Laying down to soothe my stomach, I've just spent the last 10 minutes (ok, ok, it was 15) trying to think of the perfect come back line for a boy attempting to humiliate me when I was 12. You know, in case I ever get that moment to alter my past by taking over my younger body to rewrite the bad moments. "The Butterfly Effect" meets "Being Erica".

My first instinct is something that would blow his mind, "I had no idea you knew that women could get wet, since all your experience is either with your own hand or unwilling girls."

Mentioning masturbation and following it up with accusing a guy of rape is bound to get me suspended from school. Let's switch tactics.

"You're just compensating for your small stature by belittling everyone around you so that you feel bigger. And in 30 years -"

No, too many big words. He's 12.

"You're just making up for the fact that you're short by making other people small so you can feel -"

Wow, what a mouth full. It would take me 5 minutes to get all this out, and he might be punching me in the face within 30 seconds. And teacher would be right behind him to shut me down if that wasn't effective. So...

"John," I would drawl playfully with a small, coy smile (John is a sufficiently generic name, yes?). "Everyone here knows that you need to humiliate people so that you don't feel so short. Meanwhile, no one gives a shit about your height. But you're so obsessed with this that you'll spend the next 30 years completely unsatisfied, because you'll be too busy being mean to ever take the time to get to know women and what it takes to satisfy them."

I really like this one. Really, really, really like this one. But I'm afraid it may get me jumped a week later and beaten/raped. Humiliating a man in public, surrounded by his friends, by mentioning his height and then implying sexual incompetence? That tends to bring out the wife-beating caveman in a guy, not to mention a teenage boy roiling in hormones. And I wouldn't want to completely break him so that he spends the next 30 years hating me the way I've spent it hating him. *sigh* Let's try...

"Everyone here knows that you need to humiliate people so that you don't feel so short. Meanwhile, no one gives a shit about your height. People don't like you because you're vile to others. Grow up."

It works, but it's not very satisfying. Why am I so concerned about breaking the fragile ego of a 12 year old? Because I don't want to be a bad person? Because he's just a kid? Because I'm afraid there will be strong repercussions that would hurt me? I just want to make the guy re-analyze his life, so that 30 years from now he isn't so ashamed of his 12 year old self that he can't reveal any of this to his wife, or have a decent conversation with his kids when they hit puberty. How to make him feel like a jerk, and enough so that it will stick with him, but only enough to be a warning of what not to let himself become?

Does that make this altruistic in nature? Because fear of backlash and/or of being a bad person is kind of the opposite of that. Maybe they will even themselves out?

But was he innocent? Was he just a boy?

Kids are mean, period. I spent my entire childhood convinced that I was both fat and ugly, the two most egregious sins a little girl can allow herself to demonstrate in public. Everything else was fair game too, however. My clothes (always in pants and with no fashion sense), my hair (I had nice enough hair, it was mostly unshaven armpits that gave people the willies), my skin color ("Hey Sharkbait! Be careful you don't go in the water and get eaten!"), my height (I was taller than all the boys until 8th grade), my quiet shyness that made me smile when I was uncomfortable...

And then sex came along. I'm always amazed at the people around me who freak out at the idea of anyone under 16 (God forbid they're under 10!) seeing a naked human body. My mother once told me an embarrassing story - never to be repeated again - proving that I was curious about sex when I was about 3 years old. By Kindergarten I knew what boys I "liked" and wanted to... be with. It was in 2nd or 3rd Grade that I started to wonder about girls. By 3rd Grade kids were secretly dating, holding hands, kissing, and bragging about having sex - I was crushed when it came out that the boy I liked had "gone all the way" with his girlfriend (it was probably just exaggeration, but you never know). By the 4th Grade I was masturbating regularly and trying to watch "adult" movies on cable when my parents weren't around. By 5th grade all the girls were talking about the boys they had kissed at this weekend's parties. By 6th grade you were a NOBODY if you didn't have a boy to hold hands with during recess, when all the couples would sit on the rock wall between the parking lot and the basketball court.

Then things got really weird in Jr. High, when suddenly we were on the same campus as 8th graders who all smoked, drank, and made out or had sex every weekend. Nobody was just a kid anymore. Nobody was innocent.

