It's happening again.

Patience is appreciated while I deal with this particular bout of Womb Crazy. I'll try to keep the inevitable irrational outbursts at least vaguely on topic.

Censorship, safe space, own spaces.

So. Comments. "Censorship".

It hasn't been an issue on this blog... but I'm fairly certain that's a "yet" type of thing rather than a comfy future certainty.

Laurelin makes this post, which I agree with.

It's not "censorship" to refuse to publish the words of someone else on YOUR space. I entirely support the decision of any person to use their blog (or other space) to support their own values and beliefs, and they are under no obligation to publish statements by anyone else that do not conform to those beliefs and values.

Personally, I'm probably going to publish any comments that aren't outright obnoxious or spam. But that's my choice, made by me, regarding my space.

Now you know. *grin*

Surprisingly important news finds its way into the Daily Terrorgraph

Defence barristers have been told to clean up their act and stop intimidating rape victims in the witness box - even if their client has instructed them to do so.

Playboy: past to present

I found this absolutely fascinating: An archive of Playboy centerfolds from the very beginning (Mariyln Monroe, December 1953) up until July 2004. Now, obviously if you find images of naked women offensive, I'd suggest you not look. I was quite intrigued by the evolution of the images themselves, of the style, of the way that the images slowly become more "porny"... I can't think of a better word to sum up the more plastic/less personality changes, the way the women seem to become interchangeable towards the end as opposed to the popping character of those early models. The focus moves from exhibitionism to voyeurism... you're no longer watching a woman show herself off, you're ogling what she doesn't (or "shouldn't") want you to see.

Personally, I got to about the early 70s before I started getting angry. The 80s and 90s enraged me further, as the "trash factor" and pre-requisite surgery increased and spines became seemingly optional. By the time I was looking at "nowadays" I was just depressed. THIS is what is displayed as the standard for attractive women today, this combination of heavy makeup, surgery, photo effects, all on top of improbable genetics? This is "high end" porn?

It was even more eye opening for me to look at these images with my partner R beside me. You see, the man is quite informed (and talented!) when it comes to photography, photographic effects, photo retouching and image manipulation. While I was fuming over the increasingly improbable (but designed to show more flesh and more vulnerability!) poses, and the increasingly vacant sex-doll expressions, he was making comments like "Well, it seems the 70s were when they discovered filters!" and "Oh, dear, we have our first use of airbrushing". By the time we hit the 90s, his explanations of what had been done to each image to make it less realistic were getting lengthy, and I was further depressed.

If you feel you can look at pornographic images without being trigggered/poisoned/upset/made impure, have a look. Check out the images in chronological order, chart the changes. Let me know what you think.

I will not tolerate any comments that disparage any of the women in the images.

FUCK!

These new "policies" relating to the Indigenous population in NT just keep getting more fucked up.

Now they're handing out "food cards" that can only be used at approved big businesses and local stores, and recipients (who no longer seem to be limited to those with proven poor behaviour) have to state ahead of time where they will spend the money and how much will be spent.

More.

Jangeri discusses.

This just in: Australia not a ludicrously simple governmental structure!

I'm getting really sick of seeing people on both sides of the feminist/prostitution debate claiming that prostitution is "legal" in Australia, or that Australia has "legalised" prostitution.

If I made a post claiming that prostitution is "legal" in the USA, would that be an accurate statement? Or would it be repeatedly pointed out that the USA is in fact made up of a number of states, each with their own legislation covering prostitution and sex work?

Guess what?? Us TOO!! State level governments with their own laws and everything! Some states have legalised prostitution, some have decriminilised prostitution, some are in the process of deciding. The differences are pretty significant.

*sigh*

Fine, I'll do a research post about it... stupid blog. Look for it in the next couple of days.

In mental health/reproductive rights news coming out of the UK...

My baby will be taken from me the moment it's born

More.

More.

Jesus fuck.

How psychiatry blames the victim.

Scary shit.

Thanks to Angry for a Reason for the links.

It happened again...

So. A commenter asked a question about my blogroll, calling my attention to the fact that since I trimmed it down I've started reading a few more blogs regularly or semi regularly, but haven't added them to the blogroll. Since I'd gone to all the trouble of pointing out that the things exists for my convenience of reading, I decided to update it.

So I added the other blogs I've been reading regularly.

Then I added a couple of blogs I've been checking every now and then... still regularly, but not more than once a week.

Then I added a couple of blogs I've been intending to check more often.

Then I added a couple of blogs that fall into the category of "this blog I read this one time and it was interesting but I keep forgetting to go back..."

And now the blogroll is huge again. *sigh*

I'll give it a week. If I'm not reading them, I'm pruning again. Damn you interesting people and your annoying habit of writing shit I want to read!

Jaded again.

I've had topics buzzing around my head, links I want to comment on, posts I want to make. I was actually feeling motivated to blog again. Now?

A friend of mine was raped last week. She's doing amazingly, remarkably, inspiringly well. I can't shake the rage that I couldn't keep her safe.

