Sometimes I wonder if we're too frightened to see the bushfire.

Recently I watched V for Vendetta for what is possibly the 10th time and I couldn't help but think that the movie wasn't actually US-Centric, but was actually telling the story of the future of my own country.

Very allegorical, perhaps taking it a bit too far, but I read the News and I follow the trends and I know that the danger isn't the fact that Iran wants us dead (I'm quite sure that just as we scapegoat them, they scapegoat us - they have far bigger problems and so do we), it's that we are in great danger of becoming Iran.

It scares the shit out of me, because the Occupation will eventually end - it's a question of how much more blood shed it's going to take - but it will end, because it just is not sustainable and no matter how much we economically rely on keeping the Palestinian people subjugated, it's only a matter of time when that economic power will collapse.

Theocracy scares me a whole lot more than a bi-national democracy.

I mentioned the pro-natalist ideology that dominates my country; this shows itself not only as free fertility treatment for all women (single and not), but also in rewarding large families - giving automatic child benefits to large families.
Ostensibly, this is a good thing, I think poor people should get as much help as they can from the government that doesn't actually do much to make sure the economy to keep a quarter of population out of poverty.

The government, the representatives of the poorer sections of society - the Haredim (themselves a vilified and discriminated minority) - seem keen on keeping them poor and breeding and in separate education systems; the Haredi children do not study for matriculation; they study the Holy Scriptures.
Thus, the cycle of poverty, no sex-ed and breeding for G-d and Country.

In 10, 15 or 20 years there will be a Revolutionary Guard made up of these people and the National-Religious people who believe that it is their Duty under G-d to conquer the Land for the Kingdom of Israel.

I am so not kidding.

The Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has published it's annual Human Rights Status Report.
The report in Hebrew and in English.
Big surprise, we are not doing well.
As these rights are in fact considered privileges, more to the point they are "conditional" as Ha'aretz writes.

Some highlights from the report:

Delegitimisation of Human Rights Defenders and Activists: Decision-makers and senior officials within the Israeli government have worked to silence activists and members of social change organizations, whose messages do not correspond to their own. This included aggressive media campaigns, demonization, the diffusion of false information, and attempts to sabotage their funding. Earlier this year, for example, the IDF Spokesperson savagely attacked “Breaking the Silence,” a group which collects testimonies from soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories. In another instance among many, Interior Ministry Eli Yishai called organizations defending migrant workers’ rights a “threat to the Zionist enterprise.”

How, exactly, are we better than all the other countries in the Levant. We fit right in! I dunno what the problem is, for realz.

Increased Racism among Different Groups: A survey in the daily Haaretz reported a high level of intolerance of, and among, virtually all sub-groups in Israeli society. These include: Arabs, Israelis of Russian and Ethiopian origin, Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) and settlers. The horrifying attack on the “Barnoar” gay and lesbian youth club in Tel Aviv elicited widespread condemnation by public officials, but Web forums and talkbacks revealed deep-rooted hatred and disgust for the homosexual community among the general public.

Well, all those disenfranchised people do is complain! They're not beneficial to the society at large, of course.

Other highlights include; Freedom of Expression - "If they like what you say", Arab Citizens of Israel - "Rights, if you are loyal", The Right to Adequate Housing - If you are "one of us", The Right to Health Care - "If you can pay", Occupied Territories - "Rights, if you are Israeli" and finally, "The Deterioration of Democracy".

It's a running joke among certain factions of the Left that Israel was a Democracy for seven months. From November 1966 when the Martial Law placed on the Arab population in Israel and until the Six-Day in June 1967 in which Israel annexed Jerusalem, Sinai and Golan Heights.

I think I can say without a doubt that 2009 has been the year of utter Fail. This year has been the proof to me that the Personal is Political and just wow.
Wow.

How has your year been?

She's a Combat Soldier - no more, no less.

It disturbs me to read about these "extraordinary" women for two reasons: #1 it implies that Feminism has succeeded and that we are now free to rest on our laurels and #2 that joining the "boy's club" is a feminist action.
( Faux Feminism )

I find the callous use of a success story that promotes the false idea of gender equality in this country, while at the same time vilifying "draft dodgers" the majority of them women - utterly utterly disgusting and disturbing.

The other thing I find disturbing is this:
Fundamentalists Tied to Uganda's Antigay Law.
Uganda’s Radical Anti-Gay Measure and the American Religious Right.
Anti-Gay Ugandan Bill Set to Pass. Warren Silent.

Honestly? Is there anything I need to say that makes this picture any clearer.
American Pastors are calling for a genocide of gays in Uganda.
No.
I'm not exaggerating.

These are things I find disturbing.
Do you?

Footnotes
* There's a huge moral panic about the fact that huge swathes of the population are not being drafted. The majority of those not drafted are actually simply rejected by the IDF for various reasons - they are then persecuted for not being "decent citizens" for not serving their time for the country - forced labour, I mention.
Back to text.

But in very small amounts.

I was watching the first part of Stephen Fry's documentary HIV and Me (2007).

During this episode he goes to South Africa (which still has the most appalling policy when it comes to HIV/AIDS even though over 25% of the population is infected - the majority of infections pass through unprotected heterosexual sexual encounters. In South Africa this it's not a "Gay Disease" and never was - but the stigma remains.

While there, Stephen Fry meets journalist and AIDS activist Lucky Mazibuko who takes him on an excursion to a school in which he gives an informative lecture to little kids.

On the wall of their class there were two slogans:
Being HIV positive is not a curse.

Being HIV positive is normal

As I watched I felt very moved by the sight of these kids speaking so candidly about safe sex and how you can't HIV/AIDS from touching someone, kissing someone, sharing food with someone, etc.

And then Mr. Mazimbuko brings out a t-shirt that says: I am leading the way to an AIDS free world, referring of course, to these well-informed kids who live the reality of the disease along with Mr. Mazimbuko.

I promptly burst into tears.

How pathetic am I?

You can find the documentary in very good quality on YouTube, link to the first part of the first episode (out of two) here.

