Water Park

Saying goodbye to summer with one last trip to a water park. It wasn't quite the last day of August, but it was the weekend before Labor Day, when the season comes to a close. (To say that my posts are running a little bit behind would be an understatement). Like Persephone descending into the Underworld, on the way home I was lamenting that it would probably be at least another nine months before I got to see another girl in a bikini...

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I tell you, it always gets to me - every single time. Pools and beaches and water parks - anywhere there's swimming - are like another world from the one we inhabit day in and day out. Every day, we receive these signals - some explicit, some subliminal - reinforcing the "sinfulness" of what could be considered "the pleasures of the flesh". Even if it's something as passive as people going about their business, their bodies mostly covered up in their clothes. Sure, people like sexiness - they consume it in mass quantities - but you're supposed to feel ashamed about it, and keep it hidden away behind a NSFW filter. A skirt that bares too much thigh invites disapproving looks. But then you go swimming, and it's like a veritable meat market. Butts and boobs are hanging out everywhere and nobody bats an eyelash. It's almost like they don't notice (although I'm certain they do - the fact that everybody still behaves in a civilized manner, as nudists do, demonstrates that it's not a problem having all that flesh on display). Because in that isolated context, for some reason, it's accepted.

And I couldn't be happier. There are so many beautiful girls wearing skimpy clothing with so much skin on display, it's almost blinding - long legs and bare feet, tight butts and flat tummies, collar bones and shoulder blades. It's a veritable feast for the eyes. And although you get a good variety, there are always plenty of fit, attractive specimens on display - and of all ages, not limited by the arbitrary taboos of "civilized" society. What I wouldn't give to be a model scout. I'm telling you, I could die on that boardwalk, and be the happiest soul in the universe haunting it for all eternity, just watching the bodies stroll on by, day after day after day. I appreciate the slightly fuller view you get in nudist situations, but honestly, the demographics can't compare. I've learned over the years that I'm willing to concede a few small strips of clothing for that enormous trade-off.

Not the prettiest weather for a day at the water park, but it

was hot and humid, and the rain stayed away, so no complaints.

The other thing that gets to me (and by now you're probably bored of hearing me complain about this) is the sheer ridiculousness of the double standard that exists between men and women, in terms of how much (or which) skin it is appropriate to display. I'm aware of the relativity of my perspective - in society, men are expected to fit one role (the appraisers), and women are expected to fit another (the appraised), and most people just fall into line without questioning it. To them, I am certainly an anomaly. I've always been told that I am unique - in the way that all parents tell their children they're unique - but out of the hundreds of people at the water park that day, I was literally one of a kind (from what I could see), as the only man wearing anything remotely akin to a swim brief.

Coming off the [literal] high of a water slide

that features a 60 foot vertical drop!

But if you actually sit down and think about it - and as someone who freely crosses the gender divide, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it - it just doesn't make any damn sense that, for example, a girl with her own butt cheeks hanging shamelessly out of her bikini bottoms would physically make the effort to turn her head and cover her eyes to avoid the sight of a man in the same condition.

Now, I get it. Men are, typically, gross. Not all are, by a long shot - but just as the archetype of womanhood is a curvy supermodel, the archetype of manhood is a hairy ape with a beer belly. If I'd have been an average male with a hairy ass jammed into a Speedo, and a belly spilling over the waistband, I could understand. But I'm not. And not all men are. Just because men aren't traditionally held up to the same level of grooming standards that women are, doesn't mean they are incapable of rising to those standards. I think that, to the same extent that it should be acceptable for a woman to not shave her legs consistently (and I actually saw one girl on the lazy river with visible leg hair), men should be subjected to the same pressure as women are to shave theirs. I am an equalist, that's all. A true egalitarian. Not a feminist who calls for equality, but really just wants to prop women up on a pedestal.

I, personally, hold myself up to higher grooming standards than the average male. Indeed, my standards are close (not equivalent - as I don't usually wear makeup - but close) to that of the average female. If you were to isolate a certain part of my body - say, my butt in a tight swim brief - and were then unable to reliably distinguish it from a woman's butt in a bikini bottom, then why should your reaction to either one be different, if the stimulus is close to identical? You don't have to like it or think it's attractive, but how can you shrug off a hundred women's asses, and then have such a visceral reaction to one man, whose butt does not look appreciably different? (Especially if you're sexually attracted to men - that's the part that really bakes my noodle).

