The OC

Why do people insist on attempting to glamorize the cultural black hole that is Orange County? Orange County is characterized most by gross wealth inequity, complete apathy to the ever-growing problem of overcrowded and dilapidated public schools, and monotonous gated communities that infringe on national wildlife reserves and create so much waste the city councils have to dump it in the same oceans that attract their minor hoards of tourists and short-term residents. Five years ago a good chunk of the Orange County coastline was shut down because it was too toxic to handle; funny enough, they were "cleaned" and opened for the tourist-heavy Labor Day weekend, then "oops we found more slime!" shut down again the day after. Thousands of tourists were frolicking in waters that made them physically ill while parking meters and beach-front hotels slowly sucked away their money, and that's exactly what the respective city councils wanted. Lovely, isn't it? I doubt we'll see that as a topic for this terrible TV show.

"The" OC. Bitch please.

OC is BS and the people aren't that off to it. The people that are moving to OC in droves do so only to buy an 800,000 dollar "starter home" in the gated communities of Huntington Beach and Irvine so that they may SELL it in ten years, make a little bit of dough, and move to some other county where they and their children may know something outside the quickly-yawn-inducing act of consuming or tanning -- unless daddy's corporate job simply relocates them, little pawns. Those families that do stay are often the few that are lucky enough to afford a home in the nichey downtown regions of Seal, Sunset, Huntington, Laguna, and Newport Beach -- most everyone else can't afford the rare cluster of some semblance of class -- whatever that is -- and are long gone in less than a decade.

Lucky them.

Orange County the Movie was a dud (and was about escaping the drudgery of Orange County, no less). I'd put money down for the failure of this show, too, but I said that about Britney Spears, so.

When other readers comment that Wurtzel is spoiled, I really want to shake them-- the aforementioned "do not do the dishes" portion is is the only part of the book I can find that would (mistakenly) lead one to that conclusion. In any case, I'd hope that the chapters about being self-sufficient and not dumping your problems on friends & family neutralize any misconceptions about Wurtzel being a spoiled brat. To me, advising people never to do something unpleasant that they can pay someone else to do does NOT make one spoiled, but smart. Ditto for spending $$ on good hairstylists. I mean, if you're smart enough to make more than the money it takes to hire a maid, why would you be dumb enough to do such work yourself?? Work an extra hour and use the $ to pay the maid for 2 hrs, rather than cleaning your own apt for 4 hrs (unless, of course, you dislike efficiency enough to sew your own clothes & grow your own food, circa 2000 B.C.!) And is walking around with orange hair really worth the money you saved by doing it yourself?

All of the above are reasons why this book is titled "Common advice..."-- the thing about common advice is that it's not at all common, as the college educated, house-cleaning, man-worshiping Miss Clairol victims show us everyday. This book is a public service! -- via a review of Radical Sanity: Commonsense Advice for Uncommon Women.

I have a few thoughts on this.

While Wurtzel's book attempts to be a direly needed kick in the rear for the hoards of young woman who have no identity or hope outside their Prozac prescriptions or pot-bingeing habits, it's nothing but a poorly written suburbanite piece of fluff that does as much harm as "good." That girls read this book &decide to join the ranks of feminism while denouncing dishes as "too beneath them" &"something other people should be hired to do" proves only how shallow, thoughtless, racist, &classist this book really is. Wurtzel's readers claim women &girls everywhere should embrace feminism &end the oppression of women everywhere &then define success as how many maids you can hire to do your dirty work for you. Yeah, it certainly is easy to be a liberated female when you have all those faceless Mexicans/blacks/poor women doing your basic household chores, right? It's really liberating womankind, right? Wrong! Gender-defined liberation cannot be had at the expense of the poorer versions of your own gender...and gender roles (esp. that archaic &gross "women belong in the kitchen" adage) can't change so long as we continue to assign working class WOMEN to clean our [mess].

