Fundamental

Besides the fact that it is 85 degrees and sunny in Portland today, news out of California has me all aflutter.

Despite all my conflicted feelings about having gone to law school, those three years getting my JD provided me a new lens through which to interpret news. Links to the decision abound, but here it is again (172 page PDF) for your pleasure.

Marriage is a fundamental right. Felons [edit: Prisoners] get it, and (gasp) gay people should get it too.

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Unusual Reference

This is a once-in-a-blog's-lifetime-experience. In case you aren't already sitting down, you might want to do so now.

I'm going to mention The Bible.

Shocking, I realize. Not along my general lines of gleeful low-brow humor.

But see, I read this post by Derick about the number of times that homosexuality is mentioned in various versions of the Christian Bible, compared to how many times the concept of peace is mentioned, and of course I had to link it up here.

You can stand up now. The shocking event has passed. But seriously, go check it out. It gave even a heathen like me a moment of pause.

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40 years on 4/4

I've recently discovered Blue Oregon and would like to point out a post by Chip Shields: Wages and War - the King Speeches You Won't Hear Today.

My favorite quote from the video clip below? "I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and attack it as such."



Noticing how much these issues are intertwined is imperative if we are to truly find and make change. Forty-plus years later, it's still true.

In Case You Hadn't Heard

One of the things I really enjoy about living in Oregon is the spectrum. Right here, in this one state, we have legislators who tell gay folks to shut up and compare Oregon to Nazi Germany by virtue of its anti-discrimination law. There are fierce and ongoing legal battles about the afore-mentioned anti-discrimination law and statewide domestic partnership rights. And now, Oregon is home to a widely publicized transgender pregnancy, the original story appearing in the 4/8/08 Advocate. [I've fixed the link that apparently wasn't working when I first made this post.]

Blogs I follow that have commented:
* Recovering Straight Girl on 3/25/08
* Stumptown Girl on 3/26/08
* Firecracker! on Lesbiatopia on 3/27/08
* More from Recovering Straight Girl on 3/28/08

What I find most striking is not that a transmale is pregnant, nor that he and his wife are afforded federal protections because they are legally married. Nor am I surprised that they have encountered significant discrimination and lack of support.

What is interesting to me is that legal gender identity, personal sexual and gender identities, and interpersonal identities intersect in interesting and unique ways. This situation, and the resulting discussions, cause me to reflect on the importance and relevance of my undergraduate degree in Women's/Gender Studies. I spent much of my early- to mid-twenties unpacking and assessing matters of gender, social "reading" of bodies, identification, and meaning.

In both my undergraduate program and in law school, the greatest lessons I gained with my diplomas was that THERE IS SO DAMN MUCH THAT I JUST DON'T KNOW. Gaining comfort with that level of ignorance, without settling into complacency, is an ongoing and humbling experience that has provided an entry into connection and compassion with my fellow beings whose life experiences differ from or parallel my own. It's an imperfect comfort, and is often more riddled with fits and starts than endowed with a smooth glide into true connection. But ultimately, I consider the journey one of the most precious aspects of my life thus far. One teacher in particular, S.Pace, is and was a key catalyst for that journey. To her, I am deeply and eternally grateful.

Kudos to the parents-to-be in Bend for their candor, and best wishes for a smooth birth experience for their child, expected in July 08.

Stretching our concepts of reality to include the experiences of others is one of the most blessed opportunities of being human.

Random Peeps

One of my favorite things about blogging is to watch what search engine queries lead the poor unsuspecting searcher to my ever-random and undeniably self-indulgent webspot. Ah, sitemeter, thank you for feeding my voyeurism.

Dirty Eggs gets the most hits because somebody tagged it "cock" on a del.icio.us page, and apparently google sends people there for "how roosters fertilize eggs" and "chickens don't have penis" and "chicken eggs vagina or ass." Internet rovers are so curious! Just a few months ago, I ran the same searches trying to find out how to spell cloacae. The cycle of internet life continues.

S*x Reading and Mainstream S*x Stories also get hit, usually from ISPs in India and Indonesia and Ithaca, probably because people living in places with names beginning in the letter I are more prone to search for sex stories on the internet than people from Latvia or Liberia or Lafayette. Or so goes my theory of the moment.

Those who accidentally stumble across me don't usually stay long. Their desires for hot erotica unsatisfied, clickity-click, and off they go. I'm not sure what the chicken-seekers think.
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Moved Me

When I watched this video today, I felt so much. My reaction was visceral and more profound than anything I've felt for an exceptionally long time. Perhaps ever. Sitting with my love at our dining room table, bearing witness via YouTube, tears streaming down our cheeks - it made for an incredible Sunday morning. I may write more about my reaction later, but for now, I'll simply hold this out as a humble offering. Maybe it will move you too.



Something else that moved me: Waking up early on Tuesday morning, the first day of the bar exam, padding into the kitchen to turn on the gas fireplace and make coffee, glancing out the sliding glass door, and seeing a beautiful bouquet of flowers, left for me by an incredible friend at 5am. I love to feel love.

*Updated* Bouncing Back with a Tag

After a longish blogging break in the weeks leading up to Tuesday and yesterday's bar exam, it's nice to reemerge with a tag from Chicory.

Grab the book nearest to you, open it up, and turn it to page 123. Write down the first 5 sentences on that page. Then tag 5 more people. [*This post is updated because I didn't properly follow the directions and only listed five lines instead of five sentences. Doh.*]

The book closest to me in this moment is Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, a title with much serendipity for me lately. In one day I saw it at two people's houses, exclaimed that it was the next book I was going to read after the bar exam, and also learned that Oprah is doing a free ten-week online course with Eckhart Tolle starting 3/3 (see www.oprah.com). Having been unplugged from TV for several years, I was totally out of this Oprah loop until someone told me this news, but I am so excited to see that television and online media is being used in these powerful ways! Because the course is online, I'm absolutely going to sign up! The first full five sentences on page 123, from the chapter entitled "Role-Playing: The Many Faces of the Ego":

There is a "me" that feels personally offended or resentful, and a huge amount of energy is burned up in useless protest or anger, energy that could be used for solving the situation if it were not being misused by the ego. What is more, this "anti"-energy creates new obstacles, new opposition. May people are truly their own worst enemy.
- People unknowingly sabotage their own work when they withhold help or information from others or try to undermine them lest they become more successful or get more credit than "me." Cooperation is alien to the ego, except when there is a secondary motive.

And now, I hereby tag Jehara, Lori, Derick, Zilla, and LeviZoe.

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How do I? Tell me, wiki, do!

I love wikiHow. I learned how to tell it I loved it at Say-I-Love-You. Before I loved it, we were just friends. I learned how to become its friend at Become-Friends-With-Someone-Who-Knows-You.

Of course, first I had to learn to Meet-New-People-Without-Being-Creepy. And now wikiHow tells me I have a problem and that I need to Control-a-wikiHow-Addiction.

The place slays me. The culture, the audience - it's this huge mash of humanity that is at times bizarre and touching and surprisingly insightful and always, always, good for a laugh. My faves lately:

• Make a Pop up Valentine's Day Card
• Drink Absinthe
• Build a Tumbling Composter
• Draw a Celtic Plait
• Remember to Take Things With You
• Care for Giant African Land Snails

consume this

Victor Lebow, a post WWII retailing analyst:

"Our enormously productive economy . . . demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . we need things consumed, burned up, replaced, and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.

This article, and the above quote, have prompted me to find creative ways around outright replacing my dear technological companion, though the prospect of being away from her again for repairs tears at my heart. (Why do they make these things disposable?! They told me I was LUCKY to get three years out of my laptop!)

So again I tell myself: Buy less. Live more.

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Men's Abortions & The War Mentality

Two weeks ago I read two articles about abortion on the same day. I'm glad I read them in the order that I did because the first one placed my paradigm in a more inclusive rather than exclusive stance.

The first article (A Change of Heart: From Pro Life to Pro Choice, AlterNet 1/9/08) included a perspective I needed to hear: "Our beliefs are not created by what -- or who -- we are against. They exist because of what we are for: comprehensive reproductive health for all, and the ability to decide for ourselves if we will or will not have an abortion."

A line from the second article (Changing Abortion's Pronoun, LA Times 1/7/08) elicited an audible groan from me, and my mind went to The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and Starhawk's description of The Southlands in The Fifth Sacred Thing. A man, discussing his personal regret about several ex-girlfriends' abortions: "'I never really thought about it for the woman,' he says slowly." What?! He never really thought about the woman part of the equation in an abortion scenario? Excuse me?

It's an interesting catch-22. Though it disgusts me, it doesn't surprise me that anti-abortion activists will utilize women's termination regret to influence the courts toward the incorrectly-perceived need to "protect" women from their own choices. But would they do the same with men's regret as a motivator? To protect men from themselves? I do not doubt that some men experience loss or sadness over the termination of a pregnancy in which they played a role. But is regret the best measure of whether or not government should permit certain reproductive medical decisions?

