I received a comment on an old post that I wanted to address. Forgive me, I am going to preface this post with a personal anecdote.

When the guything boyfriend and I had our first date, almost a year ago, as we sat together in the car winding through the mountains of Boulder, the conversation turned to feminism (having already meandered through interesting personal anecdotes and basic personal information, and long deep conversation about politics and history which I think left us both impressed), and he said, casually, “You know I don’t expect you to shave your legs or armpits or anything for me.” I told him he’d better not, because any guy who gave a shit about my body hair was obviously not boyfriend material. And then he, completely unbidden and with no input or prodding from me, unleashed a tirade about women internalizing patriarchal beauty standards (oh yes, he used the word “patriarchy” and everything), his male/white privilege, and the wage gap, and that basically sealed the deal for me. Maybe not love at first sight, but definitely lust at first angry highly-controversial leftist political rant. This man was a keeper.

Do I think men can be feminists? Certainly. I wouldn’t be in a relationship with one if I didn’t think he was. This is, yes, personal prejudice, but I also don’t think we’d have been able to stand each other otherwise. I also don’t usually (ever) date guys, and this is one of the big reasons why — men can be feminists, but most aren’t.

The question at hand is, however, an issue of contention among feminists and I understand arguments to the contrary. And I am pretty fucking skeptical of a lot of liberal men who claim to be sympathetic to women’s issues who really aren’t… (An aside: I find it hilarious how consistently readers continue to miss the point of that post, summarized completely in the last sentence. Seriously, folks.) But…in my experience, the only men willing to call themselves “feminists” or “feminist allies” in the first place are usually extremely feminist, whatever political disagreements we may have — otherwise they would not want to use a label which does them no favors socially. Personal experience with some men very committed to and passionate about gender equality and women’s rights has taught me that, yes, men can indeed be feminists, rare though they might be.

There is a radical feminist viewpoint which believes that all men are active agents of a monolithic patriarchy — which, in essence, is true, but this is a gross oversimplification of the structures of oppression and I think an unforgiving understanding of the nature of privilege. I think it is unfair to act as if all men are consciously complicit in and benefit directly from the system. It is wrong to state that gender oppression is the root of all evil, and assume that oppression due to race or sexual orientation or class or physical ability are not also of equal significance and importance. It is true that all men must essentially be sexist — but only because all women have also internalized sexism, because everyone of every race has internalized racism, etc, etc. The only difference is that those with privilege suffer less from these toxic attitudes than do those to whom the hateful stereotypes and beliefs apply. I do not think the fact that not all men are malicious agents of The Patriarchy needs to be disclaimed at every turn and I hesitate to point it out, as it seems both obvious and also derailing from the real point and the big picture. The fact that oppression and privilege are significantly more complex than the radical feminist viewpoint, however, bears discussion.
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Dearest Family,

I am aware that you are concerned about me and only want the best for me, in your limited sense of what “best” means. (Hint: what you accept as “best” is nothing that makes me happy, and, in fact, tends to be exactly that which makes my life most unbearable. See: trying to convince me to waste my time at a vocational school or community college rather than pursuing a degree at an excellent, if expensive, school, in an area which excites me. See: trying to break me up with my boyfriend, who is in fact the reason I am going back to school and who is demonstratively good for me by most objective measures…just not the ones you think are important, apparently.) I appreciate that you genuinely care about me even if you do not understand me and generally give poor, unsolicited advice. I love you anyway, even when I sometimes probably shouldn’t. (See: trying to break me up with my boyfriend. Assholes.)

However, I cannot help but notice the irony of the girl with the terrifying facial piercings and tattoo in a dead-end job with no professional or intellectual aspirations in life lecturing the clean-cut aspiring art and creative writing student about her unprofessional appearance due to her short hair. I cannot also help but notice that the coincidence when this conversation coincides with a recent transphobic diatribe about the aforementioned sister’s distaste for people who defy conventional gender norms and preference for “girls who are feminine” and “men who are masculine”. This, combined with the failure of Congress to recognize that, once again, trans issues are everyone else’s issues, and that gender-nonconformity is in fact a very real area of concern re: discrimination in employment for the cisgendered, results in lectures about my appearance being far more personally hurtful and infuriating than you can possibly realize.

Furthermore, suggested solutions to this issue — “buy a cheap wig” — are laughable.
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Expanding a little more on my comparison of queer sexuality and kink yesterday, I really have to say that, for me, the two are inextricably intertwined.

When I talk about my “sexuality” or “sexual orientation” I’m not just talking about what genders/sexes I find attractive. I’m a pansexual submissive with a preference for “feminine”-leaning (whatever that means) people who blur gender/sex norms, who are extremely dominant. In the particular case of my current relationship, that’s a bisexual cisgendered man. (I don’t think I could relate to a cismale who wasn’t a little queer.)

My strong attractions have always been for charismatic people. Those people who have an inexplicable draw. They might not even be anything to look at or they might be drop-dead gorgeous, but that’s not why people like them. They exude confidence and charm, whether they’re particularly charming in the conventional sense or not. They’re the kind of people who generally have dozens of suitors they don’t really care for who just seem to accumulate with no effort on their part. For whatever reason, they make friends with everybody, and everybody they meets likes them. These people have a charisma that makes everyone around them eager and willing to pretty much go along with whatever they say.

These are the kind of people who compliment me. (It’s ironic; because other people would probably say that I, myself, am really charismatic. And while I’m glad I come off that way, that’s not really who I feel I am inside at all.) I’m shy in unfamiliar situations and tend to be voluntarily withdrawn. I don’t party. I don’t make small talk. I have a difficult time really relating to people and making friends (but I like the ones I do have, thank you very much). I don’t really like talking to most people at all. I prefer to stay at home, cook a nice meal, read a book, paint. I’m an introvert. I don’t like to try new things unless someone else is trying them with me. I enjoy being challenged but don’t challenge myself unless pushed by other people or circumstance. I’m incredibly indecisive. I like people with a more extroverted, commanding presence, who aren’t afraid to just make choices and stick by them.

There’s other elements at work, too. I’m very short: I stand at about 5′1″. I’m always attracted and have always been attracted to taller people. This is not hard to do, most people are. But I mean much taller. My boyfriend is about 13 inches taller than me. The power dynamics are that physically evident in my choice of partners. I also have a strong attraction to men and women who are physically stronger or larger.

And trust is very important. When I mean trust, I don’t mean it in a casual sense. I mean that the more someone has the capability to harm me, the more pronounced the power disparities, the knowledge that I can trust that person makes them exponentially more attractive. I’ve known plenty of guys who were very nice men who I felt safe around to whom I felt zero attraction because they’re weren’t dominant or otherwise wouldn’t/couldn’t have the potential to exercise power over me. And my ability to trust is definitely gendered.

I’ll try to explain. It sounds terrible, but it’s true: by and large, I do not trust men. I go with my gut instinct, and it’s always been right, so I don’t give people the benefit of the doubt anymore. And it’s only ever been men who attempt to intimidate, harass, or threaten me. Because trusting men, especially men who are taller or stronger than me, is such a difficult thing for me, when I actually have met guys that I like, the attraction is much more intense than that for any of the women I’ve liked, even though I like women in general much more. The painful knowledge of how imbalanced power relationships already are and will always be between me and men actually makes them more attractive, even though physically I’m less into them. As my feminist awareness has grown, so has my attraction to men, where when I was convinced the world was totally egalitarian as a teen (or egalitarian enough) I wasn’t really interested in guys at all.

Then there’s the fact that I have a tendency to attach myself to people with more experience (and therefore, often, age) than myself, which is definitely the biggest power imbalance involved in my attractions as far as I’m concerned. (You think the height difference between me and my guy is a lot? He’s two decades older than me and has had more sexual partners than I can even really imagine or grasp in more than an abstract sense, he being my second, ever. Now that’s a power imbalance.)

And I find arguments “against BDSM” (since I don’t see how you can really argue with someone’s sexual orientation; it’s not going to change) kind of weird. The whole idea that no one can enjoy a consensual D/s relationship because of the patriarchy strikes me as a little strange. (Of course, feminists who argue “against BDSM” are really only arguing against Dominant male/submissive female power exchange because they think that’s the only dynamic that exists.) First of all, it’s the person and personality that matter most to me, not sex or gender; I don’t really think about it that much and even if it’s a factor, gender is not even close to being the deciding factor in my attraction. Second, like I said before, I admit to getting a bit of a naughty thrill out of the pre-existing male/female social power imbalance. That doesn’t mean I think it’s right, and if the world were less sexist, I’d probably be even more lesbian than I am.

But the point is, arguments about kink based on the existence of patriarchal power imbalances are kind of moot. I am queer. Even with a man, I remain a dyke. More importantly, I am genderqueer — I don’t think of myself as a “woman” in anything other than a strict anatomical sense, and I definitely do not adhere to gender roles. I have trouble with the cognitive dissonance when someone does something as innocent as refer to me with gendered pronouns. The very idea that I only submit because “I’m a woman and I’ve been taught to” is bizarre to me — no, I really wasn’t, I had kick-ass feminist parents, and I have always had a difficult time squaring my sense of identity with my anatomy and how it caused people to treat me. That, and I’m the kind of obnoxious rebellious person who does pretty much the opposite of what I think people expect of me just to be stubborn.

But, well, these musings have all been well and good, but the most important aspect of my sexuality is this: whether or not society says men should be dominant and women submissive, whether or not I am a woman, whether or not I am with a man, whether or not I am genderqueer or queer… There is no rationalizing it. Trying to be a less submissive person — not even dominant, just normal — is deeply, deeply upsetting to me. I can’t do it. The very thought makes me feel sick. I can’t physically bring myself to act that way. It doesn’t come naturally. It doesn’t make sense. I have no idea how to even try.

On the other hand, being with the kind of partner who has power over me and uses it wisely and compassionately… That’s the best thing in the world. It’s the only thing that really feels right. I don’t care what anyone else thinks of it. It’s just what I need.

Yeah, I know I linked to this post about radical feminist critiques of BDSM before, but I’m still thinking about it and still had a few things I wanted to articulate in response. (Sidenote — Trinity totally rocks. That is all.)

One thing that has always really bothered me in feminist discussions about kink is the assumption I often see that a woman could only want to be submissive if she’s been abused, coerced, brainwashed — that nobody could possibly be born with these sort of desires, that they’re inherently unhealthy and abnormal and could not develop on their own in a vacuum. There’s this sometimes unspoken, often articulated, assumption that the only way a woman could want what I want is if she has been emotionally damaged.

I suppose I’m just here to say: well, they can develop in a vacuum, and they’re not abnormal for me. I have never been sexually or physically abused by a parent, family member, friend, partner, or anyone else. As much as I desire a relationship where I am not in control, where there is a distinct power imbalance, where I might get bitten and smacked a little, pushed to my limits and beyond my comfort zone sexually, mentally, and emotionally…I have no desire to be abused. Wanting to be dominated consensually by someone I trust who respects my hard limits but not always the more flexible, softer ones is entirely different from being with someone who forces me to do things I really don’t want to do.

(That’s one reason it’s hard for me to find prospective partners: there has to be an enormous amount of trust and understanding. I always have to wonder what part of this escapes people: being submissive makes finding a sex partner I can trust much, much harder, since I am very aware of the fact that it’s possible to coerce me into doing things I don’t want with my tacit “consent”. More on that some other time.)

So now that I’ve laid that out, the real point I’m trying to get at. One thing that’s been nagging at me for awhile is the realization that these criticisms of kink are exactly the same as arguments about homosexuality. The argument, especially, that women are made queer by rape or other trauma. Most of the normally, otherwise very intelligent women I see arguing that BDSM is inherently harmful and degrading to women would never say such a thing about queer women because it’s plainly ridiculous. Most women do not decide to be lesbians because they’ve been damaged by men in their lives. The assertion is clearly and fatally flawed.

So why is it okay to say these things about submissive women? (And it’s always submissive women. The very concept that dominant women could possibly exist seems to fly over these people’s heads — when they do acknowledge the existence of dommes, it’s usually in a sneering, “it’s all just an act they put on for men, they aren’t actually powerful” sort of way. And forget the idea that a submissive woman might want to be topped by another woman.) Why is it not okay to say that I only like women because of some severe psychological trauma, but it’s perfectly fine to assert that I Must Have Nasty Issues if I want to let a partner (especially, heaven forbid, a partner with a dick) to tell me what to do and be in control?

I am not damaged. I am not queer because of abuse. I am not submissive because of abuse. I have been both queer and submissive my entire life. I can recall having both of these desires from an incredibly young age: an unusual attachment to female friends and a near total absence of crushes on male peers, and a persistent desire to be “owned”, an eagerness to please and take care of everybody in my life. These are the things which fulfill me. These are the things that I need to be happy. Attempting to deny me that because it’s “un-feminist” or “unhealthy” denies and undermines my actual health (mental and emotional, by extension, physical) and my very real dedication to women’s rights.

I should not have to justify my submissive identity (and it is that — it is not simply a role I adopt in the bedroom, it is a basic cornerstone of who and what I am) anymore than I should have to justify my attachment and attraction to women. Would the feminists demanding that I “examine” the roots of my kinky desires for their entertainment ever dare to say the same thing about my queer desires? Of course not! Even if (and this is important!) I did feel I were only attracted to women due to an abusive past, it still wouldn’t be relevant, it still wouldn’t mean there’s anything wrong with my same-sex attractions, and it still wouldn’t be any of their damn business. Because there is nothing inherently wrong with my sexuality, in the queer sense or the kinky sense.

I find the allegations I’m not a real feminist actually hurtful. It’s like someone saying that because I like to play video games with fake violence in them I can’t be part of the anti-war movement. One has pretty much almost nothing to do with the other. While it’s definitely worth looking at how violence is normalized in our culture and how that feeds our willingness to do real harm to others, my personal recreational habits don’t disqualify me from standing up for my pacifist principles.

