Many Things I Love About Myself (More Dots, Many Dots!)
Okay.
Zuzu wants us to give at least five things we love about ourselves. Let's go.
First, though, full disclosure: I was (and always have been) the kind of girl that many other women envy for her body. When I wasn't, it was because they worried that I was anorexic. (I never was - I love food far too much for that - and it always simultaneously pissed me off and heartened me that they wondered so. The former because goddamnit, I was not into self-denial; the latter because, thank god, someone was willing to voice that worry to me rather than doing something like not realizing that I was underweight.)
I am still underweight. One of my resolutions this year is to get up to the minimum healthy weight my doctor recommends. But I've never been into the body hangups that my sister and best friend have gone through; it just never touched me. This may be related to the fact that my internal picture of myself doesn't equal the external reality... mine just works to my benefit rather than not.
Anyway. Onto zuzu's challenge.
1) I am brilliant, no matter how fucking down on myself I get some days.
2) According to several people, my tits are perfect. ;) (I think they're pretty awesome -
naturals, in fact - but perfect might be a little far. Critical, perhaps. ;)
3) I am getting better at art every time I sketch a
Fanart100.
4) I can
write. I know story, characters, structure, voice.
5) I have a musician's hands; lithe, long fingers. One day they will be strong enough to play guitar!
6) I am unabashedly a geek, and I have the t-shirts and sweaters (and punchlines) to prove it.
7) I have a dirty mind, and take comfort in the hilarity it provides me.
8) I love being tall.
9) When I get down to it and battle the stove/oven, I win.
10) I love my singing voice. It's suited to more operatic songs rather than pop, so I take great enjoyment out of belting out hymns. Or singing pop songs like they're opera.
11) I'm witty.
12) I am well-read.
13) I am friggin' lucky to have what I do.
14) No matter how much I believe I'm going to fail, I always succeed.
15) I have no economic debt.
16) I tell people when I think they're being asshats.
17) And I don't waste my time with repeat-offender asshats.
18) I love learning languages: French, Italian, Spanish (even when I can't keep them apart!), and I want to learn more.
19) I love having sex, I love getting pleasure during sex, and I love giving it, too.
20) Did I mention fantastic sex?
21) I can think of, right now, six university degrees that I want to take. I have no shortage of interest in the world.
22) I love my looks in casual jeans, a sweater, and no makeup.
23) I also love them in a dress, heels, makeup and jewelry.
24) I know what I want sexually, and what my body enjoys, and I have no qualms about giving it to myself (so long as I can find the right tools and/or people - and if I can't, I'll come up with something just as good!).
25) I have no fear on the street, even at night, despite the fact that many people think I should.
26) I have a strong handshake.
27) I give awesome backrubs, neck rubs, and massages of all sorts.
28) I love my spine. It does this little... 'trill' is the best way I can describe it... if you stroke it properly. It's one of my erogenous zones.
29) I can write 100-word stories and make people KNOW the characters I'm writing for.
30) I can write this fuckin' list despite being depressed out of my MIND.
Hah.
Because damnit, I want to link to it
Especially after the recent brouhaha. Normally, no one here reads my blog that doesn't read someone (much larger than I) on my linklist, so I don't bother...
But damnit, Little Light wrote something that actually
moved me, which is fucking rare nowadays, so I am going to post it.
They probably won't come to me, but let's see them come if they do. I, also, have teeth. I like to bare them when I smile.
Seam of Skin and Scales
Let's see if I can string this together coherently.
Hi everyone! (All, what, four of you that pass by here occasionally. ;)
So, uh, it's the new year! Hooray!
If my New Year celebration has any predictive quality, this is going to be a year of
Guitar Hero, geekery, and nakedness. Altogether, I think that's a good year to have.
At any rate, I said in my last post that I had a thought churning around in my head. I think I'm going to chuck out all my intentions to research this and just write it, though (although I did read the blog and essay so kindly linked to me :).
