Women, Femmes & non-binary siblings- unite and praise the fuck out of each other.- a note on praise hijacking

Hey men & masculine privileged people,
We need to have a little chat about the way you treat women, femmes & non-binary people's work* & how you co opt our praise.
I'm so tired of trying to talk about the amazing work women & gender oppressed people are doing only to have one of you interrupt me to say 'Yeah (name) AND ME do work really hard'. Or
'I did (project) too/in a different place' (You're not fooling anyone with that). We get it, you want recognition. Everyone deserves recognition. Everyone deserves to have their effort rewarded but not everyone needs it, right now, this instant- from me. The reason I go put of my way to praise women, femmes & non-binary people is that the work they do is devalued in the big bad patriarchal world. Yours isn't (at least in this space).


It may be that you only have masculine privilege in this setting for a couple of hours once a month. It may be that the rest of the time you don't feel you hold power in the same way. I understand that you may want to flex the ol' privilege muscles whilst you can but that action isn't necessary or fair. When you tear down, intercept or manipulate the praise or recognition of someone else what you're doing is being complicit in gender oppression. Yes, you can experience oppression on the basis of your gender AND perpetuate someone else's gender oppression too. The truth is that there's actually no shortage of praise to go around & there are more appropriate ways to receive it than hijacking someone else's. So I've put some tips together as a loose guide to not hijacking praise off those of us who trying to support each other.

1. When you feel like you want praise from people in your life in general take these three steps
- Consider
Consider what you have done that you feel deserves praise. Is it something specific? Is it a project? Who does the project serve? Are any of those people around? Have you done the bare minimum? Have you piggybacked someone else's achievement? Did someone else facilitate you doing the work with reminders or resources?
- Critique
Think critically about your need for praise. Is it coming from a place of privilege? Is it a feeling you can placate by working on your own self esteem? Do you definitely need these people to praise this achievement?
- Communicate
When you feel like you deserve or desire more praise for a task, project or achievement try actually just asking for it. Then the person you're talking to isn't trying to interpret meaning from your words. It saves them time and you effort. It's less coercive than just leading them down the path of your ego & guilting them into ringing the bell.
E.g. 'Hey I did this thing, I feel really proud of myself, but I'm feeling insecure, can you tell me that I did well?'

2. Be willing to accept the fact that women, femmes & non-binary people may not want to praise you.
It takes a lot of work to exist in a world where your achievements are underrated & ignored. Being bullied into praising someone whose achievements DO get recognised definitely makes me feel resentful. Learning to take 'no' or 'not right now' as an answer helps everyone. The more we accept a 'no', the more women & gender oppressed people feel confident saying no, the more energy we can all put into performing crucial labour when we want to. No isn't a dirty word, it's one that helps us demonstrate our boundaries.

3. Practise praising yourself
I like to make pictures and give them to myself as a reward. E.g. 'Getting through a shit day' crown. I am rewarding myself for doing a thing. I can post it online and talk about doing the thing. Then my friends can respond if they feel like it by celebrating my achievement with me instead of feeling like they have to praise me & support me.
Try looking in the mirror & thinking 5 things you have achieved (not appearance based). Acknowledge them, praise them.
Be a friend to yourself. Service your own self esteem.

4. Seek out & celebrate
In a society where women, femmes & non-binary people's work is ignored, overlooked & devalued it can be quite easy for masculine privileged people to pretend we don't do any work. You can't expect the people doing work from any oppressed group to just pop up shining like a brilliant example for you to praise. Seek out the work of working class non binary people making poetry, disabled femmes running support groups, black women lifting up creative communities, trans women of colour leading resistance, fat femmes organising in their workplace, lesbian artists etc. Ask questions about people's art, tell people how and why you appreciate their work, let them know you understand when their work isn't meant for you.
Praise is not a one way street. It's an exchange.

5.  Understand us
When you see women holding each other up, or femmes praising femmes or non-binary people shouting and cheering for each other- think about why. Think about why we have created support networks, why we send each other care packages or help each other out. You might find that if we don't do it no one else will.

I'm sure in spaces where masculine privileged people interact in masculine communication styles there's a different attitude towards support. A different attitude towards praise. Maybe it's a scarcity? (I genuinely don't know)Maybe you see us praising one another and think 'I want that'. If that's the case then it's 100% legitimate to create friendship groups and foster nice political communities where that exists for you. Doing so is helpful emotional labour for yourself and others. These dynamics are precious & important to us, they are how we survive & that's why we build them & why you can't snatch them away.

In love & solidarity,
K.x





* Work in this sense is the broadest most inclusive meaning of the word. Paid, unpaid, academic, emotional, domestic, political, support, social, self, community, friendship, relationship, voluntary, creative, organising, self care. Literally any action taken by people to further the wellbeing, progress, survival, existence, thriving, or expression of themselves, their community, their friends,  partners, their family, their comrades, strangers or acquaintances.

"I turn a lot of heads, I turn a lot of stomachs" what it's like when you're not the object of desire

A friend on Facebook posted this article by Sarah Einstein and my response to it feels bigger than I could reasonably call 'a status'. In the article Einstein talks about her experience of being an older, less physically attractive wife to a younger, more physically attractive man. The two speak freely about their situation- he is not attracted to her body and she is working through her negative feelings about this. He is however attracted to her mind and she feels good about this. 


