I made an e-book!

It's been a long while since I have posted. Rest assured, my goodbye letter to Seattle was not a goodbye to this blog.

However saying goodbye to Seattle and starting my long transition toward a brand new state (I'll eventually be landing in Madison WI this winter/spring) has been quite a task. Writing of course has remained a constant but finding time to refine my words has proven a challenge.

I have been putting work into a personal writing project for the past few months. As some of you may now I've been experiencing some health problems lately. The problems themselves aren't new but their severity and frequency have spiked in the last six months. I've been learning how to navigate the world at a reduced capacity and it's been tough. More than just physically.

I made a project out of documenting the disconnect and frustration I felt with my body, the medical industry, and my own conception of self.

I am really excited to announce that in addition to the various hard copies of Symptoms I've been printing out and sending off to my loved ones I finally took the plunge and e published the contents of this collection via amazon.

This is the result.

I wanted to share it with the world. I've wanted to since I finished the project last month.

Hell, it was tough not to immediately publish some of the things that came out of this project right here on this blog.

So sorry to have held out on y'all but it needed to be a collection. As recourse I'll let you taste the preface:

Crafting records, quiet bravery, and beginnings


This is just a beginning.

We all know what it is to want to feel better than how we're feeling. This is a beginning because the work of becoming comfortable in our bodies is never finished. This work deserves recognition. It is my hope that the pieces in this collection offer a safer space to recognize the discomfort of living. 

In the following pages I detail my own experience of discomfort, frustration, and conflict within my own body. In doing so I have crafted as true a record as I can of my body's experiences. I, like so many, often misread or misremember my body's signals. So when there are minute shifts in my functions and capabilities it can feel like my body has betrayed me. Having this record reminds me that when it comes to my body there is not a “normal” and that my expectations can always and often should be changed. 

Going through uncomfortable body stuff has challenged me to surrender to uncertainty as much as I can. And to really listen for new information about how to live in my body more sustainably. This surrender requires a new kind of bravery. One that is quiet and almost invisible, but a bravery that has become vital to my survival.
On your journey through the words that follow and beyond, I hope that you find this bravery and that it carries you from beginning to a place where you can feel better than you're feeling now.

If you've already received a paper copy of Symptoms buying an ebook version is a great way to show your support of my writing.

If you don't have an e-reader or really really just want a paper copy let me know and I'll send you one by post.

Thanks.

I'm breaking up with my city and it's tough as nails

To My Dearest Seattle,

I love you, but you have broken my heart.

Not swiftly or intentionally I think, but for three years there's been a slow crack growing in my chest. This crack's been pulling slowly open from the repetitive tension of lacking that, for so long, went beneath my notice.

I've made love to the grooves of your geography. Found comfort in the crooked of you disagreeing streets. The curling friendship of your neighborhoods has cushioned the empty of my resources these three years we have shared together.

I came to you, Seattle my ass freshly kicked out of a rigorous and a sadly less-than-radical teaching program. I showed up with 800$ in my pocket and no job guaranteed. I came seeking rebirth, looking to put some roots down. With you I wanted to fuck around unfurl in ways I was afraid to do while I was digging myself into the debt of college. I let the story of starting fresh seduce me. I believed I could prosper here.

Little did I know my belief in your gift of prosperity was the same one that ruined my college experience. It's the one that so many young folks of my generation are painfully and swiftly recognizing as a false promise.

When I arrived I sunk the last of my borrowed money into you. Dear city, I've spent the time since waiting for a return on that wistful investment. In the three years we've been together I've been out of work more than I've be in it. I worked as a pizza delivery guy and a data entry clerk. I pulled shots at a doomed co-op in the south end. For six weeks I drove through winter's hardest hours of morning with a van full of fresh bread I couldn't afford to buy.

I took a job on a boat giving tours. I proudly told strangers all about your most beautiful features. And in some ways I loved it (minus the 10 hour days and rigorous nautical duties). Talking about you always brought a smile to my face and almost made those grueling duties worth it. I used to dream about mentioning you and my love for you on the back of my very first bestseller. But your lack of give back has stopped me from dreaming about such things.

But I loved you before all of this, before I even came close. Seattle I loved you before I sunk my trust into your salty soil. It would take me days to list everything I love about you. Every third poem I write is about your body. None of my other lovers can boast this number. But you've never belonged to me. Your salt, who's flavor I love, has continually rejected the all of the roots I've tried to stick into it.

I've moved 7 times in the past 3 years. Your arms may have been open but not always comfortable. Even in this last year, while I've had enough resources to render my poverty invisible, while my address finally stayed the same for a little,  I could feel you shifting, still feel you constricting.

This is tough for me to say. Because if anyone asks me where I am from I will say “puget sound born and raised”. I'm proud of how constant you've been in my life. I love your fractional politics and your highly visible friction between urban an rural communities. In so many ways we are family, you and I.

I don't even know how to contemplate living someplace without salt in the air. Your breath is all that know.

But I've begun to prepare my lungs anyway. Started slowly packing a few bags. I'm tired of being the only one of my friends who doesn't pay their own rent.

My dearest Seattle, I simply have no idea how to make it with you. I've always felt at least one step behind your gorgeously rapid cultural beat. I have been intimidated by your purportedly artsy and encouraging communities. Those I've attempted to dip into have always seemed a little too cool for me. And I've been dipping into your icy for long enough to see that its not just my impostor syndrome anymore. As cultured as you are Seattle, you are the wrong city for beginners like me.

I am not a prodigy (I gave up this version of myself long ago). I'm actually a lot slower than you think I am. Addicted to the uncertainty of learning, I don't know if you can wait for me to catch up anymore. And as much as I love the way my legs long to race when I see you looking at me, this time I need to resist the way you tug at my sensibilities.

I'm not sure of what I am going to do with this life. With you, Seattle there is so little room for confusion. I always feel you begging me for a definitive answer to questions my body is not ready to set free. Can't you see? I want to stay in the swill of my curiosity. Curiosity is my salt.

I recently saw some pop article that rated you as the hardest working city in the US. With most residents putting in a combined 56 hours per week of work, volunteering, and other scheduled activity. Who knows if it's true, but it felt true when I read it. Right now and for the near future, I don't intend to work a regular 40 week. I'm not going to over-volunteer or compromise on how much work I know my body can and cannot do. I don't intend to martyr my energy for the righteousness that's touted as one of  your defining features. I am still playing, I am still trying things out and in some cases doing what you some of your other residents would call "wasting time". But I'm still a beginner. And I'm not going to rush anymore.

People often talk about the "Seattle chill" (some of your residents will express interest in an event or relationship then not show up/follow through). And sometimes and I think that this chill is an unfortunate byproduct of how you pressure us to always be doing and to be pulled in so many directions. We're drawn to commit our energy and interests in ways that are unsustainable and eventually become disingenuous.

As my health has declined in the last several months I've become less able to keep the same commitments I've had in the past. Those commitments have become less and less sustainable I've not had any sort of replacement or acceptance of my new shift in/ability. I am afraid continuing like this will lead to a breakdown in my integrity.

I have never lived anyplace else. So maybe this is a problem everywhere, for every city. But I'm willing to strike out and see if there is a city out there that might just be a little better for beginners like me.

Seattle I want to be with you, but you ask so much from me and you don't give back enough for me to stay healthy and honest to the person I aspire to be. So I've decided to leave.

I'm leaving with less money, less hope, and less health than I came to you with. I am leaving to see if I can find or create that which you could not give me.

I'm leaving in September. I might come back in November, or February, or April. I know you hate when plans aren't concrete, I do too, but I can't say for sure when I'll be back.

Because I might not come back.

And yes, Seattle, it's true that there are parts of you I can never leave. I've embedded my identity in your most precious residents; sunk my love poems into your salty pockets; mixed my saliva with the sweat of your distant ocean neck. My bike and I have sliced through your avenues churning, yearning, and howling out 80's power ballads.

Oh the glorious moments we shared! Like the first morning of this year, when I was wildly hungover you convinced me to climb out to you. You snagged my vision on your distance, on the crisp of your wide cyan embrace. The cold comfort of a mountain range steady behind each of my shoulders pushed me and my bicycle forward. In that open moment, emptied of breath, it was easy to love the pressure of you and to forget how you constrict me, my gorgeous winding salt water lover.

I love you so much. And I'll send you so many post cards. Thank you for giving me what you did. I think we both wish that it had been enough.

<3
WRM

How to not catcall

So, it's high summer in Seattle again. And same as happens every summer, Seattlites are crawling out in droves. Sunny sidewalks and fair-weather festivals are awash with fancifully dressed humans soaking up their much needed vitamin D. Among the bustle of ice cream trucks, casual conversations are sprouting like wildfire. Sun-drunk, strangers are talking to strangers.

As awesome as summer is, not every encounter with a stranger is sunny. Sometimes it's downright unpleasant. Because catcalls.

There's many types of catcalls but the one thing they all share is their demand for the attention/response of another rather than laying ground for honest equitable conversation. Catcallers seek to illicit a reaction/response to justify the harasser's sense of importance. When people say “insecurity is a turn off” this is what they mean. Using the attentions/reactions of others to justify your own importance is creepy and disrespectful. Don't do it!

The difference between a catcall and a friendly respectful approach is more than semantic (although paying attention to content doesn't hurt). The words used to approach someone are often less important than the intuitively communicated expectations behind them.

Example 1: Just yesterday a man passing me on the sidewalk said “I'm sorry if I'm bothering you but you are a very beautiful woman.” While it might sounds like it was the “I'm sorry if I'm bothering you” that made his approach unthreatening (I've had harassers fake apologize for bothering me very often), my ease at his approach had more to do with his posture and tone of voice. He shrank his body down some, pulled his arms back and shoulders up, and maintained as wide a distance between us as the sidewalk would allow. His voice, while not a whisper, was at a volume only I could hear. Because of these and other more subtle factors of gesture and expression it became clear to me that he expected no reaction or engagement from me.

The message I got from his approach went something like this in my head: “If you have the want/energy to listen to me I'd like to share my attention/words/presence with you.”