The hypocrisy of double standards

Is it just because you're not prepared to think of a guy in that way? It's transphobic is what it is. I want to be able to play the role that females embrace without a second thought. I'm willing to work extra hard for it, because I'm coming from a different starting position. I just want it to be an option, a possibility. Why are people so hard-wired to respond with disgust to something they're not used to? Something that violates certain unspoken rules they've become accustomed to? I get that it's human nature, but it seems to me like an inferior nature. A cloistering, suffocating nature. Why would anyone want to just see the same thing over and over and over again? I mean, if it's what you like, that's great - I never want the parade of beautiful girls in bikinis to end (and I certainly wouldn't enjoy them wearing board shorts, even if they wore them topless - although I would absolutely defend their freedom to do so). But why would you disparage other options from even existing, when you know they could mean happiness for another person? We don't all have to be the same. Indeed, we are not the same. And trying to force us to act like it breeds unhappiness. So don't disparage the outliers, the trend-breakers, the trailblazers, and the nonconformists. You don't have to be one of them. Any more than they have to be one of you.

Afterthought: I don't know why I'm so preoccupied with butts. It occurs to me that the thing other people could be primarily concerned with is the bulge. Still, it's not healthy to live with a traumatic fear of even the vague suggestion of the shape of the male anatomy. Alternatively, perhaps it's because we live in an adolescent culture preoccupied with the size of men's "packages", and most guys want to keep their hand concealed. But I don't understand why it should be so much different than judging women by the size of their chests - something that's hard to hide in any kind of swimsuit. And it's not like the particularly well-endowed are in the habit of wearing so-called "banana hammocks" - reticence for swim briefs is across the board. Maybe I'm wasting my time trying to rationalize the issue - most people in this culture just aren't used to it, and have been programmed to respond with either humor or disgust. All there is to do is re-program - and the only way to do that is with more exposure. See enough plum smugglers, and the novelty is bound to wear off...eventually. Right?

Sexy Clothes

I swear, it's not even spring yet (although we have been having some unseasonably warm weather lately), and I'm already hearing people complaining about how short girls' shorts are these days. Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself, "just shut up and enjoy the view!" Seriously, this sexual repression bullshit has gone far enough. What's the point of being inundated with "porn culture" if a girl can't wear clothes that flatter her assets in public without being criticized by some neo-puritan dipwad? Are people really so whipped by their morally conservative overlords that they'll treat with utter contempt any reminder that they, too, once entered this life by crawling through a vagina? Do they really think that expressing their insensitive belief that showing skin is "skanky" makes them seem like a respectable individual? Who are they trying to impress? God? (He's not listening). Their pastors? The feminists?

Anyway, it inspired me to make another one of my little comics using eLouai figures:

Rationalizing

My enthusiasm for making this post is considerably dampened by the recent news that puts the very future existence of this blog in serious question, but, the simple fact is, this blog is an important avenue for me, a place where I feel like I can make my voice heard (and if you knew me - the quiet, socially awkward loner who rarely ever speaks up in the presence of company - you'd know how important that is to me). So even in the face of potential exile, I choose to keep on doing what I've been doing all along, for at least as long as I can get away with it. From here on out, every post I make could be the last.

A while back I was thinking about the rationalizations that the anti-sex crowd uses to support public policies like abstinence-only education, discouraging use of contraception, and demonizing abortion, and I was trying to think of a concise and pithy way to emphasize the inconsistency and, frankly, inhumanity of their positions. I didn't come up with anything thoroughly satisfactory at the time, but just today, the concept came back to me and I thought up a graphical way to demonstrate it. So I made this comic:

My stick figure skills notwithstanding, my roommate informs me that I don't have a very effective sense of humor, even though I thought the comic was very witty. But perhaps it's also a little dense. I was merely trying to point out, in a humorously ironic way, the inconsistency of the rationalizations this anti-sex crowd makes. Instead of just admitting that they don't like sex and don't want you to have it (which would, admittedly, not be a very compelling argument), they look for ways to justify their positions. Sex is dangerous - it can lead, primarily, to unplanned pregnancies and disease.

Now, if they were actually concerned for the people involved, you'd think they'd support tools to reduce the risks of sex - i.e., contraception, or things like the HPV vaccine, which is vigorously opposed by the Catholic church. But no, that's not how it works. Making sex safer is just going to make people more likely to have it, and that's not what they want. They don't actually come out and say, "sex needs to be riskier" (at least not in those words - they do sometimes cite "increased promiscuity" as a negative) - instead they come up with bogus explanations like, it goes against god's plan, or condoms don't work - but you know that's what they're thinking.