Like Sarah Einstein '(...)beautiful has always been beyond me. If people find me so, it’s only after they’ve come to know me. (...) I minded this quite a lot in my teens, when it seemed that only beautiful people mattered, that it was a prerequisite for a good life.' But more than her writing about how she doesn't turn heads or has always been plain, I find I turn plenty of heads. I have always repulsed people (especially men) and can't walk down a street without an extended look. Hardly go a day without comments being made  about me. On my first day of my current job my boss gave me diet advice. I get comments about my unattractiveness online a lot (A LOT). And why is this? Well, it's not because I'm plain, I wish I was plain! Plain would be a godsend.


 By conventional standards I am deeply ugly (in part due to my being a fat person, in part a hairy mixed white/arab woman, I have a heavy brow, a giant chin and a strangely cartoonish look). I also have large disfigurements on my body. I can say these things. I can say them and know that they are true to society's standards but not absolute fact. I spent many years feeling like it wasn't my job to be beautiful, I rebelled against beauty, wore sexy clothes on Wednesday mornings without waxing my eyebrows. I took a few years out to readjust what I expected of my body and myself. 


Somewhere down the line I began to feel my subversion of norms was actually, very attractive. I am not easy on the eyes, my presence requires space and attention & work. It always has, but importantly I stopped trying to make myself smaller & I started occupying space in my own life.



When I was seventeen a (frankly mediocre) man once said to me 'I think about us being together. Usually I go for good looking women but you've got this intellect'. 
but you've got this intellect.
He's married now, to a beautiful woman, a friend actually. And I hope at least for her that he has let go of the abstract standard beauty he had decided it was his job to enforce on women. 

Though this statement stung (stings, even after eight years) I can see where he was coming from.I can see why she is his wife. I can see why I am not. I can see why Sarah Einstein is doing herself a favour by working through her feelings on her desirability.


I'm not Sarah Einstein. I'm a queer, fat, disabled and working class person. I'm also polyamorous. I work really hard to undo the messages society has taught me about myself (in the full knowledge that not everyone I sleep next to has bothered to do the same). I try my best to avoid toxic media messages, I look at myself naked in the mirror even on the days I don't want to. I read books written by other fat people. I shout at men who harass me in the street. I call out abusive behaviours in the queer scene (usually to my own exclusion and suffering). I take myself on decadent dates. I eat in public. I talk about sex. I care more about Janelle Monae than Jeremy Clarkson. I have several sexual and romantic partners. I cut toxic people out my life (where safe and possible to do so). I do most of my online interacting in explicitly queer femme spaces and the people whose opinions I listen to are mainly other fat working class femmes.



But something is rotten in the state of Denmark (my life). On a daily basis I feel my relationships (despite my attempts to work against it) have been/are still highly impacted by the thinking that my body is unsexy, undesirable and that my merit (smash merit tbh) is based purely in how much I can perform the role of funny fatty and clever prole.  I know lots of other people I know feel the same. And I want to tell you- it is not your job to fill in the deficit others consider your body to make with with, intellect or entertainment. Beautiful, thin, young people are allowed to be vapid & so are you.



The other day I was thinking about polyamory and the very real and harmful way in which people stack, hierachalise and demote their romantic/sexual partners. Polyamory is supposed to an alternate method of loving and dating to the typical white heterosexual nuclear family of Western economic creation. It's not a massive surprise that it ends up reinforcing a lot of the really shitty dynamics that already exist. I can't tell you how many times I found myself pushed out of relationships by people who were more conventionally attractive than me. You see in our relationships there's no need to break up, we can just invest more time in the people we think gain us more social capital. And slowly us uglies fade away.



And I'm sorry Sarah, but I'm just not as strong as you, I can't make peace with being the person who is the last resort date (or friend, femmerades, let's not pretend we aren't stuck doing the dishes whilst the cool andro and masculine people gain queer points by misquoting Marx). I can't make peace with my body being a barrier or a hurdle for people to love me. 



Me stating this doesn't mean it isn't something that effects me. If only acknowledging this shit meant it went away. I assure you, I'm well aware that all my relationships are subject to my partners not finding someone more attractive and thinner. And yeah, I spend a lot of my time stuck in scarcity mentality (warning on this link for discussion and take down of dieting).  Reading Einstein's article I felt deeply emotional at the passage 'In our early days, before my husband could articulate the ways in which he both did, and did not, feel desire for me, we sometimes fought about our sex life. I’m tired of always having to be the one who makes the first move, I’d say, and do you think I’m ugly, and of course are you sure you love me? (...) And we’d make love that night because he’d reach for me, and then not again—sometimes for weeks—until I reached for him.' because man, I know those feels. And it's not just about sex because as other people who are reminded daily by the behaviour of partners, friends and family- we all know that it's difficult to feel loved by someone who to all intents and purposes feeds our self-loathing. I feel like we (fat femmes, working class women) wake up every day and exist, fight through family meals and obnoxious men and horrible media messages about ourselves. We are strong. But your oppressive body politics are your issue and something you need to work through to be safe to date us. It's not about education it's about work. Your pseudo sex positive 'preferences' don't exist in an apolitical vacuum. 
 

