Street Harassment

So guys, let me tell you about street harassment. It's really, really shitty. It happens a lot to the women-folk (and to the LGBTQ folks, but I think maybe in a different way sometimes?), and it doesn't get talked about enough, and it very often gets dismissed as not a big deal. After all, they're just words, right? It's not like being attacked or anything.

Here's the thing, though--words can be used in awful, scary, hateful ways. And, I'm saying this as someone who has been attacked by a stranger on the street, it's pretty awful. Back when I was in high school, I was sometimes uncomfortable leaving the house because I knew some guy on the street would say something to me. The summer that I was 17, a guy looked at me and said "I'd like to get my cock up in that," while I was walking to the bus on my way to work.

But that's harmless, right? It's not like he actually tried to touch me, so I (a 17-year-old) had no reason to be scared of him (an adult, male stranger). He was just saying I was attractive--it's practically a compliment!

Today, Jack and I went for a walk. Actually, I went for a walk while he ran ahead because he's doing this thing where he's running. And while I was walking, I passed these guys in a green van. Not a mini-van, a big, industrial-looking, no-windows-in-the-back van. And they said something. I actually didn't hear what they said, because I was on the phone and not paying attention. A few minutes later, they drove past me pretty slowly, making kissy-noises out the window.

Now maybe it was because the street was deserted, or maybe it was because they were driving a van, but I got really creeped out. I was really relieved that I was on the phone and had an obvious reason to ignore them. I caught up with Jack, and we walked around a bit, and there was a lovely park and some roses...but when we were going to head back, Jack said he wanted to run back. I said (kind of forcefully) that I didn't want to walk back alone because of the van dudes. And, well, we had an argument. And Jack, who is a really awesome feminist dude who's usually really understanding about things, who was in fact the first person to say I was sexually assaulted when I got groped when I was reluctant to put that label on it, said that he didn't really understand street harassment, that it didn't seem like a real thing because it doesn't happen to him and he doesn't see it happen to other people.

The thing that's scary for me about street harassment is that you never know where it's going to stop. If a guy would say to me that he'd "like to get his cock up in that," it already seems to me that he's not seeing me as a person, that he's seeing my body as public property to comment on--so how can I know whether he's going to take that idea further? And some guys, unsurprisingly, will just not take no for an answer--"I was just trying to talk to you," they say, "can't you even say thank you?" And if a stranger would grope me on a bus, if a strange guy would follow me down the street late at night, is it really so surprising that some stranger on the street talking about fucking me would ping my defense system and read as "Danger!"?

Jack got angry with me for being creeped out. We talked about it, and I pointed out that his "street harassment doesn't happen to me so it's not a big deal or concern" view is pretty much the definition of male privilege, and he said he really needed to examine why my being street harassed made him angry with me and his other feelings about it.

What I took away from this conversation is that we're not talking about this enough. Clearly we need to talk about this more, need to make this more visible. If you think street harassment isn't a big deal, or that it's not happening, go read a few posts over at Holla Back NYC and then tell me it's not a real problem.

So...um...for some reason, I decided to watch the pony play episode of "Bones" the other day. It was on Netflix instant, I'd read a brief mention of it at Tiger Beatdown (which is an awesome, awesome, extra double plus awesome feminist blog that you should totally read) and I was bored and casting about for something to do.

For those unfamiliar with it, "Bones" is a police procedural type TV show involving...unsurprisingly...a lady who is a forensic anthropologist and studies bones. And she solves murders by examining the evidence found in/on said bones, with the help of David Boreanaz, whose character's defining characteristic seems to be that he's kind of a douche. I've tried watching this show a few times, because I love a good police procedural, and mostly have found it boring. But when I heard there was an episode about pony play, well, of course I had to watch it.

Pony play, for those unfamiliar, is a variety of animal-type role play. Since it's not one of my own, personal kinks, I'm vaguely terrified that if I try to explain it I'll horribly offend any pony players who happen to stumble across my humble blog. My main exposure to pony play has been in Anne Rice's erotica, so I'm inclined to take it with a pinch of salt. That, and I really like the snazzy boots.

That pony play was specifically the focus of this episode was kind of beside the point. The pony scenes were very...well...tame. Mostly conventionally attractive dudes (almost all the ponies seemed to be dudes) wearing a huge amount of insanely expensive specialized leather gear being led around by ladies in sexy riding outfits, prancing and making horsey noises. I was pretty disappointed that no one got smacked with a riding crop or pulled one of those little pony carts Anne Rice was always going on about.