And I actually did have some energy (but not a lot of time) to share with him. I told him I liked his t-shirt and we both continued walking in our respective directions.

Example 2: Just days before on the very same street as the previous example another man passing me on the sidewalk approached me with very similar content: “Hey, you look real nice.” But the difference between his tone and posture and those used by the man in the previous example spoke volumes. His voice was loud and his tone what I assumed to be suggestive. He looked directly at my eyes all the while I was in his visual range (hoping to force eye contact). As I passed he also leaned close and thrust his hand into my path (I assume for a handshake).

I walked around his hand and did not respond to his comment, gesture, or attempt at eye contact. As I walked on he shouted after me “What, you can't say hello!?”

The message I got from his approach: “I want your attention. Gimme. You're a jerk if you don't.”

The person in this example felt expectant and I assume even entitled to my attention based on what he shouted after me. He resented me for rejecting his approach, further confirming my read of his body language, expression, and his volume and tone of voice. And for a the few moments we continued to share the block I felt grateful to be outdoors and heading in the opposite direction of this person (folks who consider/attempt approaching strangers in captive environments like elevators or buses TAKE NOTE! The thing I felt grateful for was that I could physically get away from this person if he decided to continue seeking my attention).

On some level the approacher in the second example was gaming me for me attention. And I don't play power games with people I don't know.

The crucial difference between these two approaches is that the first approacher, clearly expressed his concern for where my boundaries and potential to interact with him might be through his body language and voice. He approached me with no expressed expectation that he would receive any attention or recognition in return for his offering of attention.

All of this is subtle and nonverbal, but it is not out of bounds for anyone who has practice using social cues to communicate with other humans.

If you're like me you're probably thinking “Okay I see how those two approaches are different but how do I DO that respectful approach thing?”

Much as I'd love to offer an actionable list, I have no specific advice about what words or gestures to use. Every person comes with their own history of experiences and every situation comes with it's own unique context.

In her comic strip Girls With Slingshots Danielle Corsetto offers a pretty solid starting point:



But I'd like to flesh out the why and how of this strategy a little bit more.

As I've explored in previous writings, nobody is entitled to the listening of another person. While I believe this to be personally true (nobody is entitled to my listening) there are many ways we social animals feel pressured or obligated to give others our listening and attention. Human beings compulsions to listen to one another can be an incredibly useful and powerful force. It's how we build, trust, relationships, and collaborative communities. But it is also a force that catcallers, trolls, & hecklers know well and love to exploit by relying on the feeling of obligation to listen/respond to those they approach.

Wanna know how to avoid triggering any feelings of obligation surrounding listening a stranger might have before you approach?

First check your wants. What do you want from this person? Attention? Attraction? Makeouts? To trade outfits? Whatever it is that's cool. Now, hear this: They don't owe you any of that. Recognize those wants. They are a legit part of who you are. File them away as potential points of interaction for later, if and only if this approach gives rise to future interactions wherein this person might want to know you and your wants better.

And finally when you approach a stranger for conversation, approach that interaction with no other expectation than to offer that other person your attention and presence.

Sounds simple right?

But in my experience this approach is scarier and more vulnerable than using any line, joke, or any other shitty social norms for getting attention.

Offering your attention/presence openly and without expectation of reciprocity or recognition is brave and raw and it's exactly what I picture whenever someone talks about “putting yourself out there.”

So yeah, it's hard. But it gets smoother with practice and after a while you may even start to feel proud of being brave enough to “put yourself out there” regardless of whether those you're approaching decide to respond to or recognize your approach.

In the event of a less than ideal response or lack of response from someone you approach try to remember that a stranger's response or lack thereof to your approach probably has little to do with you, the content, or even style of your approach. Their experience and learned contexts (which dictates what they assume about their location, and you, and you words) are going to ring much louder to them than whatever you have to say and however you have to say it. 

It's okay to be confused about why you didn't get a response. But confusion is a normal part of social life and you have to accept that a stranger's experience is something you just can't know without them letting you in. A person who doesn't know you has absolutely no obligation to give you specific feedback on what about your approach (content, style, context) didn't appeal to them. If you're concerned about or want to refine your skills for approaching strangers ask your friends or a counselor/therapist for feedback, not a stranger. 

Many people choose to ignore all strangers who approach them because of repeated instances of harassment. Someone not responding to a stranger's approach does not always mean they assume said stranger is going to harass them.

Example 3: Last week I was worried, running late and without coffee to an early doctor's appointment I was mentally prepping myself for (I hate the going to the doctor). A man passed me and said “I really like your style.” Even though I was unthreatened by the words, body language, and tone of his approach I said nothing and continued on because I did not have energy to open a conversation or even to thank him for the compliment I richly enjoyed.

Final notes and a privilege check: There are many complicated often prejudicial factors that lead folks to engage or decide not to engage with strangers. I recognize these complications but chose not to address them in this piece. If you wanna discuss that with me the comments are a great place! The examples I cite above are by no means completely representative of my interactions with strangers. While it's certainly not the only thing affecting my interactions, I recognize that in my interactions (with strangers or not) I receive some amount of privilege based on how my appearance matches that of current beauty standards. Also I live in a pretty awesome and friendly neighborhood!

