A Probability of Being

So this should totally be obvious. If I had to identify my brand of feminism, it would be sex-positive. Sex is, whenever I get it, pretty good. Not always great but not always bad. I have often found myself struck by how downplayed sexual desire is, especially if it is female. I understand why we would downplay male sexual desire - it's not exactly the sort of thing we want to hear about on the street. But Heather Corinna's idea about what "get lucky" should mean - two people desiring each other, wanting each other, wanting to get into the other's pants so much, when they finally get together into one big sweaty mess, it's.... Well. That would indeed be getting lucky. Certainly any feminist past their 101 would know the reasons for suppressing women's sexuality: by denying us our sexuality, it stops being our own, and it's for our husbands to do as they please, and besides, sexuality is evil and awful anyway, for... uh, no one could actually define why...

What's wrong with having more than one needs? No, really. Or even, wanting more than what is given? Wanting our fair share is pretty natural, especially in our current world where we place so much status on having , and having recognition, having authourity, having representation is so fraught with debates - who deserves the spotlight? Who deserves the credit? Really, the only justification I can think of to cite greed (the desire for more) as an ill is because if you're a person in power and you have a people who want as much as you have, then you have to share what you have. (Because obviously wealth, power, and awesome shiny stuff is finite, like love and rights, so if you've got some, you've got to hoard it the best you can, or else, if someone else gets a bit, you will inevitably feel some kickback .) I mean, crap, there's a lot in the world to share. Right? And... what we don't have enough of, we just build more. We can do that, last I checked. It just ta...

In light of my post on Anger, I wish to quote Renee of Womanist Musings : In a post awhile ago I used the term “ dumb ” to refer to those that did not acknowledge their homophobia. When a commenter rightfully pointed out that my language was ableist, my initial reaction was to become angry. I do believe I remarked to the unhusband, “ geesh no one can even speak anymore .” As soon as those words came out of my mouth, I realized that I had engaged in an act of privilege. The instant you feel anger, that is a cue that an issue needs to be examined. Anger does not result in a vacuum; in instances like this it is often the manifestation of a desire to maintain a privilege. In that moment I knew that I had been ableist and I felt regret. This, I believe, is the usefulness of controlling these emotions and being able to think about them rationally. If one gets angry, it's a great and useful opportunity to step back and ask, "why does this create such a visceral reaction in me...

So it takes quite a bit to actually get me really pissed off. Like, rage-inducing sort of pissed off. I don't think I was like this when I was younger and I can't remember the last time I went into a blind rage. But there have been times when I do get impatient, and angry, and mad, and someone has always been there to tell me, "don't get mad, let it go, this isn't worth your energy." Since then, I've picked my battles wisely, and Wrath, like the other deadly sins, has helped me. It is anger which drives me to seek solutions and better ways of progressing. It is anger which demands that I do not settle for a world which is less-than, that I do not settle for anything less than I ask. It is the anger in me which I will credit the incredible lack of bullshit in my life, because anger lends me the strength to simpy cut that shit out. There are plenty of reasons why wrath is a vice - with it, people get violent, taking out their frustrations on others. Wrath at...

So I'm sometime pretty fucking lazy. Part of it is just that, I'm just really fucking lazy. Part of it is I have trouble disciplining myself. Another part of it is occasionally I get a shot of depression and holy crap does it make shit hard to do. But I grew up in Malaysia, where even if the grocery store is just like, a fifteen minute walk, we need to take the car to make it a five minute drive. *raises eyebrow* Where the work days are... pretty much twelve-hour days (my brother, now in the rat race, leave the house at 7am and is rarely home before 9pm). Where if you're enjoying yourself, you become the target of envy and ribbing, as opposed to someone taking a good deserved break. Where if you're not an old person, or a young person, your ass better be working or you'll run the risk of being called a shiftless lazy bum. I grew up with this shit. I grew up expecting life to be a flurry of activity day-in-day-out and people are supposed to fall in love with someone ...

I remember the last time I was jealous, it was because I felt inferior and I was scared of losing what I had. But from what I've seen, envy's different. The last time I was envious, I simply didn't have what it was I coveted from the other person, and I decided to work my ass off to get it. I think that's the qualitative difference between jealousy and envy. Jealousy's destructive, because it gnaws inside and tells us we're worth less. Envy is the desire for more, to want more, to have more, to be more. Channelled positively, I think envy could be a great driving force for change. When we see others having something special we want for ourselves, we'll work harder to have it. Certainly, envy has been in the past channelled negatively to more destructive ends, but as I said, these are tools which can push us towards good, so long as we are aware of what we're doing. (To be honest, most anything we do should be accompanied with a good dose of self-awarene...

"Only the nobility have ancestors. Most people only have grandparents!" - Pridefly, Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker. "Pride comes before a fall", sez the old adage. It's better to be low-born and humble, than high-born and proud. It's about half right. If you're considered low-born and humble for it, chances are you don't have anything to be proud of in your whacked world where class difference between the commoner and nobility class actually makes a difference - we tried that and the French Revolution happened. Unless in excess, I see no reason for pride to be a deadly sin. I can see how it can be used as a deadly form of social control, though. If you want to keep a person down, tell them they have nothing to be proud of. That they shouldn't see their accomplishments as worth much. This can effectively prevent a person from asserting themselves, because part of what fuels our self-assurance in this world is our pride and joy tha comes from a...

Recently, I went to see the Neptune Pre-Professional Theatre Program's production of The Ash Girl . Cute re-write of the Cinderella story, a bit cliched here and there, a bit corny, a bit contrived, but overall, quite good. There're some bits I disagree with, but the characterizations of the Seven Deadly Sins were interesting - Pridefly had great lines, Angerbird, Slothworm, Gluttontoad, Greedmonkey, Envysnake were the first introduced to us. Lust was busy goading a man on in the woods. Sadness was also personified. These are ills which are characterized as preying on human beings in most literature, goading them on to do stupid things, basically. And like anything and everything else, all these things are awful to have in excess. But are they inherently bad in themselves? They can be, assuming one allows them to take control. However, if we assume that most people are generally self-aware, intelligent human beings who can control themselves, then it's altogether possible t...