my night manager (who is a gay man) and i sometimes sit down and exchange stories and tidbits about our sexuality and our experiences in the queer cultural enclave. and tonight he and i were talking about the AIDS epidemic. he’s about 50 years old. talking to him about it really hit me hard. like, at one point i commented, “yeah, i’ve heard that every gay person who lived through the epidemic knew at least 2 or 3 people who died,” and he was like “2 or 3? if you went to any bar in manhattan from 1980 to 1990, you knew at least two or three dozen. and if you worked at gay men’s health crisis, you knew hundreds.” and he just listed off so many of his friends who died from it, people who he knew personally and for years. and he even said he has no idea how he made it out alive.
it was really interesting because he said before the aids epidemic, being gay was almost cool. like, it was really becoming accepted. but aids forced everyone back in the closet. it destroyed friendships, relationships, so many cultural centers closed down over it. it basically obliterated all of the progress that queer people had made in the past 50 years.
and like, it’s weird to me, and what i brought to the conversation (i really couldn’t say much though, i was speechless mostly) was like, it’s so weird to me that there’s no continuity in our history? like, aids literally destroyed an entire generation of queer people and our culture. and when you think about it, we are really the first generation of queer people after the aids epidemic. but like, when does anyone our age (16-28 i guess?) ever really talk about aids in terms of the history of queer people? like it’s almost totally forgotten. but it was so huge. imagine that. like, dozens of your friends just dropping dead around you, and you had no idea why, no idea how, and no idea if you would be the next person to die. and it wasn’t a quick death. you would waste away for months and become emaciated and then, eventually, die. and i know it’s kinda sophomoric to suggest this, but like, imagine that happening today with blogs and the internet? like people would just disappear off your tumblr, facebook, instagram, etc. and eventually you’d find out from someone “oh yeah, they and four of their friends died from aids.”
so idk. it was really moving to hear it from someone who experienced it firsthand. and that’s the outrageous thing – every queer person you meet over the age of, what, 40? has a story to tell about aids. every time you see a queer person over the age of 40, you know they had friends who died of aids. so idk, i feel like we as the first generation of queer people coming out of the epidemic really have a responsibility to do justice to the history of aids, and we haven’t been doing a very good job of it.
Younger than 40.
I’m 36. I came out in 1995, 20 years ago. My girlfriend and I started volunteering at the local AIDS support agency, basically just to meet gay adults and meet people who maybe had it together a little better than our classmates. The antiretrovirals were out by then, but all they were doing yet was slowing things down. AIDS was still a death sentence.
The agency had a bunch of different services, and we did a lot of things helping out there, from bagging up canned goods from a food drive to sorting condoms by expiration date to peer safer sex education. But we both sewed, so… we both ended up helping people with Quilt panels for their beloved dead.
Do the young queers coming up know about the Quilt? If you want history, my darlings, there it is. They started it in 1985. When someone died, his loved ones would get together and make a quilt panel, 3’x6’, the size of a grave. They were works of art, many of them. Even the simplest, just pieces of fabric with messages of loved scrawled in permanent ink, were so beautiful and so sad.
They sewed them together in groups of 8 to form a panel. By the 90s, huge chunks of it were traveling the country all the time. They’d get an exhibition hall or a gym or park or whatever in your area, and lay out the blocks, all over the ground with paths between them, so you could walk around and see them. And at all times, there was someone reading. Reading off the names of the dead. There was this huge long list, of people whose names were in the Quilt, and people would volunteer to just read them aloud in shifts.
HIV- people would come in to work on panels, too, of course, but most of the people we were helping were dying themselves. The first time someone I’d worked closely with died, it was my first semester away at college. I caught the Greyhound home for his funeral in the beautiful, tiny, old church in the old downtown, with the bells. I’d helped him with his partner’s panel. Before I went back to school, I left supplies to be used for his, since I couldn’t be there to sew a stitch. I lost track of a lot of the people I knew there, busy with college and then plunged into my first really serious depressive cycle. I have no idea who, of all the people I knew, lived for how long.
The Quilt, by the way, weighs more than 54 tons, and has over 96,000 names. At that, it represents maybe 20% of the people who died of AIDS in the US alone.