Yesterday, I had an on-line discussion about my paranoia about getting pregnant due to the truly woman un-friendly procedures pregnant women have to go through in order to obtain a legal abortion.
STD's were never something I was concerned about because every sexual encounter I ever had been with a condom (if it were with a man) and knowing my partner's history (if I were with a woman - yeah, those were not always as safe as they should be).
Lesbian sex has the lowest risk factor when it comes to contracting HIV/AIDS - that doesn't mean you are safe - especially if you have sores on your genitalia, mouth or a cut on your hands or some such.

Dental dams are not as available as they should be (which is bloody irritating) - and they're not just for Dykes y'all!

Any way. AIDS is a year round issue, not just Documentaries, Movies and Stories. It's an epidemic that is constantly on the rise.

The Israel AIDS Task Force says the number of infected in 2009 is expected to rise - currently there are an estimated 6,275 infected people some of whom are unaware of their status.
Number of people with HIV reaches all-time high in 2009.

On a less preachy note; I remember hearing about AIDS for the first time when I heard that Tom Hanks won the Oscar for his performance in Philadelphia.
That was 1993, I was 8.
I did not understand what AIDS was until I was in the 10th grade (I was 15 and the year was 2000) in which we had a sex-ed class and were were given little notes that has + and - written on them.
We were told to walk around the class in a random way, to keep one note and give out a note to other kids that we randomly encountered.
After that we sat down and the sex-ed educator asked everyone who had a + note to stand up. I and a great many other kids stood up and were told that we were now infected with HIV.

The sex-ed classes were pretty good in explaining how to have safe-sex, that a condom fits everyone and a boy who says the rubber "doesn't fit" is lying - which was hilarious to see all those cocky boys squirm in their seats.
That little experiment left a sour taste in my mouth as it could have been any STD, which is was the educator said, but the example used was AIDS.

In this same class (we had about three, if I recall correctly) there was talk about homosexuality which made me so freakin' uncomfortable. Homophobia was rampant and I was 15 and just realising I was "not like everybody else".
The fact that everyone was saying that AIDS could only occur between two men and all that, which the educator contradicted expertly I must add, but that didn't stop the crass homophobia after class.
It was depressing.

I wish I knew what the state of sex-education in high schools are today - ten years down the line - I can't think it's much changed.

I am in the opinion that Patriarchy and its siblings Heteronormativity and White supremacy are the roots of evil in our times.

Just in case any of you had any doubt about that.

I just came back from the "Stop Violence Against Women" march and it was good.
We were not that many, because this is a chauvinist country.
The speeches after were very inspiring.

I and a few others then went to get some supper at a pizza place. There was a whole lot of talk about political theory, uni studies, feminism etc.

In the end there appeared to be some kind of combat between neo-Marxist thought and Post-Modernism (of which there was a gross misunderstanding). It was very Bubbly in the sense that "we are living in a bubble", which I'm cool with seeing as us "bubble people" actually went to the march in order to raise awareness that violence against women - it happens, it's societal disease and it needs to be stopped.

There was also talk about Politically Correctness, a term and though process I abhor and how, even as an ally, I really shouldn't use words that do not belong to me. Call me old-fashioned.

Also, there's really no shame in admitting you're bourgeoisie if you, ya know, living that lifestyle. My politics are radical, but my life is liberal, that's the way it is, why should I hide it or be ashamed of it?

One of the girls we sat with had to catch the same bus as me and we continued to talk and oh my god it was awful.
Just so you know, she irritated me.
A lot.

I have a button (I have many) on my bag that reads "Sex is the Question - sex is not the answer - "Yes" is the Answer" (yes I know it's a play on the Nickleback lyrics) which to me is a sex-positive slogan akin to "Yes is Yes" which is just as valid as "No is No".
Anyway, this girl asked me about it and I told her the above and she said:
"You need to be careful with that term [pro-sex], it can be taken to mean you're pro prostitution and stuff like that"
I replied: "Well, I am pro-sex work and pro-porn"
And OMG!
I had never heard such cookie cutter Second Wave Paternalistic bullshit come out of someone younger than me - pardon the ageism, but that's impressive in a horrifying way!
I tried to say that sex-work isn't just human trafficking and crack whores and pimped women.
Her reply: It's all False Conciousness.
In my head I'm going - OMG!
I say: There's queer and alt porn.
She goes: It reproduces the same oppressive mechanism as mainstream porn. It's the same objectification.
I say: There's BDSM that enables you to play with the oppressive power structure and have a good time at the same time.
She goes: BDSM reproduces the power structure, why would you want to do something that humiliates you?

I wanted to kill her and myself.

I really couldn't talk to her any more, because really, it showed such a lack of understanding of what a power structure actually is, that hierarchy is a daily and hourly thing we live and work with our entire lives and that kink does not mean there isn't an actual partnership or that an unequal partnership automatically means there isn't consent!

Because that's what bothers me the most about the Dworkin and MacKinnon types - I really like the way they theorised Patriarchy and Phallocentrism, the tools they offer are awesome, also MacKinno is a brilliant speaker - but if you take their entire thesis you end up saying: women have no ability to consent in the system that we currently live, because there's nothing but False Conciousness.

Yeah, no thanks.

Last night was a big mess when it came to be trying to deflect racism, homophobia and sexism.

I dunno what was in the air, but it was irritating.

I had to tell people to stop codifying Islam with "terrorism". I had to tell people that gay people in the States do not want "special rights" when it comes to same-sex marriage. I had to defend this "assimilationist" strategy - when I personally would like to see marriage abolished - because the "LGBT Community" isn't campaigning for separating the 1000+ rights automatically given with marriage and would rather just reproduce straight ideals - this is all coming from straight people by the way.
I had to tell people to stop using racial slurs when describing a black service person - and then went on to "Politically Correct" the language by instead of using racial slurs to say "African" in a very un-ambiguous way while looking at me in irritation.

Thank you for being an asshole.

Someone tried to convince themselves that going to a strip club wasn't contributing to the sex industry in the same way going to a prostitute.
I was shot down time after time when I tried to explain that the only thing you're doing by not going to a prostitute is not paying for sex with a prostitute. Going to a strip club is still contributing to the industry.

Then I'm told that some women chose to work in the sex industry.

I did not mention anything about who chooses to do what! Honestly, sex-work is real work! Just because I'd rather see it sans exploitation and sans human trafficking doesn't mean I am anti-sex work or anti-sex workers!

I think the main issue isn't the fact that women chose to do sex-work (and should be paid accordingly), but the fact that the sex-industry is so bloody duplicitous when it comes to what is legal and what isn't - more accurately, the law regarding the sex-industry is so duplicitous and because there is such a problem of comprehending the difference between legalisation (which often causes just as many problems as it being illegal) and decriminalisation.

Actual sex workers have better and more info on the subject.

All in all, it was an irritating evening in which my family and friends made me feel like a bloody fuddy-duddy, a Politically Correctness-Fiend and an anti pro-sex advocate!
Arrrgh!
But there's no doubt in anyone's mind that I'm pro-porn (which I am, though I'd rather, like other sections of the sex-industry, had a little more respect for its workers and consumers).

*sigh*

Such is the life of the pro-sex, anti-racist, queer feminist student of Literary Theory and Women's studies, I suppose.

Okay.
You all know what I think about the whole Caster Semenya debacle, because that is exactly what it is.

It being the day after Transgender Day of Rememberence and the News about her so-called innocence coming out the day before, is all a convergence of an issue of which there is little to no awareness in the mainstream media.

Gender variance.
Beyond that, treating gender, sexuality, physical and mental abilities as though they are some kind of moral compasses for people.

The fact that the Guardian article linked above states:

South Africa's government, Semenya's lawyers and the IAAF had reached total agreement that she will retain her gold medal, title and prize money because she has been found "innocent of any wrong", the ministry said in a statement.

Emphasis mine.

What, exactly, was her crime? Surely, she was publicly tried and put through hell... but there was no criminal trial in which she had to stand on a podium and claim her innocence of anything.
I'll tell you what her "crime" was.
She won the race. Her opponents ate her dust. Her body is strong, big and built to run as Dave Zirin wrote in the article Standing with Caster.
That - Those - were her crimes.
Her public offences.

Because she doesn't look as feminine as women are "supposed to", her entire life, and career, was ruined for running too fast for a woman.
It really should go without saying that African women and women of African descent have always been under the suspicion of not being feminine enough - or on the flip-side, being overtly sexual.
So, not only was Semenya too good as a woman athlete, she was not good enough as an African woman who is supposed to be all curves and pliant flesh on which to be colonised.

There is a reason the first "foul play" cries came from her White European opponents^*.
They could not believe that a woman beat them with such a huge margin.
Obviously, she had to be a man.

The fact that her family feels the need to attest and confirm her sex ("female") is just too terrible for words. Her very identity was put into question, her body was presented as a freak show for having a advantage which makes her the supreme athlete that she is.

She gets to keep her medal, I wonder how much of a consolation that is for the loss of dignity she has had to put up with for the four months.

The findings of her gender sex tests will remain confidential, as the whole speculation whether or not she is Intersex was a leak to the press.
We will never know and you know what... it's none of our business!
Really.
Let's get over this, because when you begin to question another person's gender you are basically saying: "You are a liar", "You are a freak", "Your identity is a failure".
How do I know this? Seeing as I'm cisgender and gender-conforming in my appearance.
#1 There was a time I wasn't gender-conforming in my looks.
#2 I do my best to listen to people.

Friends, #2 isn't that hard.

I know that as I've gotten more politically vocal I've been told (by various people) that I'm intolerant of other people's opinions, that I'm rigid in my views, that I'm un-accepting.
I wonder if the various people who tell me these things realise that huge swaths of the population whose voice is routinely silenced.

People who have a greater chance of being raped and murdered simply by walking out the door.

Because Caster Semenya supposedly didn't look like a woman "should", the mainstream media had no qualms about turning into Yellow Journalism over her bits and instead of reporting about this great breach of privacy, and colossal mistreatment and humiliation of a champion athlete, they went along with the sensationalism of what a person may or may not have between their legs.
Because there are men and women and people who are neither who chose the live their lives with integrity, how they see fit and not through the "M" or "F" that was issued to them at birth... they are silenced, brutalised and killed.

Silence is violence.

Speak Up!

Footnotes:
* Even though the Silver went to Kenyan Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei - but she only had 0.3 seconds over Bronze medallist Jenny Meadows of the UK, that's a "normal" margin... not a whole 2.45 seconds! That's crazy... Info from wiki.
Back to text.

Yesterday there was a march in honour of the victims of hate.

It was a pretty standard turn out for the March we were a little less than 100 people, made up of Trans folk and their Cissy Allies (hello there).
The march was set to start on the street of the shooting in August, which made the whole situation a whole lot more loaded emotionally of course.

The way to the march was a bloody disaster, you see, there was a different demonstration happening along the same main streets and we had to wait for it to pass.
The police was all set for that demonstration and basically decided that they would use the same personnel and the same garrisons for both marches.

One march was for Trans awareness, basically.
The other was for protesting the cut of the Disability Pension for IDF Veterans.

Yeah.
Talk about a "clash of civilisations" - one portion of the population that isn't drafted and another that pays the price for it.
*sigh*

As I said, getting to our march was a bloody disaster because the police garrisoned a bunch of main streets which we had to drive through, we also had to drive through the stragglers of the disabled vets march.

We drove through the entirety of central Tel Aviv on the busiest evening of the week, on the evening of a demo that nobody gave a shit about.
Two demos that nobody gave a shit about.

I didn't see anything other than Updates (as in not actual reporting) on the online mainstream news websites.

Of course, once we got to the Gay Community centre the police told us to go through the back so that we don't disturb the other demo.
Even when they're being fucked over by because they're disabled, there's still a hierarchy.

Both population are silenced and made invisible.
Both population intersect - I wouldn't be surprised if there were vets there who were Trans and there was certainly more than one marcher with us who had mechanic (crutches, wheelchair) aid.

Both populations are fucked over.

Still, it was obvious who were more respected by the police - the Disabled Vets didn't "chose" to be freaks and they're "genuinely" screwed over by the government.
Of course.

Sometimes I really feel the people in power just look down on us, eat and throw the crumbs down to see the fights brew.
It's depressing.

She gets to keep her medal.

More on this and other crap tomorrow, because folks... this is not just about Semenya.

This morning I got an apology from a class-mate.

I was honestly speechless.

