Candy Says

Candy says I've come to hate my body
And all that it requires in this world
Candy says I'd like to know completely
What others so discretely talk about

I'm gonna watch the blue birds fly over my shoulder
I'm gonna watch them pass me by
Maybe when I'm older

What do you think I'd see
If I could walk away from me?

Candy says I hate the quiet places
That cause the smallest taste of what will be
Candy says I hate the big decisions
That cause endless revisions in my mind

I'm gonna watch the blue birds fly over my shoulder
I'm gonna watch them pass me by
Maybe when I'm older

What do you think I'd see
If I could walk away from me?

Queer Activism: What I Left Out

On Monday, I wrote a post I entitled "Queer Activism: When We Are Our Own Worst Enemy" Since then, I recognize that I may need to hash out a few points in greater detail.

If the LGBT community has reclaimed terms once thought to be very hurtful, why should we stop at "queer" or "dyke"? In the foreseeable future, could the same standard be applied to terms like "tranny" or "fag"? One answer might be that it's only a matter of time. "Queer" works well for everyone and is a term I assign to myself more readily than LGBTIQ or whatever it will be next year. And this leads to an overdue argument about Freedom of Speech rights.

And on the subject of "tranny", as much as I recognize the severe stigma assigned to it, we live in a country supposedly predicated on the First Amendment. Freedom of speech is important and I grit my teeth and tolerate hateful attitudes as long as mine are given the same weight. Arguments advocating for a greater good, by which everyone ought to adhere, have their place but must be considered more delicately.

Queer theorist Jack Halberstam wrote the original column I referenced. He provides additional context to what I've written.

Much of the recent discourse of offense and harm has focused on language, slang and naming. For example, controversies erupted in the last few months over the name of a longstanding nightclub in San Francisco: “Trannyshack,” and arguments ensued about whether the word “tranny” should ever be used. 

These debates led some people to distraction, and legendary queer performer, Justin Vivian Bond, posted an open letter on her Facebook page telling readers and fans in no uncertain terms that she is “angered by this trifling bullshit.” Bond reminded readers that many people are “delighted to be trannies” and not delighted to be shamed into silence by the “word police.”

Bond and others have also referred to the queer custom of re-appropriating terms of abuse and turning them into affectionate terms of endearment. When we obliterate terms like “tranny” in the quest for respectability and assimilation, we actually feed back into the very ideologies that produce the homo and trans phobia in the first place! 

Additionally, the equally contentious concept of triggering and trigger warnings should be put in proper perspective. I'll use myself as an example. From time to time, particular environmental stimuli can cause a panic attack so powerful that I want to crawl out of my skin. For reasons therapy has never been able to explain, I can't watch the body-switching movie Freaky Friday.When it was shown in front of my fifth grade class one dull Friday afternoon, I had to flee and sat quietly in the hallway by myself.

This doesn't happen all the time, thankfully. If it did, I wouldn't be able to live a normal life.

This is Halberstam's take, for better or for worse.

And so, while in the past, we turned to Freud’s mystic writing pad to think of memory as a palimpsest, burying material under layers of inscription, now we see a memory as a live wire sitting in the psyche waiting for a spark. Where once we saw traumatic recall as a set of enigmatic symptoms moving through the body, now people reduce the resurfacing of a painful memory to the catch all term of “trigger,” imagining that emotional pain is somehow similar to a pulled muscle –as something that hurts whenever it is deployed, and as an injury that requires protection.

Triggering is either a real ailment or often a feigned one. It occurs to me that we've never really heard the stories of those who are susceptible to triggering and the forms that triggering takes. Until then, we're chasing at shadows. Talking past each other is no way to find common ground, which is what we need. There's too much mistrust and too much paranoia present, which has kept us in shackles for what seems like eons. It's time to act like adults.  

Speaking Plainly

The last couple of days I’ve been privy to the middle of an lengthy academic debate. Each argument is full of so many arcane terms that making it through it is painful. Truthfully, it gives me a headache. Recognizing that, I understand why Quakers placed such an emphasis on speaking plainly and with Truth. Specious arguments sound good, but they collapse after enough careful analysis.

Matthew’s Gospel addresses the lack of humility and mistaken priorities common to the time, and perhaps ours?

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

I may have always been a Quaker writer in the way I phrased my thoughts. My father impressed upon me the economy of words and a compelling desire to get immediately to the point. I wish I could show some that their conversation is predicated upon mistaken motives and ego-driven intentions. Identifying the futility of what to them is the most impressive-sounding, footnoted, fourteen-page polemic ever constructed is only wasted time.

Friends can rely upon an economy of language, one that is easily comprehensible to others, but not dull. The books, essays, and memoirs I enjoy reading these days never forget to broaden their audience while preserving the power of the written word. Academic discourse continues onward in its own self-limited universe. I’ve stopped trying to engage certain speakers, because I have learned that they cannot and will not understand. I seek to convey ideas for all, but they do not and likely will not.

What follows next in the Gospel of Matthew is the first telling of the Lord’s Prayer, a perfect encapsulation of Christian faith in which every single word packs a punch. Though it could have been written by a Quaker, I know it influenced several for similar reasons. Where do we use economy of words in our own lives?

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

You're a Heart Breaker

You're a heartbreaker
You're a love faker
A heartbreaker playin' with fire

You're a tear snatcher
You're a poor attacher
But you can't break my heart anymore

For I've just found someone else
Who's sure to take your place
Someone I can always trust
And to fill this empty space

You're a heartbreaker
You're a love faker
But you can't break my heart anymore

You're a smooth talker
You're a real cool walker
But now you have talked out of turn

You're a high stepper
You're a eye catcher
But you won't catch my glances anymore

For I've just found someone else
Who's sure to take your place
Someone I can always trust
And to fill this empty space

You're a heartbreaker
You're a love faker
But you can't break my heart anymore

You're a heart breaker
You're a love faker
A heartbreaker playin' with fire

You're a tear snatcher
You're a quarrel patcher
But you can't break my heart anymore

For I've just found someone else
Who's sure to take your place
Someone I can always trust
And to fill this empty space

You're a heartbreaker
You're a love faker
But you can't break my heart anymore

Queer Activism: When We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

Two years ago, I attended a three-day long conference for queer Quakers. The name of the festivities was a typically awkward acronym, one that made sure to use L, G, B, T, I, and Q in sequential order. As much as I appreciated the gesture and with it a desire to be radically inclusive, it was my opinion that the sheer length of the umbrella term was getting ridiculous. When I questioned it openly, many people nodded their agreement, but just as many opposed me. The issue remains unresolved.

Queer theorist Jack Halberstam writes a recent column on this subject and others. He titles the work “You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma." Unlike George Will’s hurtful and clueless dismissal of trigger warnings and rape, written earlier this summer, Halberstam actually has several interesting key points to add to the discussion. Will writes out of ignorance, Halberstam writes out of personal experience and insight.

Early on in his essay, he states some substantial problems within many queer groups.

Recent controversies within queer communities around language, slang, satirical or ironic representation and perceptions of harm or offensive have created much controversy with very little humor recently, leading to demands for bans, censorship and name changes.

Debates among people who share utopian goals, in fact, are nothing new. I remember coming out in the 1970s and 1980s into a world of cultural feminism and lesbian separatism. Hardly an event would go by back then without someone feeling violated, hurt, traumatized by someone’s poorly phrased question, another person’s bad word choice or even just the hint of perfume in the room.

I experienced this flummoxing conundrum as well, wondering if I was caught in a time warp or an alternate universe. A well-meaning, kind, older black woman had been hired to gingerly take charge of the anti-racism and anti-oppression programming for the event. A good number of us were of a generation later than hers. The woman’s approach, which at times resembled finding the best way not to detonate a hand grenade, was only one aspect of the dysfunction.

I found it was depressingly easy to observe how the same flawed standards and counter-productive attitudes were adopted eagerly by young adults. One woman with a chronic illness made a point of putting her arm in a self-made splint for all to see. It reminded me of how Jesus criticized the way that the Pharisees said their prayers loudly in the streets, a gesture done only for show. They placed rules on top of rules, those that were deeply unnecessary and not for anyone's benefit but their own.

People with various kinds of fatigue, easily activated allergies, poorly managed trauma were constantly holding up proceedings to shout in loud voices about how bad they felt because someone had said, smoked, or sprayed something near them that had fouled up their breathing room. Others made adjustments, curbed their use of deodorant, tried to avoid patriarchal language, thought before they spoke, held each other, cried, moped, and ultimately disintegrated into a messy, unappealing morass of weepy, hypo-allergic, psychosomatic, anti-sex, anti-fun, anti-porn, pro-drama, pro-processing post-political subjects.

This describes the LGBT conferences I’ve attended with pinpoint accuracy. Though I met lots of interesting and friendly people, these sorts of behaviors are the reason I have no desire to ever return. What I saw displayed is the opposite side of victimhood, the narcissistic nightmare of pity. I’ve never wanted anyone to feel sorry for me and I’ve never demanded it of anyone else.

Though for three months one long summer I was kicked out of my house due to a confluence of bisexuality and homophobic parents, this is a detail I feel no desire to share with every passing stranger. I am not ashamed of it, but I question why I should always need to call it out into the open.

One particular activity asked us to define ourselves as either Caucasian or a Person of Color. We were to form a great continuum stretching from one end of the room to the other. In the act of separating out our own identities, someone decided that Jews should be categorized separately from white people. To him or her, being Jewish lent itself to inherently less white privilege than ordinary white people like me. In my opinion, Jews pass as white very easily, and are usually seen as Caucasian in a way that no black person (aside from someone very light-skinned) ever can be. This was Malcolm X's view, at least.

Furthermore, I’m not sure if opening the opportunity to rank oppressions is to anyone’s benefit. It caters too easily to baser prejudices and leaves little room for more noble sentiments.

Halberstam continues, with no small controversy,

The controversy about the term “tranny” is not a singular occurrence; such tussles have become a rather predictable and regular part of all kinds of conferences and meetings. Indeed, it is becoming difficult to speak, to perform, to offer up work nowadays without someone, somewhere claiming to feel hurt, or re-traumatized by a cultural event, a painting, a play, a speech, a casual use of slang, a characterization, a caricature and so on whether or not the “damaging” speech/characterization occurs within a complex aesthetic work.

At one conference, a play that foregrounded the mutilation of the female body in the 17th century was cast as trans-phobic and became the occasion for multiple public meetings to discuss the damage it wreaked upon trans people present at the performance. Another piece at this performance conference that featured a “fortune teller” character was accused of orientalist stereotyping. At another event I attended that focused on queer masculinities, the organizers were accused of marginalizing queer femininities.

And a class I was teaching recently featured a young person who reported feeling worried about potentially “triggering” a transgender student by using incorrect pronouns in relation to a third student who did not seem bothered by it! Another student told me recently that she had been “triggered” in a class on colonialism by the showing of The Battle of Algiers. In many of these cases offended groups demand apologies, and promises are made that future enactments of this or that theater piece will cut out the offensive parts; or, as in the case of “Trannyshack,” the name of the club was changed.

Part of me understands that transgender men and women might see the word “tranny” as offensive. But in our rush to judgment, we forget that individual expression must be equally weighted to group preference. I will say this, LGBTs know how to pitch effective boycotts. I count no fewer than five products and companies I personally avoid buying because of their stance against same-sex marriage. 19th Century Quakers boycotted the products of slave labor, and in this regard I am no different. Even so, this is a very personal choice on my part and one I would not force anyone to take on against their will.

LGBTs have enough genuine problems to deal with due to centuries of persecution, persecutions that are blessedly growing fewer and far between.  I don’t understand why we wish to invent oppressions or have a compelling need for an excess of positive gratification from the world. I often cite a quote by the poet T.S. Eliot. "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

I see the worth and the intent of conferences and gatherings like these, but a culture based upon attention-getting devices and extremely self-centered drama is the worst antidote imaginable. I wouldn’t begin to know how to make things saner and enjoyable. We may need to re-invent our own safe spaces, pushing away old ways that can’t be changed and couldn’t be modified in the first place.

Let’s call an end to the finger snapping moralism, let’s question contemporary desires for immediately consumable messages of progress, development and access; let’s all take a hard long look at the privileges that often prop up public performances of grief and outrage; let’s acknowledge that being queer no longer automatically means being brutalized and let’s argue for much more situated claims to marginalization, trauma and violence; let’s recognize these internal wars for the distraction they have become.