A Shift in Focus: Why I've Chosen to Say "Consent-Positive" Rather Than "Sex-Positive"

This decision's been building for a long time. It's by no means final, absolute, or certain, only that it makes space for my own uncertainty (and hopefully the uncertainty and hesitation of others but more on that later). Like many things concerning love and relationships and sex, this decision and the conversations I've had surrounding it have resisted simplicity and can only be expressed in the messy progression that follows.

I'll start with my own experience. In the past when using the term “sex-positive” I, like many of my women friends, have had listeners assume that by saying I'm sex-positive I'm saying I’ll be into whatever kind of sex they’re into. And also that I am willing to do that kind of sex with them soon or immediately. "Sex-positive" is optimistically coded as consent, potential consent or some indication of how/what I will consent to. I can’t say I've had a full frontal "Hey! but I thought you were sex-positive" when I've refused such sexual advances but I have been coerced and "c'mon”d. On two separate occasions, other “sex-positive” (male) party goers suggested that because of my nudity at past events and my self-professed sex-positivity I should disrobe and “continue the tradition”. I first started to say “consent-positive” in an attempt to duck the possibility of the creepy interactions "sex-positive" had elicited.

It's not just self defense, but it was because of this and other like experiences that I slowly began to realize more reasons for this shift. I began to notice that whenever I talked about being kinky, poly, and/or sex-positive what I ended up talking about was consent. As much as I do enjoy talking about sex it felt much safer personally and more transgressive politically to talk about how powerful an experience I've found it to build language and rituals that ensure that my consent, and the consent of those I am sharing space with is consistently receiving attention. (Note I don't say that consent itself be constant or even consistent).

One of the main reasons I continue wanting to wrench focus onto consent rather than the sex is that when sex is the rhetorical focus of a conversation or the goal of a movement consent starts to look like a means (getting to yes) to an end (sex). Some of you may recognize this progression model as it is commonly identified in feminist circles as a way in which men are taught to and often do relate to women and women's sexualities. It's the same logic that tells folks that the ideal romantic evening involves a man romancing (the consent out of) the woman and him fucking her until he (or they both) comes. In this narrative sex is the happy ending and consent is the means. I want consent to be both the means and the end! I want consent without sex to be viewed as it's own happy ending.

I (optimistically) don't think sex-positive activists intentionally engage in or encourage a view of consent as a means to sex, but making sex the first and most visibly important part of our politics often activates this taught progression in the minds of those who hear sex-positive messages.

The shift in focus I am seeking is from sex to communication as a whole. This shift is not meant to slight or shame sex or even say that sex in an unimportant form of communication. I want to get clear on the fact that consent can and often is about more than just about sex. Making this shift in focus means that when we talk about consent as a whole what we're talking about is the practice of making our communications less violent towards the wants and bodies of other human beings. We don't have to just be talking about sex when we talk about consent.

Contrary to popular belief, consent exists to be more than just “sexy” (and yes, it can be very sexy). It exists so that we as humans can reduce the harm we do to one another in our interactions.
To me consent is more important and further reaching than sex, but wildly less visible and less trendy (more on this later). I have heard too many sex-positive activists talk about sex either without mentioning consent directly or merely tacking it on as a simplified footnote.

At the behest of her commenters popular sex-positive video blogger Laci Green recently made a video about anal play. Now to be clear I am overjoyed that people are getting more accurate and useful information on engaging more safely/comfortably in the kinds of sex/play they are interested in. But after watching her video on anal play I got the nagging feeling that something was lacking.
Before I could identify exactly why when radicalfeministquotes.tumblr.com beat me to it:

This is one of the big problems with sex-positivity. Laci Green says she received an “alarming amount of messages about people being pressured into anal sex”. I think we all know that by “people”, she means women (or at least people with male partners). Her solution is to make a video giving advice on how to have anal sex. How does that help those women? Her advice to commenters: “Just don’t do it if you don’t want to”. No shit, Laci, I’m sure that idea had already occurred to those women. It’s easy to tell women to just not do things they’re not comfortable with, but that doesn’t do anything about the GUYS PRESSURING THEM TO DO THOSE THINGS. They’re still in the same boat they were before, trying to figure out what to do with a guy who wants to fuck her butt in a world that says women will die alone if they don’t let guys fuck their butts. There’s not a moment in this video where she is reprimanding these guys or telling em’ to knock it off, because OMG THAT MIGHT HURT THEIR FEELINGS AND MAKE THEM FEEL ASHAMED OF THEIR SEXUAL DESIRES."

By keeping the conversation focused solely on sex and how to do it Laci dodges an important distinction. While having desires is totally valid, the ways we express them should not come from a place of expectation that those desires be met. For me the missing piece in Laci's video is her telling folks that want anal play that sometimes you can't always get what you want, nor should you expect to or continue asking after being served explicit refusal(s).

