On being pursued

ok! so, it seems that what a woman wants out of a relationship (sexual, friends, lovers, partners, spouses) is truly secondary to the desires and most importantly TIMING of men. GAHHH!! why is it that when I like a guy, they avoid the subject or play coy (and lemme tell ya, I'm pretty straight-forward, aka NOT HARD TO FIGURE OUT)?? why is it that when I like said guy, it's the wrong time or he likes somebody else or blah blah blah. there was a CONNECTION! but no... now that i've spent YEARS getting over said guy? and also suffered a pretty awful witnessing-him-making-out-with-girl-who-is-not-me event, he magically LIKES ME?! is this some kind of sick joke, Universe? because I don't get it!!

I do not like this individual LIKE THAT anymore. it's over, and there's no going back. once i lose the hots for a person, my libido refuses to go back in time and try again; it's like my sex drive's way of ensuring that i don't repeat the same mistakeerrrrr... guy over and over again. it's kinda nice, the way my sex drive has my back like that. because GUYS??? they suck. they like to hem and haw when the lady is putting it all out there! but as soon as she's turned her back... he pursues. and it's horrible and awkward and melodramatic. ugh. and really?? i'm not the kind of person who likes to be pursued. hell i'd rather be the person doing the pursuing! but really, what about reciprocity? what about two (or more?) people taking turns reaching out to each other, taking little steps toward each other, and it's mutual. that's what i want. so guys? cut this shit out. treat me like a human, and if i LIKE you, trust me you'll notice. RANT OVER.

A pro-sex approach to The Talk

First of all I'd like to say that D A M N I love sex :D Like, a lot. And right now I have the perfect sex partner (it's a long story...) who just totally rocks my world. And, I feel like this is something that everyone who wants to experience sex should be able to experience: consensual, sweaty, mind-blowing sex. Yummmmm.

I've been dwelling on the idea of sex, specifically sex ed, a lot lately because I plan on having The Talk with my younger sister this weekend. My parents only really got as far as menstruation (and lemme tell ya the details were sketchy at best) with my older sister and I, and I feel this did us both a great disservice. And as if that wasn't bad enough, they pressured us to opt out of taking sex ed in middle school (sigh, yes my family is Baptist). For me, this left a gaping dearth of information that was promptly filled with the worst that the media, my friends, and my imagination could dream up. Not cool. I'm a firm believer that education empowers youth to make smarter, healthier, better-informed decisions... or at the very least gives them the opportunity to do so. My intention is to sit her down and give her the facts as best I can, try to create a dialogue where she feels comfortable asking questions, and give her some resources that she can utilize when I'm not around. I'm going to attempt to cover as much as I can, including but not limited to: puberty, sex in all its various forms, reproduction, consent, and sexual assault. It's probably gonna be awkward, but I do NOT want my younger siblings falling into the same traps that I did when I started experimenting with sex! Not understanding how my body, or my partner's body, worked. Feelings of shame about being "slutty." Feeling pressured or unable to say "no." Getting fucked over by "hook-up culture" when I really just want a relationship. The list goes on...

In case you're wondering, YES I have been prodding my mom to have the sex talk with my sis for months now, however she's absolutely convinced that 1. my sister isn't curious about sex or puberty yet (couldn't be farther from the truth! little sis has been skirting around the issue with me for a year now), and 2. that it will just put naughty ideas in her head. I beg to differ. I haven't decided whether or not this is crossing some sort of parental line by giving my sis the basic information she needs to take care of herself sexually, but here goes nothing... TO BE CONTINUED!!! *dramatic music*

UPDATE: Ok so things didn't go quite as planned, I was pretty exhausted from caring for the kids all day and by the time the little ones were in bed my sis and I just kind of zonked out in front of the TV. Besides my exhaustion, I realized that my parents' home just doesn't feel like a safe space to have The Talk. There's a lot of loaded history in that house, and besides there is always the risk that the little ones would barge in on our private convo (I'm not opposed to them overhearing about sex but I think my sis would have felt like "omg WHY are we having this talk in a shared space??!!" Because I sure felt that way.) It wasn't a total loss though, I turned on Will & Grace and we watched it together, which prompted her to ask all kinds of questions about the gay characters on the show. Also, a birth control ad came on and I was totally able to explain to her how it worked. I'm gonna try to use this as more proof that my mom should REALLY have the sex talk with her now, but if she still balks then I'll try again later.

M.I.A.'s "Born Free" uses absurdity to create social commentary

So I think that even people hiding under rocks have seen M.I.A.'s new vid "Born Free" by now. Alex Vesey over at Bitch did a nice write-up of it here. I just wanted to add my 2 cents about some of the more obvious social commentary going on in the film (which, keep in mind, we're not sure how much of the film was strictly M.I.A.'s vs. Romain-Gavras's vision). First off, I think the timing of the vid being released on the web during the whole SB1070 fiasco in Arizona can't be ignored. The uniforms the guards/soldiers are wearing in the vid have american flags on them. I think this is supposed to be a direct reference to both American soldiers abroad as well as the border enforcement at home. The red-haired, white (mostly male?) people are rounded up like cattle, treated absolutely inhumanely. Sounds a lot like ICE to me, dontcha think? The absurdity of the video, is of course WHO is being rounded up and treated like shit due to a completely arbitrary feature: red hair. An allusion to the irrationality of racism, nativism, and the mindless violence necessary to keep the status quo. There's an especially interesting disconnect that happens when we see that the most brutal men in uniform torturing the Gingers are white, and arguably not all that different from their victims. I'm not sure exactly what M.I.A. is trying to communicate with this video, especially with the satirical (I assume) title of "Born Free," but it sure seems like she's reading the current political climate in the U.S. pretty damn well.