their kid’s sexual preference, even though we know that severe family conflict is the primary issue to which queer youth  attribute their homelessness. Or, why queer youths report double the rate of sexual abuse before their 12th birthday as compared to their hetero buddies.⁴  We have not even gotten to employment discrimination or housing discrimination! You see how many “queer issues” appear, once we stop talking about marriage. Imagine if Obama went on national TV and spoke about any of the above-mentioned “queer issues?”

I wonder if anyone heard about the controversy surrounding the “marriage equality” protests outside the SCOTUS last week. The one about respectability. One of the protest’s organizers, United for Marriage, had to release a statement apologizing for two paradigmatic instances. The first was about a speaker was asked to edit his speech to “hide a part of who he is”—meaning his sexual identity (for those of you who don’t know, for more normative, mainstream queer organizations you’re either “gay,”  or “lesbian,” but if you’re hot or popular, you can choose to be “bisexual.” Ask Frank Ocean.) The second incident involved several activists who were asked to lower their Trans pride flag “in order to keep [them] out of the scope of TV cameras.” Nothing says “freedom and equality” like we don’t want Trans people seen with us.

I’ll end with a quote from Michael Warner (you should read his book at some point) about the future of queer theory and politics. Warner remarked, “In this far-too-limited zone, it has been possible to keep alive a political imagination of sexuality that is otherwise closed down by the dominant direction of gay and lesbian politics, which increasingly reduces its agenda to military service and marriage, and tends to remain locked in a national and even nationalist frame, leading gay people to present themselves as worthy of dignity because they are ‘all-American,’ and thus to forget or disavow the estrangements that they have in common with diasporic or postcolonial queers” (my emphasis).

 References: 1. Perry, p. 16; 2. Windsor, p. 86; 3. Windsor p. 104; 4. National Alliance to End Homelessness, “LGBTQ Homeless Youth Fact Sheet,” http://www.safeschoolscoalition.org/LGBTQhomelessFactSheetbyNAEH.pdf

Continue reading »]]> Last night I went to the bathroom at a standard Boston pub and was treated to this grungy sign:

My first thought was, “How old is that sign, and why don’t they replace it? It looks like someone stored it at the bottom of a backpack during a rainstorm.” My second thought was, “Wait, what the f*ck?”

This sign is ridiculous, plus more than a little condescending. Roofies are DESIGNED to be undetectable in a drink. They dissolve quickly and have no taste or smell. So how exactly am I supposed to make sure I get exactly what I ordered? Huh? Am I some sort of chemical analysis kit because I’m a woman? Am I supposed to be psychic and anticipate which creepy guy might spike my drink? Am I supposed to order three drinks, and then play some sort of cup game with them so that any possible rapists will be confused and leave me alone?

Well? Which one you gonna roofie?? Can’t pull one over on ME!

At first blush, this sign seems no more innocuous than the messages that come over the subways in New York City, “Keep your personal belongings in sight at all times…” Sure, people can use a little bit of a reminder to be cautious when they’re out in public places. Don’t wave your smartphone around, because then criminals will know that you have a smartphone, and they might try to take it from you. The difference here though is that if you get robbed and you call the police, they don’t ask you, “So were you keeping your belongings in sight at all times? Did you wave your smartphone around and tempt all the thieves? Have you ever given a smartphone away to anyone else before? Are you sure you didn’t really want to give the young crackhead your smartphone?”

The first step to dismantling our victim-blaming culture is to notice the damage that common warnings like this sign can do. “Women!” people and signs alike cry, “Don’t wear slutty clothes! Don’t walk home alone! Don’t leave your drink alone for a second! Make sure you only get the drink you ordered – nothing more! Or else you’ll get RAPED, and it will be YOUR FAULT for not being smart.”

Being smart and aware don’t have that much to do with being raped. A culture in which women are routinely objectified as no more than ornaments for male pleasure? A culture in which young males are coddled by their coaches and role models to the point where they believe they’re above the law? A culture in which all of the onus of prevention is placed on the people who are at risk of being raped? Yeah, that might have something to do with it.

The broken windows theory is a theory that states that trends of serious crime are disrupted by cracking down on minor offenses. This practice has been implemented in many cities in the country, to great effect. New York City, for example, was ravaged by crime in the 80′s. Locals and tourists alike were generally too nervous to ride the subway. City officials did not BLAME THE TOURISTS for the culture of crime that permeated the subways – instead they took small steps to improve things. They cleaned graffiti off the trains and cracked down on fare evasion.  This seems like a waste of resources, but research has demonstrated that when small “petty” crimes are ignored, larger crimes tend to proliferate. Sure enough, with these small efforts, the crime rates in New York City plummeted over the next decade, in large part due to the efforts of the police force and officials to keep a handle on the smaller crimes.