And kink is the same. Real abusive relationships, which are disproportionately a matter of violence committed by men against women, are terrible, evil, horrible, and wrong. My submissive desires, which, if they were unwanted, would in some cases constitute abuse, do not harm women as a whole. My submission has nothing to do with anybody else’s relationship. Just as it’s nobody’s business which variety of genitalia I entertain in the privacy of my own home, it’s nobody’s business whether I want to be spanked, either. It’s not okay for other people to tell me it’s wrong for me to sleep with a woman. It’s not okay for other people to tell me it’s wrong to be submissive.

Let’s try another example, if that one doesn’t work: it’s like arguing that since I personally am not attracted to most men, I’m a horrible misandrist man-hater bent on overthrowing the patriarchy and instituting a repressive matriarchy. It just doesn’t make sense. There’s a small subset of people who believe in female superiority (which I think is way more harmless than the converse concept, since matriarchy enjoys less widespread popularity). There’s some people who believe intimate partner violence is acceptable. Obviously, that doesn’t mean all feminists want to oppress men. Why isn’t it equally obvious that not everyone into BDSM wants men to be able to rape and abuse women?

I’d like to be charitable and believe it’s just ignorance that leads to this glaring gap in logic. But I don’t actually. I think it’s just that people who make these arguments honestly know they’re being disingenuous and hope nobody will call them on it. Well, I’m doing it, because I’m damn sick of reading this tripe spouted as if it’s some brilliant new idea no one’s ever thought of before, as if it’s a criticism that can actually survive the barest scrutiny by someone who actually knows what the fuck they’re talking about.

So the other day I finally got around to shaving my head, something I’ve been threatening to do for months but apparently no one took seriously. I showed them. Donating my massive amounts of hair to Locks of Love.

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A transwoman in Vancouver has just had a discrimination suit dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada. Heart actually has a detailed overview of the case posted at her place, but I refuse to link to it due to the disgustingly transphobic remarks she and her readers have made in the comments. (Yeah, um, don’t bother trying to argue about this. This is a queer blog. It won’t go over well.)

So instead, I’ll quote this article:

The Supreme Court will not hear arguments about whether a women’s service organization erred in excluding a trans person from working with the Vancouver-based group.

The Feb 1 decision denying “leave to appeal” to the Supreme Court Of Canada leaves Kimberly Nixon without further recourse for her exclusion from Vancouver Rape Relief.

The battle began a decade ago when Nixon filed a human rights complaint against the organization over her treatment.

The BC Human Rights Tribunal found that Nixon had been discriminated against on the basis of her trans identity and ordered Rape Relief to pay her $7,500 in damages.

But the victory was short-lived. Rape Relief appealed to the BC Supreme Court, where the tribunal’s decision was overturned. At that time, Rape Relief did not dispute the allegation that it rejected Nixon because she is trans, but argued it was allowed to do so. Nixon appealed to the BC Court Of Appeal, who upheld the province’s Supreme Court decision in 2005.

The argument here is that a woman raised with male privilege has such a different experience that she can’t relate to or counsel cisgendered women who’ve suffered violence. (Well, that’s the relatively benign argument. We won’t get into the paranoid “feminist” arguments about “appropriation” and “infiltration”, or the otherwise outright offensive arguments.) The reality is far from this simple.

The reality is that there is no universal, essential experience of womanhood. The mainstream American feminist movement has often and rightly been criticized for ignoring the experience of women of color, queer women, poor women. None of us have grown up or been raised the same way. None of our experiences have been exactly the same or meant the same thing to us, impacted us in the same ways.

My experience as a biracial, queer, ex-Mormon feminist can’t be compared to a straight, white, Christian woman. It can’t be compared to a woman who grew up in poverty, or another culture, or another part of the world. We are not the same. There is no unifying thread which connects us, nothing magical or spiritual binding us all in sisterhood with one another except those threads we weave ourselves, those bridges that we build, and our shared humanity, which, might I remind you, we also share with men.

What is this experience transwomen can never have or understand which makes them not “real” women in the social sense? We can’t argue it’s dependent on the presence or absence of female sex organs; there are women with birth defects and women without wombs. There are women who have been victims of Female Genital Mutilation. There can be women born with ambiguous genitalia. And, so, there can be women with male sex organs, too.

An appeal to blood is useless here for the reasons stated above: not all women, even cisgendered women, bleed. Some women have reproductive health issues. Some women have been through menopause. Not all of us bleed the same way. I can hardly relate to women for whom menstruation is a horrible, agonizing ordeal — for me, it is something I hardly even think about. Given the huge amount of physical variation, the ultimately subjective nature of our interactions with our own bodies, I hardly think a woman born with a penis can be much different from me than a woman with endometriosis. Both are foreign. Both are certainly women.

There is no biological congruence. There is no identical socialization. Even women who have endured the same event will process it differently, come to different conclusions. Nobody is an island, but neither are any of us the same. It’s been argued that no one can ever truly understand another person, and I agree. Given that, how can anyone really believe there’s anything essential that ties all women together? Even if we all emerged from the same common background, I don’t think that would be true.

Those who claim transwomen experience some overwhelming male privilege which makes them incapable of understanding women, empathizing with women, being part of women’s groups, I think are woefully ignorant of what it means to grow up gender-variant or queer.

Growing up queer means that you know from a very young age that you do not belong, that there is something wrong with the world or wrong with you. Girls who are tomboys are teased, discouraged from pursuing their interests, but in many ways are tolerated because it’s okay for a girl to want to be a like a boy, to be “better”, more “masculine”, as long as she understands that she can still never be as good as the genuine article. But effeminate boys? There’s nothing worse in the world; a boy acting like a girl? That’s a huge step down. Being “feminine” is wrong, bad, less. Women are flawed and men who resemble women in any small or superficial way are not treated kindly.

Male privilege looks very different when people think that you’re a fag (or, for that matter, a butch dyke). You’re a target, you are harassed and tormented, beat up, murdered, simply because you challenged some sociopath’s sense of propriety. Is that privilege? Is it a privilege to be gay-bashed? Certainly, most transwomen will have had some advantages in their upbringing, but I can hardly fault any woman who wasn’t raised thinking she was worthless, thinking she simply wasn’t as good, that she was dumber, more emotional, capable of less, an object for the pleasure of men. Any woman, trans or cisgendered, who has managed to escape these messages has nothing but my astonished pleasure for her good fortune (and it’s ignorant to assume that transwomen haven’t had some exposure at least by proxy before transition, and that they don’t experience life the same way any other woman does afterward, at least if they “pass” — if they don’t, I think their experience is much worse).

Kimberly Nixon is post-op. Any arguments revolving around the presence of a penis are at this point incorrect and irrelevant (although they’d be bigoted and wrong in any case). Any arguments about her experience as a woman, her ability to empathize with female victims of violence, are similarly flawed. Transwomen experience life as women, and are disproportionately victims of prejudice, discrimination, violence. This leaves only her experience growing up as justification for the actions of Vancouver Rape Relief.

None of us have had the same experience growing up. None. Most of us have trouble understanding the forces which formed other people, looking through that lens sympathetically to try to understand why people are the way that they are, or are not. Kimberly is no different from any other woman in that regard, and it is no excuse for this kind of shameful prejudice, especially at the hands of so-called feminists.

I have said it before and I hate that it’s necessary, but I will say it again, as often as I must: any feminist who does not fight for the rights of all women is no ally of mine.

1. Why is liking to cook a gendered behavior and why is it unfeminist to take care of my house? Because, really, these are practical life skills and something that needs to be done by someone. This isn’t abstract theory. I’d be lying if I claimed there was no pressure whatsoever to take care of my house, but when I’m the only one with the free time to do it and I don’t actually mind, and if my siblings do their chores also and the boys do as much if not more housework than the girls, what exactly is the problem? Christ. You’d think wanting to eat decent home-cooked food or not wanting the kitchen to be buried in dirty dishes was some sort of crime against feminism. (And I’m not even supportive of so-called “choice feminism”!) I mean…really, people, it’s just something that needs to be taken care of, preferably by someone who doesn’t mind taking care of it.

Now when everyone else refuses to clean the litter box, that’s what pisses me off. Which reminds me…ugh.

2. Why are there no decent candidates running for…well, anything? The gubernatorial election in Colorado is specifically what I’m talking about. So there’s the Republican candidate, terrifying in most every way, and the Democrat who, true to the party line, is less evil and doesn’t seem to actually stand for anything without scowling about how he disapproves personally first (see: stance on abortion), and then there’s the Libertarian who is great on women’s issues and gay rights but is, well, Libertarian, and thus whom I cannot vote for in good conscience as the commie I am.

Okay, that’s oversimplifying. Her stance on immigration terrifies me, as does the general Libertarian philosophy regarding social welfare programs, which she definitely supports. Which brings me to the big point: all the candidates have fairly inadequate platforms regarding immigration. This is a big deal to me. I get to hear people using “immigration” as a thinly-veiled pretense for their racism every single day. “Immigration” as an excuse to ignore the complex race and class issues that are actually at the core of the matter. “Immigration” as a front to promote hate speech against not only undocumented workers, but pretty much anyone who vaguely resembles what they imagine lurks south of the border (where everything is Mexico), which includes anyone with darker skin, a Spanish-sounding last name, and/or a funny accent — because if you’re not white you must be “illegal”. No other explanation for it.

