Sex and Violence

Lately, I have been seriously bothered by one specific question. What is the reason violence is so much more accepted in our culture than sex? And don't tell me it isn't. Yes, most people agree violence is bad and sex is normal. But where we encounter the problem is publicity. Ryan Gosling, who was one star of the movie Blue Valentine, mentioned something along these lines in an interview and it got me thinking. Blue Valentine barely avoided an NC 17 rating because of sex scenes. As Ryan said, why is it that you can show a woman being beaten, or even raped, and get an R rating no problem, but as soon as you show her getting pleasure, they try to slap you with an NC 17? And not just violence against women, but violence in general. Movies starting at PG warn against violence, even if it's just "cartoon" or "fantasy" violence. Look at some of the video games kids play. And as most people what they'd rather see: A person being beat on the street or two people having sex on the street, and I'm sure most people would pick the former.

To me, that's weird. Beating someone is an act of hate, an act of violation, something destructive. Sex, when consensual, is something natural and loving and the essence of creation. Why is it more acceptable to see people fight than see people have sex? Wouldn't we rather expose our children to love instead of hate? Now, I'm not saying all children should be told to watch porn or anything like that. But, in my opinion, I'd much rather my children see a sex scene than a war movie.

But maybe that's just me.

Why Art Matters

I'll admit straight out that I have a bias 0n this subject. I have taken an art class every year, even if it's only a semester long, since I took a GATE art class in third grade. First it was GATE Art, then GATE Art Through Geometry, and then GATE Ceramics. Once I got into middle school, it was a semester class in sixth grade. IN seventh grade it was Art Club and totem pole carving, and in eighth grade I took art all year. I have taken at least one art class every year of high school. Freshman year it was Art 1. As a sophomore, I took Art 2. As a junior, I took Art 3 and Photography. This year, as a senior, I'm in AP Studio Art, Printing and Graphics, Advanced Drama, and I TA in an Art 1 class. The event that prompted this blog occurred in that Art 1 class.

There is a boy in my Art 1 class with ADD. He's not always a model student. He got suspended recently, for telling off a campus monitor. But in art, for the most part, he's just so incredibly centered. And he's good, too. He has his off days, sure, where he fucks around and gets scolded. So, a few weeks ago, they started a still life from life. It's this massive pile of stuff in the center of the room, and they have to pick an area and draw it. One day, while I'm standing in my teacher's office talking to her, I glance over and there he is, sitting at another kid's table, helping him compose. Completely unprompted. He saw him struggling and wanted to help. And it just further proved to me, that here's this kid with a penchant for misbehavior and a pretty bad rap with the teachers helping another kid just because he wanted to.

THAT is the power of art. That is the power of a class with no rights or wrongs, no formulas, no one set way of doing things. Art provides an outlet, an escape. How dare the school district deem us unimportant and take away our funding.

Just because we aren't a fucking sports team, and we don't have games, people don't cheer for us, we don't bring the school local acclaim? How DARE they? If you take art out of schools, you take away the only thing holding some of your students together. And if your school isn't helping your students? Then why the fuck do you even bother?

A Less Acknowledged Prejudice

I was just in grocery store with my mother, and some of the people she works with. While in the store there was a middle aged man in a Freedom to Marry shirt, shopping without a second glance from anyone, people of all ages and people of all ethnicities. In particular, there was a young Hispanic woman with her Caucasian daughter. None of these people garnered a double take, or sneer, and the Hispanic woman and her daughter even got a big smile and wave from the woman who moved easily out of their way in the narrow aisle.

But the people my mother and I were with seemed to be a different story. My mother works in a group home for disabled adults. We were shopping with two of her clients today. One of them I don't know very well, but doesn't seem overly violent, and is generally quiet and well-behaved. He is, however, rather obviously disabled, because his facial structure and movements are off. The other man is one my mother and I have known for just over a decade. He is incredibly kind and peaceful, and not at all taken to outbursts. He is merely very, very autistic. And his posture and manner of speaking make this rather blatant.

In the pasta aisle, the same woman who waved and smiled sweetly at the Hispanic woman and her daughter, who didn't bat an eyelash at the Freedom to Mary man, glared and waited for my mother and I to move my mother's clients out of her way. She looked at us with such complete disdain. And we encountered this through out the store. One man moved to a different, longer, line when he saw them. People skirted around us like being disabled was the flu or something else they could catch.

