Creeps Revisited

After posting what was certainly a poor generalized scratch on the surface of the discussion about what it means to be a creep and how that term is beginning to influence gender dynamics, it occurred to me that I didn’t include any anecdotes.

(Actually, it occurred to me while a stranger was shaking me like a chilled cocktail, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves…)

Although I was speaking on the issue as someone who’d despise the behaviors I warned against even if I weren’t confronted with them on a regular basis, I’m revisiting the subject to give you a quick peek into what I personally deal with on that front to better illustrate how some of my “creep rules” play out in real life.

Car Creep

I was walking down the street, minding my peppers and onions, when I noticed a car idling behind me. Whenever that happens, it’s usually a guy giving me a look over, so I did what I always do in that situation: I sped up.

To be clear, I didn’t assume the driver was a creep or even a male. It could have been a lost soul inching along to get their bearings or someone in the passionate throes of an alien abduction. I reacted as if the driver were a potential threat simply because the probability of that outcome given my past experiences made it the safest call.

Moving on, I’ve said this before and it’s worth saying again that if a woman breaks the fucking sound barrier to get away from you, she probably doesn’t want to engage. But creeps often struggle with that kind of logic. Some are so predatory, in fact, that they’re incited to chase you because you’re running away as if your attempt to escape further identifies you as prey.

So as I double timed it, I wasn’t surprised the driver sped up.

Reaching my side, he beeped his horn, rolled his window down, said hey, and made kissy-face noises at me. I kept walking and he said hey again.

I turned briefly with a stony frown to acknowledge that I know he’s there. I’m not deaf. I just don’t give a shit. Then I continued walking, crossing the intersection into the parking lot of a grocery store.

He left the turning lane and went straight to enter the lot behind me, beeping at me again, tailgating me. So I cut across the parking lot at a diagonal, weaving through the parked cars to prevent him from following me directly.

In response, he sped ahead to the next available aisle and screeched his car to a halt about two feet in front of me to block my path as I emerged from between the cars. He smirked and said hey sweetheart, looking me up and down.

I quickly walked around his car and continued my journey while calculating the odds that I was gonna have to beat a man’s ass in the next five minutes.

He sat there a moment staring at me and eventually made his way back to the road he was on, which I knew because I make sure creeps are completely gone before continuing about my day. I don’t need any surprises that don’t include ice cream and cake.

What did the stranger do wrong?

A) Followed me in his car.

B) Made kissy-face noises at me.

C) Attempted to block my path.

D) All of the above.

If you answered D, congratulations! You’re a star!

I’d like to point out that this encounter, like the majority of encounters I have with creeps, happened in broad daylight. So it wasn’t necessarily that I feared for my safety in the same way that I would if I were alone at night in a secluded area. I’ve just had enough negative experiences with random men on the street to be mindful of specific behaviors I find questionable. Situational awareness is my middle name! 

(It’s French.)

Hold on, woman! Guys don’t follow chicks like that for no reason! You were probably dressed like a slut or he was just plain crazy!

One, guys follow me like that on a regular basis. It wasn’t an isolated case. Two, it’s more likely to happen to women like me who walk everywhere and take public transportation. Women who drive everywhere are better shielded from it, so it may not be the norm for them to the same extent.

Three, creepy and crazy aren’t mutually exclusive and we don’t need a lot of either running around, so I don’t much care about that distinction where my well-being is concerned.

Four, I don’t condone victim blaming, but I also object to the willfully obtuse using victim blaming as a knee-jerk response whenever someone touches upon the reality that it is indeed possible to increase (or decrease) the odds of being harassed. You just can’t predict if and when your efforts will make a difference.

Putting it another way, the fact that a man can harass you for any number of reasons outside your control doesn’t mean every man will.

Never assume that you have no control over what happens to you in life just because you aren’t to blame for it.

It’s a very dangerous message to send to those who become powerless – that they were powerless from the start – and that’s something I feel strongly about in a society so desperate to effect positive change in the lives of women that it’s fine playing dumb to make a point.

Not to get off track, but I find it sad that we put forth such concerted effort to make women feel empowered by taking their clothes off or being sexually provocative while shirking our responsibility as a society to make women feel empowered by taking their personal safety into their own hands.

We need to get past the sticking point that the only one to blame for a woman being attacked is her attacker by telling women yes, you can take steps to protect yourselves. That doesn’t mean it’s your fault if you’re assaulted anyway.

