Snowdrop Implosions started up

This is just to let my loyal readership know that I've started a tumblr to run alongside this blog, which I've called Snowdrop Implosions (because it's condensing thoughts down into smaller posts, see?) I describe it as "little thoughts and inspirations through my day", which means it will likely involve weird stuff that makes me laugh, a fair amount of erotica (especially BDSM) and just anything that catches my attention and makes me go "oh, cool!"

It's not going to have any kind of feminist focus (although since feminism inspires me, some specifically feminist content is bound to end up there) but for friends (and those who are curious), it's there.

MEME: Music Library terms

Via Lauren O @ Blog of Champions:

Type these words into your music library and name the first song that appears.

[NB I wasn't sure how to sort them - I normally have the library sorted by artist name, so that's what I've gone with in the end]

Happy: "Happy Home" by Garbage (the second one is also Garbage - "I'm Only Happy When It Rains")

Sad: "Sad Hours" by Bo Diddley & Mainsqueeze

Love: "Far From In Love (Shanes4 Mix)" by Above & Beyond - this one came from a trance compilation I picked up at a charity shop.

Hate: "Thin Line Between Love And Hate" by Annie Lennox.

Light: "The Living Daylights" by A-Ha - the James Bond theme.

Dark: "Voice In The Dark" by Autopilot Off - another CD found at a charity shop, I thought it looked interesting.

Good: "I'm Having A Good Day" by Anti-Flag - yet another CD from a charity shop, I'd seen the band name before in punk compilations, thought I'd have a listen.

Bad: "Grey Suits" by Bad Astronaut - this one came from a punk compilation album! The first song turning up with "Bad" in the title was "Girl All the Bad Guys Want" by Bowling For Soup.

Just for fun, I thought I'd try it sorting by most often played:

• "Happy Ending/Over My Shoulder" by Mika
• "Sad But True" - top is the bluegrass cover version, second is Metallica's S&M concert version
• "Ever Fallen In Love?" by The Buzzcocks
• "Wasted My Hate" by Metallica
• "I Saw The Light" by The Rosinators - a pretty good bluegrass band
• "Dark" by Illdisposed
• "Twisting To Look As Being A Good" by SnowdropExplodes - taking a couple of lines from a Feministe's Next Top Troll a year or two back, I generated a rave track, which I have just uploaded to my new tumblr.
• "Bad Wine" performed by Michele Welborn - Wonderful folk singer, and a real influence in my life!

I don't know what any of this reveals about me, but anyway, please do leave a comment if you felt inspired to have a go yourself.

EDL demo is a flop

Via the Guardian newspaper website.

Yesterday, the "English Defence League", a far-right hate group who claim not to be racist, but opposed to "militant Islam" (yeah, right!) decided to go to Bradford to hold a demonstration. They had been banned from holding a march, but human rights legislation means that they were allowed to hold a "static protest" in the city centre. Actually, I support their right to hold that "static protest", however vile what they have to say may be. That's not really the point.

The point is that this was suppsoed to be, in their own terms, "the big one". Police estimates put the numbers at around 700. (Allowing for the traditional difference between police estimates and organiser estimates, that still comes to a maximum of 7,000). I imagine they pitched it as "the big one" because of the history of racist protests in Bradford. Back in 2001, the BNP were holding rallies across the north of England in cities with large populations of people of colour. When it was announced that their next target was going to be Bradford, the Bradford Muslims organised their resistance. What followed was a mass riot with the local Muslim community in pitched battle first with the BNP, then with the British police. If you're a racist like the EDL, then Bradford is where you go to pick a fight.

These 700 or so people were keen to show everyone what a civilised Britain without these "militant Muslims" would look like:

Bricks, bottles and smoke bombs were thrown at anti-racism supporters and police as around 700 EDL activists – including known football hooligans and BNP members – held a "static protest" in Bradford city centre.

...

Earlier in the afternoon coachloads of EDL activists had chanted "Allah, Allah, who the fuck is Allah?" and "Muslim bombers off our streets".

...

One of the coach drivers said: "I didn't expect a job like this when I came to work this morning. We're a five-star firm. We don't usually take scumbags like these."

Meanwhile, anti-racism activists were holding their own protests to counter the EDL. These protests were somewhat different in character, both to the 2001 riots (when the police and the law basically sided with the racists consistently) and to the EDL's demonstration.

Thousands of anti-racists and local residents joined counter-protests and events organised around the city. Mohammed Khan, 29, said: "We want to show the people of the UK that Bradford is a united and peaceful place, where Asians, white people – everyone – gets along. Nobody here wants these people. They are just trying to divide this city and provoke trouble."

***

The problem with this type of thing is that it makes it so easy for White folks to point and say, "That's racism. I don't do anything like that, so I can't be racist." But the prejudices, the institutional and instilled beliefs, still persist and those same White folks are able to continue holding those beliefs, and through ignorance and unchallenged privilege continue to perpetuate racism in more insidious, invisible ways than a bunch of rowdy thugs squabbling with the police and each other. The fact that racism is deeply embedded and unchallenged in British minds was revealed by the Channel 4 documentary programme about which I wrote some time ago, How Racist Are You?. In some ways, the existence and opposition to the BNP, EDL and similar hate groups serves to provide the rest of ordinary racist White folks with a way to turn a blind eye to their own prejudice (or, indeed, fail to take the plank out of their own eye while criticising the speck in the eye of the hate groups).

While it's encouraging that the anti-racism protests talked about people getting along together, and it's clear there are anti-racist White folks - that's still the minority. Most people don't challenge themselves, examine what's underneath the surface or look at how their principles conflict with how the feel and behave in everyday life.

'Ave it!

England's team in the Women's Rugby World Cup (I learned about this tournament from The F-Word Blog) have just given the US a pounding, 37-10! This means that England will face Australia in the semi-finals, while France will play New Zealand. Scrum Queens have a match report here.

While it is encouraging to note that Sky Sports has coverage of the tournament in the UK, I couldn't find any radio coverage for those of us who refuse to pay the Murdoch Propaganda Machine. The BBC had an hour long preview show before the tournament kicked off, but I couldn't find coverage of this evening's game, or any reference to other games being covered; talkSPORT are similarly lacking in coverage of England's performance in the competition - and if English broadcasters cover a sport, it's because it's a) famous or b) England are doing well in it!

Annoyingly, the IRB website for the competition won't let me watch the highlights (live video is, of course, blocked because Sky have the UK rights for the live broadcast) because it says I haven't got the latest Silverlight plugin (I have, it just doesn't believe I have). But I did get to see some of the pictures:


(England centre Emily Scarratt evades the clutches of USA prop Jamie Burke. Photo: rugbymatters.net.)



(England full back Danielle Waterman scored two tries to help England to a 37-10 win over USA. Photo: rugbymatters.net.)


There are some great action shots from the other matches, too:


(Kirsty Giteau outpaces South Africa's Lamla Momoti (6) and Saloma Booysen (9) to score Australia's opening try. Photo: rugbymatters.net.)


(Elodie Poublan leaves two Canada defenders trailing in her wake during France's 23-8 round three win. Photo: Martin Seras Lima.)


***

I was surprised to see that Kazakhstan have a team in this tournament - Kazakhstan not being a name commonly associated with world sports in general, and (my prejudice showed itself here) sounded to me like the sort of place where women don't have a fair crack of the whip (a false assumption, relatively speaking, as this SIGI report indicates). So, I went looking for a bit more information. I found it at Rugby In Asia and at Scrum Queens' Asia news page, where there's a report on the Kazakh team's preparation for the tournament, which also mentions that Kazakhstan is bidding to host the 2014 WRWC.

As those who follow the links will discover, Kazakhstan are a significant force in Asian women's rugby, playing mostly in the 7-a-side form (usually just termed "7s" - they were finalists in the Asian Women’s Rugby 7s last month) but also competing in the full-scale 15-a-side game.

That said, they failed to win a game in the WRWC competition and will be playing in the 9th place play-offs to avoid the wooden spoon.

Anyway - what I REALLY wanted to say in this post is:

INGERLAND! INGERLAND! Bring on the Aussies!!!

More mind-reading body language dating "advice"

(ETA: Also take a look at a completely hilarious takedown of another, different, recent Yahoo article about how women can learn to read men's minds by Beth @ Wordsole)

This time via Yahoo, in a piece called 5 Signs He's Into You. They are, apparently, based on advice by "Greg Hartley, former Army Special Forces interrogator and author of I Can Read You Like a Book: How to Spot the Messages and Emotions People Are Really Sending With Their Body Language." Call me a sceptic, but I'm not sure how army interrogation is necessarily a good background for learning how to understand people in a casual setting. Being questioned by armed men may just possibly produce different cues from talking to your mates at a bar? A quick glance at the author's Amazon page shows a total of seven books with more-or-less the same theme of pop psychology and manipulation (such as "Get People to Do What You Want" and "How to Spot a Liar").

These things are crap whether they're written about women or about men (although they come with extra risk when written about women, because of the whole "I could tell she wanted it really" defence in rape cases). They are crap because people are not all the same. Not all men are the same, not all women are the same.

Alternatively, of course, I am not a man by some definitions!

So, what are these "5 signs"?

1. He closes the distance
2. He speaks softly
3. He rounds his posture (from a "Hypermasculine body language ... [that] serves to attract women from a distance" to "he will soften, or “round” his body language")
4. He talks slowwwly
5. He can't take his eyes off you (in a good way)

Well, now.

One of the key things that some men commonly note about when they feel attracted to a woman: they feel nervous. What's one of the big things you do when you feel nervous? You want to hide. "Closing the distance" is antithetical to "I feel nervous".

As it happens, I tend to talk softly whatever I'm doing, unless there's a clear need to raise my voice (e.g. addressing several people at once) or I am getting animated about a topic that excites me. But if, as the explanation offered at the Yahoo page suggests, the lowered tone of voice is because "He’s indicating that what he’s saying is for your ears only" then you shouldn't need to guess from the lowered volume of his voice about his interest - his words should be giving you all the hints you need to figure it out! If nothing else, he'll likely be making it clear in verbal ways that his remarks are only intended for you and not someone else.

On posture, I have a real problem because I don't do "Hypermasculine body language (think: swaggering walk, standing tall with shoulders back and chin up, etc.)" ever. I don't swagger (unless I'm doing it consciously, for a joke); I do try to avoid slouching when I walk, but again, unless I am consciously challenging something or someone, I don't really go with the "shoulders back, chin up" routine (I'll also try to project that when I go into job interviews to look confident). Anyway, point being - I have a softer, rounded posture most of the time, and all of the time when I feel comfortable around people.

Similarly, talking slowly is just the way I do things mostly. This is usually because I'm figuring out what words I want to use next to say what I want to say. Sometimes it's because I'm thinking about what someone else said. Sometimes it's because I'm watching the reactions I'm getting as I speak. In fact, I can think of three situations where I might speed up: 1. I'm nervous (oh, where have we talked about being nervous so far!?); 2. I'm excited by something; 3. I've just thought of a great one-liner pun or other joke taking off from whatever was last said, and I want to get it out quickly to see the reaction it gets.

When we come to "can't take his eyes off you (in a good way)" - well, what exactly defines "a good way" and distinguishes it from "a bad way"? I can't help but feel that if a woman is not interested in a guy but he's looking at her all the time, then whatever the manner of it, that comes across as creepy and therefore not a "good way". As the assumption is that this is on a date, and that the reason the women to whom this piece is addressed are interested to know if he's interested, because they are interested in him (that feels like quite a convoluted clause - I hope you're following this!) then perhaps we can dispense with that part (although again - if his looking is not "in a good way", that might be how she decides she isn't interested?) Even so, the distinction isn't clear (and is it not possible that what one woman finds "a good way", another woman finds "creepy" and vice versa?) A couple more hints are given in the second half of the Yahoo article, which is "5 signs your date isn’t into you".

5 signs he's not into you are, according to Mr Hartley:

1. He's 4ft away
2. He stands at an oblique angle facing you
3. He sounds like "that guy in accounting"
4. He stares at your mouth
5. He's out of sync with your body language

Well, 4ft away is quite a lot of personal space to be needing. It's given that this is "on a date". I think it's probably fair to say that this is a first or second date (otherwise there's bigger problems here if you're still relying on body language and not verbal language to figure out if there's an interest!) but even so: that amount of space precludes person-to-person conversation in a public space (and if you're in a private space before you know he's interested, then that was very incautious). So I would be willing to accept this statement. But only because it's so bleedin' obvious if you're actually there that that's a "I'm not talking to you" distance. One caveat, of course, is that it may be a symptom of nervousness. On the other hand, in order to be nervous, he has to be at least trying to communicate (or summoning up the courage to do so). That requires at some point closing the distance and stuttering a few garbled words. (God knows, I speak from experience here!) So, like I say - Mr Hartley appears to have a point here, but only because it's so obvious that anyone could spot it who actually lived the experience of trying to communicate with someone standing 4ft away! (Just to clarify: the implication in the article is that he stays 4ft away all the time).

"Oblique angle". Says Mr Hartley: "Most men do not realize that when talking to another man, we stand at oblique angles, with one shoulder facing the other’s face, yet when we talk to women — especially ones we’re interested in romantically — we stand face-to-face with them." Well, there's a number of socially-coded signals involved here. Standing foursquare opposite one another is typically coded as a confrontational stance: in simplest terms it says "we are going to fight". In the counselling skills course, it was explained that for this reason, it is normal for a counsellor's and client's seats to be positioned at an angle to one another rather than directly facing each other. In the classes we discussed what the angle signifies, which is "togetherness". Specifically, it says "we are conversing, but we are partially facing the same way, addressing the same issue". Similarly, when men talk socially, it is typically "about" something, addressing some shared interest. Hence, oblique angle.

Now, I have a little language problem with Mr Hartley's description: when he says "one shoulder facing the other's face", I imagine a picture where the line from one shoulder to the other points to the other person's face. But for that to happen, I would have to look along my shoulder in order to talk to the other man, and I think men would notice if they were doing that! Of course, in some situations, the faces are not directed towards one another but towards a third point of interest - the topic of conversation. In that case, then arguably this description could hold true without the absurd image it conjured for me. But in terms of describing observed behaviour and my own experience of talking to other men, it doesn't fit. So I have to draw back and re-imagine the meaning. Maybe it isn't the point of the shoulder, but the front of the shoulder, where it meets the top of the chest. Combine that with the idea of being at a slight angle to one another, and the image in my mind comes a lot closer to what I recognise from real life.

But if that's right, then it's assumed that a man does not share interests with a woman but sees her in some way as an opponent or obstacle. I'm left thinking that dates such as museums, art galleries, walking (e.g. in a park, publicly open garden or visiting the countryside) are all outside of Mr Hartley's experience. All of these would have an external "shared-interest" focus that would encourage side-by-side conversation (and obliquely angled stances) rather than face-to-face confrontation. Perhaps Mr Hartley would claim that a man who takes a woman on such a date is necessarily less interested in her than in the flowers, paintings or history?

I am very confident that in all cases, I have adopted the same standing position relative to a woman I'm interested in, as to a man with whom I'm sharing a conversation. This is because in my mind, sharing a conversation with a woman is the same thing as sharing a conversation with a man. Being friendly is, in my mind, often a way to get to know someone and maybe find out if there's a "spark" (when we're talking about dating).

"That guy from accounting" apparently talks in a style that is: "the pace is quick and the level of his voice is rather strong". As already discussed, I am most likely to talk more firmly (strongly) and quickly if I am excited by a topic. It's probably a flaw in my vocal communication in fact: I start to declaim and expound on a favourite topic, and that can be a barrier to romantic connection. But then I calm down and focus on the other person again (instead of making her/him focus on me) and it all balances out. On the plus side, though, if I'm on a date with someone who gets me animated and shows an interest, then the fact that I got excited will probably count as a sign that she interests me, too (or he does, as the case may be - not been on a gay date as yet, but open to the possibility). So, um - the opposite of what Mr Hartley claims.

According to Mr Hartley, "When a guy focuses on your lips, what he’s really trying to do is avoid eye contact ... If your date fixes his gaze below your face, he’s probably interested in you, but perhaps not for a long-term relationship, if you know what we mean..."

Well, maybe I'm just weird, but I have heard it said that the reason women wear lipstick is that it's designed to arouse the passions by making the mouth send out "I'm sexually available" signals in primordial evo-psych code. Certainly, I think mouths are sexy things. And I've noticed that when a person is speaking, very often their lips are moving. And that that's where the sound comes out. So if I want to follow what she's saying, I focus on the source of the sound, and because the lips are moving, they form a natural focus for attention. Add in some background noise on a date at a restaurant or bar, and the usefulness of watching her lips becomes even more apparent. (Besides which, if a guy has hearing impairment, y'know, lipreading might be his main means of communication reception! Or maybe D/deaf people are automatically not interested in romance, according to Mr Hartley?)

Of course, when I'm speaking, I want to see a date's eyes, so I can follow her (or his) reactions, and also because eyes are often very pretty to look at too. But then, this "lips/listening, eyes/speaking" focus is something I do for everyone in a social situation (particularly one with background noise). But a particular focus on a date's lips? For me, that could be just the same meaning as "fixes his gaze below your face" (although again, verbal and vocal cues will probably let her/him know that that's what my mind is doing anyway).

Finally, Mr Hartley mentions mirroring body language, and to a certain extent this is valid (although I do kind of wonder what happens if two people who are into each other start mirroring each other's body language - does that end up in a perpetual loop as they imitate the same gestures over and over again!?) However, the suggestions and advice, i find a little bit more questionable:

To test the waters, try leaning in closer to your date, using your hands to emphasize what you’re saying. If your guy does the same, it’s a great sign. But if he keeps his hands still, pulls away or takes a step backwards, he may be unavailable or just plain not interested.

Leaning in, and gesturing with the hands, can both be quite intense signals, and they can be open to misinterpretation. I learned recently that my tendency to lean in when I want to give someone advice or assistance has this effect of actually seeming intense, even aggressive, at times. Likewise, an unexpected gesture like that on a date can send some pretty dodgy signals and a guy leaning away isn't "not into you", he's just a bit alarmed at the unexpected intensity or aggression! Likewise, hand gestures. My hands are most active when I'm talking if the topic is something I feel strongly about; so using hands to "emphasise what you're saying" could end up saying "I feel strongly about this!" This, again, is off-putting! Now, personally, I like it when a person gets animated about a topic, as long as it's something where I can at least follow the argument and ask pertinent questions. But that's because it mirrors what I'm like anyway (see notes above, and also "perpetual loop" remark earlier!) and implies someone interesting to talk to. But at the same time, I am not every man.

This leads me to my conclusion, which is this: so many of these "read X's mind through hir body language" type advice books etc depend on unstated assumptions. Here we're told, "The level of a guy's interest in you may be hidden in his body language." To which my immediate question is, "Which types of guys?" Or, in more mathematical/scientific terms, "What's the selection bias here?" Like so many others, Mr Hartley is assuming men who are strongly adept (even naturals) at performing masculinity (this selection bias is revealed in the part about hyper-masculine performance mentioned earlier). The follow-up assumption is either "un-masculine men aren't interested in women", or "women aren't interested in men who cannot/do not perform masculinity well" - or both (and apply that to the ableism mentioned already re: hearing impairment, also probably applies just as much to other PWD too). I'm inclined to suggest that Mr Hartley's background in the US military is one that carries with it a certain amount of masculinity training and heavily-enforced performative masculinity that he then uses to define "real man" from "not man enough".

Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, and the Bechdel Test

So, about 9 months ago, I posted a "news from the Snowdrop camp" post, burbling about various things and, in particular, mentioning my love of a science fiction tv show called Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

In that post I made a rather bold claim:

While I couldn't swear that all the episodes pass the Bechdel Test, I think quite a lot do, simply because there's quite a lot of people talking about how to escape weird space-y "natural" perils and sometimes the female characters discuss the problem in one-on-ones. There are other topics as well, not all directly plot-related (hobbies seem to come up a bit, I think).

Well, I now have 3 out of 5 seasons on DVD (seasons 2, 3 and 4) so I thought it would be a good idea to test that belief against objective fact (or as objective as can be managed when discussing a subjective artform). This was also a great excuse to go back and watch all the episodes of one of my favourite shows all over again.

As chance would have it, I was about halfway through this oh-so-arduous task when RMJ @ Bitch Media posted applying the Bechdel Test to television shows. RMJ discusses briefly what it would take to declare a show as passing the Bechdel Test, and what passing the test means:

It’s a good indication of whether or not a film is at all concerned with women, or if its focus is entirely on men.

...

So if one conversation in one episode doesn’t cut it, what does? How does a television show pass the Bechdel test? To fully pass the Bechdel test, every single episode must feature a conversation between two named female characters that is not about a man.

This may sound stringent, and it is. Off the top of my head, I can barely think of a show that would easily pass this. But at the same time, it’s not unreasonable. One 30-second conversation about mothers, or daughters, or female friends, or goals, or cleaning, or even Applebee’s, in every 22 or 30 or 43 or 60 minute episode is not that hard of a requirement to satisfy.

Even more so, I feel, when the show has three central female characters who are strong and well-developed roles (Andromeda has Beka Valentine, ex-hustler, salvage ship pilot and treasure hunter; Andromeda, a hugely complex warship artificial intelligence with apparent emotions and lots of quirks, and the mysterious Trance Gemini who serves as medic and mystic, with lots of hidden depths).

So how did the show fare over 66 episodes?

The raw figures are: out of 66 episodes, 27 featured conversations between women that fit the Bechdel description and were three lines or longer (that is, the shortest conversation I would have accepted would be something like, [Woman A: "Hi, how you doing?" Woman B: "Fine! You?" A: "Yeah, fine. See ya!" End of scene]). Most scenes that I counted as a "pass" were on the shorter side.

Included in that is one scene where Andromeda the starship has a conversation with her android version (usually identified in the show as "Rommie"). Does this count as a solliloquy (since technically they're the same character) or a conversation (because they are also two separate personas)? I chose to count it as two female characters, because that's what it looks like on screen (even if they are played by the same actor).

There were some great scenes and episodes, however. In Season 2, the episode titled "Una Salus Victus" (translated in the episode as "One hope of the damned", but I think it seems closer to "One saviour of the defeated"?), Beka Valentine goes on a rescue mission alone. She saves the medical transport ship she was trying to save, but is disabled in the attempt - as is the only survivor of the raiders attacking it. As the (female) raider and Beka race to fix their ships and blow the other into spacedust, they discuss life, the universe, and the upcoming duel. Their conversations form a counterpoint to the action going on elsewhere in the show.

Also in season 2, there's an episode where Captain Dylan Hunt and crew set out to recruit a fabled resistance leader named Isabella Ortiz, and have to fight a last-ditch defence of an isolated tavern - with a number of female staff and patrons, including the colony's only medic. Discussions of life, healing and alcohol take place between the female crew members and the tavern's regulars/staff.

In the season opener for season 3, Beka Valentine discusses emotions (in the middle of a crisis) and ambitions for when they survive, with Trance Gemini. (There's further conversations between the two that are more plot-specific, and describing them would also require spoilers for that episode). The episode closes with Beka finding Rommie and Trance hiding away in a cubbyhole on her salvage ship (the Eureka Maru), where those two characters (being an alien whop needs little sleep, and an android who needs no sleep at all) hang out together in the wee small hours; as Beka says, "the ancient ritual - Girl talk!" The three female leads settle down for a conversation (we only see a tiny snippet of the "girl talk" as the episode is ending).

