I am feminist fail?

I'm alive! My grandma drove me somewhere, and I'm alive (I just wish I was rich enough to own a car, so that she would never drive me anywhere ever ever ever ever ever ever again...).

I think she thinks that appropriate gears and speeds are for fascists, capitalists and/or the under-85s. Which she thinks are all the same thing. Like first and fourth gear, in fact.

Firstly, I have the most awesome tattoo ever in the history of the world ever.

I hope that's clear. I also hope it heals well.

I've been watching people descend on this blogger with the understanding that they are, in fact, Hermione Granger and she is, in fact, a house-elf (the metaphor, applicably, of that man pseudonymously named Hagrid).

When she says "You are not Hermione Granger and I am not a house-elf", they say "well... well... you're a SLUT! Ha! Yes, a SLUT! And a BITCH! HA!"

Thus ends my detailed analysis of "sex-negative" - no, wait, YES sex-negative, also incredibly woman-negative, the-porn-industry-is-a-monolith, feminism.

I refuse to share a label with women who are so bitterly, evilly judgemental of other women (racism, transphobia etc. in the movement are a thousand million other posts... hell, could be a thousand million encyclopaedias).

"Female Chauvinist Pigs"? If you're living under a rock, this is a fairly new, popular "feminist" book in which the author, Ariel Levy, does NOTHING but insult and belittle other women (and some transmen/transmale genderqueers, for good measure).

Classy. That'll end male domination, I'm sure. That's just as useful as fighting for employment rights or reproductive freedom, fighting against rape or female genital mutilation... etc. etc. Those issues will take care of themselves!

Sadly, the issue is as old as feminism itself - no, hang on, Mary Wollstonecraft never wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Some Women, and A Great Long Bitch About Others" - OK, then, at least a few decades old.

My introduction? I was 15. I was wandering through Waterstone's, having just had my lip pierced at a shop around the corner. I thought "aha, I have never browsed through the feminist section before, even though I am feminist - I am feminist because it's evident that women are equal to men in worth, and they (I thought "we" at that point) are hardly ever treated like that is the case".

The first paragraph I read in the first academic book I skimmed through? All about how women were JUST DISGUSTING for having body piercings, tattoos, etc, because they were TORTURING THEMSELVES for male approval.

Yup, I loved all that male approval that my gothy appearance procured! All those beatings from boys at school, and all the street harrassment!

I'd assumed that other feminists had my back, and I had theirs - but I had the sense just to laugh at that particular author and assume that most feminists were lovely people, dedicated to gaining women every freedom.

Well... fuck that belief. Royally.

I know some people would think that I can't speak about these issues - I'm disqualified as I "quit" womanhood.

Look. If a woman says/writes, "I believe this..." or "This happened to me..." I listen. Intently. I assume that that woman is telling the truth. I mentally file the information away for future use. If the statement is my first example, a belief, I check that it does not contain blatant racism, misogyny or any other ideology that only exists to hurt - if it does not appear to, I accept it.

If a woman says/writes "Women all think", "Women all do", "A real woman would never"... they fail the misogyny test. Just as a man would, if he expressed the same sentiments.

So... do I call myself a feminist any longer? What do I call myself instead? I particularly won't call myself a "trans-positive feminist" because that implies that hatred of trans women is an optional feminist extra, like peanut butter on toast. Is "womanist" vastly culturally inappropriate, as I'm white and English? "Trying not to be a dick to women" doesn't roll off the tongue.

Wherein Olli is a hypocrite

Hokay, so - women who explain how you'll be SO GOOD TO YOURSELF and HAPPY and FULFILLED if only you think *just* like them...

Now, I know that the Powers that Be do that a lot, obviously, but it's somehow worse when given as friendly advice from people who should know better (supposedly feminist women).

Now, some could accuse me of hypocrisy - in the last year or so, I've told several women to leave partners/friends who were very obviously abusive. I haven't minced my words or abided by social niceties in any way.