There are millions of women out there who have harder things to deal with than "should I get my hair professionally dyed pink or purple?" -- there are women out there who HAVE to cook, &clean, &work, &then decide whether or not their minimum wage paycheck should be spent on a doctor's visit for their kid, food, or bus fare. This book has absolutely no qualms telling girls that liberation is had by making these poor usually non-white women clean your house/earn no respect/receive no benefits/experience no choice while you go have your feet pedicured, &it's gross. Radical Sanity is another lame &VERY unfeminist piece of trash directed at bored suburbanites everywhere who are tired of choosing between Contempo Casuals &Hot Topic &should be skipped. Read some bell hooks instead.

.

I really wish I'd rented this book before I bought it for Kim -- I could've sent that money to the desperate and good-intentioned Green Party, or something, rather Elizabeth Wurtzel's big vapid gold-lined PO Box. Live and learn, I guess.

Yesterday I was quietly reading bell hooks' feminist theory: from margin to centerin the corner of the break room, not bothering anyone, when my boss plunked down next to me and asked what I was doing. I didn't especially feel like telling him I was reading feminist theory, as I have yet to meet any boy in Southern California who doesn't visibly bristle at the word/start laying a bunch of brainwashed braindead sexist homophobic stereotypical hogwash all over me, so I told him I was jerking off to porn and would he mind letting me complete said jerking off in peace? Of course he didn't: he laughed, ha ha, grabbed the book from my hand, and examined the title.

FEMINIST THEORY, he sees; HOW TO HATE ALL MEN AND BECOME A BIG BUTCH DYKE WHO STEALS ALL THE MEN'S JOBS AND SUES ALL THE MEN FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND CASTRATES ALL THE MEN WHO CROSS HER PATH IN 30 DAYS FLAT.

When he asks me why I am reading a book that hates men (I didn't know books hated men?) I informed him I was reading a book that critiqued problems within the feminist movement and was in fact making a conscious effort to not hate men, as men are oppressed and exploited via racism and classism just as much as women are exploited by sexism and racism and classism and we should be taking over the world together, not hating on each other like fools. He scowls at me and reads a page that says "Many black women refused to participate in feminist movement because they felt the anti-male stance was not a sound basis for action. They were convinced that virulent expressions of these sentiments intensify sexism by adding to the antagonism which already exists between women and men. For years black women (and some black men) had been struggling to overcome the tensions and antagonisms between black females and males that is generated by internalized racism (i.e. when the white patriarchy suggests one group has caused the oppression of the other). Black women were saying to black men, "we are not one another's enemy," "we must resist the socialization that teaches us to hate ourselves and one another." This affirmation of bonding was between black women and men was part of anti-racist struggle had white women's liberationists stressed the need for women and men to resist the sexist socialization that teaches us to hate and fear one another. They chose instead to emphasize hate...."

He grunts about the author being stupid for saying "black" so much, shuts the book, and walks away.

Next day I walk into work and am greeted with something akin to "THE MAN HATER!" Someone complains that working so early sucks, and he looks at me, sneers, and shouts "because THE MAN is trying to KEEP YOU DOWN!" I pick up a box full of clothes and move it to the other side of the room; "WHY DIDN'T YOU HELP HER, JOSE? YOU CAN'T LET GIRRRRRLS DO THE HARD WORK FOR YOU." "How's it going, she-girl? Need a little help, girl? Don't talk like that in front of the girl." I'm not quoting verbatim, because every time he opened his mouth blood rushed to my ears and I could only vaguely make out what he was saying, but it was this type of shit ALL. DAY. LONG.

It really took a lot for me to resist throwing my hot coffee on him and quitting. A LOT. The effort I exerted holding myself back left me as wiped out as an hour-long sob session. I can't even imagine how red my face was, especially considering I don't wear makeup on shipment days.

The way he's acting is seriously tearing me apart, because he is not kidding. He does not say these things with a smile on his face, and no one at work receives things with a smile on their face either. There is no humorous infection in his tone whatsoever -- I know him, I know "how" he jokes around, and these are not said lightly, and these are not meant to be taken lightly. I know am not merely being an oversensitive, whiny little girl, because the guys we work with weren't' laughing at his "jokes," either; for the first half of our shift no one said a fucking word to the other -- and I work with a bunch of hyperactive jokesters, and dead fucking silence never ever ever ever ever happens. The discomfort and tension didn't break until our boss left for a meeting with the manager -- the weary sideways glances toward one another, the meek and distant "where should I put these extra hangers?" didn't let up until the boss took his threatened and unnecessary and seriously unamusing bullshit out the fucking door.

