The Intersectionality of HIV

This term, I interned at an agency that provided testing and services for HIV. I expected to learn a lot, I expected to work hard, and I expected to meet some great people. All of that happened. What I didn’t expect was for it to break my heart. The center is at the very edge of a rural area here. What I had never put much thought into, being from the suburb of a major city, is how hard it can be to get healthcare when you live in a rural area. Add poverty and a serious illness such as HIV, and things get really bad, really fast. It hit me hard one day when I was organizing files for the organization’s dental program. By the way, did you know that still, today in 2015 a lot of dentists are afraid to work with people who are HIV positive? I didn’t either until I started the internship. The stigma surrounding the virus is still very real. But what hit me so hard was that so many of these people had never been to a dentist. Ever. Many were older adults, well into their 50’s or later.

Sometimes I forget what a privilege healthcare is in this country, sadly. Add to the fact that some of these people are transgender, and they are used to being mistreated by medical professionals, and you can see why it is so hard to get care. We have this narrative that people do not die from HIV anymore. I assure you, they do. When a person is too afraid to go to the doctor, or does not have any way to get there, or has no insurance, they are not going to be able to get lifesaving medications. Foucault’s biopower in action. We can do better.

Bisexuality Explained

As a bisexual woman, I hear a lot of “you’re just confused”, “you’re being greedy”, or my personal favorite “make up your mind”.  So I have been thinking of a way to explain it that everybody can understand.  Here is what I have come up with.

Say you are eating a piece of chocolate cake.  And this is the most delicious damn chocolate cake you have ever had.  Like you really really love that cake.

But you know, you have had pie in the past.  You really enjoyed that pie too.  Sometimes, because you’re human, even though you really are content with your cake, you look at pie and think “Damn, that pie looks pretty good”.

And because you don’t like to limit yourself on what type of dessert to have, sometimes you look at ice cream and think that looks pretty good too.

Now, does all of this mean that a person is confused, greedy or can’t make their mind up?  No, I think it is just that they appreciate all the variety of dessert there is out there. All of them are equally delicious in my opinion!

Let’s Talk About Sex (Toys, That is)

This term I am taking a feminism and sexuality class, and my mind has been abuzz (pardon the pun) thinking of sex, and more specifically how misogynist the sex toy market can be.  I also feel that there is a classist element at play here.

When you look at vibrators and dildos, typically what you run into at the lower price points are images of porn stars on the front.  I can only speak for myself, but that doesn’t make me feel sexy.  Is the idea that if you use these toys you are going to turn into an instant porn star and suddenly orgasm the second your man sticks his penis in your vagina?  I would really love to be a fly on the wall at these marketing meetings.

Also, very often these lower end toys are made of unsafe materials.  Apparently if you cannot cough up the big bucks for a sex toy, you don’t deserve to be free of dangerous things like phthalates that could have some devastating side effects…you know, like reduced fertility.  Apparently safety only comes with money.

The shape of sex toys also intrigues me as well.  Some of the really ergonomic toys tend to be the higher end.  Those that really are designed to hit the curves of a woman’s anatomy…yep, pretty expensive.  I have noticed that as you get into the higher end of things, you get less phallic as well.  The less expensive toys tend to feature very detailed male anatomy, while the more expensive usually focus on being more ergonomic.   Here is a $20 vibrator vs. a $140 vibrator to illustrate my point.

Fat Bitch

So my weight was the butt of men’s jokes not once, but twice today.  Normally, this would really hurt my feelings.  But I’ve learned to embrace myself, extra weight and all.  I am a beautiful woman, fat and all.  I have had an epically bad week (see my other blog’s post about the bystander effect to get an idea of the weirdness that has been my week, and day really), and the second time was enough to finally make me crack.  Not at first, but the group of three guys behind me as I walked to my car from the train today just would not stop.  Their comments just got louder and louder.  Typically I am not one to give my harassers the satisfaction of even knowing I acknowledge their existence.  Oh, this time I did.  This time I made them feel as small as they made me feel. I turned around and pointed out all of their individual flaws (I’m an incredibly observant and intuitive woman, I’m not a good person to piss off for this reason).  One man was not much taller than me, and considerably fatter than me.  Oh, I was sure to tell him.  One man had bad acne.  Yeah, I let him know that.  And the other one, well, he was just plain ugly.  Shallow, yes, but I had had enough.  Then I was sure to tell them that I get more women than all of them, combined.  What did they retort with?  Not a god damned thing.  Well, the short one looked like he was going to cry.  Do I feel a little guilty?  Maybe.  But this fat bitch had had enough harassment because of my weight today.  I am beautiful, and I don’t need some misogynistic assholes to make me feel like a lesser person because I don’t meet their particular standards of beauty.

Besides, fat was once pretty damn revered…

Related articles

• The Bystander Effect (completelyunhingedandhappy.wordpress.com)

Wtf is a Pagan? And What is With all the Queer Pagans?

I have noticed among the Pagan community, there are a large number of queer Pagans.  I started to reflect about why that is.  I have a variety of theories about this.

First of all, what is a Pagan?  The definition is kind of a hard one to pin down.  Pagan was once a derogatory word used to refer to country dwellers.    Paganism includes a broad range of traditions, and can include Wicca, Druidism, Shamanism, Voudun, Santeria, Asatru, and many other traditions and beliefs.

There are a lot of reasons I believe many LGBQT people turn to Paganism.  First of all, the mainstream Christian religion hasn’t exactly made the queer community feel welcome.  Historically, the Bible has been used as a means to persecute many groups.  The Bible has been used to persecute Jews, has been used to oppress black people, and now we see persecution of the LGBQT community.  While I see change from that, there is still a lot of hatred, and nobody wants to stay where they don’t feel welcome or like they don’t fit in.

Another thought is that there is a lot of room for the “grey area” within Paganism.  Since there is no central, patriarchal religious leaders, and no central power structure, practitioners are allowed to interpret things for themselves.

There are male and female deities within Paganism, depending on the tradition.  This shows that there is a need for both, and an appreciation for both sexes.  Without one, we would not have the other.  We would not be.  And with that comes the idea of the Yin and Yang.  There is a little bit of male and female within all of us.  To the degree that is expressed varies, and I believe that Paganism largely celebrates that.

Another, similar thought I had to this affect is the triple aspect of the Goddess.  She is maiden, mother, and crone, all at the same time.  The three phases of the moon represent this.  This triple aspect can apply to gender…bear with me a second here.  Look at the symbol.  One side we can have male, and another female.  In the middle is transgender, intersex, androgynous or gender queer people.  They are all connected, they are all a part of each other.  They are all what makes up this world.  Life cannot exist without the others; we all cannot exist without each other.