Butterface

This is a blog about the objectification of women. Or maybe it's not. It might be a rant, it might be a list of questions, it might be a little from column A and a little from column B.

 I love women's bodies. I love all sorts of lady shapes and types: thin, curvy, small tits, big tits, tan, pale, big feet, whatever. I care more about the clothes covering the lady body more than the shape of it. I could take or leave any type of man body. Some people are only interested in one type of body though. I dated a boy for two years who was very clear about the body type he preferred: not mine. He wanted me to be thinner, always thinner. J is a tiny Asian boy who has the body of Megan Fox minus the T&A. He hated how thin he was and couldn't stand to be with someone with a higher BMI. And so I tried to be thinner. I tried so damn hard to be the tiny girl that this boy wanted because he would tell me that sometimes he was attracted to me. Sometimes, I was the girl that he desired. But most of the time I was just too fat. I would hide from food all day and then eat the world at dinner. After these world-eating times, when I was complainy and too full to move from binging, this tiny boy would chastise me and wonder why, why couldn't I just control myself? Why did I have to eat so much food, couldn't I see that it was bad for me and it was bad for us? Because when I ate too much food I wasn't attractive to him. And if I didn't want to be attractive to him, then he just didn't know what he was doing with me. I would cry about how fat I was, literally cry, because I couldn't control my desire to eat a third slice of pizza and I knew that that third slice was destroying my relationship. He would still have sex with me of course, because a fuck's a fuck, but he'd be damned if he'd enjoy it as much as he would enjoy touching a thin girl's body.

I look back on photos of myself from this time and I want to slap both of us in the face. I was not tiny, but I was not fat by any stretch of any rational human being's expectations of a woman. I'm certainly fatter these days and have had several people look at and touch my naked body and tell me how beautiful I am. Yet, I don't feel it. I feel like a giant, like I STILL have to get to the impossibly tiny size that this insecure little man demanded of me two years ago. I think, these people who are touching me must be lying. How could this body be beautiful, when even the smaller version wasn't?

J could only appreciate one type of body: super thin. I can appreciate many more. Does this make me less of an asshole, or just less choosy? I certainly care more about what's under a person's skin, but let's be real here: if there's no physical attraction, it's not happening. This guy valued me as a human, I suppose, but not as a paramour and certainly not as an appropriate girlfriend for him. The girl he left me for was a runner of some sort. He told me that she was a better partner for him because her chances of surviving an apocalyptic situation were much higher than mine. Because she could run faster, I suppose? This was probably the most offensive thing (in a laundry list of offensive things) he's ever said to me. When I was a kid I used to catch, skin and roast fish on a homemade brick stove, just for fun. I am well acquainted with most edible and poisonous plants in this area. I studied animal tracking. I am getting my degree in BEING OUTDOORS. I'm a scrappy motherfucker, and I will survive a motherfucking apocalypse. This kid thought I'd be the first one to go because I was lugging around an extra ten pounds?

Why am I going off on this rant now, when we've been broken up for over two years? Recently, J referred to his newest girlfriend as a "butterface." For those of you who aren't familiar with this delightful American idiom, it means that a girl has a hot body and an ugly face. Everything "but her face" is hot. Clearly, this is a terrible thing to say about any person, especially a person you are supposed to be romantically involved with. Is this even worse? Should I be happy that I got off with merely a skewed body image and a mild eating disorder? This poor girl can't do anything about her butterface; I could at least, in theory, diet.  I have no doubts, however, that he is more pleased with this situation. I am one hundred percent sure that J would rather have a "hot body/ugly face" combo than me. This makes me angry, and I can't exactly pinpoint why.

This relationship was, in hindsight, mind-bogglingly unhealthy for me. J fucked with my brain in ways that I'm still trying to sort out. Am I just as much to blame for pestering this boy into dating me, even though he was pretty clear about his preferences? Is this guy a dick for wanting to sleep with thin girls, or is he just a dick for trying to turn me into one of those thin girls? Or is he a dick for telling me that I wasn't what he wanted but sleeping with me anyway? The douchebaggery is not up for debate but the root of it is; where does the douchebaggery start? Are people who care less about what a person's body looks like better people, or just people with a wider preference set?

