In Honor of Valentine's Day: The Plight of the Married Lady

Dallas' public radio station, KERA, recently ran a pledge drive, and I finally pledged. I've been a regular listener for a while now -- in fact, I consider popping in a CD every once in a while, but I have a panic attack at the thought of what I might miss if not listening to NPR. It's kind of nuts, considering I've started having panic attacks due to some of the things they regularly talk about on NPR (a running series seems to focus on people who've been unemployed FOR YEARS -- my poor heart can't take it). Alas, however, I'm probably doomed to panic attacks over some such thing for the rest of my life. I deal. And I gave to my local NPR station because I listen all the time. They finally guilted me into it.

And then they promptly shat all over my good graces.

I filled out the donation form using my name -- Nan Kirkpatrick -- as the primary contact. Actually, I was technically the only contact. And I gave them my personal checking account information. Sean (my husband) and I do have a joint checking account, but he was donating from his own funds. We're modern like that. So, so far I've given them my name and my personal checking account information. Then I saw a small, not required space for "Name of Spouse." I put "Sean Kirkpatrick." Looking back, this was my big mistake. At the time, however, I thought nothing of it. I'm a good test taker, I guess -- I don't leave anything blank.

A couple of weeks went by, and I got my membership information in the mail. What I saw turned my blood to ice. The envelope was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Sean Kirkpatrick.

I was livid. Absolutely aghast. Completely at a loss for words. I'd taken the time to give those...those...assholes my hard earned money -- money that I, NAN Kirkpatrick, put in a lot of effort to obtain -- and I didn't even receive recognition except as a "Mrs." Heck, Sean received first-name recognition, and based on my knowledge of the world, my paycheck, personal bank account, and time do not belong to him. He didn't have anything to do with the giving of that money. He was a not required blank. He was, in this instance, an afterthought.

He also seemed a little at a loss when I was ranting about the situation. I know. This is not something that on the surface seems like a big deal to dudes, and I cannot say that I blame them. They walk through life knowing that if they put their spouses name in the not required blank, the envelope will always come addressed to them...and some unnamed other. They know that if they give THEIR MONEY to an entity, the entity will not then treat them like a possession, a mere Mr. to someone else's Mrs. And that reminds me...I always fill out forms as "Ms." Those jerks couldn't even get that part right.

Throughout history, women have been barred from financial independence. Actual laws kept women dependent on men for financial stability. I cherish my right to earn my own money and keep it where I please. And I don't appreciate the societal standard trampling all over common sense -- it should've been obvious that I was the one to be thanked based on my name being the primary contact alone -- to keep from me what I am owed: KERA's gratitude for my fucking money.

I sent them an email letting them know how I felt. I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember that it ended with, "This is 2012. Get with the program." They still haven't responded. And I'm still livid whenever I think about it. I'm livid because it's just a very obvious reminder that I am not even considered an equal partner in my own marriage by society, let alone as a complete and separate individual.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I sometimes make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.

Wow. I almost lost an entire night to an internets' comments section. Again. God, I'm such a sucker for arguing with random strangers in an anonymous format where people can't even appropriately measure sarcasm unless you actually say, "I WAS BEING SARCASTIC!" because tone of voice doesn't exist. These are the arguments punctuated by emoticons. These are the arguments where EVERYONE takes EVERYTHING to the most extreme conclusion because they can. These are the conversations we're starting to have more often than the regular kind...and people wonder why Tea Partiers actually get elected!

I mean, just as an example of how ridiculous these internet comments discussions are: The post in question is on the topic of why older men are attracted to younger women. Of course, we can't think about this in any other terms than "SEVENTY YEAR OLDS LOVE FOURTEEN YEAR OLDS, OKAY?!," so it's automatically a whackadoo conversation, most especially since I've been led to believe that a lot of 70-year-old men only have fond, wistful, and vague memories of sex when they see 14-year-olds, not actual boners. The argument twists and turns, and several commenters mention how age is all relative an' shit. Like what we think is young now was like how old grandmas were in the 1200s. At some point, a commenter says this: "Most animals die before becoming old." Okay. I'm not really sure what that means? I googled life expectancies for animals (seriously, just like that: "life expectancy of animals"), and there's a kind of parrot that has the average life expectancy of 104 years. Sounds kinda old, right? Sure, your cat will probably only live to be maybe 20, and your dog, if she's big, could only live to be nine (the larger the breed of dog, the shorter the life expectancy), but PARROTS, MAN! They live to be OLDER THAN PEOPLE DO ON AVERAGE. So that commenter did what people do in internets' comments sections around the virtual globe: he said "most," and then made some really vague argument based on some seriously generalized, vague knowledge of the world. Some other commenter said at some point that until recently, people only lived to be 20, at which point I'm thinking, "DEFINE RECENTLY!"