Basically it goes like this:
There are some forms of pain that are culturally acceptable.
There are even some forms of pain that it is OK to seek out, even desirable.
Athletics-related pain is specifically what I'm thinking of. We talk about "the burn", muscle stiffness, the feeling of the body breaking down in order to rebuild itself (faster, stronger - we have the technology). It is even possible to have other-created pain that is not undesirable, even if it is to be avoided (being tackled in American football isn't exactly a walk in the park, and let's not start on rugby or boxing).
I have seen exactly one feminist ever say that all pain she could cause herself or others was bad, even if it was unintentional. I wanted to ask her if she was prepared to give up figure skating, because I cannot envision a world in which practicing sports does not cause
some amount of pain.
This is, in part, why I wanted to hear feminist perspectives on sport. Because I don't see a lot of feminists arguing that sports are bad. Sports create a winner/loser dichotomy. They're traditionally male-oriented (and I have seen
that analyzed). But no feminist I've ever seen has explicitly said that sports should be banned. (Gym
class, maybe.) The gendered connotations and language of winners/losers, yes. The competitiveness to the exclusion of sportsmanship, yes. The sports themselves? I haven't seen it.
But there is pain involved.
Let's take boxing. You're deliberately consenting to another human being punching you. Unless you are absolutely the most fantastic boxer ever, you're probably getting (at minimum) winded, and probably bruised, sore ribs, sore jaw. Possibly a broken nose, possibly brain damage, broken teeth, possibly open wounds.
Yes?
So should real feminists not box?
Or an example from my real actual very-own life. I took kung fu for three years. During that time, I willingly put my body through hell. (At one point I was on the demo team and the accelerated black belt group, although I quit shortly after.) Even just self-inflicted, there was the ache of my arms from pushups, shortness of breath after running, injured ankles from landing improperly, bruises from sparring, sore shoulders, sore legs, sore back, eyes that burned when sweat got into my eyes... And at least on some level, I was enjoying it. Even getting taken down by sparring partners was fun, because it helped me learn about my own weaknesses and blind spots.
...I'm sure most of you have figured out where I'm going with this, but let's make it explicit:
Why is it that when my pain is explicitly consented to, but
presented in the context of sexual activity, that it becomes vile, evil, dark, and upholds the patriarchy?
Hell, even if it's not explicitly sexual, but is for sensual gratification, BDSM is considered all those things. Maybe because there's no way to "fight back" (but there is: the safe word) - and let's face it, if a sparring partner keeps pummelling you long after you're down, well, wait a minute, that's assault/battery. So... why do people somehow think that one distinction is harder to make than the other?
It really isn't.
And people get into sports for bad reasons, too. Work out to uphold crazed beauty standards, to fulfil parental dreams, to earn perceived respect, to earn ludicrous amounts of money. (Without the love of the game, that is, for the last two.) Body dysmorphia. Any number of things. Right?
And yet we don't generally belittle or shame these people for doing it once we realize the motivation, I think. Generally.
So I guess to sum up:
If a woman and a man spar, and the man wins, does it uphold the patriarchy? If the woman wins? If they come to a draw? If they laugh about it afterwards? If the "inferior" thanks the "superior" for what they have learned about themselves and about the sport/sex? If the superior does likewise? If the "inferior" in kung fu goes on to "beat" the "superior" in their next "match"? If both participants are male, as above? If both are female, as above?
When are we feminists going to give up on sports? (I, for one, would like American football to be the first on the chopping block, if only because it makes no sense as a game.)
Or when are we going to come to the conclusion that yes - we really can consent to, own, and love our own pain, so long as it remains within our defined bounds? And that this pain is not, necessarily, horribly damaging patriarchy-mimicking cultural backwash? That motivation, as with anything, is key, and that we should not treat those with lamentable motivations with contempt (save in the case of abuse/rape) but rather compassion?
Yeah? Anyone with me?