So to the dismay of those who’ll say bringing my attire into the discussion is just a form of victim blaming, I think it’s valid commentary and worth mentioning that I wasn’t dressed in a way one may consider likely to provoke unwanted attention. I was in sneakers, sweats, and a sweatshirt.

But doesn’t that prove you can be harassed regardless of what you’re wearing, which is the argument you’re against?

No – because that’s not what I’m against. I’m against the belief that if you can be harassed regardless of what you’re wearing, then what you’re wearing is never relevant.

I’ll also point out that anyone who thinks my attire couldn’t be a factor simply because it wasn’t what we’d deem salacious proves that we view certain attire as inherently “inviting” – a concept we need to explore more and don’t.

Store Creep

I was working at a store, scanning some merchandise, when a customer walked up to me and said, “Hey, sweetie. Where can I find the belts,” while slowly stroking the length of my arm. What’s wrong with this picture?

A) He called me sweetie.

B) He stroked my arm.

C) Both.

This one is tricky!

I understand and acknowledge why men oughtn’t use terms like sweetie and baby when addressing women they don’t know, but I also think men shouldn’t be condemned for calling you that simply because they’re men.

The problem with these words is the underlying attitude motivating their use, and it’s sexist to assume you know what that attitude is based solely on gender.

You should have a little more to go on than that and I’d say the creepy way this guy was touching me while nearly pressed up against my body qualifies as a little more, so the correct answer is C because of B.

Buffet Creep

I went into my grocery to grab some tasties from the buffet. A man on the opposite side came over to me and said something innocuous about the food. I laughed politely and agreed. Then this happened…

Your food has onions in it. Guess you won’t be kissing your boyfriend after eating it, hmm? Or you’ll be kissing him, just not deeply with your tongues in each other’s mouths, hmmmm? On the couch? Maybe you’ll be on the couch and you’re kissing each other deeply with your tongues, but only for, maybe, fifteen minutes, hmmmmm? Or will it be all night? Will you be kissing deeply on the couch all night? You will, hmmmmmmmmm? 

What went wrong?

A) He started talking about me deeply kissing my boyfriend.

B) He kept saying hmm in a disturbing way.

C) He was commenting on my choice of food.

D) All of the above.

The answer is D because I don’t need people all up in my food’s business, thank you. Moreover, I think I covered this in my original post, but it’s creepy when a stranger talks about you doing physically intimate or sexual things. Especially when they’re even mildly descriptive.

In my finest British accent, it simply isn’t done.

Gym Creep

I was doing lats at the gym when a guy came up behind me and said something like, “You’re working hard,” while massaging my shoulders. It was all downhill from there.

Me: Can you stop touching me, please?

Him: You look like you need a massage, though. *still massaging me*

Me: *releasing the bar* I’m pretty sure I asked you to stop touching me.

Him: I like a girl who takes care of herself. You look good. What’s your name? *still massaging me*

Me: *standing up* If you put your hands on me again, we’re gonna have a fucking problem.

We had everyone’s attention by then since it was a very small gym, though no one intervened because humans. I was standing nose-to-nose with him and he didn’t say anything, so I pushed by him and went to another machine.

As I was setting it up, he came up to me and took my hand, asking again for my name. I pulled my hand away, turned around, and said, “What the fuck did I just say to you?”

I was so enraged that I don’t recall what he said back. I just remember it being ignorant and me leaving the gym because one or both of us was about to end up in the hospital. Where did this guy fail?

A) He massaged me without my permission.

B) He ignored my objections.

C) Both.

Correct! The answer is C. You’re getting good at this!

Understand that while I personally have little qualms about fighting a man if it comes down to it because you never know when you may not have a choice, I believe we should always seek to avoid physical confrontation instead of responding to inappropriate behavior with threats that could escalate the situation.

So if a guy (or girl) is putting their hands on you in a public space, don’t do what I did and get in their face about it. Make a scene and get management or the authorities involved. In this case, the former wasn’t there and the latter would have taken longer to call than it took to walk away, so I didn’t practice what I preach.

I included this example to remind you that above all, the creepiest creeps are the ones who completely ignore you telling them outright that their advances aren’t wanted or that what they’re doing isn’t okay.

Other Store Creep

I was working at a store when a customer approached and asked if the item I was standing near was on sale. I said it wasn’t, at which point he grabbed me by the arms and started shaking me violently while saying in a fit of laughter, “You heard her! She said it’s an extra 20% off!”