And frankly, that's more than a little scary. The anti-sex crowd would rather you be punished with an unwanted child (to say nothing of how the child may suffer - but their suffering is inconsequential next to the suffering of premature fetuses aborted before they've even had the chance to rue the day they were born) or venereal disease, than to let you enjoy safe sex, because perverts need to be punished for their sins. Hell, AIDS is a godsend when viewed from this perspective. It's exactly the same justification people use when they tell women they deserve to be raped because they wore a skirt that's too short, or acted too flirty at the bar. These people want sex to be dangerous, because they want to be justified in telling you not to have it. That's their prerogative, but the rest of us need to realize how truly fucked up and dangerous that viewpoint is.

"Sex has consequences. If you don't believe us, go ahead and try it, and we'll do whatever it takes to make you suffer, just to prove ourselves right." It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. In closing, imagine the following conversation between a moral pundit and a libertine:

"Don't have sex!"
"Why not?"
"Because it's immoral."
"I don't care."
"Well, it's also dangerous."
"But we have tools to make it safer."
"Then they should be outlawed."
"Why? Do you want people to suffer?"
"Only those stained with sin."
"Whatever, dude."
"Wait! You know that contraception doesn't work, right?"
"If that were true, then shouldn't you be supporting it?"

Preventive Measures

This seems to be a symptom of the nanny state, in which safety is viewed as being more valuable than basic liberty. It's also what happens when people engage in victim-blaming, and reflects a legislative approach that's employed in "end demand" strategies. In the end, all it is, is avoiding the real problem and focusing on something else, to the detriment of our principles as a society.

On Bias

I have been accused of being "biased" in some of the causes I advocate (even by my most supportive of fans, if in a loving sort of way). And my opinion has always been that a) everyone has biases, b) people are generally drawn to the issues that their life experience biases them towards, and c) there is nothing wrong with that.

Now, it's obvious that a person's biases can blind them to reality - and I think this is the fear at play when people accuse others of being biased (unless they're just trying to discredit someone because their views oppose their own biases, which is not uncommon).

And, as a result, I think it's important to - not so much examine the person's biases, but to examine the argument they're actually making and its legitimacy. Focusing instead on the bias, rather than the logical effect that bias may have on the argument, is a form of the ad hominem logical fallacy - attacking the person instead of their argument.

If the argument is invalid (perhaps inspired by the person's own biases), then that should be clear in the argument itself. If, on the other hand, the argument is a good one, then it shouldn't matter what the person's biases are. And, indeed, bias can be just as much a tool for righteous social change as it can for the propagation of bigotry.

A Fashion Statement (and much more)

Some feminists are of the opinion that you can't be a "true" feminist unless you're a woman (otherwise, at best, you can be an "ally"). And some people (some of whom may be feminists) hold the belief that "transwomen" don't qualify as "true" women. On the contrary, I believe that persons who have had some transgender experience are in the best position to be feminists (if they so choose). After all, they've experienced, to some extent, what it's like both to be a woman and to be a man, and are thus uniquely capable of noting the differences. But then again, I am not a "traditional" feminist - I am a post-feminist and a trans-feminist and a member of the Male-Female Alliance.

Switching gears a little bit into the realm of fashion, I feel I ought to temper the following discussion with a little disclaimer. Obviously, regardless of what's common or how it's expected for the different sexes to dress, people do generally have the option of wearing what they like. There are, however, certain situations where that freedom of choice is reduced in one way or another, such as the one that has caused me no end of anxiety: the one regarding acceptable public swimming pool attire.

As I lamented last year, and then again earlier this season, the local swimming pool where I live has somewhat sexist rules regarding proper swim attire for men and for women (and I have a strong suspicion that this is endemic to the culture as a whole). Whereas the women are allowed to wear very skimpy bikinis (so long as they are not thongs), men are prohibited from wearing "speedo" or brief-type swimsuits. Well, now, I have finally had a chance to visit the swimming pool, and I'm happy to report that I was not kicked out for wearing "the black suit" (my most modest compromise) - at least not the first time - although I did get several looks and a few offhand comments, which were probably as much due to my femininity (and the fact that I was not wearing a "top", as most men do not) as to the rarity of a man wearing a small, form-fitting swimsuit (the novelty of which must not be downplayed).

The experience did, however, open my eyes to the sheer splendor of sights on display. Far more girls than I expected - and much of them of the younger variety - were preening in very skimpy swimsuits (and many of them skimpier than I would have imagined), as I had but unrealistically (I thought!) hoped for. It raised many questions in my mind, of the sociological and sexological variety, about the sexual attitudes of the people in this community, which are, on the whole, of a lower educational stratum than the one in which I myself was raised.