Last week in class, Intro to Anthropology Exercise, in which spirits rose because were were discussing polygamy, marriage and all that.
The article we read had a description of a polygamous household of the Tib [sp?] tribe in an Anfircan country that may or may not still exist - the article is from the late 50's if I'm not mistaken - in which the Wives (who call each other Sister) tell the anthropologist that they take care of each other, help each other out with their children.
The first wife is "given" to the husband by her father, all the other consequent wives the First Wife choses.

I'm like, human commodification, not so different from traditional marriages in Judaism (well, contemporary ones in these parts, the woman doesn't even get to look at the Ketubah - marriage contract).

Any way - I was shocked that so many of my female class-mates said that they were really convinced by the women living in a polygamous house-hold, that they wouldn't mind having that kind of sisterhood.

In my mind I'm went: OMG! WHAT?!?! Do you not see!?!?

What I said was: Hello, human commodification!
And some guy replied: You're really exaggerating! You know that's what they say about Marriage in Judaism?
I replied: Yes, that's why a bride costs 2 cents (2 prutot), because she isn't being bought!

He went on a bit about how what marriage was and wasn't, while I'm being called out on being waaaaaay radical about marriage.

Bullshit, of course.

Any way, today the guy with whom I argued last week apologized for his attitude and for being over aggressive.

See me be gobsmacked!

I told a friend about this this morning and she said don't let it get it out that men who behave nicely make you speechless.
Funny, haha.
I'm just not used to twenty-something men (sometimes boys) to actually take responsibility for stuff said in class.
No doubt he thought he was doing the gentlemanly thing, which I'm cool with when it is sans condescension and patronising (I can be a gentleman too!) - but wow, it was just so weird.

Regardless, it's weird being in this class, where I feel I'm gaining new perspective! But damn am I ahead of the class when it comes to theory and critical thought. I'm not bragging here - I'm a bloody Third Year taking an intro class... *sigh* Well, that's the cake I baked from the eggs that I broke.

Via rm I discovered the comm kinkfreezone and friends... for a fanfic comm that allows high ratings on the fics and includes Slash, Het and Gen; I have never in my whole on-line life seen a more sex-negative fic community.

Wanting to have a community and specific requirements on fic is fine, fun and dandy. Honestly, it is. Wanting to exclude certain criteria that you and others would rather not read, very fine, your prerogative.
That's not the issue.

The issue is with language and the so-called binary of Vanilla and Kink.

For a more lighthearted, yet not, commentary on the list of kinks NOT permitted you can read thingswithwings' entry here. The comments are hilarious.

But oh, where to start... hmm, possibly from the most offensive one: ( So as not to eat your f-list )

Voice fetishization (cracking or broken; husky, low, throaty; purring; accents; whispering close to someone's ear).
Fucking hell! Involuntary reaction is not a kink. No, really. This is possibly the most absurd (not offensive, I've listed things I found particularly offensive) criterion on this list.

That whole list needs a serious language editor, a workshop in sex-positivism and just a little shake-up when it comes to Vanilla/Kink binary - here's a secret... it's NOT!).

Enjoy mocking the whole thing.

Edited to Add: Amazing what going to bed will do.
My comment in now deleted, as are all the other critical comments made on the post - I restrained myself a lot and wanted to be respectful, I may have failed a tad.
Here's my comment for keeps:

This list has extremely problematic and prejudicial language.
Perhaps if you edited it, it would read differently, but as it stands, this is offensive to a whole slew of people who you included as a kink.
Some of these aren't even kinks but literary tropes!
Trope=/=Kink, please learn the difference.

Also, including involuntary bodily reactions? Please, get a clue - also the inclusion of "accents", "uncircumcised penises", "homosocial environmental", "nautical themes", "exoticism" and a big portion of "gender themes" just to name a few is downright, and here are heavy words, racist, xenophobic and over-all queerphobic in general.

Fetishising Vanilla is also a kink, you know.
As I said, get a clue.

I understand and respect the want of specific kind of fic, but that toes a line that isn't just about criteria... this is exclusionary in the extreme.

Here is the Mod's reply:

WOW am I getting sick of repeating myself. Had you actually READ the damn post you would see RIGHT AT THE TOP!!! that it is, in fact, a list of KINKS, TROPES AND CLICHES from fandom!

You can go GET A CLUE sweetheart and get the fuck out of my community.

For serious.
The post itself has been updated, because you know, instead of trying to make the comm a little more inclusive - let's just be all the more offensive and delete the things I dun like!
How dare people get offended and say something about it! Sheesh!

Vampires have taken over our lives. They suck out time via books, television and film like no other supernatural beast ever could.

Why?

Because they look like people, like you and me, they can walk among us unknown and seduce us with their glamour, mystique and plain ole' attractiveness.
Vampires are always beautiful, those that ugly, do not need to be. We are attracted to the fact that they are excluded from daylight, that they are reflected only in the eyes of human (their prey) and to the fact that they are immortal.

They do not die.

We pass away and they pass on.

Vampires have reached a kind of peak of pop-culture popularity. Ten years ago when I was fourteen and obsessed with Buffy, I read Dracula, Interview with a Vampire and thought Bella Lugosi was the shit.
Vampires were awesome.

Now... they're poster boys for Abstinence.
Where have we gone wrong.
( This glamour will make you click on the cut )

When some one links to an article titled The War on Science Fiction and Marvin Minsky on a website called The Spearhead and the Author's nick is Pro-male/Anti-feminist Tech; you know you're in for some fun sci-fi critique!

My first thought after reading that diatribe of misogyny, homophobia and exclusionary nostalgia, was pretty uncharitable, petty and mean.
Not even the most "one of the boys/I'm not a feminist" female-geek wouldn be able to consider this person particularly tasteful.
Seeing as he's laying out misogyny and homophobia pretty fucking thick. Without any shame and certainly without any self-reflection.
But That's what cowards do.

