Susan B's Words To Live By: In The Moment

If you've just had an entire bottle of wine to yourself, and are going around telling people how miraculously/frustratingly drunk you're not, now is NOT THE TIME to put on eyeliner.

Unless you're going someplace dimly lit, which I am. So, peace!

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Mythbuster: Reverse Sexism And Heterophobia

I'll cut to the chase: recent events have brought out my gay. I have realized over the course of the past few months that I am more bi than I gave myself credit for. And I am seriously craving some lady action*. Sapphic novice that I am, I have made very little headway, and before I start negging and demonstrating value and wearing fuzzy hats, I thought I'd check out the W4W section of craigslist. That is where I shattered my own preconception...

Myth: Lesbians on CL are classier than straight dudes on CL.

Not so, my friend. Case in point, the post that is right now at the very top of the page, in its entirety:

"im goin 2 make this short and sweet i want to have a good clean time with a sexy femme wit nice big tits. i am 20 years old my body type is barbie/model and im very freaky, DISEASE FREE AS U SHOULD B AND i love women and love pussy!!!!i want 2 meet up 2nite so if u wanna play email tag and nothing more please dont waste my time.NO GAMES,NO MEN.PLEASE NO MEN!!!please b able 2 host!!!!"

Yes, like their straight counterparts, lezzie CLers are addicted to abbrevs, ALL CAPS, and model-esque physiques. They also like to post photos of their butts. Ok, some of these ads were probably posted by straight dudes POSING as lesbians, but it can't be ALL of them.

So, my apologies to all demographics involved. Lesbians are people too--and people make asses of themselves on craigslist**.

Of course, there are still many fine ladies posting ads written in full sentences that made them sound like actual people. I found myself extremely turned on by a post titled "Music? Zines? Feminist? Looking for a Riot Grrl. - 24 (East Village)," by a self-described "cute punk boi," which included the sentence, "My pants have paint stains." If I were remotely cool enough, I'd have replied in a second.

Girls are so intimidating.


*Add to this my waning interest in the opposite sex, which has been going on far longer--to borrow from Tracy Letts, it seems that I don't believe in guys, as though they are something to be disbelieved.
**Sometimes literally, what with the butt photos.

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Babes In Babeland

[OK, that is a lame post title, but it's hard to out-pun a pun.]

Following closely on the heels of my latest girl fest, this weekend I went on my first group sex toy shopping trip. Yes, Babeland, aka the happiest place on earth, was having a 20% off sale at ALL its New York stores, and on Sunday I went down to SoHo with a group that included veteran vibratorers and first-time shoppers alike.

OMG, why had I never done that before?

True, the first time I ever went to Babeland I brought my sister, which I thought made me a very cool older sibling, but this was the first time that I actually went with a group of people all intent on buying things, all happy to compare appliances and weigh issues of size, speed, and design together. I definitely snuck up on someone with a buzzing plastic beaver to the shoulder, and when your roommate is willing to sample edible oils off your forearm, you know you're in good company*.

Lately I've been realizing/remembering how wonderful it is to share my sex life with my friends--actually share WITH, as opposed to going on about my own stuff on this blog. Sometimes, I'm ashamed to say, I forget how cool and vibrant and in charge my friends are. They're a fun bunch. And in the spirit of my last post, this goes for boys, too--I love having guy friends I can talk openly with about sex (as I did last night over drinks and gyoza on the LES).

So to those of you playing along at home: I HIGHLY recommend buying sex toys with your friends. It's a bonding experience, a fun way to spend an afternoon, and a good way to profit from the opinions and experiences of others.

I couldn't find what I actually bought online, but here's my very first [official] vibrator, which I still use and which I did not see at Babeland on Sunday. Fortunately it's still on their site:

The Wahl 7-in-1. Tell your friends.

*They were all kind of gross, but the Chocolate Raspberry beat out the Blackberry Creme.