Back when I was a married-to-a-man queer grrl, before the polyamorous part of our marriage was predominant, my husband and I terminated a pregnancy. In Utah. I wrote about it here, when the South Dakota mess was in the news. In the post, I half-heartedly pretended it wasn't me, but it was probably pretty obvious. Many women have termination stories; I have one. I don't see why men shouldn't get to tell their stories too.

My ambivalence toward abortion topics is deep and multi-layered. I believe it important to let stories and voices be heard, and yet I also recognize the deeply personal realm of reproduction, coming from a family where fertility, miscarriage, and ectopic (tubal) pregnancies were wrapped in whispered conversations, kept from children, spoken about with solemn secrecy.

The more we share, all of us, the more information we have, the greater likelihood that we might just be able to see each other and really connect and not live under the illusion that our way of experiencing the world is the only way it's experienced. The more information, more connection, more understanding, more empathy, the better. That includes having empathy for people who truly believe that abortion should be illegal. If I can empathize with their feelings, it may be a vital step in bridging the gap in our perspectives, and maybe that person will one day believe that even if abortion is not a choice s/he would make or want a loved one to make, it is a choice that should nevertheless be available in a legal and safe way. The "fight" is more about increased connection and communication rather than fighting. Give peace a chance, wo/man.

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Important Stuff

Twenty minutes. I'll be bold and say that you can't afford not to spend this twenty minutes. Maybe that sounds melodramatic, but this is one of those things that feels Important.

Maybe you don't want to watch it. Maybe you say to yourself, "But I like not knowing. If I don't know, I'm absolved of my participation." Or you say, "Look, I know, but I have a XYZ factors in my life that require me to live the way that I do." Or maybe you say, "I already know. And I live frugally and consciously and watching this is unnecessary."

But this is Important Stuff. Seriously seriously important stuff. And even the most examined life can use a boost, a reminder, a tool to share with others, perhaps. I'll embed a teaser below, but more importantly, go spend twenty minutes watching or listening to the film The Story of Stuff. Let a kid watch it. In fact, please, encourage your kid to watch it. Important Stuff.

Sick of Sick

the benefits of being sick:

* I appreciate being well
* lots of rest
* watching movies on my laptop in bed
* cuddling with cats
* meditating to sleep
* catching up with incredibly creative folks at the forum from Joe's Hit Record site

Frowny Sick

I'm sick. Tired. Whiney. Headachey. My sweetheart is en route back to SLC, and I miss her fiercely already.

But I did manage to smile wryly at this.

And I also just heard from TW, the aforementioned sweetheart, about a narrowly averted tragedy in the form of an almost-lost fly rod, being transported by TW on my behalf, for J, who needs the rod to potentially snag something on his roadtrip tomorrow. Thanks, love, for seeing that project through. What a relief in the form of a white paging phone at SLC International Airport. Whew.

Vegansexuals

This article, while amusing, does little to rebut the perception that vegans are exclusive, weird, and perhaps lacking in social skills.

That said, when I'm not eating meat, I can smell a meat-eater across the room. Same thing when I'm not eating dairy. And really, smell has a lot to do with attractiveness, right?

But I do wonder, is oral sex okay for ethically-motivated (as opposed to health-motivated) vegans because it's an issue of consent? As in, My lover consents to my eating her, but the chicken does not consent to my eating its eggs.

Thoughts?

Diff'rent Strokes

I'm a pluralistic kind of person, in case that isn't obvious. As a pluralistic sort, I have no problem with people who want to have kids. I do have a problem when people with kids think that everyone else should have them too. Yeah, I hear you when you say that having kids is the best thing in your life. I get that. Or at least I see that it brings you meaning.

But I see this image I think, "Mmm hmmm. Deciding not to have kids is the right decision for me." Not for you, but for me. It's all about me. Me me me me me.

Which might have something to do with my lack of desire to dedicate my life to a child . . . ? Sure. But at least I'm honest about that fact. What fact? That it's all about me.

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Queer

Go here for the above book.

I upset someone today, using a word that rolls off my tongue as naturally as breathing.

My employer and teacher seemed rather rattled when I mentioned that of the fifteen living cousins on my paternal side, three of us are "confirmed queers." He questioned my using queer, and apparently assumes it reflects low self-image. He said he doesn't think "gay" has the same negative connotation. It may be useful to mention that he graduated from law school two years before I was born.

Although I grew up in a small town, and certainly heard "fag" used pejoratively, and probably "queer" too, I just feel really happy (gay, if you will) about the word queer. I was surprised by his reaction. The word is so normalized to me that I found myself blinking and stammering, surprised that I felt a need to defend my position.

