Not Anonymous

I wrote many tweets about Sinead O'Connor's Open Letter to Miley Cyrus, that looking back should have been a proper post.

Here are the tweets I wrote regarding this whole sordid affair.

The more I read Sinead's letter to Miley, the more I see that Sinead is talking specifically about her own personal experience & pain. 1:44pm - 4th of Oct 2013

I don't like what she wrote all that much. I'm pretty sure Miley Cyrus is incredibly isolated & thinks she's revolutionary & edgy. 1:45pm - 4th of Oct 2013

I think Sinead is protective to a fault when it comes to women artists & is blinkered regarding the way public sexual expression doesn't - 1:46pm - 4th of Oct 2013

- have to mean sexual exploitation. Sinead herself has always done what she wanted when it came to sexuality, candidly so. 1:47pm - 4th of Oct 2013

I also think Sinead herself was/is very vulnerable in a way that Miley perhaps isn't. Miley doesn't do anything rebellious. 1:50pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Miley is provocative in the titillating sense, her representation of femininity and beauty are extraordinarily conservative. 1:51pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Add to that her appropriation & objectification of black women's bodies, you have a whole lot of white supremacist entitlement. 1:55pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Sinead could have worded her open letter better than she did. I think Miley Cyrus proves she's an entitled brat. 1:58pm - 4th of Oct 2013

What surprised me the most about Sinead's letter is the fact that there was no mention of Miley's racism. 2:01pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Considering Sinead herself has spoken against racism multiple times in her music & in interviews. 2:01pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Sinead's slut shaming and whorephobia of Miley is wrong. And that lives side by side with Sinead's other points. 2:07pm - 4th of Oct 2013

It's obvious that I love Sinead & disdain Miley. I'm okay with that, I've always loved problematic things & I'll always disdain racists. 2:14pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Not to mention racists who think mocking someone's mental health is fucking hilarious. [TW] Miley Cyrus Mocks Sinead O'Connor: 'Before Amanda Bynes There Was...' 2:15 - 4th of Oct 2013

And that's what I tweeted. Amanda Palmer also wrote an open letter to Sinead about Miley Cyrus, to which I tweeted:

Read Sinead's letter, read Amanda's letter. Still haven't read any white woman "Open Lettering" Miley to quit with her racist shenanigans. 12:45am - 4th of Oct 2013

Why is Miley Cyrus the hub of contention at this point in pop culture? What's she done, other than grow up isolated and entitled to deserve this kind of attention? I resent that I know so much about Cyrus when I have no interest in her music and persona, I really do.

She shouldn't be slut shamed, and Sinead's whorephobia should be accounted for, it disappoints me that Sinead can't find room for sex work and sex workers in her feminist point of view. I also don't think Miley Cyrus represents any kind of real feminism.

Her performance in the VMA awards really brought to a head her callous use of black women's bodies as props and as property, and it also brought to a head that she performs mainly for white women, utterly eschewing a persona that is in any way viable for the (white) male gaze, because if you look at the white men and boys in the audience of that performance, they are incredibly uncomfortable, while the white women and girls are chair dancing to her performance.

Her "sexual awakening" is a cultural moment, the same way Brittany Spears shaving her head was, white girls taking ownership of their bodies and their sexuality in a way that rocks a very unsteady boat of white women's agency in culture.

I think Sinead's own experience and her past railing against the music industry blinker her to the fact that Miley Cyrus is doing whatever the hell she wants in a way that may or may not be harmful to Cyrus, but is harmful to black women.

Miley Cyrus' reaction was heinous and disgusting, mocking Sinead's mental health and breakdown in 2012 is not something I feel is an appropriate reaction to anything.

Both Sinead and Cyrus are problematic is different ways, I don't much care about Cyrus, as she seems not to have a care in the world. I don't really care how she decides to express herself and while Sinead's policing is misguided and wrong, Sinead has been burned badly by an industry she views as evil. Does that excuse Sinead's slut shaming and whorephobia, no it most certainly does not, but I don't think that that position negates the work she's done previously and the care she has with regards to women and the way they are represented in the media.

More and more it seems that other white women are overly concerned with policing Cyrus' sexual expression, whether it's by slut shaming or by saying she has the right to express herself anyway she damn well pleases.

It's a double edged sword trying to talk about this, and it irks me that Cyrus is currently at the epicentre of this, because while yes she does have the right to express herself however she damn pleases, there is such a thing called accountability and she doesn't have an ounce of it.

Maybe that's why I'm willing to continue loving Sinead even as I side-eye her. She's went through actions that rocked the boat and was held accountable at the great personal and professional cost, she kicked up and was burned.

Cyrus kicks down. Therein lies the difference.

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It's Erev Pesach (Passover Eve, for you my most beloved gentile readers) and with it come all my feelings of self doubt, waning self worth and over all loneliness.

I thought I'd be used to it by now. But alas, it is the same with every major Holiday that includes a long meal and adherence to a thousand year old tradition. Tradition that has changed many times over, but for this queer lady feels as suffocating as the dust storms that come with the season.

In America there's a cute tradition that is kind of mocked here. Adding an orange to the Seder plate to be inclusive of the LGBT people of the Jewish tribe. As you can read from the column it's been misinterpreted regarding the inclusion of women.

Which in Israel should be a thing when you consider the fact that Jewish women cannot practice freedom of religion.

But I digress, as it had not been my intention to talk about the broader politics of the holiday also known as the holiday of freedom and liberation.

I have to practice the age old tradition foisted on Jewish women known as Shalom Bayit, meaning "Peace in the Home". It is usually talked about married life and the onus of the wife to make sure the marriage is sustained and kept stable, no matter what.

Don't rock of the boat.

I've come to despise the word peace. It is of no value and meaning to me. There's a phenomenon that happens when you read or hear a word repeated over and over again in different contexts and it reaches a degree of saturation that makes you sick of it.

It's called semantic satiation. I am sick of peace.

I recently read Sarah Schulman's book Israel/Palestine and the Queer International, which I whole heartedly recommend, as I would anything by Sarah. None of the material is new to me, but the framing is fascinating and poignant and shows the degrees of separation between the facts on the ground when it comes to the Occupation and the way the average Israeli (and those who hear only Israeli facts) perceives the "situation".

Israelis for years have been calling the systemic oppression and annexation of land the "Situation". As though it is temporary. As though it is something outside our control.

As I read the chronicle of Sarah's journey from ignorant American Jew to Palestine solidarity activist my heart felt heavier and heavier.

One of the feminist and lesbian activists that Sarah quotes in the book is asked by an Israeli man, "But how will there be peace?"

She replied rather poignantly, "I don't want peace, I want freedom and justice."

I can safely that I don't want peace either and feel as light as a feather.

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It’s been a while since I wrote one of these, so please excuse any flickering of random thoughts and observations that may seem totally disconnected, but I promise they all make sense.

I was spoiled for this episode. ( Spoilers For You )

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A day that will be remembered.

I am finally warm and dry, after spending a day in the rain.

I took a day off from work today and took a day trip up to Jerusalem to stand with 50 other pro-choice women and men who were protesting the fact that the racist pro-life organisation "Efrat" (not linking, as I don't want to give their page any hits. Google is your friend.) was getting an award for their role in "promoting women's rights".

Yeah, promoting their right to dictate what a woman does with her uterus.

In any event, I think I got my crazy feminist card laminated today. I mean, I took a paid day off, on one of the coldest, wettest days of the year, traveled by public transport to a city I hate (the feeling is mutual, I feel), and stood in the hale and got fucking soaked in the name of my right to bodily autonomy and to not be treated like a human incubator.

My sister, bless her batshit crazy brain, came with me. Or I went with her. Either way, we both agreed that if it hadn't been for the other we wouldn't have gone to protest.

Did I mention the hale.

I'm lucky it didn't snow.

My coat was soaked through, as were my boots. My trousers, socks, and shirt. It was a very bedraggled feeling. A sense of continuous dampness from the moment I stepped out of my house, traveled to Jerusalem, and then came back.

I looked so much like a drowned rat, a random woman insisted I take her umbrella saying, "You're going to get wet!"

Lady, I was already wet.

It felt like a day of accomplishments, including the fact that I got home and did the laundry, basically stripping and shoving all the clothes on my back into the washing machine before dashing into the shower. Oh my god, hot water.

A hot shower.

There are a few things that can be truly be considered luxury.

All that was missing was a Slanket. I'm truly pining for one.

But for now, I am basking in the fact that I did good, that my sister and I bonded over feminism, bad weather, Harry Potter, and that I managed to return home in one piece.

Not too shabby, I think.

So. That happened.

( Where to Spoil )

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Trigger Warning: Homophobia, biphobia and general rage contained therein.

My anger had been building since Saturday to be perfectly honest, when I read a fic which decided to chuck caution to the wind, make up shit about gay culture and gay sex and made me realise how alienated I feel from my fandom in general. But that, really, is beside the point.

I've been pissed off the whole day. I honest to god felt as though my identity was being attacked.

Two columns I read this morning made me feel gutted and ripped.

I'm bisexual. I'm gay. I'm lesbian. I'm queer. I'm all the letters except the T in LGBT. These are things I have been for as long as I could articulate. I use each identity in different circumstances. This is a common thing, I suspect, presenting different things in different situations.

But this morning reading an account of a lesbian explaining herself to straight people in a Vagendamag column called Lesbian, a Lifestyle in which the writers gives a grocery list of the various "types" of queers for the comfort and benefit of straight readers, something which jarred me.

I'm not easily jarred.

The casual way in which she talks about the stereotypes, as though they are taxonomy of exotic animals and birds to be found in the scene, from flamboyant femmes to greedy bisexuals, all to tack make sure we're ticked off the list.

Oh, it's tongue in cheek and in vogue with talking about the commodification of identities, after all, we're not a community, we're merely consumers.

And still, in a feminist mag and column about gay women I expect to be spoken to, not spoken about and yeah, it was jarring.

I'm not an exhibit at the zoo to be spoken about to the curious spectators.

The second article that honest to god made me feel like shit for a better part of the day was this column from the HuffPo UK, titled: Bisexuality: Is It Fun, Non Committal or Just Plain Greedy?.
As you can probably imagine, it was like a bingo card of biphobic shit.

Greedy, check. Indecisive, check. Trendy, check. Half gay, check. Half straight check.

When I was 15 I was confused about a lot of things. One of the things I was quite sure of was that I was attracted to boys and to girl and to to people in drag.

When I was 20 and I'd gone through five years of telling the various members of my family, at different times and for various reasons, that I'm bisexual, I thought I was done. I thought, that's it, who else do I have to tell?

Everyone.

All the time.

I do not like assumptions made about me. I do not like it when my identity, when the word I do not like as a rule, but is the only one I have, is used against me. To be called lazy for not picking a "side"? To be called greedy because of the stupid stereotype that those attracted to more than one sex and gender are somehow incapable of fidelity?

There is no "side", I am not straight! I was never straight! There is no place for me in straight culture and society, not since I was 15, so anyone who wants to talk to me about "picking a side" regarding who I chose to have a relationship with can fuck off.

Two articles that made me feel like shit, written by members of a community I generally consider myself a part of. The former wrote to appease the curiosity and needs of straight readers and the latter decided to write a polemic in which he accused bisexual men and women of being lesser human being on the sexual level.

My god, this is what assimilation brings us, total invalidation and invisibility from those who now have the privilege to be "normal".

It's not easy, because there is a constant demand that I apologise for not being exactly what I'm expected to be.

I sick of being apologetic about existing in the manner that I do.

I'm not an exhibit at the fucking zoo.

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This week had been so hellish, I don't even know where to begin.

( So I'll start at the beginning )

That was my week. I'm so glad it's over.

Trigger warnings are not for naught.

We are vulnerable people, we live in a world that is structured around power and that breeds a broad culture of violence, that (more often than not) men perpetuate and (more often than not) women are victimised by.

The culture of violence is something we live and breathe, we cannot avoid it, not really. We can, however, do our best to live gentler, more compassionate lives. We can do our best to empathise with those who have suffered under the tyranny of power disparity. Those of us who have been traumatised by events out of our control, whatever they may be, deserve to be treated with respect and kindness, not with indignation and ever so slightly veiled scorn.

When I read The Illusion of Safety/The Safety of Illusion by Roxane Gay earlier tonight, that's exactly what I felt.

Scorn.

Reading her post, it's clear she's been through a lot in her life, that she knows suffering and trauma.

She writes a long and relatively literary account about why trigger warnings do not work. Moreover, that they are, as the title suggests, an illusion in the face of reality and the way reality is conveyed via the media.

I hope you read the whole thing, but I want to focus on this one paragraph, as it had me bristling:

There is also this: maybe trigger warnings allow people to avoid learning how to deal with triggers, getting help. I say this with the understanding that having access to professional resources for getting help is a privilege. I say this with the understanding that sometimes there is not enough help in the world. That said, there is value in learning, where possible, how to deal with and respond to the triggers that cut you open, the triggers that put you back in terrible places, that remind you of painful history.

Where is the understanding that we are, in fact, different from each other? Okay, so trigger warnings don't suit you, who are you to judge if they are suitable for anyone else! That is what I want to know, because you know something? I need trigger warnings.

Not because I have a painful history that rips me open when I have textual reminders of something traumatising.

Trigger warnings tell me that this person is respectful of the subject. That they know what it is they are writing. It tells me that they understand the ramifications of writing subjects that are to do with the violence in our lives.

The quote above is a very condescending way of saying: "You who need trigger warnings are over sensitive, I don't need them and I've been through shit, so why should you."

Telling her audience that "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" are illusions, empties out precisely why those concepts are necessary to begin with; they are reprieves from the brutality that is reality.

I do not expect to be accommodated by the culture of violence at large. My triggers are so specific sometimes, that I generally know what I can and can't watch at any given time (because my triggers are visual and aural), but you're side-swiped and it doesn't matter if you thought you were prepared for what was coming, sometimes your brain signals things to your body you know aren't true, but it feels that way any way.

However, when you are an artist and your medium is your message, what you want to convey isn't removed from the culture at large. When we write, when we create, we are part of a greater picture from which we take and return with not quite equal measure.

Feminist art used to be (at times still is) specific challenges to masculine supremacy and a type of in-your-face radical femininity. Now, for me at least, a big part of feminist art is approach to subject, and approach to audience.

Feminism, as a political standpoint, should be rooted in compassion, in the knowledge and awareness that we navigate and negotiate an environment that is hostile. Trigger warnings are a way to navigate through art. Does everyone need them? No. Should they be required? No. Should we begrudge those who use them? No. Should we question why people don't use them? Yes.

Roxane Gay also wrote:

Trigger warnings also, when used in excess, start to feel like censorship. They suggest that there are experiences or perspectives too inappropriate, too explicit, too bare to be voiced publicly. As a writer, I bristle when people say, “This should have had a trigger warning.” I think, “For what?”

I understand the defensive stance. I don't, however, believe there is such a thing as an "excess" use of trigger warnings, considering the discourse that even bothers to even talk about them is fucking tiny.

If you feel censored by the request of trigger warnings, I would suggest you ask yourself why? Do you want to add your voice to the culture of unaccountability when it comes to violence? Ask yourself if the mere thought of thinking of the effect your art has, as opposed to affect makes you rear and cry "censorship" in the face of criticism, what exactly your aim was.

We do not write, create, react, interact in a vacuum.

Those of us who have triggers, who have been traumatised, who walk this world hyper-aware and "over sensitive" don't need to be condescended to about being reminded of our painful history. We carry it with us, always.

It never goes away.

Asking and knowing that others know this, respect this and honour this, is a tiny and temporary reprieve.

Telling me that that reprieve is a childish illusion, is to me a show of extraordinary lack of compassion, a defeatist attitude when it comes to pushing back and being critical of the culture that enabled and enacted our trauma in the first place.

Talking about The Dark Knight Rises on Twitter, has enabled me to flesh out my thoughts regarding the movie.

( Here they are along with spoilers )

Trigger Warning: Frank discussion of sexual harassment, breach of body autonomy and dealing with the above

Last week, on my way to work, ( I was sexually harassed on the bus. Details regarding the incident and dealing with it under the cut )

ETA: Cutting due to request. I'm sorry any of you were harmed by reading this.