In Which I Rant and Disclose Some Things I Feel Like Disclosing

The Standard Disclaimer applies here. If you feel like you may be negatively affected by anything in this post, it is advised that you not read this post. If you choose to read on beyond this little paragraph, please know that I hold no responsibility for any action that you may or may not take, nor do I assume this responsibility. If you wish to read this post and tell me what a horrible person I am for writing it…If you must be a total dick to me, be a dick with style. Also, if you’re a spammer, I will ban you on the first go ’round.

That said, on with the show.

(This rant brought to you by flipping through the ICD-9-CM and rolling my eyes at introversion as a personality disorder. Really, this is 2011. What the fuck, medical establishment?)

Hi, my name is Rubyfruit and I am an introvert. No, that does not mean that I am a misanthrope, nor does it mean that I’m depressed all the time. Furthermore, it does not mean that I’m sick.

Fear(less)

In which I think about fear and fearlessness. I think it takes a hell of a lot more courage not to be a Pentecostal than it takes to be one. But dammit, the embarrassing shit you have to do as part of your Pentecostal duties makes that a fucking hard statement to make.

New Blog!

I have a whole new blog for fat-related things! Those entries have a new home at In-Betweenie-Things!

In Which I Admit Resentment

Advisory Notice for General Ranting. If you feel like you may have a negative reaction to this entry, it’s advised that you not read this entry. If you read it anyway, please be advised that I am not responsible for any actions taken or not taken by you.

Kind of like the label of “feminist”, I only vaguely relate to the label of “Childfree”. Because “childless” implies that I would like to have children someday, which I do not. But still, I only vaguely relate to the label of “Childfree” because I do not have the outright loathing of children that has become such a characteristic of that movement, much in the same way that a loathing of men has become endemic of some schools of feminism. But that’s beside the point.

Another part is…I admit to some resentment. As a person without kids, I admit to some resentment of those who do. Or more specifically, that I am worth less than someone who did decide to have kids, that my existence is invalid in some way or another, unless, of course, I’m one of the “good” people without children, the ones who are either trying really really hard to have one, or will support those friends who happen to be parents via babysitting and paying the couple’s way to dinner dates, or buying expensive baby shower/birthday/graduation gifts.

I admit, say, resenting the fact that I have to prove that I’m not a child-hater on general principle. In specific, I hate having to prove I’m not a child-hater by, among other things…

–being expected to smile and laugh and applaud and coo when small children do things that elicit a much, much, much less friendly response had an adult done them.
–being expected to both take on extra tasks in the workplace because fellow employees feel the need to skip out of work early for their kid’s soccer game and prove that I’m not some kind of party girl who’ll come in late and hung over because I don’t have the ~responsibilities~ of having kids.
–having it be assumed that I’m clearly made of free time and free money, and have no responsibilities ever.
–being made to feel like I should feel guilty for wanting some space, any at all, for any length of time, without children.
–being seen as less of a woman because I do not want to bear children.
–being seen as less of an adult because I do not want to be a parent.
–having it be assumed that my decision not to have children makes me selfish.
–looking forward to a lifetime of my existence being seen only in the context of what I can do for my friends and relatives with children, and of course, not being able to say no, because, again, have to prove that I’m not a monster.
I don’t hate children. I don’t know of anyone in existence who, say, laughs at a child’s death, whether they’ve got children or not. I just think that I’d be an epic failure as a parent in every way, shape, and form.

But apparently I’ve gotta prove that. And that, friends, is bullshit.

On Eating and Sin: Electric Boogaloo

Advisory Notice for Diet Talk. If you feel that you cannot handle the contents of this entry, then it is advised that you not read it. If you read it anyway, then please know that I cannot and do not claim any responsibility for your action or lack of action. The following is my opinion.

A sequel post that is only vaguely related to the first post with this title. Anyway, I did more thinking on the subject of Eating and Sin and Eating as Sin and a somewhat bizarre paradox. That is, no matter what you do, no matter what you look like, it only matters if you’ve worked your ass off, figuratively and literally, to get there.

Similarity Is Not Symmetry

Potential Trigger/Offense Warning. In this entry, there is some discussion of bullying, also, all “yous” are general.

Alternate Title: “Since When are we an ‘Us?’”

When I write about fandom stuff, I say that I don’t identify with the social justice leg of fandom. That means that I don’t give a fuck about some fictional black person working at McDonald’s, about what it says about me as a black person, et cetera, et cetera, and this is true. I really don’t think that someone’s depiction of an imaginary black person in a world that does not exist is really any reflection on me. 

When I write about non-fandom stuff, while I get behind the idea of a given movement, while I get that, there’s something that always has bothered me.

That is the concept of “us”.

 When people talk about “they” or “us”, I always wonder, “since when are we an ‘us’?”. And the answer I get when I actually ask this person a question is, “well, we’re both black people” or “well, we’re both women” or “well, we’re both something other than straight”. ….Well, yeah, that’s true. But the problem is that although I am a woman who is bisexual and black, my life experiences do not match up to the idea of what my experience should be or should have been. The problem I see, both within given social justice movements and outside of them, is the conflation of similarity and symmetry. That is, the assumption that because I belong to Group X, my feelings, thoughts, and experiences will neatly match up with those also belonging to Group X by virtue of my being (black, a woman, et cetera, et cetera). It’s the opposite of “othering”, and to me it’s just as bad to “us” people on two levels. One, by “ussing” people, it effectively negates their thoughts, feelings, experiences–their entire lives–and try to fit it all into this one thing based on the color of someone’s skin or the shape of their body or whatever else one can think of. Two, and this bothers me about a lot of things where it’s the same kind of bullshit people claim to be fighting, under the guise of something that should be a good idea (and oh, I have words about the lauding of masculine traits in women to the denigration of feminine traits in anybody), is that it’s harder to fight it without seeming like a tool because it’s couched in language that is supposed to be “good”. So I can’t ask, “Hold the fuck on, since when did I become part of your ‘us’?” because if I do that, the implication is that I have internalized (fill in the blank), which is a term that is so overused that it’ll take another post to articulate fully why that bothers me. But, as I was saying, it makes you look good to fight othering, but there is no right way to fight “ussing” because when someone ~standing up for me~ is trying to shove my experiences into this neat little box that they can make sense of, that’s somehow okay because their heart’s in the right place.

And to use an example, I have endured bullying for much of my life, in multiple forms. While it did leave me hurt, it also left me very angry, and that anger, also because of issues I have developed over many years of being Pentecostal, manifests as what some people think of as “hurt”. I become extremely withdrawn and I am prone to beating myself up and blaming myself for things that probably aren’t really my fault. So when I see on the news, and hear people talk about how painful it is for kids who are bullied, while my heart goes out to them and I really do get why it’d hurt, I also don’t get why the only acceptable, media-palatable reaction to being dumped on is to bravely soldier on while people remark on how brave (general) you are, or try their damnedest to make the bullying stop by changing what makes them a target, or die if they can’t. And that fills me with The Fury for so many reasons. Not the least of which being that I don’t feel like I have the right to my anger. Because anger is “bad” and belongs to the perpetrator and not the victim…Apparently. I have this working theory that, generally, people see anger as the domain of perpetrators. Anger is the person who beats their spouse because they had a shitty day at work, or the parent who screams at their children for the slightest infraction.  And Anger is bad and bullies have anger. Those who are bullied apparently don’t have the right to anger, because anger is what their tormentors have. Which is so much bullshit, and there’ll probably be a blog entry for that.

So I don’t get the idea of an “us”. I don’t get the idea of a universal black experience (made all the more insulting because I was told through my entire life that I don’t have a right to be part of the Universal Black Experience ™ because I was not “black enough”, whatever the flying fuck that means). I don’t get why othering is bad but ussing is just fine because “people’s hearts are in the right place”. And I still don’t get why the desire to at least scream at the people who’ve done me wrong makes me the same as those people.

The point is, similarity is not symmetry. And I will repeat that until everyone, especially the people “on my side” get it.

You gotta eat, who do you think you are, you won’t get far unless you eat.

Potential Trigger Warning: This entry deals with food and eating and disordered eating and bitching about diet talk. Tread lightly. If you feel that you can’t handle it, I ask that you not read this entry. Thank you!

Title is from the old Rally’s ad campaign. And it rings so true. Maybe not the obvious message of “eat at Rally’s”, but the fact that you need to eat to survive and not fuck things all to hell.

More after the jump. Entry inspired by this brilliant one.

Intent Versus Action 2: On Sex and Virginity

Disclaimer: I am not a trained psychological professional, and this entry is not made to make anyone feel bad (except maybe the people pushing the kind of thing I will be ranting about in this entry). That said! If you find the topic of sex and having sex or not having sex in relation to religion offensive or triggering, then please do not read this entry. I am not responsible for any action one chooses to take or not to take after reading this entry. Also, much of this entry deals with the female experience of virginity and the like, since I am not male. If there are any men who would like to talk about this issue, feel free in the comments.

I don’t believe in not having sex until marriage. That is, if you don’t want to. I believe that no one should be pressured into having sex (or not having sex) if they are not ready to. I believe that whatever decision is made, it should be between that person, the person that they’re in a relationship in, and their god (if applicable).

That said, my rage is not directed at those who do decide that they will abstain from sex until they’re married. I think that’s a deeply personal decision and should not be made by, well, anyone else. Oh, no. I have a personal hate-on for those who sell the idea of virginity as the end-all-be-all and the sole requirement that can make a woman “marriageable” (maybe I’ll rant a little about that later).

Intent matters much more than action, especially in something this personal. If it’s your personal conviction or whatever you’d like to call it, good for you. If you’re doing so out of respect for your partner, that’s good, too! The only issue I have with not having sex until marriage is when that decision is made out of fear or made as a result of peer pressure. I grew up in an Assemblies of God church, so yes, peer pressure to remain a virgin is possible. I even went to a Christian school in my fifth and sixth grade years. And yet, I never made a virginity pledge for a bunch of reasons.

First, the act of doing so seemed a little too public for such a private thing. Especially Purity Balls, because they’re a little creepy and maybe eventually I will rant about the borderline incestuous undertones that may show that I’m reading too much into the things. But, anyway. The second reason is because in junior high, I was not so presumptuous that I believed that my thoughts on sex and all it entails would remain the Exact Same when I hit twenty. And finally, it was hypocritical bullshit. I noticed that girls were pressured into getting promise rings and shit, but boys rarely were, which said to me that the issue of virginity was Super Mega Important if you had a vagina. Which was bullshit then and it still is now. Either it’s important that everyone waits until they’re married, or it’s not important for anyone. Especially for those trying to cite “health reasons”. If it’s for reasons of minimizing STIs, then it’d be more important to tell everyone, not just one half of the goddamn church. Urrrgh. Rant about my experiences with my old denomination’s fucked-up gender dynamics coming soon.

It all boils down to Intent Fucking Matters. Especially when it comes to matters of one’s personal life, be it physical, mental, or spiritual if you believe in that aspect. And sex is a big part of all three (if you believe in the spiritual aspect). So if it’s done for personal reasons of whatever flavor, fine. But just like deciding to have sex, deciding not to have sex because “everyone else is doing it” is rarely ever a good reason, and it rarely ends well.

Action versus Intent #1: Fasting

Welcome to a new series on my thoughts on Intent and Action in the world of Pentecostalism, and why I have objections to the intent of things rather than the action itself.

And since this issue has come up, I guess I should talk about the act of fasting. It’s an important part in a lot of flavors of Christianity, and, hell, my girlfriend’s Russian Orthodox, so I have zero problems with fasting itself. But, like a lot of other things, when it gets carted over to Pentecostalism, the intent changes, and that’s when I have problems with it. The intent of it.

And my issue with the Pentecostal version of fasting is…it comes off as childish to me. The idea of withholding food (or anything else) from yourself to force God to do something… it reminds me of a little kid threatening to hold their breath until their faces turn blue in order to make their parents comply with something.  Even when I was still Pentecostal the concept of making God do things by acting in such a childish manner bothered me. So, a little over time, I refused to do it. Because I had a few genuine concerns about the idea. Not just because I wanted to be able to eat bonbons whenever I wanted, but because it made no sense for me, a human being, to tell Almighty God that I wouldn’t eat unless He decided to do what I demanded. Fuck, even when I was a Pentecostal, it made zero sense for me to tell God what to do. And now that I’m not, I have to wonder when an expression of faith became a means of extortion. And more importantly, the why of how a personal thing became so…public.

But that’s another entry.

My Place in the Blogosphere

I have had this blog for a while. And now it’s time for me to rant about how I came to blog about the stuff on this blog rather than other things. Some things, it’s not that I don’t care, it’s just not my thing. There are people who do some things better. Though I’m black, I don’t do much blogging about race unless I find it relevant to the other stuff I talk about. Politics don’t really interest me, and people blog better about it anyway. Much of the stuff on this blog has to do with the personal observations of Pentecostal Christian Culture, through the eyes of someone who was once on the inside. With a side of the occasional Thoughts on Feminism and Fat and Pop Culture. Because sometimes, that stuff all intersects, like in this entry. So yeah.

I have found my place in the blogosphere.

Hey Ladies and Gents!: A Call for Information

Help me, Blogosphere, you are my only hope!

So, there is a special coming on today (my time) on Oprah about Teh Diabeetus and I just know that somehow, it will relate to “zomg teh fats” and of course, Mother Dear will hound me about my weight, something she usually doesn’t do unless a special on Oprah comes on. Which brings me to the topic of this entry:

Help Me, Blogosphere, give me all the information on Dr. Oz you can give me. Websites, news articles, anything.

Special Birthday Thoughts On…

This time, the Confines of Society and Suffering.

First, today is my twenty-fourth birthday. Yay me.

Secondly, Mom and Sis trotted out the old chestnuts of “what makes children gay”. I could probably have hit Bingo in under five seconds, since there was the “They were abused as children” thing and the “it’s curiosity, it’ll pass”. Made me physically ill. I shall have to see sooner this year what my mom will think when it’s her child who has the Dread Homosexuality.

Thirdly, on the idea of abandoning society. The idea is quite tempting to me because from what I’ve observed and what I’ve been through, the only ways in which one can thrive in this society is either to fit the ideal…or hate oneself for not fitting into the ideal well enough. I mean, people can be quite horrible to one another, and it isn’t hard to look for examples. Fuck, look at kids at a schoolyard for good examples of people being asshats to each other. My mom had said that God created people to want to connect…it’s a good thing that I don’t believe in her God. Because her version of God is a sadistic bastard who loves to watch people suffer should they fall out of an extremely narrow guideline, such as, oh, creating gay people for the sole purpose of chucking them into Hell. For His amusement, I suppose.

Which brings me to my thoughts on suffering and effort and whatnot. Like, how eight-plus hours of manual labor doesn’t count as exercise because someone doing that eight-plus hours isn’t doing it on purpose.  And I kind of extrapolated it to sex and sexuality and how it seems to not count if one is gay or straight and Childfree. Because apparently, thing are measured by how much effort one puts into it, how much suffering one has to do.  A TV Dinner isn’t real food because no one had to spend four hours in the kitchen making it. Walking or dancing or bike riding don’t count as real exercise because it’s not pumping iron at the gym and FEELING THE BURN or whatever. Love or sex or romance do not count unless offspring are the end result.

This is fuckery and bullshit and it makes me rage. One day, I will have coherent thoughts about Suffering and the puritanical bullshittery that’s stuck in society.

On Modesty and “MODESTY!!”

I have been thinking about clothes and stuff, and that led to my thoughts on non-revealing clothing and stuff.

It made me think of my own clothing choices then and now. And so, my thoughts on modesty as a concept and MODESTY!! as a marketing ploy.

First, let us look at the dictionary definition. Dictionary.com defines “modesty” as:

1. the quality of being modest; freedom from vanity, boastfulness, etc.

2. regard for decency of behavior, speech, dress, etc.

3. simplicity; moderation.

And all of these things are well and good. These things are perfectly okay. The choice to wear revealing or not-revealing clothing is to me, by and large, a morally neutral act. It has no bearing on your soul. You will not gain or lose Karma Points. You will not get voted off the island for wearing a T-shirt instead of a tube top and vice versa.

And yet, in Pentecostal Land, there is modesty. Not as much modesty as “MODESTY!!” (Remember, exclamation points mean that you’re happy). And MODESTY!! is the direct opposite of modesty in the sense that it’s not about simplicity or moderation or not being boastful at all. It’s about the woman as property of men. The idea that men cannot control their god damned cocks and if they see a hint of female flesh they’ll go on a rapefest or something. The fact that this was preached every so often on any given spring Sunday, by the very male, very heterosexual pastor says a lot of disturbing things about the self-control of the male members of the congregation, but that’s another rant.

I am speaking, of course, of the “MODESTY!!” that drives women to wear ankle-length denim skirts and rolled-down socks and white Keds. The kind of “MODESTY!!” that forbids the wearing of colored underwear, for fuck’s sake. I grew up with two messages: I grew up with the message that I was not cute enough for certain things, and I grew up with the message that if I tried to wear them anyway, not only was I to be mocked, I would be sinning by wearing the short skirts and the tube tops.

Now, of course, I have decided that I ought not wear tube tops because they offer exactly zero support for my D-cup breasts, and my ass turns most Not As Mini-Miniskirts into Somewhat Pushing Mini-Miniskirts.

But while the idea of modesty in itself is all well and good, MODESTY!! can kiss my big, black ass. It makes no sense. It’s another one of those “To Be Seen By Men” things. An outward substitute for inner emptiness.

And MODESTY!! can go fuck itself. With a chainsaw. In the ear.

Does Anyone Have a Gently-Used Easy-Bake Oven?

Alternately: And I Still Fail Feminism And Am A Horrible Person (And That’s Okay)

So, I was discussing the last entry with my girlfriend. I had said something that went a little like this:

“Until femininity is held in the same high regard as masculinity, we’ll never get anywhere on the equality front”.

And I fucking stand by that. Not because I seek to roll back women’s rights, which I don’t, but because I think it’s true. As long as femininity is denigrated, we as a society will never get out of the idea that the only things worth doing are the things that men do. That the only things that are worthwhile are masculine things.

Destroying The Movement One Hair Barrette at a Time.

Alternately: I Fail Feminism Forever.

I no longer call myself a feminist, not that I ever could. What with me liking porn and video games and thinking that feminist-approved female characters are boring as fuck and much preferring the cute damsel in distress and all. Also disagreeing heavily with what feminism has come to mean, at least on the Internets.

There’s more at the jump…

Couldn’t Be More Wrong if They Tried.

I haven’t set foot in the church I used to go to since I had turned 21. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Because for all the shit I’ve heard about how staying in church keeping me from becoming a jaded, cynical shell of a human being, for all the years I’ve been told that Pentecostalism was giving me my faith in humanity, spending two-plus years out of church has proven me wrong.

In fact, the longer I stay out of church, the more faith in humanity, the less afraid I am of trying new things, and talking to people is actually easier because I don’t fucking have to sell them on Jesus anymore.