Sure, I'll concede that my mom wailed a bit when I first used the word around her and I recognize that not everyone is thrilled with its use. But dammit, if I can't use the best umbrella term I know, for the sake of someone else's comfort, who the hell is accommodating and tolerating who?

So what does this mossygrrl do when she is baffled? She goes to the internet.

~ The wikipedia page on queer seems nice and round and overviewish, as wiki is wont to do.

~ I enjoyed the tone of this page from a queer spirituality blog.

~ This post talks about reclaiming, making distinctions between the Q-word and the N-word.

~ A how-to-decide guide for whether it's okay to use the word Q/queer made me grin.

Yet, for all my fervor and comfort with the word, I am now also thinking about effective communication. Shutting down pathways for connection by using a term that sets people on edge is not effective. And yet I find "queer" so normal. Is that ironic? Undoubtedly my comfort with queer is affected by the fact my undergraduate degree was in gender studies in the 1990s. Educational status certainly plays a role.

But beyond academia and postmodern mental masturbation maneuvers, at a very core level, the word queer is not only comfortable, but also comforting to me. It's broad and inclusive and makes space for me. It made space for me as a bi married person. It made room for me as a kink-curious person. It made room for me as a polyamorous person. It makes space for me now, mono and seemingly "lesbian." It doesn't require me to define myself too narrowly, providing space for fluidity and movement.

To me, being queer means being free.

M-m-miners

Maybe I should make this a mining blog.

Because I was at work, after seeing this headline I had to consciously set out of my head the complex layers of gold, consumption, labor, and (in)justice. We're assured that the trapped miners have water and the mine is well-ventilated and that no one has been hurt so far. And maybe I'm just playing into the trapped-miner-sexy-media factor. But this stuff really strikes me. Strikes me deeply, as I've discussed at length here and here.

I guess it's like looking at a bad accident. Or listening to Neil Diamond. Sometimes you just can't help yourself.

Or more accurately, I can't help myself.

Irresistible

I couldn't help myself. And if you aren't familiar with this series, Get Your War On lives here online. And for other amusements, see My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable and the subtle links at the bottom of the page. You won't be sorry.

Mainstream Sex Stories

I don't often (or really ever) follow mainstream media. Shocking, I realize. However, I am on an email list from the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, through which I see many stories about sex(uality)-society-politics-law. And recently there were three articles in the mainstream press that caught my attention.

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1. The general absence of male-identified folks in articles about bisexuality impacted my impression of Young Women Defy Labels in Intimacy with Both Sexes, Bisexuals Take a 'Flexible' View and Don't Follow a 'Fixed Path,' Say Sexuality Experts. But xx bisexuals are so fantasy-worthy! How silly of me to be bothered by a one-sided focus! At least the article did mention trans folks and resistance to labels and tags to define one's fluid sexuality. I noted, however, that all the women went from relationships with women to relationships with men, and not mentioning heteroprivilege or socialization was a gaping hole. But what did I expect, really, from a piece that mentions Britn*y Spears, Anne H*che, and Ang*lina Jol*e in the opening paragraphs? Favorite quote: "In no way does she deny her history or say she has found her true sexuality. It was all her true sexuality."

2. Polyamory is making it to the mainstream? The Decade of Bad Fashion was invoked, swinging inextricably tied to poly in the headline (oooh, titillating), the piece was hetero/marriage-based, and the question of what constitutes "success" wasn't really explored, but in general I was pleased to see Are Open Marriages More Successful Than Traditional Couplings? A New Generation Tries Swinging, but Leaves the Leisure Suits in the Closet, especially given the source. Favorite quote: "They see it as a high road; it's not cheating, it's growing their relationship."

3. The heteronormative tone and assumptions implicit in Boys, don't be jealous of her toys — play along! How's a guy to compete with the wonders of electronics engineering? annoyed me. Are the phallus-bearers feeling insufficient, given the many choices in small bedroom appliances? How aching that must be for them. Favorite quote: “So much choreography goes into orgasmic sex that sometimes it is wisest to accept help wherever you can get it!”

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There's your mainstream media dose for today. Maybe for the month.

Hetero-Only Sex-Positive (ish) Christians?

When I saw Anal Sex in Accordance with God's Will, I couldn't resist posting the link here. Other offerings include

Oral Sex and God's Will

Viagra and God's Will

Threesomes Within a Christian Marriage

Reader Questions and Answers

Masturbation - God's Great Gift to Us

A Proposal for a Christian Pornography

Bondage in Christ - BDSM in a Christian Marriage

Fisting and God's Will

I don't have time to check these out myself, what with bar exam preparations and such, so I can't really comment on them. But wow.