It made me so unspeakably ill to see people acting like that. Just because someone is a little bit different, a little slower, doesn't know how to act, just because something went wrong when they were born, or something was off in their genetic code, doesn't make them less of a person. It doesn't make them some contagion to be avoided. It doesn't make them the butt of all of your jokes. Just because they don't show their feelings the same way you do, and just because you think they're too stupid to understand you, doesn't mean they don't get hurt.

I've been around disabled people frequently sense I was about ten. The summer before I started high school I worked in my mom's classroom all through summer school. And those kids are some of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. And sometimes I forget that not all people have the exposure to them that I do, and I hate seeing people through them sideways glances and walking around them in the halls, and generally trying to pretend they aren't there.

People are people, no matter what is different about them, be it their size, gender, orientation, race, or if they have a mental disability. And the fact that this prejudice in our society is generally brushed off as a non-issue is disgusting.

Time to Crack Open Pandora's Box

Time to discuss the big (but actually little) word (that's really a concept) that causes friction in every community. It even divides the notoriously liberal queer community.

Any guesses?

Did you say: Gender? THAT'S RIGHT! You go, blog reader, four for you blog reader.

Funny references aside, gender is a serious issue in all communities.

I suppose I should explain why the gender spectrum is relevant to my life.

Biologically, I am female. As in I have breasts, a vagina, a uterus, etc etc etc. Emotionally/Mentally/What have you? I am neither male nor female. Some days I just say I'm human, genderless. Some days I'm both. Gender, much like sexuality, is fluid. At least in my case, the case of a few of my close friends, and also my boyfriend's case. He's genderqueer, one of my best friends is gender neutral, my own mother has come to the conclusion she's gender apathetic, and I have a few friends who are gender apathetic. Another one of my best friends is an effeminate gay boy who's an aspiring drag queen/occasional cross dresser. Basically, I know very few heteronormative, cisgender individuals.

I am female in presentation mainly due to my inability to pass as truly androgynous or male because I am rather well-endowed in the chest area. My boyfriend is male in presentation because he is scruffy as all get out. Though he does wear skirts on occasion.

The basic point of this post is : Gender is not a dichotomy. And that's okay. For anyone confused, picture a bar of color fading from darkest black, to white. Black represents cisgendered people (people born male or female and identify as their birth gender) and white represents transgendered people (people who are born biologically male or female and feel as if they should be the other gender, like they are trapped in the wrong body). Now, this is a grayscale. Are there only two shades, black and white, on a grayscale? No, there are infinite shades of gray. And that is where myself, my boyfriend, my friends, and thousands, if not millions, of other people lie.

There is a definite prejudice amongst our society for non-cisgenders, even amidst our own community: the queers. We seem to face much the same challenges as bisexuals, pansexuals and the like face. Now, why on earth should the very community who knows JUST what we're going through, be against us as well? I don't know. But then, many of today's societal views boggle me to no end. I am fully aware not all LGBTQQIA (and any neglected acronym components) discriminate against the trans and genderqueer folk. Many are wonderfully accepting and open. But those who do discriminate are there. And there are heterosexual cisgenders discriminating too.

Just because a woman has a penis, doesn't make her less of a woman than one born with the proper equipment. Just because a man was born Jill and now wants to be Jack doesn't make him less of a man than a man who always wanted to be Jack. And just because I refuse to pick a gender, doesn't make me any less of a person than anyone else in this world.

When the people of earth can start to figure out gender isn't just what's between your legs or under your shirt, but what's in your head and your heart, we'll be on our way to a better brighter future.

In Jesus Name I Pray...

I just viewed this video. It's part of what my blog will be about today, so take a moment and watch it.

Done? Okay, cool.

That video there? It's almost exactly my main complaint against religion. The ability of those people to blindly follow a "deity" that no one can prove exists is astounding and terrifying. In any situation not involving religion, hearing and listening to the word of someone no one has ever seen, and who doesn't have a physical body, and living your whole life by their word would be considered a MENTAL DISORDER. Now, I am fully aware that not all Christians, Catholics, etc. are bible thumping, tongues-speaking, brain-washing, Potter bashing nut jobs. But those people? They are definitely a little on the nutty side. And people like that scare the living shit out of me.