Refusing to give consent should never be framed as negative or any less exciting or valid a choice than choosing to give consent for sex acts. And while I’ll admit to rarely experiencing outright exclusion (entitled vibes notwithstanding) at refusing sex in a sex-positive community there is a disproportionate amount of praise for those who consent to participate and support sex/play in sex-positive communities. Saying “yes” is framed as empowering and to give one’s consent is “sexy”. Which can and often does imply that a “no” or hesitation is a problem or “less cool/liberated”. Hesitation and refusal are totally valid expressions of uncertainty and deserve respect. The framing of "consent is sexy" can, in some applications, invalidate this vital uncertainty.

This pressure and implied coolness/liberation of "yes" is similar to a popular consumer culture's advertising strategy in which the consumer is presented the “empowering” choice between an array of products. The choice to purchase one (the best) of these products is framed as so powerful that the option to choose no product is implicitly framed as less powerful or even erased all together.

Many sex-positive folks I've met are well versed in active consent practices which is awesome, but what is often forgotten is that this specialized education in consent is not a uniform privilege that not everyone has access to. In some ways the BDSM community provides an example of this privilege. It has lots of explicit tools and language for focusing on consent (not that this makes BDSM spaces inherently consent-positive spaces). The problem is that some kinky and sex-positive folks sometimes forget that not everyone they will interact with will have as well studied or uniform understanding of consent as they do. For example, saying “you can say 'no' at any time” is vastly different from actually negotiating trust with a partner to ensure that they will say "no" when/if they feel the need/want to.

For me even, after learning, writing, and studying about it, consent feels intuitive, hard to translate, and hard to talk about. But talking about consent is a must. Especially in poor communities, communities of color, non-english speaking contexts, and other marginalized communities, whose models for consent are often invalidated or overwritten altogether by priviledged sex-positive educators and activists. So yes, sex-positive activists and BDSMers have a lot of tools for consent but these tools aren’t useful or applicable for every context.

But worse than these decontextualized potentially erasing approaches to consent, the “racier” parts of sex-positivity and BDSM are now gaining pop culture currency with the distinct absence of consensual tools and practices. Important nuances are often left out in favor of what's blindly edgy and controversial. You need only to glance at 50 Shades of Grey and it's popularity for an example of important nuances being left out. The sex and powerplay of BSDM are becoming trendy but the consent parts, not so much.

Ad culture is right. "Sex sells". But when ad culture (and many people) say "sex" what usually comes to mind is the kind of sex had by heterosexual, white (or nonwhite and exotified), young, able-bodied, gender conforming, conventionally attractive people (with the assistance of the right products). Because of this prevalent and incomplete understanding of sex, the parts of the sex-positive movement that have caught on the strongest are those which feature these kinds of sex. Whether sex-positivists intend support it or not this specific and inaccurate cultural definition of sex (which leaves out both consent & the sexual experiences of so many) is what gets applied to sex positivity by the wider media. As with all things scooped up by the mainstream it's losing it's nuance. Unfortunately losing that nuance includes losing importantly intersectional conversations about sexual diversity and consent.

Recognizing and building sustainable consent and sex practices is especially crucial in sex-positivity's intersection with sexual violence. In the Ethical Slut, Dossie Eaton and Janet Hardy famously say that “sex is nice and pleasure is good for you”. This is true for many but incomplete and perhaps dangerously so. Swathes of broader culture and the medical & legal communities consider rape and other traumatic and/or nonconsensual sexual acts to be sex. This is especially true of rapes and assaults that go unreported and unrecognized. One of my worst fears around casually saying saying “I'm sex-positive” is that those survivors of unidentified/unreported rapes/assaults will hear me and get the impression that I am trying to encourage them to view their traumatic experiences positively. Or that I am implicitly endorsing the actions of rapists/assaulters. I do not ever want to suggest, even implicitly, that I feel any sort of positivity about rape or sexual assault.

I do honestly believe consent is the foundation for good sex, but also to a less harmful way of interacting with other people. Consent education can start as soon as kids start to realize that their bodies are in fact separate from the bodies of others. Imagine how much easier it would be to confront the harassment and assaults of bullying if youths understood how to articulate their boundaries. This reasoning is the least formulated of all because it requires a radical shift in how we relate to children and how we relate to each other. And quite honestly I believe it’s more radical than many of the co-opted and often limiting goals of sex-positive revolution.

I'm not saying the fight for sexual liberation is over (far from it!), but I am saying sex-positivity, like any kind of effective activism, needs to brach out and realize how it connects and intersects with other radical movements and ideals. I see consent-positivity as a start to that. If sex-positivity is all about bring joy and sustainable, harm-reducing practices into the sexual interactions, then consent-positivity is about bring joy and sustainable, harm-reducing practices into all interaction humans share with one another. Let's work together.

Playful Waste and Bringing Down the Stakes

This post was in part inspired by and written for my fellow blogger and long distance friend at thetoughestcookies when he asked me earlier this week about how to overcome anxieties about starting a larger writing project.


It's been a long time since I've blogged. And to be completely honest with you dear readers, I've been afraid (and also busy). I'm really proud of my previous post and have been chipping away at a monster of an essay about why I prefer the term "consent positive" rather than "sex positive".

Being between these two ideologically heavy hitting pieces of writing has left me in something of a stall. Instinctively I allowed the last thing I had written set the standard for the seriousness and heft of what must come next.

This set the stage for a series of thoughts about my writing not being "good enough". Regardless of how (in)consistent my posts here seem, writing for me is a constant. I write anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours every day. It's not as if I haven't been generating content. I've just reflexively cast it all as writing that is "not up to par" with what I usually post here.

Today, I say fuck that shit. Starting with figuring out where this reflex comes from.

I recognize that the reason I want to maintain an illusion of polished and tightly packaged writing on my blog comes from the way our culture loves to erase the important role of process in any sort of creative activity. The way we're taught to think of work that is genius or “inspired” is to judge it by the inverse amount of effort it appears the genius/creator put into that product. I'm not saying that the "it just came to me" moments of creative lightning don't happen. They do (and more likely to if we engage in regular process). What I am saying is that the narrative of spontaneity and ease in the creation of genius creative work is falsely held up as the primary story of powerful creative works. And I am tired of it.

There's a multitude of articles (especially in the era of social media) that really pinpoint how the phenomena of overnight success is a pretty inaccurate representation of the amount of work time and energy that a person, organization, or group has put into their creative products. I would argue that the concept of overnight success itself serves to erase the important process work that happened before and probably still happens after someone's work is packaged, polished, and (hopefully) recognized.

Creativity isn't magic. It's showing up time after time (in my case day after day). Sometimes if we're lucky it FEELS like magic and we're "on it" or really "in the game" and running with that lightning. But those moment have less to do with recognition then they do with our creative practices matching whatever our brain waves are doing that day (which we have some but certainly not complete control over).

And so in that spirit (and to remind myself that it's okay vital) I want to talk a little bit about a thing I like to call wasteful play.

I used to tutor writing in college. I am very familiar with the terror so seemingly inevitable that creeps in when too much focus is put too soon onto what might be the final shape of creative products.

The fruits of our creative process are not completely under our conscious control. Some ideas need to lie fallow or exist outside of the shadow of high stakes and possible conventions of a final product. Any person engaged in a creative process (which CAN be anyone) should sometimes just play with ideas rather then work towards an end product. Don't ask your ideas too quickly about who they are and what they might be. The sprouting collaboration between your conscious and unconscious creative minds might not be ready to speak only in the language of known variables.

Accept the fact that playful waste will happen. In fact come to expect it. Learn that there will almost always be work you do and stuff you create that will be left behind. That doesn't mean these works don't have value or don't have potential to be used for something awesome in the future just that their work is not contributing to the final shape this particular creative product at hand.

Accepting this playful waste not only stops the paralysis of "what if it's/I'm not good enough" because of course some of it WON'T be (part of the final product). It also offers you really useful information about the kind of thoughts that are related to the idea you're currently working on but might need their own separate structure. Accepting playful waste gives you a place to store mini ideas that could spark and/or be mixed into future projects. This can give you a good sense of how the creative projects you're working on are related to each other, if ever you decide to arrange them in a series.

It also organizes your process into spaces where you can be either messy or clean with your ideas. Having the freedom to create playful waste lets you be sloppy. It gives you a place to go through sloppy executions of ideas so when the time comes to bring a sharper focus to the shape of your creative product your messier ideas don't muddy the idea you are working to make cleaner and clearer.

Accepting the occurrence of playful waste also helps contribute to more concisely focused creative products in other ways. If your well of creative runoff is always available to you and possibly brimming with hints about what you might want to do for future projects you no longer run as high a risk of trying to stuff too many of your ideas into a single piece.

The hardest part of accepting wasteful play and really letting yourself be messy is that it requires a constant process of unlearning the lessons of product focused, genius rewarding society. But I promise, everyone's process is messy in some way or other.

So go make a mess. I will if you will.

See you in the muck,
WRM 

Why I Demand Trans Feminism

Trigger warning: transphobic shit to follow.

This exchange occurred after tweeting about my complete belief in the future of feminism including, supporting, & validating trans feminism.

It's taken me a month to boil down, suss through, & address all of the messy assumptions in this exchange.

Firstly imbuing any body part (like a phallus or say large breasts) with inherently threatening or dangerous qualities places people's bodies and body parts into a hierarchy. It makes some bodies and body parts "more okay" than others and hence more deserving of our support validation and defense. A person's body should never be the grounds for deciding what levels of solidarity they deserve.

Insinuating that a penis or penis haver is inherently threatening is as fraught as insinuating that too much cleavage is dangerous or say causes earthquakes.

The idea that a phallus or phallus haver is inherently threatening to a vagina or vagina haver uses the same broken logic as is used when blaming women's bodies and "sluttyness" for the actions or motivations of an assaulter/harasser. Assumptions that the size, dress, race, and shape of a woman indicates her sexuality run rampant. So too does the assumption that expressions and qualities we deem  masculine are inherently violent. Both of these assumptions are of the same type and are damaging. They serve only to offer security by separating people from one another. Which is not a form of security I believe in. It comes from a place of personal fear for survival/not getting hurt.