I would like to go to our manager and say something about how uncomfortable he is making us with his remarks, but if I do it will completely justify his hatred for feminism -- I will embody the whiny little girl who likes to get men fired for harassment because he does not advocate feminism the way I do. I will prove his point. It won't matter that NO ONE thought he was funny, it will matter that I turned my supposed sniveling feminism-induced hatred for him into a pink slip. It won't be his fault because he is a big boy and he can handle political differences without antagonizing me every chance he gets, it will be my fault because I supposedly instigated this by reading my feminist book, which in and of itself seems to equate to spreading anti-male Nazi-esque propaganda and warrants all the loud condescending shit he gave me all fucking day,

I am seriously considering printing out some of this and giving it to my manager. This shit better not continue. This guy is our boss, our leader; he is supposed to be our inspiration and our guide. He is neither and needs to grow the fuck up.


*

update:

I talked to my manager and he said talk to my boss and I'm sort of not very excited to do that. What my boss was doing doesn't fit the description of harassment, but because it was of a political nature and because it upset me so much, my feelings of "whoa wait a minute" are "valid" and it does deserve me talking to the boss, demanding he calm down, and taking further action if he doesn't comply.

I guess this is nice.

It would be nicer if I had the spine to talk to my boss.

So now that I've gone through my website and deleted any images of me smoking cigarettes I best commence to deleting any images of ME in case any of my "impressionable 15-year-old" fans decide my thin thighs are license to start over-dieting, over-exercising, or otherwise harming themselves in want to be me. Best delete any and all images of my dreadlocks in case any conservative children decide to risk disownment by adopting my oh-so-radical-left-winger 'do. Best re-enroll in college and rack up another several thousand dollars in loans and interest payments in case anyone decides to do like I did and drop out of college when emotions and debts threatened to overwhelm. Best be sure my life meets every non-threatening super-PC standard there is in case some moron whose life it is not my job to be responsible for decides to be me, or more accurately some lost and forgotten and completely misconstrued teenaged version of me.

I have never labeled myself perfect -- I have only strived to be a thoughtful, concientious, and aware citizen of the planet. My life is just as trial and error as everyone else's and to expect me to be some kind of blueprint who is allowed to have no faults is absolutely ridiculous, and to discredit every single good thing I do or say because one or two or three years ago I did something contradictory is totally unfair, and whoever thinks this way needs to stop. You have issues with things I did way back when? Then you have issues.

My journal: safe haven become soapbox become babysitter?

Fuck that!

Someone sent me a gift:




How sweet!
This deserves a thank you letter.

*

Dear anonymous scumbag:

This photo was taken in May of 2002. In May of 2002 I was not anti-corporate or anti-"cool." In May of 2002 I was not widely read by "impressionable fifteen year olds." In May of 2002 I was just another narcissistic college student who smoked cigarettes and drank beer and shopped at Safeway sans heed, and this self-portrait well encompassed that.

It is April of 2003. I think corporations are bad, I think serving corporations is bad; I preach this often and I practice this as well as I can on a SCANT 75 dollar a week salary. How? I do not smoke, and when I do smoke I smoke hand-rolled organic cigarettes. I no longer purchase alcohol; when I do it is always a microbrew, and on top of that it is often organic. I no longer eat meat, because I do not want to support the meat industry. Unfortunately I am not so elite as to be able to buy groceries strictly at costly co-ops or farmer's markets, but what I do buy I buy in bulk, and fully conscious of which company or corporation I am supporting. Considering this decision to be conscious of where my money and my "vote" is going is one I made only 6 months ago, I have to say I have done a pretty swell job. I've changed my life and my habits in effort to avoid being "a big fucking hypocrite" quite a bit -- not 100%, but QUITE A BIT -- and I'd love to say the same for you, but you weren't so kind as to leave any sort of name or face to back up your big bad testament against me and those who read my journal.

Even half-attentive readers of my life, not trolling passerby such as yourself, know that my years of cigarette, alcohol, and hallucinogen consumption are a thing of my past, and that mention of them is not to glorify or advertise them, but to simply recognize their place in my life. Peruse a few of the comment pages belonging to these "impressionable" girls whose lives seem to be series of events strung together by bong-hits and bad sexual encounters -- I am not at all quiet about my absolute disgust for their habits, and I will use my own experiences as proof that it is possible to get past the idea that you can't survive without clamping your lips around/sucking desperately from this or that smokable substance. The utter stupidity of drugs as escapism and how one should and can get over it has been a subject of many journal entries; in fact, you can find two or three simply by accessing my journal, going back ONE PAGE, and scrolling down. I suggest you do this and try to put my life into a little context before you dismiss it so spinelessly.

I'm taking that image down now adding a link to this thread as sort of a disclaimer to future viewers, because I see how easy it is for stupid people to take it all the wrong way, or to think what efforts I have made to not be the girl in that image are arbitrary so long as they are not totally and completely faultless. Thank you so much for being so kind in your request I do so.

Regards,
Sarah Jeanne Lombardo

Ginserg was a pedophile, Jack was a louse ... we pick some real winners.

Did any of you find your opinion of Jack Kerouac altered when you discovered he abandoned his wife (Joan) when she refused to abort their child (Jan)? Do you believe that because he was a free spirit, kids would have stifled him, and his divorce from Joan and his refusal to acknowledge Jan as his daughter for almost a decade is alright, as the life he lived after them produced such fine work?

I've loved Jack's writing for years -- I've often said Dharma Bums saved my life -- but I've found myself torn between the life-embracing life-fulfilling writing and the "deadbeat dad;" I worry that by supporting the former I am likewise supporting the latter. I believe that because Beat writing is often so autobiographical, one can't really separate the written from the writer, so idolizing the written is idolizing the lifestyle. Doesn't it bother you that we would hold a drunk who ditched his pregnant wife in such high esteem? It bothers me.

I am exhausted, defeated, and ready to resume the old preteen desire to live in London amongst narrow streets and even narrower rockstars. I am ready to become blind, ignorant, and completely numb. Poverty? Racism? Sexism? The systematic destruction of the environment for the sake of ever-consuming suburbanites who live in pointlessly big suburban homes found in resource-swallowingly big suburban sprawls that are 50 big miles away from the hugely big paycheck they earn in the toweringly big suburban office buildings they work for; toweringly big suburban office buildings that can only be reached by driving down pollution-inducingly big suburban highways in gas-guzzling big suburban vehicles? The greed-driven displacement and exploitation of naive foreigners who exist in countries without rights, whose lives are good for nothing more than knitting our sweaters, growing our sugar, working in our factories, and whose land is worth nothing more than the oil, minerals, fruits, vegetables, or drugs that grow underneath it? The everyday slaughter of the masses with images of bodily ideals that cannot be reached without the aid of expensive drugs rich in side effects that can likewise only be alleviated with expensive drugs rich in side effects? The persistence of institutionalized racism, which is illegal and which tucks minorities in the run-down corners of dirty cities that lack in good food, cheap transportation, and educational or professional resources, a lack that drives many to turn to illegal activities in want of the same luxury of necessities offered to and denied by whites? The uninstigated war that deems the obliteration of a country "liberation of" a country? The refusal to recognize women as people who should be heard when they say "no sir I do not want your dick inside me" or "if insurance can fund men's Viagra-fueled sexual adventures it should fund my Depo-protected sexual adventures as well" or "if you can't fund my maternity leave you should have funded my Depo" or "my name is PROFESSOR not MISS"? Don't know what you're talking about. Excuse me, I cannot reach my garment.

Is that selfish?
So is saving the world.

My consciousness is just an attempt to fill the lack of purpose or meaning that comes with being just another in a sea of 6 billion idiots. My consciousness is just a more public means of getting myself off. My consciousness ain't going to change a damn thing -- everyone knows exactly what is wrong with the world, and they don't care, and they are not going to stop selfishly assisting in all those things that make up how wrong it all is. My consciousness is a waste of time and it makes me too tired to shop, so I'm not going to heed it anymore.

You and I both know this is bullshit.
But no one will care.

Wherehouse Music is going out of business and offering more than 75% off all items. I cleared them out.

Selmasongs (music from Dancer in the Dark)	$4.50
Sloan - Pretty Together	$4.50
Gorillaz - 19-2000 Imported single	$2.50
Gorillaz - Rock the House Imported single	$2.50
Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood Imported single	$2.50
Morcheeba - Fragments of Freedom	$2.25
RATM - Renegades	$2.50
Def Jux Presents ... Cannibal Ox, Aesop Rock, RJD2	$3.50
Boards of Canada - Geogaddi	$4.50
Jeff Buckley - Grace	$3.50
starsailor - Love Is Here	$2.50
The Cardigans - First Band on the Moon	$1.12
The Strokes - Last Nite EP	$2.50
Burning Spear - Calling Rastafari	$4.50
DJ Shadow - You Can't Go Home Again EP	$0.12
Lovage - Songs to Make Love ...	$4.50
Tribe Called Quest - Love Movement	$2.00
Cannibal Corpse, for Kyle	$4.50
18 CDs	< $60.00

What bothers me about It is the rhetoric: how it so suddenly changed from a war to defend America to a war to liberate Iraq, how only weeks ago Bush was trumpeting psychological warfare on the Iraqis and is now pitying their oppression and seeking to free them from tyranny, how dissenters once labelled Anti-Americans/unpatriots/traitors to their government are now denounced as selfish trust fund liberals who care more about making marijuana legal than poor helpless Iraqis living under a ruthless dictator -- how They so expertly spun the anti-war stance that dubbed the war selfish and murderous into a pro-war appeal to the bleeding heart and threw it right back in our faces.

What bothers me second most is how I want to take it, how I want to trust it, how I want to hope -- but feel a fool if I do.

i was speechless and confused and shocked for about a half hour, and merely had this linked. i have not formulated many coherant thoughts yet, nor any wise criticisms/fleshed-out retorts/convincing "but buts," but i have earned a new disgust for humanity, and a death wish for the right wing, although the terrorists and muslims and iraqis of the world could tie the men of the right wing to a fence and viciously rape and torture their wives and children in front of them and the right wing would just fucking smile with glee, "see? i told you they were coming to get us," before cumming all over themselves, and thus seems self-defeating. at least my heart dislodged itself from my throat long enough to give my brain the oxygen necessary to wish the whole entire world to hell, where it wants so desperately to be anyway.

remember kids:
1] it's honourable when you stand in front of a gun in war.
b] stupid when you stand in front of a bulldozer in nonviolent protest.
fuck shit up.

A girl I went to college with was killed in a protest in Gaza.
Thousands have flooded the Yahoo message boards to disparage her memory.

So easy to do from your safe and suburban home office, isn't it?
So easy to dismiss what she was fighting for by writing her off
as a stupid ugly pinko traitor, isn't it?
So easy to mock the fucking dead, isn't it?

We wage wars in the name of "our people" and condescend the memory
of "our people" when they die in solidarity of others'?
We align our selves with politics and claim them for the betterment "our people"
and rejoice in the deaths of "our people" when they oppose?
What is happening to this country?

Proper memoriums:
Rachel Corrie is a true Patriot
Evergreen State College News
Evergreen State College LiveJournal

Olympia Memorial & Peace Vigil

I'm not bothered by PETA for their "Holocaust on your Plate" ad campaign because it likens Jews to chickens, or reduces Jews to pigs, or any of the other hyper-defensive clueless bleeding heart hogwash circulating the Internet -- anyone who knows PETA knows that wasn't their intention and it's a waste of time arguing how offensive or politically incorrect it is, at least for that reason.

I'm not even wholly bothered by PETA because their ad campaign does what all their ad campaigns have done and elevates chickens to the status of human, (something I've long had problems with), or because it honestly expects us to treat fucking guppies with the same awesome respect we reserve for scientists and poets, or because it demands we hold trout to the same moral and ethical code we do reasoning human beings, or even because it attempts to illicit the same horror for the death of chickens as does the ruthless exploitation and systematic slaughter of 12 million Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals.

It bothers me because it's all coming from the mouth of an organization that decries the exploitation of Jews and the exploitation of cows yet has absolutely no fucking qualms with exploiting women for its own "don't exploit the animals" cause.



PETA is a society that claims your cat finds it offensive when you refer to it as "your pet" -- it is "an animal companion," and note the non-possessive pronoun, thank you -- but it is just fine with reducing a woman to nothing but a pair of big tits and smoldering eyes and pouty fuck me lips. PETA is a society that begs us please donate our furs and leathers and other animal skins to Afghanistan's oppressed Taliban refugees but has no problem serving Western Society's own fucked up patriarchy with borderline pornographic depictions of blonde buxom not-very-brainy starlets wearing lettuce -- or nothing at all. PETA is a society that exists for the purpose intention of convincing us to not buy into the ugly money-hungry meat industry that levels rainforests and crams chickens in 2-inch square cages, but gleefully buys into the same money-hungry sex industry that teaches us all men are slobbering sex-fiending idiots who need to see tits all the time or they go raving mad, that tells us men need to be tamed and shaped by images of asses and just so happens to have the billion-dollar porn industry required to do so.

I believe in a grown woman's right to present herself as sexually as she pleases, to reconquer her sexuality and empower herself and all that, but in the end I don't believe it's not exploiting us because it's not done within a female-centric industry that's actually interested in how we feel unless it can be used to rake in the dollars. Soft-core porn done in the name of ending exploitation and creating equality across species is fucking stupid. Wearing lettuce isn't empowering turkeys, and it certainly isn't empowering me, and you can't end the exploitation of one creature by doing it to another one.

I'm a vegetarian, and I think speciesism sucks, but I think sexism sucks too, and trading one ism for another does not an ethical society make.

That's why PETA bothers me.

This will be unprotected shortly.
I really wanted to share this reponse because I think it is a good rebuttal that you should use if you are ever presented with logic that it is refuting, but I don't want to deal with the possibility of the person I am arguing with viewing my journal and finding I am trying to make a complete fool of his argument because a lot of people don't like that and I want to avoid drama. I am going to wait until the argument has ended and we have forgotten each other and there is no possibility of stupid shit being carried over into my space before I mark this entry public and advertise to non-friends that it exists and should be read by them as well, because I do really think it should be read by them as well.
In time.

With that said.
Girl and boy play around, every day. Girl establishes she does not want to have sex, every day. Girl and boy continue playing around, every day. One day, boy has sex with her anyway, and without asking permission. Girl feels icky.

Someone introduced this scenario in the vaginapagina community.

One man says:
"Out of morbid curiousity..

If you were in a situation where you and your partner had both increasingly explored greater levels of sexuality with each other over a period of time, and you were at the brink of penetration already, would you expect that he would stop you and say, "Excuse me, but Miss Necromimesis, I was wondering if you might find it acceptable for me to insert my penis into your vagina?"

Not trying to be smart ass (though there was some humor in the way I worded that, I'm sure) but would you really expect during such a continue advancement of activity, that someone would stop what they were doing and explicitly ask?"

So I fucking says:
"Out of morbid curiousity..

If we were in a situation where we had both increasingly explored greater levels of charity with each other over a period of time, eg you gave me 10 cents one day, 20 cents the next day, 50 cents the next day, and so on and so forth until I had almost accumlated the sum total amount of money I desired, would you expect me to one day STOP and say "Excuse me, Mr Mister, I was wondering if you might find it acceptable for me to take all of the contents of your wallet, checking, and savings account -- even though you made it expressly clear, every day, that taking everything from you was unacceptable, and would be refused immediately upon request?"

What if we were in a situation where we had both increasingly explored greater levels of knife play with each other over a period of time, eg one day I scraped your skin in the name of kink, and the next day knicked your skin in the name of kink, and the next day scratched, and so on and so forth until I was on the brink of cutting anyway, would you expect me to one day STOP and say "Excuse me, Mr Mister, I was wondering if you might find it acceptable for me to plunge the knife in to the hilt -- even though we had clearly established, every day, that we would go no furthur than surface cuts, and that cutting deeply was unacceptable, and would be refused immediately upon request?"