A coworker witnessing this said, “Um… do you need me to come over there?” I shook my head as I pulled away from the guy, who was still laughing.

Once he calmed down, he asked where something was, I answered, and he thanked me, walking off with a final, “Have a good day, sweetheart!”

Why was this not okay?

A) He was touching me.

B) He was shaking me.

C) What the fuck?

The answer, of course, is C.

Did that encounter make him a vicious predator? No. He honestly just struck me as a happy, outgoing guy having a little fun. He even resembled Santa Claus. Maybe he was Santa Claus.

But you can’t overlook or be unaware of your culture’s social graces, like the fact that you don’t go around shaking the living daylights out of complete strangers.

His failure to abide by something so obvious, especially where a female is concerned, raised too many questions with potentially creepy answers, making him kind of creepy by extension.

The length of time he shook me was also creepy. It wasn’t a quick haha. It was a prolonged let’s see if I can get her tits to launch into the atmosphere situation.

The lesson to be learned from this one is that someone can be a creep without being scary, violent or mean. Creepiness isn’t defined by hostility or aggression so much as by invasion of privacy, body, and space. In short, there are nice creeps. They’re still creeps.

Hotel Creep

I met a guy during a business event and he told me he wanted to crawl inside my skin. I won’t even quiz you on this one. While that may be the kind of “poetic” thing some find romantic on screen, in real life, someone you just met telling you they want to crawl inside your outermost organ is creepy as hell.

Disproportionate intensity always makes something otherwise harmless come across as unsettling. In this case, the guy seemed way too emotionally intense, and people who “feel too much” are a lot more appealing in theory than they are in practice.

Pool Creep

While I’d love to finish this post off with the comedy of horrors that was a stranger’s extended harassment of me at the pool – including the slice of pizza he tried to force into my mouth – I’d rather skip to the shocking admission that I gave him a pass for a few reasons.

One, he was so drunk (and high) that his ability to stand up, let alone control himself, was severely compromised. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t remember anything that happened when he woke up the next day.

Two, he wasn’t threatening. I didn’t feel at any point that I was in danger and he didn’t put his hands on me. He was just being inappropriate, and it was obnoxious because he wouldn’t (see; couldn’t) stop.

Note that him trying to get me to eat pizza doesn’t really count as putting his hands on me since his hands were on the slice.

Three, several people were trying to rein him in, including his friends and a lifeguard who kept checking on me to make sure I was okay whenever he saw any guy come up to me. Side note, his concern was sweet.

So while I certainly didn’t condone the dude’s behavior and continued to make it clear that it was unwanted, I fully understood that I was trying to negotiate with someone who lacked the capacity for restraint.

In light of that, I tried to manage it the same way I’d handle someone mentally ill until his friends were able to get him home. I remember him apologizing to me as they dragged him off in a floppy, slurring mass. Definitely someone who needed to cut back on the “recreational” activities.

Anyway!

I could go on with more – and far worse – examples, but I think I’ll end it here with a thought instead: Men have been sexually harassing, stalking, and generally being creeps to me since I hit puberty, and that’s echoed by the overwhelming majority of women I’ve met in my life.

It’s so frequent that it’s normalized. As a female, you expect it to happen at some point – and it does. The good thing is that we’re in a time when we can speak up about it and speak against men (and women) who try to justify it.

Even better, we have the opportunity to educate men who genuinely don’t realize that what they’re doing bothers us or is wrong because that behavior has been normalized for them as well.

Regardless, while all of this unwanted attention hasn’t “screwed me up”, it’s given me a duel perspective. The fact that so many men think they can walk around imposing themselves on women at will, or being sexually explicit as they see fit with little to no regard for how we feel or how it affects us is so astonishing that I cease to be astonished.

I now exist in this weird state where every time it happens to me or anyone else, I’m both surprised and not surprised, because I shouldn’t be surprised, and that’s surprising.

Don’t even get me started on the creeps who’ve said they have the right to treat women however they want by virtue of being men because women were “put here” for them. That’s a kettle for another stove…

Hourglass

I hate politics. Always have.

I’m opinionated to the gills, but there are some things I don’t discuss because I find the discussion fruitless. Not that a subject is only worth visiting if something will come of it. It’s just that I don’t bother with topics I find dull unless it’s going to affect some kind of change I deem significant or of personal value.

Politics never fall under that umbrella.