A while back a friend who was having a difficult time read me this article by Derek Sivers entitled 'No more yes. It's either HELL YEAH! or no' (warning there for overly enthusiastic straight dude). We need to be 100% clear that being fat doesn't make you unsexy and being older doesn't make you undesirable and being attractive in a non-conventional manner isn't an excuse for a lack lustre approach to us or our bodies. Equally, the kyriarchal bullshit that slips out the mouths of your partners and family is no excuse for a half-arsed approach to loving yourself. It will hurt when the person you were filling in time for (shout out at this point to Samantha Peterson for writing this amazing poem) comes along and they are thinner, and funnier(although funnier is unlikely) than you. They are literally you lite. It will hurt and then it won't. It is not evidence. It does not confirm anything other than the person who pushed you aside is a grade A trumpet. You do not have to spend another moment being pushed aside or undesired. I could tell you that I will always find beauty in the piece of you that they recoiled from, and I will, but the most important thing is that we find ourselves worthy. Even when how we feel about ourselves is negated by someone we love. Sarah Einstein's article registered with me in several ways, and I know that what she is saying is important and true and sad and beautiful. But for me, it's not the end of the story. 

If nothing else- it is a lot of work to be the person holding up both (or all) sides of a relationship. Call me an entitled millenial (or whatever bullshit term people are using to describe young women who they disagree with these days) but I'm not willing to hedge my future happiness on an Ann Summer's catalogue & the hope that I find someone who tolerates my powerful, exciting body.


 You cannot validate yourself through other people. And if they leave you in the fruit bowl in hope of finding less bruised fruit, then- fuck them. Or rather, don't. They are not your safety.

Lately I have been writing things down to make sense of them, I have been reading more in order to improve my writing and in my reading I found these words. I repeat them to myself when ever I feel devalued by someone I love, or am invested in

'you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful something not everyone knows how to love.' 
-Warsan Shireh
For women who are difficult to love

This year my birthday present to me...IS ME

I know, I know, that sounds super cheesy and a bit hippie right? But there is definitive proof me and birthdays don’t get on well (*see at bottom of page for self pitying list) and I think I know why. It seems to me that birthdays are another front where my inability to surround myself with loving and respectful people, or (as suggested by my therapist) my inability to consider myself wholly worthy of (and demand) a decent level of respect sees me spending every August and most of September with a low sinking feeling in my stomach. The pressure is on to organise ‘A Thing’ or have ‘A Thing’ organised for me.

Suddenly Facebook events become a rite of passage for validation. Sentimental baby pictures taped up on lampposts are a necessity and ideally you have your own hash-tag. Because of this I am nervous. I am neurotic. I am 100% sure that everybody hates me and I am going to spend my birthday in another family's caravan, resented and alone. People like drinking, but I don't drink. Queers are supposed to be able to smoke weed and drink gin, but I have found myself deeply & unfashionably sober since the age of 21 (and constantly excluded for it). We're supposed to spend our birthdays being showered with gifts by our (presumably wealthy) families. But that's not really how stuff goes for me either. If nothing else we're supposed accept this yearly occurrence with grace and dignity. But I seem to be stuck with grace and dignity's working class cousins- money problems and anxiety. The resonating pressure of those two words 'supposed to' means that by early September I am a mess.I have only ever had one friend who seems to have the organisational skill and reckless determination to tackle me and my birthday phobia, who has listened to me cry from bed after being let down by friends, who has rang me up every year since I was 17 and said ‘So what are we doing for your birthday?', who made sure I was never forgotten never invisible on my birthday (it’s you, Lucy, in case you’re wondering) and whilst I truly love her for it, those aren’t very good odds are they? One person out of hundreds?

Don’t get me wrong when I say me and birthdays don’t get on. I mean there are good elements of all the birthdays listed below (I mean, who wants to speak to humans anyway, goats are way cooler) and I have had good birthdays. When I was little, birthdays were magical. I got to dress up in a BIG POOFY DRESS and wear a ribbon on my head. I got shiny toys and I got to see family. But most of all, the loving attention that was laid upon me made me feel replenished, special and capable. People being happy that you were born is like, a pretty nice indicator.But when you're not living the dream life (not even on instagram), when 'Suddenly I see' by KT Turnstall doesn't play as you walk down the street, when maybe not everyone is overly excited about the fact that you still exist, where does that attention come from?

I am a common, fat, womanish person with holes in my shoes and no postgraduate degree who doesn't take sh*t from people. Societal norms dictate that I am not first in line for loving attention. So what do I do? Well here comes the super cheesy idea- maybe I give myself that attention? (Not in that way, although maybe, I mean, self-love right?) Maybe you could give it to yourself too? After all, for those of us who are pushed out of spaces, spoken over in our social groups and sidelined at work is there really any other option?

Here is my action plan

1. Take it from Akua Naru “self love is the very first romance”
Everyday I am trying my best to remind myself that I am in a life long relationship with myself and that I am a gift that only improves with age. Every year I know more, try new things, meet new people, and achieve new things. Even if it’s getting out of bed, making it to work, writing this blog post. I am reminding myself that the aging process is not negative and that I am a worthy person all year round.

2. Forgiveness is a virtue
Forgiving myself for being imperfect in a world that demands an oppressive standard, forgiving myself for not doing enough work or forgetting to pick up milk. I am doing my best to look upon myself with forgiving eyes because like it or not, I am stuck with myself for the long haul. Forgiveness is difficult when you have no money and limited prospects. Forgiveness is difficult when you are unhappy with your place in the queerosphere, the workplace, the family and society. Forgiveness is a process, and it will probably take me the rest of my life, but guilt will ruin the rest of my life & I know which I'd rather be working towards.

