In general, I'm one of those people who thinks they should always shut up about their problems and experiences, because as far as I'm concerned, nobody needs to hear about my minor problems. Everyopne else has their own problems to think about, why should I dump mine on them too, etc.

Where that sort of thinking goes wrong is when you realise that you've either underestimated your problems or you're actually just covering up the true extent of what's happening. If you've experienced anything similar to what someone else is going through, telling them might even help them since they know it's not something they have to deal with alone.

So I suppose I should say this: I've always kept quiet about my experience of sexual assault and unwanted attention, and now I'm going to say something about it. It's actually very minor (there I go again) but I will explain my reasons for telling you all about it.

Firstly, the reason I've never said anything or only spoken about this as if it's not a big deal: I know people who have been raped. In comparison to that, anything I've experienced really is a minor event. I would never want to make light of what happened to them by telling them about 'this one time some guy felt me up in a crowded bar'. Nobody has ever physically hurt me or done anything to me that caused me long-term psychological damage.

However... those little things that have happened to me are signs of the attitudes that mean people get away with much worse.

I was sexually harrassed at work when I was a teenager- a guy I worked with thought it was okay to slap my arse in front of customers and make suggestive comments about me, and then had the balls to say that I should take it as a compliment. Excuse me? How is it a compliment to recieve attention like that AT ALL, let alone when you've told him that it freaks you out and that you already have a boyfriend? Anything you push on someone after they say no is not a compliment. It's an insult, because you're saying that their consent and freedom is not important to you.

At a party a friend of a friend decided to ask for a hug, and then grabbed my arse (clearly, there's something about my backside that gets morons going). Not a big deal at all, but the reason he gave for doing so was essentially that I obviously wouldn't mind because I had spent the evening with a group of guys, and I had kissed one of them. Wow, slut-shaming much? Kissing one guy out of a group which included most of my male friends apparently made me available to everyone, even if I was genuinely attracted to that one person and the others were just 'the guys'.

The one time I went to a nightclub- as opposed to a sticky-floored rock club where everyone wears DMs and leather- a complete stranger stuck his hand up my skirt. Okay, I was wearing a very short skirt, but it was fucking JUNE. And why should I have to justify what I was wearing anyway? The fact is, a man I didn't know came up to me and started to touch particular bits of me without asking. I don't even like being hugged without permission, and this person walked up to me and without saying a word started trying to get his fingers inside my knickers. I was freaked out, and got as far away from him as possible. I know now that what I should have done was told a bouncer and got him kicked out, but of course at the time I just wanted this random to stop.

So yeah, the things I've talked about here are minor compared to the things that happen to other people. But these minor things happen all the time, to all kinds of people- everything that happened to me was a straight girl and straight guys but it could happen with any combination of people, and it does happen like that. If you think it's okay to make unwanted advances, or you think someone makes themselves sexually available to everyone by consenting to the first steps of sexual contact with one person, or you think the way somebody dresses makes it okay for you to do whatever you want without asking... that is seriously fucked up. What you're saying there is that you don't see that person's consent as important.

If you don't see consent as important, you're condoning rape.

That might seem extreme. But I don't think so. If you're not going to take someone seriously when they don't want to be touched intimately in a public place, you're damn well not going to take them seriously if you're alone with them. Two of these three experiences I've shared happened with nobody taking notice of what was happening- or if they did notice, they weren't that bothered, because they never said a word. We need to start calling people out for this shitty behaviour, because if they're doing it where everyopne can see they're doing it where we can't, and that's when others get raped.

Yay!

US House of Representatives passes healthcare reform bill

It passed 220 to 215, which isn't much, but it's enough. It's nice to see that American politicians can do the right thing, as much as ours here in the UK are making things go tits-up again.

The thing that amuses me the most is the quote from Republican (but of course) Candice Miller:

"We are going to have a complete government takeover of our healthcare system faster than you can say `this is making me sick'."

And? What's so worrying about that? Works for, oh, I dunno- most of Western Europe. Then again, we also have gay marriage, higher education that doesn't cost 20K a year, secular society and occasional appearances from politicians who are actually left-wing. These are things that make Republicans shit their pants and tell their voters that Europe is full of godless Commie bastards who teach evolution, safe sex and fag-enabling in schools.

I mean, Europe is like that, but I like it this way.

Anyway, the bill is now off to the Senate, and hopefully it'll become law soon. It's not exactly a healthcare system yet, but it's a start. Good luck Americans, you guys deserve affordable medical bills- or none at all, but compromise will do for now.

Storm

I wanted to share this with you guys:

Storm- Tim Minchin

It's a beat poem I really like. It's funny, sweary and very clever. And, you know, Tim Minchin is awesome. I managed to find the lyrics online for anyone who's reading this at work/uni and can't listen to it. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

Inner North London, top floor flat
All white walls, white carpet, white cat,
Rice Paper partitions
Modern art and ambition
The host’s a physician,
Lovely bloke, has his own practice
His girlfriend’s an actress
An old mate from home
And they’re always great fun.
So to dinner we’ve come.

The fifth guest is an unknown,
The hosts have just thrown
Us together for a favor
because this girl’s just arrived from Australia
And has moved to North London
And she’s the sister of someone
Or has some connection.

As we make introductions
I’m struck by her beauty
She’s irrefutably fair
With dark eyes and dark hair
But as she sits
I admit I’m a little bit wary
because I notice the tip of the wing of a fairy
Tattooed on that popular area
Just above the derrière
And when she says “I’m Sagittarian”
I confess a pigeonhole starts to form
And is immediately filled with pigeon
When she says her name is Storm.

Chatter is initially bright and light-hearted
But it’s not long before Storm gets started:
“You can’t know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion”
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis-à-vis,
Some un-hippily
Empirical comment by me

“Not a good start” I think
We’re only on pre-dinner drinks
And across the room, my wife
Widens her eyes
Silently begs me, Be Nice
A matrimonial warning
Not worth ignoring
So I resist the urge to ask Storm
Whether knowledge is so loose-weave
Of a morning
When deciding whether to leave
Her apartment by the front door
Or a window on the second floor.

The food is delicious and Storm,
Whilst avoiding all meat
Happily sits and eats
While the good doctor, slightly pissedly
Holds court on some anachronistic aspect of medical history
When Storm suddenly she insists
“But the human body is a mystery!
Science just falls in a hole
When it tries to explain the the nature of the soul.”

My hostess throws me a glance
She, like my wife, knows there’s a chance
That I’ll be off on one of my rants
But my lips are sealed.
I just want to enjoy my meal
And although Storm is starting to get my goat
I have no intention of rocking the boat,
Although it’s becoming a bit of a wrestle
Because - like her meteorological namesake -
Storm has no such concerns for our vessel:

“Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy
They promote drug dependency
At the cost of the natural remedies
That are all our bodies need
They are immoral and driven by greed.
Why take drugs
When herbs can solve it?
Why use chemicals
When homeopathic solvents
Can resolve it?
It’s time we all return-to-live
With natural medical alternatives.”

And try as hard as I like,
A small crack appears
In my diplomacy-dike.
“By definition”, I begin
“Alternative Medicine”, I continue
“Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”

“So you don’t believe
In ANY Natural remedies?”

“On the contrary actually:
Before we came to tea,
I took a natural remedy
Derived from the bark of a willow tree
A painkiller that’s virtually side-effect free
It’s got a weird name,
Darling, what was it again?
Masprin?
Basprin?
Asprin!
Which I paid about a buck for
Down at my local drugstore.

The debate briefly abates
As our hosts collects plates
but as they return with desserts
Storm pertly asserts,

“Shakespeare said it first:
There are more things in heaven and earth
Than exist in your philosophy…
Science is just how we’re trained to look at reality,
It can’t explain love or spirituality.
How does science explain psychics?
Auras; the afterlife; the power of prayer?”

I’m becoming aware
That I’m staring,
I’m like a rabbit suddenly trapped
In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.
Maybe it’s the Hamlet she just mis-quothed
Or the eighth glass of wine I just quaffed
But my diplomacy dike groans
And the arsehole held back by its stones
Can be held back no more:

“Look , Storm, I don’t mean to bore you
But there’s no such thing as an aura!
Reading Auras is like reading minds
Or star-signs or tea-leaves or meridian lines
These people aren’t plying a skill,
They are either lying or mentally ill.
Same goes for those who claim to hear God’s demands
And Spiritual healers who think they have magic hands.

By the way,
Why is it OK
For people to pretend they can talk to the dead?
Is it not totally fucked in the head
Lying to some crying woman whose child has died
And telling her you’re in touch with the other side?
That’s just fundamentally sick
Do we need to clarify that there’s no such thing as a psychic?
What, are we fucking 2?
Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?
Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts?
That Michael Jackson hasn’t had facelifts?
Are we still so stunned by circus tricks
That we think that the dead would
Wanna talk to pricks
Like John Edward?

Storm to her credit despite my derision
Keeps firing off clichés with startling precision
Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition

“You’re so sure of your position
But you’re just closed-minded
I think you’ll find
Your faith in Science and Tests
Is just as blind
As the faith of any fundamentalist”

“Hm that’s a good point, let me think for a bit
Oh wait, my mistake, it’s absolute bullshit.
Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I’ll spin on a fucking dime
I’ll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!

