Heartbreak Nymphomania » feminism

Happy Lady Porn Day!

Wilhelmina Wang — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:17:56 +0000

Today – 02/22 – is Lady Porn Day! The wonderful Rabbit White has put together a blogosphere-wide carnival to get some discussions going about women and their relationships with porn. Taken from Rabbit’s blog:

February 22nd is officially Lady Porn Day, a day about exploring porn and masturbation. Because it’s tough trying to explore porn as a girl. There just isn’t much lady-friendly stag. Girls aren’t encouraged to talk to each other about porn– the same way we aren’t encouraged to talk to each other about masturbation.

At it’s heart, this is about celebrating pornography and masturbation. It is an opportunity for ladies of all genders (or however you identify) to open up a dialog: What is feminist porn? What is your history with porn? What do you find hot?

And ultimately it’s a dare to share your hot links. Because the more we can openly talk about porn and what we like, the more likely it is that porn for women will continue being made. And really guys have been sharing and recommending porn for ages! So help a sister out.

I dare you to start the conversation, ask your friends: “hey what do you think about porn–and what sites can you recommend?” The point is to get women across the globe talking and thinking about porn and masturbation in a healthy and fruitful way.

Though 02/22 is the kickoff-date, conversations have been going on since the 21st, and the event is set to run until the 26th. Read more Lady Porn Day blog posts, keep up with the discussion on Twitter under the hashtag #ladypornday, and get involved in the conversation yourself!

My Lady Porn Day posts:

My Lady Porn Day picks:

If you don’t have the time to read all the blog posts out there, at least read these.

Get On Board [Rabbit White]
Mini Porn Interview: Jiz Lee [Rabbit White]
Jilling Off [Sex, Love & Liberation]
Pre-game Commentary [Miss Maggie Mayhem]
Conceiving of the Unconceived – Hetero Women’s Porn [Remittance Girl]
On Banging and Body Image [Medicinal Marzipan]
BDSM Can Be “Love Sex” Too [Clarisse Thorn]

And finally, I’ll leave you with some of my favorite porn and erotica websites.

My Favorite Porn Directors/Companies:

My Favorite Erotica Blogs:

My Favorite Porn Tumblrs:

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“Don’t look so sad, beautiful.”

Wilhelmina Wang — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:30:09 +0000

…That’s what some guy said to me when I was on the way home one day, around when I just moved to NYC. I think I responded by ignoring him and continuing on my way. Maybe I rolled my eyes. When I got home, I tweeted irritably about it on my vanilla Twitter account. One of my male friends from college responded thusly:

“At least he wasn’t being sketchy! And he was paying you a compliment!”

Let’s pick apart the above three things, shall we? – The dude’s comment, my reaction, and my friend’s comment.

- At least he wasn’t being sketchy!

Granted, my friend was right, the dude wasn’t. He didn’t do anything inappropriate. He called me “beautiful”, instead of something lewd and crude. I guess it was a relief that I didn’t have to deal with any of that. However, I think it’s an immense pity that I’m expected to feel good about not having been treated shittily. Honestly, I do often expect irritating behavior from men, and I’m refreshingly relieved when I can have a decent conversation with a random stranger without him attempting to hit on me or making me feel uncomfortable in some way. It sucks that decency is the exception, and not the rule. It sucks that I have to deal with shitty behavior, and it sucks for men to be perceived as horny skeezeballs.

- Don’t look so sad

First of all, where the hell do you get off telling me how I should look? I don’t even know you! Why don’t you mind your own business?

Second – we were talking about this in the masculinity class I took. A girl in the class was talking about how she was stressed out and working really hard and a bunch of her male friends who saw her told her to look more cheery. She was irritated by that because, well, she was stressed out and working, so had the corresponding facial expression, and didn’t see why she had to smile when clearly she wasn’t in a very good mood. As a counterpoint to that, one of the guys in the class added that he was once having a very good day, so was walking around smiling. His guy friends reacted by accusingly asking “What are you smiling about?” So basically, women are expected to be expressive, pleasant, cheerful, etc, and men are expected to be emotionless, stoic, etc. Clearly, this is stupid and repressive for both parties because women can be stoic or grumpy and men can be happy or sad.