But let's discuss the topic of the actual post. Older men think younger women are hot. Real yawnfest. One of the things I noticed was that the author of the post points to research that shows that bonobos like established females, not young ones. Why is this important? Well, if you follow this stuff, many people like to claim that we can learn a lot about our sex drives from the bonobos, our "closest evolutionary relative." We're actually just as close to chimpanzees as we are to bonobos, but they're jerks, so we try to forget that as much as possible. Chimps are like our weird uncle Joe Bob who wears overalls with no shirt underneath and makes meth in a trailer near a lake. Meanwhile, bonobos are like your slick uncle Rick who has a different date EVERY SINGLE NIGHT with some HOT BITCH. People love to point out that BONOBOS ARE NOT MONOGAMOUS, like, constantly as proof that we are not meant to be monogamous. But here we see that they also like old ladies. Hmmm. What's so interesting about this is that a lot of the same commenters to this post who immediately cry, "WE ARE HUMANS, NOT ANIMALS!" have previously said, "BUT I CANNOT BE MONOGAMOUS BECAUSE BONOBOS!" I mean, make up your mind, folks.

I know that because they're all regular Savage Love commenters, an internets' comments section with which I'm very familiar.

As I started to get REALLY WORKED UP about a lot of stuff going on here -- the complete inability of the privileged to admit to their privilege, the fact that people say "MANY" and "MOST" like that shit is SCIENTIFIC FACT, the fact that people so very much want to believe in their autonomy that they refuse to admit to the influences of society on their thinking, the fact that our constant framing of everything sexual in terms of the male appetite even when discussing the female appetite just allows the male appetite to continue to dominate the discourse -- I realized something. I'm tired of this conversation. Men like young women. SO WHAT. Most older ladies I know either have dates or have husband or don't want either. I don't know that it necessarily damages women for me to find younger women attractive. Now, if a man over the age of, say, 30 actually wants to date a woman under the age of 25, I say, "Good luck to you!" While it's not unheard of for this arrangement to work, it's...generally tenuous. The reason we have this conversation is because it's indicative of a historical power imbalance And research has shown that in societies where men and women have more equitable relationships, the age differences in couples will begin to diminish. In other words, most of the cultures in which we see 58-year-old husbands of 12-year-old brides are the ones where women can't legally drive, either. But for the most part, the average age of first marriages for men and women are fairly close in age, especially in the United States. What does that tell me? Older dudes may be jacking off to porn of younger ladies, but they aren't really pairing up with them.

So, really, it's a STUPID ARGUMENT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING. And focusing so much attention on the sexual preferences of males who can't have the 14-year-olds they so ardently desire and the supposed damage that does to American females (this conversation has to be had in terms of western culture and specifically American culture, as the article and corresponding comments section were generated in the west) just continues to put the focus in the worst place. The underlying message here is that I am supposed to care that "most" men prefer "young" women...even though this bit of information has absolutely no discernible bearing on my life whatsoever unless I WANT TO BE PERCEIVED AS SEXY ABOVE ALL ELSE.

Having a conversation wherein it appears that women have something to gain by "proving" that men are attracted to older females instead of younger ones keeps us objectified. It tells us that we must prove our desirability in order to prove our worth. Why not simply say, "Who cares?" This is supposing simply that men find young women attractive. It does not allow that a 40-year-old man having sex with a 14-year-old should therefore be legal or moral. It simply supposes that as long as the average trends hold true -- most adult Americans seem to be in relationships with other adult Americans relatively close to their own age -- then it doesn't matter what men think. Countless jokes I've seen on shows such as Arrested Development and Community make light of the fact that women with low self-esteem are more amenable to focusing solely on male pleasure at the abandonment of their own (it would stand to reason both sexually and non-sexually). Going, "It isn't faaair that men like young women!" keeps us right where society wants us: amenable to abandoning other pursuits in order to pursue the most important pursuit -- desirability.