There were many trans women dying, too, btw. Don’t forget them. (Cis queer women did die of AIDS, too, but in far smaller numbers.) Life was and is incredibly hard for trans women, especially TWOC. Pushed out to live on the streets young, or unable to get legal work, they were (and are) often forced into sex work of the most dangerous kinds, a really good way to get HIV at the time. Those for whom life was not quite so bad often found homes in the gay community, if they were attracted to men, and identified as drag queens, often for years before transitioning. In that situation, they were at the same risk for the virus as cis gay men.
Cis queer women, while at a much lower risk on a sexual vector, were there, too. Helping. Most of the case workers at that agency and every agency I later encountered were queer women. Queer woman cooked and cleaned and cared for the dying, and for the survivors. We held hands with those waiting for their test results. Went out on the protests, helped friends who could barely move to lie down on the steps of the hospitals that would not take them in — those were the original Die-Ins, btw, people who were literally lying down to die rather than move, who meant to die right there out in public — marched, carted the Quilt panels from place to place. Whatever our friends and brothers needed. We did what we could.
OK, that’s it, that’s all I can write. I keep crying. Go read some history. Or watch it, there are several good documentaries out there. Don’t watch fictional movies, don’t read or watch anything done by straight people, fuck them anyway, they always made it about the tragedy and noble suffering. Fuck that. Learn about the terror and the anger and the radicalism and the raw, naked grief.
I was there, though, for a tiny piece of it. And even that tiny piece of it left its stamp on me. Deep.
2011
A visual aid: this is the Quilt from the Names Project laid out on the Washington Mall
I was born (in Australia) at the time that the first AIDS cases began to surface in the US. While I was a witness after it finally became mainstream news (mid-85), I was also a child for much of it. For me there was never really a world Before. I’m 35 now and I wanted to know and understand what happened. I have some recommendations for sources from what I’ve been reading lately:
And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemicby Randy Shiltsis a seminal work on the history of HIV/AIDS. It’s chronological and gives an essential understanding of all the factors that contributed to the specific history of the virus’ spread through the US and the rest of the world, the political landscape into which it landed (almost the worst possible)*. Investigative journalism and eyewitness account. Shilts was himself an AIDS casualty in 1994.
Larry Kramer is a pretty polarising figure and he had issues with the sexual politics of gay New York to begin with (see: Faggots) but he’s polarising for a reason: he’s the epidemic’s Cassandra. Reports from the Holocaustcollects his writings on AIDS.
I don’t think I can actually bring myself to read memoirs for the same reason I can’t read about the Holocaust or Stalinist Russia any more. But I have a list:
Read or watchThe Normal Heart. Read or watch Angels in America. Read The Mayor of Castro Streetor watchMilk. Dallas Buyers Clubhas its issues but it’s also heartbreaking because the characters are exactly the politically unsavory people used to justify the lack of spending on research and treatment. It’s also an important look at the exercise of agency by those afflicted and abandoned by their government/s, how they found their own ways to survive. There’s a film of And the Band Played Onbut JFC it’s a mess. You need to have read the book.
Everyone should read about the history of the AIDS epidemic. Especially if you are American, especially if you are a gay American man. HIV/AIDS is not now the death sentence it once was but before antiretrovirals it was just that. It was long-incubating and a-symptomatic until, suddenly, it was not.
Read histories. Read them because reality is complex and histories attempt to elucidate that complexity. Read them because past is prologue and the past is always, in some form, present. We can’t understand here and now if we don’t know about then.
*there are just SO MANY people I want to punch in the throat.
They’ve recently digitized the Quilt as well with a map making software, I spent about three hours looking through it the other day and crying. There are parts of it that look like they were signed by someone’s peers in support and memoriam, and then you realize that the names were all written in the same writing.
That these were all names of over 20 dead people that someone knew, often it was people who’d all been members of a club or threatre group.
As well, there are numerous people who were buried in graves without headstones, having been disenfranchised from their families. I read this story the other day on that which went really in depth (I would warn that it highlights the efforts of a cishet woman throughout the crisis): http://arktimes.com/arkansas/ruth-coker-burks-the-cemetery-angel/Content?oid=3602959
Looking at the digital quilt is heartbreaking. So many of mi gente, dead.
I’m in tears after reading some of that quilt
As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn’t touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn’t stop. The substance of grief is not imaginary. It’s as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things, it can kill. My body understood there was no safe place for me to be.
–The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
i think about this quote a lot in relation to HIV and my history.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” panted John as Sherlock worked his pants open.