I don’t smile a lot. When I’m walking somewhere, I’m usually thinking about things and so tend to look down and appear very serious. People often interpret it as upset or sad, but really it’s just contemplation.

- Beautiful = compliment

And this is probably the most problematic thing of all.

Okay, yes, being called beautiful is a compliment. When I send pictures of myself to L, and he calls me beautiful, I smile and feel myself fill with self-conscious pleasure. It makes me both feel good about myself and how I look, and about him enjoying and being pleased by how I look.

However, again, the stranger thing comes into play. I care about what L says because I love him and he’s a very important person to me. But when it comes to strangers calling me that, depending on the time and context I can feel anything from flattered to indifferent to annoyed. In this case, it was more annoyed, because I felt like he was using “beautiful” in the same way people use “cutie”, “sweetheart”, etc. As terms of endearment. From a lover? Sure, though I’ve never dated anyone who did the whole pet-name thing. From a stranger? They’re assuming a familiarity that doesn’t exist, and it comes off as condescending. It makes me feel small and petty, which I do not like. I only want people I know to call me those things. If I even let them in the first place. If I don’t know you well? Call me by my name, if you know my name. If you don’t know my name, then just don’t call me anything at all.

Another layer: – and this is something I’ve talked about before. Calling me “beautiful” automatically puts my appearance first. It puts beauty ahead of intellect, personality, and, yes, humanity. Over time I’ve noticed that most of the ways I can up my confidence and get noticed are based on looks. For a woman, being powerful is about being a bombshell, being gorgeous. I’ve often wanted to feel powerful in other realms, by accomplishing something amazing or by having very intelligent comments to make. And, granted, I’ve done that and it was appreciated by some when I did. But that doesn’t always happen. I remember having grown an immense amount as a person over my senior year, and yet upon catching up with a friend I had made during freshman year, but had become distant from, some of the only comments he could make were that I used to be so much slimmer and that I used to dress a lot better.

So, yes, being called beautiful is a compliment. But, then, it isn’t always.

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Stop with the fucking victim-blaming already.

Wilhelmina Wang — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:55:24 +0000

I’m not typically one to respond to other blog posts, or share my opinion on social issues here. However, a certain post just makes me too angry to not say anything; and, I suppose, unfortunately was written at the same time that I’ve been experiencing frustrations surrounding this issue in my daily life:

If your body is being groped, used, assaulted, grabbed, handled or otherwise touched without your permission [...] it would seem that you are doing something to provoke it. [...] The average person doesn’t get touched on a daily basis [...] No woman deserves to be treated like a whore, however is she happens to be wearing the uniform….

This post was written in response to Britni, who wrote about her upsetting harassment at a bar, where she was humped and almost penetrated without her consent. What shocks me is that the response I quoted is on a blog that is written by a woman, and someone who I perceived as sex-positive, until now. She didn’t write the post herself, but put it on her site so I assume she agrees with the overall sentiment enough to post it, which is just as ridiculous.

I’ve refrained from writing about rape culture and victim-blaming because I feel that everything worth saying has already been said, and there’s little that I can add to the conversation. However, it blows my mind that so many people just aren’t getting it: the rapist/harasser is the cause of the rape/harassment. The victim may have made some bad decisions, but that didn’t cause the violation, and it was not the victim’s fault. The only person who caused it to happen, and who should be blamed for it, is the violator.

Why is that so difficult to understand?

So many of the posts and comments I’ve read about this issue have just been assertive re-iterations of the same message due to, it seems like, the large amount of schmucks out there who aren’t willing to open up their minds and attempt to comprehend what is being communicated to them.

A few days ago, a man groped my ass in the middle of the street. I was going home, drunk and alone, from a party at 2 a.m. Thinking back, I shouldn’t have gone home alone. I shouldn’t have gone home that late. Those actions were contrary to my own common sense, and to what any friend or family member has ever advised me. But that hardly matters. What matters is some guy came up to ask me the time, actually blocked my path when I tried to avoid him, and then grabbed me. I didn’t notice him as I walked up to him, but when he came to speak to me I realized he had been loitering in the shadows next to one of the buildings, and had probably waiting for someone to walk past him so he could do that.

