Why I'm a Feminist (Part Three): Gender Inequality Makes Me Angry

Assholes like to belittle women’s rights activists, dismissing us as “angry feminists.” Normally I bristle against stereotypes of any kind, but especially ones that try to limit who I am as a person. Just like being a virgin doesn't make me frigid or judgmental, being a feminist doesn't make me a bitch or a man-hater.

But the assholes have one thing right. 

I am angry.

I’m angry that the War on Women isn't just a political catchphrase. Republican legislators across the country, at the federal and state level, have introduced, and often passed, legislation 

• to force women seeking an abortion to undergo unnecessary procedures, or 
• to force women to carry even stillborn children to term after 20 weeks, or 
• to legalize the murder of abortion providers, or 
• to redefine rape, or 
• to force doctors to lie to patients, or 
• to restrict access to birth control while criminalizing all abortion.

I’m angry that Bill Clinton is still the Democrat’s Golden Boy. I don’t care that he cheated on his wife—that is his personal business. But how many women have accused him of sexual harassment, like Paula Jones? Of sexual assault, like Kathleen Willey? Of rape, like Juanita Broaddrick? Accusations date back to BEFORE he was even governor. So all you rape apologists who want to doubt his victims’ credibility can just stop. I thought the Democratic Party supported women’s rights…

I'm angry that my twin brother called me a slut and a whore for years, in front of all our mutual friends, and not a single one of  them stood up for me. I had committed the unforgivable crime of developing breasts, and I had to be shamed for it.

I’m angry at the number of times I had to ask to choose a famous person not on the proposed list for essays, papers, and projects. Why? I wanted to write about famous women.

I’m angry that I earned a reputation in my non-WGS history classes as the feminist. Why? I was the only one who consistently questioned gender bias, who asked about the women. In today’s day and age, what kind of history students ignore the history of half the world’s population?

I’m angry that my home church won’t allow women to serve in ordained positions. Women are allowed to be deacons, but not elders or ministers. My father is an elder, and I know he does his best to represent my mother and me, along with my brothers. I remember how proud I was when I found out he had been nominated. I cried when he told me he almost didn't accept it. He had to pray about it and talk to my mother because he wondered if it was wrong to accept a leadership role denied to my mother.

I’m angry that women are held up to an impossible standard of beauty. Be skinny, but not too skinny. Be curvy, but not too curvy. Be really pale or really tan, but not in-between. Always wear make-up in public, but never look like you’re wearing make-up. Wear the latest styles, but only wear styles that flatter your figure. Wear the latest colors, but only wear colors that flatter your skin tone. 

I'm angry that a sexual double standard still exists. My blood boiled when I first heard the comparison of men and women to keys and locks. 

I'm angry that most movies and TV shows fail the Bechdel Test.

I'm angry that so many of the twitter accounts I follow do stupid trending topics like #MyPerfectHusbandIs and #HowToMakeAWomanHappy, both of which just reek with outdated gender stereotypes.

I'm angry that I can't tell anyone from home that I'm bisexual. I'm angry that my sexuality is dismissed as greedy, or experimental, or denial. I'm angry that I have to lie to my family, to all my friends from high school, to most of my friends from college, to everyone at church. I'm angry that I can't marry a woman in my home state.

So go ahead.

Call me an angry feminist.

You are 100 fucking percent correct.

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Blogoversary: One Year of Anonymity

A year ago today, I composed my inaugural blog post, clad only in my favorite lingerie, with a fuzzy blanket wrapped around me. As I write my sixtieth post, I’m completely naked in bed, the same set of French lingerie somewhere on the floor from when the boyfriend removed it last night. I’m back in the same city where my blog was born, but instead of being a few weeks away from the end of my internship, I’m starting the next chapter of my life. Moving here is my last big move, until either the boyfriend & I get married (fingers crossed!) or until I move back to France to recover from my heartbreak (not bad for a contingency plan, right?).

It’s been a good year for Confessions of a Virgin.

I wrote a guest post for Therese at How to Lose Your Virginity… and then the boyfriend & I ended up doing an interview for her documentary.

I wrote an article under my own name at Curvy Girl Guide after having connected with Meredith on twitter as @belle_vierge.

I’ve made some blogger friends, like Lauren at Our Crazy Ever After and Ashley at Chickadette. I’ve made some twitter friends, like my #bookends, @MrsJGatsby and @theycallmeivy. I’ve even made some twitter/blog crossover friends, like @Classy_in_KC

I joined Twithouse, a twitter organization of ambitious co-ed and post-grad women.  Even after the recent scandal, I’m still proud to be a member, and I still love the other women in the group.