Running in the wrong circles, and I don't even like running

I am an awful straight girl. I mean, just like the worst. Terrible straight girl though I may be, I am an even worse lesbian. I'm hopeless with gay women: flirting with them or taking them out or being interested in their culture. And I'm not keen on doing anything about it. Lesbian culture confuses and scares me, and doesn't feel like where I belong. But I know I don't fit into straight (read: dick-loving ladies) culture.

So why does everyone I would maybe like to date want to stick me in one box or the other? [insert vagina joke here]. Why do most of the people I know need to put me in the straight box, just because I lust after women but only date men? I say "need" because that's what it feels like. I fret about how R-74 might affect me and hear "you don't have to worry about that." When my one short-lived relationship with a girl petered out, I heard "Well, maybe ladies are not for you." I run away from girls at clubs because they shimmy up to me, looking for a dance; this is seen as confirmation of my straightness. The only thing it is confirmation of is my cowardice. Gay women see this scenario differently: they are sure that if I could only get up the courage to dance with that woman, I would realize my gayness and never look back. I'm welcome in both clubs, as long as I'm willing to give up my membership in the other.

Sometimes I feel like my reluctance to date women stems from my failed relationships with men. More specifically, from a desire to not let those men win. I somehow feel that if I were to manage a happy relationship with a woman, those men who dumped me will think "Oh, well see that's why it didn't work out. She was a lesbian the whole time." This is, of course, not true. I was a bisexual/queer woman who happened to be dating a man at the time. But I fear that these men will release themselves from culpability for ending the relationship and I don't want that to happen. Something that is perfectly clear to the imaginary readers of this blog (and to people who know me well) but will likely remain a mystery to those of you who stumble upon this whenandif I publicize it: I have a difficult time getting over people. My fall-hard-and-fast dating style is a subject for another blog entirely, but it's still a thing. A nagging thing, and I have to wonder if it's the reason that, when I find myself setting up okCupid dates with cute girls, I also find myself Facebook stalking old male lovers and canceling said dates.

Regardless of the reasons for the lack of "bi" in my bisexuality, I'm still allowed to identify as such. I've recently started identifying myself as queer because I think that suits me much better, but it still doesn't quiet the naysayers.

I have fallen in love with men. I have fallen for women. I am, goddammit, capable and willing to love either. I'm just dreadfully bored with one and terrified of the other. So right now I am dating nobody. This doesn't mean I am asexual. I'm just...sexual. A person. Who likes to feel close to other people. Is that so bad?

ch-ch-ch-changes! aka Avatar TLA break

Oh hello there blog. I always come at this writing thing with a purpose (I'm gonna write about a thing and use these specific sentences!) but when I craft this idea I am usually comically far away from my computer, e.g., in the shower, and when I finally manage to put fingers to keys most of the thing and all of those specific sentences are gone. But I will TRY. Or at least I am going to ramble on anyway.

I have a difficult time relating to normal people. Not normal in an angsty sense, like no one will ever understand me. Normal as in 95% of people have a life experience that is 2 standard deviations from a given mean life experience. And I am somewhere between -5 and -6 on the distribution curve. I'm not trying to whine and it might be slash probably is all in my head but it does not seem to want to go away and is worsening with age.

small examples: when people discuss the music/ballet/sports lessons and camps they went to as children. when people talk about the cartoons and movies they watched as children. in general, over half the time when someone is talking about their childhood, it involves experiences that I never had. I try to chime in when I can but most of the time I am left feeling empty and cheated.

large example: when I meet a charming, lovely boy who ignites little Butterfrees in my belly, who makes me so nervous that I either clam up or say stupid shit and probably sound like a huge jerk but who for some reason likes me anyway. and this boy has probably never even seen a food stamp. this boy's parent's house is ticky tacky and oozing with too much class. I am awkward and don't know how to act. I never relax. I don't want to share the bits of my life because they are shameful. and I either run or scare them off somehow.

These things wouldn't even matter anymore if I didn't spend the first four years of my life after breaking out of whatever just fucking trashing said life.