A lot is happening in the world. A lot is happening in my country. And it seems I’m expected to say something about it. I could argue that I said all I needed to say with my vote, though I suppose that’s too abstract.

I’m sure it can appear out of character that I haven’t gone into great detail about Trump being our president – especially in the wake of the travel ban. Truth is, I had nothing to say. For all the judgments I make, there are infinitely more I don’t. Some things, I let speak for themselves.

It’s like watching a friend who doesn’t know the first thing about skateboarding climb onto a high ramp with a steep angle, insisting that they’re going to skate down in a fiery blaze, launch themselves majestically from the ramp with the wind at their back, flip the board, and land safely on an overturned trash can twenty feet away.

It’s an accident waiting to happen.
So was the election.

The difference is that in the case of an election, we’re given the appearance of power over the outcome. We’re given the chance, by vote, to express not only our values, but our concerns in a way that supposedly has a tangible effect on the governance of our nation.

But I’ve always understood that you aren’t voting for an outcome. You’re voting for potential. People stand before you and tout what they’ll do, but what they say has no bearing on what’s actually going to happen and the choices they’re actually going to make.

So it’s a gamble. When we vote, we’re essentially placing a bet that the person we want to see in office will get there and do great things or, at the very least, be better for us than the alternatives. Hope is what we vote for. Nothing more.

During the election, I remarked that our culture is getting exactly what it’s allowed. Folks are just mad that our general foolishness made it upstairs.

To be shocked by the fact that Trump was running for president – and gaining support in spite of the opinions he voiced or the way he conducted himself – was to be shocked that America is America. The election was a reflection of ourselves and our shortcomings.

Nothing shocks me about what our society has become or what it’s arguably always been in one form or another. Every country has its flaws and historical baggage. We’re no better or worse than anyone except in our potential to be better than we are.

We have so much knowledge. We’re privileged and prosper in ways that are out of reach for much of the globe. We have the benefit of worldly exposure and unmatched diversity, and the lessons that our freedoms teach us, as much by being given as by being taken away.

As a nation, we can and should know better – whatever better there is to know – yet we fail each other and ourselves again and again.

We divide ourselves over things that amount to dust in the vastness of the universe and the shortness of our lives in spite of that division yielding nothing productive or good. We’re weak when we need to be strong, giving in to prejudice, giving in to ego, giving in to stupor, hatred or spite.

We’re petty because we can be and we’re entertained by drama. We instigate shit out of boredom and are distasteful out of trendy habit. We chase everything harder than we chase bettering ourselves on the inside – including looking better on the outside.

Because being a better person requires too much effort and doesn’t sow enough external rewards.

We talk about how shameful it is that XYZ is still a problem in [current year] without taking it to heart that our progressive ideas were hashed and rehashed by brilliant, divergent minds throughout history. We ignore the fact that people were saying this shouldn’t be a problem today when “today” was a thousand years ago.

And I don’t care to attribute it to some divine plan. I’d rather say it’s for the simplest of reasons: Some people are just too shitty for peace to prevail.

Short of installing a chip in everyone’s brain, there will always be a percentage of the population that’s happiest when others are miserable. There will always be those who put their wants above other people’s needs.

And there will always be those who prefer the suffering of others over what they perceive to be the compromising of themselves or their values.

The best we can ask for is that the good ones outnumber the shitty ones from time to time – and many Americans were devastated when Trump won because it felt like undeniable proof that the good ones are in the minority.

I don’t believe that.

In spite of being painfully aware of our shortfalls and guessing that Trump was going to win because of them, I still believe most Americans would let go of the crap that drives us apart if it meant a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Things just haven’t gotten bad enough for them to concede.

People are still comfortable enough to be dicks about race, religion, and the like. We’re lucky that way. And the rest of the country doesn’t know how to make things better, so they’re grasping at straws.

But back to the accident waiting to happen, I said nothing because I considered the outcome inevitable. Whether I said my piece or not, people were going to vote for Trump – lots of them – and nothing I had to say about it would have been any different from the things already being said.

In short, I was over it before it started, but people still wanted to hear my thoughts, so I figured I’d give them now for the new year and be done with it.

A lot of Trump supporters felt that the people vilifying him were just melodramatic liberals too blinded by some politically correct agenda to recognize him as the most rational choice.

And a lot of anti-Trumps felt his supporters were a bunch of dumb backwater bigots who praised his unethical ideology.

I didn’t fall on either side of that fence and it goes back to what I said about elections being a gamble. There’s no sure thing. No candidate is guaranteed to be a good president or bad.