It was annoying when John called me "sharkbait" because I didn't tan. It was humiliating when he called me "watermelon", because I figured he meant I was big and fat. Then came the day on the baseball field in PE, in full view and earshot of our teacher (not to mention all the other snickering boys in the class), when out of nowhere came the one that would haunt me for 30 years: "Hey watermelon, I bet you're wet." All the boys laughed, and the girls giggled. I just stood there and blinked, What was he talking about? He cleared it up later, as we all filed out of class.

I remember him leaning over the ball field's fence, waiting for me to get closer as we all marched down the stairs. He waited, watching the horror come over my face at the dawning realization that I had to pass under him just to get away from him, grinning maliciously. At the very last moment, he leaned as far down towards me as he could from the height of the elevated field, then muttered, "I bet you're all wet inside, aren't you?"

He had enjoyed it so much when he saw I didn't know what his first comment had been about. I had no idea he could laugh any louder until the moment he saw it on my face that I had figured it out.

He was talking about my vagina.

And when he'd started calling me watermelon weeks ago, he had been talking about my vagina all those times too.

My humiliation was finally complete. He had finally found the one place no one else had bothered to criticize or ridicule: my sex and my sexuality. As if my body shame could have been any deeper at the time.

Why am I not building a time machine right now to nail his little dick to a wall?

Probably because I'd have to then go back and nail a whole lot of other dicks to walls, and I don't want to think about how to accomplish something similar for the girls who tortured me. The girls were usually the worst, because they were louder, shriller, and loved humiliating other girls daily just for sport. With the boys, they were usually just part of the pack laughing at the scathing remarks of the other girls. Unless I got too close to them and they had to make it publicly clear that I was gross, or they had to complain loudly about being paired with me in class. Maybe that's why John stands out, because it wasn't common for the boys to be the ones actually saying the remarks that hit home.

High school was different. It was so nice to be able to breathe and worry about things like school and tests and boys who actually liked me and hanging out with true friends who laughed with me. Just like that, teasing dropped off by about 95%. Why bother, when you had cliques to hang with your own and ostracize the "other"? So was it the decrease in being forced to socialize with people you didn't like, or was it something else?

I was a Senior in high school before I realized that guys had been checking me out since at least the 9th grade. Because when I caught them, they would immediately look away. I know I hated it when I was bored in class and in my desperate attempt to find any sort of stimulation I found myself looking at some cute guy - just as his bored eyes looked my way. I always averted my eyes instantly. I never stuck around to see if anyone would curl a lip or just keep on turning their head, and it certainly never occurred to me that they might smile at me.

Until one day I caught a boy spacing out while he looked at me, his eyes glazed over. Who knows what he was actually thinking about. But the moment he realized what he was doing AND that I was looking back at him, he was the one who instantly averted his eyes. And blushed. He was embarrassed.

A cute guy blushed and averted his eyes from my gaze. A mildly popular guy who could get just about any girl he wanted.

My mind kept hitting rewind to re-analyze the scene. When something clicked. I had seen this before.

It had been happening to me since 9th grade Algebra class, at least. Boys' eyes darting away, or down, or to the person next to them to chat. Except all those other times, they had been subtle/quick enough to play like it hadn't been a stare, but instead a moment in a longer time spent swiveling their head to take in the whole room or turn towards a friend. And all the times I was even quicker than them and averted my eyes first.

Holy. Shit.

To this day, I don't know how to feel about the revelation. As ever, part of me is thrilled, part of me feels justified that I was good enough to look at all along. But most of me is bitter. Because these boys are the same ones who made me feel like shit on a regular basis.

Cute girls may get the attention of boys and then get thrown away like toilet paper. Meanwhile, I was treated like shit on toilet paper because of my body, and my body was secretly appreciated by the same group of people.

It reminds me of that thing that guys do, how they like to turn things around if their advances are rebuffed. I think there might be a hashtag about it, something like "why so conceited? I wasn't hitting on you". Because there are some men that can't stand humiliation to the point that they would rather humiliate the woman they were just admiring.

"Oh, you thought I was asking you on a date? You? No! I meant the whole gang should go out on Saturday."

Or the woman who "experimented" with online dating conversations, where she simply accepted compliments instead of denying them.

"You're beautiful."
"Yes, thank you."
"Wow, you sure are conceited. You're not that hot. Bitch."

People actually accused her of not having the right to perform social experiments on unsuspecting men. Because how dare she change her behavior just to see if men react differently? Also, women who wear makeup are lying whores...