But aaanyway, this was the worst example I've seen in a while of the "kinky people are freaks and murderers" trope that is constantly infuriating me in my consumption of mysteries and police procedurals. Brennan, our forensic anthropologist heroine, is basically the only cop-type who's even slightly non-judgmental towards our pony players, but she still comes out with gems like "Fetishism is a way of indulging in sexual activity, without actually engaging emotionally with the other person as a fully formed human being."* Which, um, even if you're using the hyper-judgey definition of fetishism that turns up in places like the DSM-IV-TR, is not necessarily a technically accurate definition. She then goes on to talk about "masturbation fetishes," to which I can only say LOL WUT?

So the show goes on with its unsurprising plotline of "one of these weirdos must be a murderer" and, surprise! One of them is, in fact, the murderer! Just to make it extra, extra hackneyed, it's the victim's play partner/toppy person. Because that's an original plot line.

It's seriously gotten to the point where I've become so desperate to see some sort of TV show where there's a murder and kinky people are involved and one of them isn't the murderer that I got really excited about that one episode of one of the innumerable "Law & Order" spinoffs where the domly dom dude turns out to just be a Lord Master Domly Asshole type who nonconsensually smacked the victim with a riding crop and not the guy who followed her out of the party to rape and murder her.

The last straw for me with this episode of "Bones," though, came at the very end. Douchey special agent David Boreanaz is sitting in a diner-y place having coffee with Brennan, when he unleashes this lovely speech:

Why? I’ll tell you why. Here we are. All of us are basically alone, separate creatures just circling each other. All searching for that slightest hint of a real connection. Some look in the wrong places, some, they just give up hope because in their mind they’re thinking ‘Oh, there’s nobody out there for me.’ But all of us, we keep trying over, and over again. Why? Because every once in a while, every once in a while, two people meet. And there’s that spark. And yes Bones, he’s handsome. And she’s beautiful. And maybe that’s all they see at first...But making love? Making. Love. That’s when two people become one...Yeah, Bones. A miracle. Those people- role-playing and their fetishes and their little sex games- It’s crappy sex. Well, at least compared to the real thing. *

This speech is mostly done as a voice over, played over shots of the other characters interacting with their partners. All the couples shown are 100% heterosexual, which is so full of issues and so angry-making on its own that I could write a whole separate post just on the fact that these are the couples being shown as "right" and "real" and how icky and homophobic that is.

But I seriously couldn't get past my blinding rage at this show that would not only characterize kinksters as freaks and murderers, but that would end with a speech dismissing all non-heteronormative, non-vanilla sex as "crappy" and not "the real thing." How dare you, faceless writers of a dumb TV show, tell me that my sex life is crappy!? How dare you dismiss the best relationship I've ever had as not being a real connection? The vast majority of the people I know who are into some form of kink are incredibly close, connected, and communicative with their partners. Negotiating issues that come up in kinky, BDSM-y relationships takes tons of effective communication and trust (which is not to say no vanilla people ever communicate or negotiate effectively, just that I think it's much less the norm to negotiate as much in non-kinky encounters and relationships.) I'm still ragey just writing about this, their explicit condemnation of my own relationship and my friends' relationships...which makes me think harder about their implied condemnation of non-hetero relationships...which makes me even more ragey! It's an unending cycle of rage.

Jack didn't get why I was so angry, why I took it all so personally. I had a hard time explaining, but I'll try to go into it in more detail about why it always feels so freaking personal when I watch or read stuff like this in another entry.

*Direct quotes are lifted from a transcript of the episode that I found here.

So Jack and I were traveling this week-end, with friends who we're not out to. Somehow, I found myself with a group of friends of friends making all sorts of comments where I would basically say "I'm into BDSM! Only I'm JUST JOKING! Hahahahahahahaha! I'm being scandalous and funny!" It was a very weird situation for me.

And I realized that this is something I used to do all the damn time. About kink and about being attracted to girls and sometimes even just about liking and enjoying sex. It's a defense mechanism. It's a way of gauging reactions, testing the waters, and of being kind of confrontational without actually risking anything.

It's kind of cowardly. It's something I haven't done in a long time because I've mostly been around people I don't feel the need to shock and then hide from. It's nice. Unsurprisingly, I like myself a lot better when I'm just being honest than when I'm telling the truth to provoke people, then pretending I was joking. I like myself a lot better.

Becoming Sally Bowles: The Manic Pixie Dream Girl and Me

When I was in high school, I saw the 1972 film version of Cabaret for the first time.

