Taking Back our Sexuality

When I was growing up, I was always told pet names for my anatomy.  I was always told that good girls don’t touch themselves.  I was told that I better not have sex while I was living under my parents’ roof.  That was the extent of our sex talk.  So when I did masturbate when I was younger (as I think every teenager does, whether they admit it or not), I felt extreme guilt and anxiety.  And later when I had sex for the first time, I didn’t feel that I could talk to my mother about it.

I think this was the experience for many women of my generation.  Our sexuality was very controlled, while boys were expected to enjoy sex and to think about it all the time.  We were supposed to be pure and innocent.  It is assumed that  boys masturbate, but nobody talks about the fact that girls have sexual desires and get turned on too.

When I became an adult, I did not find sex all that satisfying at first, and I couldn’t figure out why.  It wasn’t until I got divorced from my first husband and I discovered my own sexuality that I finally enjoyed sex.  I finally took the time through masturbation and really figured out what felt good for me.  Then I found a partner who is now my husband who really listens to me and does what I like, which helped me reach amazing new heights of pleasure.  And then I discovered the joy of sex with women, which has freed me sexually, emotionally and spiritually.

I think it is important as feminists that we make sure to not raise the next generation with this self-hate that comes from patriarchy.  We should love our bodies.  We should teach our daughters that pleasing herself is totally ok.  Nobody should have the right to control our bodies but ourselves, and that includes our sexuality.

SCOTUS and Birth Control

As you may have heard, the Supreme Court of the United States will be hearing two cases about birth control and private companies.  Both Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties feel they should not have to cover birth control for their female employees because it violates their personal, moral standards.

Well, what about those of us who use birth control for purposes other than preventing pregnancy?  I personally use birth control pills for regulating my menstrual cycle due to PCOS, as millions of women do.  Plenty of women use the pill for other purposes other than contraception.  Like to reduce severe menstrual cramps.  Do these corporations have the right to tell us “Too bad, you must suffer?”.  I’m not ok with that.

And personally, I think family planning should be up a woman and her partner.  We do not need our employer to regulate our reproduction.  Would they rather cover us having a baby every year?  That is a rather expensive alternative.  I also wonder if these employers are happy to cover ED medications like Viagra and Cialis because that is a “medical” issue, but our reproductive health is not.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/11/28/cecile-richards-on-seven-reasons-why-the-supreme-court-s-decision-on-contraception-is-a-big-deal.html

Perceptions of Disability

As a woman who has hidden disabilities, I often wonder what life would be like if my disabilities weren’t hidden.  I feel there are advantages and disadvantages of my disabilities being hidden.  I may seem short with people some days.  What they don’t know is that I am in massive pain often from my fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.  I may space out during a conversation, which somebody could take to mean that I don’t care.  Quite the opposite, it’s just that I have ADD.  I may come across as a little moody at times.  I have depression and anxiety disorder, and sometimes being around a lot of people can be a little rough.  Sometimes I wish I had a sign around my neck that explained these things so I would be better understood.

I think so often disabled women are misunderstood.  Often disabled women are seen as asexual.  As if having a disability means a woman has no sexual desires or needs.  Or, in the case of mental illness, I feel women are often hypersexualized.  There is that idea that “crazy women are good in bed”.  This is a very misogynistic viewpoint, and it needs to stop.

All too often disabled women are rendered invisible.  I remember how awful children treated disabled kids in elementary school, and I feel that attitude carries over into adulthood.  We see disabled people as something “other” or “inferior” when this couldn’t be further from the truth.  We are all the same.  We all have value to offer the world.  Perhaps it is time we start treating each other like it.

From Victim to Survivor

My name is Desiree Kaye, and I’m a domestic violence survivor.  Until recently, I didn’t see all of what I went through as abuse.  Toward the end though, there was no doubt I was being abused, even to outsiders.  However, my situation didn’t meet the standard media idea of abuse.  This prevented me from getting help I needed in some cases, as it does for many victims.

I met my ex husband back in 1999 when I was a senior in high school.  We had our first date the day after I graduated.  He was so good-looking and charming.  The 32 year old me now would see him for what he really is.  He persuaded me to have sex with him way sooner than I wanted, and didn’t take no for an answer.  That should have been an early sign that this guy was no good.  But I didn’t know any better.  After only a few weeks of dating, he convinced me to spend money intended for my housing deposit at University of Oregon to bail him out of him being behind on his rent.  After this, I moved in with him because my parents were naturally very upset with me and I felt that I could not live with them anymore and he convinced me that us living together would be a great idea.

The controlling behavior started early.  He left me with virtually no money.  If I went out with friends, he either went with us, or would scream at me when I came home because I was gone too long.  He convinced me not to go to college because that would mean the end of our relationship because the university was a two hour drive away. He was in the Army National Guard, and a few months into our relationship, he was deployed to Saudi Arabia for four months.  He sent me no money home to pay bills.  I got calls from his creditors constantly.

When my ex came home that February, he proposed, and I (naively) said yes.  But he wanted to keep our engagement a secret.  All through our relationship so far I had not been using birth control because he had told me he was sterile.  He said he very much wanted children, but I didn’t.  That June I became pregnant.  He told me that if I had an abortion, that would be the end of our relationship.  I look back now and realize how controlling our relationship was, but then I never saw it.  There were rumors of infidelity at this point, but I chose to stay.  He would yell at me and accuse me of cheating on him because his male friend who flirted with me while he was deployed made crude jokes as to the paternity of our child.

Our relationship continued like this for years.  After our daughter was born, I attempted to go back to work because we needed the money.  At first I couldn’t, because he would not help with teaching my daughter to take a bottle.  Then, once she was old enough for solid food, I did find a job.  But he would call me all day every day at my job, making my boss very angry.  Then he would find reasons to have me come home; our daughter was sick, she wouldn’t stop crying, etc.  I persisted, but after September 11, 2001, my hours were cut from full time to about 10 hours a week, and it didn’t make financial sense to work.  Then I returned to school the next year.

However, my education was cut short due to my ex being deployed for war.  He served fourteen months in Kuwait and Iraq.  During this time, I felt peace.  I was able to spend time with friends again.  I was able to go to my mom’s house without him being upset and calling me to ask when I was going to returns several times within a couple hours.

When he returned, things escalated, and badly.  At first, I tried to be patient.  He was in a war, he had PTSD.  He was in a situation where he had to kill a couple of men.  I waited for him to go through counseling and get on medication.  He started yelling at me for little things like not putting the toilet paper on the roll the right way.  He screamed at me once when we had a couple we were friends with over.  Us ladies went to the store and I came back with the wrong kind of milk.  He even yelled at one of my few remaining friends once. He started demeaning me, putting me down and calling me names.  He started to force me to have sex with him when I didn’t want to.  My ex started to threaten my pets.

Once, when my ex got mad at me for something, he punched a hole in the wall.  I knew I would be next.  The next day he bought me a TV/DVD combo.  He always bought me stuff when he was mean to me.  As if that would make it better.  I decided then and there that it was time to get out.  I started to plan.  I started looking for jobs.  I found one.  I got myself my own car.  I made excuses for the job and car.  It was hard lying, but it was what I had to do.  I tried to be the best, most obedient wife I could during that time.  Finally, when I had enough money saved, I got my own apartment, in a gated complex.

The night I moved was the most nerve-wracking of my life.  I had my dad and some friends that still mean the world to me come in the night and help load up what belongings we could into trucks and get me out of there.  My ex had gone to a friend’s house.  It started to snow.  I was only able to get about half of my belongings.  But I had my daughter and my dog.  And my freedom.

It has been a decade since I left my ex.  Now I have a loving, healthy marriage.  I am one year away from completing my bachelor’s degree in women, gender and sexualites.  When I am done, I plan to help other victims of domestic violence.  I have gone from being a victim to being a survivor.  It has taken a lot of time, a lot of therapy, and a lot of love.

If you are being abused in any way right now, or you have been, I want you to know it is not your fault.  You are absolutely not alone.  There are ways out, if you want to get out.  It is hard, but the new you afterward is so worth it.  You deserve to be safe.  You deserve to be loved.  You do not deserve to be hurt.

Here is a bit of information for services and support:

http://www.thehotline.org/  or 1-800-799-7233 | 1-800-787-3224 (TTY)

http://cardv.org/

Stop the Slut Shaming

I was perusing Facebook today between my classes and came across this lovely gem of a post on a family member’s wall (she and I had a discussion about it later):

http://www.returnofkings.com/16837/24-signs-shes-a-slut

I, for one, am tired of slut shaming.  According to that man, I am a giant slut.  I’m fine with that.  If I’m a slut because I have several tattoos, that is fine with me.  If I am a slut because I find a bit of pleasure in swearing at times, then yep, I’m a slut!  If I’m a slut because I’m a feminist and I’m pansexual, then so be it.  I have “big tits”, so obviously I’m a slut you know; I totally grew these suckers just because I am such a slut.  I’m definitely a slut because I like women as well as men (and people who do not conform to the gender binary too!).  I go to a known party college, so that for sure makes me a slut.  The list goes on and on for me…

I am just tired of the view that women are sluts.  We do not have words specifically for men who sleep around.  They have to be a “man slut” or variations of such.  Clearly you don’t have to sleep around to be labeled a slut either (I don’t, I’m married).

I think we should take the word “slut” back, much like other derogatory words have been taken back.  If being a slut means I’m a confident woman who knows what I want and happens to find pleasure in sex, then yep, I’m a slut!

Movements like the Slut Walk are a great, positive step forward, and I hope we can further raise consciousness.  It saddens me when women are spreading this hatred about ourselves.  Sisterhood is powerful, as they say.  Let’s love and respect our sisters.

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)

From Solstice to Sunday Morning

On Saturday night, I celebrated the Summer Solstice with with a good friend.  We danced around the fire, sang, laughed, and had a great time as we celebrated our Horned One in his highest power of the year.  I felt like a free, powerful, beautiful woman.  Then came Sunday morning…

My daughter had invited me to her church.  Now, I am a very open-minded person-I see value and beauty in all religions.  I have no quarrel with Christianity as a whole, it is just the bigotry among some of its believers that I dislike.  My daughter’s church could not be any more opposed to all of my core beliefs.  They are a United Pentecostal church, and the pastor is very strict.  Women in the church are expected to wear long skirts or dresses at all times (even while swimming, seriously), they are not supposed to cut their hair-at all, they are not supposed to wear makeup or jewelry, and they are told to submit to their husbands.  The women of the church are, from my experience, expected to stay home and raise children, and if they do go out into the world to work, it seems that most work in “typical” gender occupations, like teaching or nursing.

The church had a guest pastor on Sunday.  He was the fire and brimstone type of preacher, and if they wanted to make a convert out of me, they were going about it in all the wrong way.  The man gave me a headache and I tuned him out after a while.  Frankly, some of the things he said frightened me.  He spoke of how God could heal your life from addiction, depression, etc.  I fully recognize the mind/body connection, and believe spirituality is an important part of healing for most people.  However, what scared me is that he said “You don’t need more antidepressants, no more counselling, no more AA, Jesus has the power to heal you right now!”.  Now imagine a person with a severe addiction or mental illness is sitting in that audience.  I can only imagine the severely ill thinking it suddenly ok to stop their counselling and medication because they believe they are totally healed.

Toward the end of the service, they did sort of an altar call, and I then had to explain, as politely as I could to my twelve year old daughter that I do not share her beliefs.  It was an awkward and heart-wrenching situation.  She looked so disappointed, I know she probably feels that her mother is damned.  How do you explain to a child that you are not lost, that you are so very whole, beautiful and happy now, and it is not because of some church.  I got this way from inner strength, counselling, medication, and faith in a religion that believes in duality, not patriarchy.

Why Feminism?

These are some of the reasons I feel we still need feminism today:

1. I want my daughter to have a chance at a better quality of life than mine.
2. I want my daughter to have choices; choices about her body, choices about her life, choices about her education, choices about her health.
3. I want this generation’s sons to have respect for each other, for women, and for the LGBQT community.  I am sick, sick, sick of this rape culture we live in, victim blaming, and nobody asking why we aren’t teaching our sons not to rape.
4. I want this generation’s sons to be healthier.  Men’s health is largely being ignored in light of initiatives for women’s health, we need to take care of our men too.
5. I want equality for everybody.  All people should be treated as equals, regardless of class, race, ability, sexual or gender orientation.  I am so damn tired of people talking about others as “a black man” or “a lesbian woman”.  I would like to see a future where we just see each other as people, and not how “different” we all are.
6. I am furious that it is 2013 and women are still not being paid the same as men for equal work.
7. I am continually appalled by the near daily attempts I see by politicians to take a woman’s choices about her own body and reproduction away.  I do not care how you feel about abortion.  Nobody likes abortion, but it needs to be a safe and legal option.  And damn right we need birth control accessible to everybody, regardless of the ability to pay.  Guess what? That leads to less abortions!
8. I am so fucking sick of gender stereotypes.  Guess what?  Gender is a social construct.  Just because I have a vagina does not mean I fit into a neat little box.  The world is not black and white.  Wake up and welcome to the grey side.  I dress feminine, I look feminine, but you know what?  I can fix my own computer, I drink beer, and I swear like a trucker.  If that makes me “butch” too, then so be it.
9. Women are beautiful and powerful, and we deserve a voice.
10. I am so tired of our culture and our “othering”.  We always want to find some “outside” group and point fingers, persecute, and blame.