The Impending Doom

Donald Trump is going to be President of The United States.

Donald. Trump. Is going to be President. of The United States.

Donald FUCKING Trump is going to be PRESIDENT of THE UNITED STATES!

No matter how I say it, I can't make it sound OK.  I can't make it sound normal.  And, well, maybe that's a good thing.  The fact that an openly misogynistic, racist, xenophobe who seemingly cares nothing for rights and liberties; a man who bypassed the usual Republican catchwords for racism ("urban," "tough on crime"), sexism ("traditional"), and homophobia ("family values"), and just let his racist, sexist white flag fly; that such a person is the President Elect of what for better or worse, let's say worse, remains the world's most powerful nation is horrifying.  It is rape culture, white supremacy, and jingoistic nationalism all wrapped up in a sad, narcissistic orange package.  Oh, and he's a rapist.

So there is no doubt that Donald Trump was able to motivate American hate.  His truest, most faithful supporters from the beginning have been representatives of the ugliest side that America has to offer; the ugliness of American history: of slavery, colonialism, The White Man's Burden, and so on. No doubt, Donald Trump's base is a frightened, angry, shrinking mass of white people who feel left behind by the progress the nation has made.  Make no mistake: they are racist, they are sexist, they do hate foreigners, and they do want violence.

Soothing though it may be, it is dangerous to believe that a meme
like this accurately represents how hate functions under fascism

It would be very dangerous, though, to assume or believe that this ugliness constitutes the entirety of the threat.  To understand the danger, we must understand history.  Trump has been rightly compared to fascist, xenophobic, racist, nationalistic dictatorial demagogues of the past, including Adolph Hitler.  A lesson we must remember though is that The Holocaust wasn't perpetrated by Hitler alone.  Indeed, it wasn't even perpetrated by anti-semitic zealots hoping to cleanse "The Fatherland" of all supposed "weakness."  No.  Instead, The Holocaust was mostly the consequence of normal people going about their lives in normal ways.  They did their jobs.  They filled out the appropriate paperwork.  They pulled the switches and pushed the buttons.  They followed protocol and obeyed the rules.  The Holocaust was ultimately the result of normal people, petty bureaucrats, doing normal things at their jobs in accordance with the clearly spelled out rules, then going home to their spouses and children, having dinner, and sleeping well.  Social scientists have sought evidence for what made those who operated the Nazi machinery different from those who protected Jews in their homes, and they have found nothing--nothing--that distinguishes them.  In fact, worse, The Nazis leaders were careful not to recruit overly-zealous individuals.  Those people were too difficult to control, they didn't follow orders.  Instead, they needed normal people who could follow orders, fill out paperwork, pull a switch, push a button, sign on the dotted line.  The Holocaust was, in the end, a bureaucratic factory organized in line with rational decision making processes derived from the same ideals that the rest of the world used to make products.  The Nazis made death, but the process was the same.

READ THIS BOOK

Why do I point this out?  Why am I recounting this history?  Because when we believe that the horrible things that have happened in history are the result of evil, scary people, we make it much easier for those things to happen again.  If you believe that normal people can't contribute to horrible results by simply following the rules and behaving normally, you are wrong.  It is imperative in times of resurgent fascism (and not just in America, but in Europe and other parts of the world too) that we know that just doing normal things can contribute to horrible results.  Most Nazis were just doing their jobs, they weren't even thinking about killing Jews or anyone else because no one person was ever really responsible for that.  Someone took Jews from their homes, someone else drove them to camps, someone else guarded them, a bureaucrat filled out the paperwork to move them to the "showers," another put the chemicals in, and another pushed the button, a final one cleaned it out.  None of them knew all the steps, many may have even convinced themselves that they didn't know what was "really" going on; they were just doing a simple job, they weren't killing anyone.

Do you see how easy it is?

Donald Trump is going to be President of The United States, and we have reason to be afraid; afraid for our loved ones and afraid for ourselves.  But Donald Trump is only one man and the zealots are always in a minority.  What we really have to be afraid of is "business as usual."  Fascists thrive on order, bureaucracy, and rational, functional decision making.  The real enemy of fascism is thought, questions, and active resistance.  "Normalcy" allows fascism to work too damn well.