You show me that it works and how it works
And when I’ve recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve Fancy That on the side of my cock.”

Everyone’s just staring at me now,
But I’m pretty pissed and I’ve dug this far down,
So I figure, in for penny, in for a pound:

“Life is full of mysteries, yeah,
But there are answers out there
And they won’t be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn’t life mysterious?
Let’s sit here and hope
Let’s call up the fucking Pope
Let’s go watch Oprah
Interview Deepak Chopra

If you’re going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool
because every time there’s a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The fucking janitor or the dude who runs the water-slide.
Throughout history
Every mystery
EVER solved has turned out to be
Not Magic.

Does the idea that there might be truth
Frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon
On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?

Isn’t this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
If you’re so into Shakespeare
Lend me your ear:
“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet… is just fucking silly”
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?!
I see trees of Green,
Red roses too,
And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
That’s ok.
But here’s what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant…
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
With good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties.

And if perchance I have offended
Think but this and all is mended:
We’d as well be 10 minutes back in time,
For all the chance you’ll change your mind.

I has moar stuffs!

So I added an extra little thing at the side there *points to the right* so you can read some of the things I read, if you're the sort to follow links endlessly and get all angry (which you probably are if you read this blog).

I dare say I'll add to it at some point. Most of the links are to blogs that do what I do, only better- Bad Science, Pharyngula, Feministe etc are examples of proper grown-ups doing proper jobs who somehow find time to write very well about important things. Pharyngula also has Cthulhu. There's some humour in there too. If you like inappropriate use of meme and laughing at people who insist that they didn't come from no monkies, Yahoo Answers has a marvellous (and immensely irritating) religion section. I go there to vent and make Star Wars jokes, which has somehow earned me OVER NINE THOUSAND points and a shiny orange badge.

I would have put things like the BBC there, but if you can't find the BBC website on your own you're the type of moron I spend all my time complaining about.

Go forth and click!

FFFFFFF

I just read several comments on the interwebs that made me get all shouty.

People were seriously comparing abortion to the Holocaust. Not trolling, not using /b/, being deadly serious.

I am so angry, I can't make a proper post.

"This is La-La Land"

Well, I lol'd. Thought you guys might find it funny too. And also terrifying, but mostly funny.

LOLOLOL

Those poor Americans, clearly even their TV channels are pointing out the nutters now.

Bodies

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last couple of weeks. I've been trying to write this one for a few days now but I keep thinking of new things to add. Unfortunately it's not one coherent post, more like lots of little bits all put together, but there is a theme- body image and bodily autonomy.

I've been reading various books, blog posts and news articles over the last week or so, including a book about sexuality and consent as well as some bits from the Guardian. Some of the stuff I'll talk about here is old, some is new, some is ongoing.

So yeah, lets talk about bodies.

Caster Semenya is already an award-winning sportswoman, aged 18. Recently, she won a race (she is a runner) and people began to comment on her appearance. Caster is quite masculine-looking; her facial features are quite androgynous, and she doesn't really have any breasts. Of course she is also muscular, but the same can be said of many other female athletes. Basically, Caster was accused of being a man running in a race for women. She has been sex-tested for this reason, and alleged results have been leaked. They say she is intersex. Apparently, she has no internal female reproductive organs and has testes instead of ovaries, which are giving her a testosterone level three times as high as that of a 'normal' woman.

Even if those results are correct, that does not give anyone the right to tell Caster who she is. Any advantage she gains from the extra testosterone is not enough to justify calling her a man or insisting that she should have her medal taken away and that she cannot compete- a man has 50 times the amount of testosterone in his body that a woman has in hers, three times the normal female level of testosterone pales in comparison doesn't it? Not only that, but at 18 years old we are all working out who we really are. To go through that process in the spotlight would be bad enough without strangers trying to decide the basics for you. Caster has been raised as a female, has female genitalia, and feels she is a woman. As far as I am concerned, she is a woman.

Interestingly, she had a photoshoot for a magazine where she looked very much like a normal young woman. So much for 'hurr that's obviously a bloke'.

Maybe she won't be allowed to compete after all- if that has to be the case because of a condition she has then that is sad, but I accept that's what has to be done. But whatever happens to her sporting career, nobody has the right to tell her she is a man. She is not. Intersex does not mean male unless you identify as male. Your genetic gender is not the only thing that decides who you are.

Jon also knows that. Ever since he was little, he knew he was a boy, but on the outside he wasn't. At 16, he is going through the process of changing from a female body to a male one, although he has chosen not to have operations to give him a penis. Does the fact that he hasn;t got a willy make him a girl? No. Physically, it used to, but now that he's having hormone treatment it certainly doesn't, and what about his mental state? Again, Jon's genetic gender does not determine everything about who he is. He feels male, he looks male for most purposes, so he is a man- at least, well on his way to being a man, he is only 16 so even being born male wouldn't make him a man at this stage.

