In the summer of 1988 I was slender, tanned, bleached blonde, not yet 21, and living life in all the wrong ways. I was a single mother who partied a little too much and stayed home a little too little. It was at one of those parties that I met her. A striking redhead, vibrant and beautiful. She was in the center of a large crowd when a mutual friend introduced us. We cliqued almost immediately. And thus began my long term love/hate relationship with Christi.

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via Feministing, blue blanket. A spoken word piece on the trauma of rape, words and video. Triggers abound, so it’s after the jump.

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“Sabre,” you ask, “why are you so miffed about stupid notes that you get online?  Who cares?  Just delete it.”

Well, my leedle love muffins, let me elucidate.

Quite simply, sexual harassment makes me sick.  Whether it’s some random guy hollering “Hey baby!” while grabbing his crotch and making thrusting motions at you, or random comments on your hotness from faceless strangers online, it’s all the same.  It is the implication that I, as a female, am less than human and seen as nothing more than a receptacle for some asshole’s sperm.

In a society that questions a rape victim and suggests that she was “asking for it” because her skirt was short, or she was out alone, or she may have had sex previously, the concept of women as receptacles is real.  In an online world where women bloggers are often treated to suggestions that they should be raped as punishment for having an opinion contrary to that very concept, it is real.

Sexual harassment and assault, at the very core, are not about sex, but about power.  It’s about making the perpetrator feel more manly by reminding the female that she is less than he.  That he, as the default human, is in a greater position of strength, and that she, as the default not-quite-human, needs to know her role.

Well, fuck you and your roles.

And fuck the nonsense that it’s complimentary and women need to “lighten up.”  Initiating conversations (if you can call that a conversation) by informing me that you think I’m hot and would like to fuck me till Tuesday is not complimentary.  Full stop.

I’ve gotten nasty comments before that what I really need, in order to make me a more pleasant person, is a “good deep-dicking” or a “real man to show you what a real woman feels like.”

Want to know what will make me a more pleasant person?  Let me put it to you this way, it involves a meat grinder.  Yeah, just go with it.

Tetris asks me why I read the stuff I read online, and why I allow myself to get upset over it.  It’s simple:  it’s out there, and pretending it isn’t won’t make it go away.  It’s fucking dehumanizing, and I am over it.  I will not just shrug off every nasty comment I hear, I will not pretend that it’s funny or amusing or cute or somehow endearing.  I will not ignore it, I will not pretend that it didn’t happen.

I was not put on this planet to entertain assholes or be fodder for their fantasies.  I know I’m pretty, dickwad, and I know you think I’m hot.  But I don’t care what you think, k?  Keep it to yourself.  The simple fact that I am attractive does not give you the right to invade my personal space and tell me what you want to do to me.

Once more, for the slow, informing me of it is not complimentary.  Full stop.

Of course, I love Love LOVE Joss Whedon.  C’mon, Buffy?  Firefly?  Serenity?  Who cannot love him?  His female characters, wow.  Zoe Warren almost makes me wish I was a lesbian.  Almost.

But what’s got me all googoo today?  Joss blogged about Dua Khalil and made my heart hurt.  Don’t know her?  Oh, c’mon, you saw her on the news, didn’t you?  Being stoned to death by a group of men, some of them her family?  Her brutal death captured on cell phones and shared with the world.  Of course you know her.  If you don’t, you been living in a cave.

Joss speaks about her, and about the problem within society as a whole that deems women to be irrelevant, disposable.

“How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I’m no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn’t buy into it. Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence — is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.”

Read it.

From the “Why did I look at that?” department:

Let’s get the disclaimer out there, I do not watch much television.  And I certainly don’t watch “reality tv”, unless one counts MythBusters and the like.  I most definitely will not watch nonsense like America’s Next Top Model.  Why?  Because who needs the reminder that no matter what you do, as a woman, you aren’t really much of anything unless you are young, a size 0, and have a flawless complexion.  I mean really, fuck that noise.

Imagine my disgust this morning when I stumbled upon this clusterfuck of insanity while getting my morning blog surfing on.

The images portray extreme violence against women, and while not very realistic looking, they are a reminder that said violence is not only acceptable, but is also a crucial marketing gimmick in the pursuit of getting you to part with your hard earned dollars.  And let’s be honest, if it didn’t work, they wouldn’t use it.

What sickens me most is not the disturbingly gruesome images of young women arrayed with their arms and legs splayed out in true sexbot fashion, covered in blood and bruises, but rather the comments of the judges when viewing the photographs.

“What’s great about this is that you can also look beautiful in death.”

“I think I look at you in this picture, and you actually just look dead. One of the simplest things, like acting dead, can be the most challenging. The problem is that you didn’t do anything.”

Beautiful in death.  Death becomes you.  Broken-down dolls.  Very beautiful and dead.  I guess I didn’t get the memo that death is supposed to be sexy.