Okay. Here's a little background on my religious experience. I went to bible school with one of my best friends for three days when I was five. Being an impressionable child, I asked my mom if I could start going to church. My mother said no. My mother, who finds organized religion frightening, didn't want me to attend church until she thought I could judge what they were saying and make my own decisions. So, obviously I had a decidedly nonreligious childhood. And boy, am I glad. Now, I'm still friends with the girl I went to bible camp with. And she's still Christian. And I'm a devoted atheistic agnostic. (Meaning I don't believe in god, but if you proved God existed, I'd believe you). She's a logical human being. We get along fine. I have a few other friends who are Christian, and I get along fine with them too. What I mean by all this is I want to make it clear. I don't hate all religious people. I hate religion itself. I think it's an absurd concept. But as long as you're somewhat smart about it, and don't jam it down my throat, we're fine. Onto my issues with religion.

First of all, you should never follow anyone or anything THAT blindly. I don't care if it's God, Allah, Obama or your great aunt Tessie. You should analyze information you are given, dwell on instructions you receive no matter WHO they're from. If a homeless man, or even a well dressed business man, that you'd never seen before walked up to you on the street and gave you a slip of paper and told you if you followed the instructions on the paper, you'd live in paradise for eternity? No, you wouldn't. You would probably run screaming in the other direction. Because that is the smart and logical thing to do. Blindly following your "all powerful" leader is how cults get started. And religious people like this didn't just drink the kool aid, they fucking chugged it.

Second, those poor, poor children. Parents like that are literally FORCING their religions down their throats when they're far too young to even attempt to judge what they're being told. It gets to the point where, as this video tells you, it's brainwashing. Those kids don't have a chance to choose their own beliefs. They're born and immediately indoctrinated into the religion of their parents. The Christians think us queers our indoctrinating people into our lifestyle? They need to look in a damn mirror. When was the last time you saw a homosexual leave a "Join the gay lifestyle!" pamphlet on the doorstep? Never. But chances are you've been visited by a Jehovah's witness.

That brings me to another point: HYPOCRISY. Religion is wrought with hypocrisy. Many Christians disdain homosexuals because it says in the Bible it's an abomination. Know what else it says? Never work on Sundays, don't eat shellfish, don't cut your hair, never think about another man's wife, if your children or your wife misbehave STONE THEM TO DEATH. Last time I checked, Christians paid no mind to most of those things. And we're restricting THEIR freedom by disallowing prayer in school, but THEY can infringe on OURS by wanting to require it? What if a student doesn't WANT to pray, GOD FORBID. And we aren't preventing anyone who wants to pray from praying! We're only keeping it from being required. If your kids want to pray, they can pray. It is fully within their rights as citizens. But you know what? It's fully within mine to NOT pray. Surprisingly enough, AMERICA IS NOT A THEOCRACY. YOUR RELIGION HAS NO PLACE IN THE GOVERNMENT. And whatever happened to "Love thy neighbor"? Or did it get rewritten when I wasn't looking to read "Love thy neighbor, but only if thy neighbor is heterosexual and god believing"?

Yet another problem I have with religion is how it basically removes all personal responsibility. Everything is done because it was "God's will" And "Love the sinner, hate the sin". So, a man murders my best friend, and I'm supposed to hate the sin, and not hate him? Fuck that shit. And the idea that when horrible things happen to good people, they're just being "tested". When an innocent child is raped, god is just TESTING them. So, God gave innocent 15 month old me retinoblastoma (retinal cancer) and took away my sight in my right eye to TEST me? Oh wait, maybe that's because he foresaw I'd become a godless queer when I grew up. And homosexuality is just a test too, by the way. To see if we can resist "temptation".

The basic point of all this? Religion is dangerous in the hands of the human race. We are fanatical by nature, we want to know everything about everything, and we want to be happy. Give people something to believe in that promises those things, and most of the time that fanaticism takes over. People turn a blind eye to reason to feel like they know why we're here, and to feel comforted by the idea of an afterlife. If it makes them feel safe, included and informed and, most of all, powerful, they'll drink all the kool aid they're given. And after they drink? they'll simply ask for me. Religion is a drug, more powerful and addictive, and far less expensive than heroin. But, in my eyes, it's just as dangerous. But unlike heroin it's free and readily available. And that? That scares me.