Please, even if you never do again, for the next four years... Think.  Question.  Fight.  Resist.

Accidental Liberal Shamings: Abortion, Bodies, and Sexuality

If there is one phrase that I think I could use to sum up American liberals (and some left wing radicals) it would be "well-inentioned." It is my experience that these individuals, unlike the right in America, really do want to do what's best; they intend to be kind, respectful, and supportive; they wish to be allies to oppressed peoples and those in parallel struggles.  However, good intentions do not always translate into good behaviors.  Here I want to address three "well intentioned" comments I sometimes hear that are ultimately problematic.  I doubt that these are the only three and I invite you to comment with any others.

(1) Abortion.  It is not uncommon to hear liberals say something like, "Abortion is a very difficult choice" or "No one would ever choose to have an abortion; it's a necessity for some people."  While it is certainly true that, for some women, abortion is a difficult choice, and that for others it proves to be some sort of necessity (whether that be medical, financial, psychological, etc.), there are also countless other women for whom it is not a necessity and for whom it is an easy choice.  If we really want to respect a woman's right to bodily autonomy, we should accept that these women too have the right to make that choice, and to do so with ease if that is how they feel.  For some women, they are simply making the choice to have a low-risk medical procedure that they believe is in their best interests.  And that OK.  It is OK to have an abortion for any reason you want.  To respond to anti-choicers with claims like those above instead of with a strong defense of choice itself as a basic right is to concede ground in the fight for choice.  Claims such as "No one would ever wantto have an abortion" ultimately say, "Yes, abortion is probably wrong; or it is least psychologically, if not physically, traumatic, but I still think it should be legal."  This is not only unnecessary, it is also largely inaccurate.  So stop saying that shit.  Instead, truly defend choice as a basic human right independent of the reason the woman is making that choice.  Similarly, stop saying things like, "Well, I could never have an abortion, but I respect women's rights to do so" unless someone has specifically asked if you would choose to have one.  To become defensive when no one has asked whether you would choose to have an abortion indicates that you perceive yourself to somehow be better than others, that there is something wrong with abortion.  It's OK to never think you would want one (though you should not guess what you would do unless you're in the situation), but what you think you would do is not really relevant to discussing the right itself.

Seriously, stop it...

(2) Body Shaming.  It goes without saying that some people suffer from eating disorders and that these can manifest in both stuffing or starving oneself.  Both potentially represent an unhealthy relationship to food.  It is also the case that such disorders are sometimes rooted in trauma.  As a consequence, some liberals and leftists will, when confronted with someone who is body shaming, say something to the effect of, "You know, a lot of people with that body type are struggling with some sort of trauma.  So really, in shaming her, you're shaming a survivor."  In some cases, this may be true.  But in responding this way, you transition from "shaming" to "pathologizing."  In both cases, the speaker is saying, "That is not an acceptable body type."  In the first, this is simply being said.  In the second, it is being said more subtly because the person says, "That body type represents trauma."  But the background of that is to say, "No one would have that body type if they were psychologically healthy," which can be reduced to, "No one would want that body type," which means, "That's a bad/unattractive/unhealthy body type," which is ultimately the same thing that the person who was originally shaming the person said.  So don't do it.  You do not need to pathologize someone's body to defend them against shaming or objectification.  A person has every right to have whatever beautiful, awesome body they wish to have, and they probably have plenty of people in their life who think they're body is the fucking awesome body that it is.  Some of those people may, in fact, be suffering from trauma too, but so are lots of other people for whom their trauma does not manifest in the same embodiment.  So defend a person's right to bodily autonomy and to have whatever body they please
independent of any reason (or lack thereof) for the body type.