I’ve received comments, emails, and DMs from virgins who relate to my posts. I’ve received comments, emails, and DMs from non-virgins who have admitted my blog has changed their perspective on virgins and virginity.

My pseudo-anonymous identity has given me the freedom to be raw and honest. To admit I’m a sexual being, even if I’m not engaging in coitus. To share my thoughts on sex and virginity. To write without fear of judgment. To open up about my sexual assaults. To advocate for women’s rights.

Writing a (mostly) anonymous blog has resulted in some of the most personal writing I’ve ever done. It’s so much realer than any of my previous work.

And yet it has only been a half-truth, at best.

 

May 4, 2011, I sat in a train station in London with my best friend Mark,* as we waited for our train to take us back to Paris. At this point, he and I had already had many heart-to-hearts, not just in our few days together in Europe, but over the course of three years of best-friendship.

In that moment, for whatever reason, my last deep, dark secret spilled out.

Something I had kept buried since I was 17.

A secret I just pretended didn’t exist.

I guess after two years in France, during which I changed more than I did in eight years of high school and university, I couldn’t lie anymore. At least, not to Mark.

Over the past year, I’ve told my cousin/best friend Nick, my best friends Rose, Lauren, Hardy, James, Ali, Jane, Christa, Brittany, and Sarah. Annnnnnd I think that’s it. Oh, and Ron, the guy I sorta dated in France.*

That’s it.

Until now.

Because I’m tired of hiding. Telling half-truths. Worrying. Denying who I am.

I’m bisexual.

And my family will probably never know.

“I’m also a unicorn. Or maybe a bicorn … Anyway, I’m starting to believe in my own magic.” —Brittany, Glee 

I end up in tears at least once every time I go home. Somehow homosexuality or bisexuality or gay marriage or whatever comes up when I’m home. I’m from a highly-educated, very passionate, sorta southern family, and we enjoy discussing politics, literature, current events, religion, films, everything.

Too bad both my mother and kid brother have explicitly said they don’t believe bisexuality is real.

Too bad my father and kid brother have only recently come to terms with same-sex marriages being okay.

Too bad my home church denomination has recently reaffirmed its stance that marriage is between one man and one woman.

Too bad I can’t trust my twin brother with a secret to save my life. At least he’s totally accepting of all sexualities, to the best of my knowledge.

A few weeks ago, we were discussing my church’s recent statements, not just on marriage, but also on the Bible. My parents both kept interrupting me, and I raised my voice to be heard, and my mother told me not to yell. I stormed off to my room and promptly burst into tears.

I know they all think I overreacted.

I don’t give a fuck.

I have the good fortune of being in love with a man who is everything I ever wanted and more.

It doesn’t erase the doubt deep down that if I had brought home a woman, my family wouldn’t accept me anymore.

A well-timed confession via postsecret.com

So I’m anonymous. Mostly. I think about twenty of my friends IRL now know about my blog. Friends I trust knowing the most intimate details of my life. I’m sure these friends also know that if they ever out me to anyone from high school, or university, or basically anyone in the South, we will never speak again. But if I thought there was a chance of them doing that, I never would have sent them the link to my blog. I know all my secrets are safe with them.

It’s been a good year for Confessions of a Virgin. I’m looking forward to an even better second year, a more honest year.

Bisous.

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Joyeux Anniversaire à Moi... (le 8 juin)

Last Friday was my birthday, last weekend was my birthday weekend, and June is my birthday month. Let the celebrations continue!

My birthday weekend was practically perfect, despite almost nothing going according to plan. (And I LOVE to plan things very precisely).

The plan: Spend Friday at the pool with the boyfriend, and after school, the kids too. After dinner, go to the cool adult after-hours event at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) with the boyfriend. Drink champagne. Go to the nude beach on Saturday, head home to shower, get my tattoo, and go somewhere nice for dinner. Spend Sunday at Casa Loma.

What happened: The only event that went according to plan was getting my tattoo. But the weekend was still awesome. :)

The boyfriend left work early Thursday and drove to Toronto so I could wake up with him on my birthday. He brought me this beautiful cake.
 