I mean come on -- I really needed the money, and you had given me money before anyway, so going all the way/taking your entire savings didn't seem any different. Or I was really hot for your blood, and you'd let me cut the surface of your exposed skin before anyway, so going all the way/taking your life didn't seem any different."

And I'm damn proud of it.
Fucker.

When donating blood the red cross requests one "[wait] for 12 months after close contact with someone who is at an increased risk for HIV infection. This occurs when paying to have sex, as a result of rape, or when having sex with an IV drug user" -- as if the IV drug use or payment for sex in and of themselves puts one at risk for HIV. Does HIV spread via cash these days? Does HIV just sort of materialize in drug-filled syringes? Do prostitues, in their whorish stupidity, just 100% of the time never use protection? Do drug users, in their heroin stupor, 100% of the time always share needles?

Golly! Those crazy prostitutes and their condom-eroding pussies. Those silly drug addicts and their magic needles, which prior to personal use just fly around pricking one infected person after another. Good thing I'm not a prostitute! Good thing only I only let doctors give me shots! All my legal, non-alternative, socially acceptable fucking and injecting is by default nice and safe! You can have my blood.

I won't even get into the "close contact" shit. Ugh.

Thank you for bringing it to my light. Hope you don't mind my posting about it -- the frustration overwhelmed and I needed badly to spread some words.

i don't quite understand what's so empowering about keeping one's maiden name, or having the husband take the wife's maiden name, upon marriage. despite its "feminine title," the "maiden name" is still the father's name -- keeping it is only serving to keep the father's lineage going. i've heard some couples take the wife's mother's maiden name -- appreciate the thought, but it's still the mother's father's name, as well.

i could've handled being sarah danuser. or olsen. or nicol.
i think it would be more fun to just start all over again, though.
sarah oxford, or something. hmmm.

I did post that thriftwhore piece in the thriftwhore community. Was slightly tipsy and coasting /friends when yet another in a long line of trash-picking Lolitas used my friends page as advertising space for their breasts; enraged, I logged into my editor, copied the post from my journal, slapped it on the community board, and forgot abut it, awaking the next morning to 30-some emails freaking out on both sides of the fence.

I still can't fucking believe how many people wrote scathing rebuttals of me, personally, as if I am some kind of conservative bitch looking to deprive the thriftwhore world of its first amendment rights. I still can't fucking believe how many "feminists" trumpeted the clothing, posing, and publicizing of coy half-naked pre-teens as "making a personal choice" and that my post against it was "repression" -- as if the sexualization of children* is the new liberation and anyone who thinks otherwise is some evil censorship-touting fascist.

I understand that most 14-year-olds in ringer tees are not very learned in feminist theory (I'm not terribly knowledged in it either, but lately I've read a fair number of books and a lot of writing by LJers who are), but self-representation that borders on softcore webcam porn is a hell of a lot deeper than "personal choice," and activity so vain and sexual and public it's practically exploitive is a hell of a lot more dangerous than its critique. If a grown woman wants to sexualize herself, either to profit or simply to have a hand in how her body is sexualized before anyone does it for her, that is one thing -- I believe any woman should be able to fully and safely explore and promote her sexual self in ways she sees fit, because commanding your sexuality in a man's world is powerful and empowering (though not without its own problems, like the question of whether or not it perpetuates the fact that it is actually a man's world) -- but fucking twelve-year-olds with underdeveloped breast buds who understand nothing about patriarchy or the weight of their come-hither stares sticking their camera down their shirt and "modeling" their little boy's matching underwear/undershirt combo is tacky, and irresponsible, and does not serve, advance, or a free woman of me make.

And frankly? To risk sounding like a pompous ass? Yes, because I am a little older than you, and because I have read hooks and Brownmiller and Strossen and a whole lot of Ms. Kvarnstrom, I do have a deeper understanding of "oppression" and "oppressors" than you -- and I am not it. This ain't that black and white, so stop talking like you know what is what. Put your boobs back in your training bra, read some porn critique, and don't dare give me that "wah you big Nazi" shit, asshole.

*props to http://indochene.net for introducing me to that phrase