Politics

I'm so happy.

Obama won.

I've been so anxious about this for weeks. I woke screaming this morning. Okay, I don't know if that was related but it probably was. Being chased by a rat the size of the possum, falling and having it scuttle all the way to my neck, is pretty much a clear metaphor for Mitt Romney right?

Yeah I don't know.

But none-the-less, I was freaking out so I'm glad everything went well. Tumblr showed just how damn political we are (in the best way- all liberal of course, no Republican could survive on Tumblr). This post really does perfectly sum up the fandom side of tumblr.

"I love how tumblr is a bunch of really intellectual activists who understand politics, religion, sexuality, and literature better than most of the human population
but put an exceptionally attractive British man in front of them and everyone is reduced to
ALKSDJFLADSJFLJASLDJF;KSADJFLJSDLKFJS
OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU FACE SIR
UNF UNF UNF UNF GET NAKED IN MY BED NOW
THE NOISE I MADE WAS NOT HUMAN

It's embarrassing how true that is. I love tumblr for both. Smart girls need both intellectual stimulation, advanced subtext analysis and meta, political and social activism, and a lot of gay porn, NSFW smut, lots of pics of butts and abs, and they need to drown in pools of tears over assholes like Darren Criss BECAUSE THEY CAN'T EVEN. HIS FACE. UNF.

And boobs. Tumblr loves boobs. What am I saying, everyone loves boobs. Except maybe gay guys...

Anyway, Obama won, more women, POC and LGBT members of Senate, passed some more marriage equality bills, plus marijuana bills, though I don't support that being legalised.

Everything else is good though.

The stress of online dating, I swear to God.

It's ridiculous. I'm a girl and I have a decent profile pic, so I get lots of creepers sending me 'I'm interested/you're cute' kisses (and I say creepers only because they're 30+. Some 50+.) Lots of Indian guys. One sent me 5 emails over like 2 days. Eventually I bothered to reply, and I was polite, but then he was like 'I finish exams on the 14th, we should go out' and I am not interested in this guy at all, but he sent me five emails. I had to respond and I HAVE A VERY AVOIDANT PERSONALITY.

I avoid everything that I don't want to know or deal with. I forgot my keys today which would have led to a 5 hour lock out of my house. I thought of it only a minute after leaving the house. I didn't check until 3 hours later, right before I went to head home. I don't check results, or tests. I act nice when I'm not thinking nice things.

So this happened. (This is me talking to my best friend. Guys, if you don't know how girls work when they are talking to you, this might be informative).

Me: one guys really got the wrong idea and i dont know how to say... i dont know

 (I copied and pasted convo except)

Him: thanks for adding

Me: it's cool
Him: now is facebooking
then texting
then talk on the phone, then meeting for coffee, then walking at the beach, then having a chat until all people sleep in hahaha"

BFFL: Wow

Needy much

 

Me: the thing is, you know i avoid any type of confrontation

he also called me pretty and implied we're dating

we are not

this is one of the muneeba guys btw (Translation: Islamic, doctor, 25, not particularly good looking.)

 

Mia: Well delete him

Avoid it

Have u given him fb or phone?

 

Me: fb

but he's nice

 

Mia: Delete

 

Me: and i dont want him to think im evil

 

Mia: He seems needy

Who cares

U don't know him

 

Lucy: i just dont know how to stop making polite conversation

 

Mia: And obs don't like him

Well

DONT ANSWER

Helps

 

Me: i guess its ruder to not tell him how it is

 

Mia: Well tell him

I don't think u and i are gonna wok out

Sorry.

That's it

Or. Delete

And stop responding.

Or tell him u got a bf already

Like

An ex wants to get back together

Or something.

Better than him thinkin u like him like that or actually wanna meet up

 

Me: oh my god i asserted myself

please give me a hi5

 

Mia: Lol

What did u say?

 

Me:

listen mansour, i think i need to explain that while I think you're awesome and talking to you is fun, i'm not comfortable with making any commitments or ideas for future plans with you
while i know we met on a dating site, im kind of just looking to find people to talk to and kind of going slowly from there, i dont know how much farther we could go, with distance and age difference...
i mean, talking to you is good and im enjoying myself but i feel uncomfortable thinking that your thinking its more than that

 

------

 

So Yeah, I didn't avoid. I confronted. And he didnt get it and I had to confront 3 times. He is a really nice guy but.

 

Still, achievement awards goes to Lucy.

 

The other guy I was talking to tonight, who is better but still not... great, though he likes me a lot (I like guys calling me pretty), also thinks I'm pretty into him and I'm not really...

I mean, he's good to talk to but he doesn't read. I have this list of things Mia and I go through when we see a profile. I abhor the word 'genuine', obviously cull anyone that smokes or drinks a lot, or whose profile says 'I don't read much lol'. I lean towards the shy but sporty, or who like NCIS or Supernatural. Or if they have the Fray or the Script or something in their music. Honestly, profiles are lots of fun to judge, but since it's mostly lame stuff I'm judging, I figure it's okay.

Online Dating

Is it the lamest thing in the world?

Yes, absolutely.

Is it totally fun?

Yes, it really is.

I was bored yesterday night with my bffl and we were just looking through profiles to procrastinate study but I ended up making a profile so my bffl could send kisses to this hot French guy.

I ended up spending an hour or 2 talking to this 31 year old, which wasn't that nice of me, because I implied that the age difference was okay and that I was seriously looking for a boyfriend and that he could be that someone.

But today, I ended up chatting with someone who seemed really great, and is really great, and I ended up talking to him for quite some time, flirting a bit. Then he asked for my facebook so I added him. We talked a bit more, but then it got awkward all of a sudden and now we aren't talking.

I don't get it.

Well, okay, maybe he just didn't like my pictures or something. He called me 'somewhat attractive' and before he'd been like personality wise, I was awesome, and that was me being honest and myself.

But I had fun, it was an interesting experience talking to someone anonymously like that, I mean, you can be as genuine as you like, and it doesn't matter if they reject you because you barely know their name, they don't know you (HE DOESN'T KNOW MY LIFE), and it's totally just judging on a tiny snapshot that you put forward of who you are. So you can't really feel hurt if you get rejected or whatever. I'm doing a lot more that my fair share of that anyway.

But it was novel talking to someone knowing the destination was romantic interaction, not friendship. It's weird, and because of the anonymity, it's very freeing and I haven't flirted with someone really since you-know-who and I enjoyed it.

I miss it lol.

So now he's gone but I don't care too much. I mean, he was into things I'm into and really did seem to fit personality wise but I won't feel hurt. It has much more to do with him than me, I don't know what is going on for him, what he was thinking, I can't take something like this seriously. I just did get caught up for a moment thinking about him, like maybe I would get lucky and we'd met up and go out on a date and it'd be great and we'd have this summer to be together and....

Okay I got carried away. I'm young and naive, I know. But either way, it was fun.

Moving on now

Edit: I'm just gonna keep posting these Tumblr posts.

• Me half the time: I just want to cuddle up with you and watch cute movies and look into your eyes and kiss you lots and then fall asleep in your arms.
• Me half of the time: I just want to rip off your clothes and get pushed against the wall with my arms pinned up and make out and push you onto your bed and we can fuck the shit out of each other, ok.

Dream diary.

I had this really weird dream where I was at an indoor ice skating rink with some of my friends and family. While it started out normal, just skating around, trying to impress the world but actually failing, which was irritating because I'm a really good skater but then it was night and I ended up discovering some evil plot  and I don't remember details but I, and I think a few of my friends, ended up killing the guy plottinh. Visciously too, I get the feeling I slit his throat with the blade of my skate by rolling over his neck. There was a lot of blood on the ice.

Then, and I don't even know how my brain came up with this- romantic subplot- I ended up getting together with my best friend- and not my you-arouse-bisexual-feelings-in-me-that-I'm-sure-are-more-than-sisterly best friend, my bffl. I can barely think about this dream without laughing, because it's so weird. But anyway, we ended up skating around together holding hands, swinging each other around the corners (as you do).

Then we got arrested and sent to jail for murder, so you would think buzzkill, but while we were all in solitary for a long while, the dream skipped over that a lot and recommenced in this playroom, where all the inmates were gathered together. There was a partial library and I found a few stacks of cards and I was like 'can we take these to play later?' because  cards are my favourite thing, but my bffl or one of my two other best friends that was also there for killing the guy said no, that it was just while we were in this space. So I convinced them to play with me and we played hearts.

And at some point, possibly before the games room, when we met up for the first time since prison, she told me she'd had twins. Which is weird, what with us both being girls and unable to procreate but this didn't occur to me, I just laughed at her cos she'd said the possibility of a little girl and boy fraternal twins was so unlikely but we'd got it, and I was slightly disappointed cos they were both this dark skinned kids like her, but I'm sure in dream!verse, they were mine too.

Anyway, that's about all that bream was I think. It's about half owhat I remember but I can't slot all the other scenes in so I'll just leave it there. But I also had a long talk in the icerink with you-know-who, about what I don't remember, had a few other long side plots that were equally ridiculous.

My dreams, man. So weird.