I'm reminded of my entry into the comic book world, there are women there (readers that is) and I gravitated to the classics (Batman, Superman, Catwoman, Wonder Woman, the Justice League - yeah, I'm a DC grrl) and to horror-fantasy (DC's Vertigo line; Sandman, Hellblazer, Fables, Lucifer etc).
This is not an odd thing, most people like more than one kind of genre in they chosen form of medium, but I definitely felt the overwhelmed by the amount of boys in this medium and how my reading of the stories being feminist (even before I could articulate why it was feminist - I was 15 when I got into comics) made me iffy about getting into discussion with other Batman fans - many of them, somehow, ignoring the fetish gear he dons in order to fight crime and the only women he's ever been interested in sexually (he doesn't do romance) have been other criminals who wear costumes.
I digress.
( This is cut for length )

Times they are a changing, and guess what, they've been "changing" and "changed" since the mid-60's, you, Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Tech failed to get on that boat and complaining about us women and queers taking over your genre and taking your jobs in science...
This is not a tree-house club and there are no more Wendy houses.
This is a sandbox - please stop peeing in it.

ETA: I couldn't stop myself. I commented, sans a link to this blog. I don't need to make easier for them to find me.

Things I grew tired of hearing a long time ago:

#01 "You're aggressive" - You make me want to rip out your rib cage and wear it like a hat (h/t Spike/Willian the Bloody terrible poet, he was a brilliant word-smith...).

#02 "You're provocative" - I make you uncomfortable, not my problem!

#03 Rape apologia - Even if a woman (or man) is walking around, naked, with a placard stating in neon "Will Fuck Anyone!", no one has the right to violate his/her/hir body. Ever. Rape is a crime, stop punishing and blaming the victims.

#04 The term "self-hating Jew" - the next time I hear this term I'm calling on that person and saying they are an "Antisemitic shit-bag". Jewish self-hatred assumes some kind of essential Jewish trait that us (yeah, I'm one of those people) self-haters reject because we're just that disgusting.
Antisemitic Shit-Baggery!

#05 "You've lost weight, you look great!" - I know I've lost weight. I know I comply with the fashionable female body type. I'd appreciate it if no one comments about my body, it's fucking irritating, I'm not livestock to be commented upon, my my rump, ribs and tits are not in public for your consumption! Unless you've been given permission to do so (you know who you are), do stop!

#06 "You look much better now that your hair in longer. The shaved head didn't look good on you".
DIAF.

#07 "Is this another feminist thing?" - Yeah it is, and you're gonna listen to me annoy the fucking hell out of you!

#08 "You're so sensitive" - Yeah, this is me crying over your dead body.

#09 "You're so loud, why do you have to shout everything. It's all about how you say things you know" - Yeah I do know, I also know a big STFU when I see one. Stop trying to control my fucking tone!

And #10 "Why do you care so much?" - because the world is an ugly, cynical and corrupted blemish in this universe. We have to live on it, it may as well be with a modicum of empathy and dignity.

Those are the Top 10 things this week that made me go *rawr*, *arrgh*, swear under my breath, glare, lose my temper and want to throw things at people's faces.

I cannot wait for the semester to start (which it does this Sunday).

Tell me friends, readers and maybe lurkers, what grinds your gears?

My last word on Roman Polanski, because honestly, what more can be said that hasn't.

I'll just repeat; the fact that he himself was a victim of violence, had a traumatic life and is a brilliant artist (yes, I love Rosemary's BabY and Chinatown) doesn't excuse the fact that he raped a child.

Drugged and raped a child.

Plead guilty in a plea bargain and then ran away because the deal looked as though it was about to fall through.

Art, power and money doesn't excuse the fact that he committed a crime against the body of a girl-child (btw, if it had been a 13 year old boy, I think we would be hearing a very different tune) and against the basic ideas that the law applies to every single one of us, no matter how clever, powerful and the fact that people really, really like the stuff we make.

For some reason, this is a hard concept to grasp for some people.

Art Does Not Excuse Rape.

These people make me happy for the amount of time I take to think about this issue.

This is not just about Roman Polanski. This is about the character of our society. The justice system is not perfect anywhere, but accountability and responsibility should not be taken for granted and the default of the oppressive patriarchy that has allowed Polanski to evade justice for so long should not be upheld.

It wounds and hurts too many of us to count.

N.B.
The Pianist was probably the worst movie he ever made.

Edited to Add:
In the comments avgboojie says, quite rightly, that 13 years of age, isn't really a child:

I want to stress one important point: a 13 year old girl is not "a child".
Sorry. I don't know of any definition by which a 13 year old girl is a child. 13 year old girls are almost always post-puberty, sometimes (perhaps often) have active sex lives of their own, and while they are considered minors by law, they are not children (for instance, a person having sex with a 13 year old is not a pedophile, since these focus on pre-puberty children).
I think referring to a 13 year old as "a child" (something which is most probably done because "raped a child" sounds far more shocking than "raped an adolescent" or "raped a young woman") is disrespectful towards the 13-year-old person, disowning them of any right to be considered a semi-grown person with free will and any capability for adult reasoning.

The legal status of minors renders them as powerful as children in the eyes of the law, but not in their own eyed.
Her age and own perception doesn't make the rape and assault any less criminal or heinous.
The acknowledgement of this, is also of importance.

The links are NSFW!
I repeat, the links (and possibly this entire entry) are Not Safe For Work!

Via the Ha'aretz article: Can gay porn save Israel's image? which was originally featured in The Forward: Pornographic Stimulus Plan about about Michael Lucas' project called Men of Israel, featuring... well you can guess.

I read about this project back when Michael Lucas was here in Israel and both the queer and mainstream media were hounding him a bit (for different reasons).

I have a problem with this project.
Not the pornography; honestly, so long as the people get paid and aren't coerced to do something against their will... there's not much I'm going to complain about in this context.

My problem is with Lucas' attitude regarding his project.
Allow me a quote from the article:

Lucas claims that his motivation behind “Men of Israel” was not just titillation, but also a counterbalance to lopsided portrayals of Israel in mainstream media. “It’s free PR for Israel, and it’s much better than the PR they’re getting on the news,” he said during a tour of the company’s expansive second-floor offices, with views of the New York Times building across the street. “The reality is that Israel has only one face to people on the street, and that’s the West Bank and Gaza. All people see in the media is a country of disaster. They get images of a blown-up bus.”

Is he fucking kidding?
Promoting Israel as a gay tourist spot is not the way to "counter portray" the Occupation, nor is fetishising Israeli bodies, which honestly, are already grossly fetishised.
Also, can he be more shallow regarding Israel's portrayal in the media,which yeah, is pretty shallow regardless. However, Israel does its best to present itself (unsuccessfully) as a monolith of culture and opinion.