War: What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

Need I say it again?

Fun Edwin Starr references aside, I'm being completely serious. War is ridiculous.

Firstly, it perpetuates the ridiculous amount of nationalism coursing through the blood of today's society. This nationalism is pure hubris, in the most tragic sense. For those who don't know hubris, while also meaning pride or arrogance, is a common concept in Greek style tragedy. When one has hubris, they have an excess of arrogance, ambition, pride, etc. that ultimately leads to their downfall. America is too prideful. We're so convinced that we're the most advanced, most powerful, richest, most important country in the entire damn world, that we're essentially blinded to both the plights and advancements of other countries, unless paying attention to them helps our reputation. America's head has gotten so damn fat with ego, that her eyes have swelled into narrow slits, allowing her to only see what she wants to see. Now, America has a little lap dog (Or shall we say lap Fox?) called the media that she keeps on a very short leash. By exacting control over the media, you, obviously,at least partially control what information the people receive. And that allows the government to essentially manipulate the masses into believing what they need them to believe in order to go on with their own agendas. In this case, the agenda is war.

Let's look specifically at good ole George W. Bush and the Iraq "war". I say "War" because, like the Vietnam "war", the Iraq "War" is not ACTUALLY a legal war, it is a military action taken by the president, that does not need the approval of Congress. (Thanks, War Powers Act!!!! /sarcasm)

Now, I can't find the exact quote, as it's from an old article given to me my freshman year I have since lost, but Bush was once quoted saying something similar to "We attacked Iraq, because the enemy attacked us." in response to attacking Iraq after September 11th. Now, who is this "enemy" you ask? Is it Iraq? Mmm...nope. Let's take a look at the nationalities of the September 11th hijackers. They were mostly Saudi, and there isn't a single confirmed Iraqi on the list. Nice word play there, Georgie boy! You almost had me fooled. Almost. So, why not Saudi Arabia? Let's take a peek at some statistics, shall we?

In 2001, Saudi Arabia sold the USA a total of 588, 075 thousand barrels of oil. That same year, Iraq sold the USA a total of 289, 998 thousand barrels of oil. ( Source ) Now, dwell on the fact that the leader of Saudi Arabia was often jokingly called Saudi Bush.

One argument for the Iraq "war" was to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Guess who backed him and gave him military assistance in the first place? The US of A! In fact, if you've seen Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Coulmbine, you'll know that America seems to have made a habit of backing foreign dictators, and once they start doing their own thing and not obeying our every command, claiming they're cruel and having them taken out. Of course, the dictators are generally actually being cruel, but that's beside the point.

George W. also claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that they had to be destroyed. This proved to be untrue. Even so, the government claimed that Iraq's "purchase" of yellowcake uranium from Niger proves they plan to make weapons. This was also utterly bogus. No uranium was ever purchased from Niger by Iraq.

The gist of all of this: The Iraq "war" is basically an intricate web of blatant lies to the entire public so we can invade a country that we ideologically oppose and has something we want(oil).

Your school history books are most likely lying to you.

World War II: The books I've seen try to pass off our involvement in it as being a response to finding out about the Holocaust and the concentration camps. And the ignore the fact that A. WE KNEW ABOUT THE CAMPS AND WERE TURNING JEWS OUT OF THE COUNTRY and B. We were doing something really fucking similar to Japanese Americans. And then we dropped not one, but two bombs on Japan and gave thousands of people leukemia, including unborn fetuses, killed countless more, and destroyed two entire cities.

Vietnam "War": We were fighting "TEH EVUL COMMIES!!!!1111!!!1!!!!1", supposedly. Basically we wanted to combat an ideology the government found threatening, and oh yeah, we wanted to boost the economy, so, hey let's go fuck a country up, kill innocent children, and wear there tongues around out necks! And the body counts were usually fabricated, and included not just Vietcong, but animals and the Vietnamese civilians that were ON OUR SIDE. All to make it look like we were accomplishing something. Not to mention we killed acres of forests with Agent Orange, then denied that it gave the soldiers skin cancer.

World War I: Just a great example of why having massive military power sitting around, and a convoluted group of alliances is a BAD THING.

And my second point against war: Money. Worldwide, 700 billion dollars are spent on defense. Worldwide, 100 billion dollars are spent on education.

WHAT THE FUCK, WORLD?

Here's an idea. Pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan, what ever other countries we're currently fucking over, stop giving so much fucking money to the military, and fund our schools.

WE ARE GIVING POORLY EDUCATED PEOPLE WEAPONS.

Maybe if we gave people good educations, they would stop being so damn xenophobic, and this would be less of an issue.

If the military has to exist, it should be purely for defense, and only when there is SOLID UNQUESTIONABLE PROOF we need to defend ourselves.

I realize I'm being biased and idealistic. But this is simply my opinion on the matter.

I shall leave with this clichéd, but relevant note:

Can't we all just get along?

We Need Another Woodstock

Last night I was up until 2 am talking about politics and society with my mom, and I came to a conclusion I've come to several times before. This country needs another Woodstock. And I don't mean that we need to have a massive concert full of era defining artists, pot, granola, mud and camping. Although it might help loosen everyone up a little. What we need are the feelings that era carried. My mom was a teenager in the late sixties and early seventies. She petitioned for Cesar Chavez, she was the go to girl for information about feminism at her high school, she hung out in Berkeley. And she said that, back then, it felt like any little thing you did could make a difference. You really could change the world. And, it seems to me, that feeling isn't there anymore. We can throw protests and rallies but it doesn't seem to do anything. And you certainly don't feel like you can do something on your own.

In that era, people had hope. The sixties were ABOUT hope. Yeah, they were also about mind expanding drugs, and free love, but maybe we need that back to. The music was about hope, everything in that culture was imbued with hopefulness and the need to change and the people enacting that change could see it and feel it and know that it was happening.

Today, not so much. The need to change is there, that's for sure. But that never ending fountain of hope that seemed to be around in the sixties? It's turned into a never ending fountain of cynicism. And I'm just as guilty as the rest of the world. I'm angry, I'm disenfranchised, and I'm trying to do my bit to help, but I can't help but feel it's going nowhere. Society has reached the point of no return on it's path to ultimate downfall. I want to believe change is possible. I want to believe we can fix this. I want to believe we can take this sham of a democracy we're living in, and make it at least an actual democracy. By the people, for the people, not by giant corporations, for giant corporations. I want to believe that people are capable of socialism, or anarchy. But I can't. And that's the problem. We, as a culture, have stopped believing in the people. Because, we don't seem to have a reason to. It's 2010, and racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, hatred of the homeless, sexism, size-ism and any other number of useless and unfounded prejudices run rampant in society still. People need to realize that a person is a person, no matter how small, how tall, who they sleep with, how they dress, where they live, or what they do for a living. And they need to treat all people as people. We need to stop thinking violence solves anything, because it doesn't. We need to stop trying to assert our own race or gender as the best race or gender, and we really need to stop being such a nationalistic country.

I don't know how we're going to do any of that. I don't know how much of it will ever happen. And I don't know when. But I do know that in order for it to happen, we need to have hope. And if that means we all need to get together, and sit in circles and play acoustic guitar, or march down the streets of this country with flowers in out hair and singing, or if we need to throw massive protests and hand out leaflets, so be it! Let's do it! Let's write new music because, as much as a I love political music nowadays, it's often loud and angry. I think what we need right now are a few more singer/songerwriters like Sandi Thom.

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In 77 and 69 revolution was in the air
I was born too lead to a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

When the head of state didn't play guitar
Not everybody drove a car,
When music really mattered and radio was king,
When accountants didn't have control
And the media couldn't buy your soul
And computers were still scary and we didn't know everything

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In 77 and 69 revolution was in the air
I was born too lead to a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

When popstars still remained a myth
And ignorance could still be bliss
And when God Save the Queen she turned a whiter shade of pale
When my mom and dad were in their teens
and anarchy was still a dream
and the only way to stay in touch was a letter in the mail

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In 77 and 69 revolution was in the air
I was born too lead to a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

When record shops were on top
and vinyl was all that they stocked
and the super info highway was still drifting out in space
kids were wearing hand me downs,
and playing games meant kick arounds
and footballers still had long hair and dirt across their face

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In 77 and 69 revolution was in the air
I was born too lead to a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair