Things have been a little bizarre in my head as of late. I'd like to blame it on the meds I take, but even when I dont take some of them it happens. So here's a recap.
On the Summer Solstice, June 21st, was visited by hummingbirds.
On my birthday, June 30th, a little blue and white swallow swooped past the car as we were driving to the In-Laws place. Also saw a little sandy coloured bunny and a crow in the same yard that day as well.
As far as dreams go, I'm going to post it as I wrote in down in my dream journal this morning. This was a also a bizarre "in dream" wildlife sighting, little white spotted deer, they looked like a cross between Chital(Indian) Deer, and Sika Deer.
July 2nd, 2011
this will just be fragments, and not in any sort of order
I remember being in BC Place(our football/soccer stadium) with My brother, I don't know exactly what we were watching on the field, but the crowd reminded Me of the Romans at the Collesium, there was a general feeling of...blood lust
the crows was standing and roaring around us
then all of a sudden I was outside the stadium, My brother gone, and with this man and woman. He had brown hair with a big beard and was dressed all in black with a wide brimmed black hat on his head, carrying a black leather bag
she was blond and pale, wearing pale clothing
there seemed to be a riot of sorts going on outside
there was some sort of party or wedding or something and My Mum and My Aunt were there
everybody was drinking, and trying to get me to drink
I remember refusing
and then there was a black out of memory, lost time
I woke up in a nice hotel room(one Ive dreamed about before)
and I got up and found My new friends(the guy and the lady), was desperately asking them to tell ME if I had drank anything
I think I asked My Mum and Aunt too
My Mum and Aunt remained silent
I remember feeling intense anxiety
(I just remembered this)
when we got outside the stadium we all climbed up onto this roof of sorts and continued watching whatever was going on down there, My brother was there and My new friends, and some other people
A cop on a grey horse walked by, My brother mentioning something about how what we were doing was illegal and that we would get a fine, so I hopped down just as a cop on a dark brown/chestnut coloured horse was walking by.
He gave Me a $786(possibly796) fine and left
I carried the ticket with Me to the bathroom(I never saw the inside of the bathroom) but when I came out the ticket was paid for, and apparently My new friends had paid for it
when I was begging them to tell Me if I drank they told Me to look at the pictures on My camera
He had this mischievous smile on His face
there was one or two pictures that looked almost identical to pictures from My brothers wedding, if Me, My Mum and Aunt, and some other people
I “woke up” from this dream, and then realized that Myself waking up was just another dream. The next time I woke up I actually woke up
*NOTE: deer looked like a cross between the Manchurian(Chital) deer and the Sika deer
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Recovery - Step 1
Step 1
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
It's been a year since I took my last drink and it seems fitting that on this day that I reflect on the steps I have done. Like coming full circle.
June 30th, 2010 was not the first time I had admitted this to myself. Well to be specific I had admitted I had a problem, but not that my life was unmanageable. "I can control it, I'll only have one and that's it, I have a problem but I will be okay.". This time though I knew not only that I was powerless over alcohol but that YES my life had become unmanageable. I was working at a catering company in Downtown Vancouver. A friend of mine lived only two blocks away, she was one of my drinking buddies. I was not in a good place mentally. I hadn't been for some time. I had miscarried in November 2009 and rather than actually feeling my grief, embracing it and then letting it go, I tried to drown it in booze. I had been thinking obsessively about drinking for almost a week. A little voice in the back of my mind, whispering, pleading, demanding. I had told my dear husband that I would be visiting for about an hour and then I would be home. The thing was I KNEW if I went to her house I could get beer, and if that ran out we would always get more, the liquor store was just a few blocks down the road. Two hours and 3 or 4 drinks in, my husband called me to ask if I was alright and when I was coming home. I said I would be leaving in 15 minutes. Which of course did not happen, such was the nature of my binges. The rest of the evening is lost in a haze. Around midnight I realized I had to leave otherwise I wouldn't get home. I had arrived at her place around 5pm. At this point I had turned OFF the volume on my cell to stop the incessant calls from my husband. I did not call him when I got to the bus stop, or the train stop. I got off at the usual station and started walking home. I was so drunk that I was weaving, vision beginning to haze over. I was dangerously close to passing out, not to mention I was walking in a sparsely populated area, right near the woods.
Not the smartest thing I've ever done. It turned out that my hubby had called said friend and asked where I was. She said I had gone home about 45 minutes ago. So in a panic he hopped in the car, heading to Vancouver to find me. As it happened, as I came around the first corner there he was in his care, getting ready to turn also. So I hopped in the car. We had a discussion I believe about how this was not okay, most definitely NOT okay. I can't remember most of it. Or any of it really. I DO remember waking up the next morning and feeling like death. As I opened my eyes and blinked, my hazy memories of the night before came back and I began to cry. Deep hard sobs, I cried for almost two hours, the intensity of it varying between snuffles and those wracking sobs. So I got up, brushed my teeth, grabbed a glass of water and sat in front of my computer, rabidly reading AA literature. I had done almost all those things that an alcoholic does when trying to remain ignorant to their problem. I'll only have 3, I'll only drink beer, I'll only drink with people I trust to tell me to stop. Which of course was just shifting the responsibility of my actions to someone else. When my husband came home from work I told him I was not going to drink anymore, and that I would be going to AA. This was not the first time he had come looking for me when I had disappeared on a binge, but I vowed to myself and to him that it would be the last time. He said he didn't think I was an alcoholic, but he would support me. Bless his heart. Over this past year he has been able to admit that yes, I have a problem. he did not drink for the last year either, saying it was an act of solidarity and support for me. Which I greatly appreciated.
Being a practising Pagan I did, and still do, had issues with the heavy monotheism present. But I choose to look to my Higher Power. My Gods, Ancestors, and Beloved Dead to guide me. The steps are still useful, regardless of what name they use for God. This has, unfortunately made it hard to go to meetings. I've only actually gone to one meeting and that was a speakers meeting. I keep telling myself to go to a beginners meeting. But maybe after a year of sobriety I should just go to a regular meeting.
Regardless I am immensely proud of myself for making it this far, one day at a time.
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
It's been a year since I took my last drink and it seems fitting that on this day that I reflect on the steps I have done. Like coming full circle.
June 30th, 2010 was not the first time I had admitted this to myself. Well to be specific I had admitted I had a problem, but not that my life was unmanageable. "I can control it, I'll only have one and that's it, I have a problem but I will be okay.". This time though I knew not only that I was powerless over alcohol but that YES my life had become unmanageable. I was working at a catering company in Downtown Vancouver. A friend of mine lived only two blocks away, she was one of my drinking buddies. I was not in a good place mentally. I hadn't been for some time. I had miscarried in November 2009 and rather than actually feeling my grief, embracing it and then letting it go, I tried to drown it in booze. I had been thinking obsessively about drinking for almost a week. A little voice in the back of my mind, whispering, pleading, demanding. I had told my dear husband that I would be visiting for about an hour and then I would be home. The thing was I KNEW if I went to her house I could get beer, and if that ran out we would always get more, the liquor store was just a few blocks down the road. Two hours and 3 or 4 drinks in, my husband called me to ask if I was alright and when I was coming home. I said I would be leaving in 15 minutes. Which of course did not happen, such was the nature of my binges. The rest of the evening is lost in a haze. Around midnight I realized I had to leave otherwise I wouldn't get home. I had arrived at her place around 5pm. At this point I had turned OFF the volume on my cell to stop the incessant calls from my husband. I did not call him when I got to the bus stop, or the train stop. I got off at the usual station and started walking home. I was so drunk that I was weaving, vision beginning to haze over. I was dangerously close to passing out, not to mention I was walking in a sparsely populated area, right near the woods.
Not the smartest thing I've ever done. It turned out that my hubby had called said friend and asked where I was. She said I had gone home about 45 minutes ago. So in a panic he hopped in the car, heading to Vancouver to find me. As it happened, as I came around the first corner there he was in his care, getting ready to turn also. So I hopped in the car. We had a discussion I believe about how this was not okay, most definitely NOT okay. I can't remember most of it. Or any of it really. I DO remember waking up the next morning and feeling like death. As I opened my eyes and blinked, my hazy memories of the night before came back and I began to cry. Deep hard sobs, I cried for almost two hours, the intensity of it varying between snuffles and those wracking sobs. So I got up, brushed my teeth, grabbed a glass of water and sat in front of my computer, rabidly reading AA literature. I had done almost all those things that an alcoholic does when trying to remain ignorant to their problem. I'll only have 3, I'll only drink beer, I'll only drink with people I trust to tell me to stop. Which of course was just shifting the responsibility of my actions to someone else. When my husband came home from work I told him I was not going to drink anymore, and that I would be going to AA. This was not the first time he had come looking for me when I had disappeared on a binge, but I vowed to myself and to him that it would be the last time. He said he didn't think I was an alcoholic, but he would support me. Bless his heart. Over this past year he has been able to admit that yes, I have a problem. he did not drink for the last year either, saying it was an act of solidarity and support for me. Which I greatly appreciated.
Being a practising Pagan I did, and still do, had issues with the heavy monotheism present. But I choose to look to my Higher Power. My Gods, Ancestors, and Beloved Dead to guide me. The steps are still useful, regardless of what name they use for God. This has, unfortunately made it hard to go to meetings. I've only actually gone to one meeting and that was a speakers meeting. I keep telling myself to go to a beginners meeting. But maybe after a year of sobriety I should just go to a regular meeting.
Regardless I am immensely proud of myself for making it this far, one day at a time.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Head Coverings
I've drawn to the idea of head coverings for quite a few years now. Besides having a small amount of knowledge on The Amish and Quakers, I didn't really know a thing about it. One day while I was out perusing the Interwebs for information on how to live frugally, I found the website of a woman who besides being incredibly good at stretching her dollar, wore a head covering on a daily basis. Now, no offence meant to anyone of course, but if you read her page you would notice right away that she was very right wing and very devout in her faith. Nothing wrong with that really. But when one has been a practising Pagan for 13 years I found it a little disconcerting that I was so interested. It was one of those "AHA!" moments. Now I know that just because I am not a Christian or a Muslim for that matter, that I am forbidden to wear something like that for Spiritual reasons as well as practical. But I'm big on not stealing bits of another persons culture just because I think it's cool.
The majority of information out there pertains to Christian and Muslim faiths, and as stated above, I do not want to be a culture vulture. I have found information on the Irish and the Scots wearing head coverings, but it seems to have come about during the conversion of the Celts to Christianity, or LONG after they had already been converted. So I could say that yes, there is a cultural basis for my desire to wear a head covering. But as I said, I'm a Pagan, and I am very conflicted. I HAVE found a few blogs written by Pagan women who practice this, but I've yet to find any other information. So, I am on the hunt. Would love to hear comments, ideas, etc. on the subject. I'm open to all ideas at this point.
Pretty much since I was a 16 year old I have worn some sort of head covering regularly. In my more tomboyish days it was a baseball cap, then I switched over to bandana's. Most of the time I would have my hair in a bun and tuck all the end bits in. Sometimes I would put my hair in a ponytail and let the bandana be a veil of sorts. I do still wear a baseball cap from time to time, I have an awesome Seaforth Highlanders of Canada hat. And just the other day I bought this awesome green had since I seem to have misplaced my other one that I bought last year. Besides being army green(one of my favourite colours) it only cost me $2. What's even cooler is that I bought a scarf at the same time that was also $2 and matches the hat perfectly. Earlier this year my Mum gave me some money from the inheritance that she had gotten when my Grandfather had passed away on October 3, 2010. With some of that cash I bought myself a great shawl, brown and black with a paisley design swirling about it(have I mentioned I have a rabid love of paisley?). It was after I began wearing this one regularly that I realized how much I like it. I've also discovered "snoods", which I think may be my new favourite word, which are like veils/bandanas but they capture ALL your hair up. Which is awesome, because all Spiritual issues aside, my hair is damn unruly sometimes, and getting it all tucked up makes me happy.
Here is a perfect example of why I'm having issues:
The reasons I have for wanting to wear a head covering have NOTHING to do with my submission to anyone, the Gods or otherwise. The passage above deeply offends me, but to each their own I suppose. Then I found this quote, which cover a lot of the reasons as to why I want to do this.
Now this is a positive take on the whole head covering thing. I have also found forum posts and such berating women for wearing head coverings. That's my thoughts for today on this topic. I'm sure there will be more in the near future. And as I said above, and comments, ideas, etc. would be greatly appreciated!
The majority of information out there pertains to Christian and Muslim faiths, and as stated above, I do not want to be a culture vulture. I have found information on the Irish and the Scots wearing head coverings, but it seems to have come about during the conversion of the Celts to Christianity, or LONG after they had already been converted. So I could say that yes, there is a cultural basis for my desire to wear a head covering. But as I said, I'm a Pagan, and I am very conflicted. I HAVE found a few blogs written by Pagan women who practice this, but I've yet to find any other information. So, I am on the hunt. Would love to hear comments, ideas, etc. on the subject. I'm open to all ideas at this point.
Pretty much since I was a 16 year old I have worn some sort of head covering regularly. In my more tomboyish days it was a baseball cap, then I switched over to bandana's. Most of the time I would have my hair in a bun and tuck all the end bits in. Sometimes I would put my hair in a ponytail and let the bandana be a veil of sorts. I do still wear a baseball cap from time to time, I have an awesome Seaforth Highlanders of Canada hat. And just the other day I bought this awesome green had since I seem to have misplaced my other one that I bought last year. Besides being army green(one of my favourite colours) it only cost me $2. What's even cooler is that I bought a scarf at the same time that was also $2 and matches the hat perfectly. Earlier this year my Mum gave me some money from the inheritance that she had gotten when my Grandfather had passed away on October 3, 2010. With some of that cash I bought myself a great shawl, brown and black with a paisley design swirling about it(have I mentioned I have a rabid love of paisley?). It was after I began wearing this one regularly that I realized how much I like it. I've also discovered "snoods", which I think may be my new favourite word, which are like veils/bandanas but they capture ALL your hair up. Which is awesome, because all Spiritual issues aside, my hair is damn unruly sometimes, and getting it all tucked up makes me happy.
Here is a perfect example of why I'm having issues:
Question: "Should Christian women wear head coverings?"
Answer: 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 addresses the issue of women and head coverings. The context of the entire passage of 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 is submission to the God-given order and "chain of command." A "covering" on a woman's head is used as an illustration of the order, headship, and the authority of God. The key verse of this passage is 1 Corinthians 11:3 "But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." The implications of this verse are found in the rest of the passage. The order is: God the Father, God the Son, the man or husband, and the woman or wife. The veil or covering on the head of a believing Corinthian wife showed that she was under the authority of her husband, and therefore under submission to God.
Within this passage is also verse 10: "For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels." Why is that important to angels? The relationship of God with men is something that angels watch and learn from (1 Peter 1:12). Therefore, a woman's submission to God's delegated authority over her is an example to angels. The holy angels, who are in perfect and total submission to God, expect that we, as followers of Christ, be the same.
Found HERE
The reasons I have for wanting to wear a head covering have NOTHING to do with my submission to anyone, the Gods or otherwise. The passage above deeply offends me, but to each their own I suppose. Then I found this quote, which cover a lot of the reasons as to why I want to do this.
Most often to pagan gatherings or rituals I just wear a long scarf tied around my head and let the ends drape. Speaking of gatherings, I was shocked by how many pagan women cover in some way or another - I'd say at least one out of three, if not more, were covering in one way or another at the summer gathering I went to this summer, and the group of pagan women writing about the topic on a popular forum I visit, exceeded ten pages of replies, all of them along the lines of, "wow, you cover too? I had no idea! I thought I was the only one who did! I feel so powerful when I cover!" etc etc. I think it's really telling that so many pagan women have independently reclaimed head covering as a source of feminine power. (Incidentally, covering when you leave the house and letting your hair down at home also beautifully delineates the home as a safe, sacred spot to come home to after being out in the wider world.)
Found HERE
Now this is a positive take on the whole head covering thing. I have also found forum posts and such berating women for wearing head coverings. That's my thoughts for today on this topic. I'm sure there will be more in the near future. And as I said above, and comments, ideas, etc. would be greatly appreciated!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Healing trauma through violence
I found this today on Feministing today and was fascinated and intrigued. First I'll give my thoughts, then feel free to go read the article.
First off is the warning: This post will involve some pretty intense triggers for those who have experienced rape. Also a note to my family members who may read this, it does involve my sex life, so unless you feel the need to know these things, you might want to NOT read it.
There's a lot of things about domestic violence that they don't tell you. A lot of the information given to young women in school is incredibly inaccurate and misleading. I know this because I was one of those girls who believed it. In school they tell you things like, "If he/she hits you leave them, it's abuse." or a million variations thereof. Or "If he/she calls you a bitch and puts you down all the time, that's verbal/emotional abuse, leave!". What they don't tell you is that not all forms of abuse are so blatantly obvious, I think this is true in MOST cases of violence within a relationship. They don't speak of silent manipulation, the implied threat of violence, or how easy it is for "smart independent women" can so easily fall into that sort of relationship. Again, I know this because I was there, in the thick of emotional, physical, and sexual violence. I've never spoken publicly about this. VERY few of my friends and family members even know it happened(well..I guess they'll know now), I haven't even spoken in depth with my counsellor about it, which I think we will have to cover if I ever want to get a strong hold on my anxiety.
Why did I not speak up you ask? Well, because of the very things that I was taught in school and from society in general. Besides being ashamed that I allowed myself to be controlled like that for so long, I honestly didn't think anyone would believe me, that they would tell me I was blowing things way out of proportion. Maybe because I'm getting older, putting the distance of years between myself and those experiences, that I now do not care whether people believe me or not. I feel that it is important that I step up and speak of these things so that other women in similar situations will be able to see that YES that is abuse, and YES you can leave, and YES your experience was a valid one, regardless of what society may imply.
It's been ten years since that dark 365 days of my life. It wasn't until about a year ago that I could even admit to myself that it WAS violence, that it WAS rape, and just because he didn't beat me bloody doesn't mean that it wasn't abuse. His control over me insinuated itself around me like fog, so silent, so stealthy that by the time I realized what was happening I felt trapped. That I had let things get this far, I had "made my bed" and was expected to "lay in it", as the old saying goes. By the time this year was over I had cut off almost all contact with anyone outside him, the strong sense of self worth and confidence in myself, even my sense of SELF, an individual with my own needs, desires, and dreams had been shattered and lay in a jumbled heap before me. It took a long time, years, and the support and comfort of dear friends and loved ones to get back. And now I still struggle with some of it.
He never hit me. Well, that's not true, he did, once. We were at a local Italian Deli and we were in the very back of the store, and I said something about the smell of the stinky cheese, apparently loud enough that he felt the whole store could hear me, and I suppose that embarrassed him. So he slapped me, not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough to get his point across, hissing the words, "Watch your mouth". I remember blinking, turning on my heel and walking directly outside. With trembling hands I lit a cigarette(I was a two pack a day smoker at the time), I remember pacing back and forth at the side of the store, anxiety blooming in my chest like some poisonous flower. I told myself that as soon as we got home, and he had fallen asleep, or maybe the next day when he was at work, I would call my parents, and have them come and get me and my things, to just disappear from his life. And then I thought of what he might do if he caught wind of what I was planning, as if he could read my thoughts. The fear that spread then was cold and hard, it took my breath away. By the time I had smoked three cigarettes in a row I had almost convinced myself that it hadn't happened. And by the time we got back to our apartment I had repressed the event entirely, and any traces if memory were quickly followed by the thought that I deserved it, that I should know better.
His control of me, the violence that he inflicted was invisible to most. No bruises, no black eyes, no openly public berating. There was never any blood or broken bones or trips to the hospital. And it was because of those reasons that I didn't leave, I told myself I was overreacting. I'm not sure when the sex went from "normal" to rape. I was willing at the start. All I know is that eventually it was an act expected of me, my pleasure was not important, I was a tool for him to use as he wished. He used sex as a weapon as well. To show me that I was HIS, and he held the reins. It was these acts, the rape, that took longest to admit to myself. Just because he was my boyfriend and just because I never said no, doesn't change what it was. It was a display of Dominance. One day I will write in detail the things he did, to share the burden, to help myself heal. But not today.
Now, how does this involve my current sex life? And how does this article relate? Well, to be blunt, I like it rough. The rougher the better. Not all the time of course, I still thoroughly enjoy what would be called "vanilla" sex, and I love it soft and slow sometimes. The soft and slow scares me a little sometimes. That is also a subject for later discussion. Now my ex did not instill this love or need of BDSM in me, it's always been there, just like my bisexuality. What I found though, after he and I were no longer together, the more edgy things I had liked before were MUCH more edgy. How strong hands on me makes me feel safer in a strange sort of way. A friend and I were discussing recently how and why people develop the particular kinks/fetishes that they do. There are a few I will never understand. Like a clown fetish. *shudders*. Have I ever mentioned I'm terrified of clowns? Or anything involving human waste. I'll never get that either. We found it intriguing though that it seemed very prevalent that the folks who liked it rough, who liked things such as rape fantasies, bondage, suspension, knife play, these sorts of things, were almost always survivors of some sort of violence and abuse. Now our theory for this was that we were taking traumatizing events and sort of reliving them in a sense, and attempting to turn a awful event and attach a positive interpretation to it. To give up your control, reenact them, but to know that if you said STOP that the person actually would, and after it was all over that same person would hold you tight and kiss you and tell you everything was ok.
SO, hence the reason I found this article so fascinating and validating.
HERE is the Feministing link
HERE is the original article over at GOOD
I'm Gonna Need You To Fight Me On This: How Violent Sex Helped Ease My PTSD
By Mac McClelland
* * *
First off is the warning: This post will involve some pretty intense triggers for those who have experienced rape. Also a note to my family members who may read this, it does involve my sex life, so unless you feel the need to know these things, you might want to NOT read it.
There's a lot of things about domestic violence that they don't tell you. A lot of the information given to young women in school is incredibly inaccurate and misleading. I know this because I was one of those girls who believed it. In school they tell you things like, "If he/she hits you leave them, it's abuse." or a million variations thereof. Or "If he/she calls you a bitch and puts you down all the time, that's verbal/emotional abuse, leave!". What they don't tell you is that not all forms of abuse are so blatantly obvious, I think this is true in MOST cases of violence within a relationship. They don't speak of silent manipulation, the implied threat of violence, or how easy it is for "smart independent women" can so easily fall into that sort of relationship. Again, I know this because I was there, in the thick of emotional, physical, and sexual violence. I've never spoken publicly about this. VERY few of my friends and family members even know it happened(well..I guess they'll know now), I haven't even spoken in depth with my counsellor about it, which I think we will have to cover if I ever want to get a strong hold on my anxiety.
Why did I not speak up you ask? Well, because of the very things that I was taught in school and from society in general. Besides being ashamed that I allowed myself to be controlled like that for so long, I honestly didn't think anyone would believe me, that they would tell me I was blowing things way out of proportion. Maybe because I'm getting older, putting the distance of years between myself and those experiences, that I now do not care whether people believe me or not. I feel that it is important that I step up and speak of these things so that other women in similar situations will be able to see that YES that is abuse, and YES you can leave, and YES your experience was a valid one, regardless of what society may imply.
It's been ten years since that dark 365 days of my life. It wasn't until about a year ago that I could even admit to myself that it WAS violence, that it WAS rape, and just because he didn't beat me bloody doesn't mean that it wasn't abuse. His control over me insinuated itself around me like fog, so silent, so stealthy that by the time I realized what was happening I felt trapped. That I had let things get this far, I had "made my bed" and was expected to "lay in it", as the old saying goes. By the time this year was over I had cut off almost all contact with anyone outside him, the strong sense of self worth and confidence in myself, even my sense of SELF, an individual with my own needs, desires, and dreams had been shattered and lay in a jumbled heap before me. It took a long time, years, and the support and comfort of dear friends and loved ones to get back. And now I still struggle with some of it.
He never hit me. Well, that's not true, he did, once. We were at a local Italian Deli and we were in the very back of the store, and I said something about the smell of the stinky cheese, apparently loud enough that he felt the whole store could hear me, and I suppose that embarrassed him. So he slapped me, not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough to get his point across, hissing the words, "Watch your mouth". I remember blinking, turning on my heel and walking directly outside. With trembling hands I lit a cigarette(I was a two pack a day smoker at the time), I remember pacing back and forth at the side of the store, anxiety blooming in my chest like some poisonous flower. I told myself that as soon as we got home, and he had fallen asleep, or maybe the next day when he was at work, I would call my parents, and have them come and get me and my things, to just disappear from his life. And then I thought of what he might do if he caught wind of what I was planning, as if he could read my thoughts. The fear that spread then was cold and hard, it took my breath away. By the time I had smoked three cigarettes in a row I had almost convinced myself that it hadn't happened. And by the time we got back to our apartment I had repressed the event entirely, and any traces if memory were quickly followed by the thought that I deserved it, that I should know better.
His control of me, the violence that he inflicted was invisible to most. No bruises, no black eyes, no openly public berating. There was never any blood or broken bones or trips to the hospital. And it was because of those reasons that I didn't leave, I told myself I was overreacting. I'm not sure when the sex went from "normal" to rape. I was willing at the start. All I know is that eventually it was an act expected of me, my pleasure was not important, I was a tool for him to use as he wished. He used sex as a weapon as well. To show me that I was HIS, and he held the reins. It was these acts, the rape, that took longest to admit to myself. Just because he was my boyfriend and just because I never said no, doesn't change what it was. It was a display of Dominance. One day I will write in detail the things he did, to share the burden, to help myself heal. But not today.
Now, how does this involve my current sex life? And how does this article relate? Well, to be blunt, I like it rough. The rougher the better. Not all the time of course, I still thoroughly enjoy what would be called "vanilla" sex, and I love it soft and slow sometimes. The soft and slow scares me a little sometimes. That is also a subject for later discussion. Now my ex did not instill this love or need of BDSM in me, it's always been there, just like my bisexuality. What I found though, after he and I were no longer together, the more edgy things I had liked before were MUCH more edgy. How strong hands on me makes me feel safer in a strange sort of way. A friend and I were discussing recently how and why people develop the particular kinks/fetishes that they do. There are a few I will never understand. Like a clown fetish. *shudders*. Have I ever mentioned I'm terrified of clowns? Or anything involving human waste. I'll never get that either. We found it intriguing though that it seemed very prevalent that the folks who liked it rough, who liked things such as rape fantasies, bondage, suspension, knife play, these sorts of things, were almost always survivors of some sort of violence and abuse. Now our theory for this was that we were taking traumatizing events and sort of reliving them in a sense, and attempting to turn a awful event and attach a positive interpretation to it. To give up your control, reenact them, but to know that if you said STOP that the person actually would, and after it was all over that same person would hold you tight and kiss you and tell you everything was ok.
SO, hence the reason I found this article so fascinating and validating.
HERE is the Feministing link
HERE is the original article over at GOOD
I'm Gonna Need You To Fight Me On This: How Violent Sex Helped Ease My PTSD
By Mac McClelland
It was my research editor who told me it was completely nuts to willingly get fucked at gunpoint. That's what she called me when I told her the story. We were drunk and in a karaoke bar, so at the time I came up with only a wounded face and a whiny, "I'm not completely nuuuuts!" Upon further consideration, a more explanative response probably would have been something like: Well. You had to be there.
"There" would be Haiti, where I'd just spent two weeks covering the one-year anniversary of the earthquake that shook the country into ugly chaos. There, a local regular at my hotel restaurant who is not accustomed to taking no for an answer had gotten desperate. After proposing for the 87th time that I have intercourse with him, he was grasping for anything that might change my mind, trying eventually, wildly, "We can do this at gunpoint if that sells it for you." And actually, it did, yeah.
There are a lot of guns in Haiti. Guns on security guards in front of banks and gas stations. Guns on kidnappers who make a living snatching rich people, guns on rich people who are afraid of kidnappers. Guns on the gang-raping monsters who prowl the flimsy encampments of the earthquake homeless. Guns in the hands of the 12,000 United Nations peacekeepers, who sometimes draw them too quickly in civilians' faces and always sling them carelessly across their laps in the back of UN trucks, barrels pointed inadvertently at your face while you drive behind them in traffic. On that reporting trip, I'd been fantasizing about precisely what the local guy proposed, my back against a wall or a mattress with a friendly gun to my throat. But the plan was vetoed about as soon as it was hatched, when I asked him if his firearm had a safety and he said no. Like I say: I am not completely nuts.
Not anymore, anyway. Last September, the first time I went to Haiti, I spent my first day out accompanying a rape victim we'll call Sybille to the hospital. The way her five attackers had maimed her in addition to sexually violating her was unspeakable. The way the surgeon who was going to try to reconstruct the damage yelled at her, telling her she'd got what was coming to her because she was a slut, was unconscionable. And the way Sybille went into a full paroxysm when we were on the way back to the post-quake tarp city she lived in was the worst thing I ever saw in my life. We were sitting in traffic and saw one of her rapists, and she started just SCREEEAMING a few inches away from my face, her eyes wide and rolling in abject terror.
I have coping mechanisms for this sort of thing. As a journalist who covers human rights, I spend a lot of time absorbing other people's trauma. I'd come to Haiti straight from four months on the Gulf Coast, where I'd been reporting on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Huffing crude fumes through long hot days was not made easier by the fact that I'd lived in New Orleans during Katrina and to this day don't own a piece of furniture worth more than $75 because of my weird disaster issues.
"It's okay to cry," said Meredith Broome, a brilliant Bay Area therapist who specializes in trauma, during one of our phone sessions that summer. I was having a weepy little fit because a white oil-spill worker threatened to lynch any black oil-spill worker who hit on me.
"Everyone's going to think I'm not tough enough to do my job."
"You don't know what Anderson Cooper does when he goes home at night."
The coping mechanism most applicable to my situation with Sybille was probably one Meredith taught me after I sat in a house full of fisherman's wives whose newly unemployed husbands were suddenly drunk and yelling at them all the time. It's the one where I try to visualize inhaling the distress, then exhaling compassion. Unfortunately, when Sybille turned around in the front passenger seat and started wailing, flailing and slapping her chair, I lost the ability to locate myself in space and time in the backseat. It's called dissociation, and is a common and quite unsettling response to extreme trauma. She eventually curled into a ball and grew quiet, tears still pouring down her face. But I could sense only a disembodied version of myself hovering somewhere behind me and to my left, outside my window. "Who are those people?" I could hear it asking. "What's that awful thing going on inside that car?"
I kept working. I stayed up late into the night at a displacement camp like the one where Sybille was snatched and then raped at gunpoint for two hours. By my second working day in Haiti, I was finding it alarmingly difficult to get out of bed in the morning, already having rape nightmares and, worse, daymares. And that was before one of the upstanding pillars of the Haitian elite, who insisted he was a gentleman because he loses his erection if a woman starts to fight him off, started to stalk me. On the third day, one of my drivers cornered me in an abandoned building, and I had to talk him out of his threats to touch me. On the third night, I got very drunk. That night, and the next nine nights.
I realize now that I was undone. Journalists put themselves in threatening situations all the time, but they rarely talk about the emotional impact. It's not easy to complain about the difficulties of being around trauma when you've chosen to be around trauma for a living, and it certainly isn't cool. When CBS correspondent Lara Logan went public that she was raped in Egypt five months after I returned from Haiti, most people reacted with the appropriate amount of horror. Some, though, blamed the reporter for putting herself in a risky situation, and for being reckless enough to enter one when she's so hot. No wonder it's a rarity for correspondents to discuss their pain, and practically unheard of when it regards sexual harassment or assault. The handbook of the Committee to Protect Journalists didn't even mention it—until 20 days ago, when the organization published an "addendum on sexual aggression."
If the handbook had a section detailing "symptoms of a journalist who really needs counseling and should probably go home," I would have fit the description. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stay sober. When the power went out, I just sweated in the stifling heat because I was too scared to open my windows even though they weren't the kind someone could fit through. When a French UN peacekeeper I'd met went AWOL to knock on my door, wanting to know, when I gladly unlocked it for him, please if he could kiss me, I couldn't feel him. Literally. I watched, confused, as he climbed onto me weightlessly, though he was clearly much bigger than I am. When we met again to say goodbye more than a week later, I grasped for anything concrete: my hands on his muscled, uniformed ass, my pelvis against the gun at his waist. Still, I could feel only something static and empty in the places usually occupied by my limbs. When he walked away—telling me he loved me, god bless 'em—I cried my face off.
I cried on the plane on the way back home to San Francisco, and within 24 hours of landing, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I cried while I was checking my email before work. I cried when I got to work and one of my coworkers said, "Hey! How are you doing?" I cried in the shower. I cried through most of a 1.5-hour yoga class. The crying was at least better than the gagging, which was similarly unpredictable and sent me running into bathrooms and heaving over the garbage can underneath my desk. Or spitting over the side of a sidewalk table at a bar with my best friend.
"Why don't I get some real problems?" I asked her. The shocking lack of sympathy I got from some industry people I talked to about my breakdown was only compounding my concerns that I didn’t deserve to be this distraught. "Editors are going to think I'm a liability now. What kind of fucking pussy cries and pukes about getting almost hurt or having to watch bad things happen to other people?"
"Dude," she said. "Marines."
For months, anything could trigger the sobbing or the heaving. But two things guaranteed it: One was any smell reminiscent of the raw sewage at the displacement camp, where I'd thrown up in my mouth and swallowed it. The other was masturbating. Having gotten increasingly concerned about my new habit of wincing when I thought about sex, I became determined to touch myself like a normal, wholesome person. One time, I managed to keep the bad thoughts at bay all the way until the end. But then, even with American sunshine flooding the yellow walls of my apartment, Sybille's screaming face burst into my head and I lay there, soft and failed, choking on instant hard sobs.
"All I want is to have incredibly violent sex," I told Meredith. Since I'd left Port-au-Prince, I could not process the thought of sex without violence. And it was easier to picture violence I controlled than the abominable nonconsensual things that had happened to Sybille.
Meredith was wholly unmoved by this.
"One tried but true impact of trauma is people just really shutting themselves down," she says when I interview her about it later for this piece. "Also, stuff comes up for people like the way it came up for you: Folks can have a counterphobic approach, moving toward fear instead of away from it. And sometimes people have fantasies like that after trauma, putting themselves in dangerous situations, almost to try to confirm with themselves that they were not impacted. 'Look, I did it again. It's fine. I'm fine.'"
It's essential, Meredith says, to address what's going on physically when trying to heal the mental stuff. She taught me to recognize that I hunker down and carry my stress and fear tight in my chest—say, when I'm endangered at work. During the Gulf trip, I'd taken a side excursion to Oklahoma for a story about some convicted ex-felons who once beat somebody to death with their bare hands at a party for fun. When they got drunk and handsy one night and suggested that I'd be pretty fun to pass around for lively intercourse, I fled into the rural darkness. One of them later invited me to "church," a sweat lodge on his tribe's reservation, where several hours of suffocating heat forced me to loosen the tension in my chest just so I could breathe. I returned to New Orleans much less anxious, if more harassed, than when I'd left.
But after I got home from Haiti, it felt like stress and fear were the only things holding me together. Relaxing my body, even just a little, shattered my tenuous emotional stability. Which is how I ended up naked and panting out loud to myself in the steam room of a San Francisco spa where people get $155 facials, "It's okay, it's okay, shhhh, you're okay."
"Being aware and understanding what's going on in your system and then literally working it through your body, like retraining your body how to calm down, is really useful," Meredith says. For many of her trauma patients, it's a long and intense process. And if it goes untreated? "A lot of people don't heal, and it manifests in a lot of different ways throughout their lives. There's a study they did with Vietnam vets who'd had—clearly—a lot of trauma during the war. Twenty years later, they measured their levels of pain before and after they showed them intense footage from Vietnam. Pretty much across the board, after they saw this really intense, violent footage from the war, their levels of pain went down. Because when trauma doesn't get to work itself through your system, your system idles at a heightened state, and so getting more really intense input calms your system down." Which is why, she explains, "A lot of folks who've survived trauma end up being really calm in crisis and freaking out in everyday life."
Under the circumstances, violent sex wasn't a matter of recreation for me. It was a way, one way, to help get better.
"Do you have anyone who can do that for you?" Meredith asked simply.
I've got an ex-girlfriend who'd be happy to slap me around for old times' sake, I told her, but I wasn't having rapemares about women. "Isaac," I said. We hadn't slept together in a while, and although we couldn't get along as a couple, we loved and respected each other, blah blah. So here I was making a date to catch up with him over fancy pizza, and then drinking tequila neat. And there I was asking him if this was a sleepover, right?, and being pretty nervous about what my stupid brain was going to do when he got into my bed.
As soon as we were making out, my violent feelings started welling up. "I'm gonna need you to fight me on this," I said.
* * *
We'd done this sort of thing before. But at dinner I'd told him, voice shaking, about my PTSD. This time, the fight would be rougher and the stakes higher. And so he paused. "Okay," he said. "I love you, okay?" I said, I know, okay. And with that he was on me, forcing my arms to my sides, then pinning them over my head, sliding a hand up under my shirt when I couldn't stop him. The control I'd lost made my torso scream with anxiety; I cried out desperately as I kicked myself free. But it didn't matter how many times I managed to knock him over to the other side of the bed. He's got 60 pounds on me, plus the luxuries of patience and fearlessness. When I got out from under him and started to scramble away, he simply caught me by a leg or an upper arm or my hair and dragged me back. By the time he pinned me by my neck with one forearm so I was forced to use both hands to free up space between his elbow and my windpipe, I'd largely exhausted myself.
And just like that, I'd lost. It's what I was looking for, of course. But my body—my hard-fighting, adrenaline-drenched body—reacted by exploding into terrible panic. The comforting but debilitating blanket of tension that'd for weeks been wrapped around my chest solidified into a brick. Then the weight of his body, and of the inevitability of my defeat, descended on my ribcage. My worn-out muscles went so taut that they ached. I stopped breathing.
I did not enjoy it in the way a person getting screwed normally would. But as it became clear that I could endure it, I started to take deeper breaths. And my mind stayed there, stayed present even when it became painful, even when he suddenly smothered me with a pillow, not to asphyxiate me but so that he didn't break my jaw when he drew his elbow back and slammed his fist into my face. Two, three, four times. My body felt devastated but relieved; I'd lost, but survived. After he climbed off me, he gathered me up in his arms. I broke into a thousand pieces on his chest, sobbing so hard that my ribs felt like they were coming loose.
In a few months, I'd feel ready to go back to Haiti. It would become pretty rare for a movie rape scene to trigger immediate, whiplash-inducing weeping. The flashbacks and the gagging fits would, for the most part, have ceased. A few months after that, I would report from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where every interview would be about sexual violence or murder, but I would function just fine. I'd see the French peacekeeper again in another country, where his big weight would feel appropriately weighty as I engaged him in absurdly sweet—like, European-earnest—sex.
But at the moment, Isaac pulled my hair away from my wet face, repeating over and over and over something that he probably believed but that I had to relearn. "You are so strong," he said. "You are so strong. You are so strong."
Where Does The Time Go
Goodness me!
I didn't realize it had been that long since I posted in this blog. I will definitely make up for this hiatus. I now have a fancy new phone that I can post from, so it will be MUCH easier for me to update.
So let's see, what has happened since November?
I went back to work in December of last year after a 5 month stress leave. Ignoring the fact you've had a miscarriage is really bad for your brain. I was working in sales for COBS Bread with my beloved husband, which I have now left. I have a new position at a local catering company called Citrus Catering, as the general office lady. Set schedule, weekends and holidays off, and I get to sit in a chair all day.