On the other hand, I was wearing a sundress – nothing that showed a lot of thigh or cleavage – and still had good motor coordination so didn’t look obviously drunk. I was walking the mere three blocks from the subway to my apartment. And both of my (female) roommates had assured me that the neighborhood was safe and that they had both walked back late at night with no trouble. While I’ve just moved to the area, they have been living here for a year already.

I think that anecdote makes it obvious that none of the details of the event really mattered. I just had the bad luck to run into that guy.

I don’t even know why I’m bothering to address the claim that victims might be to blame. Really I shouldn’t even be dignifying it with a response, but it’s clear that some people need some kind of counter-evidence.

I was talking to the Inventor about this, and he compared victim-blaming in rapes and assaults to victim-blaming in traffic accidents. Someone died in a car crash? Shit, they must have been driving too fast. They probably weren’t careful enough. That couldn’t happen to me. Basically: people blame the victim because it gives them the illusion that they can somehow control what happens to them. If they’re careful enough, they won’t get raped or involved in a traffic accident.

Well, you know what? It’s a scary thought, but it could happen to you. Nothing you do will change that. If you happen to run into a horny asshole who doesn’t give a shit about other peoples’ feelings and personal space, and if you don’t have the ability to defend yourself, it might happen to you.*

The bottom line is that it’s pointless to point at the victim and somehow try to make them to blame. They aren’t. The victim did not cause the violator to violate them. The violator chose to do what they did, and they should face the consequences and take responsibility for their actions. I have no fucking idea why so many people think that they deserve pity, coddling, and enabling. They don’t.

* Note: Not to say that I believe you should engage in risky behavior just for the hell of it. If you know a certain area is dangerous, it’s probably a good idea to avoid it. What I’m trying to say is that even if you take precautions, that doesn’t mean you’re 100% immune to danger.

Further Reading:

- Rape Prevention Tips and Victim Blaming

- It is not your fault

- Stop Street Harassment

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Things I should have said

Wilhelmina Wang — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:23:57 +0000

… and wanted to say, but didn’t. Also some of this is paraphrased, clearly, because I don’t remember everything word for word.

Example #1.

Guy friends 1 + 2: *discussing a hot girl they want to have sex with, but think is really dumb*
Me: How can you have sex with someone you don’t like? Or someone you find boring or dumb? I just can’t, personally.
Guy friend 1: What, it’s not like I’m going to be having a conversation with her while we’re having sex. *imitating thrusting motions, mockingly:* Oh, hey, so what are your philosophical views?
Guy friend 2: Know what would be awesome? A girl who was so bendy she could fit into a box. Then I could have sex with her and it would be, like, vagina in a box.

What I said: [Nothing.]

What I wanted to say: Jesus, why not just get a Fleshlight? The people you have sex with are still people, not things for you to stick your cock in.

—

Example #2.

Me + F + Group of acquaintances: *we’d been playing “Never have I ever” and eventually it comes out that I’d slept with a trans person. Thanks, F, for putting that one out there…*

Guy: *and this is someone I’d just met, asking me this in front of a bunch of people I’d also just met* Wait, so you mean he didn’t have a penis? How does that work?

What I said: Um, well a penis doesn’t have to be involved for two people to have sex. [Something vague about him looking and acting like a guy but his anatomy not matching up]

What I should have said: That’s none of your business. How would you feel if I asked you what your girlfriend’s vagina looks like, or asked you how you have sex with her in front of all these people?

I didn’t realize the mistake of my response until afterwards, when something about the interaction struck me as oddly wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. It wasn’t until I read this post about invasive questions that I understood. At the time, I justified what happened by thinking that I knew my trans partners were pretty open about themselves and their experiences, and that it would be better for me to answer and have those people know what was up, instead of walking around being ignorant. I also didn’t want to look like I was too ashamed or afraid to answer, when I’m not ashamed at all of people knowing that I am queer and I have slept with trans people. People have shamed me for sleeping with transfolk before, and I think them doing that is idiotic. In any case, none of those reasons excuses the fact that a perfect stranger was asking about private information, and I didn’t recognize that as offensive, and answered. Even if my partners are open with their information, I can’t make the decision, on their behalf, to give that information to someone they don’t even know. Even though I am not trans myself, I want very much to support those who are, and help instead of hurt :/ I’ll just have to make sure not to make the same slip-up in future.