I used Paint to hide my real name (in M&Ms!) and age

Friday morning my kids "surprised" me with cards and presents. Sam* had made a lot of very pointed comments during the previous week about how happy I would be to receive a gift card to Indigo (like Barnes & Noble, but Canadian). Amy* had been working on her card for me after school, where I could see it... Annie* had asked if pink was my favorite color, if I liked pink roses, and if I liked bows.

Clearly I went to Indigo immediately

So when Sam and Amy presented me with homemade cards and a gift card to Indigo, I acted surprised, but I had expected it. (Technically the giftcard was from my bosses, but semantics). To an extent, Annie did surprise me when she gave me bow earrings and a rose hair accessory. I thought she was hinting about real roses with a bow tied around them.
 

My favorite things: Starbucks, Diet Coke with Lime, the boyfriend, my kids

She loves me as big as the moon.

After we took the kids to school, the boyfriend and I returned home to make one of my all-time favorite breakfasts: Eggs Benedict. He's so precious. I had asked him months ago to learn how to poach eggs and fry bacon (I usually under-cook it or burn it) for this exact reason. (I already know how to cook many many complicated things, so I figure he can learn a few cooking techniques I haven't mastered). I made the Hollandaise sauce (from scratch!) and toasted the English muffins while he poached our eggs and fried the bacon. It. Was. DELICIOUS. We ate it so quickly I completely forgot to snap a photo.

After some, ahem, alone time, we hit up the mall so I could buy some new shorts from H&M and spend my gift card at Indigo. I bought the next Phillipa Gregory novel, another by Tracy Chevalier, and a nerdy book full of advice from the smartest people in the world.**

After dinner, the boyfriend, the kids, and I skyped with my parents, my brothers, my twin brother's girlfriend, my best guy friend Joe,* and his girlfriend. I then opened my presents my parents had mailed to me.

My mom is hit or miss with books

The books are "token" presents. The real gift is getting my pearl & diamond ring repaired when I'm home this summer. One of the pearls fell off in January, and I really want it replaced.

When I got off work, the boyfriend and I went into the city. The line for the ROM was ridiculous, so we gave that up and searched for a bar with champagne, to no avail. Eventually we gave up and went home, to my disappointment. But the boyfriend promised we could get champagne Saturday night.

Annnnnnd this is a really long post. I'll sum up Saturday & Sunday in another one.

*Fake names. As always.

**Still confused as to why I wasn't consulted... Maybe they also had an age requirement?

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The Talk, Or How to Discuss Sex Without Scarring Your Children for Life

In honor of Mother's Day, I want to write about one of the best gifts my mom ever gave me: The Talk.

Can we just stop for a moment here and contemplate talking to kids about sex? I'm not a parent, but I am an au pair, and I have to handle S-E-X so carefully in conversation. (My older kids are 13 and 10, so, yeah, it's come up once or twice). I have no idea how I'm going to navigate that discussion when I have my own kids one day, but I really hope I do as good of a job as my mom did with my twin brother and me.

"Man to Man," in Once Upon a Mattress

My mom gave my twin brother and me “The Talk” when we were ten, an awkward but necessary conversation.* One of these days I should thank her for her perfectly balanced lecture (and for arranging it so we didn't have to look her in the eye). One night while cooking dinner, she told H and me we needed to talk about something. While she busied herself in the kitchen, we sat down and listened. She first presented the argument for abstinence until marriage, explaining “our” beliefs as Christians. She also told us that sex was a beautiful form of intimacy best shared between a husband and wife.

But because my mom totally rocks, she then continued with both an overview of contraception and the importance of never pressuring a future partner. We learned that condoms protected against pregnancy and STDs, that birth control pills were effective against pregnancy, but best used in a monogamous relationship because they did nothing to protect against STDs. We learned that sex should be a mutual decision in a relationship, that we should never feel pressured to do something we're not ready to do, that we should never pressure a future partner.

My mom ended by telling us that she hoped we decided to wait until marriage, but that when we were older, and if we were in a serious relationship, and if we decided to have sex with our significant other, then she hoped we would feel comfortable talking to her or our dad if we had any questions or concerns.

That was it.

That was The Talk.

Was it awkward? Of course.

Could it have been worse? Oh, Lord, yes, and thank God it wasn't!

Did it cover everything a good Talk should? Yes, it did, and I'm so grateful for it.

*Sex Ed at our school started in the sixth grade, so although I don't remember exactly when we received The Talk, it was before sixth grade started. Aka when we were 10.

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