Well, I might be a hypocrite, but I honestly don't care. There is a difference between women whose mental health is questionable owing to abuse, and women who are capable of making their own decisions. If you're the sort of "feminist" who doesn't agree, I will not start a dialogue with you, as *you* are deeply misogynistic.

So, Gareth and I are monoamorous, and I don't see that changing any time soon. Gareth's happy as he is, and I don't meet people as marriageable as him every day of the week. Or ever (if they were roaming the streets in dozens, we'd happily navigate a poly relationship).

Sexually, however, it's less clear-cut. If one of us wants sexual contact with someone, we have to gain both the consent of that person and our partner. If we don't get the consent of that partner, the other person must be immediately forgotten.

If I would feel jealous, I would say no. If Gareth would feel jealous, he would say no. If either of us didn't abide by a "no", we would be cheaters, the vilest of people.

If you think that you would sleep with EVERYONE IN THE WORLD in that kind of relationship, because it's AWESOME, you might be wrong... Our conquests each are seriously well in the lower half of single digits.

Because we don't fancy that many people.

And not many people fancy us.

And we both have lower than average libidos.

And we're both on the autism spectrum, so are unskilled in the art of seduction...

And we feel jealousy sometimes, like normal humans often do.

Now, we have rows and upsets. But they have never, ever been about anything to do with extramarital attraction, because we have the aforementioned arrangement, like, y'know, mature adults.

Why am I telling the world this? Because I don't want people to see me flirting with another human and think I'm cheating scum.

Because of not being cheating scum and all.

Also, I don't really like secrets - they resemble non-white lies too much.

On to this conversation, in which I have tried to break the arrangement gently to several people, all of whom have been women who are proud of being strong feminists who know their own minds:

"I wouldn't mind if Gareth slept with somebody else, as long as I'd consented beforehand,"

"Yes, you would. You would be hurt."

Well, as long as I know my own mind in this *purely hypothetical* situation that is, of course, *purely hypothetical* and has not been tested in practise in any way.

It always seems to be under a "we're all women here! And men are BASTARDS who will TAKE ADVANTAGE of you, ALWAYS, ALL MEN, ALL THE TIME, and you are an innocent little flower who couldn't possibly FIND THE IDEA ATTRACTIVE SOMETIMES because that would be like AROUSAL, and we're ACTUALLY IN EIGHTEEN-FIFTY-EIGHT" subtext.

And no, it's not different for me because I don't ID as a woman, and "gay men can do that sort of thing". Many women are consensually nonmonogamous! Many women are polyamorous! They are real women, not crazy loons who live solely in the imaginations of straight men.

Of course, females in poly relationships must have this nonsense much worse, and it must hurt worse because they're actually in love with their other partners. It's pure virgin-whore dichotomy patriarchal nonsense - and, of course, pure SEX! THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVAR! I WILL OBSESS OVER IT 4 U! disguised as "Honestly, these people are sex-obsessed".

Because we've *never* seen that attitude in sexism... homophobia... transphobia... everything that's bad.

On to happier subjects - we played D&D today, and had many encounters of the random (draconic) kind. And lots of food and good coffee. I need to do something nice for the people who made us all the food and coffee.

Interior Decor

I'm currently feeling like a rich person, as I'm staying over at my friend Luke's house - it's like a TV house, with a TV family in it.

I mean television, not transvestite.

And I don't mean the kind of television that's so prevalent nowadays, where the audience is invited to point and laugh at stupid people with rubbish lives... I mean fictional television, where everything is nice and shiny and pleasant and REALLY BLOODY EXPENSIVE.

*loses all genetic Commie leanings & desire to take archaeology (the paupers' discipline) any further*

Remind me to talk tomorrow about sexist pseudofeminists. "You think x, because all females think x! Don't treat yourself badly by saying you think y!"

Yes, I know that several people on my blogroll talk about the same thing more eloquently, but it's been affecting me personally more and more.

And I'll also talk about why I don't self-identify as an astronaut.

And link to an AWESOME AWESOME thing about the geek lifestyle.

bed now, kthxbai.