-----

So I was introduced today to the Supernatural Kink Meme, which is always the great thing about new fandoms, you learn so many new things. I actually wasn't aware that other fandoms that weren't Glee had them. Generally, most are just filled with unfilled prompts, but in the NaNoWriMo spirit, I might find some inspiration there.

I think I have, if by inspiration you mean fuck-or-die partially incestual gay threesome. Which is what I mean haha. I don't actually ship Wincest, I ship Destiel. Here have a pic (image not mine):

 Rawr.

So I might try my hand at that. I don't think I've ever written gay smut before... but I do love fuck-or-die scenarios. It's so much fun to write :D I mean, as always, I'm all about the mental before the physical, but fuck-or-die, fuck-before-we-die, fuck-cos-everything-is-fucked, all that sort of thing is my general genre of smut. That pic, like, domestic smut, is like the opposite of my style, but who could not find that hot? Unless you're straight and a guy... but even then!

Religion - I'm being deep with this one

I am an athiest.

I feel awful saying that.

I feel... guilty, but I'm not sure who exactly I'm betraying.

Is it myself, or my family, or my upbringing, or is it God?

It's the last one I think, which is the most major paradox. I feel guilty about not believing in God because of God.

But... I don't believe. I find it wrong to think that there is more to this existence than what is real and discoverable and physical and there. I'm not saying we know everything, of course not, and there are mysteries that baffle me, that will continue to amaze me. Consciousness is at the top of this list. How do we think? How do I exist as a person I can identify as Lucy? As myself?

But still, I find it so much more reasonable to believe that God is a creation of humanity, not the other way around. The ideas are too comforting, too terrifying, they give humanity purpose. They give reason to madness, to tragedy. They inspire goodness and punish sins. They give direction. They explain how all has come to be and how it will end.

But now... what has changed in the world that people are now able to reject this?

Technology for one... when evolution was proven without doubt. My Mum (and I took this as my understanding for a number of years), says that the Bible and it's explanations are just metaphor- to explain to people, thousands of years ago, to get a message across. Like the parables, they are stories meant to teach and allow understanding. That the Earth was created in 7 days is not a literal meaning. There is no doubt that the earth and the people on it did evolve over hundreds of millions of years.

On the other hand though, the idea of Heaven and Hell and Judgement Day and whatever else people believe awaits you after death... people used to live by the thought of those things. Think back a few hundred years to the Puritan's, to the Amish, who live their lives living for God, but in fear of how they will be received after death.

I don't have a problem with people living their lives the way they want to, provided they allow their children to be educated sufficiently to make an informed choice about their own life choices, but is makes me sad still. This comes from a place of privilege, of entitlement, of elitism, I know that, but I feel sad that they are, in terms of my beliefs, wasting their lives for an afterlife that does not exist. While I'm sure many, if not all, lead fulfilling lives, they are not without significant restriction.

But to such an extent in the modern day, religion has fallen to the wayside. Perhaps not always in word, politicians still seem to find their religious beliefs incredibly relevant, and a majority of people still consider themselves to hold some form of religious belief (as perhaps I do too, though I have also declared myself an athiest- I don't know really, do I?), how many people hold themselves to their religious beliefs in deed?

Who refrains as well as they can from sinning, who chooses not to sin because they know it is forbidden by the church? How many truly restrict themselves in this way? In my opinion, our society is more hedonistic, pleasure orientated and self serving than ever. People feel entitled, to everything. Our egos are huge, greater than ever. Every child is taught that the world is theirs, that there is nothing they can not accomplish, that they cannot have.

To a large extent, I think religion is seen these days as not only unpopular, but old fashioned, restrictive. People are dropping it, not for lack of belief in God or an afterlife, but because they aren't ready to live by those rules. There are so many ways to reason it out, as I have already done. The Bible is a metaphor, it was written so long ago, it wasn't intended for us an an audience, things have changed etc. To a much greater extent, as time goes on, especially as culture moves away from biblical writing, especially in terms of women, gays, premarital sex, working on Sundays, etc etc, people feel that they can pick and choose what to follow, what to believe.For example, going to Church isn't necessary if you still believe and pray, or sleeping with a loving boyfriend is okay, if you see yourself marrying him.

Personally, my own views are a mix of these things and a belief that everything that happens... just happens. Bad things happen, and it's not fate. All we are is a bunch of atoms and cells, grouped on one hunk of rock falling through space, and we lucked out by being on the one that is by a fraction of a percentage the right distance from the sun to support life. You can consider that a miracle but I don't-- whether we're the only life in the universe or one of an unimaginable number, we only recognise that we are lucky and that we are here, because we are. If we weren't here, we wouldn't have awareness of it, simple as that.