Fuck you American Patriarchy.  And fuck you ignorant consumers who buy into this bullshit so much that advertising executives continue to push it on us.  Do me a favor and go find your own sexy death, you misogynistic assholes.

Last night breast cancer scored another victory.  Molly Ivins, one of my favorite political columnists, lost the battle.

There have been many wonderful things said about her today, so I’m not going to make you sit here and read anything terribly sentimental.  She was smart, funny, and most importantly, she got it.

She will be missed.

After my blog post the other day on the young lady who distressed me so, and reading of another blog elsewhere, I got to thinking about labels and how we define ourselves. The thing to note about the previous blog post, importantly I believe, is that I have no issue with someone else’s lifestyle choice - if it is what makes them happy and what works for them. What I do have issue with is the assumption that, in this particular case, all women, given their druthers, would make that same choice. That somehow I have missed the mark by not seeing the relevancy of wishing to define myself by another’s measure of my inherent worth.

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This past Saturday night, Tetris and I went out to a local club to watch a comedy show and were later met by a friend and his date for a night of drinking and goofing off. Sounds good, yes?

We moved from the dance club section to the allegedly “quieter” piano bar section of the club. After locating an area that was less crowded, but missing seats, the guys wandered up to the bar to get drinks and possibly score some chairs.

As we are waiting, I’m attempting to make small talk with our friend’s date, but it’s not going very well. At one point, she turns to me and says, “We need to move.” Curious, I stupidly ask why. “The guys said so, men talk, I listen.”

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Just so you are all aware, we women are completely incapable of making any decisions on our own without male guidance. So sayeth Mary Grabar over at Townhall.

After watching The View and following the inane statements made on the program, I’ve come to the conclusion that it really is true what Aristotle, Saint Paul, and John Milton said: Women, without male guidance, are illogical, frivolous, and incapable of making any decisions beyond what to make for dinner.

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This was the danger of giving women the vote. The danger to conservatives (and the survival of this country) is the voting bloc of single women, i.e., those who lack the guidance of a man in the form of a husband or intellectual mentor.

She then goes on to blame it on the husbands of what she assumes to be the audience of said show.

Probably many of the women watching the View are stay-at-home moms. But I question what kind of men they have for husbands, or “partners”; they’re probably English professors who have “Peace is Patriotic” bumper stickers on their Volvos. They’re probably the ones who work under department heads who have imposed the popular pedagogical policy of the “maternal presence” in the classroom. These male teachers try to be “facilitators” and nurture spoiled college students who are text-messaging insults about them as they drone on about the “other” and feelings. They write conference papers agreeing with their colleagues that the whole canon of dead white male authors should be eliminated to make way for women writers who eschew linear (read logical) and therefore patriarcha thought. They probably sit down to pee.

Oh! I get it now, women who have opinions that don’t agree with the bullshit as spelled out by the patriarchy and its blind followers must be married to, or as Mary so delicately puts it, “partnered” with, men who don’t grunt and scratch in public and may have, heaven forbid, “feelings.”

And, they sit down to pee.

*blink*

Oh, just so you know, the author isn’t a typical woman.

No I’m not a typical woman. I read philosophy. I hate to shop. I don’t care what I’m wearing. Nothing in my house is coordinated.

Well, thanks for clearing that up. It is entirely relevant to your opinion as to why single women shouldn’t have the right to vote.

I don’t know, maybe stop watching The View? It’s crap. Ask your husband if you can watch something more intellectually stimulating. I’m sure he’ll give you permission.

First, the icky bits:

57% of my fellow Virginians voted yes on the proposed amendment regarding same sex marriage. The mind boggles.

In my district (that’d be 10 if you are keeping track), Congressman Frank Wolf (R) maintained his seat. Sorry, Judy. I was rooting for you.

On the edge of my seat:

At this time, with 99.88% of all precincts reporting, Jim Webb (D) is leading the race for Senate by a margin of less than 1%. My fingers and toes are crossed, and along with the rest of the nation, I’m anxiously awaiting the final tally. If the final tally is less than 1%, expect a recount.

In Montana, the Democratic challenger, Jon Tester, is also leading by less than 1%. If the final tally shows a lead of less than half a percent, expect a recount there as well.

Control of the Senate rests entirely with these two races. There are three possible outcomes here, and you know which one I’m on my knees begging the Good Mother for.

And the news that has several of us dancing in the hallways this morning?

For the first time in over a decade, the Democrats took the House. Oh fuck y’all, don’t blow it. Don’t make me come over there!

For the first time ever, the Speaker of the House will be a woman.

Oh, and South Dakota? I think I love you. You rejected one of the most foul pieces of legislation I have ever seen.

And, oh my gawd, could it get any sweeter? Rumsfeld is stepping down.

I can’t stop grinning!