Like probably every other teenage musical theatre geek and outcast, I was immediately seized by an overwhelming desire to be just like Sally Bowles. Only maybe without the cocaine and the unplanned pregnancy.

Sally is flashy and dramatic and decadent, and flashy dramatic decadence was incredibly attractive to me (my other film obsession at the time was the Rocky Horror Picture Show) and I wanted to be just like her, to be flashy and dramatic and decadent and maybe just a little bit doomed. But how, exactly, does one go about being just like Sally Bowles? Especially if one wishes to avoid the cocaine addiction and unplanned pregnancy. It's difficult, since, well, Sally the character actually admits to the fact that she herself is attempting to deliberately cultivate a projected image of mystery and glamour.

Also, we, the audience, never get to find out what's going on inside Sally's head. She's kind of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, in that she is quirky and strange and sexy and lifts Brian/Christopher/Cliff/whatever-the-hell-his-name-is out of his dudely doldrums. Of course, Christopher/Brian/Cliff is asexual or gay or possibly bi, and so is not entirely won over by Sally's Manic Pixie charms, but still...she's empty. She's all style and no substance, all frosting and no cake. What the Hell is going on in Sally Bowles' head? We don't get to find out, because Sally is only dealt with through observation, from a distance. She's not a thinking, feeling person, she's a decoration, a glittery butterfly. The only time we maybe get to actually hear Sally's own voice is in the song "Maybe This Time," and then I would argue that it can only be interpreted as her voice in the 1997 stage musical, in which she sings the song outside the Greek-Chorus-otherworld of the Kit Kat Club stage. In the film, it's more of a projection of what she should be thinking, a comment on female loneliness and expectations of couple-hood.

Sally Bowles has been one of my only ongoing female role models. All the other film characters and celebrities I've wanted to be just like have been male, from David Bowie to Frank N. Furter to Sir Percy Blakeney to Adam Ant. And I think this is because they have that same flash and drama and glamour that I want combined with an actual voice. That's the thing about Manic Pixie Dream Girls, about female characters in movies observed through the male gaze, is that they don't have voices, or thoughts. They're a sparkly, completely empty construct that men get to put they're own ideas and feelings into. Christopher/Cliff/Brian may be a camera, but his observations of Sally Bowles come uncomfortably close to making her an object.

This makes it hard to figure out who you are as a girl. I remember years of writing stories in high school in which someone else observed the character who was supposed to be me, and rhapsodized for pages about how pretty and charming and fascinating she was. I also clamored for friends to use characters based on me in their stories, so that I could read someone else's observations of me and use them to figure out who the hell I was.

The closest I ever came to being Sally Bowles was my sophomore year of college. I was actually not especially tormented about this at the time, was just sort of bumbling along, being myself, doing dumb, quirky shit like leading around a female friend on a leash (I totally didn't know or acknowledge that I was kinky at the time). And then, second semester, I started hearing rumors that one of my male friends, we'll call him...Cliff, had a crush on me. No, wait, he was in love with me. There were livejournal posts that were unsubtly disguised, rumors and weird conversations and even weirder conversational pauses around me. And suddenly, without any regard for what I actually felt or thought or the fact that I was, in fact, already in a relationship, it seemed like all our mutual friends had decided that Cliff had found the perfect girl for him and that perfect girl was me, though when I heard about it all, the girl they were talking about didn't actually seem to share my thoughts or feelings or much else. They had decided I was Cliff's Magical Pixie Dream Girl, and that he and I should be together, with no actual thought or regard to the fact that I wasn't interested.

It felt creepy. I felt violated. I told my dad about the whole dramarama, which ended with Cliff awkwardly confessing his love for me via IM, and he said "Yeah, Lucy, that's kind of what 'objectification of women' really means." I felt like my friends had tried to shove the thoughts and feelings and personality they wanted me to have inside my head, inside my body, with no regard for the thoughts and feelings and personality I already had.

I don't want to be Sally Bowles anymore. I may paint my nails green, or sing "Maybe This Time" at karaoke, or ask Jack "Doesn't my body drive you wild with desire?" but it's a pose, a character I play at sometimes. Being Sally Bowles is being empty inside, a flashy sparkly package with nothing in it. It's not being a real person. Instead, I'm looking for female role models who are real, for female voices. They're hard to find sometimes, but they're out there. And I want to be a real person, like them.

The Submissive Vampire: A kinky reading of Interview With the Vampire

I kind of simultaneously love and hate Anne Rice.

When I was 10, the film version of Interview With the Vampire was released and there I was, already with an interest in vampires and (people tell me) a slight resemblance to Kirsten Dunst, just starting to figure out this whole "attracted to people" thing that was starting to happen in my body and head. I was attracted to the idea of vampires, the power and sophistication that vampires implied, the idea of being more, being better than humans, being special.

I was also, it's worth noting, completely terrified of sex. I had only just recently learned about that whole penis-in-the-vagina thing that was apparently sex, and I was horrified. Also, in my not-knowing, sex had mostly been something that older kids made fun of me for not knowing about, something that was a cause of humiliation and shame and jokes that I didn't understand and would later get in trouble for repeating to my parents. Any mention of vampirism as a stand-in for sex in the nonfiction books I would occasionally read made me intensely uncomfortable, but vampires were also my own personal sex stand-in. Being interested in vampires, being completely obsessed with vampires in general and Dracula and Anne Rice in particular made it okay to be interested in sex--because I wasn't interested in sex, I was interested in vampires.

When the film version of Interview was released on video and Pay Per View, I watched the preview guide all day while my parents were at work, hoping to see commercials. I wasn't allowed to see the movie. It was rated R, it was full of nudity and sex and my parents did not think I was old enough. I saw it on the sly at a friend's house and was actually kind of disappointed, so I secretly got out the book from the library and read it late at night and hid it under the bed.

I'd buy my own copy in high school. Now, from the wise old age of 25, I can say that I think Anne Rice is guilty of serious over-writing. Her prose comes in many shades of purple, and "savage" and "exquisite" are to her what words like "eldritch" and "gibbering" are to H.P. Lovecraft. But in the depths of my high school gothiness, Interview seemed hot and dark and lush and swoony. I felt Louis' pain, understood and wished for his weird, dark fantasies and hallucinations, wanted to be under Lestat's power. Until midway through my freshman year of college when I tried to re-read the book for the umpteenth time, said "Wow, this is overwritten and wanky," and put it right back down.

But it had a huge influence on me, both the book and the movie. Seriously, if you looked at a line-up of the guys I've dated (with the possible exception of Jack) they look like an Anne Rice casting call. And while I mention above that people tell me I look like Kirsten Dunst, and have since that movie came out, I've always claimed to not see the resemblance--not because I have anything against Kirsten Dunst, but because I really dislike the character of Claudia. I'm not like Claudia at all, so how can you say I look like her?

In criticisms of Interview, people tend to talk about the "vampire family" idea. It shows up in lots of modern vampire fiction, the idea that vampires change humans into vampires out of loneliness, to create a blended family, in The Lost Boys and lots of children's vampire fiction (Nancy Garden's books like My Sister, the Vampire) it's a major plot-point. But it never connected for me when people have said this about Interview With the Vampire, mostly because they usually follow this up by saying that Louis is the mother figure and we have a nice little conventional nuclear family here. Even though the Lestat-Louis-Claudia group is referred to as a family in the text, it resembles an actual family much less than it does a leather family (though still an unhappy one), a triangle in which dominant Lestat and Claudia butt heads and power-struggle over who gets to control submissive Louis.

Louis is not so much a mother as he is submissive, to both Lestat and Claudia, and I'm uncomfortable with the reading that says his following Lestat's orders and wishes, even when he doesn't want to, makes Louis feminine and mother-like. Ick. Also, it disregards how thoroughly Claudia has Louis wrapped around her dainty fingers (or, if you like the image better, under the heel of her little slippers). One of the main ideas of the book is that, while Claudia looks like a child, she quickly grows out of this role and has the mind of an adult woman--so why are critics so quick to stuff her into a child-box when talking about the "vampire family"? Louis is the least forceful, the least commanding of the three, and he transfers his loyalty, his submission and willingness to serve, from Lestat to Claudia as Claudia changes from a child-doll to a, well...woman trapped in a child-doll's body.

This continues and is heightened when Claudia and Louis meet Armand. Louis gets all swoony and strange in the pull of Armand's age and power--he's pretty much in subspace when they interact. Weirdly, Armand is also able to subdue Claudia, in a domlier-than-though display that seriously creeps her out, because she doesn't want to lose Louis or lose control over him. Louis is always kind of a passive figure--he doesn't really decide much for himself, or do much because he wants to. He does what Lestat wants, then what Claudia wants, then, Armand tries to take him away to do what he, Armand wants. Louis doesn't seem to want much, except to make whoever his current dom-figure is happy. Or, in the case of Lestat, who Louis doesn't really get along with once the honeymoon period of their relationship is over, not actively angry.

I can see how this eager-to-please Louis can be read as feminine, as a mother-figure, but it makes me uncomfortable to read it that way. I don't like Louis being cast as feminine because he is passive, especially when Claudia an actual female character is there being all strong (and sometimes crazy and obnoxious and demanding) for contrast. I would instead argue that submission does not equal femininity or femaleness, and that Louis and Claudia's relationship much more closely resembles a femdom/malesub relationship than that of parent and child, at least once Claudia "grows up."

And while the "vampire family" idea comes up again when Claudia brings Madeleine, her chosen mother-figure, into the equation, Claudia is still in charge and Madeleine's characterization of Claudia as "'a child who cannot die'" seems creepy and wrong because Claudia is not a child at this point, except in appearance. Claudia wants a family, wants an appearance of normality, but she also wants to control her "parents." Also, Louis has no attraction towards Madeleine--and why would he, when he's clearly attracted to dominant personalities? Madeleine is more like his co-sub than any sort of interest for him. He doesn't want to "curse" her with vampirism, but he also knows her view of Claudia as a child is incorrect and, I suspect, resents her competition for Claudia's attention.

This also explains why, despite being a girl, and blonde, and looking maybe a little like the actress who played Claudia in the movie, I've always related far more to Louis than Claudia. In my reading, the book and movie were not about a vampire family or Louis' loving Claudia like a daughter. They're about Louis, and his transitioning from an uncomfortable relationship with Lestat (who would have him be subservient, but also mocks him for his "weakness") to a fulfilling one with Claudia (in which most of his actions serve to please and serve the object of his affections) to losing Claudia because of being drawn to a similar relationship with Armand. For an oblivious submissive girl like me, Louis was a far more relatable character than the one who was superficially more like me.

Note: This is not to say that Claudia and Louis have an ideal relationship, or that the whole Claudia-as-a-woman-in-a-child's body thing isn't kind of creepy, or that all people who identify as submissive are doormats like Louis who need to or can be taken away from their respective dom(me)s by force. No one should base an actual relationship on anything Anne Rice has written ever, and that's doubly true of her porn, which I'll probably write about in another entry.

Another Note on Ettiquette...

I would have posted this as an addendum to yesterday's post, but I had to run out the door. A friend and I were talking about this the other night, and it's something that really annoys me, that I really just can't believe people do.

So generally, it's a rule that when you're at a play party, you don't interrupt a scene in progress. It's really, really rude and inconsiderate and, if you do it the really wrong way, it can be dangerous in an accidentally-getting-hit-by-stuff kind of way. The thing that people sometimes don't realize is that a scene is not necessarily over when the hitty part stops.

See, there's this thing called "aftercare," which most people need at the conclusion of a scene. Different people need different things, different versions of it, and it may look different from person to person, but you really shouldn't freakin' interrupt it!

I know I sometimes get dizzy and/or emotional after a particularly intense reaction. And when I do, I just want to sit and process and maybe have someone hug me and tell me I'm a good girl. Maybe drink some water or a Coke. What I really don't want to do is make smalltalk, especially with a stranger or someone I don't really know well.

So if you see someone being cuddled or stroked or wrapped in a blanket, or even if you see someone who was just being spanked or caned or otherwise played with sitting with a slightly dazed look on their face, for the love of God, WAIT a little while before you strike up a conversation with that person. Seriously. And if you do start chatting with someone, and they say they're a little out of it from a scene still, back the fuck off. Seriously.

And don't offer people foot massages immediately after a scene, either. That's freakin' creepy.

Pain Tolerance and Other Stories

I used to think pain tolerance was completely relative and subjective and there was no way to know what yours was relative to anyone else's, as it's impossible to know if someone else is experiencing it the same way you are.

Then I started going to parties and playing with other people, and it became apparent that I am, in fact, a huge wuss. While it's arguably a completely different situation than, say, accidentally cracking some ribs, it definitely puts things in perspective to get hit by someone in a way that makes you squeal and squirm and say "Oh, my God, I can't take anymore!" and then watch that same person hit your friend the same way and get almost no reaction.

One of the earliest entries I wrote in this blog was about going through a thing where I wasn't enjoying pain like I had been. Well, oh boy has that changed. Lately I've been wanting more, wanting to push myself, to see what I can take...and it's pretty awesome. There's a palpable release that I'd heard about and read about but had never really experienced firsthand until very recently. It's really an amazing feeling, and I really like that I'm not too afraid to get there anymore.

So yeah...kind of like the post I wrote about fireplay, I feel really good about trying things even though I'm scared. Trying new things, expanding boundaries. It's scary, but I like the way things are going.