Once upon a time, the appellation “queer” named an opposition to identity politics, a commitment to coalition, a vision of alternative worlds. Now it has become a weak umbrella term for a confederation of identitarian concerns.

Hence the reason LGBTIQ etcetera always strikes me as obsessive. I’ve always had such mixed feelings about being queer that I rarely feel any reason to hold fast to my sexual orientation or even my disabilities as some strange badge of honor. By contrast, many folks have devoted lots of head space to that very concern, which is where the internal wars that become distractions are allowed to germinate. Once, this was a liability, and now it is almost a privilege.

I don’t have a lot of patience for hair-splitting and pity parties, and I don’t understand why we allow them to take over when we face a new chapter and frankly, exciting era in LGBT activism. We have benefited from roughly fifty years’ worth of activism and hard work, but we live in a very different time, one now our own. We have great promise ahead of us.

Quote of the Week

"Don't waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don't throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you."-Jesus

Saturday Video

Well I've been to Meat City to see for myself
Well I've been to Meat City to see for myself
Been Meat City, been Meat City
Just got to give me some rock 'n roll

People were dancing like there's no tomorrow
Meat City
Finger lickin' chicken pickin'

Meat City shook down U.S.A.
Pig Meat City

Well I been to the mountain to see for myself
Well I been to the mountain to see for myself
Been the mountain, been the...
Just got to give me some rock 'n roll

Snake doctors shakin' 

like there's no tomorrow

Freak City
Chicken suckin' mother-truckin' 

Meat City shook down U.S.A.
Pig Meat City

Well I'm goin' to China to see for myself
Well I'm goin' to China to see for myself
Goin' to China goin' to
Just got to give me some rock 'n roll

People were jumping like there's no tomorrow
Meat City
Finger lickin' chicken pickin' 

Meat City shook down U.S.A.
Pig Meat City

Well I'm goin' to China
Yes I'm goin' to China
Well I'm goin' to China
Yes I'm goin' to China

I'm goin' to China
Yes, I'm goin' China
Alright

On the Question of Patriotism

When I rose to write this Fourth of July, I found I was unable to find proper words to suit my purpose. As is often the case in these times, I began to read the words of other writers and journalists I consider influences. All of this searching on my part was in the hopes my own research might provide me some inspiration. Inspiration wasn't all I found. In fact, I found a short, but powerful column far better than I could ever have done myself.

The writer's name is Ann Friedman. She has entitled her most recent work, Merriam-Webster on the 4th of July. I enclose it here in its entirety. Quakers and liberals both have issues with a war of combat and an unquestioning devotion to any government that acts wrongly or exceeds its power.

__________

Last year a non-American asked if I consider myself patriotic. After many ums and ahs and caveats, I said yes. I told him that I feel about America the way I feel about family: I didn’t choose it, I can’t control or endorse everything it does, but I do love it.

This is an important 4th of July distinction:

pa·tri·ot·ism:

love that people feel for their country

na·tion·al·ism:

a feeling that people have of being loyal to and proud of their country often with the belief that it is better and more important than other countries

jin·go·ism:

the feelings and beliefs of people who think that their country is always right and who are in favor of aggressive acts against other countries

Patriotism doesn’t ask that you establish a hierarchy and rank your country above others. Patriotism doesn’t demand your pride or even your loyalty. Patriotism doesn’t require aggressive demonstrations of your power. Patriotism is just love. And that, for all of America’s flaws, is something I feel.

Movie review: Pretty Baby

The 1978 film, Pretty Baby, was a controversial study of sex work and underaged sexual conduct set during the early 20th Century. These days, it has become something of a late Seventies curiosity, rarely seen and infrequently critiqued. Because in time more severe sexual mores have developed regarding depictions of childhood sexual abuse in the media, it would be difficult to make a film on this subject today. Child prostitution is considered an extreme societal problem, especially in the Third World, but it afflicts our own society in sufficient numbers. Pretty Baby lays its scene at the gorgeously trashy New Orleans red light district circa 1917.

A twelve-year-old Brooke Shields plays her part as Venus flawlessly, opening the way for other major studio roles and eventual great fame. Only two years before, Martin Scorsese’s 1976 blockbuster Taxi Driver featured another underage hooker in a prominent role, this time played by Jodi Foster. Unlike Venus, Foster’s Iris is not cloistered in the relative security of a whorehouse by a woman how at least tries her hand at motherhood. She’s a teenage runaway under the sway of a pimp. Venus’ existence and steady employment are preserved by a more-or-less permissive climate where prostitution is legal and where she is in control over her own life to some extent.

Scorsese’s film paints the role of Iris, the prostitute, as the victim of a sleazy, decaying, filthy system over which she has no control. In contrast, director Louis Malle makes fewer moral judgments with his work, showing Brooke Shields’ character as more resigned, unapologetic, and indebted to her chosen occupation. Some of the men are in her orbit are slimeballs, but the nature of their business does not need to resort to violence before conflicts can somehow be redeemed. Venus embraces the system unquestioningly, but the film makes us question whether if she is fully aware of the overlap in her life roles, those of the adult, the child, and the somewhere in between.

Venus falls in love with a local photographer E. J. Bellocq (Keith Carradine), who has been taking pictures of prostitutes to make money. At first, he resists her numerous advances, due to her young age, but later he concedes that he’s fallen in love with her. Bellocq wonders from the outset whether the relationship would really work and whether he’d be seen as violating propriety, even though a very different standard of acceptable feminine attitudes apply to any so-called fallen woman. That said, the two lovers certainly aren’t held to the same standards of purity. Venus comes to his house late one night unannounced, whereupon the two finally consummate their relationship.

He finds, quite quickly, that the idea of a nubile lover might be arousing in fantasy, but that Venus is quite a handful. Bellocq grows frustrated with her childish acts of rebellion and rethinks if whether having a child for a lover is really worth the strain. She pours out expensive photographic chemicals for spite and destroys glass negatives as a way of acting out, costing him money. In his company, she is half-child and half-woman, much as the moment strikes her.

Controversial in addition were graphic scenes and depictions of Brooke Shields, who at 12 was still several years under the age of consent and could not even be considered a teenager. In one, Venus poses in an almost completely nude setting, the section of the reel that caused the most critical histrionics and outrage. Some critics at the time called these scenes “child pornography” and others felt the film was a mashup of Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita and Roman Polanski. In any case, Pretty Baby made Shields a star, and as for whether these sections are gratuitous or not. I’ll leave the matter up to the viewer.

Questions remain. What is the theme of the picture? We know somehow that its star is Venus, who due to her age is not quite an adult but still very much a child. Nevertheless, to reiterate, she lives in an environment that rewards adult sexual behavior. We observe that many men want to buy her services for the sheer novelty of it. They bid for her virginity, and the winning contestant ponies up $500 for the privilege. Only the photographer Bellocq appears to love her as she is, or at least as he imagines her to be.

Though beautifully photographed, Pretty Baby has a tendency to meander. Its plot rambles, unsure whether to fully incorporate interesting, but secondary players like Hattie (Susan Sarandon) or Madam Nell Livingston (Frances Faye). Halfway through we are treated to an extended interlude of Venus and her destructive nature. Does the director believe that all young girls possess this same destructive impulsiveness, or is this behavior only unusual to the character?

Bellocq’s interest in her may largely be because of her photogenic propensities, a mere academic study. Earlier in the film, he resists repeated sexual advances from other prostitutes, begging that he is married to his work. Venus may merely be a subject, a muse of a sort, and his affection may be scientific rather than heartfelt. While what we do certainly see is easy boredom and frustration from Venus, as she misbehaves and destroys some important object or another to him.

French director Louis Malle tried his hand at American cinema for the first time with Pretty Baby. Taken through a typical French perspective, the sexuality would be less shocking. But with a mostly American cast, criticism was intense and forceful. It must be said that it is a little creepy to auction off a young girl’s virginity, and it might be objectionable as to whether or not a twelve-year-old girl has any business with a boyfriend more than twice her age. The film is worth a look, if only for the scandalous content, but must be taken first with several grains of salt.

Friendship

We met in a college class, the semester prior to graduation. It was an elective credit in communication studies, one which I could have managed at least a B if I’d put the effort into it. We were asked to use a particular software program called Quark to lay out a front page newspaper headline of our own creation. Nowadays, I’m sure such classes are rarely taught anymore, though for a time they provided useful simulated newsroom experience, especially for graphic designers.

Today, I wouldn’t put up with her the way I did back then. Her number one priority was herself, not her young daughter, not her parents, and not me. What we shared in common was writing ability and an appropriately snooty taste in film, which is what attracted her to me in the first place. Though I was going through my openly and unapologetically queer phase, I’m not sure when I clued her in to my sexual orientation. Knowing me, It was probably very early on.

If I was assumed to be gay, I instantly won the sympathies of the women around me. When I was taken for straight, their attitudes towards me were a little gruffer and more were defensive. Few knew much what to do about bisexuality and bisexuals, except others who were LGBT themselves. I try to write with great description on this concept because it remains an identity that confuses many.

For two years, I wrote a daily blog on a website. My sexual orientation was a regular topic. Most of my regular readers were women. In my company, they often acted like a mother hen. Due to the drama that was my life in those days, I felt that reading my journal might have come across for many like a daily viewing of a soap opera. I appreciated the attention, but never wanted to be the designated, tokenized queer blogger.

My friend invited me over to her apartment following class. She’d used her daughter as a litmus test of whether or not visitors were good people and could be counted on to be trusted. I passed with flying colors, but I admit that being in the company of even a single kid usually makes me uncomfortable. In my fevered worries, there’s always something that could go wrong, some potential ER visit, broken bone, or gash that needs stitches. Seeing a cousin of mine come down with a nasty compound fracture on her arm has stayed with me.

My friend asked me to rub her feet with lotion on long Friday nights. We very rarely left the apartment because her young daughter needed constant supervision. I was a homebody, so I had no issue with staying in, whether talking or watching a movie. I can’t honestly vouch for this, because I could always be wrong, but it was my opinion that she found the foot rubs I provided to be sexually arousing. She would call out my name as I performed it. If she felt this way, then I was not willing to get in the way of an existing relationship she was keeping with another man. I put on the brakes sharply because this was a particularly cruel form of torture if it was, in fact, genuine.

Another time, she wanted me to rub her buttocks, provided I didn’t touch a particularly intimate area between the glutes. I complied, with great difficulty. That was the most difficult process of all, almost as bad as the time she invited me into the bathroom when she was only partially dressed, and my eyes got big as saucers. This was a tease, only a tease. She loved attention.

We didn’t always stay close to home. Once she plucked the nicest dress from her closet, the night she intended to head out to a club not far away. She had the precise body type for it and got lots of compliments. One of the running jokes she made at her own expense involved criticizing the size of her breasts. She took no offense whatsoever, and the humor usually provided a chuckle or two.
We climbed a flight upstairs. Music was playing loudly and powerful light was beamed all over the place.

Within minutes of arriving, a nattily dressed black man asked her to dance. I took my typical spot in introvert’s corner, and began observing what was going on from one end to the other. What I didn’t know is that my friend was using me as a decoy.

You see that man over there, she’d told him. He’ll fuck you up. He’s my bodyguard.

He didn’t last for long and I had no patience to find my own dancing partner. I’m a very awkward dancer and didn’t feel like showing that off before the rest of the crowd. I encountered a local loser, some friend of a friend who was dancing by himself. As I recall, he worked at a gas station somewhere else in town. Protectively, he wanted to intervene, assuming my girlfriend was seeking distance from me. I told her that we weren’t together and that she was welcome to dance with anyone.

The two of us didn’t stay very long. Where we lived, the dancing scene usually incorporated bottom-feeders and the lowest common denominator. In those days, my preferred environment would be an indie rock show or some gallery showing, a place where it didn’t matter whether or not I had any dancing ability. This was an experiment for her. We would never return.

I was worth much more to her than she would ever concede. Her child liked me, even with my standoffish attitudes. She felt that my writing was skilled and would only improve with time. She rated her own writing evenly alongside my own work, as she wrote a weekly column for the college paper. One night, with tears in her eyes, she conceded that sex was a drug for her. She’d never smoked pot or even a single cigarette. She didn’t drink much, but she found it difficult to say no to men when they grew amorous and forceful.

If we ever talk again, I’ll be surprised, but I’m not bitter. She was indeed beautiful, and as is the case for many men, having her on my arm was an ego boost. We never dated, but she and I acted like lovers, and that was enough for some to form their own conclusions. Having a child at 17 forever changed her life, one I imagine that motivated many of her decisions. When it came time for moving, even her father noted that his daughter could be selfish and obsessed with herself. That's how it ended.

Lend Me Your Comb

Lend me your comb, it's time to go home
Gotta confess, my hair is a mess
Your mama will scold, your daddy will shout
As we come in, the way we were out

Kissin' you was fun honey-bun
Thanks for the date
Time has come to run honey-bun
You know baby it's a-gettin' late

Just wait till I straighten my tie
Lend me your comb, we gotta go home

Kissin' you was fun honey-bunny
Thanks for the date
Time has come to run honey-bun
Sugar bug it's a-gettin' late

Just wait till I straighten my tie
Lend me your comb, we gotta go home

Quote of the Week

"We are in a strange period of history in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary."-George Orwell

Weddings, Not Nearly As Objectionable As You Might Be Led to Believe

Being that we are now several days into June, with July almost upon us, wedding season has arrived with great abandon. Three invitations have arrived in my mailbox thus far, some elaborate, some simple. I’ve freshly returned from one, finding the experience quite charming, but at the same time feeling no reason to tarry very long, even in the company of seven separate homemade pies.

No need to wear out my welcome or engage in boring, but heartfelt conversation. I no longer consume alcohol, which would have been an option to pass the time some years ago, assuming I’d been able to find someone to drive me home. It was fortunate that three mutual friends of the bride were also in attendance. Otherwise, I’d have been a fish out of water.

I’ve begun by telling my own story, but I’d much rather relate someone else’s. I’m an observer, not an active participant. It has been my understanding that many, usually female feminists have intensely conflicted feelings about marriage. Several highly ambivalent, exceptionally conflicted columns written by feminist writers trickle out about this time of year.

Unsure about precisely how they feel about such a Patriarchal, oppressive ritual, while still straining to see its worth, they opt for a middle ground. The language written takes the familiar on-one-hand-but-on-another-hand argument common to such matters.

I’ve heard all of these arguments and have agreed with most of them. But even so, women keep wishing to plan and go through the wedding experience, regardless of how elaborate or simple they wish for them to be. Unwedded and uncoupled women still live vicariously through the life of the bride, waiting time for it to be their turn to purchase a wedding dress and repeat this same pattern.

Ritual aside, men see marriage as confirmation that they have finally reached full adulthood. I recognize that I’m not including analysis of same-sex weddings, which would require additional insight. The wedding I experienced yesterday was of the heterosexual variety.

I am friends with the bride, a person whose extreme kindness to me over several years makes her, in my eyes, a very good example upon which to live my own life. Regarding her choice of partner, she is different than many women would be. Her now-husband has a severe speech impediment and partial facial paralysis. He speaks with a strong lisp and some of his mannerisms leave him looking physically impaired. If you can look past those shortcomings, he’s an articulate, funny, warm guy, but it’s indeed sad to say that some women probably would not view him as husband material. 

Men aren’t usually solicited about their opinion regarding pending nuptials. For them, weddings seem to be ceremonies that are more endured than relished, but even so the act of reciting vows and putting on wedding rings has brought many men to tears. Not every man dodges marriage for life: feminist, male ally, or regular guy.

When it is my turn, I will gladly go through as much ceremony to which Friends ever resort. In the company of my family, my Quaker Meeting community, and a few close friends, I will stand before everyone. Quaker weddings focus most of the attention on the two people getting married, which is how I think it needs to be. There is no officiating minister, as Friends believe that God alone marries two people, not a priest or minister of any sort.  

This weekend, I was not the first to notice that the bride and groom both were well-matched with each other. Though no one can ever tell for certain, it would not surprise me if they stayed together for life. These sorts of optimistic thoughts are what make me attend weddings in the first place, even though it’s difficult for me to shed tears or get caught up in the moment.

I’ve been to one or two where I seriously questioned how well the couple had contemplated the matter of being together for life, which definitely created a great deal of cynicism in me.  Returning to the good side, I have no issue with marital vows and the general plans that have been given care and thoughtfulness by both the presumptive groom and the bride.

Nothing I observed yesterday would fit in a romantic comedy. There were no entirely unnecessary fights, no catty comments, no spontaneous detours in fast automobiles, no one left at the altar. Normal had to suffice. Two families who did not know each other very well hoped to make acquaintances and made awkward, tentative strides. In time, I’m sure they will grow closer. For now, their child or relative is married to another family’s child and relative. Feminist dogma seems a little hyperbolic when one confronts such yawning formality, such banality.

And while I was there, I thought about my parents’ own marriage. My mother was strongly influenced by the second-wavers, the so-called women’s libbers. But when her own wedding came around, she re-thought some of her original reservations. Her wedding to my father was a Spartan affair. Ten guests were in attendance, all close family. No catering. No bachelorette party. No wedding reception. They were both too poor for any of the trappings. Mom was 19 and still in college. My father was 24 and certainly wasn’t rich.

The wedding was held at the parents of the bride. I’m told that my father was so nervous prior to the ceremony that my grandmother gave him a Valium. Mom could never understand why he was calm and relaxed throughout the whole of the ceremony, when she was a nervous wreck. I have a copy of the pictures taken there, where I see two young people nervously, but eagerly asserting to form a new life for each other, one that would soon include three children.

It’s the same look I saw in the eyes of the recently married couple yesterday. Before I breathe my last, I’m sure I’ll see it again, and again. Nothing I viewed up close for myself gave me reason to give pause. Instead, I had reason to give thanks. In time, they have let it be known that they will be raising their first child. I’m glad it’s not me, but I’m grateful that it will be them.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega--the beginning and the end," says the Lord God. "I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come--the Almighty One."

Camp, Conferences, and Evasive Behavior

Now that the start of summer has been formally reached, it’s the time for the young to experience a particularly cherished rite of passage. By this I mean camp. The theories long-propagated by organizers promise the comforting nature of steady, close contact of one’s peers. They envision the sort of constant, positive interaction which produces lifelong friends.

It is true that you might meet a handful of fast friends there, formerly complete strangers, with whom you will stay in touch forever. Yet, these experiences are, far too often, a minority result that doesn't particularly hold up in reality. Parents of students seek to outdo themselves, ensuring that their children have the best camp and vacation experience possible, but in seeking perfection, they overlook a particular blind spot. One crucial distinction cannot be corrected by programming alone.

Here is what usually happens. The close proximity to each camper often facilitates superficially close relationships, for a time. Each eventually opens up with secrets usually guarded and concealed; it is a tactic that usually creates distance in the end, not unity. It might be healthy, from a psychological standpoint, but the fear of transparency, either as a child or as an adult, eventually pushes people away from each other. Friendships made in camp or in conference usually stay there.

During our adult life we copy the same evasive patterns. Thoughtful organizers make sure to give us e-mail lists and phone numbers, to better facilitate forming the friendships and acquaintances sparked by weeks, perhaps even months of intimacy. And yet, few pick up the phone or type e-mails with the intention of keeping in touch with a bunk-mate or a partner during a workshop. I cannot understand why. What are we afraid of, really?

We might well be seen as risk-averse creatures, keeping ourselves protected from some perceived slight. Failing that, our politeness might well be surface and we may have compartmentalized our life, forming invisible laws and rules about who we trust to be a friend. The moment we do that, we prevent community from forming

As adults, we can generate lots of excuses. Work is too busy. I volunteer for a particular cause. I just don’t have the time. These are excuses, but they seem plausible enough, so we buy them. The most perceptive of us know that they’re only lies or at least half-truths. We claim we don’t have a need for more friends, because that might upset the house of cards lifestyle we’ve been living. As a Christian, I believe that we must form loving communities in order to make the world function as it should. Many people well before my time have discussed and championed the same basic ideas I’m advancing here, concepts first articulated well before the day I was born.

The concerns of children are more plausible and easier to excuse. Lacking driver’s licenses, their mobility is restricted. Every year they are congregated into classes with the same teacher and the same students. They’re constantly forming friendships or avoiding them, and so camp is just an extension of the other nine months of the year. They have much to teach us, or, failing that, our own past could serve as an instructive lesson.

Adults in the work world might be required to attend a conference or a professional development seminar, but it’s not the same. The focus is on work, not on socialization. This is a shame, now that we are busy enough to leave no room in our lives for friendship.

We keep talking about peace. Peace to me is built upon mutual trust and understanding. It is based on real relationships where two or more people are not overly preoccupied with the supposed priorities of their lives. This process requires vulnerability, the very same vulnerability I have been carping about for years. I don’t think that we’re thoughtless people. I think we’re easily distracted and quick to confuse what ought to be our true priorities.

We will not have climate change reform if we do not open up to each other. We will not prevent the eroding away of Roe v. Wade if we do not open up to each other. We will not continue the progress of marriage equality. We will not establish complete parity between men and women, particularly when we consider that a woman still makes 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. These are only a few examples, but I list them here to state that we must reach out a hand to a total stranger or two to see our goals through to the end.  

I believe in organized religion because at its core, not its perversion and lust for power, religion seeks to find ways for very different people to live together. This is our task and our goal. We must stop dividing ourselves and find ways to bring ourselves together. I’m not the first person to say this and I know I won’t be the last. Let us act like John the Baptist and prepare the way for the Lord. This is our God-given leading.

Saturday Video

Nobody made you
Do what you`d done
Nobody told you
What you`d become

If you believe
That you get what you gave
Don`t turn around
Just give it away

Oh Jim
Oh Jim
Can you feel the pain I`m in?

Oh Jim
Oh Jim
Can I leave it all behind

I`m OK
When you`re OK
I feel fine
When you feel fine

Got no pain
No sense no shame
Roll on by
And put a smile on my face

Oh Jim
Oh Jim
Can you feel the pain I`m in

Oh Jim
Oh Jim
Can I leave it all behind

So how does it feel
To be free?
So far away
I wish it was me
Yes, I wish it was me

Oh Jim
Oh Jim
Can you feel the pain I`m in?

Oh Jim
Oh Jim
Can I leave it all behind?

Welcome to the Working Week

Now that your picture's in the paper being rhythmically admired
and you can have anyone that you have ever desired,
all you gotta tell me now is why, why, why, why.

Welcome to the workin' week.
Oh I know it don't thrill you, I hope it don't kill you.
Welcome to the workin' week.
You gotta do it till you're through it so you better get to it.

All of your family had to kill to survive,
and they're still waitin' for their big day to arrive.
But if they knew how I felt they'd bury me alive.

Welcome to the workin' week.
Oh I know it don't thrill you, I hope it don't kill you.
Welcome to the workin' week.
You gotta do it till you're through it so you better get to it.

I hear you sayin', "Hey, the city's all right
when you only read about it in books.
Spend all your money gettin' so convinced
that you never even bother to look.

Sometimes I wonder if we're livin' in the same land,
Why d'you wanna be my friend when I feel like a juggler
running out of hands?

Welcome to the workin' week, oh, welcome to the working week.

A Prayer for Persistence and Reform

Mr. Camp, it is my professional opinion that you have bipolar disorder.

Many people who have been informed of bad news like this take it differently than I did. They describe their immediate reaction like a punch to the gut, as though this means that their life is over. My original psychiatric diagnosis was treatment-resistant depression, which meant that this news was not unexpected. For three or four years before that particular moment, I’d been hanging on by my fingernails, trying to manage the pain. Keeping out of the hospital whenever possible was my main goal. By then, I took several daily medications, drugs I’d long since accepted I’d need to take the rest of my life.

That said, I wouldn’t downplay what I was told. It changed my life. The milder hypomanic episodes I’d already been experiencing could now be rightly categorized for the first time. I waited for the first major episode to arrive with baited breath, knowing that it could strike at any time. Mania, for lack of a better term, tends to fry the brain. Today, I recognize that the way I think and perceive those around me has been dramatically changed.

Mania makes many hyper-religious. In the middle of an episode, I speak like a seminar student or evangelical minister. I am religious by nature, a quality that usually leads those around me towards conclusions that are plausible, but aren’t always correct. Once, a few years ago, I had to have bladder surgery. In the recovery room, I remember telling the nurse stationed nearby the full story of the Religious Society of Friends, dating from the 1640’s. She was a Mormon and found my anecdotes interesting. I imagine emerging from anesthesia causes strange behavior in many.

I believe that the trying, troublesome times I have experienced have given me the ability to better know God. It bothers me how many people my own age don’t believe. I do respect their own journey, but I wonder if they've never been adequately schooled in how to develop a relationship with the Divine. Though I’m glad I left Alabama, I miss the ability to be public about religious belief. Yankees are private about such matters, limiting sharply their religious discourse with others, losing the opportunity to grow their numbers in the process.

Depending on how you parse the statistics, religious belief continues to hold steady, or it is completely eroding away. To me, God is alive, but to some, he is dead. Urban, liberal Quakers have been losing membership for years, but the same is true for urban, liberal believers of any faith group. A month or so ago, a reader left a comment on a blog post of mine, stating that the reason he remained a non-believer for years was that his parents kept no religious observance of their own. Baby boomers cast a skeptical eye towards religion, one they frequently passed on to their children.

My job is to fight against this belief, however I can. The work is difficult. The young adults who are attracted to my Meeting usually do not hang around for long. 80% of them attend once or twice and then move elsewhere. They’re dabblers by nature. Even so, it deserves to be said that more conservative houses of worship have similar problems. The people I’ve described are often termed “the inert.” They stay on membership rolls, but rarely participate more than a minimum. In other settings and other causes, the inert exist there too, producing in organizers great frustration.

Not all Quakers are created equal, or created with equal beliefs. I am allied with two separate branches of the Religious Society of Friends, one of which patently refuses to do mission work, and the other which considers proselytizing and winning souls for Christ essential. Because of the work of this branch, there are now more Friends in Kenya and Bolivia than the whole of North America. I feel personally torn. Quakers now comprise less than 1% of the population in North America. At our heyday in the 19th Century, we only made up a paltry 3% of the United States. We’ve been losing ground for a long time and unlike many of the mainline faith groups, we never had far to go from the outset.

The recent Young Adult conference I attended included participants from Africa and those with Latin American roots, in addition to those with Jewish heritage who now identify as Quaker. This is a good start, but like every group, faith, or movement that is predominately Caucasian, we have had a persistent issue with attracting people of color. A book popular among Friends is entitled Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship. The issue is known, and yet still we struggle. The title speaks about our reluctance to count among us black members, even as we took substantial risks in establishing full civil rights for recently freed slaves.

I can’t help but worry sometimes that I’m fighting an uphill battle. Feminists worry the same thing about their own numbers, which have shrunk considerably since their apex in the 1970’s. There is never any lack of committed leaders, but the breakthrough to the next level is what everyone seeks. Leadership without followers is not enough. Following does not mean giving up one’s agency. I follow Jesus, but I do not surrender my unique God-given path in the process. This is what many fail to recognize about religious faith. We are not robots, doing the same task as the robot next to us. It is possible to serve God in more than one way.

Bipolar seemed daunting at the time, but I attacked a substantial problem step by step. I try to keep this in mind with every conversation I have and every column I write. I’ve been on medications long enough that I make room for them in my life. My work to make myself well is a continual struggle, but I believe that life is not meant to be easy. No worthwhile crusade comes easily and it never will.

This Boy

That boy
Took my love away
Though he'll regret it someday
But this boy wants you back again

That boy
Isn't good for you
Though he may want you too
This boy wants you back again

Oh, and this boy would be happy just to love you
But oh my-I-I
That boy won't be happy
'Til he's seein' you cry

This boy
Wouldn't mind the pain
Would always feel the same
If this boy gets you back again

This boy
This boy
This boy

The Fear that Hate Produced

In recent months and years, feminists and women's rights activists have been making extra effort to show the direct impact of rape culture. In particular, they've used first person narratives to great effect. Each of these graphic and at times lurid accounts is told from a female perspective, that of the victim. Many of them focus on rapes and sexual assaults committed on college campuses, offenses that are rarely prosecuted.

Women in these situations rarely have much control over the way a police investigation and criminal prosecution proceeds, if it proceeds. As a man, I recognize that, in this situation, I don’t have the ability to fully relate to my sisters. But I can talk about another aspect of the proceedings that gets forgotten. Victims of sexual or emotional abuse sometimes, entirely without even intending to, negatively impact the people of either sex who they take into their confidence.

I want it to be known up front that I’m not a rape apologist. Rape is never acceptable for any reason, regardless of gender or age. What I do wish to impart is how past damage and abuse can create an atmosphere of extreme mistrust and, for some, very significant paranoia. Those who provide the impetus for the phobias and emotional damage they create in others should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But what is left behind can be very problematic indeed.

Victims shouldn’t have to do extra work, but fair or not, they have no choice. Restoring themselves to the greatest emotional health possible is necessary effort, though it is effort that is not fair and never will be fair. I have been in therapy for the most of my life. The gains I’ve made are substantial, but expensive and also time consuming. I shouldn't have had to take the time, but I decided long ago that mental health was a necessary life goal.

Men aren’t always aware of the healthy boundaries that we all should set for ourselves and for others around us. Because of this, they sometimes reach erroneous conclusions based on interactions with women who bear substantial scars. In a more perceptive world, men would immediately see the root causes and impact of psychological and physical damage. Moreover, they would have some understanding as to why the women with these maladies and challenges act a particular way around them.

Many men do not have this insight because they haven’t viewed it themselves, nor have they been confronted with the truth of the matter. The gory details frequently get hushed up and concealed, a fact feminists have pointed out and sought to reverse on numerous occasions. In this column, I’ve chosen to write about a series of experiences in my own life to show a different side of rape culture. To follow are the experiences of men who come in contact with women who have yet to process fully their own pain and sense of past violation.

I.

We sat at a coffee shop, facing each other at a table. The talk had been insightful, detailed, and sometimes harrowing. Without my asking, she told me she had been molested by her father as a young girl. I could tell through subsequent insight that the damage was extensive, but what I’d been told already was bad enough.