When bars are allowed to hang signs like this in their women’s bathrooms and no one says anything, this culture of blaming rape survivors will continue to proliferate. What we need is a broken windows affront on rape culture. Let’s take these signs down from the women’s bathrooms, and replace them with, “Drink responsibly and watch out for yourself and your friends.” Then let’s add signs to the men’s bathrooms: “Drink responsibly and watch out for yourself and your friends.” We need to start being critical of what we perceive as “normal” when it comes to sexual assault prevention. Offering women’s only self defense, teaching women to walk home with their keys in their fists, telling women to never ever look away from their drinks ever – these are important lessons, unfortunately, but they perpetuate this double standard that the victims are responsible for preventing assault, and that it just isn’t relevant for everyone else. What about co-ed courses that couple self defense with bystander intervention? What about making rape whistles that are also bottle openers, and handing them out to men so that they too can make some noise when they see something? One of the kids at Steubenville said that he didn’t step in because he “wasn’t sure what rape was.” How can we let this culture go on, where most women have to be hyper-aware of rape all the time, and some men can be staring at it and still think it’s irrelevant to them?

There has been a lot of discussion about “rape culture” in the wake of Steubenville, and I think the time is right to start thinking outside the box when it comes to making small changes to chip away at our tacit cultural understanding that rape prevention is on the shoulders of the raped. We can start with small changes – being conscious of the language and implications in our bathroom warning signs, for example – and ultimately try to head towards a culture where everyone is aware of rape and the role they can play in preventing it.

Continue reading »]]> The other day I was perusing quora.com, I came across the following question:

Why is a guy who has had multiple sexual partners called a popular guy, but a woman who does the same is called uncharitable names? Is this not hypocrisy?

Ha, I thought to myself. You’re damn right it is. I scrolled down to check out what I would assume would be a thoughtful answer. Instead, and I’ll have to paraphrase here because unfortunately the question has since been removed from Quora, the top-voted answer consisted of something like this:

If men want to have sex, they have to go out and try to have sex with a bunch of women, until one of them says yes. If women want to have sex, all they have to do is say yes to one of the many suitors who will approach them. In general, people celebrate those who accomplish the more difficult feat. So it is difficult for a man to have sex, and more difficult for a woman to remain virtuous.

Thinking that this had to be some kind of Quorabberation (ha- see what I did there), I scrolled to the second answer to see what that person had to say. This answer echoed the first one almost perfectly, but instead blamed this dynamic on science, and had a diagram that illustrated that, if we were to rank every human on a scale of 1 – 10 in terms of attractiveness, a man will have sex with any woman, while women will only have sex with those men in their numeric range. Therefore it is much harder for men to get with women, because of women’s high standards.

…So…therefore….women who sleep with guys are…sluts?

What was so fascinating to me was that these responses were 100% from the perspective of two men who wanted to lament just how challenging it can be to have sex, what with women saying no all the time. They desperately wanted to justify the veneration of guys who “get it in,” because women are constantly surrounded by a sea of willing dicks, and all they have to do is grab the most attractive one and flutter upstairs for a little romp.

What they completely ignored is that even if it is “easier” for women to get laid, the term slut or whore does not mean “lazy” or “someone who didn’t have to work as hard as I did to have sex.” It is an insult, one that is bandied around constantly to oppress women and to remind them of their place. It is worth noting that this drive to shame women by calling them a slut comes not only from men, but also from fellow women. The sexual woman as bad is pretty universal in this culture. I think it’s also quite telling that both of these most popular answers were completely heteronormative. The conspicuous absence of queer sexuality from these discussions should tell you clearly how gender-centric they are. It’s not about women or men having sex. It’s about women vs men having sex.

So let’s take a second and really think about where this comes from. Why are men who sleep around total studs, and women who sleep around sluts? It is rooted in the cultural oppression of women that has existed in most societies for the entire existence of human kind. I don’t mean to be melodramatic here but look around – there are countries on this planet where women cannot step outside of their homes without veiling their entire bodies. There is still a country where women are not legally allowed to drive. This pervasive oppression of women happens across cultures, across religions, across continents. This is all very real, and though the United States has made significant progress we can’t forget where we were until relatively recently.

As with any case of cultural reformation, the march towards women’s rights has been full of challenges. Women fought for the right to education, the right to work, the right to vote, the right to be financially independent. Women fought for the right to be employed, and to succeed or fail professionally without discrimination. And now, honestly, we are fighting to our right to a sexual identity outside of what men want from us (plus some of that other stuff, too).