And as much as people think that being well-versed in the positions put forth by each candidate makes them more suitable to vote than someone who knows very little about their stance or the acts they’ve committed in the past, an educated guess is still a guess.

So I could muddy the water with a bunch of political mumbo jumbo, but none of that is necessary or even relevant. When asked to place my faith in one person or another, I’m always going to bet on the one who puts humanity first – or, in this case, not pick the one who unapologetically sets it aside.

Regardless of their position on things like healthcare, abortion, gay marriage, immigration, business, and foreign policy, the president is going to be put in situations every day where difficult choices have to be made, and I care about how they’ll make them.

Even if I disagree with their decisions, I want to know that the human part of that equation wasn’t taken lightly or steeped in a fundamentally destructive bias.

Someone of the character to care about human beings as a single unit will take that perspective into consideration with each choice and conflict they face. That’s far more important to me than trying to weigh promises candidates aren’t even obligated to keep.

Once we the people were on the chopping block and the question of how laws and efforts affect us required its due, I felt Trump would lead with self-serving prejudice and frame his decisions within the confines of that ego, creating a very narrow path for this country to walk. I felt he would lack the care and finesse of a thoughtful leader in favor of being impetuous because such was the behavior he exhibited across the board.

Moreover, I felt he would act in accordance with the worst parts of his nature – the parts that many Americans shared quietly, yet emboldened in him – though without the characteristics of leadership required to temper it.

Long story short, I didn’t trust Trump as a person,
so I didn’t vote for him as a president.

It’s that simple.

I know many boiled the election down to voting for an asshole who was at least honest about it versus voting for a liar, but I’m of the mindset that all leaders lie – whether to protect the people or themselves. So I can vote for a liar if need be because I suffer no delusion that an honest person has ever taken office or left it.

But I can’t vote for someone I want to slap on principle because he acts against the good of “the people” in favor of the good of himself and his class.

At any rate, the fact remains that some people did vote for Trump, and I don’t hate them for it. Yes, some of them are dicks and used Trump’s campaign as a platform for their ignorance, but I think most of them were regular people who felt they were voting for change.

Just like those who voted for Obama.

I don’t care what anyone says. People didn’t vote for Obama because he was (half) black. They voted for him because he was something other than what they had, and in that, they saw the potential for things to be different. Him coming from a different racial background was merely a part of that assumption.

Change is a powerful temptress – one that many Americans felt compelled to court. Unfortunately, I think the change Trump supporters were hoping for may come at a price they hadn’t considered.

Everything happening now is merely a glimpse at the fox they put in the hen house and there will be more. But maybe that’s exactly what we needed. This may be their wake-up call, just as Trump’s win was a wake-up call for the naive who thought it could never happen.

Maybe as things decline further and Trump voters become increasingly disillusioned, their regret for having played a part in putting him in office will prompt them to revisit their priorities.

Maybe they’ll reexamine themselves to figure out why on Earth they thought voting for someone generally presumed to be a greedy, racist, elitist, sexist narcissist who cares only about the rich and powerful would make our country better.

And maybe their desire to make up for the vote they cast will encourage them to come together with fellow Americans in a way they haven’t before, working harder to undo what was done as a nation.

To that end, looking back on November 9th, I remarked not to let the outcome of the election be your defining moment. Accomplish as human beings what we may have failed to accomplish as voters. And that’s where my opinion rests.

Trump may be our president, but he doesn’t have to be our voice. We still choose who we want to be as individuals and that’s what shapes who we are as a nation. We can show each other (and the world) the America we want to live in and be known for by pushing for something greater than numbers on a page.

Not to sound like the oracle on the hill, but be wary of things to come. Because this climate has the potential to tear us apart from the inside out. This is how empires fall. Don’t sit back and watch it happen. Be better people. You, me, everyone.

Be better.
Not eventually.
Now.

It Doesn’t Make You Racist (But It Kinda Does)

Every once in a while, a less-melanin’d human will remark that a particular period of American history was better, wishing we could all go back to a time when things were “simpler” and our values were still “intact”.

And when that period is fraught with the inhumane treatment of blacks – which, for our country, is as likely as hitting the broad side of a barn with another barn – it isn’t all that unusual for someone to accuse him of being racist, either seriously or in jest.