I was raised to be more honest than normal with others. My approach towards truthful discourse was very different to someone else whose upbringing had not been my own. Feeling confident, I confided that I, too, had been a victim of childhood sexual abuse. It was my assumption from our shared similarities that we would now be much closer friends from then going forward. I was wrong.

Not long after, our relationship changed dramatically. Out of nowhere, with nothing so much as a warning, she demanded, by way of an e-mail, complete space and distance from me. For reasons never stated, she removed herself from a listserve where I was an active contributor. Additionally, she removed me from her list of Facebook friends. Minutes later, she e-mailed the moderator of the online community of which we had both been a member, stating that I made her feel unsafe and she wanted no further contact with me.

We never spoke again, she made no further allegations, and no one else got in touch with me. I was honestly perplexed, and as a male ally, entirely confused with her behavior.

II.

I’d asked her if she’d be willing to have a drink with me. This was said in the computer lab where we were both enrolled as college students. The request seemed simple and straightforward enough. We never got around to mutual consumption of libations. I think I e-mailed once or twice to see if I could get the ball rolling. No reply.

Later in the week, she loudly confronted me in the hallways of a classroom building, screaming a stream of nonsensical concerns.

The volume was loud enough that a nearby professor conducting class came outside to talk to me. She expected a fight to be underway. Although the voice far down the corridor carried well, I was a long way away, strategically placed on the other side of the hallway. The instructor waited for the screaming to die down, then re-entered her classroom. She was satisfied that no crisis was imminent.

Much of what had been said was incoherent, but a few repeated words and phrases failed to escape my notice.

“You’re crazy!” she’d said. “I think you’re going to rape me!”

A few days later, purely by coincidence, I passed by her dorm on my way to somewhere else on campus. I had no idea she lived there, as I was rarely present in that part of resident housing. She was standing in the front of the entrance to the dorm where she lived, smoking a cigarette.

“You scare me,” she said. I certainly had not intended to produce this effect. I kept my eyes down as I passed her by, forcing myself to think about something else.

III.

She’d already distanced herself from a physically and emotionally abusive boyfriend. Everyone had known about the destruction he’d caused in her life, but it took her months to finally leave him.

She was in one of my classes and part of a group assignment. Using the bound paper directory provided to me, I looked her name up and punched the digits into my phone.

Her voice was panicked from the instant I said hello. “How did you get this number? How do you know where I live? Where did you find me?”

I’d meant to ask about an assignment from class, but found immediately that this would be a request she would be unable to fulfill. I hung up with her panicked, fearful cry still ringing in my ears.

Two weeks later, I found she had filed a police report against me. Due to lack of evidence, the report was not pursued further.

IV.

The two of us had been communicating regularly, mostly online. There came a time when, having developed feelings for her, I wanted to let her know them. I knew I was taking a risk, but the time seemed to be right.

“You know,’ I said, “I think you’re really beautiful.”

She didn’t smile or say "thank you", as I had been expecting. Instead, she grimaced and walked away. From then on, I was told by way of an e-mail I was not to contact her again, except through her blog, where she could moderate my comments. I wasn’t sure what I’d done, but obligingly commented on her blog for a month or two, to let her know I was really a harmless, nice guy.

V.

One of my favorite female writers was only an e-mail away. In additional to admiring her skills at the written word, I wanted the opportunity to small talk with her, even if it was only sporadic and not especially substantial. I wrote a page long conversational e-mail about a variety of subjects I thought might interest her. Surely there was something present that could stimulate further communication.

I went a week without a reply, then I tried again. The format of the second letter was similar, but I tried to be more eloquent and thoughtful this time around.

Within thirty seconds of sending my second e-mail, I received a blunt, and very hurtful reply.

PLEASE STOP CONTACTING ME.  

And as the hurt descended, I realized that this particular communique came from a person who didn’t want to know me. Making assumptions that I was somehow only intending to bother her or emotionally harm her, she’d entirely misread my intentions. Without additional information to prove her fears, I wasn’t sure why she felt that my friendly, good natured words needed to be treated as though I meant to do something terribly wrong. I wasn’t your average troll spouting insults or using psychological warfare to wound or needle. I only wanted to communicate with a personal hero.

_______

Sometimes hate from someone else produces fear in us, which often swings around all the way to hate. Women who put their written ideas before an online audience learn to be thick-skinned, even though each of us, regardless of gender, resents being torn to shreds by criticism. I feel this way, too. In relationships, women sometimes end up with abusive partners. Sometimes men fool them into thinking otherwise and sometimes women haven't had enough life experiences to see the red flags they will eventually view plainly later in life.

I try to keep my own issues compartmentalized enough so that some unkind word or phrase doesn’t go straight to my core. I’ve experienced my share of childish hate and criticism. As long as I don’t let the eternally negative get underneath my skin, I’ve won. Being a feminist or advocate of women's rights requires one to develop strategies to keep us from confusing friend with foe, even though it's remarkably easy to do. Feminists are some of the strongest people I have ever met, but they sometimes have the propensity to jump to conclusions that serve their greater narrative.

It would be foolish to say that every woman's behavior and experiences are the identical to the anecdotes I've listed above, or every man's, for that matter. But even one strongly uncomfortable if not traumatic experience is bound to leave an impact, whether intentional or not. Though this is first and foremost my personal decision, I've gotten the professional help I need in order to avoid making an inadvertent painful impact on someone else. I don't want my still-unresolved emotions or judgments to get the best of me or for them to lead me or others in directions that are unhelpful. Recovery takes time for everyone, male or female.

I made mistakes and sometimes have been a victim of circumstance, but I didn't realize these decisions would be this detrimental. They seemed harmless enough. In the anecdotes I've shared above, my baggage and the baggage of those I've described formed a noxious compound, one that exploded into outright conflict. In our desire to race for prosecution and for justice to be done, we sometimes go too far. We can and should correct our behavior, but in clamoring for justice we have to look at things even-handedly, from every perspective.

Quote of the Week

I had crossed the line of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom, I was a stranger in a strange land, and my home after all was down in the old cabin quarter, with the old folks, and my brothers and sisters. But to this solemn resolution I came; I was free, and they should be free also; I would make a home for them in the North, and the Lord helping me, I would bring them all there.-Harriet Tubman