Or my personal favorite, which came up a lot in the YouTube video made by the woman who secretly taped all the guys hitting on her during the course of one day while walking through New York, "Just because I called you beautiful from 50 feet away and we've never met before, doesn't mean I was hitting on you. I was just saying hello. Bitch."

So was John evil? Or just typical? Did he secretly covet my breasts, thinking about my wet vagina?

I'll never know. And I hate not knowing. But more than that I can't stand the audacity of a man who can't deal with embarrassment, so instead he humiliates someone else. Or blames them.

"Well it's your own fault that I've spent the last 10 years having anonymous sex with people that I meet online. You didn't jump on my dick 5 times a week like you did before we had kids. And no, I couldn't talk to you about that! I'm not going to beg a frigid woman to have sex with me."

And what kind of man thinks it's so important to stay in a relationship, one that he can't keep from straying from, that he will resort to accusing his wife/girlfriend/partner of being crazy when she finds clues to his betrayal?

"Of course I'm not into her. She's just a friend. You're being paranoid. That sexy note you found was just a joke. She was actually mocking you, because she thinks you're too clingy. Maybe she's right?"

It's a wonder that the human race bothers to date anymore, let alone enter into "permanent" monogamous relationships.

Why, oh why didn't I write about "Stranger in a Strange Land" when I had actually just finished reading it? It's been at least a year (two?), and although I know it moved me and changed me and set me on a new path, I feel as if I can only talk about its points in relation to what other people are saying about it. Because I didn't capture those personal responses to the work immediately. I'm going to regret that forever, I know, because you can never re-read a book for the first time.

I know that it changed me in two ways: it returned some of my hope about life and humanity, and it put me on a new path that has reinforced that hope time and again. This book set me on the path to devour all things Heinlein. And with very few exceptions, each of his works has brought me to that place of "Oh my god, yes!" again and again. I don't think I'll ever be able to adequately describe the effect that Robert A. Heinlein has had on my life, or my great sorrow that I've only discovered him so long after his death.

This book moved me because it expressed so well my core beliefs about myself and humanity, beliefs that I have never been able to properly name, beliefs so slippery and elusive that I forget about them and have to be reminded. What does it say about me that I have to be reminded of a personal belief in hope?

Something that has bubbling to the surface over the years, the same something that caused me to start a new blog, was momentarily brought to the surface and shown in a shining light. A connection with and hope for humanity. The realization that yes, it may be paradoxical, but it's time to face the truth that although I am an atheist-leaning agnostic, I seek out and yearn for and suspect there is meaning to life. There is enlightenment to be had, if only we can let ourselves open up to it. Life can be chaotic and random, but somehow serendipity and fate can still occur. Without some overlord or god or grand designer. I can't explain it any better than that, maybe because I haven't been enlightened. I suspect it is merely the journey to enlightenment that *is* enlightenment.

But I was going to talk about this book, about Valentine Michael Smith, the human raised by Martians who became a sort of messiah. As I said, because it's been so long, I can't remember the details well enough and have to describe my reactions to the book as a response to what others have said.

I'm going to attempt to respond to the GoodReads review written by "Christy".

1. She has a strong response to the ugliness of the word "grok". I can sympathize with this, truly. I definitely feel like there are words that sound or feel "ugly", and "grok" is definitely one of them. But at some point I got over that, possibly at the point that I actually figured out the true meaning of the word. Something I suspsect that Christy has defined in a slightly different way than I have, which could explain a few things.

2. She sees a bit of hypocrisy in Heinlein's critique of religion and his use of religion to get his point across, saying that using religion as manipulation is too cynical for her taste and goes against the "Thou art God" philosophy. This is where I begin to suspect she has a different definition of the word "grok", as well as the concept of "thou art god", but I want to get to that later, as it's the meat of everything.

3. "The sexism of the text, which is inseparable from its heteronormativity and even homophobia." Yep, she's got me there. I still can't get over that line, "Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault". shudders But it's easier for me to give him a pass on the sexism than it is for homophobia. I just don't understand where the homophobia comes from. It is so very much against everything that I've come to love about Heinlein as I've read more and more of his work. Which makes me wonder about it. A comment on Christy's review by "Stew" suggests much of the book's offenses are contrived to be offensive, as their own commentary on things wrong with society. Speaking of the sexism, I don't think so. But the homophobia? Maybe. I can't recall much, if any, homophobia in any of the other works that I've read by him. I just don't know what to do with these sentiments. They will probably always be the most disturbing thing to me about Heinlein.