(3) Sexuality.  There has often been a contested debate about whether or not homosexuality is a choice.  Liberals and leftists have frequently adopted the idea that individuals are "born that way" or "do not have a choice" to bolster their support for equality, and it is certainly not only straight people that make this case.  This is understandable in part because it has proven to be an effective strategy.  But like with the abortion claim above, it is also problematic.  An individual should have the right to bodily autonomy, and part of respecting that right is that individuals are free to consent or not to any sexual activity.  Why they wish to consent to that activity is irrelevant.  Some people may feel that they were born with a certain sexuality; others may feel it was a choice; others may feel a little of each.  It does not matter because what they do with their bodies is up to them!  To say, one is "born that way" as a response to a homophobe is to ultimately say, "If someone was not born that way, if it was a choice, then you are right, it would be immoral.  My only argument is that they have no choice."  This not only admits to homosexuality's potential supposed immorality, but it also subtracts free will, autonomy, and choice (basic priniciples of human dignity and respect) from other-than-straight people.  So, like with all the claims above, just don't do it.  Respect a person's right to bodily autonomy no matter what.  If we have the right to bodily autonomy, then the reasons for our consensual sexual, bodily, and medical practices do not matter.  It is only if those rights are already suspect that such explanations may begin to make sense.  But if those rights are suspect, then we are already ceding ground to those who would oppress and subjugate people.  These are already often literally fights for people's lives, so we don't need to do any of the fighting for the other side.

I get it.  People say these things with the best of intentions.  They hope that such claims will be persuasive, and thus make the world a better place; sometimes it even works.  But if we really want the world to be better for everyone then we need that world to be based in human rights and human dignity.  We must argue for these rights and for the idea that these rights do not need "excuses" or "justifications" behind them.  Otherwise, we run the risk of eventually losing these rights.

Man, I feel like a woman...

MRAs (Men's Rights Assholes) often attempt to denounce any and all feminist claims.  They insist that men have it just as bad, if not worse, than women do.  Men, they would have us believe, are falling victim to a "politically correct" culture that ignores a man's right to insist a woman carry "his child" to term (meaning, control her body); a world that shuns men to the side while giving women better jobs (meaning, actually might treat women as close to equals in the workplace); a world that attacks his freedom of speech in exchange for her comfort (meaning, he cannot verbally assault her); and so on.  One of their common claims MRAs make is that, perhaps, men are as likely, if not more likely, to be victims of sexual assault.  This, of course, is a daunting claim.  It's well known that 20-25% of women will be the victims of sexual assault, and in some demographic categories, Native American women for example, that number may spike even higher.  Therefore, the claim that men are as likely, or even more likely, to be such victims is often shrugged off with easy disregard.

This claim, though, is more complex than that.  And, like when debunking any claim by reactionaries, we should take it seriously.  In this case, the claim is not so much "literally false" as "misleading."  More men than women are raped in the United States of America when one includes incidences of rape in America's prison system.  Arguably, America may have more people in prison than any society or government in the history of humanity (it has surpassed the Gulag's of Russia), and certainly has more than any other nation on earth currently.  Furthermore, a vast majority of these prisoners are men (over 93%).  And, finally, it is no great secret that sexual assault, including rape, is a major problem in these institutions.  The effect of this is that when we include prison rape in the statistics, more men are raped in America than women.

Do I wish to discount this?  Not exactly.  The rapes and other atrocities that take place in prisons (not to mention the atrocity that is the very existence of prisons) are, without a doubt, traumatic to the survivors.  I feel certain that a man raped in a prison feels comparable trauma, fear, insecurity, and so on to that which women feel when assaulted.  I am sure that men in prison, who fear being raped, knowing it's so common, walk out of their cells in fear; that they may eye up fellow prisoners wondering if this is someone who may attack them in such a way.  In fact, this is one of men in America's most significant fears about going to prison.  We often see this represented (sometimes comedically) in television shows and movies with references to "dropping the soap."