3. Enjoying the ride
Everything I achieved I achieved in this body with this brain. When I am distracted by negative and toxic messages about my self worth I am being drained of my energy. Energy to be an attentive partner, energy to be a supportive colleague, energy to organise politically, energy to confront the trauma in my past. I have started looking at baby photos. I have started making lists of my adventures. I have started spending time with the old friends who I can laugh with at shared memories. But most of all I have started have started celebrating my life in its current state, no apologies. Being at war with myself is not sustainable. If I am working towards living & forgiving (as in points one and two) then this point to say that I must also work towards surviving and thriving. 

Me (far right) running whilst fat

This year I am my own birthday present. I am ensuring that I lavish myself with loving attention, that I feel replenished. This year I am fat, and worthy. Disabled and capable. Anxious and loud. Sober and entertaining. Ugly and beautiful. Serious and hilarious. Working class and yes, probably a little bit more intelligent than you.This year I am imperfect, my own little state of anarchy. It's not all planned out. I'm not looking forward to a holiday or a promotion, and it's highly likely that I'm not going to be 'achieving' things in the way that I'm 'supposed to'. But I'll make do with what I've got and what I've got has a lot of potential. This year I am wearing a BIG POOFY DRESS and a ribbon in my hair. And even if I spend the day on my own, or don't hear from family, or things don't go to plan, this day doesn't define me. It's not a test, not another chance to flaunt my social capital. It's enough to just get a year older and still be alive. I am taking responsibility for myself and that is scary, yeah. But god, the odds of getting through the month are so much better when I’m not at war with the person in the mirror.

*Self Pitying List 1. There was the year when I spent my birthday on a family trip in Wales with some family members, wandering lonely and only comforted by the presence of goats, stranded with a little family I wasn’t really a part of (seriously you wanna see the pictures from the disposable camera taken on that holiday, a picture of me with a dog, a picture of some rabbits, a picture of a pony, some more rabbits, the cloudy Welsh sky, a goat, two goats, three goats). 2. There was the year I spent my birthday in bed crying after being let down by a friend. 3. There was the year a parent forgot how old I was. 4. There was the year a family member forced me to have a ‘tea party’ against my will & when they then proceeded to get drunk and to flail around the house to a soundtrack of Bob Marley and my father saying (louder than he thought) ‘doesn’t she (me) have any friends?’. 5. There was the year I became '& co' at a joint party. 6. There was the year my foster mother forced me to spend my birthday watching her cry in a KFC car park, and gave me a box of chocolates & and old bottle of perfume in the gift bag I gave her some Mother’s Day presents in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not about the money or the gifts, but she got a bloody grant on my birthday. 7. There was the year all my ‘friends’ at my primary school didn’t come to my birthday sleepover because I was the fat kid with a single mum and we lived in a council house. 8. There was the year when I had the flu & a family member organised a meal in the local Italian restaurant & shouted at me for not dressing up enough so I spent the day half crying. 9. There was the year when I threw myself a party, had a panic attack and thought I was dying. 10. There was the several years I lost out to aggressive, careless, cruel or controlling partners, illness, self loathing. 11. There was the many years where my birthday was just a way to keep the electricity meter going, just a token from people who offered no further support during the rest of the year.

On women only train carriages

I often utilise women only spaces (officially ones or unofficial ones) to avoid harassment in public & at social events (toilets, gyms, kitchens at parties, clothes shops) and, you know what? It works. The issue of public transport is the issue of choice. Now, it would be real simple if you and your buddies could make the honourable choice to stop flexing your metaphorical members in a cat call-off on a Friday night, but my experience has concluded that you can’t. So the idea of women only coaches on trains and tubes (proposed for consultation with women by Jeremy Corbyn) is one simple (by no means 100% solve-all option to give women a choice to be in a carriage with no men in it. Now, whilst there may be problems with this idea (that would be useful  for women to discuss together) men have taken to twitter to air their disgust at this policy idea. 

I have been harassed on public transport since the age of 14. Telling me that this ‘could easily happen to men’ even though it doesn’t is telling me that I, at age 14 on the train from Southport to Appley Bridge deserved to be cornered and & have middle aged men interrogate me about body.

Because the truth of the matter is in the last eleven years I have grown to expect to be sexually harassed and assaulted on public transport with very little support from other passengers. And when that support comes it is usually from other women.

Every time I have been harassed on public transport it has been (to my knowledge) by a man 99.9% of these instances the man has been white 99.9% of instance he has been unchallenged.

-It was a man who repeatedly tried to touch me on an empty platform in Liverpool when I was 21.

-It was a man who harassed me on a weekly basis on the 395 bus from Ormskirk to Skelmersdale, who got annoyed when I refused to speak to him and followed me part of the way home when I was 19.

-It was a man who rubbed his genitals on my hip on the London Underground when I was 18.

-It was a man who intercepted another man who was drunkenly propositioning me at Ormskirk bus station only to then sexually harass me for the entire journey home when I was 22. Imagine that- getting sexually harassed whilst you’re being sexually harassed.

-It was a group of boys (age 12-16) who spat at me, threw food and drinks at me & chanted names at me every morning on the school bus in Shevington when I was 14.

-It was a man who touched my body without my consent on the 143 bus in Manchester when I was 23. And who got the funny looks when I shouted over to my friend  ‘Ew this man is trying to grope me’? Oh yeah, me.

-It was a man who rubbed his thigh against my leg and read over my shoulder on the bus last night.

-It was a group of four men who made comments about my fat body this morning at the coach station.

I am 25.

I have been spat at, cornered, followed, groped, shouted at, whispered to, blocked from moving, stared at, spoken about, had pictures taken of me, been called names, been coerced into conversation, been sexually shamed & had my belongings confiscated.

I have tried ignoring it, challenging, discussing it, reporting it, shouting back, glaring, asking other passengers for help & physical confrontation.

Any whilst it might hurt a few feelings for men who have decided that this is ‘segregation’ (which is not only pretty flagrant use of a racially charged word but just horrifically incorrect) or that ‘all carriages should be harassment free’ (yeah, they should, but erm, they aren’t & I don’t see you looking up from your copy of the Telegraph to challenge other men on their behaviour) I can’t help but feel cheated.

Yet again men’s views are privileged above women’s safety and autonomy. That same privilege that comes into play when a man decides his desire to touch a woman comes before her permission. Your feelings are hurt?  Your FEELINGS are hurt. Fine. That doesn’t make your beliefs correct. This isn’t Dawson’s Creek. This is the real world. And I have a life time of research called ‘Being a Woman on Public Transport’ to support my ideas.

So I’m sorry if the idea that women want to be safe from the daily barrage of crap you throw at us is hurtful. It seems so many of you are moved to tweet, maybe whilst on public transport, maybe whilst ignoring the awkwardness of a woman being harassed three seats down.

I am tired of pretending to be on the phone, pretending to know other women on public transport to defuse harassment situations and most of all I am tired of pretending to care about your feelings. Close your legs,  get your hand off my thigh, log off twitter and shut up.

SPAnswers- g-spot orgasms, masturbation shame, and the possibility of poly.

How can you bring up polyamory within the context of a long term, so far monogamous relationship with minimum pain?

Ellie-I think the best thing to do is have an honest open discussion with your partner about how you feel. If they are shut off to the idea then it’s only fair not to push them into something that they don’t want. If they are willing to discuss or try it but aren’t sure they want to commit to the idea them perhaps start with some very clear rules, guidelines and promise that if they get uncomfortable it can be re-evaluated. I think the main thing is communication and honesty.

 I'm a person with a vagina and I'm confused about orgasms. Should I be striviing for a g spot orgasm? I've never had one but my current partner's ex did and they have kind of implied that a clitoral orgasm is a cop out.

 Ellie- Very few people actually have g-spot orgasms, and very few people without a vagina know this. Most people can only have clitoral orgasms, and most people who manage to orgasm during penetrative sex often only do due to the grinding of the clitoris against their partners that can happen. It’s not uncommon not to have had a g-spot orgasm, many people never will, and some might randomly one day during sex. You can’t know whether you ever will have a g-spot orgasm or not, but the orgasms you are having are not cope outs, and are 100% valid

K-There is nothing wrong or less valid about clitoral orgasms, and many many people with vaginas (myself included!) can’t have g-spot orgasms. I personally feel it’s not worth the effort of trying to find an elusive g-spot orgasm when I already know how to have a great clitoral one, but if you feel a g-spot orgasm might be better for you, or is something you want to have, then by all means try to achieve it. Don’t worry if you can’t have them though, or if you just don’t really want to - your clitoral orgasms are just fine! When it comes to your orgasms, go for what YOU want, not what your partner thinks you should be doing

I feel ashamed when I masturbate (I'm a woman). Is this common?

Ellie- This is very very common. As someone who is very open about sex myself, and the fact that I enjoy sex, I very very rarely masturbate simply because I feel ashamed of it. I wish I didn’t. I often feel like a bad feminist for feeling ashamed of it, but unfortunately women aren’t always taught that it’s an acceptable and normal part of sexuality. It’s common but not something you should have to feel. If you can get over the feelings of shame then go for it, and have fun, if you can’t then it’s not your fault. There are even really cute apps designed to help you feel more normal about masturbating, and encouraging more women to feel comfortable doing it! http://happyplaytime.com/.../female-masturbation-app.../

Pip- It's really common! The thing about sexual shame is that it's not just something limited to conservative communities or religious ones, but because we're socialized amongst and into these things, it effects us too. Sometimes, experiencing sexual shame can make me people feel like their letting the team down, or they're 'not really' feminist or sex positive. But feminism and sex positivity aren't about never feeling internalized sexual shame or misogyny, they're about a remedy to those things, they're about recognizing the causes for them. My advice is 

1. allow yourself to feel ashamed. Let this be OK, for now. Stressing yourself out or berating yourself for feeling ashamed isn't going to improve the situation. 

2. start to re-negotiate your relationship to your genitals and masturbation. This could be by setting some time aside to speak to a councillor, or writing a list of all the reasons masturbation is a positive thing for your body, I suggest looking at some of Dodson and Ross' videos and articles. http://dodsonandross.com/, they even have this handy play list for overcoming shame- http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1VSgNiiZCLHKpKMDodzTMffPDarcUAOK

3. work up to seducing yourself. Like any sex lif, the one you have with yourself is susceptible to becoming stale or repetitive. If you feel you can make the time and you're ready to spend some time simply exploring your body then go for it. Light some candles, dress up, watch, read, or listen to something that makes you feel sexual. 
Most importantly, remember that whatever you do is fine. You can masturbate or not, orgasm or not, share your body sexually or not. This is not about how you 'should' feel, it's about how you want to feel. 



Want to ask a question- ask.fm/SPAnswersquestions

National Anti-Slavery Day 2013

http://www.national-awareness-days.com/anti-slavery-day.html

http://www.antislaveryday.com/whats-on/

https://www.facebook.com/ASDayUK

http://www.ecpat.org.uk/content/anti-slavery-day

http://archive.org/stream/capitalismandsla033027mbp/capitalismandsla033027mbp_djvu.txt

Mary Lambert- marry me?!