Life is what we make it, any meaning we create comes from us. If there is comfort is believing in more, by all means. But it isn't a fact and no one should be forced to live under the restrictions of anothers unproven beliefs.

NaNoWriMo

So, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, I haven't done it before and I think I'll fail but it's worth a shot. 50000 words written in 30 days. It'll be a challenge if I only count words in stories, but I don't think I'll have any shot at that, so I'm going to include blog entries. I can't help that I can get out a 1000 word blog entry in no time at all and never consider it a chore, but writing original fiction is such a drudge, when I'm uninspired or just feel like I can't write well.

I have an idea for an original fiction (an area I've never ventured into before, though I really should have) and I'll try to get something out of that. I'm also going to be writing my schoolies zombie apocalypse story. Okay, I'll admit, that did start with me just writing a lot of one on one scenes with one specific person but I moved all of that into a different document entitled 'Warstory-romcom' to shame me for it :P

This story is much fun for me, it's the exact genre I enjoy writing. Lots of angst, insight into the human condition and a chance to play with my friends lives like my and one of my best friends do on the Sims. It's good fun, I don't know if they'll end up seeing it. It's hard not to be honest when I write, especially not from a first person perspective and it's not like I think my friends are perfect. Half of them annoy the heck out of me and I'm not that nice a person, my head can be full of criticism or judgement on occasion. Also, I know that just because they're my friends, doesn't mean I know what's going on inside their heads. Some better than others I'd say, but some people are pretty closed book to me, whereas others I know pretty well what they're thinking. But again, zombie apocalypse, who knows how they'd react. I got a bit of a glimpse when I asked everyone to assign people into groups. I was pleased that everyone that I asked did it pretty much as I asked, putting thought and reasoning into it. I was only really disappointed with you-know-who's, because I couldn't get him to be serious enough to really do it. I just got 'you and I definitely wouldn't be together, I can't stand being around you (that was the gist anyway), and the same about someone else, which I didn't realise so that at least was helpful. But he wouldn't find a combo that would conceivably work. I mean, there was no perfect combination. Taking into account personal preferences, which I considered the highest of importance, plus even cars for strategy and driving ability... he went the all the good people in one car and the rest in the other, which isn't viable. 

Urgh, sorry, rant over.

I was just thinking though, as I was writing bits of it (the spark to this blog entry) was that sometimes I can write his character really well (in my opinion), but I mean, I think I have it consistent with his personality. When I talk to him online especially, I can usually guess his responses. Not always, he does surprise me occasionally but generally, I find him in the realm of predictable. But in person, I find him much more unpredictable which makes him hard to write. He's usually less nice.

So it's hard to know how to characterise him right.... if I write him inconsistently it's because he is inconsistent, but I'll just look like a bad writer, because I don't know all his underlying motivations so it'll remain unexplained.

Ah well. Back to studying. More later probably, since I have to write 1666 words a day... 1000 to go.

Virginity

There is this age old question of virginity, which I feel like talking about today.

While it refers to both males and females in it's definition of 'hasn't had sex yet', the importance of virginity has for a long time been much more a device of shaming women into remaining 'pure' from sexual contact, or more specifically, penetration.

This focus on female bodies comes down the the myth of the hymen, a layer of skin that covers the entrance to the vagina, a physical barrier that lets any man know exactly what that woman has been up to, if he were to check. This isn't true, the hymen and the way it works is completely blown out of proportion. I could explain this but I don't think I could as well as others, so here is a link to Laci Green's video on the topic, she's one of my favourite sex positive educators, Hymen 101.

The purity myth, is a sexist construct that shames women for having sex, liking sex, wanting sex etc. Losing your virginity as a concept just highlights that. Seen as a painful experience, in which you lose something good about you, your 'purity'. Feel free to argue this point with me, but I don't believe this is the same judgement which is made to men. A male losing their virginity is something to be celebrated, becoming a man etc, taking someones virginity rather than losing it themselves. Without a hymen themselves, virginity loses the pressure over men, because there is no evidence.

The idea of women being the receptacle of sex also increases the problem. I think it was on Family Guy, with the metaphor, if you are at a party and you see a few drinks, and one is already opened, it doesn't matter how good it is, you'd rather a fresh, unopened one, right?'

No, no, no, no, no.

Just like the lock and key metephor, you have to take it back into context. Women aren't drinks to be opened and drunk and full of backwash and another persons germs. That is not how it works.  A women that has lost her virginity has, using common interpretations of the word, just had penetrative sex. That's it. Penis' aren't dirty. Semen washes out. Vagina's a self cleaning. There is no squick factor. Women who have had sex are not dirty, not anymore than a guy with 'vagina on his dick'. It's ridiculous.