And this is the point I really want to make here.  This statistic may be accurate, but here's what it really means: in order for men to feel what women feel every day for the simple act of leaving their homes and going to work, school, or just for a walk or a bike ride, men have to be accused, tried, and convicted of a crime.  Only then, and only in that setting, do men have the possibility of possibly experiencing what women experience everyday simply by existing in patriarchal society.  So no, I do not want to minimize the significance of America's prison rape epidemic.  It's horrific, it's shameful for the nation, and it must be stopped; no one deserves to be raped, no matter what crime they have committed.  But we mustn't claim that this makes the experience of sexual assault for men on the whole comparable to that of women, and the statistic should not be presented without qualification.  For the average cis-man, walking out his front door in the morning is a safe act.  He is unlikely to be sexually assaulted in any way, unlikely to be sexually harassed, and so on.  Only under the very unique condition of being placed in prison in the good ol' USofA does he have a chance of feeling what women feel, fearing what women fear, and experiencing what women experience.  And this does make it different, because eventually that man may leave prison, but women cannot escape patriarchy in this society.  Most imprisoned men can feel confident that they may someday escape the institution in which they are likely to fear rape (which is not to say that the trauma will not persist beyond the walls of the prison); but patriarchy and misogyny are institutions that exist as part of the very basis of this society, and are inescapable without changing society itself.  One cannot simply walk out their doors one day, traumatized but free.

So are more men raped than women?  Perhaps, technically, yes.  But while these incidences may be comparable for the individual (she and he may feel similar trauma afterwards), they are not comparable societally because of their very different context.  Men do not exist everyday for their entire lives in rape culture, their bodies treated as the objects of male gaze and fascination; as the property of men.  It may be the case that in American prisons men experience some of this, something that no one should have to experience ever, but the fact that men have to be placed in a prison to even have that possibility is incredibly telling.  So the next time an MRA brings something like this up, don't just shrug it off, prove it wrong and/or emphasize the context.

You are not judge, jury, or executioner.

The logic that an individual is innocent until proven guilty is a pivotal component of any fair criminal justice system, and is enshrined in American law.  This is, of course, a principal that must be maintained in the criminal justice system.  As wildly corrupt, racist, sexist, and unjust as the system may be, the ideal that one remains innocent until proven guilty remains of great significance.

And hey, you are not the criminal justice system.  And social media feeds are not the criminal justice system.

Here's the difference... in a system built upon law, the criminal justice system is granted the authority to remove an individual's rights to liberty, property, and, in extreme cases, sometimes life (fuck the death penalty though).  The implementation of such punishments should only be allowed in cases when we have reason to be confident that the person being tried has actually committed the crime in question.  You, as an individual citizen, have no such rights!  If you deny someone access to their property, you are stealing; if you deny someone access to their liberty, you are committing kidnapping or hostage taking; if you deny someone access to their life, you are committing murder.  Because you are not granted the authority to implement such punishments, you do not need to be held to the same standard as a system of justice.

All of this is most important in the context of believing the survivors of sexual and physical violence.  Too often, when someone comes forward claiming to have been physically or sexually assaulted, some people (almost always men) do not want to believe the survivor, or they want to protect a friend who is being accused, or they like the celebrity that is being accused (see the debacle around the vocalist for punk band The Casualties being a rapist; or the Bill Cosby nightmare).  These folks will say something to the effect of, "Well, I don't know what really happened, and so I can't take a side."  This will almost always results in an eventual reference to the idea that one is "innocent until proven guilty."  But we, as individuals who are not a criminal justice system, have no ability to prove someone guilty, nor can we implement punishments.  All we can do is take in whatever is presented to us, form opinions, and act on them.  The worst punishments we can implement is the refusal of a friendship or the denial of access to our own property, such as homes or concerts at private venues.  This means that we can easily choose to believe survivors because, first of all, there is no evidence that there is an epidemic of false accusations.  On the contrary, almost all accusations are real.  And, secondly, with the minimal punishments that we can implement, we do not need the same standards as a criminal justice system.

We can choose to believe survivors without committing a severe injustice.  This should be obvious, but so many conversations that I see taking place on social media, that I hear anecdotally from women in my life who attempt to converse with their assaulter's friends, and in other places tell me that it is not at all obvious.  So, please, BELIEVE SURVIVORS!  If you do not do so, you are contributing to rape culture and you are making it even more difficult for survivors to come forward.

PS - None of this should be read as espousing support for property or the criminal justice system.  I instead am simply pointing out that to the degree that these systems exist, as unjust as they are, we can assess certain aspects of them.

Visibility as a Revolutionary Act

In my last post I explained why the idiotic demand for a "Heterosexual Pride Day" is just that, idiotic.  This week, I want to expand upon that by arguing that because oppressed peoples are always told to be invisible (examples here: segregation, sodomy laws, the closet, etc.), the very act of insisting upon being seen, of being visible, is a radical act.

Seriously, this is how absurd
heterosexuality in advertising is

Growing up, it was common for me to hear older people, including parents, say things such as, "I don't have anything against gay people, I just don't want to see it.  Why do they have to rub it in my face?"  Of course, if any sexuality is omnipresent in American society and rubbed in the face of everyone it is heterosexuality, which is the basic background assumption of almost every TV show, movie, and song in American culture.  But also consider the claim itself: it effectively means, "It is maybe (MAYBE!) OK for you to not die, but at least be socially and publicly dead."  In a culture like ours, built on the premise of a separation between "The Public" and "The Private" spheres of society, this effectively denies an entire class of people access to society, limiting them to their homes; or dare I say, their closets.  (In fact, our society is so hetero when I Googled "Fuck The Closet" hoping to find queer images rejecting secrecy, all I found on Google Images was pictures of straight, white people fucking in closets.)  With that being the case, refusing to hide, refusing to be shamed into the closet, refusing to remove oneself from the public sphere--actively working to be visible when told to be invisible--is a radical move.  In fact, as the Orlando Massacre shows us, like other acts of revolution, one may even be killed in the act of creating a new and better world.  Especially in light of Orlando, refusing to be invisible, refusing to hide, becomes even more radical.  LGBTQ+ and other people who exist outside of the heteronormative matrix know damn well, and always have, that some bigoted asshole could choose to murder us any day, but Orlando, especially for those who do not pass for straight or cis, makes this especially clear.

I mean, I honestly do kind of hate cops, but the point still matters

So this is an extension of why nothing like "Heterosexual Pride Day" is ever necessary and why it is, in fact, offensive (and the same could be said for bullshit such as "All Lives Matter" or fucking "Blue Lives Matter").  Heterosexuals are already visible.  As I said above, heterosexuality is the omnipresent background noise of our culture.  It is everywhere, all the time.  Even something as simple as a Burger King ad often includes blatant ploys to heterosexuality and misogyny.  In other words, Heterosexuals are never shamed for being heterosexual.  Heterosexuals are never told to be anything but proud of their sexuality.  Thus, the very idea of needing to further remind straight people to be happy with themselves is ridiculous.  Heterosexuals are not committing suicide due to harassment based on their sexual identity, they are not being murdered, kicked out of their families, bullied, and so on for being straight.  These are simply things that are not happening.

So, I'll say it a second time, fuck your heterosexual pride.  But this time I'll add the following: people who are part of any marginalized, subjugated, or oppressed community should be as visible as they can safely or comfortably be.  I recognize that not everyone is capable of doing so.  Sadly, and this is part of the point, many risk violence, harassment, or other negative consequences for their identities and cannot be open about them. But for those who feel able to be more open about who they are, be as open as you feel able. It is a radical act and it gives strength and support for those who feel they must be forced into the darkest recesses of their closets for no other reason than the simple fact that we still live in a bigoted society that would prefer straight, white, middle-class men feel comfortable than that queers, people of color, the poor, or non-male identified peoples have a space in public. And fuck that.

Fuck Your Heterosexual Pride

Please, go troll this guy.

On Twitter, an ignorant asshat named "Sam" has started calling for a "Heterosexual Pride Day."  This is, of course, nothing new among the ignorant asshats of the world.  During Black History Month and Women's History Month one can often hear idiotic calls for a "White History Month" or a "Men's History Month" (also known as the other 11 months of the year).  When there are marches for Black Pride, Hispanic Pride, or Gay Pride we get similar reactions.  One can easily imagine that when, during The Civil Rights Movement African-Americans declared that "Black is Beautiful," had Twitter existed these idiots would have readily derailed the conversation, asking, "Well, isn't white beautiful too?!?!?! #WhiteIsBeautiful."  We see something very much like that in the absurd rise of the phrase "All Lives Matter" in response to the necessity of "Black Lives Matter."

The problem here is that just because two things sound the same does not mean that they are the same.  It is obvious that statements like, "Gay Pride" sound a lot like statements such as "Heterosexual Pride," and it is equally obvious that "Black Power" sounds a lot like "White Power."  This linguistic similarity is actually a confusion though; they sound the same, but they are not!

One of the many significant differences is their role in democracy.  The Feminist Movements, The Civil Rights Movements, The Gay Rights/Pride Movements, and so on were each efforts on behalf of oppressed peoples to increase their rights and expand the confines of democratic institutions to include more people.  "White Power" groups and others like them systematically work toward the opposite: the exclusion of more people from our institutions, the strengthening of boundaries between peoples, and further limits on who can be included in the public body.  Furthermore, this system was built by and for white, heterosexual men.  Though the poor among white men were once disenfranchised, and thus a Poor People's History is perfectly logical and reasonable, white people and men were never excluded as white people and men (though they may have been excluded based on their class, sexual identity, nationality, etc).  Therefore, a "White Power Movement," a "Men's History Month," or a "Heterosexual Pride Day" is not only completely and obviously unnecessary, but it is also regressive by its very nature, as it seeks to recenter the already dominant group at the exact moments when previously oppressed groups gain greater freedom, liberty, security, and equality.

And it is exactly that which makes these things that sound so much alike actually so different from one another.  Gay Pride, like Black is Beautiful before it and Black Lives Matter today, is a reaction from an oppressed group of people claiming that they do not have to be oppressed; that they do not have to be shamed, that they do not have to live a closeted, secret, or endangered existence for the comfort of the dominant majority.  These movements seek to expand democracy, increase freedoms and security, and make us more equal to one another.  Their opposite, no matter how it sounds, is just that: the opposite.  And as such, it must be fought, not supported.

In Defense of Celebrity

In recent months we have witnessed the deaths of Lou Reed, David Bowie, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Merle Haggard, and others.  In addition, musicians like Beyoncé have been taking vocal public stances on issues such as Black Lives Matter that link their personal life and public politics in ways that have spoken to the personal experiences of their fans.  What do these have in common?  They are each ways in which we see the role of celebrity in our culture as more than entertainment.  Through celebrities, we understand ourselves; we invest some of Us into Them, and although we rarely “know” celebrities ourselves, this is ultimately irrelevant.  Our feelings about celebrities aren’t linked to personal interaction, but to a sense that they have somehow contributed great things not just to their field, but to us as individuals and as a people.  And so when a celebrity that has done this passes away, their fans are not just losing an artist who they enjoyed, they are mourning someone who influenced them in deeply meaningful ways.  The fan has lost something of great consequence to their sense of self.

Especially among people on the left, though, it seems as if it is considered “edgy” or “cool” to show how little one cares about celebrity deaths; even to mock those who do care.  I can imagine few things so callous and careless.  One does not have to agree with someone’s interests to decide against mocking or belittling those who are actively mourning a loss.

I have a great deal I could say about this, but for the purposes of this blog I want to say two other things in particular about the connection to feminism.  Firstly, I do not think it is a coincidence that the mocking of those who care about celebrity deaths is ultimately the belittling of interests that are coded in our society as “feminine.” Celebrity culture may be of interest to a great many people regardless of gender, but it is uncontroversial to say that interest in it is constructed as “feminine” in our society.  Stereotypically-masculine celebrity interests like sports or perhaps geek culture are often respected, maybe even revered, and the male romance with sports stadiums and sports icons is often valorized.  In contrast, the female equivalent of the same is treated as “trivial” and “small.” 

And this brings me to the second point: when celebrities like Prince die I see posts on Facebook and other places where people “prove” how little they care or mock those who do care.  However, I have yet to see any of this in response to the death of Muhammad Ali.  I do not believe this is a coincidence.  First of all, Ali was an athlete, coding care for his celebrity status and life as "masculine."  Ali though was also more than just an athlete, he was a passionate advocate for civil rights, against war, and so on.  You may think this is enough to explain the difference, but it is not.  This brings me back to the fact that I also said above that it’s not just death that gets mocked, but interest in celebrity on the whole.  When Beyoncé dropped “Lemonade” I saw numerous posts also mocking people’s interest in this.  But Beyoncé too has taken public stances, along with her husband Jay Z, in support of things like Black LivesMatter and other important causes.  Has Beyoncé done all that Ali did?  Maybe not (she also lives in different times).  But does she or her fans deserve mockery for this?  Certainly fucking not.  What I think it actually happening here is especially prevalent among men on the left who would probably wish to identify as feminists.  These men (and probably some women) are mocking female culture as the “little things” that “don’t really matter” relative to the masculine world of politics and work.  This is the classic public/private divide the emerged with capitalism and the state and is ultimately regressive and reactionary behavior.

So stop mocking people for their interests!  People can care about Beyoncé or Prince and still be politically engaged.  And people can invest some of their sense of self in these celebrities without somehow minimizing their value to “the struggle.”  Stop engaging in the over-masculine mocking of women and “feminine interests.”  It’s as simple as not being an asshole.  None of this is to say that you cannot criticize celebrities.  As I explained a few weeks ago, criticizing a celebrity is OK, even a good thing to do.  But let's not mock people for caring, OK?  And let's not minimize interests just because they're traditionally coded as feminine.  Don't be a fucking asshole.

Subbing For Sartre

Sartre

Jean Paul Sartre was a polyamorous anarchist who thought deeply about ethics.  It’s no wonder i love him so much!  Today i want to consider what Sartre can teach us about the ethics of BDSM.  Specifically, i want to consider how his ethical ideas can tell us something about the role of equality between a Dom and a sub.  As a subby boy myself, this is quite important to me.  First, Sartre:

"Do you know that in 1955 when I was in China, Chou En-lai said that the notion of equality is a petit bourgeois notion. That really shocked me. I guess party communists must believe that, so as to justify their central committees running everyone’s lives. It’s very hard for people to understand that equality does not mean that we are all as intelligent; it means that our joy, our pain, our need to be relevant, are equal" (quoted in Gordon, unpublished: 23-24).

In relation to a BDSM lifestyle and subbing, i think this is especially important.  Here’s the thing, sub and Dom relationships are rooted in a power exchange. One person (the sub) is “handing over” some of their power to another (the Dom).  This is a kind of contractual exchange (though without the capitalist overtones of the idea of the contract).  Rarely is one permanently handing all of their power over to another (even a live-in-slave could presumably exit the agreement; that’s part of what makes it consensual).  In doing so, one by definition creates a temporary imbalance of power in that scenario, but it’s an imbalance rooted in consent, desire, and sexual positivity.

Furthermore, this imbalance does not necessary create inequality in the way we normally mean it.  This is a subtle distinction that needs to be fleshed out more.  Most importantly, and following Sartre above, a sub’s “joy, pain, and need to be relevant” are, ultimately, of some sort of consequence even if, in the scene, it may not appear so to an outsider.  With that in mind, it’s necessary that the wants, needs, desires, and hopes of a sub be taken into consideration in a given sexual scenario (though what that will look like will depend upon the people in the scene).  This is true even if the sub wishes that her/his/their wants and needs appear ignored in exchange for the power of the Dom (this would most obviously be true in rape play, but can also be true in other scenarios).  For the duration of a scene (whether that lasts minutes, hours, or years) the sub may appear unequal because of the power exchange, but the previously negotiated consent and a general respect for the use of safe words allows for the sub’s joy, pain, and need to be relevant to the scene, whatever that might look like for them, to be maintained.  Therefore, they are equal in an existential sense even if there is an exchange of power.

This came up recently in a conversation with a woman i’ve been dating as we discussed inequalities in kink culture.

The point is, a Dom is a Dom.  And good for them!  i love Doms!  But that form of play doesn’t make someone existentially “better than” someone else.  We are all equals; we just want different things.  Some of us want to exchange our power and get off on doing so.  Cool!  Good!  Consent to that shit!  But we’re still all equals in the grand scheme of things, and consent is still everything.

The Language of Patriarchy and Heteronormativity

The hierarchies that exist in our culture are sometimes obvious, sometimes less so.  Sometimes they are downright pernicious, creeping their way into our minds and practices when we least expect them.  Sometimes this happens in ways that are difficult to control, and it is these ways that I wish to emphasize today.  In particular, I want to discuss how the very structure of parts of the English linguistic lexicon embodies certain aspects of heteronormative patriarchy.  I am going to use two examples of this, but I in no way mean to imply that these are the only two.  I would love for anyone who has other examples of how this works to post those in the comments below!

From The Washington Post

Example 1: For the year of 2015, The American Dialect Society voted “the singular they” as their word of the year.  Why was this necessary?  Well, because gender isn’t a fucking binary, yet our language lacks the grammatically accurate word to describe a singular-other without referencing their gender.  Think about it… we have “He/She” to reference singular others.  We have “We/Us” to reference a non-gendered inclusive identity.  However, we have no word with which to describe some singular-other without referencing their gender. Therefore, if we wish to degender language and if we wish to respect the gender identities of those we are talking to, then our options are limited.  We are left with the possibilities of inventing new words (which some people have done, and which I respect wholeheartedly) or we can reimagine the meaning of existing words.  The latter is more common, and has resulted in “the singular they.”  This pronoun allows us to speak about some other person without referencing their gender.  Because not everyone identifies with a "he/she" binary, this is especially important for making all humans feel welcome in our conversations.

The word "Pegging" describes a woman using a strap-on to fuck a man,
yet we lack the language to describe a man putting a ciscock in a woman

Example 2: Sex.  Fucking.  Boning.  “Doing it.”  Blow job.  Head.  Hand job.  Fisting.  Fingering.  Anal.  Butt sex.  Butt fucking.  BDSM.  Power exchange.  Fooling around.  Play.  Playing.  Group sex.  Oral sex.  Fetishes.  Pegging.  The list of words that reference physical intimacy is rather lengthy.  But there is one thing for which we lack a specific word.  This is sex that involves a cisman putting his penis into a ciswoman’s vagina.  Sometimes this is referred to as PIV (“Penis In Vagina”) sex, but this is not only exceptionally clinical and not very sexy, in my opinion, but it’s not commonly used; it’s more of a slang in certain communities (some of which I am fortunate enough to be a part of).  This is one of the most perniciously heteronormative aspects of the English language and promotes a very oppressive, transphobic, and homophobic idea of sex. It is not at all uncommon to hear someone (especially a man) say, “Well, we didn’t have sex.”  What does someone normally mean when they (in the singular, notice) say this?  That there was not a penis in a vagina.  They might have had all different kinds of sex, they might have had sex for hours, they might have been having sex with the same person for a long portion of a relationship, but if a penis has not entered a vagina then they believe that “sex” did not happen.  Those who make this claim should rightly be called out.  However, the problem is that we really do not have a word to describe this act that some heterosexual couples do place a great deal of significance on.  Our language forces us into a heteronormative, transphobic space focused on potentially-reproductive forms of intimacy.  And this has real repercussions, as teens too often think that anal and oral don't "really count" and thus may find themselves struggling to have adequate conversations about sex and sexuality.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not some anarcho-primitivist to be likened to John Zerzan, who opposes language as such (and, ironically, writes a great deal about his opposition to language).  I am not saying to stop using language!  Instead, I am saying that the oppressions and hierarchies and exclusions of the dominant culture get coded into our interactions in ways that are difficult to overcome and that are often so subtle that we do not notice them at first.  Language is in constant flux though, as the “singular they” indicates, and we should embrace this.  “They” can be used as a singular word to degender language.  I don’t yet know of a better word for PIV sex, though I very much want to hear one.  If you know of one, please let me know!  Until then, I’ll still feel kind of uncomfortable with all my options.  I mean, who wants to say, “Oh my god, please PIV me!” or “We were PIVing for hours last night!”  It just... doesn’t work for me, but I don’t know what is better.  The fact is, I'm stuck in this language that came before me, and I don't know what to do with it.  But I'm open to suggestions...