All riled up

There are certain things about Southern Baptist dogma--not about God, but just some applications--that I do not believe in. The two easiest examples: Abortion=killing babies and should be outlawed. Homosexuality=a sinful choice. Usually it's just Pat Robertson, for example, going off on that stuff, which is easy for me to ignore; when I do occasionally encounter it in my daily life, it really upsets me. I can't reconcile my beliefs about a loving God with conservative condemnation.

In Sunday School today there was some ranting (yelling, honestly) about the evils of abortion. The lesson was about moral relativism. I wanted to say, "you know what, I don't think anyone is relativistic when it comes to abortion. to ME, having the option is RIGHT, and denying it is WRONG, actually." but I mean of course I couldn't say that. and the teacher was, of course, dismissing any sort of argument as folly. I realize that when it comes to abortion most everyone is either firmly one way or firmly the other, and it's a difficult conversation to have, but it deeply bothers me to be yelled at along the lines of, "people are going to different countries to adopt babies, and we're murdering them here!"

1. You're a MAN, and as such could never be in a situation where you have to make that decision. Fuck off.
2. How do you know none of the women in the room have had an abortion? The statistics are very, very high. even if you consider abortion evil, which is your prerogative, you shouldn't go around making well-meaning women who made a mistake feel like shit. everyone fucking makes mistakes.

Sure, of course, a woman could carry the baby to term and give it up for adoption. All sorts of couples want to adopt brand-new babies and leave those older kids in foster care. but what if she doesn't want to go through A) the physical stress and B) the social stress*? oh, you say, it serves her right, it's what she gets for having sex. WELL, WHAT DOES THE MAN GET FOR HAVING SEX? ZERO CONSEQUENCES. ZERO FUCKING CONSEQUENCES, for being [at least!] equally guilty. So why should the woman have to suffer?

(*I mean, the woman who gives the child up for adoption would probably be alienated from, say, church. You wouldn't fucking praise her for being brave and carrying the child--you would fucking judge her for having sex outside of marriage.)

and I would think this is too obvious to even mention, but if you DID outlaw abortion, you wouldn't get rid of the motivation. Women would get them illegally and dangerously, and then not only would embryos be dying left and right, but so would women.

augh

it just really, really hurts me when things get...well...Baptist in a conversation about morality. if he had started to talk about homosexuality, as I was afraid he would, I would have HAD to have said something. Which then would have alienated ME from my new Sunday School class. Nice going, Sunday School teacher!

I love church. and I loved the rest of the lesson. I just can't handle being yelled at about the evil-ness of something that I 100% believe should be available, without there being an option for rational discussion. I mean, there's Sanctity of Human Life Sunday every year, and I've never been offended by the sermons. I always expect that I will be, but the pastor handles the topic very respectfully.

(Choose your own conclusion!)

Graceful ending:
There's a difference between valuing life and condemning sinners.

Bitter ending:
There's a difference between valuing life and condemning sinners--ahem--FELLOW sinners. Don't fucking think you're any better. All sins are equal in God's eyes, you'd know that if you read the Bible you beat people with.

If you made a mistake, wouldn't you do whatever you could to get your life back on track?

Not a personal failing?

"Racism, the argument goes, should not be thought of as a personal failing; it's a social system, with a specific history."
from the new yorker

It kind of irks me when someone says, defensively, that he or she is not racist. (Mostly because that comment is usually made as a disclaimer on making some sort of racist remark.) I like to think of myself as an idealist, but I struggle with racism. I can admit it; other than admitting it in public horrifies people, makes them think I'm slime. But I don't think I struggle with it more than other people...I'm just aware of it? Racist not in a "omg i hate people who are not white" sense, of course, but in a making-subconscious-judgments sense, a hypersensitivity sense, a I-don't-know-how-to-talk-to-you sense.

Avenue Q tells us that everyone's a little bit racist. I have to agree. Not because we WANT to be...it's just how we're raised. And not through a fault of our parents, necessarily, but because of the social system...I mean, for my own example, I'm from the suburbs. There were black people around, but I never had any interaction with anyone very different from me. There weren't ever any black people in my advanced/honors classes. Here and there in music classes, maybe, but not in calculus; not in college comp; not in physics; not in AP English; not in Spanish 5. I find this extremely troubling.

This is obviously not true of every high school. But it shouldn't be happening at all. Why were there no high-achieving minority students in my graduating class? There were 500ish of us, after all. Even with the minority population being the, well, minority, statistically speaking, there oughta be someone...

On top of the whole societal thing, it didn't help that my first experience with getting to know an African-American person well ended disastrously. I mean, that gives me a bad leg on race relations just through classical conditioning. I mean, if the first time I tried sushi I got sick, I would be wary of sushi, right? Even if it wasn't the fact that it was sushi that made me sick.

And so after that I found myself trying to overcompensate for my being a little freaked out by being hyper-aware of racial attitudes. Like, TOO much, panicking at the n-word, seeing societal racism in everything. Plus, at that same time, I was reading Wright's Native Son, which shows the plight of Bigger Thomas as being entirely the fault of society.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. But, I think society/everyone needs to acknowledge racism in order for things to get any better. But people don't like to think that they're racist, because it's sooooo politically incorrect.

dunno...

update

and if the timing is right to sneak off into the night
i'll let myself be taken just for the thrill
and if i'm given the chance to be a doll in his hands
i will be sure we shake the mountains while we dance

See my old posts regarding hedonism and such. Still valid.

Not so valid: my old identification with the following lyrics:
you sit there in your heartache
waiting on some beautiful boy to save you from your old ways

I don't want a beautiful boy to save me. Boys don't, CAN'T do that, and it's foolish to expect it. Prince Charming syndrome...I may have grown up on Disney movies, but they're completely unrealistic. Plus, being saved from my old ways--the price of that, as I learned last summer, would be making myself vulnerable. I've witnessed enough hurting, I don't want to go anywhere near that. The best I can hope for, for the time being at least, is to have some fun...while keeping my heart tucked safely away.

i have no doubt that i could love you forever
the only trouble is, i really don't have the time
i have one night only, one night only, that's all i have to spare
one night only, let's not pretend to care

(lyrics: the hush sound, "boys are too refined;" the killers, "when you were young;" dreamgirls, "one night only")

P.S. It's snowing. I do NOT approve. What ever happened to spring??

read my life like a book

come to me baby, please fulfill my wish
show it to me truly, show me with a kiss

Oh my god, so, I have figured out why I have taken to Aqua so much lately. I mean, within the last week or so, I just listen to Aqua a LOT. It's weird. I mean, songs that had zero play counts on my itunes. Not "Barbie Girl," thank you, that song is a little TMTH even for me, but, idk, "Roses are Red," "Calling You," "My Oh My." ("Dr. Jones" is an exception of sorts--I have been listening to it lately but it has always been on my guilty pleasure playlists, so it is not a rediscovery.) And I just couldn't figure it out. I mean, yeah, lately I REALLY like songs with a good beat, something danceable, but there is BETTER music of the sort available than Aqua. I mean, for god's sake, the lyrics are AWFUL. But I think I've finally put my finger on it.

I listened to Aqua in fifth grade. It brings back distinct memories of hanging out at Latchkey (the public school-facilitated childcare) with that bitch Shara and with Noah, whom I adored. I was ten years old and innocent as could be. All the more I knew about boys was that Noah was really cute and, oh my god, on Halloween we sat in an overstuffed chair together (pre-cuddling?) while we watched Hocus Pocus. I also probably had a huge crush on Jason at that time, and maybe (maybe?) Joe. But nonetheless, boys and all that they involve were completely abstract to me. There were a couple of "couples" in my fifth grade class (Drew G and Laurel P, Mike W and Hannah S), I don't know what they did as couples, went roller skating or to Worlds of Fun or that kind of thing, but, eh. I was boy-crazy in the standard tweenie sense of OH MY GOD ZAC HANSON, but I had no idea about the reality of relationships. Crushes on boys I did know were really no different than celebrity crushes; I kind of adored from afar, would have never dreamed of acting upon anything.

The thing is, though, that I never outgrew this.

I never had a boyfriend, I only barely dated (ergh). I don't know why. I just never developed the mental framework, the mindset, necessary to not only be in a relationship, but to even consider one. Throughout my lonely years of high school I pined for a boyfriend but I would not have known how to actually be a girlfriend. I mean, the one guy I had a huge crush on for years and years, if he had actually asked me out or something...? I mean, I can't even, never could, imagine it happening. Visualize it. I just didn't have the framework for it.

So, fast forward, a ways into college, I finally have some really, really good girlfriends and I'm not lonely anymore. I start thinking about how strange it is that I am such a nun. Obviously there's something wrong with me: I'm not pretty enough, I'm too weird. I no longer lack companionship and love but weird things are going on with my self-esteem nonetheless.

Meanwhile,
-I study abroad and explore my independence, relishing the adventures with Lindsey and the adventures I undertake alone.
-I witness my girlfriends who seemed so happy in their relationships betrayed and damaged by assholes and I have no idea how to help them.
-I start drinking, finally shedding the black-and-white moral code I clung to as a child.
-I think. I realize that the Bible does not contain a usable baseline morality for my own life. I don't pray, but I think.
-I familiarize myself with feminism and am able to recognize double standards, and am extremely pissed off by them.

In the past year I have finally learned some things about the realities of men and women and the interactions between them. I have lost my Disney fairy-tale expectations of being swept off my feet and eternally adored. I still have no idea of how to be in a successful relationship, but I...understand...a lot that used to be a mystery.

I am no longer innocent. But this is absolutely brand-new to me and I still do not how to put all the pieces together; meme the children's choir teacher, meme the intellectual, meme the friend, meme the lush, meme the slut.

In fifth grade I was perfectly innocent but dazzled by boys. I listened to music like Aqua, which is catchy as hell but fairly dirty (without being explicit). It was a paradox but my soundtrack nonetheless. Now, twice as far down my road in life, I find myself in a rather more complicated but similar paradox. I go to church twice a week, I'm a role model to children, I would probably most often be categorized as a "good person"...but my morals...are gone.

If I was a character in a book, I would say that I was using the music to make my dilemma seem more simple, to hearken back to my innocence while still acknowledging that something is going on. To try to reclaim the vague, abstract perception of boys and sex. Am I allowed to perform literary analysis on myself?

Or is it simply that the music is catchy as hell?

i don't wanna waste my time on simple little things
i'd rather stay here overnight with happy boys who sing
come on let's go get it on, everybody let's go have some fun

if you seek amy tonight...

so, on the one hand, it's liberating to be making bad decisions just because it feels good...

but then I think of Nietzsche's ideas of slave morality and that essay I read last semester relating this to "hookup culture." The master's morality is two choices, right and wrong; whether the slave chooses to obey the master and do the "right," or rebel against the master and do the "wrong," the moral decision is still made within the framework of the master's morality and is therefore still under the master's control. The slave is not thinking for him- or herself in this framework even through rebellion.

So, then, society sends a lot of mixed messages regarding female sexuality, but it doesn't take much for a girl to be a "slut." More or less (and I'm thinking in, like, the environment in which I grew up, not the aforementioned hookup culture lol), the ideal femininity is pure and reserved and monogamous and does not lust and, idk, all that. And I was okay with this sexual identity for a while. But it's rather a lot of pressure--and NO fun. And so what? Well, first breaking out of that mold was pretty traumatizing, akshuly, but I have since gotten used to it.

But why, why, why do I do this? Is it pure hedonism? I've realized very recently that there is a degree of rebelling-against-good-girl-expectations in my decision-making. Which scares me. Because that's not my own decision. Choosing one of the two options in a broken system is still very much supporting and upholding the broken system.

with a taste of your lips i'm on a ride...
i'm addicted to you, don't you know that you're toxic?

So, in conclusion, bad decisions just because it feels good is NOT liberating at all. The only good thing about it is, well, that it feels good. Which has some value. I mean...I plan to keep making such decisions, for the meantime at least.

P.S. Once again Randall Munroe takes it upon himself to answer the tough questions definitively. Amazing!