What the fuck is blogging to that? What's so important about what I think about a post on Michelle Duggar, on blog wars, on the Bound not Gagged carnivale, on queer space politics, on quibbles about legislation? I could write those posts and they might make someone think... but when the women closest to me are still being attacked, what's the fucking point?

*sigh*

Maybe later, I'll get to it. Now... putting stuff in boxes and raging at the unfairness of a world in which the beautiful, naive optimism of an inspiring young woman isn't the blessing it should be, but a liability to be targeted by the worst of humanity.

Spamhexy?

OK. This blog currently sits at http://hexpletive.blogspot.com. It was briefly located at http://hexyhex.blogspot.com.

I've recently been alerted to the fact that http://hexyhex.blogspot.com is up and running again... some bastard has taken the URL, called the page "hexpletive", and posted a bunch of stolen entries, some from me and some from other people. My guess is its a SPAM blog trying to look legit so someone can stick link spam in blogger comments. This enrages me!

Please report the blog as a spam blog, and update your links if you haven't already. I was going to go around to the blogs that link to hexyhex.blogspot.com and let the authors know that they need to change the link in their blogroll, but it seems a couple of them have de-linked me completely in the last week.

Yeah, I know why. I'm disappointed. I'm also, weirdly enough, surprised... here I was hoping the reports of such attitudes were grossly exaggerated.

Definitions

It seems some think I'm lax with them. I can only assume the concept of reading beyond the introductory page of a blog before coming to a set of rather deep conclusions about the author is anathema to these people. Or, y'know, the concept of asking.

But this isn't about anyone but me. Here it is.

I am not a "sex positive" feminist.

I am not a "radical feminist", at least according to the definition used by those in these circles online.

I do not believe that feminism is a binary with those being the only two options. In fact, I think that not only are there many deeply nuanced and subtly (or blatantly) different flavours of feminism, but that there should be. We have such an intense diversity of women the world over that if one branch of a political philosophy was to cover them all, it would be completely impractical when it came to living it and advocating it.

So. What flavours my feminism? Or, as I like to phrase it, who am I?

I am an Indigenous Australian. Specifically, I am a product of the Stolen Generation, of the government condoned slavery and eugenics program practiced by the Australian government right up until the 1960s. I am a Wiradjuri woman, living outside my country on Eora land. I am wajin, which in our language means I have pale skin.

If you would like to judge or condemn my feminism and my politics without a thorough understanding of the history of Indigenous Australia, of the Stolen Generation, or the atrocities being committed by the Howard Government against the traditional owners and still surviving original custodians of this land right this moment, kindly fuck right off. You don't have that right.

I am a queer woman. Specifically, I identify as what most would call bisexual, although I don't use that term as my attractions to people do not fit a gender binary. I am attracted to men, women, and so many other gender identities that I cannot list them all. I dig people, not classes. For me, having one's attraction to another person hinge on what is between their legs or which side of the shop they buy their clothes on does not compute, although I do not impose that orientation on others. I have had long term relationships with men, and with women. With people. This is part of my identity, not a question of what goes into my cunt.

If you would like to judge or condemn my feminism and my politics without a thorough understanding of what it is like to be non-heterosexual in Australia today, both in a rural and urban area, if you do not understand that non-heterosexual partnerships are equal to heterosexual ones and should be legally recognised as such, if you do not regard heteronormativity and heterosexism as quite bad things and you do not accept or at least comprehend that for some of us gender, gender presentation and sexual orientation is not as simple as one or other, kindly fuck right off. You don't have the authority.

I am non-neurotypical. I am living with a disability. I am managing dual disordered schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and doing a rather good job of it. Still, it's hard. Living with a disability always is.

I have a medication burden that rules quite a big chunk of my life, and a sizeable chunk of my finances. I have to consider Spoons. I have to make decisions about my future based around medical elements that aren't known yet. I, and everyone I am involved with, has to understand and accept that my future may not actually be that long, and that I do not process certain things the way "normal" people do.

If you would like to judge or condemn my feminism and my politics without a thorough understanding of the disability rights movement, of Mad Pride, of what it is like to live everyday with a terrible fear of a monster that lives inside your head, if you do not recognise the pain and conflict that occurs when you have to choose between sanity and your talents, if you do not understand what I mean when I say that the neurotypical model is flawed and that either a strictly psychiatric model or a strictly cognitive behavioural model of treatment is not the answer, if you do not at least comprehend the idea of life when a disability guides every choice you make and every long term interaction you choose to have with any other person, kindly fuck right off. It's not yours to judge.

Similarly, if you are willing to decide that my mental health status and/or my disclosure of such makes me less than human, makes my choices in life "not my own", or makes me an object of pity rather than admiration for the strength it takes to live this life, you can fuck right off too.

Those three, and "woman", are the big ones. There's one that ranks slightly below them in terms of "What defines my feminism".

I am a rape and Domestic Violence survivor. I have experienced both. I do not class myself as a "victim", although I reject the stigma that accompanies that word. I chose my situations, but I am not to blame for what happened to me.