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Daring Not To Fuck

This is a story I've been meaning to put up here 4eva. It happened in January, judging by my gchat log. I had received two free tickets to David Mamet's piece-of-shit new play November and gave the second one to Neighbor Steve. (Check out his blog!) Afterwards, on the subway, we were momentarily distracted from how awful the play was by the following encounter:

There was only one seat left, and Neighbor Steve offered it to me. Neighbor Steve ALWAYS lets me have the seat and (perhaps already feeling guilty for having brought him to the terrible play) I stubbornly insisted he take it. He did, and the gentleman sitting next to him turned and said something to the effect of:

"No, you gotta keep your lady close to you."

A blank pause from both of us, until I finally said,

"Well, we're actually brother and sister, so that's kinda gross."

Neighbor Steve is, of course, not my brother. But nor am I his lady.

This is a situation I have always found awkward. I have a lot of guy friends, I usually do, and when I'm out and about with one of them we are sometimes mistaken for a couple. So, what do you do? It's awkward not to correct the person (you almost worry about sending your friend the wrong message, even if that's silly), but if you say "oh we're not a couple" it creates a weird feeling that you're somehow disowning your friend. And then sometimes the person who made the mistake gives you a skeptical look, like you might THINK you're just friends, but actually this stranger knows better. Annoying. So my spontaneous lie was a refusal to feel awkward about something that shouldn't make people feel awkward, and united rather than divided Steve and me. (He immediately rolled with it and together we answered a lot of questions about "our" upbringing.)

Which is not to say that cross-gender friendships are always clear-cut. More than once I've gotten drunk with an old dear friend and we've had sort of a "we're not kids anymore" moment that led to some fooling around. Even in 9th grade I wrote a poem about how I sometimes I worried I'd fuck things up with my friend Jake by developing feelings for him. (He recognized immediately that it was about him and did not mind it being published in the school lit mag. Now that's a good friend.) And sometimes I'm not even sure what the recipe is--I have guy friends whom I love, and whom I think of as totally attractive, so is it weird that I don't want more? Is that pathological of me*, or even somehow insulting to them? Not really, of course not. But every now and then I have to ask myself the question. Sometimes I even feel the urge to justify to my guy friends why I don't want to date them, even though I don't remotely think they want to date me--nor should they. I suppose I just want to reaffirm that friendship isn't a consolation prize. It's not second place. It's its own event. And especially in the past year or so, my guy friends have done a really good job of making me feel like I'm *worth* dating--and hopefully I do the same for them, because they tend to be serious catches.

The upshot is that I'm lucky. I'm lucky to have had such great guy friends, and from an early age**. When my mother was in school, her only options on that score were her female friends' sweethearts. She had no co-ed post-Halloween sleepovers, no intellectual coffee groups that were both easy and quietly fraught with mismatched desire. I may have secretly wanted more from a few of those friends, but they were first and foremost my friends, people who shaped my life independent of sex or my longing for it. Because sure, when we went on those 8th grade movie outings I had a crush on Ben and Rebecca had a crush on Lucas (or was it Chris?), but that was part of the fun. That was almost more about my friendship with Rebecca***.

So here's to Neighbor Steve and all my other faux-brothers out there. I'm proud and pleased to be in a position where someone might think I'm your girlfriend.

(Side note: when subway dude asked which of us was older, we said me [because I am] and the dude seemed surprised. Cuz brothers are supposed to be older than sisters? Weird.)


*Y'know, cuz I'll always be alone and whatnot.
**Like that Sharon Olds poem. Sort of.
***Incidentally, it was on those same outings that Rebecca and I tested out our fledgling feminist outrage. Ben may have been cute, but asking what time "Mr. Movie" started? Patriarchal! They just didn't understand.

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More On Sex Work

Coincidentally, there's a new community post on Feministing, written by a woman who works as a stripper and identifies strongly as a feminist. It's short, to the point, and worth a read.

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Mythbuster: Porn Ultimatum

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Have You Shamed A Slut Today? (Rape Edition)

I don't know how many of you are Jezebel fans, but you may have heard that Moe Tkacik and Tracie "Slut Machine" Egan, two Jezebel editors, were recently interviewed by Lizz Winstead as an installment of "Thinking and Drinking." This is a weekly event in which Winstead interviews media figures she likes and, I suppose, people drink. It's supposed to be serio-comedic, I gather, but this particular evening did NOT go well. Read Winstead's account here, Slut Machine's account here, and Jezebel's attempt to handle the fallout here. There's also a full video--I haven't watched it, some say the clips Winstead put on the Huffington Post are edited to put Moe and Tracie in the worst light.