In episode 6, Beka returns to the "girl talk" cubbyhole and there discusses her anxiety about an almost-impossible covert bombing raid that she's going on with Dylan Hunt and Tyr Anasazi (it's a "rogue state acquires WMD" type story, and was most likely written in the build-up to the Iraq war, as that's how the dates match up). They discuss their role as "the good guys", the "big picture" and such. A great "Bechdel Test" passing scene.

Finally, in an episode titled "Point of the Spear", Beka and Trance discuss the ways events have conspired to change their roles in life. While Beka at the start of the scene refers to Tyr, she is talking about letting someone else fly off in her ship (the Maru) while she "plays fighter jock", rather than Tyr as "a man". I feel like I bent the rules on this one, but the emotions and content of the talk are not focussed on men but on the life and choices that they (and Beka in particular) are following for themselves.

Season 4 had only one such high point, in the first half of a 2-part "grand finale". Beka Valentine (again) discusses with Rommie her feelings of unease about a deeply pacifist society the crew have encountered. They compare this to her reactions to the evil "Abyss". Rommie adds observations on life, and in particular on Beka's need for goals in life.

That's six really good scenes or episodes involving women talking to each other (about something other than a man) out of sixty-six episodes. Another 21 with shorter or less impressive scenes. I could make excuses for some ("oh, that episode was about this male character's development alone, so it's natural they'd all talk about him", "well, the plot required that all the women go off doing different things so they couldn't talk to each other") but ultimately those are the totals.

I still like Andromeda for those strong, self-determining female leads (Rommie/Andromeda herself is perhaps less self-determining, being an artificial lifeform, but in a season 2 episode, she's pretty much given the bulk of the story to develop her character as an independent and self-determining role). The fact that they don't, generally, stick to standard female ideals is also refreshing: Beka is a brilliant pilot, can hold her own in a fight, and generally likes the dirtier side of life being essentially a crook in her own right; Andromeda identifies as a warship and her hobbies are blowing stuff up, and building new missiles out of asteroids; even Trance, the most familiarly feminine in role, is proud of being able to drink people under the table and can act really tough when she needs to.

But, with those strong characters, it says something when the show can't even get 50% of its episodes to pass the Bechdel test (and let's face it, with 60% of the episodes watched, that's got to be a reasonable sample).

Beauty pageant winner loses bodily autonomy, ditches crown

When I opened my Yahoo IM this morning, and saw this story in the "latest news" window, I was stunned at how blatant it was, but not at the underlying philosophy that the story reveals.

Basically, a 15 year old girl called Olivia O'Neil won her regional beauty contest, and then decided that, having been blonde for the contest, she wanted to change her hair colour, and dyed it dark brown instead.

From the story:

...pageant organizer Barbara Osborne was incensed. "Is that a wig?" Osborne wrote. "I hope it is, don’t give me heart failure."

Olivia admitted that she had in fact dyed her blond hair dark, and said that if she wasn't allowed to dye her hair, then maybe pageant life wasn't for her. “Well you better decide, miss. Hand over your crown with an attitude like that. I’m sure someone will step into your place with manners," said Osborne, adding that O'Neil "would not go far in this world."

Respect to O'Neil for sticking to her principles and stating clearly that she wasn't willing to be part of something that controls her to that extent. But Osborne's response is somewhat less impressive! Sticking up for oneself is not "bad manners", and expecting to have control over one's own body is, well, something we would wish people could take for granted, no? As for, "Would not go far in this world" - well, the ability to toady up to people in power is certainly a trait that can help people acquire money and prestige in an organisation. But I suspect that Osborne is saying that a woman who thinks for herself has no chance of being accepted.

O'Neil made the best choice, and ditched the crown - and then went to the press with her story, revealing the harshness of beauty contests as she described what went on:

"It’s hurtful. She was always really harsh on the girls. And when she says things like 'present yourself better,' 'wear lots of makeup,' 'do 20 sit-ups,' it gets to you after a while."

The pageant's spokesperson said, "In a beauty pageant, it’s not about sugar coating and providing lip service to the girls. They should be treated the same way as in any other beauty pageant in the world."

Which of course just reveals how damaging the beauty contest industry really is!

I then went and had a look at the website for the pageant (link not provided because I don't want to give them that traffic - if you're interested you can find it from the Yahoo article). I read the text about what they expect from their winners:

The winner of Miss Wanganui and Miss Teen Wanganui will not only bear much responsibility as a role model for other teenagers to follow. She will be a leader in setting high standards of excellence in honesty and integrity. The clothes she wears the make-up she chooses the food she eats to her sporting and musical interests will have an impact on teenagers around the region.

"Young women make the Best Role Models for young women, let them lead by example, let them follow their dreams and let their actions speak louder than their words"

(their emphasis)

By these standards, O'Neil I think is a far better role model than a woman who will subject herself to the invasive and predatory control of a beauty contest organisation! She has, indeed, followed her own dream (and not that of the organisers); she has led by example and used words and actions to speak clearly about what is wrong with beauty pageants!

But that first paragraph also reveals what's wrong (and why the pageant's organisers were upset at the hair colour change): a pageant winner is to be an "example" in "the clothes she wears, the make-up she chooses, the food she eats" because she will "have an impact on teenagers around the region". That implies that she will surrender control of these to people concerned with image (oh Lord, I only wish a winner would turn Goth next year!). Her "sporting and musical interests" are also under scrutiny - I'm willing to bet no rugby-playing (rugby-watching, yes, but playing?) girl would ever win, it would be all athletics or aerobics (if she plays sports at all), and what teams she supports. (Again, I fantasise about a winner then going away and joining a women's rugby squad and getting battered and battering others, and grinning all the while!)

As for setting high standards of "honesty and integrity", once again, O'Neil set those standards and exemplified those qualities most clearly. Integrity by being true to herself, honesty with the world about what's involved in beauty pageants. Surely the make-up, the sculpted hair, the special dresses, the façade, of beauty pageantry is inherently dishonest, and removes integrity from the contestants!

So, Olivia O'Neil, I salute you for your integrity and self-determination, and may the world see many more women like you in the future.

What would interstellar war really look like? Part 1 - Economics

This is a question that I've been pondering for a while, because I watch a lot of science fiction, read quite a bit of it, and of course quite a lot involves two or more civilisations 9either human versus alien, or human versus human) fighting each other over many star systems - in other words, interstellar war. There seem to be a lot of ideas about how that happens, but I wanted to see how much I could figure out about what it might really look like, based on first principles.

The first "first principle" I want to address is that in general, people fight each other for a reason, they don't just start it for the sake of it. In other words, people have a reason for making war.

People make war on other people, in general, for one of two reasons: they want something the other side has and think they can take it by force; or they think the other people are a threat to them (i.e. that the other people are going to try to take something of theirs by force, which may threaten lives/existence). Both of these reasons effectively boil down to economics. If you've got something I want, then to try to take it from you I have to make the calculation that the cost of taking it will be less than the value of that thing to me. If I am trying to prevent you taking something from me, then I am trying to make it so that the cost of doing so is greater than the value of the thing.

For there to be interstellar war, therefore, there has to be some viable form of economy so that taking something from one star system to another will have a lower cost than the value of that thing to the ones taking it.

For a viable economy, there has to be a reasonable communication time across the known space. Otherwise the chief condition for trade (namely that people can get items they desire more easily and cheaply from someone else than by making them themselves) will almost certainly not be met. If interstellar settlements are too far apart in terms of travelling time as observed by the inhabitants of those settlements, then they will need to be completely self-supporting, and so won't need to trade for things. If they are dependent upon trade for any items then they need to be close enough that trade will be able to provide those items in a timely fashion. The exception being where there is some form of extortion involved (that is, if they fail to provide goods to the central world(s) then they will be attacked). In this case, the war is unlikely to be interstellar, but take place entirely within one system, or even on one world. One other possibility is that colonised worlds will eventually develop full economies on their own worlds and then have commodities to trade with other worlds while being self-supporting; but in this case, trade will only be possible if interstellar travel is relatively cheap (otherwise the chief component of price for traded commodities would be the transport costs, which would be a deterrent to buyers, except for the most valuable and desirable of articles). However, a war might take place to take more basic items by force to enrich the fortunes of the attacking force, reducing the inhabitants of a defeated world to slave status.

To get a basic idea of the limits of the range of this economy, I looked at the sizes of various empires in human history. With the exception of the Mongol Empire (which was roughly 2 years radius in journey time), most seem to have been well under a year in radius in terms of command and trade route times: the largest maritime empire, the British Empire, crossed the Atlantic ocean in under 100 days and transportation ships reached Australia in under a year. So we can estimate that for a functioning economy such that there is something worth fighting for, then the things worth fighting for will need to be within a distance of 1 year's journey from the hub of the interstellar trading system.

Why have I chosen empires as the model? Well, because if civilisation A is fighting to gain the resources possessed by civilisation B, then A will need to establish direct control over those resources - that means a settlement controlled from a central government, probably by means of an appointed ruler with some leeway to govern, but answerable to the centre. That means an empire of some description.

If the travel time has to be in the region of under a year from centre to edge, then some form of faster-than-light travel is going to be needed. The point of these essays is not to talk about the physics of whether that's possible (plenty of scientists have written about it, and there is a very good wikipedia entry that also helped with discussing distances and time). I'm just looking at what you need to have in order to make an interstellar economy (and therefore, war) viable.

So, how fast do you have to travel to get enough stars to make an interstellar economy? For reference, the letter c refers to the speed of light here, so 2c means twice the speed of light.

Within 10 light-years of Earth, there are 7 star systems known to astronomers, most of which are red dwarf stars. So 10c is not fast enough.

If we go up by another power of 10, to 100c, then we get 511 stars similar to the Sun; the same link provides us that within 30 light-years there are 11 stars like the Sun. It may be that not every such star will have resources orbiting it that are useful to the economy, so we might need a few more: if we extend the radius to 50 light-years then we get 34 such stars, and the likelihood of several having exploitable resources starts to look reasonable.

So the minimum top speed of starships before interstellar war becomes realistic looks to be around 30-50c. Less than that, and fighting for the resources over interstellar distances looks impractical (you can't defend them if attacked, and if you attack them you can't hold onto them easily). At the extreme range, it is likely that interstellar manoeuvres would be unrealistic anyway, so the war would again most likely be fought within a single star system, albeit by forces that might have travelled from other systems. To get the kind of interstellar war that takes in several star systems at once, the top speed might need to be 100c or higher.

All of which leads to the next big question for our interstellar economy: how much does the journey cost? Travelling at 30-50c is almost certainly going to require vast amounts of energy to operate whatever faster-than-light drive powers the starships involved. The starships are going to need to carry that energy in the form of fuel of some sort, of which they will probably need large amounts for a single round trip.

For a sustainable economy, it's no good having lots of resources in another star system if getting to them costs so much in fuel that you can only afford a few trips before you have no fuel left on your home world. That means that at least one of the resources you're going to need to find at the destination is fuel: either every destination has enough to refill the starship's fuel tanks completely for another round trip, or else one destination supplies the needs of many round trips to other locations as well (which means that some starships would have the role of fuel tankers).

As in modern economics, who controls the fuel will tend to have a much bigger influence over the economy than others: oil is, in the modern world, the essential ingredient for the economy to function. In interstellar economy, whatever fuel makes the starships work will be the essential ingredient. It will also be the essential ingredient in making war, since starships of some design will be the means of conducting that war, and the starships need fuel.

It follows from this that at least one common cause of war in space will be the same as it is on Earth: the need for fuel, or the desire to control fuel in order to have economic power.

Finally, there needs to be something worth trading for. The basic assumption is that, when interstellar travel becomes economically viable, the first colonies will be established for the purpose of producing some commodity that is useful to the central world, and that those establishing the colonies expect to make a profit by doing so. Colonies will therefore not necessarily be in hospitable environments but in profitable ones. It may be that scientific colonies - for the purpose of exploration, study and just to prove that people can live elsewhere in the cosmos than the central world - would precede the economic colonies, but they would not be economically active and would cost resources to maintain.

What sort of commodity would be being produced depends on the shape of the economy on the central world at the time of the colony being established. That at least some colonies will be producing fuel seems assured, since (as already discussed) interstellar travel will need to be able to replenish its own fuel supplies in order to be economically viable in the long-term. What else would be being produced is open to conjecture. We can guess that mineral wealth would be one likely commodity desired by the central world: in developing a technological society capable of interstellar flight, it is a fair guess that a large proportion of the central world's own metals and other minerals would already have been consumed, and certainly that there is a limited supply of those things on the central world. It is also possible that some form of organic material might be in high demand (if, for example, there is a food shortage on the central world; in Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest, she posits wood as the chief commodity sought by he central world).

If the commodity for which a colony is established is mineral in nature, then the colony could be established almost anywhere: as long as a self-contained environment can be maintained then the outside world, moon or asteroid can be totally inhospitable to the colonisers. The colonists will simply stay in the colony and operate the mining gear to produce the minerals. This does, however, mean that they will need very good back-ups. If something important for life-support fails (food storage, air circulation or processing back to oxygen, etc) then because there's a year-long wait for rescue, they will be dead long before help arrives. They need back-up systems, and the ability to repair broken systems themselves. It seems prudent that supply ships coming to take the minerals back to the central world would carry all manner of spare parts to enable the colony to replace or repair any damaged systems sufficiently so that the year's wait for a full replacement will not be as perilous.

Such a colony is always going to be dependent upon the central world to stay functional. The likelihood that they will be able to produce sufficient food themselves to meet the needs of a full colony seems very small, which means they will need food supplies which would form part of the payment of the workers. Alternatively, such a colony might not be operated as a colony at all, but instead might be treated in the way that oil rigs are today: that is, crew members would spend a certain amount of time on the mining colony and a certain amount of time back home (bearing in mind that the round trip could be a year long, this might not be viable from the workers' point of view). While the colony might be able to build some replacement parts themselves from the minerals they are mining, it is likely that they will still be dependent upon the central world for essential spares. In this way, the central world maintains control over the colony, which will be unable to make war on anyone else. It might, however, be a desired target for some other world to make war.

If a colony is to provide food, wood or other organic materials, then the chances are good that it will have to be based on a world that is similar to the central world, and thus in terms of the basic environment is hospitable to the colonists. While there may be all manner of hostile lifeforms, or sources of poison or venom (whether living or not), it will probably be possible to breathe the atmosphere, tolerate the temperatures and cope with the gravity. That means that the colony will not be directly dependent on the central world for its basic survival. This gives it more economic power than is enjoyed by the colonies producing mineral wealth in inhospitable environments. By the fact that they are producing organic wealth, they are able to be self-supporting in food, water and air. This in turn means that they will be able to trade for commodities beyond basic survival needs (including mineral wealth). An ambitious colony could therefore seek to attract engineers and geologists and thereby develop its own mining operations. While it is unlikely that the central world would want to allow them such independence, and therefore would not sell fully-functional mining equipment to the colony, the colony would be trying to bring in people with the knowledge and skills to build small-scale mining equipment and would try to develop from there. This is one way in which a colonised world could become independent of the central world, and become its own central world. Naturally, the central world might make war against the colony seeking independence, to prevent the loss of that source.

A final possibility is that a hospitable world is mostly rich in mineral wealth. In this case, it is unlikely that a central world would provide a colony with the means of growing their own food in the form of plants native to the central world. However, if it turns out that there is local flora and fauna that is edible and provides good sustenance, then this colony would already be independent economically; if its mineral wealth is a tradable commodity then its inhabitants would have the greatest economic power of any colonies. The chief issue would be that their prices would still be brought down by the existence of colonies on inhospitable worlds. Again, their best chance for expansion is to attract engineers and scientists to their world and seek to develop technology of their own to make use of the mineral wealth themselves. In this way, they would be most likely to be able to build their own starships (or, potentially, capture a visiting starship from the central world) and thus establish independent trading relationships with neighbouring colonies (such as, a colony producing fuel).

Those colonies that sought to expand and diversify could thus end up forming the basis of independent governments and trading blocs, so long as they managed to break away successfully and their revolts were not crushed by the central world. These groups would then trade with the original central world on an equal basis. At some point, economic conditions might prove such that one or other of these blocs will feel a shortage of some resource and will seek to take it from another bloc; or that one bloc will fear that another bloc has expansionist tendencies. At this point, interstellar war will begin.

The alternative, of course, is if two races from different central worlds come into contact and are competing for the same resources in the same star systems. In this case, it is likely that both races will be at the maximum range of their economic viability (otherwise they would have come into contact sooner). This means that sustainable warfare would not be possible: either colonies are given the ability to defend themselves from attack, or else taking a world will simply result in a huge resources drain (by stationing warships there) or else the colony will be retaken by the enemy and vice versa over and over again: a waste of resources. In order to be able to conduct such a war and have it , the technology of faster-than-light travel will need to advance so that it is possible to travel much faster, more economically. Eventually, of course, that will bring the enemy's central world within the economic radius, and then war will be extremely likely.

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Having looked here at the reasons why an interstellar war might start, and what the background might be, in the next section I'll look at how it might be conducted, what the strategic and tactical problems might be.

My Experience and Identity

This is a post I was originally going to write for the Carnival of Kinky Feminists, but I'm a couple of days late for the submission deadline. The topic is "experience", and I decided I would talk about the question of whether experience is all there is to identity or whether there's something else at work. As the call for submissions put it, 'was Brett Anderson really just being a wanker when he declared “I’m a bisexual who’s never had a homosexual experience.” ?' I also decided to talk about it from a personal viewpoint: from my own experience and identity.

On the right-hand column of this blog, there's a box that lists a whole heap of terms that I use to identify myself - it says "my sexual identity is:" but some of the terms are not terms that I tend to use in that context, but that I do use to self-identify in general (and thus, they play some part in who I am sexually). Anyway, the point is - what part does my experience play in forming my identity? As good a way as any to start talking about this question is for me to look at that list and think about what part experience plays in each of them.

I've broken the list down into some topic areas (plus a few terms I wasn't sure where to put). Of course, some terms could go in several different categories (for example, "cuddly" cloud have been a "personal quality" instead of being "a term for being fat"; "her Ladyship" could have gone under the "top" section as well as a term for my female side) - I put them where I thought they gave the best idea of who I am.

We can skip over some terms quite quickly: I'm "active" because I have had sex and hope to do so again in the future (I'm not actively having sex right now, and it's been a few years since the last time I did, but equally, I wouldn't identify as sexually inactive in the sense of celibacy either). I'm hairy because I have a lot of body hair. I'm "out-ish" because a few people know about my sexual identities but it's not something I'm ready for everyone to know straight away (there's a reason why I use my nickname online and not my real name). I'm a survivor because of these experiences, for example, and also because somehow I have managed to get through my life so far (thanks to help from friends and family as well).

The other categories worked roughly as follows:

• Political relation to sex
• Personal characteristics
• Types of kink
• Appearance (includes 'attractiveness' and 'being fat' as well as the 'hairy' identity already mentioned)
• Bottom
• Top
• Transgender
• Maleness
• Femaleness
• Gender/sex of partner

Politically, I identify in that box as "activist, ally, communist, feminist, pro-choice, pro-gay, progressive, sex positive". How much of this is belief, and how much is experience? It's difficult to say (except I do think that to identify as activist, you have to have experience of taking actual action).

Under "personal characteristics" I listed "assertive, caring, creative, dork, dreamer, friendly, geek, huggly, intelligent, introvert, knight, loving, nerd, odd, passionate, quirky, romantic, sensitive, understanding, weird, spiritual, shy, snuggly, soft, sweet, trustworthy, norty". Determining what part experience has to play in all that could take a whole pop-psychology book to unravel, so it's probably better not to try here!

Being fat and beautiful (the characteristics under "Appearance") - being fat is a matter of fact: I sometimes need to order trousers in my size because I go beyond what the local clothes store normally stocks! My experience of the world is in part shaped by the fact that I am a "tubby bitch". Being beautiful is about what I do with the experience of living in my body. Learning to love myself was essential to becoming attractive - seeing that I, as I am, could be attractive was the key to unlocking it, and that changed how I experienced my own reflection in the mirror and how I experienced myself through interactions with others as well.

Under "types of kink" were listed "BDSM, bondage, kinky". To unravel this, I'm going to talk about the terms for "top" and "bottom" and cover it in more detail there. I will look at "bondage" under both those headings. It's important to note that I do not identify as a "switch", even though I do identify as both bottom and top. Instead, I identify as "a Dominant who can enjoy submitting" and as being a sadist AND a masochist. I don't experience my kink as being "switch-y".

Under "top", then, we have: "dominant, daddy, mean, sadist, sir, top". "Mean" is a term some sub/masochist types have used to describe my sadism. I take it as a compliment in those terms! In terms of physical experience, these are the terms that have the strongest background for me. I have experience of tying up a partner, of being cruel to her (sadism), of being in command of her (dominant). I have played the role of "daddy" for one partner. I have been called "Sir" (and "Master") in real-life sexual encounters. But I identified as Dominant and sadist since before I knew what sex was, or had heard those terms - I just knew that was who I was. I didn't need to experience it for that to manifest itself when I did become more aware of sexuality - my earliest turn-ons were seeing heroines tied up in movies!

So, I didn't need any experience of doing BDSM to know I was a top.

Under "bottom", we have: "bottom, masochist, submissive." I have never had a sexual encounter as a bottom, so how can I identify this way?

Well, as a masochist, this much I learned about myself from experiencing it for myself. I don't know how else one would discover that pain can be a turn-on except by experiencing it. Although certainly, finding the idea a turn-on can be real without ever experiencing it in real life, and might be what leads a person to try it, it may well be that although the idea turns that person on, the reality is less pleasurable. So it has been through trying pain, and through choosing to experience it in a sexual way (in one incident, from which I still bear a mark, hot fat from the frying pan spat and landed on my bare foot; after the initial shock, I tried interpreting it in my mind as a sexual pain and discovered that it became pleasurable - this is how come the hot fat ended up leaving a permanent mark on my skin) that I learned that I am, indeed, masochist. In clothed play (in public!) I have experienced having pain inflicted by another in a sexually-charged way (scratching with a metal claw - mmm, yummy!) and in private and naked, I taught a submissive partner how to deliver a really good smack to the backside, tutoring her as she delivered her smacks to my own behind - that was fun too!

But what of "Submissive"? I haven't had real-life encounters in the submissive role, so how do I know that I have the ability to derive pleasure from such? And the same question goes for bondage: when it comes to trying it on myself, I have a very deep fear of not being able to get free again, so I can't try that on my own either. Maybe with both, all I can really say is that I am interested in trying it?

Well, with submission at least, I have played the submissive role in online-only roleplay via IM and IRC. Submission is much more in the mind than bondage or masochism, since it is about the way one relates to another person, so in some ways this kind of experience where it's all done in the mind and through text on the screen, is a valid way of exploring the emotional content of it. Some people don't find that it works for them, but for me, I get involved quite easily in imagined scenarios. Really, though, Submission is something that I would like to try in real life. But it's not really my identity as such: Submission is something I can enjoy doing; Dominant, sadist and masochist are all things that are integral parts of who I am.

What about being tied up or otherwise bound? I've already said I haven't experienced it (I've never been with anyone with whom it felt right and safe together to try it). All I have to go on are my imagination and memories of times when my movement has been restricted and it hasn't been a problem (there's plenty more situations where it is a problem). Again, it boils down to the issue with masochism in some ways: I don't know that I would like it, I only like the idea of it and want to try it. But again, wanting to be tied up is not a part of my identity the way that sadism, masochism and Dominance are.

On my own gender-identity, I have split the terms into three groups, each of which I think are distinct in terms of my experience and the way in which I identify that way. I've used the general term "transgender" in the list above, to cover both internal sense of gender and crossdressing; I do not identify as transsexual, and it would be wrong of me to do so, even though there is a physical sensation that sometimes goes along with the flip from feeling "male" to feeling "female". Some folks will remember that in posts about body image I have before mentioned wishing I had bigger breasts, and that's a part of it. Anyway, experience and gender identity starts with my maleness:

Identity terms I used for maleness were: "gentleman, Mr., male, male impersonator, man, man with boobs, XY". When discussing gender and sex, I firmly believe we do not experience genetic coding (otherwise there could surely have been no doubt on whether Caster Semenya, for example, was genetically female), so "XY" is an assumption I make about my identity rather than something I know for certain by experience: I could get it tested, I suppose, but I would never know unless I decided to know for sure. This uncertainty is a big part of how gender gets constructed socially!

Speaking of social constructions of gender, I identify strongly as a "male impersonator". The social role of being a male person is something that I struggle to perform, I always feel a contradiction between my real self and what I am supposed to be as "a man". I have to impersonate maleness in order to function in society. That is very much a consequence of my experiences in life and especially in the sense of experience as "what we do with the events". In a way, "Mr" as an identity is the name for the maleness that I am impersonating - it's the form of address for the social male in me, which in turn is the face that I have to present to be able to be accepted. "Gentleman" is another side of that - it' a role that I play that is keyed into gendered aspects of being (assumed to be) male, and although it's a role that I like to play, it is still an impersonation.

On the other side, there is "man", which is the term that for me reflects the bits of performed maleness that sit well with the person underneath - the bits that I don't have to perform because I am able to be just myself on those things: things like enjoying sports and science and such. It's odd, because not all of those things are things that I grew up having. I acquired my interest in sport in general only once I was out of my teens and experiencing life as an adult - I kind of grew into it. In fact, I believe that this was because I was able to cast off a different role I was playing that was a rejection of the stereotypical male role. Once I could do that, I could accept the parts of the stereotype that actually fit. I could change the way I experienced these things to something more authentic to myself.

The other terms used there are "male" and "man with boobs". Male for me means the sex I was assigned at birth and I'm happy to stick with it. Although I have passages of feeling like I should have the other sort of genitalia, I generally experience the world through male eyes - including social privilege that goes with others identifying me as male. I have a male body and I identify with it well enough that I am happy to call myself male and not think about it too much. Maleness is almost the backdrop to experience, so that it becomes invisible (except when my gender identity is doing something different). But "man with boobs" - I mentioned already about wishing I had bigger breasts; my moobs are noticeable as it is, and I like them. They are a part of who I am and I would be happier if I could keep them. They are a part of how I experience my body and part of what I like about it.

What, then, of identifying as female? I used only three terms in the side box, two of which are on some level tied to Dominance and the other is really not like those two: "girly, her Ladyship, ma'am". "Her Ladyship" is my Domme role preferred form of address. Lady Felicity Rosenthyme was the way that I found to be able to explore the desire to be female sometimes. By starting in a specifically kink-based setting, I was able to make it a shift by increments instead of having to accept it all the way all at once. Dressing as her Ladyship is a physical experience and a mental one, it puts me in a very strong place. I sometimes wish I could attend job interviews as Lady R, because she's got the confidence I find it hard to bring to such situations. It's another kind of playing a role, it's just that behind this one there's my female self instead of my male identification. ("Ma'am" is Lady R's less preferred form of address, but she'll accept it).

"Girly" is like the flipside of my female side from Lady R. While Lady Rosenthyme is a role to play, every part of that role comes from some characteristic that I already have. Feeling "girly" is like the other side of my female identification, and is a way I experience myself as well as present myself. One of my favourite things is when I catch myself giving my "naughty girl smile" in the mirror. In terms of experience, these things are ways that I interpret my own feelings - ways in which I experience them.

That leaves "transgender" identity, and that's where it shifts a bit from being experience as something internal and starts messing with the outside world. The terms here are: "boy in a skirt, crossdresser, gender blender, gender deviant, gender expressive, gender fluid, gender transcender, multigender".

However much I may wish it otherwise, I know that I am never going to be convincing as a woman; I will always appear to be a boy/man wearing a skirt/dress (and corset, and high heels, most likely). That is a fact, based on experience of trying it for myself. it's possible that professionals could make me look more convincing, but I doubt it would ever be something I could sustain for myself. Nevertheless, I persist in crossdressing, because it expresses that female identity that I discussed a little above. That's where "multigender" comes in: Lady Rosenthyme and my girly side are in essence two different genders (see again the post about Lady R linked earlier); as far as my maleness goes, I think that the different roles there (e.g. "Mr" and "man") also count as different genders. Then there's the expressions that are just "somewhere in between".

And, because the gender I feel myself to be changes, and generally doesn't conform to the binary definition of gender, the other expressions are all of a kind to describe that: gender _ "blender" (my self-identity blends all those genders into one person, me); "deviant" (because I deviate from the norms); "expressive" (because I express my own gender(s)); "fluid" (because it shifts and changes over time); "transcender" (trying to break free from the binary).

What does that all have to do with experience? I have never gone out in public while dressed as a woman - the "boy in a skirt" thing makes me afraid to do so because of the potential for abuse and/or violence. I experience the feel of being dressed, and how that makes me feel, and the desire to be able to go out in public (for example, going to job interviews dressed as Lady R!). But I do not experience being accepted as who I am when I am Lady R, or "Sucha", or any sense of myself as female. I get that acceptance only when I am in private, with a trusted companion, or when I post about it on this blog.

Finally, there's the sexual identity in terms of partner chosen. Here, I chose the terms: "heteroflexible, peoplesexual". Heteroflexible meaning (to me) that I generally choose female partners, but am open to the idea of having sex with men (as a man); "peoplesexual" meaning to me that gender of partner isn't that important to me. On equal opps forms for jobs etc I identify as bisexual, but that leads back to the question on the call for submissions, was Brett Anderson really just being a wanker when he declared “I’m a bisexual who’s never had a homosexual experience.” ? Am I being a wanker when I claim that identity? But then the question comes back, "what counts as a homosexual experience?"

Here's how I identify my homosexual experience: Looking at various men and thinking "phwoar, I'd do him!" My current favourite is Keith Hamilton Cobb, who played Tyr Anasazi in "Andromeda" (be honest, you'd like to get your hands on this bod too, right?). I posted a few images of others I'd like to have sexual experiences with before. (It bothers me a little that I still haven't posted any pics of White dudes I'd like to shag - it's not that there are none, just it's fallen that way so far in terms of posting pics *shrugs*).

For me, though, choice of partner in real-life (as opposed to fantasyland) is much more to do with BDSM role rather than gender anyway. Again, I have experimented online with imagined scenarios roleplaying with other male-identified persons, but that's not the same as trying it for real. I imagine what it would be like to suck another man's cock, what it would be like to fuck him up the arse (or have him do it to me), and it excites me. But would the reality be as erotic?

So, the identity question hinges on whether it is interest and desire that makes one bi, or whether one knows only by trying it? But then, no one ever asks a person how they know they're straight if they've never tried having sex at all, do they?

I was planning to write more in-depth analysis about what experience means, in another post. But I have run out of time, and my head is just not sorted enough to get those ides together. But I hope you've enjoyed this little tour through my sexual identity.

Some thoughts on "Reclaiming the F-Word"

Reclaiming the F-Word is the book that came out in June, written by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune of The F-Word Blog. This is not really by way of being a book review as such, just some general musings on the one hand, and a couple of specific points on the other.

The basic premise of the book, as given in the prologue, was that:

Our aim in this book is to provide a whistle-stop tour of activity in the UK today and further afield

...

In order to help us represent feminism fairly, over the course of a year we surveyed as many self-identified feminists in the UK as we could... We asked feminists about themselves, how they came to feminism, what issues were important to them and what activism they undertook.

...

Nearly 1,300 feminists replied, from across Britain, aged from 15 to 81. We believe it is the largest survey of feminists that has been undertaken in recent years. Whilst all surveys have their limitations, now we have evidence of what a large group of UK feminists think and want.

(NB At least part of my interest in reading the book was that I got an email saying they wanted to use my comments from my response to the survey about gender balance in work and home being important to men as well as women!)

So the general thoughts first. The survey and documentation in the book itself of current UK feminism at the grassroots level is invaluable and this book should become standard reading in future generations for courses studying politics, social sciences, gender studies, modern history, etc. With a vast number of references in each chapter, it forms a documentation of what is going on at the moment, and as such seems like it will be an amazing resource and contemporary source for people who in the future want to study what was going on in the first decade or so of the 21st century. In general the authors kept away from taking sides, analysing and ordering the data collected rather than putting their own points of view. The point of view that drives the book is simply to say "look, feminism in the UK is alive and well and kicking hard!"

Specific points: I wanted to mention in particular the book's treatment of sex-positive feminist issues: kink and the various forms of sex work (stripping, porn, prostitution).

On prostitution, the balanced approach of the book was maintained admirably. Recognising that, "Ask feminists what they think of prostitution and you'll encounter widely divergent views," the authors summarise the views of both the anti-prostitution and the decriminalisation camps, and even documenting the activism of a few of the organisations working for sex workers' rights.

However, on kink, porn and stripping the authors appear to allow their own views to colour the discussion of where feminism is at. Admittedly, the term "stripping" is only used once, and referenced in terms of women feeling "empowered" by doing so - the passage is part of a discussion of representing men and women as being equally desirable. This makes it seem like sex-positive views are represented. But the main discussion is about "raunch culture", in which the argument is presented, "Objectification keeps reinventing itself as empowerment." It is only in this sense that stripping and similar things are debated. The sex-positive feminist analysis of "empowerment" in this context is never really addressed.

On kink, there is even less mention. It seems that kinky feminists did not raise their heads above the parapet in responding to the survey (I can't remember if I wrote about kink in my response - I think I focussed on other issues because I thought they were bigger and more important in the context). However, it is apparent that some anti-kink feminists did make their views known. The only reference to kink is in a passage quoted from one person's response (Although the "KinkForAll" un-conference is mentioned in the activism section of the chapter, it is referenced in respect to its role in promoting positive sex education; there is no actual reference to kink itself in that passage). The section heading is "the right to say no", and in fact the person being quoted had a valid point that the authors wanted to highlight, about how women, and teenage girls especially, are pressured to be sexual even when they don't want to be.

The passage quoted in the book talks about how sex is seen as a chore for women, and terms the problem "compulsory sexuality". I have no quarrel with this formulation; it is, indeed, an issue that sex-positive and kinky feminists also identify and address.

The problem comes with this part:

Everyone admits that sexual interactions are more like going to work than having fun. Then you can open a contemporary feminist journal and find articles on sadomasochism, pornography, gender roles, etc. They are all about work as well - working through oppressive power dynamics with sadomasochism ... Nobody is talking about why you can't seem to get away from the sex. Apparently, it's compulsory.

[emphasis mine]

This characterisation of kink, and of SM in particular (when the real target appears to be the D/s element of BDSM, but never mind), goes unchallenged. It is irrelevant to the main point being made and could have been edited out. It leaves the impression that this characterisation of kink is uncontested within feminism, and that just ain't so. Indeed, one of the great things about kink is that it is precisely "having fun". Does it involve work? Well, yes - in the same way that playing a game of football (*ahem* "soccer" for the USAians reading!) involves work. But the point is that, even when it looks like a chore, we wouldn't do it if it wasn't fun (or designed to enhance fun)!

[NB The writer of the comment also made transphobic statements (apparently, "complicating gender roles" is "working through patriarchy", although it's not clear why that would be, when patriarchy is what delineates clear and divisive gender roles in the first place?) - and that also went unchallenged by the authors. I edited out those bits because that wasn't my main point here.]

While the introduction acknowledges that within feminism there is "heated debate" over pornography, this debate does not seem to be represented fairly within the book. The main discussion of porn as it is is under the heading "how we learn about sex". Quite apart from the references to "The Sex Education Show vs Pornography", which I criticised heavily when it was shown on Channel 4, the "debate" is presented solely in terms of what feminists are "concerned" about. As it happens, most of these points are concerns shared by the anti-porn and the pro-porn sides of the debate: porn shouldn't be the way young people learn about sex; working conditions for porn performers; and the tendency of porn to present "being penetrated" as a "submissive" role. Other points, I take issue with (for example, the claim that viewers get to see only penetrative sex as pleasurable to women is just false - most mainstream porn I've seen involves cunnilingus at least as a form of foreplay, and many porn movies demonstrate other forms of external stimulation). But the real feminist debate, which is about how to deal with these issues, is not covered.

What bothers me most, however, is that the authors appear to bring their own viewpoints into the mix here, whereas in general they have simply documented the debates and views of feminists. They argue, for instance, that "Porn is not 'free speech', as its advocates claim; it's the depiction of real sex acts. It is impossible for viewers to know whether what is being shown is genuinely consensual, simple acting, or real pain and violence." (Leaving aside that BDSM porn can be both "real pain and violence" and "genuinely consensual", and might include elements of acting as well, to set the scene). I will not rehearse again the arguments that counter this anti-porn viewpoint; my point here is to say that the pro-porn feminist viewpoint isn't represented - the documentation is apparently biassed. While the text says "many feminists feel" or similar weasel words, when the views of the other feminists aren't given, it gives the impression that the only feminist position is to be anti-porn.

I know that there are kinky British feminists - I read their blogs, I've even met one or two in person! I don't know why the chapter on "sexual freedom and choice" doesn't talk about kink!

I know that there are British feminists who argue in favour of sexual display work (e.g. pole-dancing, stripping, etc). The debate should once again be about working conditions and rights, not about whether women should do it or not (and there is a clear debate to be had there, since in the UK in some pole-dancing/stripping clubs, the workers can end up being out of pocket on an evening's work, instead of having earned any money).

I know that there are British feminists who are pro-porn, or at least anti-anti-porn (Feminists Against Censorship even gets referenced in "Reclaiming the F-Word"!) so why the unbalanced presentation of the views?

These things are important, because without full debate, we get sexist laws pretending to be feminist, that target the women who work in sex work (or who enjoy kink) instead of helping them.

What would you be towing anyway?

Just a little quibble about a common mistake I've been seeing on a number of blogs lately, and it's common enough in general to be worthy of mention (seeing as I am a badge-carrying member of the grammar police and all that!)

A lot of people have been writing "tow the line" to refer to the concept of conforming to a set standard (most commonly now, it's "t** the party line" or "the feminist line" or some such variant of speaking/believing approved viewpoints only).

I am at a loss as to what the possible derivation of such a phrase could be. I note that there is such a thing as a "tow line", which is the rope or cable used to tow something else (originally nautical, it would have been a ship, but I am sure that I have seen the term used in motoring for towing another car). However, how this would give rise to a meaning of following when the verb is "I am towing" (which implies being the one in the lead!) is beyond me.

However, if one were to toe the line, there is a clear derivation. This article explains it quite clearly. To toe the line is to line up appropriately at the start of a running race. There's also possible military discipline derivation (the article linked talks about naval punishment; the wikipedia entry says that there is a literal usage still in the US Army training schools), and there's a popular story (also mentioned on both wikipedia and the other article I linked) that it refers to the British Parliament convention of the two sides staying behind their own lines.

Anyway - thinking about the modern usage, of "toeing the party line", which is about staying "on message", it is slightly removed from the idea of conforming to a set standard (although there is that implication in the idea of being on message). However, if we think of a line drawn where one side is okay and the other side is Not Allowed in terms of topics or ideas, then to toe the line is again to stay behind that line in the "okay" section - although there is a slight connotation in that image of wanting to cut loose and leave the "okay" section (otherwise, why stand right on the edge, with one's toes just behind the line?) Given that the usage of "I toed the line" or "I won't toe the line any more" to imply having had to exercise self-restraint (or being restrained by others) is common, I think this is actually a fair connotation to bear in mind!

So, yes. Whatever you're towing on your line, when you conform to a set standard (of thought, speech, expression, etc) you are toeing the line!