#metoo Letter: Dear Dad, STFU About Senator Gillibrand

Dear Dad,

            I’m going to need you to stop complaining to me about Kirsten Gillibrand. While I obviously agree with you about global warming being an important issue, your repetitive complaints which only target female politicians, echo your 2016 “I go easy on you about Hillary” comment. All these comments sound, at best, like low-key sexism and at worst, like a gentle continuation of a lifetime pattern of abuse, both on a national and personal scale.

            When you tell me, over and over, that the senator who is most vocally in support of the #metoo movement isn’t doing a good enough job (For YOU. After one donation and one survey response. Are you KIDDING ME WITH THIS!? I know you see how much work I do very day, why do you feel so entitled not to? And WORSE why do you expect ME to do your work FOR you? I pour countless hours into justice work and I have my own senators to nag!)

            ANYWAY, when you complain about Senator Gillibrand, you are also dismissing the work that I do, both personally and politically, Every. Single. Day. You are dismissing the power and courage of not just me but of every single rape survivor who perseveres although life feels like a constant attack on our bodies. When the sea levels rise, do you imagine we will somehow be LESS vulnerable? Less raped? Do you imagine WE are somehow the ones endangering the planet, by rising up and insisting that---GASP---we be treated as humans?

            But there are a couple of more insidious reasons you should not be low-key trolling me by running down female leaders, particularly Gillibrand.

            When I was in third or fourth grade, I overheard you at least try to rape Mom. You’d both been fighting about sex for weeks and I was WAY too up to date about what was going on in there. I heard Mom scream “No! Don’t! (his name!) Stop! Stop!” and it scared the shit out of me. I started to cry really loud and she said “See? Now you made (me) cry.” And then things seemed to calm down in your room. I don’t know how I understood what was going on, but I did.

            After that, the world changed for me. I became darker, less hopeful. Though Mom denied it to me when I asked a few years later, I know what I heard. You took something profound away from me that night—my trust for the world, my trust for love. I’ve been fighting like hell ever since to get those things back. (Senator Gillibrand?! Also fighting for those things.)

            Fast forward a few years to when I was drugged, raped, and beaten at a party. A few days later, you beat the shit out of me too—just pounding and pounding away and saying “You brought this into our house! You did this!” Meaning, I guess, that that I’d somehow made you and Mom violent by getting raped, even though you’d been that way my whole life.

            That night my friend Bethanne came and got me and I stayed with her family for the night, but I had never felt so deeply and horribly alone. Over the years, that feeling of abandonment and betrayal has come back to me over and over, causing me more panic than any of the original violence. “You are alone, the panic tells me, and the people who say they love you are only waiting to attack and blame you.” You taught my panic how to speak.

            And yet, here I am with the optimism you keep trying to undermine. I did not get this way by accident. It has taken me HUNDREDS of hours of therapy, writing, self-care, activism, and many other kinds of work. I am optimistic and productive by both sheer force of self-creation and as a tribute to the people who have helped me build, thread by thread, vote by vote, scream by scream, the person I am today.

            And not only can you not write ONE GODDAMNED LETTER to Congress, but you have the callousness, cruelty, and entitlement to give me a hard time about how YOUR SENATOR CARES TOO MUCH ABOUT WOMEN’S RIGHTS? PLEASE.

            I have loved you and done my best to forgive you for all of these years without asking you for anything in return. Now I’m asking for two things:

1.      Acknowledge that you got this letter.

2.      Stop retraumatizing me and trying to put me in my place by running down female politicians.

I am not going to give up the fight to own our own bodies. We are not going back and there is nothing you can do about it. If you EVER crap on Senator Gillibrand or any other female leader to me again I can’t promise I won’t FLIP THE FUCK OUT. And NO ONE will get an apology letter.

Love,

Me

Oops, I Accidentally Got a Crush on an MRA, Part Four

In a piece of administrative bad luck, both the Cute Pansexual Assistant Manager and I took sick days on the Monday that followed that Friday snit. The Store Manager was out again on Tuesday so there was no meeting, no resolution. CPAM had clearly been told not to talk to me about anything that wasn’t work related. Why would this be a solution? Barring me from small-talk could only serve to further separate me, not make me feel safe or included. I shouldn’t have to be ready to, for example, confront a rape apologist in order to rate a slot in the cheery work chitchat.