And I’m sick to death of this. Beauprez’s the worst; his website from what I’ve seen (and I didn’t linger very long) seems to be fairly tame compared to the propaganda his campaign’s been plastering all over Denver. It’s all xenophobic, reactionary hate speech. That’s all it is. At least Ritter’s only committed to enforcing the laws we already have, punishing companies who hire undocumented workers and the like, which I can support from a legal perspective even if it isn’t particularly useful or humane. (My personal opinions and proposed solutions? Maybe another time.)

I hate feeling these split loyalties. I can’t find a candidate who seems anywhere near decent on all the issues personally important to me: gay rights, women’s rights, immigration, and a general commitment to helping people in poverty you know, not starve or die from preventable illnesses and that kind of thing. The one that’s okay on the first two is terrible on the others. The one that’s more moderate on the last two is not that great on the first two. There was recently a post on the feminist community on LiveJournal urging people to vote for Winkler because she’s unabashedly pro-choice…without realizing that, for some of us affected by other issues, that’s not enough on its own. When I hear people talking about how “Mexicans are less than human” (actual quote) and about what they want to do to “those Hispanics”, you know what? Whether I, the queer Latina girl who mostly doesn’t like guys and isn’t sexually active, can get an abortion is the lesser threat to my immediate wellbeing.

3. If you have to preface a statement with “I’m not racist…” whatever comes out of your mouth next is almost certainly racist, and if not, it’s at the least going to be ignorant, poorly thought-out, problematic, or insensitive. Ditto for “I’m not sexist”, “I’m not homophobic”, etc. I know it’s been said before but it bears repeating.

3. a) If you feel the need to include someone’s race when talking about them in a situation where you would never think of attaching a racial slur if they were white, you’re racist. Sorry. (Or not. Yeah, not sorry.)

3. b) If you don’t want to be around me because you feel “judged” because I think you’re racist, maybe you shouldn’t say racist things. No, I’m not going to feel bad for leveling judgement after you just said something horribly offensive about the ethnic group I happen to, um, belong to. Especially if by “horribly offensive” I’m just trying to be polite about the fact that you just told me you want to commit what would legally constitute a hate crime.

4. Okay, I think I feel better until something else comes to mind.

5. Oh yeah, and I’m going to see the Dalai Lama speak tomorrow and that’s going to be really, really awesome. This isn’t an annoyance…unless maybe we start talking about how I feel about Tibet. I guess that’s another discussion for another time.

Whenever the topic of using non-offensive language comes up, someone invariably objects on one of two grounds:

1. I’m somehow impinging upon their freedom of speech.

This one is ridiculous since making suggestions about how to more politely communicate their points, especially to people who claim to care about anti-oppression work (which is really who my writing is targeted at — if I realize someone doesn’t care I’m not really going to bother explaining why racism, etc. is bad), is very different from me somehow forcing them not to use those words, which I clearly don’t have the ability to do. And I’m not threatening violence on someone who disagrees with me, which is more than I can say for some of the anti-feminists who’ve left comments on my blog. I’m also not going to go and actively harass other people online with whom I disagree until they change their opinions/language, which is also more than can be said for some people. They can say things if they really want to. I just don’t necessarily respect that choice of words. Just because I think everyone should be allowed to express an opinion doesn’t mean I have to agree.

Contrary to what some seem to believe, I highly value freedom of speech. Believe me, as someone who wants to pursue a professional career in writing, I appreciate the ideal probably more than most people will ever have a real reason to. (Being locked up or killed for publishing something the government doesn’t agree with? Yeah, that would be pretty bad and I’m glad that I’ll hopefully never have to deal with that. Being told by some random person on LiveJournal that you’ve offended them? Not so much.) But freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism, and freedom of speech is also responsibility for the words that one uses. I will call people on offensive language, language that hurts or demeans or perpetuates harmful attitudes and stereotypes — including my allies. People need to take responsibility for their actions, and that includes their words. Words are a powerful tool and people are sometimes entirely too careless with them. I “misinterpreted” you? That’s “not what you meant”? Say what you actually mean, then. Or try to, and if I still misinterpret you, clarify.

I have a firm belief that people need to actually say what they mean, rather than resorting to slang and curse words and hoping that people understand their intent and sympathize with it. It’s lazy at best, and that’s my non-judgmental assessment of the behavior.