The second idea that leads to slut shaming and the idea of purity is more, she's untouched, never been with a man, you'll be the first to open her up to these new experiences, she'll always remember you etc. This one isn't necessarily evil. I'm not saying that there isn't something special about the first time, though generally speaking, most of the time it's awkward and painful and it's never the orgasmic bliss people hope for (that takes TIME). I think personally that it depends firstly, is the male partner (sorry this is heteronormative, insert whatever pronouns makes this more applicable to you, but generally I'm talking sexism in a heterosexual context) expecting more from his female partner than he is for himself. If he's not a virgin, but refuses to date non virgins, there is a problem. But if it's more just after a shared experience, especially when considering the pressures of sex that are put upon both males and females, I can certainly understand a desire to learn together, without a whole bunch of one sided expectations.

Personally, I held this view for a long time. I used to be full of really problematic, internalised sexism ideas. I used to want a purity ring. I did think more highly of myself for being a virgin and I did slut shame. I used to feel like a special snowflake and be like 'I don't like girls who..." etc, expecially around guys I wanted to impress. I was young and didn't know better.

However, I was still hoping for a mutual virginity loss with my hypothetical boyfriend once I got over all that other stuff. I liked the idea of being his first. I thought that would make it more equal and I didn't want him comparing me to other girls right while I'm having the biggest experience of my life. For a while, I thought that knowing that someone I liked was banging/ had been banging some other girl would make it worse and that it'd all be ruined.

Now, with some more thinking done and a bit more experience, I think I wouldn't mind someone that knows what they're doing.

My only experience with physical things is kissing, as you'd know if you read my blog. When we were younger, we'd call it lip-ginity, and tongue-ginity. So you lose it when you kiss on the lips, make out etc. It's like a practice go at virginity.

 Out of the.... five (I think) guys I've kissed (four just on the mouth, one making out), only one hadn't been kissed before. I got to be a bunch of firsts for him and yeah, there is momentary pride in that. But it's certainly not a major deal. When I scanned through my mental lists, he was the last one I thought of. Because really, everyone is going to kiss a bunch of people in their lifetime, the first... really doesn't matter much. It's just the beginning of more. I mean, do I remember my first kiss, the dark room, the people, the stubble, sure I do :) It was great. I also remember my second kiss and my third and my fourth etc. When I had a boyfriend I can only remember a couple but there may have been more idk. Like, you're always going to have a 'first kiss' with anyone you are with romantically, and most likely you are going to remember that. 'First kiss ever' is going to stop outranking 'first kiss with guy you love'.

Then when I lost my tongue-ginity, obviously, it wasn't a first time for him. Did that make me uncomfortable? No. Did it make me think about all the other girls he'd kissed like that? No. Did it make it easier for him to take the lead and make it an awesome kiss? Yes.

If someone, in the middle of doing something awesome, makes you feel insecure and like they're comparing you to someone else, that seems like there is a problem anyway. For me, it felt like the focus was just on me, and that was an extreme case already, since he had a girlfriend and I was in a sense competing with her. But it never felt like that. You know the cliche line of players in movies, telling girls 'We have a real/spiritual/whatever connection.' Maybe it's bullshit, who knows, but it makes people feel good and secure to know that. Even if you are being played, which maybe to an extent I was, I felt when I was with him like he only had eyes for me and when I was there, he wasn't thinking of someone else. As far as virginity goes, isn't that all you need really?

If you're in the second category, is it enough to just know it's all about you and them, and not some distant partner that is in the past?

Then you get the perks of experience which I think, especially when it comes to sex which can be fairly complicated, could be a really good thing. Someone having sex, male or female, doesn't make them ruined. It just doesn't. The older we get, the more partners people are going to have and it's just a fact of life.

Like, the next time I make out, I'd rather it be with someone who knows what they're doing. And when it comes to sex, you know, I don't know. Either way, I don't think it's going to make or break it for me. I have had little niggles of disappointment that I never had a long term high school boyfriend, that I started dating when I was 14. I would have liked the slow progression of physical intimacy that comes from that. Now... I don't know how long I would reasonably wait. A year? Two? See, that sounded reasonable a year ago but now it's like 6months? Does that make me sound like I'm going too fast? 4 months? What if I'm in love by then and I really want to? I don't know!

When I get a boyfriend, that is going to be biggest topic of debate for me, I swear.

Also that needs to be soon because I only have 2 weeks before I haven't kissed anyone in a year and that's a really long time.