Allison Unfiltered

This makes me wonder about the price tag on my womb.

I find putting these images next to each other quite evocative in terms of policing sexuality, reproductive choice rhetoric, and class/privilege.  The first is from Susie Bright's facebook page yesterday; the second is a clipping about Bristol Palin from today's Express. 

They both show images of women who are making a living off -- in part, anyway -- talking about reproductive choice.  Quite different rhetoric, no?

I know, I know -- these are just images and don't go into too much depth, so I won't interpret them beyond face value. 

But, but, but... I just can't resist saying this: there's something quite shocking behind the idea that we encourage people to speak about mistakes (I don't know if "mistake" is a word Bristol has used; the Express headline department can be quite snarky) to the point of hypocrisy and ridiculous exposure-slash-wealth.  Meanwhile, a woman who unapologetically urges her peers to speak about their reproductive choices relies on self-promotion and a hard-wrought fan base for her compensation.

 

Top 10 no-nos when on a date with me

10. Trust the deaf girl.  Unfortunately, I never earned my bachelor's in Mime, but if I did, I'm pretty sure you'd flunk every class.  If you don't know how to sign and I give you other ways to communicate with me, follow my lead.  I've been deaf all my life, and trust me, I know how to do this. Acting like a stoned monkey when I'm hoping for a stud is a bonerkiller. (Appendix A -- In no way does pretending to jog and then tracing the outline of a square convey to me that you're a "digital sound engineer."  Write it down if you have to, for chrissakes.)

9. Assume your date has interesting things to think about -- and find out what they are.  If I stop you and tell you to ask me a question, take the cue: YOU'RE TALKING TOO DAMN MUCH ABOUT YOURSELF. (Appendix B -- Don't take a snooty philosophical tone with me and tell me asking me questions "steers the conversation in an unnatural direction." Dude, dating is unnatural. Go with the flow.)

8. Avoid stalkerish behavior on the first date.  Bringing a mental list of things to talk about based on a google search you did on me is just creepy.

7. Remember that seduction techniques involve patience and social skills. I'm a shy girl.  Holding hands and staring into my eyes and sighing within the first 10 minutes is rushing it. So is running your hands through my hair (which I worked on for an hour, by the way. Can I have it back?).

6. Dirty mouth does not equal dirty girl.  No trying to undress me in public.  No, no, no. NO.  Really.

5. Hands off the fast-forward button.  If we're meeting for the first time, it's a test run, not a commitment for a second date or a future.  The song that's playing when I walk in may be heartbreakingly sentimental for you -- maybe wait until later to tell me, "it's our song"?  Just a suggestion. Yeah.

4. Man up and transport yourself.  Walking alone to the restaurant and then staring at me expectantly afterwards in the parking lot when I'm getting out my car keys is a one-way ticket to loserville. (Appendix C -- when I say I'm going home alone, it's probably not good last impression to whine about how I'm "not being cool.")

3. Subtle is smooth.  I'm more than willing to navigate the deaf-hearing thing.  But guess what?  There's lots of interesting signs to learn.  I'll teach you cuss words or cool classifiers, but the first one you ask me for shouldn't be: "LUST."  Especially if you're going to use it in every other sentence afterwards.

2. Boobs are off-limits till I say so.  I wear low-cut shirts often.  Deal with it. They slim me and don't choke me. That's why I wear them, not to give you eye candy.  It's certainly not a license to stare and then giggle about how much you're staring.  Or to make comments like, "Oh, my god, they're so beautiful," "Here, eat some more, maintain those curves!"  (Appendix D -- It DEFINITELY doesn't mean you can reach across the table to cup my boob in your hand, no matter how lovingly.)

1. Keep the porn on your laptop and out of our date. Slipping your dirty foot out of your sandal and putting it up between my legs... and then trying to rub my crotch with your toes in a public restaurant? Uh-huh.  You're going home alone, boy.

P.S. Upon request, here's my little full disclosure statement: Yes, I went on dates with these people in real life.  And yes, these things all happened. True Story.

Congresswomen turn their own vaginas into powerful political debate

It's been over a week and I have not yet been able to forget Kate Harding's post on two congresswomen who converted the floor of the House into a place of personal and political power.  They're listening to politicians who support the Pence Amendment, which would defund Planned Parenthood, and the things they say in response are amazing, just amazing. 

My fave is from Rep. Gwen Moore (Wisc.) who listens to Georgian representative Paul Broun express some serious passion on behalf of all the "African-American babies" that are killed in the US, more than any other color proportionally, during abortions.

Well, then, Moore gets up on the floor and immediately wrests any credibility from Broun -- he cites his credentials as a medical doctor giving services to women for years -- first by saying she's touched by his heartfelt concern, then saying, quite matter-of-factly:

"Well, I can tell you, I know a lot about black babies.  I've had three of them. And I had my first one when I was 18 years old, at the ripe old age of 18. An unplanned pregnancy."

Whoo-hoo.  You go girl.  Rep. Jackie Speier (Calif.) is equally amazing, and I love her for saying the words "my vagina" to the world in a way that gave me goosebumps. 

I won't go on about this debate, as there are many people who are far more articulate on the subject than I could ever be. This post isn't about the Pence Amendment, but about the congresswomen who spoke and how they chose to speak. (Side note: the amendment passed in the House on the 18th and goes to the Senate next, which raises anxiety around the possibility of a government shutdown.)

What I find exciting is that instead of the tired, flourishing rhetoric we've gotten used to hearing from the likes of Broun, these women are telling personal stories.  And these personal stories are being told by elected officials who are volunteering information about their own bodies while standing on the floor of Congress. 

If that's not the manifestation of "the personal is political," I don't know what it is.  Plus, these congresswomen do it in a way that explodes the boundaries of power any lawmakers wield on behalf of their constituents.  The political maneuvers they seek to make become very real and paint a picture about living and breathing people walking the streets of our towns today and trying to feed their kids and pay the bills.

Perhaps this revelation is more personal than I'd like to admit. 

I signed a petition supporting Planned Parenthood last week (you can too, click on the link).  Afterwards, I was sent an e-mail listing additional things I could do to support the cause.  One of them was an option to fill out a form in which I could share my story of how Planned Parenthood had an impact on me personally or on my family and friends' lives.  I didn't fill it out.  I wanted to, but I didn't.  Didn't even know where to begin.

So I am in awe of these congresswomen for doing on the floor of a very public venue what I couldn't do behind my laptop in the security of my own home.  And that, to me, is more emblematic of the problems behind the debate surrounding the Pence Amendment than anything else.

A conversation about horticulture

Friend: I've never seen a bush.  I mean, in real life.

Me: No?

Friend: No.  Shaved, waxed, trimmed, but never full-grown.

Me: Except for in that movie from the 60's?

Friend: Yeah. Never. Not in person. *shakes head in amazement*  Well, it is easier for navigation.

Me: What?!  C'mon.  Just... put your hands in there and divide. There ya go!

Friend 2: You could be like an explorer with your machete and slash your way through.

Friend: Yeah, and triumph when I find the village!

Friend 2: Hopefully you don't meet any indigenous tribes.

Friend: Oh. Ew.

A loving note for literary pornosseurs

If I get one more note written in the margin of my stories correcting my "comes" to "cums," I am going to order one of these, draw "come" on it in big fat black letters, and cum shove up it the note-writer's ass, proper usage notwithstanding.

I'm not the only one who gets her thong on with the leghole around her waist about this.  Ann Bruce says "cum" is a latin conjunction.  The porny "cum" is the lazy spelling coined by people who heard it but never bothered to read about it.

I differ from Ann slightly, though -- I've used "come" as a verb and "cum" as a noun.  Come is that toe-clenching, back-arching action you get at the moment of release.  Cum is the icky goo which should always, always be used sparingly in literary efforts.  Bodily fluids are disturbing, savvy (e.g. Dennis Cooper's dark, dark novel Try)?  Unless your intention is to shock, numb, or provoke, use your verbs and adjectives, dammit.

Oh, and one more thing: if every time we talk, I bring up sex in writing, and then a few days later you ask to do a story exchange so we can trade feedback, don't get all puritanical on me and write another note about how I need to know my audience and be careful with my use of "come."

Translation: if I'm writing about characters who get fucked within an inch of their lives, I'm pretty sure the people reading my story ain't nuns and monks expecting a G-rated story about butterflies and rainbows.

When the presence of ovaries trumps "common decency."

In searching for news about the Gabrielle Giffords shooting I came upon a blog posting by Matthew Cooper over at The Atlantic that purported to comment on the cultural significance of the first time a female politician has been violently targeted. He writes:

"And yet the first time we hear about a mother killed in the line of duty or a female POW, it curdles the stomach, not because of paternalism but because it marks a new barrier of decency that's been broken."

Dude. People were shot.  What new barrier?

Cooper is suitably writing from a place of shock and disbelief, so I won't pick on him too much.  But still, there's something kind of twisted going on here... and I'm not talking about the ugly partisan rhetoric being gleefully slung.  ("They're not gunsights -- they're "bullseyes!" People are dead -- Why are we even having this conversation?!)

Perhaps part of what makes this angle newsworthy is that Gabby Giffords is a young, good-looking woman who happens to be married and a mom.  Sociological images has blogged twice in the last few days, first about how those posting initial news reports apparently felt the "married to an astronaut" angle was more of a hook than, you know, the "shooting" angle, and then second about how google doesn't seem to recognize "congresswoman" as a valid search term.