Of course he objects, insisting that longing for the feel of a moment in time that just happened to be openly racist doesn’t make him racist by extension, and I agree. Thinking the old days were swell doesn’t make you racist any more than thinking Roswell was a great place to be in 1947 makes you an alien conspiracist.

But let’s look at it another way…

It’s 1999. A brisk New Year’s Eve. You’re at a club celebrating Y2K’s approach, drink in hand, soul on your sleeve. Your favorite band performs and brings you up on stage. You dance alongside them while your friends hoot and cheer until your eyes land on someone you’ve worshiped for months without a word.

Fueled by the night’s adrenaline, you make a move. Your cheeks touch as you exchange flirtations and the sexual tension of the silence that falls in between, and you realize that everything in that moment is right. This is the way life should be!

You later discover that a girl was brutally raped that night. While you were floating on affections and pounding away at the stage, she was dragged into a bathroom, assaulted, and left for dead not more than fifty feet away.

You watched the news about it, read about it, overheard people talking about it. You knew every unthinkable detail there was to know because everyone knew. It was a part of the club’s history now – a part of that night.

It didn’t change the tenor of the moment.
It became the tenor of the moment.

Now it’s 2016 and you’re at lunch with a friend and you say, “You remember that New Year’s Eve back in 1999 when we went to Club Hypothetical? Everything about that night was perfect, wasn’t it? Life was so much better for everyone then. I wish we could all go back in time and relive it over and over again!”

A woman at a nearby table groans in your direction. “You realize a girl was raped and beaten within an inch of her life that night, right?” And you nod, almost as if it were silly of her to ask. Of course you realize it. That knowledge was inescapable.

The woman’s face shrinks in disgust. “If you know what happened, how can you say it was perfect? How can you say we should all go back and relive it?” Because that’s the question hiding under the skin – how can you pine for something knowing what you know?

The truth is that it didn’t concern you. It didn’t happen to you, it didn’t happen to anyone you care about, and it didn’t have any effect on your life.

Sure, you wouldn’t wish it on anyone and you can’t begin to imagine going through it yourself. But you don’t really care in the way others think you should care, because while that girl’s night was horrific, yours was fucking awesome.

And that’s what counts – right?

It’s understandable. Bad things happen to other people all the time. If we all fell to pieces about it, society would drown in tears, a mound of sullen husks moping about on everyone else’s behalf. And we’re not built for that.

Still…

What if it wasn’t just that one girl, that one night, that one place? What if it were all girls, every night, everywhere? What if it was the nature of that period that women, by virtue of being women, could be, would be, and were being beaten, raped and killed as others saw fit?

It wouldn’t be isolated enough for you to claim no connection then, would it? You may not know a particular woman, but you know women. We’re all born from and related to women, you may be friends with women, you may date women, and your children may grow up to be women.

You can’t detach yourself anymore because it’s no longer about a single stranger you’ve never met. It’s about every stranger you’ll ever meet.

Could you still look that woman in the eye and say best night everrrrr when she asks if you realize that everyone like her was suffering while everyone like you was free to pursue their fill of happiness? And how what happened at the club that night was merely a testament to that dismal truth? Par for the course?

Maybe you could because it’s only that one night you miss. A night that, in your mind, exists independent of the darkness storming around it. A night that you have the right to long for because it was yours. Maybe you could because you tell yourself that it wasn’t the culture you missed. It was only that club and that band and that lover.

A part of me might still question how it could be so easy for you to mourn for something steeped in so much pain. Who yearns for an island in a sea of blood?

I say all of that to say this…

Claiming that a period in history was better than now in general just because it was better for people like you is a slap in the face to the rest who were also there in mind, body, and spirit because it hammers home the point that you define the world we all occupy by your occupation alone. That you view the whole of that history as the sum of your parts.

It creates a bubble where the things that matter to you are the only things that matter, and the fact that the values you praise are the very same values that permitted the systematic culling of a people is somehow an irrelevant footnote.

In short, it’s a reminder that at the end of the day, the meaning of race in our country and the state of the black race in particular doesn’t affect you because it didn’t affect you, so you have the luxury of calling it what we can’t:

The good ol’ days.

And no, that doesn’t make you racist, but boy, does it make you stupid if you can’t understand why many of us have grown tired of hearing white people lament the loss of a tortured past our people are lucky to be freed from right to our faces as if we’re a historical afterthought in a nation whose history was all but shaped by the story of us and how white people chose to write it…

A Word: Cisgender

I’m 1157.89% in support of most anything to do with the LGBT community, but I reject the expectation that as acceptance of maligned groups increases and the labels we apply to said groups evolve, the rest of us will follow suit by changing the way we identify ourselves.

I’ll never refer to myself as cisgender just because society is reshaping its awareness and understanding of transgender people. I don’t have to cite the fact that I’m a female who identifies as female in order to acknowledge and be supportive of those who don’t identify as the sex nature endowed. It’s unnecessary beyond social politics and I’m not into politics of any sort. I’m a proponent of less breath spent labeling outside of context, not more.

If I attend a function wherein categorization is immediately relevant (see; “Welcome to the Cis/Trans Alliance Gala! Which are you attending as this evening?”), I’ll say, “That would be cisgender, kind sir or madam! Where’s the food?”

But walking around qualifying every thought I have or prefacing my existence with, “As a cis female…” for no particular reason other than because that way people know I know being trans is a thing and I’m validating it is fucking ridiculous. I barely even mention that I’m human half the time. I think I can forgo highlighting that I’m not trans.

Sorry & Thanks

Conditional Unconditionals

A few months ago, a friend sent me this article about Melanie Gaydos – the woman with ectodermal dysplasia turned model. What I was going to say about it in my journal back then, I suppose I ended up saying to my friend instead, but I’ll let you in on the conversation since it was sitting in drafts.

My friend’s comment was how weird it is that the fashion industry – her industry – can make someone’s pain fashionable. My comment was how weird it is that the fashion industry is willing to “make a statement” by insisting that someone with deformities most consider objectively hideous is beautiful and/or worthy of aesthetic highlight, yet it would die before making the average person off the street a model.

That is to say, what I find funny is that they’d put someone who looks like they’re shriveling away from an aggressive flesh-eating disease on the runway before using someone with – say – a muffin top. It’s laughable, really, that this is seen as progressive.

Hey, friends! We know you condemn us for introducing and reinforcing standards of beauty that could best be described as pointless or absurd, but as those sentiments gain traction among the spenders and social awareness continues to trend, we’re breaking those rules!

We’re not just obsessed with appearance as we dictate it! Our industry is creative and inclusive and we’re committed to redefining what it means to be beautiful! To project standards that are less damaging to the esteem of the very populace that continues to feed into us as if we’d be the authority on anything without their susceptibility!

The only rules they’re breaking are the ones no one would object to without feeling like shitty human beings, ergo they get a free pass. What’s meaningful about breaking a rule you’d catch no flack for breaking? They aren’t redefining anything if they’re doing what they already know they can get away with without redefining anything.

Is this thing on?

The industry doesn’t have to change its standards that emphasize thinness and malign being bigger, for example, even with plus sized models who, as far as many I come across are concerned, are just a necessary commercial evil.

Why?

Because no one feels shitty for putting overweight people down. That’s the atmosphere we’re in. Fat shaming, in spite of being openly recognized as fat shaming, is acceptable to those who do it. 

No one thinks twice about saying, “Eww, why would you use her as a model? She has a gut! Sorry, but no one thinks fat is attractive! Skinny people just look better and that’s a fact whether you like it or not! Just being honest!”

How many would say the same about someone suffering from a medical condition with such impunity? Who would be equally “honest” about the “facts” and say that Melanie is ugly? That no one thinks Down syndrome is attractive? That people without vitiligo just look better? Only bullies, right?

The industry knows it can slap these people in a magazine or send them down the runway and get nothing but pats on the back for it while changing absolutely nothing about their prevailing beauty standards.

They didn’t break the rule. They made exceptions to it for the sake of novelties granted a stay for being tragic. The industry improved its reputation without actually improving itself.

Win-win!

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s wonderful that models like those I referenced got an opportunity to do something they were always told they could never do and that others are inspired by it.

I’m not so awful that I don’t see how that’s a good thing nor am I implying that they aren’t worthy of modeling independent of (or in light of) their conditions.

It just tickles me that those who fancy themselves less superficial – more evolved – because they can supposedly see beyond such ailments to appreciate a talent and beauty that transcends our overblown ideals are the very same people who can’t look past a fucking pimple or double chin.

Call me jaded, but I’m not moved by yet another tall, skinny model who happens to have a disease the industry can capitalize on in the sentiment department. When the agencies and the advertisers and the brands all make a sweeping change to their long established criteria for talent, we can talk about progress.

Until then, feel free to skip me over when they “redefine the industry” again by signing a quadriplegic.