Why is it less disturbing when confronted with the sexism? Mostly because it's pretty much in all of his books. It's difficult to stomach, but you eventually have to roll your eyes and move on. Because at some point you have to remember that no one is perfect, and it's ok to recognize someone's contributions without letting their faults overshadow their good works. Do you point it out? Hell. Yes. Do you ruminate and question and let it frustrate you? Yes. Then you set it aside and move on. One does not judge the Constitution by the way it sets up how to count slaves. Critique it, yes, but don't throw it out. It being a living document, in fact you work to change it, while keeping the historical records as a remembrance of how times have changed.

One does not ban Huckleberry Finn for its use of the "N-word", but instead focuses on its message that black people are human. One does not judge the sermons of Martin Luther King Jr. for its heteronormatism or religious content, but for the message of overall equality. One does not throw out the contributions of Margaret Sanger for access to birth control because she support eugenics. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that Christy has done this. No, this is me explaining part of my reasoning for giving Heinlein a slap on the wrist rather than a beating for his sexism.

All of that aside, I have a more slippery reason. I think it's part of Heinlein's sexuality. Yes, I will go so far as to say that I think Heinlein himself was sexist. Time and again, Heinlein's male characters physically dominate the strong women they are drawn to. The scenes are like an eroticized breaking of a horse: the two fight for dominance, the man uses physical force to still the woman into true submission until she stops fighting and listens, he tells the woman how maddeningly feisty she is and how she is never to do "x" again and by the way she is the most amazing woman ever and so beautiful and intelligent and awesome and lets have babies now, she melts into his arms and their relationship is instantly transformed into one of loving hen-pecking and hot sex and adoration and baby making. The man and woman instantly understand everything about each other and all the conflicts from before this moment become silly endearments. The woman can be as "uppity" as she likes until the man raises an eyebrow, then she instantly knows she has crossed a line and with contrition she acknowledges that of course it is her duty to defer to his judgement in the matter.

Bleck. But... I can't ignore how very much this sounds like the relationship between a true Submissive and his/her Dominant partner. Yes, I'm talking about "BDSM" culture. I'm talking about a very real, valid, and contemporary (as in it's not just 1950s prudish patriarchy) form of sexuality.

Feminism is still divided strongly between sex-positive and sex-negative views. I am strongly a pro-sex feminist. Some of the anti-pornography and anti-dominance arguments I can understand, even occasionally agree with. But overall, I see sex as a positive human endeavor, pornography as a way to enjoy it, and submission/dominance relations as valid forms of sexuality. In light of that, I strongly suspect these scenes are exactly in-line with Heinlein's personal views. His work is filled with social commentary, much of it along liberal lines, but by no means is he a "flower-child". The man is pro-military and anti-democracy for crying out loud. These are just facets of his world view that we must accept as part of Heinlein, and move on from there.

Also, I am very frustrated with the entire second paragraph in the 3rd point of Christy's review. I don't see the problem with Jill's leap to the conclusion that appreciating poronography makes sense. It about sums up how I feel on the matter: it's ok to want to be looked at and it's ok to look. Pornography as an industry may have issues of power, and I have a big problem with the everyday objectifying of women as sexual objects in order to sell products, but I don't think pornography itself is wrong or anti-feminist, nor do I feel that seeing a person as a sexual object is wrong. The quote about Jill's relief at not having lesbian tendencies is troublesome. Part of me ridiculously holds out hope that we can take the comment at face value - that Jill wasn't ready for that much change, but that it isn't necessarily commentary on homosexuality. But of course, there's all the rest of the anti-homosexual sentiment to quash this. *sigh* But where does Christy get the impressions that Jill thinks "women are the spectacle, never the spectator" and "women's role in sexual behavior is essentially passive"? I find this whole paragraph to be too close to the sex-negative view point for my comfort.

4. Christy's response to the "emphasis on self" is where she completely loses me. She says "but if feeling good and being happy are the primary goals of life, then that opens the door for abuses of others in the name of love or happiness and seems a rather meaningless goal in and of itself. Hedonism alone is not enough for me."

Well damn. Crap on toast, woman, hedonism is basically the core of my entire life view. But for the love of all that is unHoly, how does any of this "open the door" to abuse and make life meaningless? Christy ends her review contrasting Heinlein's view that God is in all of us with Vonnegut's view that there is no god anywhere, saying that she finds Vonnegut more appealing. I've yet to read any Vonnegut, but I can see how someone can believe that view is more realistic or true. But more appealing? She faults Heinlein's finding meaning in the physical as too meaningless, but favors Vonnegut's view that life is meaningless? How can you prefer meaningless but fault someone for being too meaningless? It makes no sense to me. It makes me scratch my head so much, I wonder if I've misunderstood it somehow. (She thinks Mike duping people into knowledge via false religion is "too cynical", but Vonnegut's no god scenario is "appealing"? Huh???)

But this is a good transition back to my feeling that Christy does not define "grok" the way that I do, and that the definition goes to the core of my beliefs.

Christy bemoans "philosophy that believes that YOU are the center of the universe, that everything will work out for the best." She mentions The Secret, something that I haven't read (because I suspect I won't like it and there will be much eye-rolling), so I don't understand her "name-it-and-claim-it" comment. Working out for the best... huh?

As stated, Mike's lesson for humanity isn't religion. Christy doesn't see that although the word "God" is in there, "Thou art God and I am God and all that groks is God" has nothing to do with any "God".

I'm not Heinlein, and I'm not the character Michael or any other Martian, but I have always understood that to "grok" is to understand the existence of something completely and implicitly. And essential to this understanding is that there is no one thing to understand, there is no God or creator or meaning, there is no me and there is no you. Everything just is. Everything is Everything. There is no chair or you or Martians or books or God or... I suspect no love or hate or fear or action or movement or... anything. Because all there is is everything. There is no ONE thing. There is just EVERYthing, which is one thing. To grok is to understand this. To use Michael's mind powers, one simply taps into Everything, to be One with the All. It's that simple. This isn't religion. It is fact. The meaning of life is that life and unlife and existence is... existence.

Everything is Everything.

It's not cynical to dupe people with religion. It's using religion to bring them closer so you can whisper to them that there is no religion, there just is. The lesson is not religion. The lesson is that we are all part of a single existence. It's easy to say "single entity" here, but I don't think that's right either.

I was in tears when Michael told the ant "Thou art God", not because the ant is part of God and so is Michael and therefore everything will be ok in the end. No, "God" is merely a human name for something unnameable. "God" is the name for the realization that everyone and everything that ever was and is and will be is All. He was saying hello and goodbye to himself. He was acknowledging there is no death. I believe the only reason he uses the word "God" at all is because it is the closest word in the English language that comes anywhere close to covering it.

And this is as close to something that I can believe in as I've felt since I realized I didn't believe in God when I was 18. It's how I can be an atheist and say there is meaning to life. Do I believe that if I can truly transcend, to somehow actually BE the concept of everything is ONE, that I could then manipulate the things around me? Make my own reality? No. Maybe. It would explain some of the unexplainable phenomenon. It would explain afterlife and quantum physics and ghosts and non-linear time. Because there is no time either. There just IS. Psychic phenomenon*, all of it. Because everything just IS.

Maybe when I die, all of me will just BE everything else, and everything will sigh in relief that everything is finally one Evertyhing again, and I will know that it's all ok. I'll know how it all ends, I'll know the meaning of life and the universe and god, because I always will be and always have been Everything. Or maybe not. Probably not. But I like this idea better than anything I have ever heard. And it sounds much more probable than anything else too.

*Heinlein's book "Beyond This Horizon" and Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" both imply the psychic phenomenon can be explained by the fact that time is non-linear. If there is no time, or if everything that happened/is happening/will happen all happens at the same time, then having fore-knowledge of something is just that person having tapped into non-linear time.

So apparently I am behind on an internet bandwagon. Again. This is what happens when one decides the internet is a cesspool and it's time to take a break. More crap bubbles to the surface, everyone yells about it and moves on, and then I show up and see the end results and am left wondering what the fuck happened.

Well, this happened: more young American women are being sucked into anti-feminism, this time through a "feel good" campaign of posting selfies on Facebook that are all about attacking other women, and they don't even realize that the thing they are the most upset about is exactly what they are doing to other women.

I wanted to write about one of the official "Notes" there by the Page's owner, and who knows when I'll find time to do that. Instead, I'm going to tackle this single point made over and over again on the page that I woke up this morning obsessing about.

Here is the shortest, sweetest example, posted in a selfie:

"I don't need feminism because...
I have been shamed by them for not fit in their ideas"

It seems that if you scroll through the page to see the Selfies, read the posts, peruse the comments, a consensus emerges: "I don't need feminism because feminists aren't like me." Actually, it's usually something closer to "I'm not a feminist because feminists are bitches."

Where is the insert-Neon-Sign-of-Irony-here button? For those of you who didn't catch it, these women are posting again and again and again that feminism is bad because it's mean, while they themselves are doing what they allegedly "hate": judging other women.

Almost a year ago I wrote something that desperately needs to be heard by the current generation of women in this country. Alas, I don't think my 3 readers made much of an impact. Oh well. I can only try. I titled it You, Dear Reader, Are a Feminist. Here's the gist, "If you are reading this, there is a 99% chance that I know and respect and love you. And everyone I know and respect and love is a feminist. Some of you just don't seem to realize it."

But none of the women posting on this Page seem to be aware of any of the irony, or of the facts. They are tied up in their own emotions. Which is understandable. Which is reasonable. Which is feminist. Which is human.

I would like to ask these women a few questions, to see if I can lead them with logic to a realization which their emotions seem to have left them blind.

First, when was the last time you stopped liking chocolate because you stumbled upon a bad dollar-store-quality bar of the stuff? Don't like chocolate? How about coffee? Pizza? Beef*? Carrots? OK, you don't like any of that stuff? Fine. My point being: when did you ever let a single bad experience with your favorite food make you hate that food for the rest of your life?

This analogy is lame though, because food just doesn't rise to the level of this debate. Also, it's silly of me to think these women are anti-feminists because of a single experience. I get that. I really, truly do.

So on to my second question. "Did you stop liking men because you had a truly noxious guy hit on you once or thrice or fifty times?" Think about this, ok? If you are into guys, surely you are still into them even after the inevitable "toad" has come on to you. Surely you still want to hook up with the opposite sex even though Jimmy in 4th grade pulled your hair. Surely you love or hope to fall in love with a man even though you dated 5 guys in a row who turned out to be complete jerks. Because one man or fifty, those guys can't change who you are at the core: a heterosexual.

And still lame, I know. Not 100% true. Our experiencies do change us, even at the core. My experiences with men have made me fear them. But I still like them. I still desire them*. But I know there are those whose fear goes beyond mine. Women who have been violently assaulted or raped by a man may find themselves too changed by the experience to have the same relationship with sex and/or men that they did in the past. Oh, also, you might be gay. But I really think that if you are same-sex oriented, you can figure out how to translate the previous passage into something more relevant, ie "Did a bad date with a girl ever turn you off of girls for good?"

So now I'm going to step it up a notch. Ready girls*? When was the last time you let some other person who claims to share your religion drive you from your faith? Are you pro-life? You do know that there are pro-choice Christians out there, right? Are you a Muslim who has nothing against Jews? I'm sure you've heard that there are Muslims who hate Israel. Are you a Southern Baptist who hopes to some day see your sister marry her lesbian partner? I don't think I have to tell you that there are plenty of people who share your faith who would actively work to keep your sister from such a happy day.

When was the last time you let someone else's faith dictate your own? Never? Good. Welcome to feminism. Still not buying it? OK, ok, maybe you're an atheist. Or worse, you're like me, a "recovering Christian". I'll be the first to admit that my experiences with people of faith had a HUGE impact on me and my decision to turn away from religion and faith in general.

That leaves me with one final question then. Oh, I think I could have found other levels between "faith" and this last step, but I think it's time I just came out and said what was really on my mind.

When was the last time you let another human being convince you that you are not human?

Hitler was a pretty poor excuse for a human, am I right? Jeffrey Dahmer comes to mind. I personally loathe Ann Coulter and Newt Gingrich. Maybe you hate Annie Sprinkle and that chick that wrote the Vagina Monologues*. Your 3rd grade teacher? Your step-dad? The guy who stole your virginity? The girl who broke your heart? It doesn't matter.

Nothing any human ever does to you or to others will ever change the fact that you are human. It is who you are, period. Short of some Frankenstein-level science, there's no changing it.

So by all means, hate feminism. Tell the world you don't need it. Tell the world you're not a feminist. It's your right. But at the end of the day, try to remember that you're human. And I'm human. And that bitch who bullied you because you want to be a wife instead of a lawyer is a human. Then close your eyes, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that more importantly, you're still a feminist.

Because the definition of feminist isn't bitch. It's not bully. It's not abortion. It's not gay rights. It's not anti-men. It's simply the belief that women are equal to men. Period. Welcome back to the fold!

*Yep, I'm a feminist. Even though I'm not vegan, I am attracted to men, I still call women "girls" and I'm not offended when anyone else does it, and I don't know the name of the writer of The Vagina Monologues.

Dude: Date me or get raped.

Internet: What. The. Fuck. PIG.

Dude: Bitch, I didn't actually rape you! Look at what this guy said about how rape isn't bad! I just think rape is funny, he thinks rape is ok.

The Internet: RAGE.

When I was a preteen, I moved from Hawaii to Washington. When writing back home to my friends, I liked to add a p.s. that went something like this, "Write Back Soon - or I'm sending the Beastie Boys to Rape You!" I thought the Beastie Boys were ugly. I thought rape was something... unreal. Nobody actually does anything like that, right? So sending ugly dudes to commit a mythical sin upon the bodies of your best friends was sooo damned funny to me.

I recalled this only recently and I'm horrified at my past-self. Today, I'm wondering about this kid at the exact same high school I attended (was I still writing shit like this when I was in high school? I can't remember.) - how horrified is he going to be in 20 years? I wrote a p.s. in a letter to some friends. He used Twitter and has thousands of followers.

from scootius.tumblr.com: facebooksexism-thisiseverydayracism

I wanted the rest of the story. He posted the infamous Prom Rape Joke in April. The guy tweets so much, it took me over 10 minutes to get down to the May tweets about his suspension. About another 5 minutes to find his pseudo-response to the whole thing:

Please read this if you think I'm a rapist
the-problem-with-slacktivism-rape-jokes-are-not-okay-and-neither-are-death-threats-nsfw … You're uneducated for believing everything you see on the internet.

It is an interesting read. A very calm, level-headed, look-at-all-sides-of-the-situation type post. The kind of thing I strive for in my own commentaries, with varying success. It misses the mark though. But I didn't even need to say that. "Anonymous" did it for me in the comments (intelligent comment discussions on a blog post?! holy shit!). I swear, I was asking myself if I had written this and blanked it out, it just sounds so much like what I would say. And it's 11 paragraphs long! But I swear I didn't write it!

[if the link doesn't properly send you to the comment, scroll down to 18 May, 2014 @ 7:00pm]

I've written about rape culture before. And one of my biggest pet peeves is a guy who responds to criticism by pointing out someone else's (my) bad behavior to take the heat off (not naming names, as that would get me divorced). But I don't know whether to rage or cry or just shake my head. I don't understand how someone so entrenched in social media (he tweets so much that I had to scroll 17 times to read just one day's worth of tweets) can be so fundamentally clueless about (a) the repercussions of tweeting anything controversial, (b) the ridiculous amount of rape threats being made by trolls across the internet on a regular basis, (c) the concept of "trigger" words or phrases that cause rape and other PTSD victims to relive their trauma every time it's even mentioned, and (d) pointing people to a blog written by someone else asking for mercy is not an explanation of your actions or a retraction or an apology. There are some great satirists out there. It's a human tradition. Posting a picture of an offensive joke, not explaining yourself, then vilifying/name calling/ignoring/redirecting those calling you out is NOT great satire. It's just a joke by a kid proving how totally and completely clueless he is about what real life as an adult is all about.

He (vaguely) claims the satire is to point out rape culture. If that was his intent, he should have known why rape culture is so harmful. He should have known what it actually is. He should have known that he would offend people. He should have accepted graciously the comments (no, not the death threats) by people pointing out that he was actually contributing to the culture he was allegedly trying to point out. He should have been willing to engage in conversation. He should have learned something. I don't see any of these points as true, so I have to doubt the veracity of his claims. Calling a joke satire after the fact does not make it satire.

Finally, one of the more frustrating things about this is the Lady Texan blogger's attempt to shame the people who called this kid's school.

Um, no.

Is he a kid? Sure. Can kids commit acts that need to be reported to the proper authorities? You bet. Is it up to those authorities to decide what to do with the information? True.

