Carl and I made a guest appearance on the Curvaceous Bounty of Sin City last night. What fun! But alas, given how much we can talk forever, I walked away feeling like I had much more to say. So, in the light of day, here's my top 7 things I would have loved to discuss:
- Dating -- in anticipating the show, Carl and I did a lot of talking about dating and the fact that we never really dated. We became friends, then friends with benefits and then we moved in together and then we got married. We did more dating, in the sense of going places and having fun, after we moved in together. Dating is so artificial and on this, the most artificial of "love" holidays, I guess that's a good message. If you get along with someone and let that grow, questions like where to go, what to do and who pays become irrelevant to just being together.
- Sex with disabilities -- this may be a more taboo subject than fat sex. Fat sex has some respectability at least as a fetish. Preferring a larger partner is , well a choice, and while the sex police may tell us what we should and should not do, most regard personal desire as something that should not be questioned thoroughly. But choosing to have sex with a chronically ill person and a person with disabilities doesn't resonate with the desire question. While feminist friends were shocked at John Edwards' choice to have an affair while his wife Elizabeth suffered and eventually died from breast cancer, there was a part of me that understood him and his choices. I have a lot of guilt that my husband who was 8 years my junior and only in his early 30s when I became ill, found himself married and in love with a woman who was limited in her abilities to express and reciprocate that love and desire. It has not been easy and it has taken a lot of exploration, talking and understanding to create a sex life that is satisfying for both. And, that satisfaction is not always there. Carl's illness has moved us from a well partner/ill partner to a couple with disabilities, but that does not mitigate matters as much as one might think. This subject needs to be discussed openly because, well, there isn't much available to help.
- Monogamy -- This might not seem like a subject that a couple who has been monogamous for 20 years would want to discuss, but it is one we have discussed, especially within the context of the point above. If you love someone and you are not able to provide for the sexual needs of the one you love, our society seems to condemn the unsatisfied partner to a life of sacrifice that not only limits the well partner's fulfillment but leaves the partner with disabilities burdened with guilt. This was a tough point for me. My brain told me that polyamorous arrangements were logical, but I was reared in monogamous society and my heart felt fear and jealousy. To me, this is about freedom and love. I cannot believe that tying a person down is compatible with freedom or love. So working through the feelings seemed the only option. I still have those feelings but I recognize them as leftovers of a way of viewing the world that doesn't make sense. I know that Carl stays with me because he loves me. If I had insisted that he stay because of my illness or disability, I would never know. I could live alone easier than I could live with not knowing.
- Stigma -- I'm not sure if I said everything I wanted to say about stigma, but then I'm never sure if I can say it all. Here's what I want to say: fat liberation will not come simply because we feel good about ourselves and find a way to love ourselves. These things help because they minimize the impact that stigma has on our lives and because it is poor strategy to let the bigots tell you how to feel. But it doesn't change things all by itself. When I woke up this morning I thought about memes and repetition and I think this is what I missed saying last night. It has often been said "familiarity breeds contempt." But I believe that after that contempt, it leads to, well, familiarity. 100 years ago a sociologist named Georg Simmel wrote about the social process of encountering and eventually accepting strangers into one's social circles. One of the basic things he observed was that the extent to which a group perceived a stranger to be different, was the extent to which it was difficult to include a stranger. So strangers perceived as more "alike" were accepted faster and the social distance between the new comer and the group became smaller. Strangers perceived as "different" were held at a greater social distance and this might even be true after they were accepted by the group. Fat people being seen in media and cultural product as well as just out and about in public, not only provide "role models" as discussed last night, but they make fatness familiar. Instead of regarding fat people as more "different" than "alike," familiarity leads to an understanding of commonality and that commonality can lead to less stigma. In the same way as soldiers who figure out that the enemy is human with common aspirations, loves and needs, do not make very good soldiers, it is impossible to treat people for which we have things in common as "less than human."
- Glee -- I don't know much about the show or the characters though I did read a lot about Lauren Zizes. One thing I meant to point out, but didn't get a chance to do is that when Lauren was first introduced the writer for the episode was not the show's creator and her character got a lot of negative media attention and blog attention. The latest episode that has created so much buzz was written by the creator of the show and I believe was a direct response to the critiques. This is a great example of cultural lobbying, which I think is probably more effective than political lobbying in fighting stigma.
- Commercialization of Valentine's Day -- Love and sex are commodified in our culture and holidays like Christmas and Valentine's Day are the high holies of that commercialization. I can only get am radio in the car and so I've been listening to ESPN radio a lot lately. I am mortified at the pressure that is being placed upon men for Valentine's Day. Apparently women are seen as only accepting expensive jewelry as a sign of love. Men are being told in ad after ad that they are in competition for their woman and that they must have an "edge" by buying the "right" gift that "tells her" what you feel (and underneath the message, gets him laid). The only pressure placed upon women in the ads I've heard is a local sexual dysfunction clinic advertising gift certificates to help men who don't perform as well as they used to. I cannot conceive of ever considering buying my man (or any woman buying for any man) a "gift" that says "you need viagra." How passive aggressive is that!
- Deconstructing "clean" and "dirty" -- One of the aspects of the Curvaceous Bounty show is how explicitly the women discuss sex, their own sex lives and life in general. Las Vegas fits this well. But I have to admit that juxtaposing "clean" with "dirty" is problematic for me. Labeling words as "dirty" or "bad" worries me about as much as "bad" or "unhealthy" foods. Again, for me the first principal is freedom. Dichotomies limit freedom to two choices and pressure us to believe that only one of those choices is honorable. This is not a criticism of the choice to speak a certain way last night to appeal to Pat Ballard's fan base. I have no problem with choosing to gear a particular product to a particular audience and besides the forbidden aspect of the evening and the "slippages" in response to that constraint was fun, in the same way that sometimes it is fun to be coy as long as it leads to giving in. But I would have love to explore the myriad ways in which there are multiple levels of speaking about sex and that they do not have to be dichotomized into "clean" or "dirty" categories. But then I'm a geek and weird things like language turn me on.
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