This tweet objectifies and ultimately limits the potential motivation of both groups of people indicated. They are either penile (threatening) or vaginal (deserving of protection). It's a well accepted and wise rule of the queer world and trans world that we accept that someone's identity and humanity are bigger than their body or what we can perceive about their bodies. Reducing people and their possible motivations and ways of being to their body parts is straight up oppressive objectification. It tells them that they are indeed just their body parts.

If the focus on penis vs. vagina is removed, the tweet above merely becomes someone saying that one person's concerns are more important than another's just because they have differing body parts. This tweet’s emphasis on the concerns of a particular group being more important than another’s requires that we believe there is a scarcity of concern and a hierarchy for compassion. Anyone with half a hope for intersectional politics knows that this idea is broken.

I understand that some folks have have traumatic associations with certain body parts, but personal trauma does not justify censoring or excluding the people whose body parts are associated with that trauma. I've been assaulted by two redheads, this doesn't mean I have a right to assume that all gingers are dangerous/threatening to me.

Having a traumatic association with a particular body part does not mean those body parts or objects are always to be harbingers of trauma. Past performance of one member of a group does not determine future performance of all members of that group.

The idea that the phallus (or any other male-associated body traits) is inherently threatening actually reinforces paradigms of of violence against women (a la evolutionary psychology so familiar in the rhetoric of rape apologists). It essentializes violence as inexplicably connected to male bodies. Believing that the phallus/masculinity is inherently violent creates a closed loop definition that makes confronting actual instances of violence perpetrated by men defensible because "well having a penis/testosterone just makes you more violent." This is absurd. It casts all those with masculine traits as irredeemably violent and not worth intervention.

Casting the phallus itself or those who have a phallus exclusively as violators who need no support or protection becomes widely and obviously incorrect when you consider the terrifyingly high rates of violence and exclusion trans women experience. Our legal system has already enforced the assumption of trans folks as violent perpetrators. This objectifying assumption actually enables such violence against both women AND trans people. 

It is totally fucked up to say that some folks (those with vaginas) have a right to feel unthreatened while others concerns for safety are disregarded completely (because they're cast as inherently threatening due to their body parts).

When I strap on a phallus I don’t magically become less of a feminist or become more dangerous to vagina havers. A cock is not a gun. It's a tool. One that can be used for violence but it isn't inherently violent any more than it is inherently pleasurable. It is just a body part.

Statistically speaking, having a phallus makes one likelier to have privilege BUT having privilege doesn't in and of itself, make a person violent or entitled. 

I understand that what most trans excluding feminists fear is this stereotype of phallus-related violence & entitlement. But employing body-based stereotypes like this is not only discriminatory but a downright inefficient way of screening for violent behavior.

No person's body or body parts is better or more inherently deserving of concern or protection. As a radical feminist and vagina haver, I personally resent that other folks seem to think myself or my body parts need to be protected from those scary phalluses.

I know that as a person with vagina I'm at higher risk for sexual assault than a cisgender man and that statistically that assault is more likely to be perpetrated by a cis guy. But I have been physically assaulted by cis women with higher frequency than cis men. Based on this history I resent the assumption that I am “safer” around cis women. I want to be allowed to use my own ability to discern who my allies are. I don’t need this arbitrary body-based separation and I certainly don’t approve of it.

My writing this is NOT an effort to tell those with traumatic experiences related to masculinity & the phallus to "get over it". That trauma deserves space and support. But when we work for intersectional politics (which the future of feminism must be) a single narrative of trauma cannot always be the focus of our actions.

I know this seems callous on some level but it is necessary. But as I’ve written before nobody is entitled to the be listened to or to have the attention/protection of the community. No one has a right to feel safe. It is always a privilege. In order to distribute this privilege effectively community members must

1. Acknowledge that others have trauma and that all trauma is valid even if not addressed and processed.
2. Accept that the personal experience of trauma one person has doesn't map onto the experiences others have with their trauma.
3. Accept that no experience of trauma is more or less deserving of our compassion.

Excluding those who have body parts that have been fearfully defined as dangerous robs our feminist communities of solidarity and the imperative discomfort of bearing witness to the trauma of trans folks.

I want demand these experiences be welcomed into my feminist community.

How to avoid the manic pixie dream girl: A simple guide with 6 counterexamples

First lets let's definine our terms:

Manic pixie dream girl has been identified by Nathan Rabin as "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." For more information on the MDPG visit the wiki. See also.

When I use the words crazy or manic I mean folks that are not neurotypical. I view neither of these terms as inherently negative and support neurodiversity. I personally want to extend the definition of the MPDG trope to include not just women/girls because I believe that any crazy/manic supporting character runs the risk of having their manic/crazy qualities exist only to serve the protagonist (if you have nonMPDG examples please send the to me!). This practice exploits and misrepresents the experiences of crazy, manic and non-neurotypical individuals. The use of the manic pixie dream girl is simply the most flagrant example I've seen of this exploitation.

But now onto the how-to:

When constructing quirky/inspirational supporting character, take a moment to focus on this character's motivations. Does this supporting character serve any other function than to be inspiring or create motivation for the protagonist? This can be measured easily by asking yourself if the potential MPDG is dynamic enough for their own story. Could you could write them their own novel/film/comic? If not you might be at risk of writing a manic pixie dream girl/person. 