Not to mention this gem:

“I’m not sure the vast majority of his audience know or care about his political views,” [Aaron Hicklin, editor in chief of the gay magazine Out] said.
[...]
That may change with a letter that Lucas sent on August 31 to GoGay[link added by eumelia], Israel’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Web site, excoriating gay Israelis for staying closeted. “Excusing these pitiful cowards for not coming out of the closet and accepting their façade is only hurting Israel,” he wrote. “By hiding from your reality, you are empowering intolerant disillusioned fanatics.” The idea for the letter came, he said, after Israeli men “started hitting me up on the Web site, inviting me to hook up, then said they’re not out. They’re delusional. They’re cruising this Web site, benefiting from the fights of other people. They think the gay movement has nothing to do with them, that the shooting of gay youths in Tel Aviv has nothing to do with them. What reason is there to be in the closet in Israel in 2009? It’s embarrassing.”

Emphasis Mine.

Is he fucking kidding?
Really, did he just say that in conjunction with the gay youth centre?
I have a lot of respect for sex workers and people who work towards sex-positivity, but honestly.
I'm sorta speechless here.
Israel is not some kind of Queer Paradise.
It's not.
The Tel-Aviv bubble is very much burst when it comes to that.

Israel is plenty fetishised when it comes to militarism and the use of Jewish Israeli bodies is nothing new when promoting Israeli Hasbarah.

Michael Lucas, I don't care that you're a Zionist, or that you use your ideology to fetishise Israeli Jewish men. Seriously, I do not care.
But how dare you criticise and chastise other Queer folk, not actually knowing what it is they have to do in order to cruise in a place where they feel safe, and even consider the possibility that perhaps, due to an overt act of violence against the youth in our community... they might be a bit iffy about being Loud and Proud.

Michael Lucas, you suck and not in the good way.
Get the fuck off my lawn and stop trying to present it as though the manure smells like Axa Deodorant!

N.B. This post is getting flagged isn't it?

Caster Semenya on suicide watch.

Colour me unsurprised and royally pissed off.

I've been keeping up to date on the story ever since Germaine Greer's transphobic comments regarding the affair.

I have about ten tabs open with articles and blog posts all talking about Semenya.
Many people are talking about the issue, as well they should.

To me, it reads as a cautionary tale to those women who dare to be exceptional, who dare to toe the line of the gender assigned to them at birth, of women who cannot (visibly) be intimidated by a man.

We will crush you, if you dare. The same goes to any gender non-conformist. Caster Semenya had the misfortune to be a good runner, she beat the European competition (in Berlin no less) and was then (almost literally) dissected in public to make sure that she didn't have an "unfair advantage".

The intersection of sexism, racism, colonialism, gender essentialism and the problematic state of women athletes in track and field sports all seemed to coalesce in the most destructive way possible on this woman, whose life (not to mention career) has gone down the drain.

The public eye, the policing of what is considered appropriate identity will kill you dead if you dare step out of line and show that you are good at what you do.
Your identity, that thing you spent so much time moulding and attuning and making your own is shattered by the fact that the medical institute insists that we are as our bodies say we are.

Biology is destiny.

Various hair products, plastic surgery, body-modification parlours and trans people who go through hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery (top and/or bottom) tell a different story.

A woman's body is up for public consumption. Add racism into the mix and you have the masses demanding she be made "presentable".

It was the beginning of the end when I saw that Semenya had been made over. Her androgyny (pic before makeover) became a source of contention in the aftermath of her win. Moreover, the history of black women's bodies being forced to conform to Euro-centric beauty standards and the issue of how black femininity is culturally lesser than white femininity also raised the level of what Semenya needed to do in order to compensate, nay, publicly apologize for the fact that she's a masculine woman (pic after makeover).

In the article The Unforgivable Transgression of Being Caster Semenya, the author expands on the fact that black women (people of African descent in general) have historically been targeted as gender non-conformists, or even failures:

South Africans aren’t the only ones angrily comparing Semenya’s treatment to that of Saartjie Baartman, the nineteenth-century Khoisan woman who was exhibited throughout Europe as a sexualized monstrosity. White audiences guffawed, prodded and poked at her exposed body, which they laughingly demeaned as that of a “Hottentot Venus”: the inverse of European standards of beauty. Challenging Semenya’s femaleness, people now assert, is imperialism all over again.

I'm loath to call gender essentialism imperialism, but different kinds of oppression do often come from the same place.
The policing of identities and bodies into the dominant world order and subjugating those identities and bodies in order to maintain that world order.
The gender binary is the world order.
And it kills.

What I really enjoyed in the article linked above was this paragraph:

[I]nstead of insisting upon the naturalness of her gender, how about turning the question around and denaturalizing the world of gender segregated, performance-obsessed, commercially-driven sports, a world that can neither seem to do with or without excessive bodies like Semenya’s and their virtuosic performances?

The rush to compare Semenya to Saartjie Baartman, while obvious for nationalistic reasons, misses something crucial. Baartman was exhibited and castigated for what the imperialist eye took to be her abberant femininity. A better comparison here would be to the many trans bodies (like famed jazz pianist Billy Tipton[link added by eumelia) who have been disciplined and punished for their female masculinity.

One of the first things I learned when I became immersed in feminism was that society isn't the way it is, it's how we think it is.
Or rather, it's how we see ourselves as part of it.
That's why racism is systemic and there is a difference between a white person calling a black person a "nigger" and a black person calling a white person a "cracker".
The personal wound to either goes without saying, the history of the words are different and the affect that history has over our minds, bodies and social groups is severe.
Apartheid may be "over" in South Africa.
The disparity between those who Have and those who Have Not remains largely unchanged.

Caster Semenya is paying the price of being too good. Of being a woman whose biological body is now considered medically inapplicable to her gender. She may be Intersex (ETA: a fact that was leaked to the press before the results actually reached her. Classy), but she's a woman and she's being punished for not being female enough.

The article The Sad Saga of Caster Semenya writes:

[I]t is important to note here, critically, that Caster Semenya has always been a woman, has always defined herself as a woman, has lived her life as a woman, has to this date considered herself to be a woman, not transgendered, not a transman. It is critical to note this here as to understand both the statement to come as well as what a public scrutiny of gender is like.