The best counter to this conversation is to promote discussion of what females find sexually preferable. Which is a lot of different and varied things, and this discussion will probably require many more years of the, "Yes, women can like sex, too!" conversation (as elementary as that fucking seems to me). But let all of this be a lesson to you guys.

Next time you feel like taking shit up in an internets' comments section, write a blog instead.

The American Delusion

I listen to NPR on the way to and from work every day. In case you were wondering, yes, I'm white. I also own a Navy pea coat. I can't help it. I was born this way.

While listening to NPR, I've watched my blood pressure slowly rise as I hear again and again that Obama's approval ratings are abismal, and they're even lower when it comes to the specific question about how he's handled the economy. Now, my problem with this has nothing to do with my personal feelings about Obama, although I suppose it does have something to do with my politics. I need to get that out of the way because everyone, on both sides, seems to be propaganda-spewing machines when it comes to this stuff, even if they don't realize it. Bring this up to one person, and they say, "Yeah, but the Republicans..." while the next guy will automatically respond with, "Yeah, but Nobama..."

For all intents and purposes of this post, everyone who talks about the parties is missing the point.

People talk about the economy like it's a governmental department. They ask why the government hasn't created jobs. They ask why the government hasn't increased incomes. They ask, they ask, they ask, and the answer is, "Because they can't." Oh, sure, the government can hire people, but they're just like every corporation in America: they can't hire EVERYBODY. And they can't make the economy do anything. They can pass legislation that they believe will influence the behavior of the economy, but they. Can't. MAKE. It. Do. Something.

Clear?

And when I say that the government cannot fix the economy, what I DON'T mean is, "The government has no business telling me or corporations or anyone what to do with their money!" Those people are also missing the point. I feel like when people say they don't approve of Obama's efforts (or lack thereof) in regards to the economy, what they're really saying (almost certainly unknowingly) is, "Why hasn't he fixed it?" And. He. Can't.

When we all sit around going, "Why hasn't the government fixed the economy?", we're not taking responsibility for our part in the economy. The economy is us. We each have a different role, but some of us--some of us with jobs and businesses and stuff--need to stop waiting for this magical economic upturn and spend some damn money. Some of us--most certainly not all of us, but some of us--have a little extra money to spend and don't, and we do it under the guise of being responsible. We have no faith in the economy, so we must pinch our pennies. But every time a penny is pinched, that's one less opportunity for the economy to recover. What's the saying? You've got to spend money to make money? And lest anyone be confused, the people whom I believe should seriously spend the money are the small percentage at the top of the heap. C'mon, guys! No one NEEDS billions or even millions of dollars! Use that shit to create some damn jobs! It's okay to let your bank balance dip below even the $100,000 mark. I know. It. Sounds. NUTS. You fucking work HARD, man. But people having more money than they can even spend in a lifetime? That's just greed, plain and simple. And it may be your right to be greedy, but it's a dick move nonetheless. Plenty of people are out there working twice as hard making not even a fifth of what you have.

I have no idea why I'm writing this in second person, as if million- and billionaires are reading my blog. If so, "Hi guys!"

But I'm not even advocating for an increase in taxes on the rich here. I don't particularly care how the money gets back into the economy. In fact, taxes might make the least amount of impact because THE ECONOMY IS NOT A GOVERNMENTAL DEPARTMENT. You could pump a ton of money into the government and the economy might STILL suck. But. I do think that people have to overcome their natural inclinations to be dicks in order for this to work. Which I guess means I have no real feasible solution.

I just really want everyone to stop talking nonsense on NPR.

Being at Home

My husband and I love our couch.
Well, actually, I want to get a new
couch, so I guess I should say we love
what the couch does, anchoring us
in our house,
with our dog,
and our cat
And ourselves.
We watch entire seasons of Mad Men
and The Wire, and when he’s not home
I sleep on it.
Every once in a while he will come in
and say, “Want to meditate?”
We pull the cushions into position
so we can breathe easier.
I appreciate that he doesn’t do this often—
I never was regular with anything.
Sometimes he walks in the door
and sits down next to me,
and I can just tell that I need to
close my computer,
put it aside,
scoot over closer.

I used to wonder as I drove to the bar,
or the dance club,
or the coffee shop,
who these people were, the ones
with cars in the driveway
and lights on in the windows.

Now I know.

My Solution for the Economic Crisis: International Do-Over Day!

While listening to NPR during this whole debt crisis situation, I thought, "So, basically, everyone in the world owes everyone else in the world money." Perhaps it's more complicated than that, but that's the gist. You'll have to forgive me--monetary concerns were never my strong suit.

Which isn't to say that you should completely disregard the rest of my argument.

Seriously, once money gets up into the trillions (Hahaha, okay guys, you got me! that's not a real number!), I pretty much start to feel like we all moved to Monopolyland or something. All this shuffling of bits of information that represent money back and forth between computers. It's MIND BOGGLING! And just when I was starting to think that I was the only one on the whole planet who realized that money is this totally crazy made-up thing, This American Life did a whole episode on it. Scroll all the way to the bottom of that page and listen to it. It's fantastic.

So anyway, money is made up. And some people have waaaaaaaaay more of it than other people. Problem is, when one guy finally has all the money and refuses to share it with anybody, nobody can buy that guy's--or any guy's--products, and no one can pay their debts to anyone else, bringing us to an economic showdown wherein BARTERTOWN. TWO MAN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVE! Don't worry. I know what you're thinking. "This girl is about to go totally socialist on my ass!" Um, no. I'm going to propose something even more radical. You're going to think it's crazy, but I beg you to let it soak in for a minute before you decide that it's a stupid way to take care of economic problems. I know you have a lot of top quality choices when it comes to debt solutions.

What is this mind-blowing solution, you ask? I don't know why you would ask that since I put it in the title of this piece but: INTERNATIONAL DO-OVER DAY!

What would happen if we just erased all debts? Everyone's debts? So tomorrow I wake up with exactly the same amount of money that I have now, but I don't owe anyone anything--and no one owes me anything, either. Then we start from baseline. Perhaps there would be SOME debts allowed to carry over. My employer still owes me a paycheck, and I still owe the IRS. Maybe? Maybe not? I'm not an economist! All I know is that on a larger scale, if China owes Argentina (do they? I made that up as an example) a gagillion dollars and Argentina owes the United State a gagillion dollars, what you end up with is some kind of circular standoff. It's like when the mob offers to sell you protection and then breaks your legs if you don't buy the protection. In other words, the money is like the protection--a MADE UP THING! And if you don't want to be involved with made up things, then can't you just decide not to believe in them? No. The mob still comes for you anyway. Maybe this is more like the emperor's new clothes.

MY POINT IS that it's kind of ridiculous to keep letting money wield all of this power over us when WE'RE THE ONES WHO MADE UP THE FUCKING MONEY. Money is whatever we say it is. It's not some inherently autonomous, uncontrollable force like God or your mother. It's fucking MADE UP, YOU GUYS! I think I've made my point.

International Do-Over Day. Think about it. Make a Facebook invite or something. Viva la revolucion! And remember what Jesus said (according to the Presbyterians): "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." See? JESUS is all about International Do-Over Day!

Is domination the name of the game?

I just read this line in a piece at the Good Men Project about how men are doing in what sounds like our “post-feminist” society:

Most sexual relationships (if not all) involve a power exchange, including some degree of domination and submission. How does this basic human need fit in with the discourses of gender “equality” that prevail today?

This is an oft repeated stock idea that you’ll hear a lot all over the place. Sex is about power. When I was 21 and thought I knew everything about everything (and was a somewhat insufferable little shit), I would’ve said the exact same thing. It sounds like such an intellectual way to discuss the down and dirty deed, especially since intellectual types never want to sound too hopeful or sweet. It just wouldn’t do for us to say anything equating sex with love. And I would never say that all sex is about love—anymore than I agree with the idea that “most sexual relationships (if not all) involve a power exchange”. Emphasis mine.

Why is this the prevailing narrative? I can tell you, I’ve had lots of sex that didn’t seem to be about power at all. Two willing participants getting together and doing something that is mutually beneficial doesn’t sound like a power struggle to me—it sounds like a good time. Even when two people get together and one says, “Hey, can you boss me around for a little while? That’s hot!” it’s not really about a power exchange because, well, one person asked for the illusion of a power game. When one person is willingly submitting to another’s respectful domination, it’s fake power exchange. The person on bottom is just as much in control of their sexual experience at that point as the person on top.