If you, as the creator, don't believe your supporting character is compelling and brimming with potential story, you can't expect your audience to believe in them either. And they won't. My rule of thumb: for every compelling supporting character there should be pages of (written or unwritten) back story.

And lastly, just as it would be ridiculous to assign a character brutish qualities because they appear strong, it is equally ridiculous to assume that a character is incapable or easier to understand simply because they are crazy. If someone is not neurotypical it is PART of who they are, but certainly not all they are. Remember this when writing crazy/manic characters.

For your convenience I have selected the following pop culture examples of (mostly supporting) characters that are quirky, strange, manic, or crazy or othered in some way yet still very dynamic and compelling!


1.

Hermione Granger form Harry Potter series (book & film)
Quirk: Intelligence

For all of those awful movies in the where the mousy-but-smart girl who becomes magically hot, but then has the added bonus quirk of intelligence to support the male hero Hermione is the cure. She is sassy as fuck, has her own projects that she deeply cares about; academic and social justice projects that don't directly concern her protagonist friend. She is also tough enough make deep sacrifices (she magically erases herself from her parent's memories for their safety). Her intelligence, fortitude, & creativity are definitely doing more than serving a male protagonist.


2.



Joon from Benny and Joon (film)
Quirk: PTSD
Both Joon and her romantic interest Sam are not nuero-typical (Joon very apparently so and Sam in a social sense). These characters are on a more equal footing not just because they are both othered by culture (they do share solidarity in this) but also because they have a separate and interesting story about moving through the world as a crazy/freaky/weird person. Also note that their love story is miles more comfortable and interesting than the romance between the two "sane" characters Benny & Ruth.



3.





Johnny from Dirty Dancing (film)
Quirk: From the wrong side of the tracks
Johnny and the relationship he shares with Baby in this film are what lead her to her cathartic breaking with the politics of her family and her upper class world. Now I know it bucks the tradition of manic pixie dream "girl", but hear me out. It's clear in the end of the film that Baby and Johnny, though very important forces of change in each others lives are probably never going to see each other again, but what is also clear is that they are both headed on to interesting and wildly different futures.

4.

Leonard Cohen's Suzanne (music)
Quirk: "She's half-crazy"
I loved this song as a teenager even before I started to make cultural criticisms my business. But as a poet and sharpening feminist I began to find more reasons to love it. This song is not a love song, at least not a lustful or overly romantic narrative. This woman is strange and seemingly magical, but she is very clearly also very human (with her salvation army clothes) and on equal ground with the song's "you" and in some ways ahead of the curve.

5.

Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (film)
Quirk: Spontaneous; collect potatoes; all of the hair colors
Often misidentified as a MDPG, in this simple speech Clementine reframes the entire film (and takes the trope of MPDG to task) by encouraging you to be skeptical of Joel's motivations surrounding Clementine. She's not afraid to tell you "I'm just a fucked-up girl looking for my own piece of mind".

6.
Detroit Annie

Her words pour out as if her throat were a broken artery.

and her mind were cut-glass, carelessly handled.
You imagine her in a huge velvet hat with great
dangling black feathers,
but she shaves her head instead
and goes for three-day midnight walks.
Sometimes she goes down to the dock and dances
off the end of it, simply to prove her belief
that people who cannot walk on water
are phonies, or dead.
When she is cruel, she is very, very
cool and when she is kind she is lavish.
Fisherman think perhaps she’s a fish, but they’re all
fools. She figured out that the only way
to keep from being frozen was to
stay in motion, and long ago converted
most of her flesh into liquid. Now when she
smells danger, she spills herself all over,
like gasoline, and lights it.
She leaves the taste of salt and iron
under your tongue, but you dont mind
The common woman is as common
as the reddest wine.

Annie from Detroit Annie, hitchhiking by Judy Grahn (poem)
Quirk: Tries to walk on water
I selected this poem for it's description of the way Annie "converted her flesh into liquid. Now when she smells danger, she spills herself all over like gasoline, and lights it" From these lines I infer is some level of manic behavior, mostly because this it pretty accurately describes how I feel when I have a manic episode. But notice she is still human? Still a "common woman".

Endnote:
I'd suggest reading the all of Judy Grahn's popular Common Woman series. It and Detroit Annie in particular inspired this post. Judy Grahn was right in calling for the representation of woman as common in that all humans (women included) share in common that they have their own motivations. In this spirit I demand that quirky, manic (female) supporting characters be more than inspirational, that they be shown as more than just concepts, that crazy/weird women aren't crazy/weird for you. We're doing it for ourselves. Because it's who we are.

The manic pixie dream girl is just one more message to women & those who are crazy/weird/freaky/non-neurotypical, telling us that our insanity doesn't belong to us -- that it's the only thing that makes us interesting. Fuck that trendy bullshit. Every crazy person I know has a story and a life that's more than just their crazy. We're not your inspiration.



PS I'd LOVE to expand this list. Suggestions of manic/quirky supporting character are VERY welcome!