It is a horde of people thinking they have a right to decide where you belong with only an ignorant impression of your gender proclivities and expression with zero understanding of your internal sex. And their opinion is to be given credence over your own. Transpeople undergoing Harry-Benjamin style therapy for “permission” to transition know this feeling very well. It is humbling, infuriating, and leaves you feeling powerless and adrift.

And for her there’s no point at the end of it, just the threat of the removal of everything that has brought you joy, the threat that all of this can be taken away because you were suspicious. Now the public and an arbitrary standard noone fully understands can remove the one passion that has defined your life and remove from you the dream of a little girl (to compete, perchance to medal in the Olympic games, to bring honor to your country and family, and most importantly to yourself).

Gone in an instant.

Emphasis mine

Anyone's perception of self would be undone by the unbearable melancholy of one's identity being forcibly yoinked from pillar to post because of public demands, because gender is a prison even when you supposedly overcome it. Which is what woman athletes do of course, over come the infirmity of their weaker bodies - and they're still not considered to be worthy of same attention as men athletes, because the best woman will always be lesser than the medioce man. Suck on that Billie Jean King.

In conclusion:
Well, it doesn't end here. I hope I don't wake up tomorrow morning and discover that Caster Semenya ended her life because society deemed her unacceptable. The trauma is undeniable, the humiliation is beyond comprehension.
Gender essentialism continues to be the building block of oppression as we live it and no one is safe from the assault on the self if you dare to toe the line.
Failing in your gender, it's a killer, literally.

It's been over a month since the shooting at the LGBT youth centre.

On Saturday night there was a march commemorating the dead. The same article in Hebrew were the only reports I could find about it.

As you can imagine, the police has not reported any suspect, no leads and after what I call the "Shiva" week, it was no longer part of the News cycle.
There were more and other murders going around this summer.

A lynch on the beach, someone killed a couple, a father killed his daughter... it's all very gruesome and that's what makes the Yellow News on the television.

According to a Newspaper poll Israelis feel more secure.
Seeing a title like that, my immediate assumption that this means the people living outside Israel proper feel less secure than ever. That is, that the average Palestinian doesn't feel personally secure.

I can hear the apoplexy already.

But fuck it, because if my "personal security" (which doesn't feel that great by the way) is enhanced because we're crushing the freedoms of others... that's not real security, that's walking around willingly blindfolded in the middle of the road.

In that poll it says that "Leftists were also revealed as more confident on the national front than rightists. Just 39% of rightists said they felt very secure, while 51% of those describing themselves as leftists said they felt thus".

I do not know who these Leftists are, because I don't think I've ever felt, since becoming politically aware and knowing why I'm secure in my home, less secure. Simply because the situation we're in is just not sustainable. The fact that haven't been any Nationalistically motivated crime in a while (even the Qassam rockets in the South haven't been that active) the violence that saturates my society is spilling over onto the News and thus into our conciousness even more.

But our conciousness is dissonant. Us Israelis are so used to danger coming from "Them" that crimes like the shooting at the LGBT youth centre was a surprise, that murders coming from families of known Mafia families, that rape and murder are on the front of the national News pages... we feel more secure, because Palestinians aren't shooting us or blowing themselves up.

So they can keep demonstrating against the Separation Fence and Wall and the IDF can shoot at both Foreign (same story, different News agency) and Domestic journalists who go to witness how the IDF protects Us from Them.
After all: 85% [of civilians are] saying they believed the army would be capable of protecting Israel if it were attacked.

*Thumbs up*

In my previous entry one of my most excellent and good friends asked, more seriously than not, to remind her why she lived here.

I ask myself that as well, but that line of questioning is really counter productive, because I was born here. I've never lived any where else and very likely no place I ever live will ever feel like home.
There is violence, crime and hate everywhere.
Possibly there is a difference in the societal framing of those human behaviours.

The systematic Othering that I feel is so insidious and invidious is stifling. The way the campaign I spoke about in my previous entry very simply and without much thought, casually disseminates the idea that not only are Jews better than non-Jews (the Goyim, the Gentiles), but that we must keep Jews from choosing a life that may or may not include the Judaism that Israel proclaims to be the true path.

I've been told, more than once by more than one person, that I'm narrow-minded. I find, more often than not, that I'm told this when I challenge the ideas that have been presented to me as default.
An argument usually comes to a stalemate when the person I'm arguing with says "I'm secure in the knowledge that I'm right!".
What a lovely thing to have, righteousness.
To never doubt or question, or to have been doubted or questioned.
The last time I felt that way was when I was serving my time in the IDF and when I came back to reserve duty in the same place... my doubts left me less equipped with the ability to deal with the fact that my actions were contributed, contributing, to the death of people (innocent and not).

I know I'm one of the good guys. I don't know how "nice" I can be about it any more.

... Until somebody pees in the sandbox"

An apt metaphor.

The whole situation regarding SurveyFail (see my previous post and more links on the matter) has been a matter of frustration to Fen.
As is evident by the amount of links collected, it is just an issue that touches us where it hurts the most.

To have our passions, desires and identities reduced in such a callous manner just will not fly.

Mainly due to a lack of time and differences in time-zones I did not participate actively in the actual discourse with ogi_ogas; not on his journal, which reading it left me feeling quite unclean due to having my eyes skim over the kind of entitlement I've grown to expect from men who think they deserve to see me kiss other women and not on threads on other journals which left me apoplectic and wanting to gouge my eyes out with my knitting needles.
An example at shaggirl's journal:

why are you focusing on slash in your survey and not just relationships in general for fanfic without regard to who the pairings are?

Thank you for your questions!

Well, slash is kind of the female equivalent of the straight male interest in transsexuals. That is, the opposite of what culture would predict. So it probably reflects a more direct subcortical effect. Also, there's already data out there about romance novels we can use, which probably overlaps with relationships in fan fic, but we do have a few questions that aren't specific to slash. Maybe we'll have more in the next round.

Emphasis mine.

That, friends, was the moment I could not for the life of me find the words to comment coherently, because the only thing I could hear was the blood rushing to my head and trying to find ways to spill out of the cavities in my face!
Yes, my head was pounding and I actually felt nauseous.
Read the thread... it's special.