The only other instances I can think of when power is at play during sex aren’t so pretty. They’re either situations in which the couple is at odds in other aspects of their relationship and each is using sex as a tool or a weapon, or they’re rape. “Maybe if I give him sex, he’ll like me.” “Maybe if I give her my love, she’ll give me her sex.” See what I just did there? I quoted the story before we get to the conclusion that all sex is about power. We’re taught to believe that men want the sex and are engaged in an elaborate ruse or, worse, all-out battle to get it. But, again, is that true? Like, is it inherently true, or is it just what we’ve been taught and therefore what we act out on the regular?

This idea that sex is inherently about power supports all sorts of unhealthy sexual attitudes. It scares women into trying to control men with sex. It gives men the impression that they have to be dishonest or forceful in order to get what they want. But, again, that isn’t inherently true. That’s just the traditional narrative. Why don’t we ever say that sex is about fun and connecting with another person? It doesn’t have to be about love for the long haul—it doesn’t even have to be about love for the night. But it can be a mutually pleasurable experience, and I just don’t get how that’s about power.

The Golden Age of Never Was, Part II

Recently I had a conversation with my father about whether or not gay people should be given the right to marry. We discuss this topic often. It's laughable, really. It's not as if either of us has changed our minds yet. I supposed maybe he finally budged a little when he admitted gay people are probably born that way.

During the course of the conversation, he mentioned that kids were better off being raised in two-parent households made up of a mother and a father. This then spiraled to the point wherein I said, "I love it when people point to some magical time when all families were made up of a mommy and a daddy and things were perfect and everyone was happy." That time, of course, never existed. My father claimed that it did because that's what his childhood was like. Well, so was mine. I certainly wouldn't claim that my experience is representative of all experience or even average experience. I wouldn't even claim that it's the only valid or right way to be raised. It sure did beat having abusive, neglectful parents or being raised by wolves (although sometimes I claim that I was for all the proper household care and maintenance my parents taught me).

I was thinking about all of this today after reading a thing at the New York Times (which I would link to, but they've cut me off for the rest of the month) about the decline of editing at publishing houses. Books, it would seem, are being published containing horrendous numbers of typos. The writer of this piece seems to think it wouldn't be such a problem if modern writers were better spellers and spellcheck hadn't ruined everyone's life. Reading the comments cracked me up. The pearl clutching! Over typos! I mean, I cringe when I see a typo on a website when I've done the copy. But life goes on and stuff. I certainly do not think WE ARE ALL GOING ON A SLOW RIDE INTO HELL when I spot a typo.

However, as internet commenters are wont to do, everyone freaked out. Some people were extremely pro bad spelling (or, you know, pro the fluidity of language and all that stuff). Others were militantly anti stupid people. It was the anti crowd that really got me going. Commenters harkened back to some ideal era in which 12-year-olds wrote spotless essays on the importance of being earnest. A time when all people everywhere could fucking SPELL, goddammit, and also never jaywalked. And all had awesome jobs with pensions and were set up in one of those "fat guy/hot wife" situations. ALL OF THEM.

The other day my mother said something about their being more sociopaths in the world today than ever before. My father and I started shaking our head slowly from side to side at the exact same moment and said, "No." I guess we agree on something. I said I would assume that the percentage of the population that is sociopathic is roughly the same over time. So, too, the percentage of bad spellers. There's something really satisfying about screaming, "We're all gonna DIE!" in a crowded theater. I just never understand how anyone thinks it's at all helpful to say that we used to have everything right but we don't anymore. It has only just now dawned on me that this phenomenon is just like the story of Adam and Eve: life was perfect, then people started up with their people-y ways, we got fucked, and now we've got to get ourselves back to the garden. I'm totally about to listen to "Woodstock" on YouTube. Funny. One of the comments on the YouTube video is, "Groovy! I miss those days...easy living and no worries!!" IT ALL COMES FULL CIRCLE.

I've never had much patience for people who are still pining away over some long lost love more than a year after they and that person parted ways. Seriously. No. Patience. It's one thing to say even after a long period of time that it's somewhat sad that it ended. But to pine away--to believe that the person who is gone was the only person who will ever be so perfect in the entire universe--makes me want to hit whomever is selling that schlock right in the face. It's just not honest. It may feel like the truth, but people who think this way are unwilling to actually look at the world straight and see it for what it really is: a very mixed-up place. It feels safe to believe that perfection existed at some point in the past because if that's true, perfection is both possible and possibly attainable. We can just follow our steps backwards, do now what we did then to make that magical time reappear.

But as long as we're betting on the past, we're not creating a future that might actually really be different. At the very least we're wasting a whole lot of time being dicks on the internet.