I love to masturbate. Sometimes I like it more than sexual contact with a woman. It’s private. I get to think about anyone and look at thousands of pictures either on the Internet or in my files on the computer. I’m usually a daily masturbator. Sometimes twice but most of the time once a day. It used to be much more chronic. I guess that I’m getting older.
I like to look at various photos and watch a variety of videos when I jerk off. A lot of the stuff I post on my blog here. I love pictures of girls and shemales in pantyhose. I love women’s feet especially in pantyhose, footjobs, handjobs, sneakers and CFNM (clothed female, nude male). I love Asian, Indian, Hispanic and white women. Sometimes I like jerking off to pics of girls I know or women on MySpace, facebook and other networking sites. I can get off just looking at their faces.
A lot of times I’ll open up multiple tabs on my browser with pics that turn me on and jerk off looking at all of them. Other times I’ll take a bunch of the pics that I have downloaded and create a slideshow and jerk off until I cum. Once in a while I become fixated looking at one particular photo and just jerk off looking at that pic until I cum.
I also jerk off using my “spank bank”. It take the images I’ve stored in my head of women I’ve seen through out the day or sexual experiences that I’ve had and think about that until while I stroke my cock until I cum.
These are the things I masturbate to. I think I’m going to go jerk off now. Maybe I’ll be looking at pics of you.
A common lament in believer – non-believer discussions is believers demanding respect for their beliefs or the sincerity of it and sometimes for themselves.
Non-believers, free-thinkers and atheists don’t seem to be as hung up on respect as believers are. Kinda like believers are way more obsessed with gay sex than gay people.
I think that this demand for respect stems from their authority fetish. The world view that believers tend to have is a rigid framework with a clear hierarchy of authority: god to to their religious leader, down through the priesthood ranks and finally to the laypeople. People who believe in a personal god, I suppose include some sort of hot-line that bypasses the other people between them and their god.
Many of the rules in religions are focused on submitting to various levels of higher authority – often starting with the parents to the religion’s priesthood ranks to god.
In Christianity, about half of the commandments are authority worship. And the purpose of authority worship is controlling people.
So, that makes it curious to me why anyone thinks that this is the basis for a moral code at all -which is a whole other blog – since there’s nothing about evaluating the authority for worthiness and no restrictions on the behaviour of said authority.
So it’s also curious – and a future blog on belief and hypocrisy – that so many of the isolationist and anti-government groups are right wing believers. So, they are failing the commandment idea that they hold most important.
So, when believers demand respect, they are really asking for submission. Unconditional at that.
Respect is earned, not bestowed.
Believers do not earn respect when they sincerely believe the atheist is going to hell, when they outright lie and misconstrue or are plain ill-informed about science concepts.
ID/Creationist Believers also insist on excessive proof – based on their misunderstanding science no less – to accept even basic science terminology and expecting to not have to provide any at all for their religious claims. They also fall into the trap of if science can’t prove something 100%, then all science must be wrong adn religion wins by default.
But that is a false choice and science is never about 100% certainty. It’s best conclusion given the information we have. When new information becomes available, it’s peer reviewed and the conclusion is revised.
So, it’s pretty funny that believers cannot handle ambiguity and change, yet they base their absolutist and certainty on religion, which has no evidence or proof and is entirely based on subjective feelings and personal preference reinforced by confirmation bias.
Believers also like to paint atheists as rude – as if this was the worst thing a person could be and pointing out that being rude is hardly on par with suicide bombers and shooting abortion doctors on the badness scale…. well, they don’t generally have a response for that.
The idea of respect in a conversion in which the believer is misrepresenting scientific concepts, dismissing religious people caught in controversies as “not real ones”, does not understand logic or debate rules as evidenced by the “You haven’t changed my mind, so I won” attitude and who sincerely believes that the atheist is going to an unpleasant afterlife – and enjoys that “fact”.
How can you respect any of that or the person spouting it?
How can the person spouting that party line of disrespect, who offers no respect for the conversation and the opposing participants, honestly expect to be respected?
I respect the right to opinions and expression of same. But that’s a blanket respect for rights, not people or their particular beliefs.
I also hold myself to the standard of having to earn respect for myself and my beliefs. If I can’t, by my conduct earn it or by my logic earn it for my belief, then I don’t have your respect.
And that’s okay with me, because my beliefs are not dependent on other people’s respect or acceptance.
We all have the same information or access to information. That we all draw different conclusions from that is what makes the world an interesting place.
Until someone insists that theirs is the only correct conclusion and worse, that it should be self evident to all expect the childish and immoral people like atheists, free thinkers, non-heterosexuals and really, even believers in other faiths or in other versions of their own faith.
And really, who is being the child in that situation?
_____
It’s also funny to me that the expression “With all due respect” is usually used to indicate that no respect is owed or forthcoming.
…but if my friend’s ex does stop spewing lies about her, I’m going to gut that bitch with a plastic spoon.
(Deep breath) Okay. Now that I’ve got that bit of violence out of my system, the story:
One of my good friends, Bell, is a lesbian and, quite honestly, very fussy and demanding. However, she is a decent person, wonderfully intellegent, and a loyal friend. She started dating this girl who, again quite honestly, was far too needy to be compatible with her. Which was mentioned to Bell on several occasions. But Bell really cared for this girl, needy and energy-draining qualities and all, and so myself and her other friends kept quiet. Well, mostly.
The relationship was pretty rocky, to say the least. Though, in all fairness, they both did put in a great deal of effort to make things work. The Girl did her best to be not demanding. Bell did her best to be more sensitive to The Girl’s needs. But things went south, fast. The Girl, literally, was draining the life out of Bell. My friend was reduced to tears some nights because she just couldn’t handle the massive guilt trip that The Girl employed. The Girl, I found out from some mutual friends, was in similar states due to Bell’s inability to drop whatever she was doing to attend to The Girl’s needs.
All friends involved in the drama advised our respective parties to end it.
Bell, eventually, put her foot down and did.
Chaos and tears flowed.
Now, about three weeks later, The Girl has started her own blog. The headline story? The debut post? About how “that bitch” had messed her up so bad, treated her awfully. She accused my friend of being emotionally abusive when I know (and everyone who has ever met Bell knows) that isn’t true. Bell did her best to make due with the problems a girl she cared about a great deal had. The fact that The Girl doesn’t appreciate this–Hell, the fact that she doesn’t even recognize this–is what angers me most. And the fact that she’s spreading these lies about her where anyone can read them… Well, yeah, that angers me too.
I don’t consider myself particularly violent. However, I’m protective of my friends. There’s is very little I wouldn’t do for them.
Wondering If I Should Invest In A Sharpener For My Sword,
I had a discussion with a young gentleman yesterday about a class we are in together. Specifically, we discussed an article by Wittig that argues that lesbians are not real women and that all women should become lesbians to remove the class distinction between men and women. Honestly, the details of that article are irrelevant to what is on my mind, but if you’re really curious about the article, let me know.
Anyway. So, I mentioned to him that I agree that lesbians are not women. Womanhood is a social construct and only in relation to men, so females who do not relate themselves to men are not women. During the conversation, the gentleman I was speaking with mentioned that it follows that gay men are not real men either.
At first, I agreed quickly. If lesbians are not women, gays are not men. However, I’ve been thinking about and I am unsure if that is a fair conclusion. Man is the absolute, the subject. Man is what is and woman is what is not. If man is the absolute, what makes one a man?
I have been so focused on what makes a one a woman that I seem to have entirely missed the question of what makes one a man. Since having a uterus does not make a woman, does it still follow that having a phallus does not make one a man? I imagine that it would be the embodiment of those male traits that women so aptly lack that makes one a man. But even this has its flaws given the assumption that man is the absolute. So which man? As man is the absolute, man is without flaw, does the actual nature of an individual man truly have anything to do with anything? While I have contended that manhood and womanhood are both social constructs rather than something biological and concrete, I have only argued for the sake of females as representing the “other”, the “negative”, and the “has not”. So then, what defines the “subject”, the positive”, and the “has”? Does the rule of lesbians being not women as they are not related to men follow that gays are not men as they do not relate to women? That seems to fail logically. Something that is positive is still positive whether a negative is presented or not. A hill is a hill even if there is no hole present. Perhaps that was a bad analogy. Moving on.
If men are both positive and neutral, and women are negative, then men do not require the identification of women to still be men. However, you cannot have a negative without the relation of a positive or neutral.
I pose that perhaps lesbians are not women as they are not related to the positive nature of men, this does not automatically mean that gay men are not men as a man does not need a woman to be a man. A woman, however, needs a man to be a real woman.
Every now and then I read something I’ve written and am shocked to find things that some would consider so against the female sex.
A lesbian high school student embroiled in a legal flap over her school’s prom policy has received a $30,000 scholarship on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
Constance McMillen was speechless Friday when the talk show host pulled out an oversized check from the Web site Tonic.Com, a digital media company.
DeGeneres says she admires McMillen for challenging Itawamba County School District rules that would prevent her from escorting her girlfriend to the prom. The school district canceled the April 2 prom after McMillen’s request.
A hearing is scheduled Monday in federal court in Aberdeen on American Civil Liberties Union efforts to force the district to hold the prom.
-”The BklynBandette.” Mr. Hollywood’s Co-Defendant.
First, a catholic parochial school kicked out two kids for having lesbian parents, then there was the gay prostitution ring involving Vatican ushers and of course the fact that the Pope himself is implicated in covering for a pedophile while he was Archbishop in Germany. I’m not sure whether to cry, laugh or be outraged. Perhaps I’ll be all three and let Jon Stewart handle the commentary.
Lacey Stone and Jessica Clark over on Sweat City, in their “Lesbian Love” video segment, have some advice about straight girl crushes and unrequited love:
LL 119 Straight-Girl Crushes from lacey stone on Vimeo.
Thoughts…
This was (and is) the story of my life, pretty much: I don’t haunt lesbian bars or parties (largely because I’m apprehensive about the prospect of dating someone who may be a heavy drinker) and so I end up crushing a lot (a lot, a lot a lot a lot) on women I encounter in everyday life, who are usually straight. Trying this approach worked very, very well for me for my first serious crush on a woman (or, to be honest, on most anyone), and has failed me systematically every time since, but that hasn’t stopped hope from springing eternal, and me from believing that somehow it’s “purer” or “better” to seek out queer women amongst the straight hordes. And at this point I’m so used to being shot down by straight women, and having queer women not be interested in me, that I’m pretty down on my chances. Lacey and Jessica address how it’s not, ultimately, productive to get emotionally tangled up with straight women (though, yes, it’s fun).
They make the point that it’s safe, too, “for both parties”, one I don’t really understand. Sure, it’s safe for me–I don’t have to deal with serious rejection (except for when they insist for weeks that they’re actually bi before it turns out they’re either fooling themselves or doing it to attract a boy–oh my, Tip, bitter much?). But how is it safe for the straight woman? One of my greatest fears is that I come off as somehow predatory (especially in the wake of my very bad relationship); I sit by and yearn, and don’t want to come off as manipulative or stalker-ly while I’m doing so, because women are, due to gender roles and societal expectations, in a vulnerable position. They/we are taught to fear crushes that don’t go away, or people who are a little too obsessive in their devotion. How is it different when it comes from a woman than when it comes from a man? (“Don’t judge yourself,” they say in the video, without explaining too much about what they mean–maybe this is it.)
They also discuss “sucking it up and telling them”, which, to be honest–and this might be a sign of my immense immaturity–I’ve never found to be a productive pursuit. Never mind the stigma that queerness still carries (and how subconscious stigma can be abruptly brought to the forefront when the person with the stigma is the crush object!)–the incredible (perceived?) awkwardness that ensues tends to be so overpowering that I feel compelled to all-but break off the “let’s just be friends” deal that follows, in a very definite version of the “distance” and “cord-cutting” that they mention in the video. I’ve lost more than a few friends by telling them I love them. At this point I’m not interested in losing more.
At this point, too–after so very long of trying to woo straight women, with no success!–I’ve found myself feeling increasingly pathetic and desperate. Any relationship–even dysfunctional ones with men–feels nice, simply because it fills a need and makes me feel loved. And every woman I crush on, ever, who seems to show the slightest bit of interest, ends up feeling like the last woman in the world.
It’s not a functional, happy, sane model. But Lacey and Jessica have some advice on fixing it.
Also: Lacey and Jessica’s wedding pic at the top of that link is adorable, and worth the click in and of itself.
ArtofTalk.TV sent me and Elisa to cover the FANTASTIC GLAAD Media Awards in New York City! The GLAAD Media Awards recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations in the LGBTQ community.
A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO ELISA S. for editing this FANTASTIC VIDEOS!!
Sadly, a northern Mississippi school district elected to cancel its junior/senior prom instead of following what is pretty well-set law.
Constance McMillan, a senior in the Itawamba school district did everything right in terms of approaching school officials first to discuss the issue. She was told “no” in several ways: she and her girlfriend couldn’t show up together, she couldn’t wear a tuxedo, and if she and her girlfriend made anyone uncomfortable, they would be asked to leave. The ACLU got involved, and rather than deal with a change in policy or a lawsuit, the school district up and canceled the prom, encouraging private citizens to hold events for the classes missing their big night.
The saddest thing about this is that instead of doing the right thing and letting her go to the prom, the school district has now demonized a child in the eyes of many of her classmates. When they don’t have a prom, they’re gonna remember that “the uppity dyke” was the reason. While the school won’t confirm this (d’uh), it has cited a disruption in the “educational process” as the reason for the cancellation. And now Candace has to go to school every day until graduation knowing that a good number of her classmates blame her for no other reason than she wanted to enjoy her high school prom as herself, not as someone she wasn’t.
What does “Woman-Identified” mean? I notice this distinction a lot when conversing with my 7-year old GrandDaughter. Because she is being raised in this, until recently, patriarchal world, her perception is most often male-identified. She sees all trees, puppies, plants, etc., initially as a “he.” In her experience, I am just the opposite. She says to me, “Grama, why is everything a She to you?” I answer her to say that it is because I am a womon, I have Daughters, I am a Daughter. I am most familiar with the world through a girl’s eyes. I image the world according to my female focus or world view.
My GrandDaughter, on the other hand, has not had the benefit of a lesbian lifestyle, as I have. I am a poet and I love wordplay. In my poetic mind, I am seeing little difference between the words Lesbian and Feminism. They are both, in practice and in deed, woman-identified or woman-focused. They are the closest thing to spiritual Truth that I have found in my lifetime. In fact, the definition of Feminism could be woman-identified solutions to world problems.
A poetic definition of Feminism which found its way into one of my poems a couple of years ago is, “The live and unfolding wholeness of divine human spirit.” This inspired definition includes both sexes, which I like because Feminism surely benefits men as well as women. Feminism gives all of us the benefit of an acknowledged common experience — whatever has happened to any one of us has surely happened to another person or many other persons, and that violations to our person have their roots in societal and cultural norms. Feminism also gives us all permission to be who we truly are without culturally defined roles to mutate or imprison us. I am a feminine woman who is independent, strong, becoming more muscled every day, and loves to sew, cook and take care of my “babies.” Myself being quite post menopausal, my babies are now adults — as well as the creative projects I birth, like designing websites, one of which I have created this blog for.
To continue,
What does “Sustainable Development” mean? The explanation I like to share is that sustainable development is what Peoples indigenous to the Americas call their spiritual way of life: “Taking the next Seven Generations into consideration in all that we do.” This is how they lived sustainably upon this continent for millennia longer than anyone has bothered to dig down deep to find evidence of. This is how we all lived upon this entire earth for millennia.
When I was volunteering as a liaison between Native Peoples and environment and development Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the mid to late 1980’s, I came across a United Nations Environment Programme and its document named “Man and the Biosphere.” As I read over this well-meaning document, indeed the best that man could come up with at that time, I became entirely aware of how men were proposing to save the Earth by designing strategies that benefited men, not Mother Earth. Coming from a female, and vicariously, an indigenous perspective, it was not too difficult to discover this with much clarity. At that time, both women and indigenous Peoples had been left out of development discussions. And at that same time, we were both being invited into the talks. Hence, my invitation to participate. I remember one afternoon at an international gathering in Costa Rica, feeling overwhelmed with sadness at the realization of how these mostly male scientists sitting around the large circular table had divided up the world so severely that they were never going to see the wholeness of Her body Earth.