Now, if it were true (and I'm not certain that it is, however I may suspect it), that these people are generally more conservative and less progressive on social issues - such as feminism, gay rights, and things of that sort - then their more relaxed attitudes toward human sexuality (as would be predicted by Kinsey's research) more than make up for it! I would not trade anything in the world for the kind of stuck-up, prudish, ultra-modest, abstinence-positive, "holy purity" views that seem stereotypically to be more common among the higher educated groups (ironically), if it means more censorship and less of a chance to appreciate the erotic beauty of the human body.

On a semi-related note, I was thinking recently how ridiculous it sounds when feminists of a certain stripe go on about "sexualized" portrayals of women. Like, as if "sexualization" wasn't a natural process that every woman (and man) undergoes during adolescence. It's called puberty. You have to be really out of touch with your own sexuality and the sexuality of the human organism in general to think that the way different people (and the different sexes, in particular) relate to each other sexually is some unnatural and abhorrent side-effect (or main effect) of the patriarchal oppression of women. We can talk about the different ways that men relate to women sexually, and how some of them may be problematic, but if your platform is that men depicting or considering women in a way that emphasizes their sexual desirability is problematic, then you're on your own.

And another thing. I know this approaches the realm of the taboo - though it really should not, and the fact that it does says much about our neurotic and diseased attitudes on sexuality - but it is as clear as day to me that young women in their teenage years are not one iota less attractive than women in their twenties or thirties or older. Which is not to disparage the sexual value of an older (and often more experienced) woman - and I know very well that different people have different tastes when it comes to sexual partners, not to mention the importance of other qualities than the purely superficial (I say) - but if a man (or any person, really) is sexually attracted to the human female, and dares to say (whether for political correctness or to save his own ass or what) that teenage girls (generally speaking) are not exceptionally beautiful and attractive creatures, I fully believe that his tongue should be cut out for lying, and his eyes should be gouged with a hot knife, because they obviously aren't functioning properly. Usually I'm for the freedom of speech, but on this case there is so much insidious speech touting the opposite, that I'm just plain fed up.

In any case, the kind of sexual "license" that the lower classes may express is not itself unproblematic. There are issues such as teenage pregnancy and transmission of disease - which I suspect were strong motivators for the upper classes to push abstinence and sexual purity - and then there is also the matter of moral conservatism. As Kinsey found, the lower classes' freer approach to sexual intercourse is often accompanied by a fear and paranoia of less "traditional" sex acts such as masturbation, or nontraditional couplings (a glaringly obvious example being homosexuality). But this demonstrates, to me, that neither end of the spectrum has grasped a holistic and sex-positive approach. It is possible to be sexually liberated and sexually responsible (I offer my own life experience as evidence of that), but it requires the intelligence of the higher educational classes and the frank acceptance of human sexual behavior exhibited in the lower classes. I don't know what hope there is for raising the intelligence of the poor, but I'd think the better educated groups would be in a better position to reject the dogma of sex negative feminism and religion, but that remains to be seen.

I apologize, but I am prone to run off on tangents. (And this weekend's "stimulating" experience has got my brain running a mile a minute). Let's get back to the real point of this post - the fashion statement I wanted to make. I really wanted to use my photography to make the following point, but models are a bit beyond my reach right now, and I didn't feel confident doing another lame clone shot. So I used eLouai's doll maker instead. The point I wanted to make was the glaringly obvious difference between men and women's fashion at the swimming pool. True, I've gone on about this at length in the past, but it really is startling when it's staring you in the face - and so I wanted to use some images to demonstrate that. Meet Jack and Jill:

Can you see where this is going?

Reiterating what I implied in my disclaimer above, women have a lot more options for swimwear than men - and they don't have to wear a body-baring bikini if they don't want to. Fact is, a lot of women (and girls) do, and many seem to be pretty happy about it. I think that's great. I'm not in with the "sexualization" crowd. I don't think it's evidence of women being oppressed, I think it's evidence of women being the sexual organisms they were meant to be. But there is some very real sexism going on here, and it's the fact that men are not similarly expected to be haunches of meat for the objectifying gaze of women (or gay men).

But the most infuriating detail is not simply that men wearing skimpy swimsuits is not as common as women wearing skimpy swimsuits, but the fact that, while women are expected to wear skimpy swimsuits, men who choose to wear skimpy swimsuits are not simply accepted as outliers, but are mocked and ridiculed - and in many places actually restricted from doing exactly as the women are expected to do. You think the above picture is in any way, shape, or form balanced? I think this next picture represents a much better vision of sexual equality:

And I'm prepared to do what it takes (if I can figure out what that is) to make it the new reality. Because I tell you, living in this fucked up world is slowly driving me insane.

"Insanity is the only sane reaction to an insane world."