Into the Fire

It’s been a while since I last posted and for good reason:  I’ve moved to Utah.  One may ask why a girl already inundated with Mormonism would move to Utah, it might seem like moving out of the frying pan and into the fire, but I moved to the most liberal, diverse part of Utah (which also happens to be where the church is headquartered), Salt Lake City.

It was definitely a good idea.  I loved Idaho Falls, but one of the major problems with it was that it was a terrible place to live with a disability.  Everybody drove everywhere, and if you couldn’t drive, there was no way to get around (besides paying for overpriced taxis).  Here in SLC, there are grocery stores and restaurants within walking distance of my apartment, and if I need to go somewhere that is further away, there are buses, and I’m learning to ride them.  It’s amazing.  It’s a miracle.  I feel like I have some control of my life.

My apartment is great, though sadly a bit spendy.  I still don’t have it all put together because I had to buy new furniture (I sold my old stuff before I moved down here so I wouldn’t have to pay enormous U-Haul fees).  A few repairs had to be made.  These first few weeks here, I’ve felt like I’ve been swimming in the bathtub every time I take a shower.  I had to call over and over again and have the repairman come out to my place three or four times before he finally fixed the problem (my pipes had rusted so badly that the water couldn’t get through them, and they had to be replaced).  The garbage disposal in my kitchen also wasn’t working when I moved in, but they fixed that on the first try.  Another big surprise happened when a couple of days ago I was on my computer late at night and I heard a giant crash.  I looked around to see what had happened and couldn’t figure it out.  Finally, I looked in my closet, the clothing rod had fallen down–along with all my perfectly arranged clothes (by color and by type).  It was rather heartbreaking.  It’s fixed now, but I still haven’t put my clothes back.  The job is too daunting.

All is not roses and sunshine.  Despite concerted efforts, I have yet to find a job.  I had a wonderful interview this week, but no job.  Interviewers ask why you left your last job, find out you left for health reasons, see that you haven’t worked for nine years, realize it’s a chronic health issue, and put you on the definite no list.  It doesn’t matter how good you are.  It doesn’t matter how great your interview is.  It doesn’t matter that you have a good attitude.  The world is not fair.  You can have a good attitude about it, but a good attitude will not get you a job in this economy, and a good attitude will not put food on the table or pay the electric bill or the rent.  But I’m smiling so hard my teeth ache.  Because really I am happy.  The money may be a problem, but there is so much that is good right now.  And I can always sell something else.  I sold my guitar, I can sell some books, I can sell some clothes, I can sell my body.  It’s a helluva body.

And that’s the story.

Regret and Sex

I admit it, I made a mistake in my last post.  I got too specific.  I should have been general.  Instead of being anecdotal and telling exactly what happened with my parents (and thus, perhaps, inspiring wrath and distrust), I should have just explained the concepts that bother me–that in the culture of the church (and the world at large, even), women’s bodies are not considered their own; that men are not held responsible for their thoughts and in many cases their actions; and that women are considered the property of their parents (specifically their fathers) far past adulthood if they are unmarried (I may not have mentioned this in my post, but it grated on me as I am thirty and my father was still trying to tell me what to wear and what to believe).

This article from Tiger Beatdown quotes Echidne (I would link the article from Echidne, but I couldn’t find it through the link at Tiger Beatdown).   The quote summarizes well how I feel when events like in the last post happen:

Yesterday my visiting alien from outer space came to me all excited (you can see it from the quivering antennae). It had learned the concept of property, both public and private, and it had decided to apply it to women’s bodies and sexuality. Its conclusion was that women and their sexuality are private property, belonging to husbands, fathers and sons, in much of the world, including most Muslim countries, and that women in the Western democracies are public property, belonging to everybody.

“Nononono!” I said. “You have it all wrong. Women do own their bodies and sexuality in most countries of this world. They can decide what to wear and who to have sex with. They can decide if they will be pregnant and so on.”

My alien friend wasn’t convinced. It asked me what would happen if I went out shirtless and braless, for example. Wouldn’t I get arrested, unless my name was not Echidne but Ed? And can a woman choose whether she uses contraception or not, in all countries? Can she use it if her husband doesn’t want her to? Can she breastfeed her baby in public?

It then asked me about pornography. Why is the majority of porn about women’s bodies? Why is most of it aimed for men’s consumption. Who owns the right to view the generic “female body”?

Sometimes I really hate this alien. I had to explain about the sexual difference between men and women, how men get turned on by the very sight of the female body and how that means that women must cover those bits of their bodies which mostly inflame men’s desires. Otherwise the men can’t control themselves. Men are so much more visual than women, and the society reflects that, by regulating the amount of female nudity allowed in the public sphere. We can’t have naked breasts slip out suddenly on television, in the middle of a football game, say.

“Breasts..” mused the alien. “They are for nurturing the young humans, right? But what about pornography, then? If men are more visual than women and easily inflamed, shouldn’t porn be illegal or severely regulated? It sounds to me as if women are not in control of the female body, even in the West. Someone else, is. Someone else determines when that body can turn up naked in your visual fields.

I think a lot of men think they are controlling themselves when they are actually controlling the female body–insisting that women’s bodies constantly be covered so as not to arouse so-called “dirty” thoughts in the minds of men.  What they don’t realize they are doing is that they are eroticizing parts of the body that were never meant to be erotic.  If you insist that a woman’s ankles be covered, an uncovered ankle will be erotic.  If you insist that her shoulders and the upper arms be covered, her shoulders and upper arms will become (in the eyes of those insisting) erotic.  It is pure silliness.  They are not making the minds of men more pure, they are making them more dirty.  They are not taking the focus off sex, they are putting the focus on sex.

They do no favors to their followers.  They turn the entire body (of the female) sexual.  They put the focus on sex with constant speeches about how important it is not to have sex, what kind of sex not to have, who not to have sex with, when not to have sex, and not to think about sex (which it is impossible to do since they are always talking negatively about sex).  They pathologize sex.  If you do have sex or masturbate or look at pictures, they tell you you are addicted.  They make their followers feel horrible guilt for something as simple as a wet dream.  There is the notorious advice to tie your own hand to the bedpost so you don’t touch yourself in your sleep.  I remember waking once from a dream about sex crying in my sleep because I felt so guilty.

They tell you your body is not your own.  They use those very words.  Your body belongs to god, your body belongs to your future spouse, but it does not belong to you.  How can you say no, how can you say yes, when you don’t own your own body?  They preach agency, but they tell you that you don’t own your own body.

This is what I had written instead of the anecdote about getting in an argument with my parents.

Politics and Ice Cream

This says so much about the state of politics right now.  So deliciously much.

Memorial

Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves?  Even while we’re still alive.  We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants.  We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls.  It’s all the same impulse.  What do we hope from it?  Applause, envy, respect?  Or simply attention, of any kind we can get?

At the very least we want a witness.  We can’t stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

–Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin

Confirmed Spinster

The problem with my former name, Angryyoungwoman, was that I inevitably grew up and past the stage where I was an angry young woman.  And I suppose I am being equally unwise in choosing the name Confirmedspinster because I might just settle down some day.  Some might say I am tempting the gods.  If the gods are to be mocked, I shall be the one to mock them.

And now, music: