Posts by Emma Hart
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
The core difference between men and women is encapsulated in your comment. Or maybe it's this: I love it, my partner loathes it:
In our house? One of us loathes Fleetwood Mac. One of us loathes Billy Bragg. In fact, seeing as Karl can't be here, here's the song he hates the most:
-
Up Front: Hitting That, in reply to Phil fryer,
Hey Phil. I think that's something bi people and poly people (and asexual people too) have in common: you can tell someone the plain truth about who you are and how you feel, and they won't believe you. You're going through a phase. One day you'll meet The Right Person, and settle down in a normal sexual monogamous relationship and get over this silly immature rubbish.
Interestingly, one of our most persistently-viewed posts at The Lady Garden is the guest post on poly identity Max wrote for us. It might not be widely accepted, but people are certainly looking for this stuff.
I'm beginning to think I should be writing a book on sexual identity for teenagers. Here are some labels, these are all real things people are, you might find the label handy as support while you grow, and most importantly, it's not just you.
-
My best friend taught singing in high schools for over a decade. Nobody hates Andrew Lloyd Webber like she does. Yous should get drunk and discuss it some time.
When I was in the Halls of Residence in 1990, the girl in the next room broke up with her boyfriend. End to end, over and over, for weeks, this. Twenty-two years and I still can't bear a single note of it.
Also. My Heart Will Go On, and I Will Always Love You. No it won't, and no I won't. Just. Fuck. Off.
-
Up Front: Hitting That, in reply to nzlemming,
Heh, wife thought I was gay when she first met me.
Ha, so that's like, what, reverse passing? Undertaking?
-
Up Front: Hitting That, in reply to Islander,
I rather suspect that us asexuals are a necessary part of the continuum then. 8>)
Absolutely. All we outliers benefit from acknowledgement of other outliers, right? (Also, morez 4 me LOL.)
And the lost earning potential?! Makes me think twice about whether to be open in job applications in the future... But of course that's just taking the easy way out *again*, isn't it?
"Passing" is another thing I'm oddly reluctant to talk about. Because just being able to pass is a form of privilege, right? Yet it's a decision to pretend to be something you're not (or at least to leave other people's assumptions unchecked) in order to make life easier.
Being able to pass, of course, is what makes us the ninjas of the Gay Agenda. I've had bigots be all bigotty at me at the school gate because I was there picking up my kids and appeared to be in a straight relationship, and I could say, "Oh, really? Really? You can spot 'them'? Because hey guess what..."
-
Up Front: Hitting That, in reply to nzlemming,
It took a while for me to understand my sexuality.
I was having this conversation with my civil union partner just a couple of days ago, and he was gob-smacked that it took me so long to work it out. Because I appear to have my shit fairly together, right? But yeah, I knew I wasn't a lesbian, because I was attracted to men. Therefore, despite the whole mmm boobies thing, I must be straight, because I wasn't aware of any other categories. I was 18 before I got that sorted - just in time to be accused of being a BUG.
I really hope that it's easier for teenagers now than it was then, that there's much greater awareness of a continuum of sexuality.
-
Nowadays we are all likely to meet people who think they are women, have women's names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody, though it isn't polite to say so. We pretend that all the people passing for female really are. Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man's delusion that he is female.
Ghastly. Parody. Delusional.
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Tom Beard,
Did you see the Germaine Greer glitterbombing? I have very mixed feelings about that.
Mph, yeah, me too. Especially after I saw the photos. Obviously I have issues with Greer, too, but this? Just didn't seem right.
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I was surprised to hear that Germaine regularly has the experience (such as in shops or queues) of feeling invisible and being ignored
Which does not appear to have given Greer the ability to recognise her own privilege, nor does it seem to get in the way of her being silencing, erasing and abusive herself.
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
No, no! You misread me. I meant when you said:
Russell and I have had a *cough* free and frank exchange of views on that turn of phrase. I'm in the process of replacing it with "Shut the fuck up, and genuinely listen rather than waiting for your turn to speak. You really really need to internalize some complicated stuff. I know it's outside your comfort zone, but deal. Then choose your next words with care and empathy."
Honestly, IME, and it's probably a mark of the quality of the men I know, I feel like I run across more women who are unwilling or unable to recognise when it's their turn to listen rather than speak, because then you might learn something.
from time to time we send e-mails predicting how long it will take for him to chime in with a *splain
Dude is astonishing. My personal favourite was the time he was lecturing me on the way I conduct my relationships, and then realised he had me confused with someone else.