The Man and the Biosphere (MAB) logo at that time illustrates their patriarchal, or power over, understanding of how the world works very well. When I approached a Native American elder with the MAB document, he actually jumped back in his chair just seeing the symbology: three pyramids, one atop the other, inside a circle. It took me some talking to get him to investigate the document further to discover what I had found: The cause of indigenous Peoples’ human rights violations had their root in resource exploitation. And, that inside this document, and inside these NGOs, indigenous Peoples could find allies and strategies to support their previous 13 years work at the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
The world and Indigenous Peoples have made some progress with regard to environmental racism, sovereignty and treaty rights. Indigenous Peoples have become integral to U.N. environment and development strategies. What these NGOs knew that this indigenous leader and I were both just coming to see the full circle of, was that women and indigenous peoples were being invited at the same time for the same reason: to bring sustainable solutions to environment and development problems that the world’s scientists could not solve. In deed, we women and an indigenous world view bring the same thing: an earth/woman-centered viewpoint from which to begin every act. This woman-centered, or woman-identified as I like to call it, worldview, is how the world works, how nature and the biosphere proceed and interact with all that is. And it is how we, humankind, are learning to go forward, sustainably: In respect of Mother Nature, Mother Earth — and each other.
At that time, in the 1980’s, the word “sustainable” was very new to the U.N. I remember a man from UNEP (U.N. Environment Programme) coming into our discussions and saying that he did not know what we meant by “sustainable.” To me it was simple, it is the way we lived in peace through millennia, and before patriarchy. It was how Goddess/woman-centered cultures lived everywhere on Earth, with no signs of war found anywhere in any archeological evidence older than 3,000 BCE.
I guess I could say that “woman-identified” and “sustainable development” mean the same thing, except that I do not want to leave out the important role that traditional indigenous Peoples bring to the table. I use the word traditional to mean Earth-centered, based on a culture older than 3,000 BCE. Indigenous Peoples have their own struggle with members of their Nations who identify with the corporate and government (tribal government and U.S. government) entities that exploit them. Not all native people are traditional, and not all women are woman-identified. But, we are all beginning to see the connectedness and divine quality of our lives here on this amazing planet Mother Earth.
Go on, peruse. Don’t be shy now! Ah. Her. You like her do you? Yes, she’s pretty. Okay now don’t stumble over that broken table, you know what you’re like after a few gins. Oh god and what-ever you do don’t stumble AND throw the drink, you don’t want a repeat of last time. Huh? No. That’s right.
Yes, that’s right walk over. You are a 2010 Fonze. Go on. Swagger. Yes, just like that. Perfect. You totes look like that hot chick everyone loves from that show. Yeah, you know the one that started that whole t-shirt craze “***** is my homegirl”. So lame right? Slame. Okay god don’t use that amalgam when you talk to her. Jesus. Oh shit. Wait you’re here already. Bugger. okay.
“Hi. Do you want to have a dance off to Mos Def or go for a cigarette with me? Yeah it’s SLAME you have to go to the designated ’smoking’ room in this house”
“…….”
——–Ten Minutes later ———
You looser, the one word I ask you NOT to use…. Thank god you have a good smile, that gin chat was rubbish. No, you’re right, it was like eating rubbish. Weldone [my name]. Yes, you can pat yourself on the back, maybe Not while you’re kissing her. Stop thinking, just enjoy the kiss. Oh god. Yes. That’s a nice tongue she’s got there. Okay, okay her hand is wondering, this is a good sign right? Oh fuck, you haven’t shaved. Why are you still wearing this fucking stupid rudeboy-come-east-London-cap. You look like a Shoreditch twat. Twat. Okay. Bye Bye London.
Yup, hello: ‘crotch alert, crotch alert!’. You’re on fire tonight. Rabbid with urges, calm down… she’ll think you’re a teenage boy. Shit, do you think she thinks that already?
————- tequila, more gin and some wine minutes later —————-
Oh yeah, what happened to that girl? This boy was engaging you with Philosophy. At a party. Well, okay you engaged him with rage. Stupid stupidhead. Pretentious babble.
Ooo, Hello. Yes her! She’s really nice. Yeah, you always knew I liked the blonds at drunk o’clock. You know me so well. Okay, let’s chat……
“blah blah blah drunky drunk”
“blah blah?”
“blah”
Yes, she is SO moving in for the kiss. Oooo yes. Now this one IS good. Pretty and smart. Didn’t she say she was studying medicine? Great, she can fix me later. Oh god, do you think she’ll fucking tell me to stop smoking? Bitch. Calm down, you’re drunk, just keep kissing.
“FUCK”
First girl has been watching the whole time.
Okay, second girl is clearly guilt-ridden. Bugger. Look at that face, I think she’s about to cry. You are such a dick. You know the rule. NEVER IN THE SAME ROOM. Okay, right you have to fix this. Oh where do you think you’re going? Don’t get up from the sofa. What the fuck are you doing? YOU’RE GOING TO TALK TO HER? Are you crazy? You’re crazy, I don’t know why I hangout with you. Fine. But this is your mess, you can clearn it up.
“Come over here, come sit down”
Well of course she’s going to be reluctant.
Are you God? She’s actually following you! I am taking a page out from your lady bible. Yeah maybe later, I’m too drunk now. Okay.
So what’s the game plan? Well they’re both here on the sofa with you now. What? No. No!
———————inane drunk chat——————
second girl leaves. Yes, you are a twat. She’s gone now. No threesome with you. And first girl? Yeah I think she’s going to punch you. Or slap? She looks like a slapper.
——————–some alcoholic beverage later———-
cupboard sex. Really? You’re 23. In fact 24 in less than a month.
CAUTION: This post will contain spoilers about the film Precious.
There is a ‘controversy’ over whether or not the Oscar-nominated film Precious (based on the novel Push written by Sapphire) is racist. I place the word controversy in quotation marks because I’m not entirely convinced it is a true controversy; I think it’s more of an overblown media contrivance. A couple of people wrote a couple of articles accusing the movie of being racist, and these articles then got repeated and appropriated and regurgitated in several different media (including blogs).
The other morning I tuned in to the CBC Radio 1 show Q hosted by Jian Ghomeshi. At the top of the show he hosted a debate between the writer of one of these articles, Ishmael Reed, and Cameron Bailey, a writer and the programmer of the Toronto International Film Festival. It should be said, because it’s an important nugget, that both of these men are black. (I’ll use the terms black and white, adopting Ishmael Reed’s usage.) Also, most of the actors in Precious, the director and main producer of the film, the author of the novel it is based on, and many of the film’s financiers are black.
I’m actually not writing this to weigh in heavily on whether or not the movie is racist. I’m more interested in the phenomenon of creating false ‘both-sides’ dichotomies. There is an effort in the media to appear fair and balanced (no evocation of Fox ‘News’ intended) by finding someone to argue ‘the other side’ of an issue that does not rightly have another side. For example, when celebrating the anniversary of the Apollo missions and the moon landing, it’s not necessary to balance out an interview with NASA scientists by hosting a conspiracy theorist who claims the moon landings were a hoax.
Furthermore—and this is the nut—if you are going to report on (or create!) a controversy, then have enough integrity to vet your guests.
Jian Ghomeshi and/or his producers at Q decided to have on one of the two men who created all the ballyhoo over Precious, Ishmael Reed, presumably without checking to see if maybe he’s a bit…eccentric. (Really I wanted to write nutjob-crazy-ass-freakazoid-hate-filled-bigot, but I’m trying to be polite and at least give this guy the benefit of the doubt. For now.)
If you read Reed’s screed (ha!) on Counterpunch, you’ll have little doubt that this man, far from being a balanced individual with apt intellectual opinions, is clearly a bigot. He comes off as a racist (he doesn’t like white people or black people who aren’t the right kind of black), a sexist and misogynist (he displays great disdain and disrespect for women), and a homophobe (he is baffled that a gay character could be presented positively). Also, I don’t know if there is a term for this (sizeist?), but he also seems to dislike obese people. Oh, and he questions the veracity of incest/rape victims, is a conspiracy theorist, seems to be a prude (expressing disdain for the prurience of thongs), is a bad writer, and is just a plain old bad arguer (he throws up mountains of non-evidence having nothing to do with his premise and often employs logical fallacies, his favourites being ad hominem and straw-man attacks).
These are heavy claims I’m making. Racist, misogynist, homophobe, conspiracy theorist. They are of course my opinion based on his words. But let’s take a look at the evidence and you can decide for yourself. I’m going to parse Reed’s screed:
“Seeing that no one had supplied women with panties that were meant to be visible while wearing low cut jeans, [Sarah Siegel] captured the niche and made a fortune. With five million dollars, she invested in the film Precious….”
This displays the aforementioned disdain for the prurience of thongs, and also the fact that Reed is a horrible arguer. How the hell does the fact that an investor made her fortune by selling underwear prove that the movie Precious is racist?
He also goes after Sapphire (choosing to out her real name, showing disrespect for her choice to have a pen name):
“…she joined in on the lynching of five black and Hispanic boys…. She made money, and became famous. They were innocent!)”
This is a completely separate issue from the movie, but Reed seems to enjoy using ad-hominem and straw-man attacks. This particular personal attack seems to be setting up the argument that because Sapphire wrote a poem about a case in which five men confessed to and were convicted of brutally beating and raping a woman in Central Park—men who later recanted their confessions and turned out to be not guilty—she is a bad person and a racist and that her book and the movie based on it are also bad and racist. I suppose that’s his not-entirely-logical argument.
A case analogous to the West Memphis Three, this is an excellent argument for tidying up the justice system and against the death penalty (there was no “lynching,” by the way—this is just a term Reed misleadingly employs). What it’s not is in any way related to the movie Precious, the book Push, or the supposed premise of Reed’s article.
(For those interested here’s a synopsis of the Central Park Jogger case Reed refers to.)
Okay, back to the Reed screed:
“Precious, about a pregnant 350 pound illiterate black teenager….”
Keep in mind this first mention of Precious’s weight—it’ll come up again. And again. And again.
“…the image of the black male as sexual predator has created a profit center for over one hundred years….”
I won’t argue that there is a problem in society with the demonization of black men (and non-whites in general), but I will argue that this movie is not about Precious’s father, who rapes her at least twice and impregnates her twice. The father is not a character. He’s not meant to be. He is not given a back story or even a face. He is symbolic. He is symbolic of a sad and true fact of life—that men abuse, rape, and oppress women with shocking and alarming regularity.
“But politicians, the KKK, Nazis, film, television, etc, had done the black male as a rapist to death.”
Okay, I understand this feeling—I really do. I’m queer and I could happily go the rest of my life without seeing another movie in which the gay character has to commit suicide, or be killed, or kill someone in the end. But if we strip away the colour, it is again a sad and true fact that men rape and abuse women with shocking and alarming regularity. It’s not limited to race. I don’t know how proportionate the representation of white versus black men as rapists is to the actual numbers of white and black men in the world. It likely is disproportionate.
However, this is a story about an uneducated girl living in the poorest of poor environments. This is a movie about poverty and what it does to people. And like it or not, the poorest people in most North American cultures are often black, aboriginal, Hispanic—in other words, non-white. Why is that? That is the real question.
“… which they saw as selling a black film to white audiences (the people to whom CNN and MSNBC are referring to [sic] when they invoke the phrase ‘The American People.’)”
Ummm…where’s the evidence for that? Do you have proof that CNN and MSNBC mean ‘whiteys’ when they refer to ‘The American People’? If you state something as fact, you’ve got to have proof. If you don’t have proof, then you have to qualify your statement as opinion.
“Three standing ovations… at Sundance convinced some of the business people that although white audiences might decline to support films that show cerebral blacks [such as] The Great Debaters…they would probably enjoy a film in which blacks were shown as incestors and pedophiles.”
While I do know that “incestors” is not a word, I do not know the intricate political, social, and psychological reasons that someone would choose to see Precious and not The Great Debaters. I know that the financial success of movies rides on promotion and hype—how much money is put into promoting them. I don’t think I saw a single preview or commercial for The Great Debaters, but I saw many for Precious. This doesn’t answer the question of why a studio would put money behind one movie and not another, but that’s a question for the studio heads I believe.
Here I will point out that Reed obsessively attacks Oprah Winfrey throughout his screed, who (along with Tyler Perry and others) is a financial backer of Precious. While Reed seems to indicate that Winfrey’s financial backing of the movie makes her an evil tool of white power, he says nothing of her also producing The Great Debaters. I guess that’s inconvenient to Reed’s chosen paradigm.
“…when Lionsgate’s co-presidents for theatrical marketing…said of Precious, ‘There is simply a gold mine of opportunity here,’ they were on the money. In an interview [Geoffrey Gilmore, director of the Sundance Film Festival] said that [Precious] might hit ‘a cultural chord’ because of all of the discussion about race prompted by the election of President Obama.”
Well, yeah. Sorry, dude, but welcome to the world of business and marketing. That’s it! It’s all about cynicism, manipulation, chasing the dollar, and using any political means necessary to rake in more and more of these dollars. I don’t particularly like that seedy world, but that’s what happens for every movie; it’s not some grand racist conspiracy—it’s business. The same thing happens whether a phone company tries to sell you a plan, a record label tries to sell you an artist, or Coca-Cola tries to sell you a Coke.
Reed doesn’t seem to have a firm hold on exactly what he’s arguing. Does he think the people who made the movie (black people) are racist? Does he think the people who financially backed the movie (some black, some white) are racist? Or does he just hate business and marketing? I’d be behind Reed if he were arguing that the money-grubbing politicking of marketing is icky. But that’s not his contention. He contends that the movie is racist, yet he keeps coughing up as ‘proof’ things such as the fact that the film had a marketing strategy.
Reed goes on to say that after learning about this marketing plan he wanted Sarah Siegel to change the name of her panty company from So Low to How Low. This is the second reference to the fact that one of the investors in the movie made her fortune from selling low-rise underwear. It’s also worth noting that Reed refers to Siegel as “Sarah” every time he mentions her, which is a clear if subtle indication of disrespect. The journalistic tendency is to refer to people by their last name in articles.
I have many favourite parts of Reed’s screed, but this is definitely among them—an entire paragraph describing Siegel’s appearance:
“…a manicured, buffed Sarah, who doesn’t go lightly on the eye shadow, looks better [than some right-wing, racist wingnuts Reed compares her to]. She is salmon colored and though middle-aged wears baby doll clothes and if you Google her name, Sarah Siegel, along with ‘images’ you’ll find her posing in photos some of which have blacks smooching her [sic].”
Really, need I say anything in response to this? It pretty much speaks for itself.
Okay, just one thing!
‘I would like to propose that the movie Precious is racist. My proof is that one of the financial backers of the film wears eye shadow and baby-doll clothes (whatever that means) and has even been photographed being “smooched” by black people. I rest my case.’
“Sarah Siegel has joined an innovative marketing plan that couples Obama’s name with the most extreme of sexual crimes.”
Whatthefuck? Somehow now Siegel, an investor in the movie, is being credited with creating the film’s marketing plan, and this marketing plan couples Barack Obama with rape?!?! Reed is the original Superman leaping tall buildings in a single bound! The leap he makes here is not only a complete trouncing of logic, but I’d go as far as saying that it’s potentially libelous.
Reed quotes Armond White, the other guy whose article arguing that Precious is racist has been bandied about, repeated, appropriated, and regurgitated. In his article White compares Precious to Birth of a Nation, a 1915 silent film based on the novel The Clansman, which promoted white supremacy and depicted the Ku Klux Klan as heroic.
This alone should be an erratic enough statement to discount Armond White’s article. But not only does Reed endorse and freely quote from it, he one-ups it, saying that Precious makes the director of Birth of a Nation “look like a progressive.” Yikes. Seriously. I need a coffee….
Okay, I’m back. Sigh, just in time for Reed’s denial of rape and incest, or at least his preference for keeping such things tidily under the carpet.
“Indeed, the business model for both the book [and the film]…was the black incest product, The Color Purple.”
Reed seems to deplore anyone shining a light on the fact that women and girls are raped and molested with shocking and alarming regularity. How dare someone tell a story about a woman being raped or molested!
In the Q debate Reed denies that incest occurs in the black community and lays an unfounded ad hominem attack on his arch nemesis Sarah Seigel, all in one fell swoop: “There’s probably more incest happening in Sarah Siegel’s group than in the African-American community.” I don’t know what “Sarah Siegel’s group” refers to—Siegels? Women? Financiers of films? Underwear designers? Hollywood types?
More from Reed’s article:
“But even that incest film doesn’t go as far as Precious, which shows both mother and father engaged in a sexual assault on their daughter in graphic detail….”
This is false. The scene that shows Precious being raped by her father is shocking and disturbing, but there is not much graphic detail. First of all, it’s out of focus. Secondly, it quickly dissipates into one of Precious’s escapist fantasies—her way of disconnecting from the reality of her brutal existence. The scene that insinuates the sexual assault of Precious by her mother is just that—an insinuation. It’s unambiguous, but it shows nothing.
“The naked black skinned man Carl of medium built [sic] who rapes a 350 pound daughter, who elsewhere in the film goes about flattening people with one punch….”
Definitely one of my favourite of Reed’s nonsensical yet illustrative ‘arguments.’ Here Reed alludes to the fact that a 350-pound teenager could not possibly be raped because…what? She’s too fat? He repeats this claim in the Q interview by saying, “Not only does the father rape a 350-pound woman…” and then trailing off into derisive laughter. To his credit, Ghomeshi calls him on this, asking if that fact stretches credulity. Reed does not answer the question. Not to his credit, Ghomeshi lets him get away with not answering the question.
This is vile, offensive, contemptible stuff. I can’t think of words to describe the derision I want to heap upon Reed. I want every feminist, social worker, rape or incest survivor, at-risk worker, teacher, counselor, psychologist, cognitive scientist, women’s shelter worker, V-Day warrior, women’s rights advocate, anti-violence crusader, etc. to descend upon Ishmael Reed and school him in the realities of physical/sexual violence against women and battered-woman syndrome.
Women of all shapes and sizes can be and are raped and abused with shocking and alarming regularity. To suggest that because Precious punched some kid in the face means that she could not be raped is blatantly absurd and clearly contemptuous. To suggest that she could have overpowered her attacker because she may have weighed more than him is to ignore everything we know about the psychology of abuse.
Reed goes on to refer to Precious’s father as “a vile prop,” “a person with no story and no humanity,” and quotes someone as saying that he is “the real victim of the movie.” Again, vile, offensive, absurd, contemptuous—these just don’t seem enough. Yes, clearly the “real” victim of the story is the rapist who isn’t given a full arc, as opposed to the illiterate, poor, chronically abused, raped, teenaged mother of two who is infected with AIDS by her rapist father. Sure thing.
As I stated earlier, Precious’s father is not meant to be a character in the movie; that’s the whole point—he’s symbolic. The story is about Precious, about the abuse and oppression of women, poor people, and minorities. The story is not about the father, his character, his motivation, his psychology, his back story. That would be another movie. Perhaps Ishmael Reed should write it. But this movie is about the victim.
I want to show respect but I can’t: Fuck you, Ishmael. Fuck you for denying that a large woman could be raped. Fuck you for deploring stories of women’s abuse. Fuck you for painting the rapist character as the victim. Check out these (U.S.) statistics from RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network): One in six women will be sexually abused in her lifetime. Every two minutes someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. About 73% of rape victims know their rapists. Only 60% of sexual assaults are actually reported. And only about 6% of rapists will spend a day in jail for their crime.
So fuck you.
Hey, how about we lighten the tone with some more unproven ad hominem attacks?
“TheRoot is The Washington Post’s black zine…. The zine’s black face is Henry Louis Gates, Jr…. TheRoot has provided cover for Precious probably because Gates is tight with Oprah Winfrey and wrote a kiss up book about her.”
This is an absolutely perfect example of the classic conspiracy theorist tactic: Anyone or anything that disproves your conspiracy is in on the conspiracy. The only possible reason that the “black face” (WTF?) of a black zine could support the film Precious is because the movie was backed by Oprah Winfrey and said “black face” is a Winfrey ass-kisser. (P.S., Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is also the U.S. Commissar of African American Culture.)
Reed’s conspiracy-theorist craziness is on further exhibit in the Q debate. Reed says that the only people who praise the movie are white critics, which Cameron Bailey refutes by saying that the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) showered the film with eight nominations and six awards. Reed says, “He paid for that. He gave them a million dollars. Tyler Perry did.” Incredulous, Bailey asks, “You’re saying Tyler Perry paid for those awards?” to which Reed answers, “Yeah.” Also incredulous, Jian Ghomeshi asks, “He bought the NAACP?” and Reed responds, “He gave them a million dollars.” Gotta love Cameron Bailey for realizing the absurdity of the ‘debate’ at this point, saying, “Well once we enter the realm of conspiracy theories, I have to just leave it there.”
More from Reed’s article:
“The white characters are altruistic types, there to help downtrodden black people and are among those who are to be admired.”
Maybe. I’m going to maybe allow this argument, but I’m giving it a 5% strength as it pertains to the film Precious. There are no white people in the movie. There’s Mariah Carey’s counselor character, whose race is questioned but never discovered. Every other character is black, although Paula Patton’s teacher character Blu Rain and Lenny Kravitz’s Nurse John are “light-skinned.” More on that soon.
“According to this film, if you’re a lucky black woman, a white man will rescue you from the clutches of evil black men.”
First of all, I repeat that there are no “white men” in this movie. Second, no one is “rescued” in any real sense. Precious is perhaps semi-rescued by a black (though “light-skinned”), female teacher who shows her respect and caring and provides her with an education for the first time in Precious’s life. That’s hardly an example of “a white man” rescuing her from “the clutches of evil black men.”
I’m not sure what Steven Spielberg’s admission that after reading The Color Purple he wanted to rescue Celie has to do with the question of racism in Precious, but it’s hardly surprising; it’s neither a white nor solely male instinct to want to rescue people who are being abused or oppressed. I felt this way when I read Bastard Out of Carolina and I’m a white woman—so was the character (her abuser was white as well). I have felt this way during every book I’ve read or movie I’ve seen depicting abused women or children. And sadly, there are many of them.
Oh, but Reed’s Steven Spielberg jag gets better:
“…while he has yet to make a movie about the Celies among his ethnic group.”
I’m assuming that by “his ethnic group” Reed is referring to Jewish people. And I can only laugh—truly, I laughed when I read this—because Steven Spielberg made Schindler’s List! A movie about the Holocaust, a genocide that killed millions of “his ethnic group,” both male and female. Oy vey.
Earlier I alluded to Reed’s obsession with not-black-enough black people and asserted that he’s a sexist, so here’s some evidence: Reed refers to Paula Patton’s character as “light-skinned” and someone “whom the camera favors.” He refers to Mariah Carey’s character as “firm” and “of the same skin tone.”
More on women: Reed refers to TheRoot’s female contributors, some of whom are professors, as “the types who are using the university curriculum to get even with their fathers….”
Wow. I don’t know for sure, but I would suggest based on the evidence in this article that perhaps Reed has some mommy issues he needs to work on with a therapist. Maybe they’re daddy issues, I don’t know, but he certainly seems to have a hate-on for women. How can anyone take this man seriously when he writes things like this?
Reed then goes on a tangent for a few paragraphs trouncing TheRoot some more and bringing up The Color Purple and Steven Spielberg again. It’s boring and has nothing to do with what is supposed to be his central argument. Although to be honest, I don’t know that he really has one. He purports to argue that Precious (the film and/or its marketing campaign?) is racist, but he seems to just be using that as a front so he can hate on women and light-skinned black people and fatties and queers (wait for it).
Reed condemns Precious for being “a film in which gays are superior to black male heterosexuals.”
Uh….
Okay. Okay, I get you. I’m with you. We all know (don’t we?) that “gays” are worse than every other segment of the population. How dare anyone make a movie in which the “gays” are depicted as superior to the black male heterosexual abusive rapist child-molester?
But wait! There’s more!
“Next to the whites, the male who treats Precious and her dysfunctional friends with the most understanding is John John, the Gay [sic] male nurse. (Lee Daniels, the Gay [sic] ‘director’ of the film once ran a nursing business.)”
Yep.
Okay:
1) Again, there are hardly any white characters in this movie.
2) Lenny Kravitz’s character John is not gay. The movie explicitly depicts him as straight.
3) The “light-skinned” teacher, played by Paula Patton is, however, a lesbian and her partner is a “dark-skinned” black person. Not sure how this fits into Reed’s paradigm.
4) I don’t know why Gay is capitalized suddenly, but I like it!
5) Lee Daniels is the director of the film. The quotation marks around “director” are Reed’s. I’m not sure why, although he seems to be implying that Daniels did not direct the film. Is it because he’s gay?
6) I am shocked—shocked!—that a film would contain a nurse character. And a male nurse at that! Lee Daniels once apparently ran a nursing business. This is clearly a conspiracy.
But wait! There’s more (on the not-black-enough or not-the-right-kind-of-black issue)!
“In this movie Caribbean Americans are smarter than black Americans.”
Shit on a stick!! How dare they?!?! What right do Caribbean-black Americans have being in a movie anyway, but then to have the gall to appear smarter than non-Caribbean-black Americans? It’s bullshit! It’s racist! It’s a conspiracy!
At this point I can’t ascribe any factual accuracy to anything Reed says, but he claims that Oprah Winfrey has only ever had a “few titles by black male authors” as part of her book club. This may or may not be true. If it is, then perhaps the title of Reed’s screed should have been “Oprah and sexism: Why so few titles in her book club have been written by men” (I’m not putting any more creative thought into it than that). That Reed seems to be accusing Winfrey of sexism is laughable given all that he has said about women, so I’ll take a page from Cameron Bailey and just leave it there.
Now Reed launches into an extremely long ad hominem attack on Oprah Winfrey, who is a financial backer of the movie. Reed actually quotes the writer of an unauthorized Oprah Winfrey biography, quotes a woman who attended a taping of Winfrey’s show, and contends that the “real” reason Winfrey is quitting her show is because of another unauthorized biography that isn’t even out yet! Reed’s love of the illogical, nonsensical, and unrelated ‘argument’ is here coupled with his disdain for women and overweight people: “Like her addiction to food, Oprah does well for a little while but she just can’t help herself.”
Again, what’s his argument supposed to be? The problem with responding to an article like this is that every single thing he says is ridiculous, false, and/or offensive. I’m going to skip through it quickly. Reed says many more absurd things, but none such that my head will explode if I don’t respond to them. Besides, they really speak for themselves.
Blah, blah, blah…some ad hominem attacks on The New York Times Magazine for liking Precious; a condemnation of the magazine for featuring Gabourey Sidibe, “the 350 pound actor in the title role,” on its cover (that’s the third reference to her weight if you’re counting); a reference to this cover story as “black exploitation;” a reference to the Times Op Ed page as the “Jim Crow Op Ed” page; a subtle conspiracy theory about the fact that Lionsgate spent money advertising in The New York Times; an ad hominem (and potentially libelous) attack on A.O. Scott; a comparison of the Oscar-winning film Monster’s Ball to porn; and a truly beyond-absurd and laughable rhetorical question: “When [Daniels] went on the set to exercise his role as ‘director’ did the white people who own the movie and provide the crew for this film call security? Hard to say.”
Mmm. Hard indeed.
Reed then starts to make what could potentially be a fair and cogent point about the lack of black voices in pop culture, art, and media, but then just can’t resist the racism and ad hominem attacks—he refers to the Times Op Ed writer Orlando Patterson as “the kind of Jamaican who has nothing but contempt for African Americans.”
Seriously, I am not making this shit up. How could anyone—anyone—read his nonsensical article and not conclude that Ishmael Reed hates black people who were born outside of the United States, hates light-skinned black people, hates women, hates overweight people, hates queers, and denigrates anyone who disagrees with him?!?!
There’s some more conspiracy theory stuff, too. Sapphire claims that Precious was a real-life person, but Reed implies that it’s not true: “Don’t you think that if such a person existed that [sic] Lionsgate wouldn’t [sic] include her in its marketing plan….” Despite your wretched grammatical construction, I do understand your rhetorical question and the answer is no—not if the real-life Precious did not want to be outed. And that’s even assuming she’s still alive. She did, after all, contract AIDS in the 1980s.
(In the Q debate Reed rehashes this, saying, “…if she were a real person, they would have brought her forth and paraded her around like a baby elephant or something.” Don’t think for a moment that this isn’t yet another anti-overweight jab.)
Hey! How about some more nonsensical ad hominem attacks? It’s been, what, two sentences since we’ve heard one? What’s that Ishmael? An ad for Precious appeared on your AOL home page you say? Please, tell me more about AOL’s coverage of black culture and politics since it’s so closely related to the premise of your article!
“Their coverage of black culture is limited to black NFL and NBA athletes who get into trouble outside of strip clubs.”
HA! Good one!
“Sapphire says that she was a former prostitute and a victim of incest (Lee Daniels does his pity party routine during the Times’ interview)…. In 1986, she began to ‘remember things.’ (Lee Daniels also ‘remembered’ abuse by his father.)”
I doubt that any woman has ever been a prostitute or a victim of incest. But even if this ridiculous supposition were true, why on earth would she be deserving of any compassion or sympathy? And how could she possibly have gone on to be a success in life? Furthermore, we all know that people who ‘remember’ being abused as children are clearly just vengeful adults trying to punish their parents for not buying them a car when they turned 16. Life can be so cruel!
Blah, blah, blah…more stuff that has zero to do with the movie. More ad hominems. More conjecture. Actually a pretty strong case against the death penalty. Some attacks on the F word (f-f-feminists!). More attacks on Sapphire. More attacks on Sarah Siegel. More bad grammar and writing (“…whose depiction of black men is worst than those…”). More equating of Precious to Nazis and the Holocaust. (Oh, and in the Q debate Reed tells a blatant lie: “There’s a subtle eugenics message at the end of the movie about sterilizing black women.” This is just not true.)
Reed then goes on a tirade in his article personally attacking NPR’s Terry Gross for liking Precious and for allegedly being racist (though providing no evidence). This is beautiful hypocrisy; check it out:
“When whatever is bothering Ms. Gross about black men gains entry in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, maybe the editors will name it after her. Gross’s Syndrome.”
Sure! And when whatever is bothering Ishmael Reed about women, rape/incest victims, white people, light-skinned/Caribbean/Jamaican black people, overweight people, and queers gains entry in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, maybe the editors will name it after him! ISHMAELIAN-REED SYNDROME, characterized by hate-filled, balls-out bigotry!
This has been a long post, I know. Thanks for riding it out (if you did). If you feel as strongly about this issue as I do, let your opinion be known. Post comments on articles. Write to Q and any other media outlet that has Ishmael Reed on as a legitimate guest.
Most importantly, raise the level of discourse. There are real issues buried somewhere here among Reed’s trite bile. There are serious issues about black representation and about the all-too-true state of affairs for women, poor people, and minorities. It sucks that the story of Precious is about a poor, forgotten, illiterate, abused, unhealthy, teenager who has slipped through the cracks, has been chronically abused and raped, and has never been truly cared about.
It sucks, but it’s a story that is lived out again and again every day all over the world. The fact that she’s black, that her story takes place in ‘the ghetto’ in the 1980s is just the setting. The abuse of women and children, the oppression of minorities, and the damage that poverty does are all real. They’re true. They happen to people. That a disproportionate number of these people are racial and sexual minorities is also true. This fact alone is evidence of systemic societal racism and sexism; a film depicting this is not inherently racist and perhaps may help shine a light where too long darkness has maintained the status quo.
Today’s Cincinnati Enquirer contains a Cincinnati Guerrilla Queer Bar one year anniversary story. The article — titled, “Mobile bar movement working for area gays” — details a popular policy at local bars: Only women are allowed to dance on stages. CGQB attendees have grappled with this policy and usually, by the end of the night, bouncers give up and let everyone dance on stage.
The comments section is starting to really heat up, as it normally does when stories like this are published, and here are a few of the noteworthy remarks:
Umm, LOL at Cincinnati?
CGQB visits a new bar on the first Friday of each month, the next queering being March 5. To stay informed on where we’re going next, join the Facebook group.
fantastic movie. when i think of my current situation with my girlfriend, that title always pops into my head. M’s mom seemingly doesn’t know about my relationship with her daughter. I’m sure if she knew that i know that she does know that her daughter and I more than friends there is no way in hell she would have invited me to live with them. as manipulative as M’s mother she thinks she’s playing the both of us. a couple of reasons i say that:
1. One night M came over to my place alone. We fooled around and she gave me a very visible hickey. that Sunday her mom invited me to go eat noodles with them. We hung out that day and i went to m’s place afterwards. M came downstairs and told me that her Mom had seen the hickey and asked her if she was the one who gave it to me. That’s how she found out about us.
2. since we met M has spent nearly every weekend at my house and whenever she is hanging with her mom she is usually texting or calling me. When M and her mom get into an argument, M threatens to move out. M told her mom about my trouble with my landlady and her building being foreclosed on and me maybe looking for another place to stay.
You put one and two together and you have the reason she asked me to move in with them. She knows M wants to live with me; she knows she can’t make it on her own financially and she won’t have anyone to live vicariously through if M moves out so instead of M moving out and leaving her with the full rent to pay, she moves me in. Nice.
I would love to think that maybe it’s just my overactive paranoid imagination creating this scenario, and she is doing this out of the goodness of heart, but from what M has told me about her and after meeting this woman i know that to not be the truth. this woman is gutter. And gutter knows gutter. She played her hand well and she’s good, real good, but she’s not me.
Summer ********** – “SO. On the way home from Disney, I smelled poop and envisioned Madilyn eating it so I pulled over and sure as $hiz, she’s got poop on her face and hands, eating it. Not kidding. She smiled at me as I gagged. I have “special” kids.”
- Question….. what the F*CK is wrong with you? Why would you do this? Did you drink a lot of malt liquor when you were pregnant? Cause there’s absolutely no excuse for posting this horrific update that will most likely make every guy want to chop his nuts off with a butter knife and every girl convert to lesbianism. I always wondered who was responsible for birthing The Garbage Pail Kids and now I know.
No, we’re not following in Sarah Palin’s footsteps. Instead Queer Networks is sponsoring this year’s Rogue Festival in the Tower District. We are donating advertising on our sites and email blasts to help promote this great cultural event in Fresno. This is probably one of the premier festivals in the Tower District and we’re glad to be helping such a fine event. The event organizers approached us a few months back and wanted us to help them get the word out. They have donated advertising and given us links to some of our blogs from the Rogue website and we’re super stoked to be one of their promotional partners this year.
If you want to check out some of the other sponsors for the event you can click here:
http://roguefestival.com/rogue2010/?page_id=453
Queer Fresno will be sponsoring and hosting the Friday night party on March 12th at Starline. It’ll be late because they’re having a performance there until 10pm but we’ll start letting people in by 10:30ish I’m sure. So come on out and party with us as Queer Fresno goes Rogue in 2010!!!
“You’re my ocean.” She said it so peacefully, so factually, and left it at that.
Sardonically, I thought, “What, ‘cuz I’m drowning you?” Instead, I waited a few beats and ask, “How’s that?”
She thought for a moment. Licked her lips in contemplation. “I don’t know. You just are. Your emotions are like the tides. You can be so destructive and rough, like the waters in a storm. Or you can be calm and beautiful. But either way, you always put me at peace.”
Those might be the most beautiful, honest words anyone’s ever spoken to me. I want them to be written into our wedding vows, whenever that day comes. She’s the only person who can take my voice away.
In re-reading the words she said to me, I realize that typing them out on a screen does them a harsh injustice. She’s not a words person. She’s a numbers person, logic and reason. Words, for her, are cut and dry. Use them to say exactly what you mean. Which often doesn’t lend itself to poetry, though today, it clearly did.
The other night, she told me, “When I marry you, I already have our rings picked out.”
What? When?? What happened to If?
Girl reads me well. “I mean If.” She smirked. “If I marry you. The company that made my vintage wave ring is still around. They do custom designs. What I want is gonna cost about $5,000 for the both of them. Waves with little diamonds.”
I looked down at the ring on my finger now. I wear it on my right ring finger, saving the left one for the Real Ring. Thought about how that ring ended up there… one week ago, I went out without her. She said, “I trust you,” and put her ring, one of her most treasured possessions, on my finger to keep me “out of trouble,” she said with a smile.
I told her she wasn’t getting it back. Got her a new wave ring from work.
Then the conversation about the rings, the custom rings that will cost us $5,000.
“We’re never getting married, are we?” I joked. “With the rings and the lavish Mardi Gras party and costume dress, it’s a wonder we’ll ever get the money!”
I thought the wave ring was a great idea because she used to surf, and her love for the waves has never gone away. She misses the Pacific Ocean. I love the ocean myself, and water is one of many things that binds us together.
It didn’t hit me until today just why wave rings would be so meaningful at our wedding. She’d never said words like that to me before. I’m her ocean….
I asked her, “If I’m your ocean, and you know how destructive I can be, then why the hell do you provoke me?!?”
She grinned, shrugged her shoulders.
And then it came to me. “Because you’re a surfer girl, and you like to ride the waves. You need that rush… and the calm that comes after.”
So after I was ‘laid off’ I decided the best thing to do would be to go back to school, enter a new profession that I could actually tolerate….I’ve been in the same industry for over twenty years and this last place I worked was home to the most morally bankrupt bunch of human stains I have ever encountered. So now I’m enrolled in school and I like it, I have friends who turned out to be professional students, they just keep getting degrees and grants and certificates..is it too late for me to become cocooned in the world of higher education, I think I’m in love.
Today I got the contents of my personnel record sent to me, I was curious to see if the shit smeared pennies that I used to work for would add some negative evaluations to the file just to bolster there case against me….I was surprised to find that they did not..heres what i dont understand about unemployment.. if unemployment finds me lying about ANYTHING they will take back all the money that they gave to me..if an employer is found to be lying nothing happens to them and thats crap, the employer is lying TO A GOVERNMENT AGENCY hello? But I am going to see my attorney next week and we’ll talk all about that im sure.
So, on a personal note I have a cold, not a bad one, Ive been fighting it with vitamins and beer, staying away from the gym for a few days, hopefully will get back to working out tomorrow afternoon…I also have to get back to mediating and practicing qi gong which is moving meditation, its helped me alot…but I’ve been distracted, well thats not true, not distracted just feeling sorry for myself that needs to end. Tomorrow is Friday which brings me great joy not so much as it used to when I was working for the Flying Ass Monkey Circus but it still makes me happy. It’s been raining here for the past two days and that makes me happy too, I love running in the rain makes me feel part of the weather not just an observer…
How about some music, Aimee Mann is a brilliant songwriter (my opinion) heres another one that could be my theme song…have a wonderful Thursday
M and I met a little over 6 months ago after she responded to an ad I placed. I was about a month out of a relationship and she was 5 months out of one. At that point I was just trying to meet some people to take my mind off the fact that I had just been dumped. Wasn’t looking for anything serious.
I was talking to a few people when she and I started exchanging our little getting to know you emails. I remember hers were always very short and to the point. Sometimes only a few words long. I was used to paragraphs. I learned that she was a half-white, half-Korean 26 year-old Mother of two. Yep: RED FLAGS! I never felt comfortable dating anyone younger than me and I had sworn off relationships with anyone who had kids after the break-up before the last break-up. But for whatever reason we kept talking and a few days later we had our first phone conversation.
I found her to be very real. She wasn’t trying in any way to impress me and she gave everything to me straight and I found that refreshing. Very different from the other women I was talking to. We made plans to meet. She didn’t want to do the typical dinner and a movie, but rather meet at my place. We did. She brought the kids along and it was awkward as hell. The kids were comfortable in my place, but M and I barely looked at each other. She was tall and svelt. We had pizza and fries and they didn’t stay long. She gave me a hug before she left.
I don’t remember how I felt when she left. I honestly thought I would never see her again. I continued to talk to other women and bounce back and forth with my ex. M talked to other women also. I remember making plans with a woman who on paper would have been perfect for me. Single, my age, great job, no kids and time to hang out whenever she felt like it. We met up and it was nice, but I couldn’t stop thinking about M. But knew a relationship with her would be nothing but problems and I had just gotten out of one of those. After the date with the other woman I had a passing thought, “Wouldn’t it be weird if I ended up with the 26 year old.” I actually laughed at the thought.
Here I am 6 months later and I am in love with her.
I feel like shit most the time. I lie to my friends, when they ask me if i ever been with a girl before. I tell them that ive been with a couple of girls, but never been with one. Every girl I’m attracted to, i get stuck in the friend stage. I’ve only been with two guys, one when I was 15 n the other when i was 17. i know with the frist guy that i was gay but that word never came up. It wasn’t till my 2nd year of high school when i fell in love with a girl named Rosa(fake name, for her sake i still love her) she was smart, and athletic. She was in my same grade, but the youngest of our class. Her beauty could not be match. I was terrified to tell her that she took my breathe away every time she talked to me. For almost a whole year I knew i was gay and that i was in love with Rosa, but i dare not to speak a word of this to my family. Out of fear n shame i kept my feelings n thoughts bottle up, but my eyes always followed her. My junior year I was about to brust and i want to tell her every feeling i had for her. I knew she had Mrs. Brady 4th period and i couldn’t hold it back anymore. I asked my teacher if i could go to the restroom, and headed straight for Mrs. Brady’s classroom. “Mrs. Brady, can I borrow Rosa for a minute?” Mrs. Brady said yes with a nod. With a unsteady heart and trembling legs I walk over to Rosa n said “can u come with me for a minute, rosa?” she said sure n got up n followed me out the big fire doors. Once we got out the door she asks “Did I do somthing wrong?” and I replied in an unsteady tone ” no… u didn’t do anything wrong. I just had to tell u that I ..um.. I-I I’m sorry I’m so nervous …um..” “why are u nervous?” “Because…. I like you, Rosa.” I exclaimed. “well I like you, too” she replied back. ”no i like like you, i love you.” I explained on brink of crying. Her angelic smile flew across her beautiful mouth that i dreamed of kissing. with a sweet n nice voice she says “Sorry but i have a boyfriend.” already aware of that fact I said ” keeping it all to myself was killing me so i just wanted to tell you how i feel about u. I know my love will never be fully return but this just relieve some of the pain in my heart. That day we became closer friends n thats all. We still talk n hang out n party. She going into the airforce in a matter of months. n im goin to college. We both remember that day. um well thats all for this blog.
“Fridae has been told that a total of 85 people including filmmakers Sun Koh and Royston Tan have lodged police reports over the long Chinese New Year weekend about pastor Rony Tan’s offensive comments concerning gay men and lesbians in an online video.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Freedom of religion is a tricky thing. Take it too far and you can justify theocracy, give it too little and you have oppression. When freedom of religion and freedom of speech attempts to go together, it becomes even more of an unnavigable thicket.
Did Pastor Rony Tan make a mistake? Of course he did. He said things that were both ignorant and arrogant, as well as extremely bigoted. He acted in a way that no religious leader should have, in openly disparaging another religion, especially without much basis. Very few people would say that what he said was completely acceptable. And he has been reprimanded for it, by the ISD no less. The implications on this being considered a national security issue are for another author to debate thoroughly, but this author believes the use of the ISD to be heavy-handed and to send a chilling effect on political discourse and legitimate criticism of religion.
The ground gets more slippery when one considers his remarks against the queer community. I watched the video and found myself rolling my eyes at his ignorance. But what’s new? He is only echoing what every other pastor says, when they might choose to speak on the issue. I am not sure he has had the opportunity to know better, and even if he hasn’t, whether he even realises the damage he is doing. After all, he is doing what a lot of religious leaders do: latch on to one issue of moral significance and use it to gain popularity and following.
Are the police reports justified? Again, while I consider his remarks to be bigoted, unwarranted and completely lacking in any sort of grounding in reality or logic, the use of the police hand in this, is going too far. Of course, this is my personal opinion only, and I am fully aware other people might feel differently.
Like it or not, we are in a sort of ridiculous culture war, that has been unnecessarily imported from western countries: the Christians against the gays. The two groups are by no means mutually exclusive, which makes the war all the more painful. It is a war that has been going on for a long time, and like all ridiculous wars, no one can really pinpoint who fired the first shot, or why the fighting still goes on. We may shake our head and wonder why the Palestines and Israelis simply cannot abandon their differences and come to a peace treaty, but the cycle of hate is such that unless both sides realise they are being idiots, the laying down of arms is impossible. The recent battles in this war, the 377A debate, the AWARE saga, Anglican pastor who disparaged the queer community, have all created a sort of siege mentality on the Christian community here, and the police reports are not helping.
Am I saying, let them say whatever they want, let them perpetuate the hate? Of course not. If we want acceptance, we have the responsiblity to educate others about ourselves. We have the responsiblity to walk up to our religious leaders, our families, our friends, and tell them exactly who we are, tell them about our humanity. They will not listen, not at first. But if we don’t try, if we don’t tell them again and again, the words may never reach their hearts.
This culture war goes beyond the queer community, it is simply the outer edge of a social phenomenon of religious extremism and divisiveness. The war is bigger than us, and as I mentioned earlier, sometimes has nothing to do with the queer community but the desire of religious leaders to maintain a following – we just happen to be low-hanging fruit, easy to take a shot at. But there is no reason why we have to go down the path other countries have. There is no reason why religion and sexuality should be two separate spheres of our lives, and our society.
It is time to end the war before we take too many casualties.
During a CPAC segment to recognize student conservative activists from across the country, one particular conservative, Ryan Sorba of the California Young Americans for Freedom, denounced CPAC for allowing the gay conservative group GOProud to co-sponsor the event and host a booth. After finishing his short speech against homosexuality as being contrary to the concept of natural rights — amidst booing from the crowd — he walked off the stage.
I’m curious if this guy actually thinks his whole “civil rights=natural rights=natural reproduction=????” tirade make sense. He seems awfully proud of himself, at any rate.
to use all kinds of racist and stereotype remarks like… well, he’s from the South so that explains it or they’re just a bunch of homophobes… why is that okay?
Or, why is it okay for a liberal to promote their liberal ideologies and beliefs, by calling people that believe in God uneducated morons?
And how can atheists quote commandments from the Bible and judge people using the Bible as the standard, when they do not even believe the Bible to be the true and inspired Word of God?
Why have the liberals been able to get away with this?
Are you suppressing God’s Truth in a life of sin? Before you click the pause button and continue to ignore and suppress the truth, I want to let you know that I’ve been there! Listen to what God’s word says about the result of suppressing his truth. God’s Truth, especially during our generation, has been ignored and, in fact, purposefully suppressed. Are you ignoring God’s Truth? But why? As we have stated in our previous webcasts, people will try to bury the truth under a life of sin for fear that their spiritual nakedness will be revealed. Some love sin more than God. What does today’s generation receive for suppressing the truth and what will God quickly do in response?
Today’s message is taken from a Passage in the letter from the apostle Paul to the Romans 1:16-2:16. The apostle Paul says:
16 -17It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else! God’s way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: “The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives.”
16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Ignoring God Leads to a Downward Spiral this letter essentially says:
18 -23But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud (a covering) over truth.
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they) became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
What is Paul saying?
But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.
24 -25So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!
So what is God’s reward for suppressing the Truth?
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 -27Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.
26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
28 -32Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!
God Is Kind, but Not Soft
1Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
1 -2 Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done.
3 -4You didn’t think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? Or did you think that because he’s such a nice God, he’d let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.
5 -8You’re not getting by with anything. Every refusal and avoidance of God adds fuel to the fire. The day is coming when it’s going to blaze hot and high, God’s fiery and righteous judgment. Make no mistake: In the end you get what’s coming to you—Real Life for those who work on God’s side, but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!
6He will render to each one according to his works: 7to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. 9There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11For God shows no partiality.
9 -11If you go against the grain, you get splinters, regardless of which neighborhood you’re from, what your parents taught you, what schools you attended. But if you embrace the way God does things, there are wonderful payoffs, again without regard to where you are from or how you were brought up. Being a Jew won’t give you an automatic stamp of approval. God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up his own mind.
12For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
12 -13If you sin without knowing what you’re doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you’re doing, that’s a different story entirely. Merely hearing God’s law is a waste of your time if you don’t do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.
14 -16When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God’s yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences. 14For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
at thousands of pictures either on the Internet or in my files on the computer. I’m usually a daily masturbator. Sometimes twice but most of the time once a day. It used to be much more chronic. I guess that I’m getting older.
I like to look at various photos and watch a variety of videos when I jerk off. A lot of the stuff I post on my blog here. I love pictures of girls and shemales in pantyhose. I love women’s feet especially in pantyhose, footjobs, handjobs, sneakers and CFNM (clothed female, nude male). I love Asian, Indian, Hispanic and white women. Sometimes I like jerking off to pics of girls I know or women on MySpace, facebook and other networking sites. I can get off just looking at their faces.
take a bunch of the pics that I have downloaded and create a slideshow and jerk off until I cum. Once in a while I become fixated looking at one particular photo and just jerk off looking at that pic until I cum.
I also jerk off using my “spank bank”. It take the images I’ve stored in my head of women I’ve seen through out the day or sexual experiences that I’ve had and think about that until while I stroke my cock until I cum.
On my first day at work I looked at my impossibly camp, impeccibly dressed colleague; I swallowed my fear and asked, “Are you gay?”
