Dear Mr. Stranger who followed me home tonight from Ross Ave. , Labels: Thoughts
Hello. I am writing this to you because we had an interesting exchange this morning. Morning because it's almost 4am as I write this and I just walked into the house. Why were you out? I walked home from the club tonight because I needed some quiet and some air, but I don't know what you were out for, it didn't look like we had set out for the same reasons....but fate brought us together somehow, and I am grateful for that.
I am very used to people following me around, driving around the block more than a few times because I didn't hear them ask me to get in the car the third time and they really want to give me a ride. But for some reason, maybe because i'm hormonal and maybe because i'm me, I didn't really get defensive tonight.
Now.
Don't take that to mean that I welcomed being followed, I find it very disgusting that you'd take time out of your morning to see where i'm going as if it makes a difference. I'm just saying that it made me think. And I appreciate that as well. It's funny, usually when I realize someone is following me I speed up or change routes or any number of other things that inconvenience me but not the perpetrator, but not anymore. It occured to me a few weeks ago that I was doing things, lots of things, for other people, and while that does satisfy me in a way I cannot articulate I know that most of those people wouldn't spit on me if I were on fire, and that does not sit well with me. Once I stopped strecthing myself out so much I realized I liked the solitude that came with not being someone's chump, and frankly, our encounter was me trying that out in a larger sense....seeing how things go with a stranger when I don't bitch out and make myself look like a victim.
Having said all of that, I'm sure you were expecting a different response when I started to slow down, and when you saw what I call a pocket knife but most people would probably refer to as a bowie knife I noticed you changed your stride, yes, I will cut you open if provoked. I can take a punch, I'm a black girl who's dated black men, I can take a punch. But I'm also a weirdo who spent the better part of the last ten years feeling shitty and getting beat up in one way or another, so it could be assumed that i've got a bit of leftover aggression that I would love to show you...but I don't think you want to ride this ride, you thought you did but you don't.
I stood at the gate and watched you while you watched me, I crave intimate encounters of all kinds, but specifically the kind that involve closeness, and there is no more intimate way to hurt someone physically than to cut them open. Carving my name into your neck is the best way I know to remind you to respect a womans space and her agency, to not think that women are easy prey, to not be a perpetrator. I take violence against women very seriously, you coward, and I would have made an example of you but you didn't want me once I looked you in the eye.
You probably don't realize that you saved your own life. Again, fate.
"I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do. " Labels: Tidbits
— Salma Hayek
Me too, Unfortunately men with big balls (Not just the literal kind) are few and far in between. Show me a man with big balls and a big heart, and I'll show you a man I can love.
I always apply my makeup before I get where i'm going.
My mother told me once that men don't like to see you become beautiful, they just like it to be that way when they show up. I make sure to not fix my face for that reason alone.
I went straight to the restroom when I arrived tonight and although I looked exactly how I looked when I left the house ten minutes before it was reassuring...there's always a holding of breath, an expecting of the worse, when it comes to my looks and travel. There was a moment where I was alone, which I appreciated, but then a woman came in and stood next to me to do what I was doing. We'd both pulled out our individual brushes and blushes and lip balms (me) and brownish pinkish lipglosses (her). She patted a bit of blush on the apples of her cheeks while I brushed bronzer over mine and, although it was completely unchoreographed, we both put a bit of our preferred powder on our forefingers and slid it down the bridge of our noses since that's where people bronze and blush to look natural, although there isn't anything natural about a glow in the early spring. I remember looking over when she did that and thinking, "She's got a very large nose, i'm glad mine doesn't protrude as much as hers does", mostly because I hated my nose for quite a while and still consider rhinoplasty a surgery I would go through with if I had the money. Once i'd torn myself from my own reflection I realized that her nose wasn't the only big thing about her, and being a big girl I rarely feel small next to anyone. She towered over me on little heels that seemed as if they hurt her feet. Her body was wider and heftier than mine, but she wasn't fat, just hippy. I'd glanced at her hands (as I glance at everyone's hands) and once i'd given her a once over I connected the width of her hips and her lack of a wedding ring, as if they had anything to do with each other. Maybe they do. Maybe a conforming beauty is the key to life with a partner and a beauty that moves with rhythm and energy, that is different, jolie laide, lively, out of control, is how you know a woman will be alone.
I am doing a presentation on Gender Ethics tomorrow, specifically Prostitution and how it relates to Care. Labels: Women's Stuff
My views on Sex Work have changed but were always pretty positive. I do not liek the idea of looking down on sex work as a career, when you choose to do it and are in control of the situation, mostly because I think that's too easy...There are a number of reasons I think people are quick to tisk tisk when the idea is brought up:
1. Because of the way our society views women who are in control of their sexuality. Until we are big enough to not call women who sleep with whoever they want whenever they want or look sexy or are aggressive "Sluts" (this is a term used so casually it's got too many real definitions to count) we won't be able to comprehend a woman putting a price on her body and making money from her sexuality and not having to wear the ugly "Slut" title before her name. Slut is just a way we dehumanize each other anyway, and Levinas has taught us that when we dehumanize people it is very easy to treat them as less than human....this is why I think people (men) kill/harm sex workers, because they don't identify with them as women and thus don't feel they deserve the same basic, humane treatment as their wife.
2. Because of the Patriarchy's tendency to not look at work that is primarily thought of as "Woman's work" as work. If we think about this historically we can see that occupations like being a housewife, nurse, mother, whatever were nto always respected(and evern today being a housewife isn't really respected as a job, even by other women, because of the other jobs that a woman can do today).
So. Once you unpack all of that, and get away from any preconceived notions you had regarding sex work, how can you (I) really look at it negatively? How can you say a woma has a right to do whatever she wants except make money off herself? I'm still working out all the kinks in my rationale but I do know that a womans issue anywhere is a womans issue everywhere, and, for me, the fact that this is something real women live through (happily or unhappily) in this world means it is something I need to be aware of.
T: Religion is a lie, and I know that there is brain science that proves people have experienced intense love and all the good things religion is supposed to provide, but does it really exist, no. Labels: Conversations
Me: To you.
T: In general, there's no proof.
Me: You're an empricist, of course it doesn't exist...to you.
T: You can't make an argument for it, and a testimony is not a rational argument btw.
Me: I didn't say it was, and no, I don't think there is any argument I can make to get you to see what I see. No you can't see god, he's everything, everywhere, all the time, he's too big to touch, too big to see...
T: That sounds stupid.
Me: What sounds stupid is you arguing with me about something you don't believe in, I never asked you to believe in god, why ask me not to? Besides, all of the science in the world can't change my mind, so in a sense you've lost this battle.
T:Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah....
At this point he just kept talking and I got my books and left class. I cannot understand why someone would take the time out of their day to try to change my mind (or anyone's mind) about something that is so fundamental to your individual worldview the way religion is. You question people's religions and you've called their way of life into question, do people realize how insulting that can be? Religion and intelligence are not mutually exclusive, they can exist together, happily, and not be a big deal.
Ugh.