2. There are no other words in the English language that will suffice except for those which are horribly offensive.

I’ve heard it all. Apparently “if we took out all the words in the English language that people find offensive we wouldn’t have any useful adjectives, adverbs, or nouns”. (Not an exactly word-for-word quote, but paraphrasing a sentiment I’ve seen more than once on various forums.) Besides being totally hyperbolic, I think that if people’s vocabulary is so limited that they can’t find any other words to describe a woman they don’t like besides “bitch”, that they either don’t have a very good grasp of language (which is unfortunate but not an excuse) or they aren’t particularly imaginative. Expressing this judgment has hurt some feelings, but I stand by it, because the English language has lots and lots of words in it. Use them.

You don’t need to call someone “crazy” and further stigmatize the mentally ill. There are already words which connote that someone is making an illogical argument, or a fallacious statement. You don’t need to call someone a “bimbo” or a “slut” since those are value judgments quite often based on someone’s appearance or dress and thus shouldn’t be relevant anyway. Et cetera. Lather, rinse, repeat. There are probably hundreds of different ways to express your ideas in equally powerful language that doesn’t have the side-effect of insulting others or expressing misogynistic, racist, etc., attitudes.

The other side of this argument is really what I want to get at: people argue that they simply have to insult people in order to adequately express themselves. You see, they have a need to assume that a woman is a “slut” or has an eating disorder just from looking at her. It’s absolutely integral to their argument against Ann Coulter that they make assumptions about her physical sex (namely, implying that she’s post-op MtF, because being trans is the worst thing in the world or something); it’s not enough that she’s a hypocrite who doesn’t bother to actually research anything she talks about. Similarly, one simply cannot discuss Hillary Clinton’s politics without bringing in unfounded assumptions about her sexual orientation. It’s totally central to the argument. It is, after all, impossible to actually discuss a person based on their ideas or actions. No one can do that. We need those words. We need to be able to make unfounded judgments and insult people rather than encourage critical thought.

Also, some people seem to argue that they need to be able to use “gay” or “retarded” as a synonym for “stupid”. Actually communicating why you disliked a movie, perhaps found it dull, is impossible. There’s this ephemeral quality to something that makes it “gay” that merely saying “this subject doesn’t interest me” doesn’t quite capture. Something transcending mere disinterest, dislike, or frustration.

People have an unalienable right to be insulting for no reason, with no actual relevance to the sentiment they’re expressing, just because they can, without being questioned about it. This, truly, is the American Dream. The ideal the founding fathers meant to capture when they penned the US constitution was obviously that people be able to make insulting and pejorative remarks at any time with no repercussions, because the only way to actually communicate is through direct and indirect ad hominem attacks. Freedom of speech isn’t about protecting those who disagree with the government or popular ideals. It’s just about people’s right to be insulting.

Uh huh. Okay. Forgive me my lack of sympathy for the fact that already put-upon people would like it if you stopped making their lives and identities synonymous with whatever negative concept you’re trying to express. Somehow I think you can survive.

This post at Pandagon and some of the comments my posts about makeup, etc., have sparked really make me wonder. Common words people are using to describe certain socially-accepted practices of grooming and dressing seem very problematic to me. Specifically, people keep referring to this concept of the “feminine”. Feminine fashion. Girly dress.

And everyone seems to have at least a slightly different idea of what “femininity” entails.

This is why I purposely try to never use the words “feminine” and “masculine” in this context unless it’s tongue-in-cheek or I’m making it clear I’m using the popular understanding of words that I don’t particularly like. “Girly” has a particular place of loathing deep within my vocabulary because it sounds very dismissive and basically infantilizing, but I understand it’s not always used that way, so it’s not that I get angry at people for using it (unless it’s obviously in a pejorative context).

What’s “girly”? Why is makeup “girly”? Not all girls wear it. Not only girls wear it. Not only girls can wear it. Is long hair “girly”? Because even if it’s not as in fashion in America today, in plenty of places throughout history men have worn their hair long, too. There is no intrinsic definition of this word that has anything to do with the state of being female or identifying as a girl/woman.

Similarly with masculine/feminine. Any application of these words to certain ways of dressing or grooming or whatever seem entirely arbitrary to me. I usually treat these words as basically meaningless and highly subjective descriptors. I have no way of knowing what other people consider masculine and feminine, because it varies from person to person and culture to culture. There’s enough of a basic understanding of what is meant that people continue to use them, but it’s a serious pet peeve of mine, especially in this kind of discussion, because the words are usually too vague to really impart much.

(A note on usage: When I use these words in this kind of discussion, it’s usually in the context of gender roles, expected, enforced, or discouraged behavior and personality traits — and I’ll make clear to clarify “masculine gender role” when I use it as such. The other context I use it in is to describe gender identity, which isn’t necessarily a standard usage but I think using “men” and “women” and “masculine/feminine gender ID” makes it clearer when I’m talking about gender rather than physical sex characteristics, when I try to use the terms “male” and “female” to describe biology. Obviously one’s gender identity and sex usually coincide so there is some overlap and a little confusion, and I’m not always sure which word is appropriate. But if the discussion involves gender vs. gender roles vs. physical sex I always try to make the distinction, and that’s the only time you’ll hear me use the words “masculine” and “feminine” seriously.)

If “feminine” is what women do, how women dress, what women typically are, that doesn’t get us any closer to a standard definition than where we started, because individual women have so much variation in preferences and personality that I’m not sure there even is what we could call statistically average behavior. Men and women and everyone outside the binary act in pretty much any conceivable way possible regardless of physiology or psychology. Average where? When? Within which subcultures or groups? Even people who more-or-less conform to their assigned gender role typically exhibit a wide range of personality traits and interests. (And this definitely includes fashion sense.)

If femininity is what women are, then clearly whatever is typical for me can be labeled feminine. Therefore it is feminine to be geeky, obsessed with science fiction, into computers and video games, to enjoy action movies, read comic books, to be loud and aggressive in conversation, and to argue with people a lot.

If I’m not typically feminine, something I think few would accuse me of, I must be masculine…for a female. So it must be masculine to have long hair, wear skirts, cook, be willing to compromise and defer to others’ needs, write romance, watch musicals, love classical music, and read poetry. Oh, yes, and if I’m not feminine it must be a deeply masculine trait to be concerned with social justice, particularly queer issues and feminism.

If you’re going to disagree with either of the preceding paragraphs, if I’m not masculine or feminine, what am I?

What do “masculinity” and “femininity” mean to you and why? What do you mean when you use the words? If you know what you mean, why don’t you just state that definition instead?

Not the most important issue in the world; it just seems like something worth thinking about.

I usually like Dan Savage, but he has the tendency to say really stupid offensive things about a) the female body and how disgusting cunnilingus/vaginas/etc are and b) bisexuality. From this week’s column:

Very few bisexual women wind up “sharing their lives” with other women; like most bisexuals, male and female, you are in—or were in—a stable, loving, committed, opposite-sex relationship. And, hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m a fan of stable, loving, committed, opposite-sex relationships. Really. And I no longer believe that most bisexuals wind up in them because you’re all liars and cheats, or that you’re all dying to access societal perks reserved for heterosexuals, or that you’re all cowards and it’s hard out here for a homo. I think most bisexuals wind up in heterosexual relationships because most bisexuals are mostly hetero. You may be physically attracted to both sexes, but most of you can only fall in love with an opposite-sex partner.

Yes, yes—there are some bi guys out there with guys and bi girls with girls. But they are the exceptions to the rule, and there’s nothing bi-phobic about calling attention to their rarity. And before angry bisexuals start pounding away at their keyboards, consider this: My current position on bisexuals winding up with opposite-sex partners (you’re mostly straight) is a hell of a lot more charitable than my previous position (you’re cowards, liars, cheats, etc.).

First of all, this has almost nothing to do with the letter he’s answering.

Second, yes, Dan, this is extraordinarily biphobic. You are denying the validity of the bisexual identity. Just because you’re not as incredibly ignorant as you were once upon a time doesn’t mean this attitude is acceptable.

Okay, let’s look at some facts:

1. Anywhere from 1-10% of the population is homosexual. (Depending on the study you trust.)

2. This makes finding an opposite-sex partner much easier than finding a same-sex partner if you are attracted to both. It’s a matter of population proportion.

3. Many homosexual people such as yourself tend to be prejudiced about dating bisexuals. As a matter of fact, you have given advice to monosexual people NOT to date bisexuals for a variety of bigoted and ignorant reasons in the past. (Your proposed solution, that bisexuals only date other bisexuals, would be wonderful for some of us if that were a practical attitude to take given the relatively small number of bisexuals in society.)

4. Given that it is statistically easier to find a heterosexual partner and that many homosexuals are distrustful of bisexuals and don’t wish to date them, I think it makes sense that many bisexual people end up with opposite sex partners.

5. I’m not straight. I’m not even “mostly” straight. (And what is that distinction, anyway? All I can think of is The Princess Bride. “He’s mostly dead, not ALL dead. Mostly dead is still partly alive.”) I’m a big huge dyke who happens to occasionally meet people of the male persuasion with whom the idea of romantic involvement doesn’t strike me as unpleasant. That said, I never seem to meet any nice lesbians so I guess I’m stuck. Maybe if I move to Boulder, huh?

I don’t care if this attitude is a slight improvement over the things you’ve previously written. And I don’t think it’s whining to point out that, as far as non-monosexual orientations go (because bisexual, straight, and gay aren’t the only options), you’re an ignorant asshole.

That is all.