Anyway, here's what I'm pissed off about*.

The whole rape discussion started because Winstead said, "But in an age where you're focusing on sexual freedom, I mean, there's just not, it's not always safe...to just have a free, 100% total sexual life." When Moe and Tracie start to sort out exactly what she means, Winstead barks, "You could get raped," in a maternalistic tone suggesting, to me, that she is already disappointed in them. So here's my question:

How does having lots of sex make it more likely you'll get raped?

Leaving the house makes it more likely, that's true, and I suppose people tend to do that when on the prowl. My understanding is that rapists are not, in general, looking for women who want to have sex, so are the slutty ones at bars really more likely to get roofied than the ones looking to go home alone? Or is being at the bar the crime? Some statistics from RAINN (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): of the 73% of rapists that are known to the victim, almost half (35%) are "intimates" or family members--more than just "friends or acquaintances." "Friends and acquaintances" is itself a blanket term, obviously, and I suppose would include the random guys at bars or whoever else Winstead thinks is doing the raping. But if there are in fact any friends in that demographic, and not just acquaintances, Winstead's prejudice starts to fall apart.

I genuinely just don't understand why people think you're most likely to be raped by someone you actually want to have sex with. Is that even what Winstead is thinking about? She spends so much time on the attack against drunk-ass Tracie and Moe that I'm not entirely sure what her question even meant. These rapes that happen BECAUSE of pursuing a sex life--where are they happening? I don't understand the mathematics of this.




*For the record: I think Moe is the worst writer on Jezebel, and have been losing my affection for Tracie for some time now. I agree that most of what they said was stupid and at times offensive but they're getting PLENTY of heat for that on other sites so that's not my focus here.

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Happy Ending

An email I just received:

Dear [Susan B.],

My name is Anthony Dunkley of Amazon.com's Executive Customer
Relations. Jeff Bezos received your e-mail and asked that I respond on
his behalf.

Thank you for contacting us with your concern.

The item you referenced is no longer for sale on our site.

Thank you again for your feedback. Please feel free to contact me
directly at ecr@amazon.com if I may be of further assistance.


Regards,

Anthony Dunkley
Executive Customer Relations
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com

[My added link, obviously.]

And I looked, and it's true. A search on Amazon (under apparel) for "date rape" found no matches and asked me if I meant "state caps."

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Quick--A Call To Action!

There's a big hullabaloo on the net today because of this shirt:

Yep, you read that right: "Anti Abortion! But Pro-Date-Rape."

This shirt, in its MANY variations, is made by Tshirts.com and sold on Amazon.com. Join me in emailing Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos at jeff@amazon.com and voicing your complaint. The text of my email is below, if you'd like some inspiration:

Dear Mr. Bezos,

As you may or may not be aware, Amazon.com is currently selling an apparel series from Tshirts.com in which the shirts (over 200 different versions) bear the charming slogan "Anti-Abortion! But Pro-Date Rape." Whatever one's views on reproductive rights, I think we can all agree that rape is a horrific crime. Or rather, I thought we could all agree on that.

Since this has been written about on several blogs today, the number of items bearing this slogan has gone from around 12 to, as I said, more than 200--no doubt so that the negative reviews the items are receiving have less impact. I would like to point out that the shirts are in violation of your own community rules, which prohibit content that is (among other things) inflammatory, threatening, or "otherwise objectionable." Yet these shirts are not only available--they are available in youth sizes. I am sure that you understand the implications of that, and that this is not a viewpoint with which Amazon.com wishes to be associated.

However, if these shirts are not removed quickly, and if an apology is not offered, I'm afraid I will be unable to use Amazon's services ever again. I also suggest that whatever profits have been made on these shirts thus far be donated to an appropriate charity--one that aids victims of rape, or works to prevent it.

Sincerely,
[Susan B.]
former Amazon.com customer

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