UPDATE like a million years later (around Sept 2012):
...Oh man. I don't even know what to say here. Embarrassingly, it took me a few minutes to even figure out who the eff I was talking about. Then I remembered M2, who I was momentarily enamored with. He turned out to be asshole. Okay, not an asshole per se, but a lost soul without his shit together. Which leads me to the reason I am revisiting this blog: I do not date people with their shit together. Case in point: my newest paramour, the delightfully hobbitesque C. Seriously, he looks exactly like a 6'3" Pippin, and it's awesome. However, the boy's life is in shambles. Shambles. I am not even using hyperbole; this kid is a mess. So of course I had to have him. Just like M2, and P, and M1, J, T...I have not since my very first love dated a boy who was happy in the direction his life was going. Well, with the exception of T but he was nuts and his boat-apartment didn't even have a bathroom. I wasn't happy with the direction his life was going. aaaaaanyway. What does this say about me? Nice guys, successful guys, guys working on their master's degree or who are enjoying a career seem to be in encased in glass; I can look but I can't touch.

2012/10/16
This is my third try at this particular blog, and I really want to get out whatever I've been trying to say. I should tell you that C ran off with some girl he's batshit crazy for and we don't talk now. Why can't I connect with people who's lives aren't on a downward trajectory? Is it a barrier that I put up? A vibe I give off? I'm kind of concerned with this. It might be different once I graduate and feel less like I'm trying to play catch up with my life. Maybe not. I hope so.

Beverages

Maybe I am an alcoholic. I prefer to think that I am just drowning my sorrows. But I am sitting at the convention center, not doing homework and dicking around on the internet, some fucking horrible harp rendition of Hey Jude is assaulting my ears, and all I can think is how this scene would be soooooo much less dull if I had beer. Like, I really want to drink beer right now. So much so that I might leave and go drink beer, even though I am supposed to be filming some OS meeting. But P will be at the meeting and it will probably suck and maybe no one will show up or they will talk about incredibly dull things and see how many excuses I can come up with to not film this meeting and instead go drink beer?

I need to stop this. I'm annoying everyone. Plus, I am so angry all of the time, at everything. Well, except...

I don't know what I was going to say there. I just trailed off and left this post dangling here for months. So I am going to post it now even though its relevance is lost completely (OS is mostly gone, P's fences have been mended although dontevengetmestarted)...well maybe not completely. I'd still like a beer.

My (somewhat coherent) thoughts on violent revolution

I have been thinking about this for some time now, and I can kind of see both sides. I hate the knot tightening in my chest every four years as I watch aspiring leaders of this country spout seemingly insane talk about putting poor children to work doing menial labor as young as age nine because otherwise they will never learn to have a work ethic (because of their obviously drug-addled parents), or that they do not worry about poor people because of the government safety net, and then I watch the same guys just get even more popular.  Newt Gingrich is MEAN. Mitt Romney is nuts. And Obama is, well…ineffectual. Our system is broken if these are our only choices.

But like it or not, we are a nation of first world problems. We are not Egypt. We are not Moscow. We are not violently oppressed. There are many things wrong with this country: Our healthcare system allows people to die if they do not have the (often incredibly large sums of) money required for uninsured medical treatment. We have a flawed “two party” political system where we are forced to choose between a rich dick and an even richer asshole, neither of which embody a fitting representation of the American populace.  Our judiciary allows corporations-as-people the right to funnel unlimited sums of cash into political campaigns and fails to see how this compromises the integrity of our already precarious party system. The one percent is allowed to bend rules and regulations, using the power of money, to keep themselves on the richer side of the fence.

But we have freedom. We have the freedom to peaceably assemble. We have the freedom to write our legislators. We have the freedom to info bomb. We have the freedom to Occupy. We have the freedom to MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD.

Money talks in this country. And power corrupts.  But do we require a violent overthrowing of our social and political system in order to enact the kind of change we NEED to see?

I don’t think so. But I am not sure. Because those aforementioned dicks and assholes are advancing politically.  The republican party is ping-ponging between the two richest and most insane of the candidates. Is this just, in effect, rich people voting for whomever they believe will keep them richest? Or is this a byproduct of ignorance voting for whomever has the most television ads?

I am not an anarchist. I believe that people require governance, especially in the modern world.  But the middle class is disappearing and this country is dividing into two sides: rich and not rich. I like to think that Marx’s proletariat is forming.  Can we change this country through our voices?