One of the things I learnt over my years of living where I do, being who I am and being visible in practically ever facet of my identity to a certain extent is that you cannot get rid of your biases.
Everything is coloured by your preconceived notion of what is Right, what is Wrong, what is Good and what is Bad.
It takes a lot for your view to shift in any real way.
One of the things that does help regarding the issue of bias, is the acknowledgement that the things you seek in other people (be it knowledge, relationships or simple curiosity about how others think), are the things that exist within you as well.
There is no research, certainly not when it comes to the brain (read this succinct overview of what we know when it comes to Psychology) or any kind of human mechanism, that does not include self research.

Thus, when a couple of dudes come to fandom with the notion that they will show the world at large (for a good sum of money) how it is that Other People Get Off on Internet Porn, they are assuming that there is behaviour that is Normal and behaviour that is Different and they do not even bother to unpack what this Normal stuff is and why other stuff is Different from it.

I suppose it's redundant to mention that while the Fandom Backlash did its best to set this SurveyFail on fire, these researchers showed their true colours by locking up the journal upon which the majority of backlash occurred, they contacted one of the people that helped promote the survey and officially showed their true colours.
It is primarily yellow, btw.

[..]He [Ogi] defends is comparison of women liking slash to straight men liking transsexuals because "some deep sense of pleasure or satisfaction ultimately rooted in subcortical circuits" compels us to seek out slash/transsexuals despite fearing exposure to society at large. He asks for my feedback on this theory. He suggests they were working on the point-by-point post I suggested above, requesting my suggestions, and explains to me again why their methods are not faulty, that they actually planned to change the phrasing of questions as they went along. He is quite certain that his values align with those of the bulk of fandom, and crows a bit about still having contacts in slash fandom who are apparently "blissfully unaware" of SurveyFail. He has nothing but goodwill for fandom, but dismisses the criticisms of "anonymous, purported academics". And on and on. On second read-through I'm kind of gobsmacked.

Emphasis mine

If you read the whole post, you will find that it was far more malicious that first thought, though possibly still clueless regarding where the fail actually lies.

I feel this issue will continue to create waves in fandom, as it is not just these few individuals who created a shit-storm, because the assumption of Otherness when it comes to women's desires, queer desires, the reality of gender expression and identity and the intersection it has with race, class and ability is not something to be dismissed.
It is our lives.
What went on here.
That was just a symptom.

I'm curious to see and participate in the discussion that comes out of the ashes of this very hot bushfire.

This post discusses the prevalence of sexual assault, rape-culture and why I get annoyed about Bills that create different "standards" of rape.

Because the subject matter can be a traumatic trigger, it is ( behind a cut )

Thoughts?

When I began my feminist education I pretty much went chronological and began reading about Suffrage, Harriet Taylor Mill, John Stewart Mill, Seneca Falls, The Declaration of Sentiments etc.
Then came the Second Wave, you know "The Second Sex", "The Feminine Mystique", "The Redstockings Manifesto"... "The Female Eunuch".

I really liked Germaine Greer.
Her deconstruction of gender was cutting edge at the time. She managed to lay out the Materialist aspect of femininity, womanhood, etc.
Though after reading Monique Wittig she seemed a bit dated.

Any way, I really like her and I've kept her in a nostalgic corner of my heart. However, like many radical feminists who seem to be stuck in the Second Wave, which gave us many tools into seeking liberation, but were very marginalising for identities that didn't mesh with the very dichotomy that feminism sought to deconstruct.

Greer has made Transphobic remarks in the past which I had the privilege to ignore, because I wanted to keep liking her.
This though.
I can't ignore, because it's just too hateful, too anathema for me to reconcile that a feminist of her stature would be so intolerant towards women who lived different lives from her.

In her article in the Guardian Caster Semenya sex row: What makes a woman?, she writes:

Nowadays we are all likely to meet people who think they are women, have women's names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody, though it isn't polite to say so. We pretend that all the people passing for female really are. Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man's delusion that he is female.

Screw You, Germaine!

I feel like I should deconstruct this article line by line, but frankly that's boring and I'd have to read it again.

Not only is Ms. Greer reaffirming the disgusting stereotype of "female parody" that are trans women, that is, that trans women cannot look female, as though there is some standard that women must abide to. She also negates the trans identity as a delusion, continuing the idea that trans people are mentally ill because they "believe" that are the opposite gender.

Who the fuck are you Greer, the "Sex" Police?

Because she's writing about Semenya, she also briefly writes about the exams Semenya must undergo in order to establish her femaleness:

And then Caster Semenya appeared. Big, blokish and bloody fast, could she really be a girl? No simple chromosomal test will decide. Establishing her sex will require the services of an endocrinologist, a gynaecologist, an expert on gender and a psychologist. For those of us who have never been allowed to doubt that we were female, the process seems bizarre. We don't know if we think like women or not. We just think. Is there a reputable psychologist out there who would dare to distinguish a female thought process from a male one?

Emphasis mine
Germaine are you kidding? Are you high? Wow, hypocrisy just isn't as subtle as it used to be.
I cannot imagine the humiliation that Semenya is forced to under go in order to prove she is who she says she is.
She's being punished for being too good.
The line between male and female is culturally based.
If a Woman is made, then so is a Man.
That doesn't make these identities any less real, a woman who was male assigned at birth is no less a woman than one female assigned at birth.
Just different.
The feeling of being forced into a gender that doesn't suit you is painful and no, you cannot doubt which gender you are, that can bring about a hell of a lot of trouble and strife into your life.
Surely, Germaine, you can relate to that.
No?
Oh well.

I suppose I'll just have to make fun at the fact that when you write a conclusion that includes a sentence like this one:

People who don't ovulate or menstruate will probably always physically outperform people who do. But then, doesn't all competitive sport canonise and glamorise the exploitation of genetic advantage? Who said life was fair?

I suppose Ms. Greer isn't aware that most women athletes once they reach a certain level of fitness, weight and musculature do not menstruate any longer.
And yes, many athletes both female and male have an "unfair genetic advantage", that's part of what makes an athlete rather good.
Would you ban Michael Phelps from swimming because he has extra big feet?

In short, Germaine Greer you suck! Get over yourself and start living in the now, rather than in the 1970's.