So Mary Lambert is a singer and spoken word artist who has worked with some guy you might have heard of called Macklemore? She's not single. We've never met. And she's not going to marry me.

But today I read something written by her that made me want to ask her to. In fact, it made me want to stand on top of a big hill and throw glitter around. Mary Lambert is...well...pretty fucking amazing!

I think a lot about how the media and music industry never produce people 'like me' or never show people like the people I know. And I know I'm in a comfortable little bubble. Most of my friends define into multiple liberation groups and are intersectional feminists, socialists, anarchist or just have genuinely shit hot politics.

So when I see celebrities and musicians who think rape jokes are hilarious and being fat is a crime- it shocks me. But not as much as it should. Because we get used to the idea that things like body positivity, self care, and working against the stigma of mental health are things we have to do. Things we have to talk about and things musicians & celebrities are so detached from that we stopped reading magazines and watch MTV years ago.

That's what I did think. Now I saw Lambert's performance of I Know Girls a while ago and posted it on facebook. Basically, I forgot about it because I thought it was a fluke. But tonight I saw what Mary Lambert had written and I was blown away. I read about her life. All I could think was 'this sounds like someone I could have an excellent feminist rant with' (basically the yard stick by which I measure friendships).

So, old me, you were wrong. There are successful people out there that have brilliant politics. They didn't have to dillute themselves or disregard their values to get there.

I'm not saying it's a war won. I'm saying it's a battle I had chalked up as a loss...reopened?

Anyway, I'll leave you with the a quote from the woman I'm not going to marry. But who I'd quite like to rant with. And who happens to be spreading this message to millions of people.

When you shame another’s weight (be it thin or fat), when you claim to call out someone’s body size because you “care” about their health, it is not a beneficial statement in any sense of the word, and in actuality is far more harmful to any progress a person might have with relation to their health. What right do you have to talk about someone else’s body or health? You are hammering a distorted ideology that they are not normal, that they are not worthy, and convincing them that they are going to die early. The reason that there is a body positive movement is because we’re celebrating our bodies for the magic that they are and the beautiful things they are capable of.

Sexy Sunday- Communication and Negotiation Resources for Sex & BDSM.

So lately I've been thinking about sex and BDSM and why the two are so massively misrepresented in the mainstream media. Sex is either not spoken about or taken as something to be 'performed well'. Kink and BDSM get a worse deal, either being represented as something only engaged in by people who are in some way emotionally unhealthy (show me a person who is wholly emotionally healthy? Like, come on!) or worse yet, it's depicted as a '50 Shades of Grey' nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I understand that dubious consent is A Thing in kink erotic literature, where we have the narrative view of each characters' secret desires (still problematic in cases), but that's not BDSM.

Anyhoo, what seems to be missing in the dialogue on sex is the idea of negotiation. (Sex isn't just going to be perfect and awesome the first time without any verbal communication.) And what the kink and sex positive community do really well is; communicate and negotiate.

When I talk about negotiation I don't mean 'How can I get my partner(s) to do a thing they hate?'. I mean outlining and navigating a space where all those participating feel comfortable enough to engage and recognising that this space isn't a permenant fixture. One of the greatest things a person can do for themselves is recognise that sexuality, and sexual tastes can change. Right now you might be a lesbian sadist. If these factors shift or your boundaries move in the next however-many-years-you-live don't be too hard on yourself.

So, today, from the comfort of my bed, whilst wearing possibley the least sexy item ever (a onsie) I'm bringing you some resources. All I ask is that you give them a chance. You may not feel BDSM is relevant to you, and it might not be, but the skills of negotiation and communication are necessary for everyone.
Happy Sunday.

1. The Sex Positive Movement
(A series of videos from Seattle Psychology with the director of Seattle's Center for Sex Positive Culture. There are about seven at 10 minutes(ish) each.) These videos are important, they detail that sex positivity isn't about always being all 'Yay for sex!!' but that it's about understanding. And that sexual shame is not conducive to building healthy relationships with people or sex/kink.

2. Five Golden Rules for BDSM *TW* abuse
(Video less that 10 minutes) Laci Green discusses the difference between BDSM and abuse and outlines five rules that are pretty useful for any activity that requires intimacy or sex.

3. A System for Negotiating Sexual Boundaries
(A video less than 5 minutes) from Sexplanations that details how to negotiate and outines a system for communicating boundaries and interests.

4. Rules and Boundaries
(A short article) on things to be learnt from the sex positive community. This article isn't just about sex but also physical contact and affection with friends. It's only downfall is the continued use of the word 'girls'.

5. Negotiating Sex- Why not to keep quiet
(Video, about 5 minutes) I only found these two recently, but they're brilliant. They answer questions and dispell myths and talk about sex really openly. In this video they talk about the sensitive nature of negotiating sex and how one of them once suffered in silence because of fear of doing so.

Guest Blog- Alex Prestage's Statement on Sexism at the Womens Ambassador's Solidarity Address

Conference,

I hate that I have to address this, however I feel I cannot leave it unsaid:

This afternoon [20th April] I witnessed the derailing of the Women’s Ambassador’s Solidarity address. This derailing came in the way of foregrounding “men’s issues” in a space specifically designated for those who do not define as women to hear about issues pertaining to the Women’s Campaign. The address by was an opportunity for allies to present themselves and to show our solidarity with women’s liberation. In the ensuing aftermath of the address there was little solidarity to be seen.