I was scared when I came in and in fact asked if I should leave, but CPAM became friendly again pretty quick., joking about his unicorn-ness and bonding over the music. I even wondered if Friday (and I guess the whole rest of his microagression-o-rama) had been a fluke, just a snit. I felt sheepish to have been so upset.

But then, while we were working happily together in the back room (that darn back room!) with a recently-back-from-vacation grad student, he asked, apropos of nothing, if she had ever heard of the documentary “The Red Pill.”

(FYI: https://dailyreview.com.au/red-pill-watched-dont/61240/)

            I hadn’t heard of the movie, but my hackles went up. I knew that “Red Pill” mentality was one of the Men’s Right’s Activist, deep-Reddit monstrosities that has become the part of the toxic misogynist soup we’ve all been swimming in. In their parlance, “taking the red pill” means realizing that (white) men are actually society’s most oppressed category and that one of the ways to correct this “imbalance” is…rape. I also knew that the Red Pill/ MRA movements are tied intimately with white supremacist movements.

            After a few minutes of him summarizing the “documentary” and me saying “that’s TERRIBLE” a lot of times, he continues to double down on men’s vulnerable status. (NOTE: Men ARE vulnerable and harmed, but he wasn’t realizing it’s heteropatriarchy, not rape survivors, who make the rules.)

            I asked him to change the subject, but he said “I’m not talking to YOU. This isn’t work related.” And stalked away. I walked right after him.

            “I thought we were going to get along,” I said calmly but forcefully, “But you CAN’T be sexist at work. The people you’re talking about are rape apologists.”

“No, they’re not. You’re just saying that because you disagree with them. No matter what I say, you’ll hear what you want to hear. Besides, it isn’t work related.”

            “It IS work related because I don’t feel safe at work. This is a microagression, no, a MACROaggression!”

(As if he would know what either word meant.)

I went back to working on the books, but my body didn’t want to be there. After he evoked the Men’s Rights Activists, the trauma of the 2016 election, the “Lock her up” mobs, the way Trump had recently threatened to forcibly take “Pocohontas” Elizabeth Warren’s DNA to test and mocked the #Metoo movement in the same sentence, it felt like all of that was in the room with me, and it was. The store was presided over by a giant photo of the college’s mascot, a white colonizer, rape and murder in his puppet eyes. How does any woman get through a day on that campus, or in America, or anywhere in all of history?

            I went home. I called the HR hotline, called my therapist, called (ex-wife, BFF) Sweetie. I felt helpless, scared, worthless, panicked, but more than anything else, I felt angry—for the time theft, the money theft, the ELECTION theft brought about by misogyny in general and the MRAs specifically. I felt like I would never be safe anywhere.

Earlier this week, I watched “To All the Little Girls: The Untold Stories of the Sixty-five Million”, https://www.toallthelittlegirlsdoc.com/watch Rebecca Morgan’s story of her work on the 2016 election and it’s aftermath. After the election, Becca was diagnosed with PTSD, and in some ways, I think the whole country has it. I know I do. It’s hard to shake the idea that I have to fight and scrap for survival, that we all do. I don’t know what healing looks like, but I do know that I’ll call out hate (and call HR) just as freely as I call Congress. My heart aches for whatever genuine friendship was there, for having left another thing I liked. I don’t know where we’re going, but I know whose side I’m on: mine.

Dating in the Upside-Down: A Like Story (Part One)

A lot has happened since I posted last. I’ve all but wrapped up my post-election trauma therapy, paring down the sessions from weekly to monthly, experimenting with how it feels to not spend QUITE so much time thinking about trauma.

Part of me hoped that I would be different once I finished this phase of exposure therapy for PTSD. I’d heard other survivors talk about feeling more open, more accepting, more affectionate, less quick to anger. I guess I’ve changed a little, but there are some boundaries I just can’t bring myself to cross—my yesses are sometimes stronger and easier but my nos are too. It’s disappointing not to just be open like a lovey-dovey post-traumatic flower, it feels a little lonely, but given the world we are currently trying to inhabit, I’m as open as I can be.

I went back to OK Cupid-ing a little while ago when I realized I was getting a crush on my massage therapist, whom I would never, ever hit on. I started swiping and chatting again, and I’ve honed my screening question to perfect bluntness: “Bernie or Hillary?”

To my heartbreak, I have NEVER gotten the chance to flirt with a guy who voted for Hillary in the primary (Seriously, if you know any, kindly send them my way. I will reward their loyalty with SO much generous sluttiness! And cake!) but I liked The Socialist’s answer. It gave me the immediate sense that he was solid and trustworthy, confident, and somehow, I even gleaned from his answer that he probably had a pretty excellent penis. (Spoiler alert: He does!) I don’t know how I could tell all of that from a tiny paragraph about politics, but I could, go me.

Plus, I liked his sense of humor, and he was a close-to-my-age goth guy who was EXCELLENT at the ultimate aphrodisiac: talking about Nineties music. I asked him out for wine and cake at my go-to first date spot, and I delighted in the chance to put a face on for somebody cute for the first time since the spring.

When I saw him, I was even more convinced that he might be a match—big enough to make Amazonian me feel little, so I knew he could probably throw me around. (Further spoiler alert—he could!) He was smiley and self-effacing in a charming way and so, so funny. What really sealed in the liking was finding out that we had both been at the same Dead Milkmen show in 1994-I’m an absolute sucker for that kind of meant-to-be-ness.

And then (there’s always an “and then”) The Socialist mentioned that he listens to Howard Stern all day every day at work. When I expressed shock and dismay, he defended himself a little:

“But Howard Stern supported Hillary Clinton!”

“He also helped create the atmosphere of misogyny that defeated her!”

Knowing that The Socialist was a fan of one of the grossest decades-long perpetrators of lady-objectifying, one of the deepest architects of rape culture, should have been enough to make me leave, but after he conceded that I was probably right, I stayed, and knowing we probably weren’t right for each other gave me a chance to let my guard down even more. I confessed that I’ve had a pants-wall since primaries, that I was worried I would always be at war with men. AND HE WAS THERE FOR ALL OF IT. What I liked so much about him was his ability to remain unfazed, to argue without getting defensive or fragile. He’s A MAN.

In spite of my doubt, I left there giddy. It could have been the wine (I don’t drink enough lately to take it for granted) but I think it was the laughter. He asked me out again right away, and I said yes.

Next: What kind of wine goes with toaster waffles?

Did Bernie Ruin the Men of the Left?

            It like so many of my stories lately, it started out in the most rom-commy of ways. I took myself to lunch at a fancy sushi restaurant to celebrate a few different things, and after the twelve- dollar ramen and the four pieces of yellowtail I could afford, I said yes to a really elaborate dessert. Conditioned by years of Food Network to peer back into the kitchen, I watched the dreamy pastry chef execute the multistep process it took to construct the chocolate fever dream what was eventually set on fire before me. I liked how careful he seemed with his hands, so precise that I thought he just might know some knots.

            He stuck in my head so I sent him a card. (Outer envelope, restaurant address. Inner envelope: “To the chef who made my (name of dessert) at lunchtime on 4/3.”) On the back of a homemade card featuring a photo of last year’s azaleas, I gave him my number and suggested that he look me up if he was single or in an open relationship.

            It was a silly thing to do and it made me feel romantic and optimistic and happy, but I assumed I’d just give myself credit for trying and never hear from him—but he texted! And when I sent him my picture he sent back three heart-eye emojis.

            He was a great texter for a few days, all “good morning” and “beautiful” and “sleep well” so I was really excited for our first date. We met downtown and walked around the city at twilight, heading for a bench in our most cinematic park, where the tress were almost in full bloom and the fanciest people were walking their dogs.

            Because I am me and he is a guy that I picked, politics came up almost immediately. Though I’d hope to avoid the primaries conversation to at least give us a CHANCE to like each other, he went ahead and said the spell-breakingest, pants-wall-buildingest thing he could’ve said:

“I’m still upset about my man. I know he could’ve won in November.”

            In my heart was a Star-Wars-prequels cheesy NOOOOOOOOOOOO, and what I said aloud wasn’t much better. I think it would be spelled something like:

“GaaaaaaAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHhhhh, NO!” I practically folded myself in half with anguish and disappointment. I punched him hard on the arm, not a fantastic move a half-hour into a first date, I know. It was a delicious, powerful, bread-baking arm, hard to forget.

            Trump is the very worst, of course, but Bernie has wrecked my love life way more, simply because his slightly subtler “nice guy” misogyny is something I much more likely to encounter in my daily liberal bubble of a life. While my being queer, poly, and fat probably helps ward off any wandering Trumpsters, The Bern is a persistent and pernicious irritation.

            We talked about lots of other things, and in some ways it was a really nice date, culminating with eating cheesecake in a really diner-ish diner, but he kept coming back to Hillary like a chime. What about the banks, he asked, as if Dodd-Frank had arisen from thin air, as if “his man” hadn’t taken money from the gun lobby. The gun lobby!

“That’s understandable, I guess,” said my getting-less-cute-by-the-minute date, pushing my voice up to a level of strident that only Gloria Steinem could hear.

These conversations feel like microagressions, like attempts to put me in my place. Is there anything more condescending than the “I don’t like Hillary, but here are some other women I would vote for” line? Imagine replacing “women” with any other category and it sounds even more tone deaf and creepy.

It’s been a year and I STILL don’t want to hear about how Elizabeth Warren is the kind of woman you could approve of, dude.

To me, Bernie-fervor and the she’s-a-liar disinformation campaign that sparked it was an outgrowth of trolling culture, which itself feels like an expression of rape culture. There might be an anxious-girl leap in there, but that doesn’t actually make it not true. Men who are susceptible to misogynist mob mentality on that scale may never feel safe for me to be around.

It didn’t work out with the pastry chef for a variety of reasons, but I’m happy to come away with hope, with the realization that I have the option to wait, glass-slipper style, for the Hillary-voter of my dreams. That doesn’t mean that I will, but it’s a relief to know that I can.

I know that it wasn’t really a case of Bernie ruining the men of the left. Last year’s primary only served to bring to light the misogyny that permeates all of American society, and it’s a bummer to know that Democrats (OR WHATEVER) aren’t exempt, but we aren’t. Whenever I’m having these annoying conversations with Bernie Bros, sometimes I’m comforted to stop and think “This is the work.” Activism doesn’t only live in pussy hats and marches, it’s in the little day-to-day pushbacks that can slowly move the conversation where we want to it be. I’d rather have snuggles, but for now, I’ll settle for evolution, even in the tiniest of ways.

A 2017 Heart Wish

I don’t hate 2016 as thoroughly as some, but it did so a lot of damage to my already-pretty-broken perception of men. The Bernie Bros seething misogyny was painful, but finding out during primaries which of my friends are more subtly sexist (or Stockholm Sydromey) was even worse. It was a tough year to fight the tide and hold onto the insistence that women are people, and of course it ended with the election of a child rapist. I’ve never been that awesome at trusting men, and during this time of election grief, it’s even harder.

My experience with Mr. Makeout Music made me realize that as much as I enjoyed the awesome spinster part of my life, I have a deep need for male friendship and affection that I don’t want to ignore anymore. Greeting them with defensiveness and fear, while it seems pretty reasonable most of the time, runs counter to my deep need to connect. Defensiveness has always been one of my worst qualities, and I know it’s partly responsible for the vast gulf I sometimes feel between myself and men. The gulf is heartbreaking because all separations-by-category feel heartbreaking, but also because I long for a male partner and my own family much more deeply than I’d like to admit.

But “fall in love and have him love me back” isn’t a goal one can reasonably work towards, so I decided to get closer to men in as many ways as I can think of. I’ve been scrolling though OK Cupid for 20 minutes every Friday evening, but more importantly, I’ve set the goal to call a guy friend once a week and catch up. I want to see men as themselves again, not just as The Patriarchy or as part of the Hillary-trolling nightmare. I want to remember how to be openhearted to the whole person, not just frustrated by the part of all of us that’s enslaved by gender.

The first time I tried calling was yesterday, and it felt very jangling, partly because the first voicemail I left was for Mr. Makeout Music, about whom I’m still hurty but hoping to let the friendship take care of things.  I left voicemails for three other (less fraught) guy friends, and even making those calls felt foolish, vulnerable, woozy. I felt like I was setting myself up for humiliation and loss. I’m still, after all these years of therapy and adventure, afraid of men. After I left those four voicemails for perfectly kind and lovable guys, I started to cry. I miss them. I miss all of them. (Okay, especially Mr. Makeout Music…)

The first to call me back was my dear and very lovey friend Angel Face, and then a poet pal I haven’t talked to in years. The poet told me about Marie Kondo-ing the kitchen with his wife over the holiday, about jobs and the silly day-to-day, about how awesome it is to make breakfast for dinner. Friendship is one of the most resilient and trustworthy forces in the world, and I’m happiest when I let myself depend on it.

If I’m honest, I know I’m still heartbroken about not being a thing with Mr. Makeout Music. I’m doing my best to take my time, not to push myself, to set aside time at night to miss him. I still love him so much, I still don’t quite understand why we’re not together, but we had a nice talk before Christmas and friendship doesn’t seem so far away.

Most of my other nine goals are about going places and doing things, about artistic indulgence. I’ve named it the Year of Sparkles and vowed to let in all of the queer, poly beautifulness that I can. Being generous with myself seems like the best way to heal, especially since part of that generosity will be finding a therapist and/or support group.

If you’re a man I used to know, send your number to thekittencalendar@gmail.com. Part of the joy of this year will be in your details.

Supersweet Election Love Story: Part Three

After I found out that the thing was mutual, I felt nervous about going into work. I didn’t know how I was supposed to act, whether I was supposed to hug him hello and goodbye, etc. His desk was in a very male-occupied space and it always felt very vulnerable to visit him there.  Election Day, on the possible cusp of our first female president and with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, I was also fretting about whether I’d been too affectionate in my voting-morning text. I’m not superproud that my Call Me Maybeness helped get me through the day, but there was also poetry and canvassing and a general sense of patriotic/neighborhood love that made such a fraught day as bearable as possible.

Then, of course, the worst happened. After a year of hope and struggle and fighting misogynist trolls and as much canvassing and phone banking as I could handle, after a year of telling the library kids it would be okay, of telling Bernie Bros to fuck off, of boycotting conservative relatives, the worst happened and Trump won. Wednesday morning, at the college bookstore where we work together, Sweetie and I listened to Hillary’s beautiful concession speech and cried even as we tried to take courage. On my commute, I alternated between singing along with my upbeat playlist and sobbing. If I never hear Fight Song again, it’ll be too soon.

My plan when I got to my afternoon job at the library was to be strong and soothing for the kids, to help them feel as hopeful as possible, but when I got to the children’s department, my friend the Nice Genderqueer Librarian saw me and burst into tears so we held each other and I sobbed loudly and brokenheartedly in front of the kids and everyone. There was nothing else to be done at that moment.

One of the other security guards was down in our department showing concern and accepting a hug, so I was brave/needy enough to snivel “Can you get (Mr. Makeout Music) for me?” She smiled and radioed for him. He totally Muppeted out when he saw me, just reached his arms out as far as they could go and gave me the warmest, friendliest, most joyful hug imaginable. I got the chance to tell him “I’m sorry white people suck so bad!” which is a sentiment I’ll be expressing as often as possible for the foreseeable future. (Seriously, if you’re a white person reading this, get it the fuck together and stand up for people of color. And while I’m at it, if you’re a man reading this, get it the fuck together and stand up for women. It’s past time to inventory your privilege and start using it to help. We’re past life and death here.)

Oh pals, Mr. Makeout Music took such good care of me that day. He talked me through the good and evil factors at play in the election and helped me to articulate my silver lining, which was that good people were drawing together in anger and love. He also asked if he could come visit me at the bookstore that Friday, since the library was closed for Veteran’s Day. I was delighted at the prospect of him distracting me at both my jobs, so we made plans for a picnic on the Hogwarts-esque campus where I work. No one would begrudge me a long lunch on such a week.

That sad Wednesday was made much less sad by the fact that he spent almost my whole shift by my side. He brought his notebook down and worked on a paper so soothingly next to me, it was just such a comfortable family feeling. He joked with the kids and parents and watched me stave off apoplexy when a mean-girling parent tried to challenge my taste in music.  When he switched tables to play chess with my teen assistants, I drew flowers, stars, and tiny red hearts all over his homework while I had a Shine Bright Like a Diamond singalong with one of the little girls. I was totally singing to Mr. Makeout Music. When he turned around from chess to see how the homework-art was progressing, his eyes flashed something so beautiful and perfect and clear. I felt bathed in a glittery cloud of safety and strength, like I recognized someone so special and devoted and true. And, I hopehopehoped, mine.