Clearly there's a lot to unpack and digest when it comes to the tragedy in Arizona, much of it more important than the fact that Giffords is a woman, but if our paternalistic framework colors our reception of that news to the point a survivor's female traits make headlines... whoo.  We've got a long way to go, baby.

Does your phone company fund Tea Party candidates?

Got this in my e-mail from Bitch Magazine this week (click here for the entire pdf file, complete with clickable links -- especially the sources for their claims):

It's a tempting offer for Credo, a mobile provider that bills itself as "a proud sponsor of Bitch Media, and supports other progressive causes that work to create social impact. In fact, CREDO Mobile is the largest corporate donor to Planned Parenthood and the only vocally pro-choice phone company."

Furthermore, the offer is beautifully targeted, (complete with contract buyout credits) and effectively deployed. 

For one, Bitch only ever sends me e-mails that are either updates on how their staff and the magazine is doing or fundraising letters (the magazine is nonprofit and passionately subscriber-supported).  And it's more often the former than the latter, so this bait and switch is easy and always sucks me right in. 

Add in the headline about my very own phone company (use T-Mobile, Verizon, AT & T? Read the pdf file I link to above!) supporting politicans I (and a majority of the magazine's readers) happen to think are better off being weeded out of the gene pool, and you've got marketing gold.

I'm wondering, though, how much of a lost cause this political activism at the grassroots level stuff is.  So many of us default, for reasons related to our personal economies or geography and so forth, to being customers of businesses that have carte blanche over their political spending.

Need I remind you of the ruffled feathers some of us got over finding out about Target and Best Buy's donations to candidates who were largely viewed as contrarians to LGBT civil rights?  And Target is to me as heroin is to Courtney Love, circa mid-nineties (Yes. Yes, I AM getting as old as my references, thank you). 

Let's get a little nuanced here for a minute, people... one of my pet peeves is single-issue voters, i.e. those who will choose a candidate solely based on what they tell the press about gender and sex rights.  So if you're reading any endorsement (or lack thereof) here, stop it. Right now.

Any hoo, if you're like me, you think this political stuff is a lot to keep track of.  More so when you connect it to understanding where your money goes.

So this Bitch e-mail?  Good move. Veddy good move.

Becase I respond so well to constructive feedback.

I have just been told I talk about vaginas too much on my blog.

To that, I say:

VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA

'Cause the world needs to learn about and love vaginas (yes, I said it again.  Suck it up.) a little bit more, don't you think?

That is all. Good night.

NSFW: When does safe sex go politically incorrect?

Cannot get this (definitely NSFW) "PSA" out of my mind.  Love the creativity in conveying that tired ol' "wear a glove, show your love" maxim. 

Cannot stand the heteronormativity, not to mention the sex typing.  Yeah.  Poor ol' lonely penis.  Because penises without horny and overfriendly vaginas are a tragedy. WTF?

But maybe the ingenuity is that it's a bit hard to forget. Hm.

So, you tell me. Is it me, or is this just a twisted way of perpetuating things about sexuality that we really should think about?  Like, you know, that maybe women have a part in safe sex that doesn't necessarily include screaming and running away like a weenie?

And yeah, I'm smirking my ass off at that weenie simile.  Ha, ha, HA!

Someday, this quasifeminist pseudoparenting is gonna blow up in my face.

"Need Daddy," grunts L'il Red this morning as she struggles to open a new bottle of apple juice.

"...What did you say?"

She ignores my raised eyebrows, grabbing our rubberized gripper thingy from the utensils drawer instead.  Yanks again at the top.

"Ugh.  Need Daddy. He's really strong," she says.

I grab the bottle of juice from her.

"We do NOT need Daddy. WATCH."

And no matter how hard I try, my lungs about to explode, my biceps whining, the damn cap will not come off.

"Daddy's arms are really strong," she says, pointing at her arms to illustrate for her stupid mother. "And he's really tall."

"Well, I'm really strong too," I say quickly.  I give up and grab our cap-gripper gadget.

She giggles. The audacity. "No, Daddy's strong.  And big and tall."

"Well," I say, groaning now.  "You know who's taller? Mommy.  You just ask Daddy.  Mommy's taller."

"No you're not!  Daddy's tall and big and strong!"

"No, I'm taller.  You go ask him."  The cap is slowly giving way.

"You're silly."

"No! ASK YOUR FATHER!  I'm taller!  Really, I am."

I hand her the cap in a flourish of triumph, waiting for her to celebrate with gratitude and to see whether she'll yield to the idea that her mother is, indeed, self-sufficient in some ways and therefore does NOT need a guy around.

"This cup is dirty," she says.