If you would like to judge or condemn my feminism and my politics without a thorough understanding of Domestic Violence and rape, the relevant statistics of each, the horrible way survivors who speak out are treated by the Australian (hell, global) legal system, society and the media, if you do not accept that while those experiences colour my politics and views of the world they do not define me (particularly as "less than" or "permanently damaged") and that I am not obliged to fit into any box of how survivors are "supposed" to respond, and that I am not "a feminist because of them", and finally if you do not accept that my past or present coping mechanisms are valid simply because they have kept me alive and functional, kindly fuck right off. Put simply, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

There are subtleties. I may write about them later. But let's get one thing straight: NOTHING that sits down that list, that influences the smaller elements of my politics, outweighs those listed above. I am not my job, I am not how I choose to fuck whomever I choose to fuck, I am not my anger or my happiness, I am not what books I have or haven't read, I am not my education level. I am not my income, I am not my age, I am not who I voted for in the last election, I am not the fact that I have experienced homelessness, or a drug habit. I am not my vegetarianism, or the fact that I prefer rabbits to other pets. I'm not how I dress, what I listen to, what movies I like. I am not what blogs I read or comment on. I am not who approves of me, or who doesn't. I am not my friends. I am certainly not my acquaintances.

They are elements of my life, all with their own level of influence on me and on my values. They are all influenced by my politics, by my feminism, by those key areas that drive those two things. Indigenous. Queer. Non-neurotypical. Feminist. I am me, and I am exactly who I fucking say I am.

I am also not obliged to tell you any of this, to defend or define myself. But I do. Now if that, or anything I have written above, is not OK, kindly fuck right off. Your input is not welcome or wanted.



PS: I'll add that I am willing to answer genuine questions about anything I've mentioned above, requests for my definitions or similar. I am not going to answer challenges, general jerkitude, or any insisting that I validate anything I have said with "sources" or "cites". I am not feminism 101, I am not Indigenous rights 101, I am not disability rights 101, I am not GLBTQ rights 101. I am willing to give some suggestions, but it's not my job to explain the basics to you. If you need them and don't have the faintest clue where to start, I suggest Google. I also suggest avoiding passing judgement on the politics of queer, non-neurotypical, Indigenous Australian feminists with a shitload of other facets to their personalities without the required reading. Because if you don't understand those key basics of where I'm coming from, you are not in a position to judge my values.

And if you disagree, or think that you should have the right to judge or dismiss feminists and women without being aware that there is a whole world of us out here who do not necessarily fit your god damned boxes and who do not have to... well, I'm sure you're getting the picture.

Also...

If you can't figure out that outing someone as a sex worker to your friends, yes, even if they have already disclosed that status somewhere but emphasised they don't do it often, is not fucking cool...

Well, fuck. You're not even worth spitting on.

Cryptic... but furious

Stop telling me what I believe and listen to me when I correct you. The only person who gets to define my values is ME.

I'm genuinely horrified that this is what I'm having to say to other women, other feminists, in an allegedly safe space. This is the kind of bullshit I expect from misogynists, not feminists.

Here's an analogy for you. I have schizophrenia. I interact with other schizophrenics. It really opens my eyes to how lucky I am and how horrible schizophrenia is for most people who have. I get involved in advocacy and fundraising for schizophrenia awareness and research, with the intention of making life easier for the people who are really dealing with mental illness in a very real, non-theoretical way. I don't like seeing people treated as less because of their mental health status, and I think schizophrenia advocacy should pay attention to the wants and needs of actual schizophrenics.

Doesn't mean I think schizophrenia is a good thing, does it?

Now. Apply that to the other topic. See if you get the same result. If not, go fuck yourself... it's up to ME to define myself, and that particular label is pretty far down my list. This is not going to become one of "those" blogs, and I do not speak for anyone but myself.

I'm regretting even doing that. No wonder our voices aren't fucking heard in this debate.

Bipolar diagnosis in youth climbing

Interesting...

Fuck you, APEC. Stop fucking up my city.

Fuck you, Bush and Johnny. Stop feeding us bullshit and telling us it's democracy.


Fuck these attempts to limit our freedoms so that those In Charge don't have to be bothered with the nuisance that is their people exercising their right to protest dishonest government.

In fact, fuck that last one twice.

I wasn't interested in protesting at the start of all this. Now I'm pissed. Not converted yet to being there and counted... but I think it's clear now that enough of the people agitating will be there for my reasons and not for those I don't want to put my name to.

I'm a day late on this, but the FLARE into the void timetable is up here.

I may not (as usual) be 100% aligned with the group, their actions and their motivations, but there's a few workshops I may try to make an appearance at.

All one of my massive readership who is in my area may want to consider attending. *smile*

Later tomorrow, I'm modelling at a queer and quirky life drawing class. It's woman-friendly, we've got a great feminist woman artist as our instructor, and I've put together some nifty costumes. Should be a fun night. Drop me a comment if you're local and would like to check it, or anything else to do with our safe space, out.