Changes in the law do not always perfectly reflect changes in culture. So yeah, in America you can’t jail a woman for having sex before she is married. You can’t brand her with a scarlet A and send her off to a cabin in the woods to flirt with a sexy preacher (not sure I completely understood that book). You can’t, unlike the recent case in the Maldives, sentence a teenager to 100 lashes because her step father rapes her. But that doesn’t mean that the cultural attitudes towards female sexuality have changed completely. It wasn’t even 100 years ago when female sexuality was routinely clinically diagnosed as “hysteria,” and male physicians expedited the invention of the vibrator because they got so tired of manually stimulating their patients to orgasm (don’t believe me? Check it out).

Is your wife mouthing off? Try a fire hose directly to the clitoris.

“Slut” is the scarlet letter of today. It is the new 100 lashes. It circulates on the internet and in school hallways, bullying women into submitting to the sexual personas that have been designed for them by the media – the ones that have been perpetuated by men. Women are objects to be looked at, and sex partners to be propositioned, and if she takes her sexual identity into her own hands and propositions someone or sleeps with a bunch of people, well, then the only way to keep her in line is to call her a slut.

In a recent interview, Esquire’s editor-in-chief Alex Bilmes shared a brutally honest insight into the way the magazine treats women: “I could lie and say we are interested in their brains as well but on the whole we’re not, they are there to be a beautiful object, they’re objectified.” Okay, so, fine. I guess. This guy is trying to sell a magazine to a bunch of dudes who want to look at “ornamental” women. It is detrimental to this paradigm, however, when women are openly allowed to be their own sexual agents. It is one thing to ogle and sexually fantasize about women when you can maintain the mirage that they’re only having sex when you think they should. It’s another thing to look at a sexy model and think, she’s probably having absolutely incredible sex with a bunch of hot models, and damn it, I hope she’s enjoying herself.

Yes, she’s beautiful, but what are her thoughts on healthcare reform?

I don’t want to live in a world where everyone is having random sex all the time. I want to live in a world where the expectation for people of all genders is to have the sexual experiences they want, whatever that means to them. If that means a ton of sex, then great. If that means no sex at all, then also great. Why do we feel the need to hold men and women to these two different sets of standards (it’s worth noting here that the word “virgin” is used as an insult to men, though not with the same force that slut is used to degrade women)? It’s outdated. I’m tired of being told that there is something wrong with women having an active sex life. I am a woman, and I am not surrounded by a sea of clamoring men who all want to have sex with me. When I do have sex, I am not simply acquiescing to male demands. I am making a conscious choice, for myself, to have an experience that I want. I wish people would stop trying to make me feel as though to “surrender” to the insatiable sexuality of men is to sacrifice some of my value as a woman. I’m just getting laid.

Continue reading »]]> If you haven’t already heard about the recent guilty verdict in the case brought against two Ohio teenagers accused of raping a sixteen-year old who passed out at an underage party, then you should do a little background reading. Here is a good summary of the verdict and sentencing. Here is a New York Times piece from December that summarizes how the case unfolds, and the polarized response of the people of Steubenville and surrounding communities. The short version is that during an alcohol-fueled night in August, two boys on the Steubenville football team carried an unconscious girl from party to party and sexually assaulted her. They took pictures, their friends took videos, and all of them posted messages to Twitter with hashtags like #rape and #deadbody. Authorities were moving slowly to act on the charges brought forward by the girl and her parents, and online vigilantes,  including the well-known group Anonymous, released videos and screenshots of the Tweets from the night, essentially forcing the authorities into action. The town, which venerates its successful high school football team, was divided between horror and disgust over the rape and anger at the survivor for coming forward. It is, in summary, a hot mess.

This case offers a harrowing window into the dark world of sexual assault and its role in masculine culture for some people. People took photos of a limp girl hanging between two young men. Someone shot a 12 minute video of a drunk kid laughing his ass off because his friends “raped her more than the Duke lacrosse team!” This was a sexual assault case accompanied by videos and photos – it is a visual account of a horrible crime. It is harrowing, disgusting, and difficult to tune out. This article sums up the significance of the photos extremely well.

As gruesome as the event was, it has opened up a large discourse about rape and “rape culture” in this country. This conversation, which has been ongoing in certain groups for decades, is now surfacing into the mainstream. It is a clash of those who are unfamiliar with many terms that are used in the context of discussing rapes, and those who are all-too familiar with them. It is challenging to talk about issues such as rape, and even more so when you’re unfamiliar with many of the terms. To that end, here is a glossary of terms that might help facilitate the important discussions that are happening in the wake of this national travesty.

Survivors vs victims The word “victim” has been all over the media in conjunction with this case, and I think that’s because most of the people who are talking about Steubenville don’t have a lot of experience discussing sexual assault. It is worth nothing though that many people prefer the term “survivor.” This distinction might seem minor, but the idea behind it is that being sexually assaulted is an incredibly dehumanizing experience. Someone (and statistically speaking it is usually someone you know and trust) has made it clear that to them, at least in that moment, you were only an object for their gratification. You weren’t a person in that moment, you were a vehicle for their sexual pleasure. You didn’t matter. You’ll have to relive that feeling time and time again if you tell people about it, and even more so if you try to seek justice. So to constantly be referred to as a “victim” of sexual assault is even more belittling to some people. These people, men and women alike, who have had their bodies and humanity violated by others, may wants a moniker beyond victim. They are people who have overcome physical and emotional trauma. They are survivors. So be aware of these two terms, and be respectful of how people choose to discuss their own experiences.

“Rape Culture” I can’t sum up rape culture any better than the woman who writes at Rant Against the Random – check her incredible article out here. It’s well worth your time. But in brief, rape culture is a very real part of the culture in which we live. It is the fact that most of the time, rapes are not really perceived as a crime. Rape is conceived of as different, and somehow lesser, than other types of crime. Sexual assault (and we’re not just talking about women here – look at the Sandusky case or any of the cases from the Catholic church) is not seen as more important than someone’s “good reputation” or the potential of an athletic program to have a good year. Rapists are routinely protected by their communities, and survivors are called sluts, whores, sloppy, pathetic, liars, and much worse. Rape culture is when two high school students are convicted of rape and national news outlets call it “sad” that they were crying in the courtroom at the loss of their “future potential.” We are expected to feel sympathetic for these young boys, we are supposed to feel guilty for holding them accountable. And you know what that perpetuates? The attitude that somehow rapists are not responsible for their actions, the people they assault are. Not only is that completely unfair to the people expected to police their behavior for the benefit of those who “can’t control” the urge to rape them, but it’s also unfair to the majority of people who are not rapists. I have many incredible friends, and even at the young age of 16, if you had put them in a room with a passed out girl they would have gotten her a blanket and a pillow and made sure she didn’t puke. They wouldn’t have thrown her in the back of a car, stripped her down, and violated her. I don’t feel bad, at all, for these two young rapists and their “potential,” but rape culture is perpetuated by the people who do.

Victim blaming This is a term to describe the reaction that many people have to rape. Their first instinct is to ask, “Well what were you wearing? Were you drunk? Why were you out with him in the first place?” Once again, it is survivors being expected to be responsible for the actions of the people who attacked them. It is the idea that rapists cannot really be held responsible for their own actions when other people decide to dress sexily, or stay out late, or get drunk. It is the same train of thought that brought us such lovely cultural features as the burka. We need to work hard as a society to reframe the conversation. Instead of “Why were you raped?” the question needs to be “Why did you rape?” Survivors need to be treated with compassion and respect, and the most important thing to keep in mind is that no one deserves to have their rights violated, ever.

False accusations of rape are a real concern There’s a great post, once again on Rant Against the Random, on the statistics behind why false accusations of rape are actually in all likelihood not any greater than the national average for false crime reporting estimated by the FBI. Women do not appear to be “crying rape,” as some rape sympathizers might want to have you believe. Inserting unfounded fears about false accusations into a discussion of rape and rape culture is another way to silence the discussion. Sure, I believe that once in a while false accusations do happen. It happened to someone I know. However, many more people are raped, and only 3% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. So don’t try to drown out the discussion of rape culture with shouts of how unfair this discussion is for the tiny number of men who may be falsely accused. Our society has a sickening epidemic of sexual assault. No one should be falsely accused of a crime ever, but the data doesn’t support that these dialogues should have equal importance. I’m sorry, but until rape culture starts to improve in this country, I think these dialogues need to occur separately.

These are just a few terms – if you have anything to add please feel free to comment. It is important that we take this opportunity to try to have a constructive conversation about rape and its place in our culture. This event is on our national consciousness, and we should take advantage of it. The assault of a passed out girl, the videos made of boys laughing about it until they cried, the people who tweeted #deadbody and #sloppy and didn’t try to help – these are things that we need to be honest about. Why don’t these kids know that this is not acceptable - not only legally, but also as part of being a person? We have to introspect. We have to reflect. And we have to do better. Not only for the sake of a future where people aren’t raped, but also for the sake of living in a society filled with people who don’t believe that rape is a huge problem. Because I don’t want to share a world with people who think rape is okay. I really, truly don’t.