Once again, the moral of the story that everyone is missing more and more lately: it is not anti-acceptance to point out and refuse to accept improper behavior. It is completely reasonable to demand every one of us be human to each other and to face the consequences when we ourselves slip up. The United States is not an anarchy. We can accept a lot, but we will not/should not accept harmful behavior. Harm can only be defined by the victim, not the attacker. We have given authorities the right to judge whether harm has been committed. So we take our case to them. If it's dismissed, that's another matter. But you don't silence victims, regardless of how anyone else views the allegations they make. If they say there is harm, they have been harmed enough to say it. Whether or not that is enough to have real consequences is not up to bystanders to decide. So can everyone please stop shouting down the whistle-blowers?

ps: calling someone out is not "slacktivism"
pps: cyber-stalking is bad
ppps: death threats are bad
pppps: the kid has mentioned suicidal thoughts, so back the fuck off. No, we don't know if he meant it. Doesn't matter.

I like Pepper Schwartz. She's from the UW, so over the years she has appeared on local television from time to time. Usually, she is spot on. I am finding it difficult to stomach this piece she wrote for CNN where she adds to the "controversy" of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's fashion shoot with Vogue. To be fair, she attempted to be fair, weighing both sides of the argument playing out online.

Schwartz sees one side may be unfair for putting Mayer on the "role model" pedestal, but there she is, so she's sending a message that brains aren't enough. On the other hand, what girl doesn't want to be pretty? In the end, she sides with the angry mob:

"Unfortunately, it is not an exaggeration to say that Marissa Mayer is kind of saying, even though I am sure she did not mean to, that to have it all, sure, you have to be smart, but, let's face it, you also need to be beautiful."

I'm here to call Bullshit on Pepper Schwartz. So what if she is a role model? So what? Is a brainy person who has succeeded on their merits supposed to at some point start going out in public with a bag over their head? Uh, no. There are plenty of actresses and models out there who are plenty brainy, and they don't go out in paper sacks or hide their smarts. When you've got it, flaunt it. Why the hell not? Is it really a better message for young people to hear that you can't be both pretty and smart, not without feeling really, really guilty about it. We do not live in the world of Harrison Bergeron. Not yet.

I could stop there, but I have so many problems with this stance.

Halfway through reading the piece, I found myself arguing in my head with Schwartz, "But what if it wasn't a sexy pose? What if it was just a regular headshot? Photographers take a lot of pictures during photo shoots, and this is just one. What if they had gone with something else? What if Mayer is shy and this was really hard for her to do, and the photographer talked her into it? What if she is stunned to see how good she looks?"

I was aplogizing for Mayer. I couldn't believe it. Women now need an excuse to look and feel good about themselves? Would this somehow be better if she had been demure? Was that really where my mind was going? Had Schwartz considered this? Does any woman with an ounce of self-respect really, honestly believe a woman should only ever be demure in public, or else be labelled too sexy, a slut, a whore? I just don't think Schwartz has thought this out fully.

Because if she had, she would have asked herself what if it had been a man in that picture? Steve Jobs might have looked kind of silly in that outfit and that pose, but what if he did an interview for Vogue and they asked him to play "sexy" for the camera. Can you imagine what the photos might look like? How exactly do you make Steve Jobs look too sexy, to detract from his public persona of intelligence? Well, you might start by showing some abs, lifting up the shirt, right?

Mayer is fully clothed in her shot. Try again.

Give Steve some extra hair gel and zoom in on sultry eyes?

Mayer is shown full body.

What exactly is it about this shot that makes Marissa Mayer too sexy for our own good, something we could duplicate with Steve Jobs to show that a man doing the same would be just as inappropriate. Um, nice shoes? Bare calves? Have him appear to be lying upside down on a lounge chair? No, no, and no. You just can't take anything "done" to Marissa Mayer for this shot and use it to turn a man into a "beefcake" no one would respect for their mind. Because the only things "done" to her are enhancements of her natural beauty. Hair, make-up, clothes, lighting, camera angle. NO SKIN. Mayer isn't too sexy for her tablet. She's just sexy.

And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with looking sexy and being smart enough to run a company.

Next time Jodie Foster or Michelle Obama wear make-up in public, I don't expect to see a piece just as judgmental from Pepper Schwarz. I don't think she would blink. So, with eyes open, maybe you could retract this insulting bit of unnecessary commentary?

Footnote: I'm not a fan of Marissa Mayer. She set an incredibly high bar for working mothers when she went back to work after only 2 weeks of maternity leave, and then axed telecommuting for the entire company. She has since extended family leave benefits for her employees, but the woman still leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not about to knock her for jumping at a chance to get gussied up for Vogue magazine though.