In fact, not being Pentecostal means that I have a choice on whether to talk to a given person or not, based on whether I like them or not rather than having to make friends with every Sanctified On Fire For God Christian I saw, or trying to sell people on Jesus. A lot of stuff is easier, and I don’t have to feel guilty about not bringing anyone to church, because I sure the fuck ain’t there.

And dating and relationships are so, so much easier, because I’m with someone who loves me, rather than someone who loves church more than me. In fact, the person I’m with now, she makes me happy because she accepts everything about me. Agnosticism and profanity and all.

And that’s why all the sermons I’ve heard, all the doom-and-gloom I’ve gotten from church services for over two decades, I seriously think they’re wrong.

And I have proof of that now.

Children learn what they live, indeed.

Being a Pentecostal meant living with a lot of psychological violence. Thus, being a child in Pentecostalism meant learning hatred.

Hatred of the world around me, hatred of people who were not like me, hatred of myself. There was so much hatred, and so little love that didn’t come with conditions, that I don’t doubt that there’s a lot of work to be done once one leaves.

I lived in a bubble, a bubble in which love came with more conditions than hatred. Love was something to be earned, not given. It was earned by being perfect, which was where the hatred came in. Parents were told to shun their children if they ever left the faith, if they ever left the closet, if they started thinking for themselves. Husbands were told to shun wives if they were not submissive enough. After all, God will shun you if you’re not perfect enough! And so the hatred begins. The hatred toward oneself for not being good enough, the hatred toward children for causing bad things to happen, the hatred toward spouses for causing turmoil.

And children are taught to do this. Every day they’re in church, they are taught to hate instead of love.

And when they get to someone who tries to tell them something different–that the world isn’t a scary, hate-filled place, that they are worth loving, that it isn’t their mom’s fault that their dad is stuck in the ninteenth century–when they get a completely contradictory message, that message is immediately stopped by the years of hate-messages that play over and over in their heads. But all it takes is for one question to slip through the noise, a question not answered by simplistic. “Because I said so” answers, and slowly, steadily, someone unlearns all they’ve been told. They unlearn all the hatred, see that the world isn’t totally scary, that they’re all right the way that they are, that there is something just plain wrong about what they’ve learned for all these years.

But it’s hard, especially when they’ve learned how to hate for so many years.

This is why I’m angry. This is why I am angry at those who stand up at the pulpit and preach messages of conditional love and unconditonal hate. This is why I am angry at those who go on TV and make money off of the self-hatred of so god damned many. This is why I’m angry at those in power within Pentecostalism whose strength comes from the weakness of those under them.

This is why I am not angry at those taken in, by those who have internalized the hate-messages. Because it’s too easy to do that. It’s too easy to look at the number of people in a megachurch and say that they’re stupid for being taken in. It’s easy to look at the people who have made themselves destitute in order to give more money to their church and say that it’s their fault. It’s easy, but it’s not right.

Because children indeed learn what they live. And if they live in an atmosphere of conditional love, they learn hatred.

And those are my thoughts. Peace.

~Jordi

On Eating and Sin and Being the Fat Kid in Sunday School

This entry touched me in more ways than one. It hit home in ways that few entries like that could. It hit on sin and eating and eating as sin–and though it didn’t hit on the idea of eating as a literal sin, it made me think of precisely that.

2010!

Well, it’s a spanking new year, and this year…

I resolve NOTHING! Life-changing things should not be a once-a-year thing.

I also don’t think that this year will be terrible. Mostly because even if 2009 was fairly neutral on the Jordi Front (my worst year? 2007), here’s hoping that 2010 is good for everyone.

~Jordi

My Own Flights of “If I Was Thin” Fantasy

I am putting in my Serious Blog Post Quota Today.  Today is one of those Personal Posts, guys. About being thin. About wanting it so bad that I’d have sold my soul to Satan Himself a few years ago. Today’s topic, The fantasy of being thin. More after the jump!