—

In short: I really should speak up more often than I do. I like to think that I am, and that I’m changing for the better.

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Peepshow

Wilhelmina Wang — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:13:10 +0000

I can probably mark my onset of puberty with the day men first started
sketching on me in the middle of the street.

This was before I was fashion-conscious, and before I considered myself attractive, you understand. I was just this dumpy, awkward, nerdy-looking girl who could do with washing her hair a few more times per week. Anyway, one day when I was 15 years old, I was out with my family. I was wearing jeans and a bottle-necked, thick, white sweater. We were entering a clothing store when I felt the unmistakable sensation of a hand surreptitiously groping my ass. I spun around indignantly, angrily, to see the guy I thought did it gliding smoothly away.

Later, I for some reason decided to go home ahead of everyone else. So I was walking home, in the middle of the day in this big city, and this guy comes up to me and starts asking me questions about the firework display that’s happening later that day. Fine, I thought naively, he’s just some lost foreigner who wants to know what’s going on in the city. So I answered him.

But after a while he started asking me questions about me. Where I lived, what my name was, if I’d spend time with him. It was at this point that I just started walking away, hoping that he wouldn’t follow me.

“Tell me your name,” he called after me.

“No,” I said.

And of course there were all the instances where people just made remarks loudly at me: “hey beautiful”, “want to come with me?”, cat-calls, whatever. Which always makes me feel more like I was being talked at than talked to. As if I were a tasty-looking meal or a nice car that they’re voicing their approval of.

I’m only writing about this now because today I was waiting for the bus, some guy walked past me, commented on how attractive I was, then asked me my age. Thankfully, he simply left right after that and I just felt embarrassed. But it reminded me of something that happened when I was in San Francisco. I was trying to meet a friend and had got a bit lost, so I was wandering around looking kind of confused. And then this dude starts walking with me. Asking me personal questions, asking me to hang out with him, saying “when I saw you I thought – wow! – you’re special,” etc, etc. I eyerolled, thought “sure, like you can tell so much about me just by looking at me,” gave him a fake name, gave him a fake number, hoped he would be contented with that and just go away, made it clear to him that I was busy and had to meet a friend, but he didn’t leave. He followed me for at least two fucking blocks.

He finally left when I started ignoring him, which is what I should have done in the first place.

I am too fucking polite with these people.

I’ve always reacted to these encounters with a confusing slew of emotions. On the one hand, I felt strangely flattered. At least I’m attracted enough to get noticed, right? But that feeling was always quashed very fast. Why were these guys doing this? Was there just something about me, or the way I dressed, that just screamed “I AM A GIRL WITH NO STANDARDS, FUCK ME”? Plus, how come no normal, young, decent men tried to approach me? Why was it always these creepy, middle-aged men who lurked around on street corners?

(Hmm. It’s probably because all the decent guys know better than to do shit like that.)

Let me get something straight…

When I put an outfit together, I wear it because it is aesthetically pleasing to me and rarely because I will be using it to seduce someone.

I briefly considered changing the way I dress, thinking that maybe it would help… but then I realized something. There’s nothing wrong with the way I dress. The ones with the problem are those men who come up to me.

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Sometimes

Wilhelmina Wang — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:01:19 +0000

Sometimes…

I wish I were thin.

There are times when I feel beautiful and desired – and those times are wonderful. They don’t come around very often. (But they used to not occur at all.)

But then there are times when I look at myself and all I notice is that my thighs rub against each other when I walk; that I wear big, nerdy glasses; that I’m small and dumpy; that my belly is bigger than it used to be; that my breasts are still too small. (But if I were no longer curvy, I think I would miss it…)

And for every person who likes me and I like back, there’s a hundred people I like and who are too good for me. They chase the pretty, outgoing, svelte girls. And for every person who likes me and I like back, there’s a hundred people who like me and I don’t feel at all attracted to them. I wish I did – but instead I find them sketchy, unattractive, overbearing, overeager, arrogant…

Sometimes…

I wish I were drop-dead gorgeous.

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