I've officially been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and the diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis has been revoked. My current rheumatologist is a douche, I am in the process of getting a second opinion. I don't doubt the Fm diagnosis, it's the "no arthritis" diagnosis I think is utter crap. So expect posts on FM in the future. I am keeping a blog of my symptoms at WordPress, I will add it too the list asap.
That being said, I will leave this post, and get on finding something interesting to post for you guys.
I didn't realize it had been that long since I posted in this blog. I will definitely make up for this hiatus. I now have a fancy new phone that I can post from, so it will be MUCH easier for me to update.
So let's see, what has happened since November?
I went back to work in December of last year after a 5 month stress leave. Ignoring the fact you've had a miscarriage is really bad for your brain. I was working in sales for COBS Bread with my beloved husband, which I have now left. I have a new position at a local catering company called Citrus Catering, as the general office lady. Set schedule, weekends and holidays off, and I get to sit in a chair all day.
I've officially been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and the diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis has been revoked. My current rheumatologist is a douche, I am in the process of getting a second opinion. I don't doubt the Fm diagnosis, it's the "no arthritis" diagnosis I think is utter crap. So expect posts on FM in the future. I am keeping a blog of my symptoms at WordPress, I will add it too the list asap.
That being said, I will leave this post, and get on finding something interesting to post for you guys.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Apple Butter
I've started going to the Winter Farmers Market in Vancouver. It is held in the parking lot of Nat Bailey Stadium, every Saturday. Not only is it a wonderful event that helps me support local farmers, supplies me with amazing produce and various goods, and helps to create a sense of community, I grew up right down the street. It's nice to wander the old neighbourhood and see how much has changed.
I'm planning on taking pictures next time to post on here.
This time of year there is an amazing selection of apples to be had.
So I decided to make some apple butter, I can never eat them all in time.
I also found this amazing Raspberry Honey, from the Fraser Valley, I believe the company is called "Jane's Bee's", I will double check. I wanted to do something nice with it.
I found the original recipe at www.bernardin.ca. I altered it only slightly.
You can find reliable water canning methods there.
Apple Butter
Yeild: 6 x 250ml jars
5 2.3 Kg (5 Lbs.) apples (I used a mix of Gala, Spartan, and MacIntosh)
1 cups (500ml) apple juice
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup (250ml) liquid honey (I used Raspberry Honey)
1) First step is to make apple sauce. Wash, core, and coarsely chop the apples. Bring to a boil in a heavy bottomed pot with the apple juice. Cook for about 20 minutes, mashing apples as they cook. Puree in a food processor.
2)Measure out 7 and 1/2 cups (1875 ml) of apple sauce, place back into pot with spices. Simmer for 30 minutes. BE CAREFUL when stirring! It will spit all over the place.
3)While this is cooking prepare your canner, jars, lids, etc according to usual water canning methods.
4)Add honey, simmer for another 30-60 minutes, butter will be done when a dark golden colour and it mounds up on a spoon, or when desired consistency is reached.
5)Ladle into jars and process according to usual water canning methods.
I'm planning on taking pictures next time to post on here.
This time of year there is an amazing selection of apples to be had.
So I decided to make some apple butter, I can never eat them all in time.
I also found this amazing Raspberry Honey, from the Fraser Valley, I believe the company is called "Jane's Bee's", I will double check. I wanted to do something nice with it.
I found the original recipe at www.bernardin.ca. I altered it only slightly.
You can find reliable water canning methods there.
Apple Butter
Yeild: 6 x 250ml jars
5 2.3 Kg (5 Lbs.) apples (I used a mix of Gala, Spartan, and MacIntosh)
1 cups (500ml) apple juice
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup (250ml) liquid honey (I used Raspberry Honey)
1) First step is to make apple sauce. Wash, core, and coarsely chop the apples. Bring to a boil in a heavy bottomed pot with the apple juice. Cook for about 20 minutes, mashing apples as they cook. Puree in a food processor.
2)Measure out 7 and 1/2 cups (1875 ml) of apple sauce, place back into pot with spices. Simmer for 30 minutes. BE CAREFUL when stirring! It will spit all over the place.
3)While this is cooking prepare your canner, jars, lids, etc according to usual water canning methods.
4)Add honey, simmer for another 30-60 minutes, butter will be done when a dark golden colour and it mounds up on a spoon, or when desired consistency is reached.
5)Ladle into jars and process according to usual water canning methods.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Changes
Hello all!
So life has thrown me some pretty intense curve balls this past year.
The loss of our first child(miscarriage), depression, anxiety, rheumatoid arthritis flaring up like mad, and then just recently my Grandfather passed away.
Needless to say I've been a bit preoccupied.
I WILL be updating this blog within the next couple of days. I might even change my whole theme. We'll see!
So life has thrown me some pretty intense curve balls this past year.
The loss of our first child(miscarriage), depression, anxiety, rheumatoid arthritis flaring up like mad, and then just recently my Grandfather passed away.
Needless to say I've been a bit preoccupied.
I WILL be updating this blog within the next couple of days. I might even change my whole theme. We'll see!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
ALTER NET/By Andy Wright
The 6 Weirdest Things Women Do to Their Vaginas
January 30, 2010 |
What's wrong with your vagina? If you answered "nothing," you're probably wrong. According to the beauty-industrial complex, it's ugly, and it smells bad. But don't worry-- there's nothing that money can't fix.
1. Problem: Your Vagina Smells Bad
Solution: Vaginal Deodorant
In the seventies, Massengill tried to marry feminism and its vaginal deodorant spray ("With Hexachlorophene") in an ad that declared the product to be "The Freedom Spray." It was "...the better way to be free to enjoy being a woman. Free from worry about external vaginal odor." Because you're going to need that time you used to spend worrying about your vaginal odor to flirt your way through the glass ceiling. Oh, and Hexachlorophene? It's a disinfectant that can be lethal when absorbed through the skin. In 1972, it was added to baby powder in France due to a manufacturing error and killed thirty-six children.
In case you think vaginal deodorant is a relic of the past, just take a trip to the drug store. (I did, and I took notes. The staff of my local Walgreens is convinced that I'm both very thorough and that my vagina smells really bad.) There are several kinds of vaginal deodorants still for sale (Walgreens even manufactures a generic version). You can buy scented vaginal suppositories called Norforms in Island Escape and Summer's Eve Deodorant Spray in Island Splash. (Norforms contain something called Benzethonium chloride, which is also used as a hard surface disinfectant for fruit and classified as a poison in Switzerland. Exotic!) And you can buy FDS (Feminine, Discreet, Sensual) Spray ("For the woman who cares.") in a myriad of scents including Sheer Tropics and Fresh Island Breeze.
Because if you really cared, you'd make your vagina smell like a poisonous island.
2. Problem: Your Vagina is Dirty
Solution: Douching
Douching, the act of forcing a mixture of fluids up into the vagina with a tube and pump, was first promoted as a form of birth control (it doesn't work) and has continued to be used for vaguely medical reasons: to prevent STIs (sexually transmitted infections), to clean the vagina after menstruation and, of course, to rid it of that disgusting vagina smell. Douching has been repeatedly discouraged by the medical community, which not only doesn't attribute any health benefits to the act, but believes that it can actually harm women. A government Web site run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services discourages douching by answering a series of hypothetical questions, one of which is: "My vagina has a terrible odor, can douching help?" The answer: No. Get thee to a doctor.
Despite health concerns, manufacturers still churn out vaginal douches. Pick up a box of Summer's Eve Douche, and you'll find warnings that douching has been associated with PID (Pelvic Inflamatory Disease), ectopic pregnancy and infertility. Right next to the suggestion that women douche after their menstrual period, after using contraceptive jellies and creams and to "clear out any vaginal secretions." So basically, any time your vagina isn't as dry as a British sitcom.
3. Problem: Your Vagina is Too Loose
Solution: Vaginal Rejuvenation
Let's face it. Nature really screwed up when it made the vagina. Never mind that that it accommodates the birth of a child or that it's fundamentally better designed than male genitalia. (Who wants to carry their most sensitive reproductive organs on the outside?) While nature was busy dishing out things like multiple orgasms, it forgot to make vaginas vice-tight. Luckily, plastic surgeons have stepped in to put an end to womankind's collective suffering.
Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation is a trademarked phrase that refers to a practice developed and popularized by Dr. David Matlock, who's made several appearances on the E! channel's plastic surgery reality show, Dr.90210. Matlock and other doctors who carry out LVR claim that the $4,000 to $20,000 procedure makes women's vaginas tighter, thus increasing sexual pleasure.
But many doctors disagree. The American Urogynocology Society won't endorse it. And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists cautioned in a 2007 statement that women seeking "designer vaginas" should be "informed about the lack of data supporting the efficacy of these procedures and their potential complications, including infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia, adhesions, and scarring." Sexy!
4. Problem: Your Vagina is Ugly
Solution: Labiaplasty
If your vagina is tight enough (and let's face it, it's probably not) you've still got to deal with the labia. And by "deal with," I mean remove. Labiaplasty drastically reduces the labia, the protruding lips that surround the opening of the vagina. Why would you want to do this? Because your labia are "unequal," "elongated," "large," "irregular," "floppy," and "unfeminine." These are just some of the unflattering adjectives bandied about on the Web sites of surgeons who offer this procedure. Luckily, with the use of lasers and scalpels, your vagina can be made "prettier," "better proportioned," "youthful," and achieve "the true Playboy aesthetic look." How much will it cost you to make your labia proportional and feminine? About $5,000 or more.
5. Problem: Your Vagina Tastes Bad
Solution: Vagina Mints
If your partner is reluctant to give you oral sex, it's not because of pervasive cultural belief that cunnilingus is complicated to the point of being impossible and that vaginas are inherently icky (thus the need to uncomplicate them and un-ickify them with, oh, say, labiaplasty) it's because your vagina tastes bad. Enter the Linger Internal Vaginal Flavoring, or Altoids for your vagina. Linger assumes you already feel bad about your nether regions, stating on its Web site that the mint-flavored pill "decreases self-consciousness" and tosses out the unattributed statistic that 72 percent of women feel self conscious about their taste and odor. Dubious marketing practices aside, the Linger mint isn't just a harmless, if asinine, oddity. Mother Jones magazine did some digging into the origins of Linger and discovered that the vagina mint is no different from a regular mint. In other words, it's made out of sugar. And putting sugar-based mint directly into your vagina is a recipe for a mint-flavored yeast infection.
6. Problem: Your Vagina is the Wrong Color
Solution: Vaginal Bleaching and Dying
Many women are under the impression that it's OK to have a vagina colored vagina. They're wrong, of course. They should be pink, and exceptionally so. What's a woman with a vagina colored vagina to do? Bleach it. Accomoclitic Laser and Wax Studio in Lakewood, Colorado, purveyors of an anal bleaching product called "Pink Wink," also sell something called Bleach Babe, a cream that promises to do away with the "natural discoloration surrounding the exterior of the vagina." Bleach Babe contains Kojic acid, the same ingredient that keeps salmon meat pink. South Beach Solutions sells a similar lightening product with Sodium hydroxide, which can also be found in drain decloggers and septic tank cleansers.
Meet the Scientists Who Think the G-Spot Doesn't Exist
Meet the Scientists Who Think the G-Spot Doesn't Exist By Dr. Susan Block, CounterPunch |
Monday, February 1, 2010
My EXTREME HATRED of Twilight continues, another installment in my collection of Twilight bashing! (It's mean of me I know...but I just can't help it...IT'S SO BAD!).
"Robert Pattinson was nominated as worst supporting actor for "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." Co-star Kristen Stewart is in the running for worst screen couple paired with either Pattinson or "New Moon" player Taylor Lautner."
See the full article HERE
"Robert Pattinson was nominated as worst supporting actor for "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." Co-star Kristen Stewart is in the running for worst screen couple paired with either Pattinson or "New Moon" player Taylor Lautner."
See the full article HERE
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Pakistan Eunuchs Get Own Gender
Pakistan eunuchs get own gender
Pakistan's Supreme Court says eunuchs must be allowed to identify themselves as a distinct gender in order to ensure their rights.
The eunuchs, known as "hijras" in Pakistan, are men castrated at an early age for medical or social reasons.
The court said they should be issued with national identity cards showing their distinct gender.
The government has also been ordered to take steps to ensure they are entitled to inherit property.
'Respect and identity'
There are estimated to be about 300,000 hijras in Pakistan and they are generally shunned by the largely Muslim conservative society.
They tend to live together in slum communities, surviving through begging and by dancing at weddings and carnivals.
A hijra association has welcomed the order, saying it is "a major step giving respect and identity in society".
Indian authorities last month agreed to list eunuchs and transgender people by using the term "others", distinct from males and females, on electoral rolls and voter identity cards, after a long-running campaign by the members of the community.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/8428819.stm
Published: 2009/12/23 16:29:47 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Army Sends Mom to Afghanistan, Infant to Protective Services
Found on ALTERNET.COM
This is so NOT right!
Army Sends Mom to Afghanistan, Infant to Protective Services
VENTURA, California - U.S. Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, was threatened with a military court-martial if she did not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for her 11-month-old son while she is overseas.
Hutchinson, of Oakland, California, is currently being confined at Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Georgia, after being arrested. Her son was placed into a county foster care system.Hutchinson was threatened with a court martial if she did not agree to deploy to Afghanistan on Sunday, Nov. 15. She has been attempting to find someone to take care of her child, Kamani, while she is deployed overseas, but to no avail.
The military backed off from deploying her on Nov. 15, after enough media attention came to Hutchinson's case. She is still to be deployed, likely immediately after she is able to find someone to care for her infant while she is in Afghanistan.
Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield, told the Associated Press he didn't know what Hutchinson was told by her commanders, but said the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for his or her child.
"I don't know what transpired and the investigation will get to the bottom of it," Larson said. "If she would have come to the deployment terminal with her child, there's no question she would not have been deployed."
According to the family care plan of the U.S. Army, Hutchinson was allowed to fly to California and leave her son with her mother, Angelique Hughes of Oakland.
However, after a week of caring for the child, Hughes realized she was unable to care for Kamani along with her other duties of caring for a daughter with special needs, her ailing mother, and an ailing sister.
In late October, Angelique Hughes told Hutchinson and her commander that she would be unable to care for Kamani after all. The Army then gave Hutchinson an extension of time to allow her to find someone else to care for Kamani. Meanwhile, Hughes brought Kamani back to Georgia to be with his mother.
However, only a few days before Hutchinson's original deployment date, she was told by the Army she would not get the time extension after all, and would have to deploy, despite not having found anyone to care for her child.
Faced with this choice, Hutchinson chose not to show up for her plane to Afghanistan. The military arrested her and placed her child in the county foster care system.
Hutchinson was scheduled to fly to Afghanistan on November 15 for a special court martial, where she then faces up to one year in jail. However, now the military has backed away from the threat, allowing Hutchinson more time to find someone to care for her child before she deploys.
There is currently no firm date on when that might happen.
Hutchinson's civilian lawyer, Rai Sue Sussman, told IPS, "The core issue is that they are asking her to make an inhumane choice. She did not have a complete family care plan, meaning she did not find someone to provide long-term care for her child. She's required to have a complete family care plan, and was told she'd have an extension, but then they changed it on her."
Asked why she believes the military revoked Hutchinson's extension, Sussman responded, "I think they didn't believe her that she was unable to find someone to care for her infant. They think she's just trying to get out of her deployment. But she's just trying to find someone she can trust to take care of her baby."
Hutchinson's mother has flown to Georgia to retrieve the baby, but is overwhelmed and does not feel able to provide long-term care for the child.
According to Sussman, the soldier needs more time to find someone to care for her infant, but does not as yet have friends or family able to do so.
Sussman says Hutchinson told her, "It is outrageous that they would deploy a single mother without a complete and current family care plan. I would like to find someone I trust who can take care of my son, but I cannot force my family to do this. They are dealing with their own health issues."
Sussman said that the Army's JAG attorney, Captain Ed Whitford, "told me they thought her chain of command thought she was trying to get out of her deployment by using her child as an excuse."
Major Gallagher, of Hutchinson's unit, also told Sussman that he did not believe it was a real family crisis, and that Hutchinson's "mother should have been able to take care of the baby".
In addition, according to Sussman, a First Sergeant Gephart "told me he thought she [Hutchinson] was pulling her family care plan stuff to get out of her deployment."
"To me it sounds completely bogus," Sussman said, "I think what they are actually going to do is have her spend her year deployment in Afghanistan, then court martial her back here upon her return. This would do irreparable harm to her child. I think they are doing this to punish her, because they think she is lying."
Sussman explained that she believes the best possible outcome is for the Army to either give Hutchinson the extension they had said she would receive so that she can find someone to care for her infant, or barring this, to simply discharge her so she can take care of her child.
Nevertheless, Hutchinson was and is simply asking for the time extension to complete her family care plan, and not to be discharged.
"I'm outraged by this," Sussman explained, "I've never gone to the media with a military client, but this situation is just completely over the top."
Friday, November 6, 2009
How I Realized I'm Bisexual
I love finding articles like this out of the blue.
Makes me all happy inside.
Maybe one day I'll write my own!
FOUND HERE
Makes me all happy inside.
Maybe one day I'll write my own!
FOUND HERE
How I Realized I'm Bisexual
Who doesn't remember their first crush? I was four years old; she was my Sunday School teacher, tall with pale skin and long sandy brown hair nipping just above her waist. I remember feeling excited by her, romantic toward her. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with her but I had fantasies of grandly sweeping her away to do...something.
When talking with gays and lesbians about when they first knew, it’s not uncommon to hear stories of early childhood same-sex crushes like mine. But I’m not gay, I'm bisexual—and I went on to have lots of boy-crushes, too.
Gemma, another twenty-something bisexual, remembers her early crushes. "When I was in first grade I remember having a dream where I was 007 (yes, James Bond) and I was surrounded by really beautiful women. I remember even then wanting to 'be' with them" she divulges.
I've heard a lot of women defend their heterosexuality by saying that women are just beautiful, like living pieces of art, their bodies are nice to look at. Clarisse has ogled breasts as long as she can remember. "I guess I always thought I was jealous of the pretty girl with the nice ass or perky boobs; it was that I was attracted," she says.
In regards to sex; anger, jealousy and disgust have all shown up in things I unconsciously really want. In high school I had one close friend, Alyssa. I wrote her heartfelt poems and she bought me thoughtful presents. We were so close we even bathed together, once falling asleep after getting out of the bath, side by side on her bed—naked, warm and wet. This relationship drove me crazy... but the madness was all pushed into my unconscious.
One night she went out to a party with a different girlfriend. The next day she called to tell me that she and this girl had gotten wasted and made out all night. I was fuming and felt.... decidedly disgusted. But the disgust barely veiled my jealousy and just beneath that were my sexual desires and intense feelings for this girl.
But was Alyssa also bisexual? We were in high school during the height of the Girls Gone Wild, "faux" bisexuality craze. I reserved a particular hate and disgust for the party girls in high school who made out solely in front of guys. Gemma agrees that the high school consensus was that bisexuals were just attention seekers. "I remember talking about bisexuality in high school with my friends and the agreement seemed to be that bi's were just nymphomaniacs that wanted to sleep with everyone, it had a very negative connotation" she says. Before I was out, it seemed I doubted everyone's bisexuality. Now, like many bisexuals I kinda assume everyone else must be bi and repressing it.
As high school dragged on, my sexuality began to peek out from my unconscious. I began to wonder out-loud in online forums about my bisexuality and flirted with girls on the Internet. Yet I still didn't consider myself bi. Between the negative connotations and seeing “straight” girls engage in more same-sex activity than me, I was very confused about my own sexual identity.
In the book Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality by Martin S. Weinberg, Colin J. Williams, and Douglas W. Pryor, bisexuality is measured by three variables: sexual feelings, sexual activities, and romantic feelings. And just because you don't have all three down doesn't necessarily make you straight. Yet during my teen years, I told myself that I wasn't bi until proven; how could I know unless I had the experience? But in my small hick town where no one in my high school was out, I was scared to make a move on any of the girls I had crushes on.
I can't help but wonder if the experience is different for suburban and urban teenagers versus rural ones. Clarisse grew up in the greater Chicago area, and was sexually active with girls by the age of 15. It was when she first hooked up with a girl that she realized she was bi.
Clarisse also came out in high school. "I was in the shower, and was 16—I told my mom about my ‘sexy’ slumber parties with my friend. I think it was because my voice was washed out by the shower, or maybe having the curtain covering my body, not being able to see my mother's facial reaction but, I felt accepted. Now, in the other times, when I've said, ‘Mom I have a boyfriend,’ it was, ‘oh, so now you're straight.’" Well, then I had a girlfriend and it was, "ugh, come on, you're NOT gay".
Xavier came out as bisexual in his early twenties. "When I came out, I expected some sort of reaction or acceptance—the deafening silence was surprising. I considered going back in the closet," he says. This silence somewhat mirrors my experience. My younger cousin Gabrielle had recently come out, and on Thanksgiving her Mother blabbed this piece of information to the whole family. When her Mom wouldn't let up over dinner, Gabrielle blurted, "she is bisexual too," pointing at me. My Mother gasped, then rolled her eyes at me, explaining it was just a phase. My bisexuality was never mentioned again.
Gemma experienced a different struggle for acceptance. She had been out as a lesbian since high school but it wasn't until she met her current boyfriend that she realized she was bisexual. "I remember a teacher in high school telling the class that bisexuals didn't exist, but were just gays or straights who couldn't make up their minds. At the time I might have felt the same way, because I identified as lesbian even though I found boys attractive."
Gemma started identifying as bisexual as she was falling in love with her now-boyfriend. After already coming out as lesbian, Gemma's friends and family accepted her bisexuality...well, except for those that fall into that 3-4 percentile range. "If anything...my gay friends are the ones who turned on me. Many of them vocalized to me that I was 'selling out' on the gay community and had never been a true lesbian. I was really surprised by these reactions, some gays are really intolerant of bisexuality."
This intolerance seems clear in the LGBTQ sphere, when I spoke with the PR person for The Center, Chicago's LGBTQ hub; he commented on how invisible bisexuals are in the community, saying that the center doesn't work with a lot of bisexuals or do much bisexual activism. Almost everyone I talked to reports having been told to "pick a side" and it seems that the high school view of bisexuality still exists. These very reasons are why Gemma chose a lesbian identity to begin with. "Honestly, I think I was always bisexual but was forced into the 'lesbian' identity because it is more accepted as a legitimate sexuality. Lesbians have their own spaces, books, music, blogs, lifestyle, etc."
Xavier also notices this hole in the LGBTQ community. "I don't really like the community, I don't think they have a very open-minded or accepting attitude toward bisexuality...surprisingly."
It seems that bisexuals are the redheaded stepchildren of the sexual spectrum, dismissed by our own community, unaccepted by our families, trashed by ours peers and over-sexualized by the media. Perhaps we should work toward being visible and active, re-claim bisexuality rather than calling ourselves fluid, or rejecting sexual labels. Yet it seems counter-intuitive to try to fit into a community that often does not recognize us, or doesn't seem to care.
Regardless of what happens to the B in LGBTQ, there is one thing for sure: it feels incredible to be bisexual and out. Clarisse mirrors this feeling. "Discovering my bisexuality was exciting. I was young and horny and just kept thinking, yes! I get to bang everyone!"
My bisexuality is pretty important to me. Coming out and being able to call myself bisexual has been one of the most freeing experiences of my life. For me, it was the beginning of loving and respecting myself. I could be me without shame or second guessing, if I could own my bisexuality, I could accept any aspect of myself . Coming out allowed me to explore more things about myself as a whole, my personality, my history, my psychology, my likes and dislikes as well as my fantasies and sexuality. It was exhilarating. I don't know what made me have a crush on my Sunday School teacher at age four but being bisexual remains a curious thing, I never know who may strike my fancy next, and I like that luxury of choices.
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