Jo Johnson gave us, those that do not define as women, a chance to co-operate and reach a greater level of understanding of the oppression that Women face; in day to day life, and apparently at conference. Instead patriarchy struck again.

After presumably listening to the address, covering the basics of feminist principles, and the floor was opened to questions the men in the room continued to side-line women’s liberation. Rather than discuss key issues of Rape Culture and slut shaming we heard about men’s struggle with HIV and the Blood Ban – each already discussed on conference floor that very day, and each not specific to men. It was the silencing of women’s issues that, as a feminist – ally or not – infuriated me, the persistent whining about “Men’s Caucus” despite being given a position on the matter, the aggressive nature and tone of some of the questions, the gang-like mentality a few of the audience adopted truly fucking sickened me.

The knowing, or unknowing sabotage of the address demeaned and undermined Women’s continuing struggle to fight sexism and oppression by the hands of a Patriarchal society. The attendance of the address was disappointing in itself – it should not be left to a few Feminist Allies to aide and support Women in their liberation, and conference I assure you there were Allies present. However, their efforts were drowned in a sea of misbegotten “oppression”. I would like to thank the allies present; as I am sure the women’s campaign would also, it would be wrong to not recognise their efforts.

I will leave you with one final message:

Gentlemen, check your fucking privilege.

My experience of Steve Hedley and a message to the British Left.

*Disclaimer/TW*
Triggering issues including mental illness, domestic violence, victim blaming and body elitism are discussed in the following post.

As most trade union/left activists in the country know, there has recently been an incident regarding domestic abuse. On International Women's Day 2013 Caroline Leneghan (RMT- Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union) made public an account of how her ex-partner Steve Hedley (Assistant General Secretary of RMT) abused her physically and mentally during their relationship. Leneghan's blog can be found here and contains pictures of her injuries that some readers might find upsetting. In her blog she detailed how when she took her complaint to RMT & she detailed several ways in which RMT tried to disregard her allegation

1. The investigator attempted to make a link between her mental illness and the abuse she suffered.
2. She was asked about her personal history.
3. She was asked how someone of Hedley's build with a history of boxing didn't hurt her more.

RMT then cleared Hedley and on the back of the investigator's attempt to blame Leneghan's mental illness he wrote a statement which you can read here.

A few weeks before this Leneghan published her account of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Hedley, I got into an online argument with him. Firstly during the argument he stated that I 'couldn't handle the topic' attempting to convince me and others that my point was non other than a product of me being to delicate for the discussion.


His tone with anyone who contributed to that discussion was vile, but to me in particular. He told me that 'in the real world' people argued and alleged that I was a 'middle class student' who would soon be 'sacking the workers' (presumably with my English degree from Edge Hill). When I affirmed that I was indeed working class, a council tenant, a care leaver and had extensive experience in the 'real world' he then shifted his attack to my looks. 

Hedley's attempt to silence me by telling me I was middle class, then telling me I was ugly then telling me I needed to 'find myself a partner of some kind'  made me feel like my part in the debate was completely dictated by my gender and by my age. A well paid middle aged man in the high ranks of the RMT being misogynistic, ableist, and attempting to intimidate a young woman isn't as serious his violence to Leneghan, and I wouldn't want anyone to think that for a second. What is similar, however was the way in which Hedley reacted. 

First he attacked me and then when I fought back he told me that my mental health was the problem and that I needed to 'seek some help', he also went to look on my profile. Finally when I refused to allow him to bully me publicly he told me that I was playing the victim and that I had been attacking him by swearing in my comments.
 First he physically attacked Leneghan and then when she sought help in his statement he told the world that her mental health was to blame and he hoped she would get the help she needed and he implied he had been the victim. 

There's a pattern emerging, isn't there? I spoke to someone who worked with domestic violence victims and they told me that abusers tend to use one set of behaviours repeatedly to disempower the people they wish to hurt. Hedley's attack on my mental health and his pointing to Caroline Leneghan's as the problem isn't a coincidence, it's a tactic used to make onlookers (and the victim) question the validity of their opinion. 

Unfortunately I've encountered many men that attempt to silence me with bullying tactics and many of them in the Left, I've seen first hand in the SWP what not listening to women and survivors can do. It's poisonous. So I have a message to the British Left;

 women will not be silenced any more and your attempt to disregard the abuse we suffer will result in your cause being weaker. No longer can you hide misogyny or rape apologism behind a veil of doing the best for the party or the cause. No longer can you appropriate the women's struggle with tokenism to strengthen your appearance whilst simultaneously pushing silence upon us. 
There will be no radical left without women's liberation and no women's liberation with victim blaming and rape apologism. 

Phat resources on Fat Shaming, Body Positivity and Self Acceptance.

 

A lot of people have messaged me to ask questions about my post on fat shaming and body image to ask questions. There are loads of resources out there. I'm going to list a few here. :) 

What it's all about- wikipedia

If you have tumblr the body positive tag is always fun- http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/bodypositive

And here are some other tumblrs you might like-
Fat Art
Body Positivity
Fat Grrrl Activism
Body Posi
Redefining Body Image Post
Big Fat Feminist
It Gets Fatter (For fat queer people of colour)  

If you want things on facebook-  
Body Positive Image Campaign

For twitter- 
Fat Positive Tag
Body Positive Tag
Fat Positive Hulk

Google image that shit. 