Now for some slightly different issues.

Body image is a bit of a sore point for a lot of people- it's well known that this affects women but we mustn't forget about the men. Both sexes can suffer from eating disorders and body dysmorphia (where you think you look much worse than you actually do). Michael Jackson was a good example of how anyone can have these problems if they have been led to believe they're not good enough. People from all walks of life feel they will be happy if they just get rid of that last half-stone, or have bigger boobs, or have a smaller nose, or a bigger penis, or a tighter vagina. The worst thing about this is the narrow standard of beauty we're expected to accept nowadays. Not everyone is blonde and tanned. Not all women have measurements 36-24-36 or smaller. Not all men have a six-pack. And yet we're all supposed to aspire to that. Fuck that.

One specific aspect of this that really gets on my tits (no pun intended, surprisingly) is body hair. The current trend, apparently, is to be completely hair-free apart from whatever grows on the top of your head. There are 14 year old girls all over the internet telling each other to shave off all their body hair because hair is 'gross'. I understand that puberty is pretty weird and sprouting hair and lumpy bits is odd, but really? hair is gross? The worst bit is that these girls (and it is mostly girls) tell each other that it's necessary to shave your pubic hair because pubes are dirty and boys won't like you if you don't have a completely bald fanny. I find that very odd- if that's someone's personal opinion, fine, I have no problem with other people doing what is best for them. No, what weirds me out is the assumption that all men insist on hairless vaginas and that body hair of all kinds is disgusting.

Body hair, although it can look bloody horrible sometimes, is not disgusting. Get rid of it if you want, trim it, tidy it, keep it clean, but don't freak out over it. We all have personal preferences, but nobody has the right to decide what anyone else does with their body. By all means ask someone nicely, if you have sex with them, but I bet if you're shagging someone their leg stubble or monobrow is the least of your worries.

I actually think my body image is fairly good. I am a bit on the hairy side, but tough. The hair on my upper lip and lower arms is so fine that half of you lot probably never even noticed it. My leg and armpit hair grows overnight and it's black, but I've come to the conclusion that letting things grow slightly isn't the end of the world. I have better things to worry about, and it obviously hasn't put the gentlemen off that much. I have nice boobs. I have long legs that are pretty toned, which is weird thinking about what a lazy cow I am. My body isn't perfect, but it's functional (mostly) and it's a decent body to carry myself around in. The state of my pubes... well sorry to over-share, but yes, I've got some. They're tamed, because I don't want Ed to suffer, and it's more practical for me. When you're as hairy as I am (again, sorry for sharing too much) you do have to have a basic routine to make sure 'Aunt Flo's visit' is as easy as possibe. And also that you don't get blinded by your own monobrow.

I'm not even going to start on abortion or sexuality, I'll be here all day and you've all heard me go mental about those subjects... like the time I yelled at a pro-lifer in town for trying to give me an anti-abortion leaflet... yeah.

Basically what I'm trying to say here is that you and only you should have control over your body. You're wearing that bag of meat and gristle, you should be able to choose what happens to it. The thing that defines who you are is YOU. Not 'the media', not famous people, not those twats in school who called you fat or ugly. You. Remember, that also means you don't have the right to decide for somebody else either.

Don't want an abortion? Don't get one. On the other hand, if you do feel you need one, don't let anyone talk you out of it- get advice, get professional help, but make the final decision yourself.

Don't like sex that's with people of your own gender/the other gender/with more than one partner/on your own/kinky/vanilla/outside of marriage? Don't have it. If people are enjoying their sex lives, it is not your business to judge. Like some or all of those kinds of sex? Knock yourself out. Just be safe and always make sure there is enthusiastic consent. 'I suppose so' or doing it because you don't want to lose him/her is not healthy. And use a condom please (or other contraceptive method of your choice, assuming you're not trying to conceive- and by the way, the withdrawal method is fucking retarded).

Want a tattoo/piercing/green hair? Then get it. Want implants/a nose job? Then get them. Want to remove a patch of hair/grow it/make it into a pretty shape? Then do it. But always make sure that's what you really want to do, think about the outcome and question your motives. Doing something to yourself in order to please other people is not going to work out if it wouldn't make you happy on its own. If you wouldn't consider it as part of your life if a particular person wasn't around, maybe it's not a good decision. Or maybe they just inspired you. Whatever, you make your own mind up.

I'm sure there is a lot I could have said here, but that's enough for now. Comments as usual please, I'd prefer it if we didn't end up with an argument about how I'm a fag-enabler or a baby-killing liberal. Somehow I doubt it's going to go that route, but you never know!