Asortment of websites and blogs-
Body Shaming Article 
http://fiercefatties.com/
Fat Liberation Manifesto 
Recognising body shaming 
Top 50 Self Acceptance blogs
Fat Feminism
The most highly rated fat acceptance books
Fat positive youtube videos
Ways to deal with body shaming 
On raunch culture and body image 

I'm happy to answer questions etc, but a lot of answers will be found in these resources! :)

Just the view of some ‘big fat bitch’? Body Elitism and Me

  So I’m thirteen, on the bus to a school I joined three months ago and I’m trying not to cry. Yes, three months, that’s enough time for the boys in my school to work out I didn't have any ‘hard’ siblings and notice I was a ‘big fat bitch’. This I was used to, and scary as the thought is, this is what I expected. On this particular day what I didn't expect was for all the boys on the bus to have gone to the bakery. What I didn't expect was for one of them to hit me in the face with cream cakes to the joyous chorus of ‘FATTY! FATTY! FATTY!’ What I didn't expect was for one of them to spit in my face. I didn't expect that. I didn't expect them to throw half-full coke cans at the back of my head.

By the age of thirteen, I had internalised how undesirable, unattractive and unacceptable society found (and still finds) ‘fat’ people to such a degree, I expected verbal abuse. In fact, I remember scolding myself, for crying. I told myself ‘You should be used to this by now.’ I did this right through my teens, continually repeated the messages society taught me. I told myself I was disgusting because I had stretch marks, unlovable because I couldn’t control my own body. At seventeen I was diagnosed with a thyroid condition, the main symptom being ‘weight gain’. I remember wishing I could go back though my life and tell every person who had sneered, laughed or shouted at me for my weight, about my condition. Five years on, I know that the problem isn’t fat or slim; the problem is in my head. The problem is in your head. The problem is on the television, in-between the pages of magazines.

This culture of ideals, this construction of ‘perfect’ is even more prevalent in today’s youth, and with the rise of plastic surgery, body shaming and positively poisonous gender-norms, it continues to rise. My story isn’t unusual. There are thousands of others from women and men who are labelled as unattractive because they’re overweight. There are stories from people who have suffered because, they’re told they are too thin, too fat, have the wrong hair colour, or posture, or facial features, or are too pale, or too dark.

This is body elitism, the fact that we are taught ‘what’ and ‘who’ is attractive. Body elitism is the idea that one kind of body is superior, it’s the resulting label of bodies that don’t completely fit in between those narrow lines inferior as ‘ugly’ or ‘wrong’.  Today, rather than saying, ‘my body is wrong for a reason’ I’m saying ‘a body cannot be ‘wrong’’. A body is made up of flesh, veins, skin, and muscle. Bodies are diverse; bodies can be healthy or unhealthy. Bodies have different abilities, different uses. If a body exists, it is not ‘wrong’. What is the point in deciding one is ‘better’ than another?

The truth is that even capitalism, the economic system that thrives on our  prescribed inferiority complexes and sells us the products that can cure ‘imperfections’, (boost skin, decrease wrinkles, re-energise tired looking bags,) even this machine of consumption, that sells us this ‘superior’ body, doesn’t 100% know what exactly this body looks like. It comes as no surprise that the major companies that sell tanning products to women in the west, sell skin-bleaching products to women in the east. It does come as a surprise that big toiletry companies try to sell products with campaigns about ‘real’ women, as if we should be thankful that they aren't using the kind of bodies this culture deemed ‘superior’ in the first place.

When I think about this, I get angry. But I’m angry at the culture itself, I’m angry at the way people are forced to hate themselves, not at women who fit into the ‘superior’ category. This is where I draw an important line, because most of us can recognise how we shouldn’t feel inferior for being fat/thin/having different facial features. (Although that doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t). What I’ve found increasingly troubling is this rhetoric of ‘real’ women (as if there is such a thing). Now, it seems, those who sell us are insecurities are trying to sell our differences, too. Now we’re told that ‘‘real’ women have curves’. ‘Real women have meat on their bones’.  

Now we’re taught that rather than challenge the idea that one body is inferior on the basis of specific characteristics, we should challenge other women. ‘Bigger women’ have been told (and some embraced the idea) that other women, judged in the same society, oppressed by the same narrow guidelines of ‘attractiveness’ are the direct enemy to their body autonomy. I’ve seen this warped idea play out in several social situations, from other ‘bigger’ friends saying things like ‘(Slim girl) might be thin, but she’s really ugly’ or ‘(Slim girl) has a body like a child, she’s not even like a woman’. Most horrifyingly, I’ve seen it play out when a relative said of ‘anorexics’; ‘It’s the way they think, they hate us’ and continued to insult them on the basis of their condition.

No!

Just stop.

Like everyone else in this distorted reality, people who suffer from anorexia are taught to hate themselves.

What can stop this slaughter, this construct that is literally killing people? Well I don’t have all the answers, but it’s my belief that thorough and far reaching social change would ignite a process of women collectively shunning these prescriptive standards. I believe the media and corporations being owned by the people would result in media and businesses that work for people not profits at any cost. These things I believe, but some things I know.

 I know that my struggle against body elitism is more than giving the finger to people who walk past me and sneer or laugh. I know that I never want anyone to have to be bullied like I was for their appearance. But more than this, I know that other women, other people are not my enemy, because no matter how ‘pretty’, ‘skinny’ or healthy another person is, they are still judged, every day. I wouldn’t wish my experiences on them, and I certainly don’t blame them for my suffering. If I want liberation from constrictive body ideals, I want it for everyone, regardless of shape, race, ability, facial features and regardless of whether society sees them as ‘prettier’ than me.