“So?” Asked Sherlock, dipping his hands into John’s pants.
John laughed against his lips. “We’re in a cab, drunk, and I’m getting married tomorrow.”
“Cabbie doesn’t care,” said Sherlock, slipping his tongue into John’s mouth.
John groaned.
The cab came to a stop. “We’re here,” she said. “Gents might want to get out.”
Sherlock tucked John away. “Come on.”
John giggled again and followed him. As it turned out, they didn’t make it up the stairs.
80. “How can you think I’m anything but hopelessly in love with you?” Destiel
Cas and Dean fought for their lives, back to back, ground slick with blood. Dean grunted as someone got in a lucky hit. Cas was there in an instant, dispatching the last of their foes. He caught Dean as he sagged.
“Dean,” he said.
The hunter smiled up at him, despite the pain. “Glad you’re here.”
Castiel touched the wound to heal it. “Of course I’m here.”
“Why?” asked Dean as Cas brought his head low.
“Why? How can you think I’m anything but hopelessly in love with you?”
88. “Don’t panic but I think we might have accidentally gotten married…” Jack/Ten
“There you are,” said Jack as the Doctor came around slowly.
He rubbed his head. “What happened.”
“Well, don’t panic, but I think we might have accidently got married…” said Jack.
The Doctor sat up too fast, groaned and put his head between his knees. “That doesn’t explain the headache.”
“These people have a ceremony. There was a lot of liquor involved. Which is why I think we both agreed in the first place.”
The Doctor took a deep breath. “Did you find the Tardis?”
“I think so, yeah. Didn’t want to leave you while you were out.”
“Good.” The Doctor struggled to his feet. Jack put an arm around him. “Haven’t woke up with a headache this bad since I invented the banana daiquiri,” muttered the Doctor.
“You should try being married to me,” grinned Jack.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “I hope you don’t consider it legally binding once we get off this planet.”
“Spoilsport. We could have a great honeymoon.”
93. “I tried, but I just can’t stay away from you anymore.” Johnlock
Of course it was a perfectly sunny day when John stood on the doorstep on 221B. Rain would have been more appropriate, but he didn’t control the weather. He opened the door and went in, climbing the stairs, hearing violin, some tune he didn’t know.
The violin halted as he stood in the doorway, hand reflexively squeezing.
“I tried, but I just can’t stay away from you anymore,” said John, voice tight.
“But we agreed….Mary…” said Sherlock frozen in place.
“I don’t care.” John crossed the room and yanked him into a rough kiss.
Sherlock surrendered, setting the violin aside without breaking the kiss. The’d work this out, somehow.
95. “There’s no going back if we do this.” Mystrade
“Gregory, are you sure?” Mycroft searched Greg’s eyes. “There’s no going back if we do this.”
Greg gave him a warm smile. “Yep. Don’t worry, I’ll be right here with you.”
The fact that sherlock doesn’t say “because you *chose* her” but says “because you chose *her*”
The fact that when John says “oh God yes” it sounds like a goddamn porn movie
The fact that Sherlock always corrects everyone when they are wrong and he never corrected anyone who assumed that he and john were a couple
The fact that when John tells Irene “I am not gay” she responds “well I am. Look at us both” meaning if she is gay and she likes Sherlock then John, who isn’t gay, can also like Sherlock
The fact that John licks his lips when he asks Sherlock if he has a boyfriend
The fact that when Sherlock answers “no” John comments that he is also single
The fact the the most observant man on earth thought that John flirted with him
The fact that when Irene is naked John asks her to cover herself but when Sherlock is just wearing a sheet he leans closer and takes a better look
The fact that when Sherlock says “John doesn’t know where to look” Irene says she thinks he knows exactly where and John is not looking at Irene
The fact that when Irene says somebody loves you, the shot changes and we see John
The fact that even though it is Mary and John’s wedding we mostly see Sherlock through the entire episode and we hear stories about him and John
The fact that in the scene where they discover Mary is pregnant, that is supposed to be a happy moment between husband and wife, we only see Mary in three shots and the rest of the scene is John and Sherlock looking at each other
The fact that Sherlock leaves the wedding early
The fact that when Sherlock thought Irene had died the first time, John and Mycroft thought that Sherlock would go back to doing drugs and after John got married he found Sherlock using
The fact that Sherlock says “I meant to say *always* and I never did” and then he says that Sherlock is a girl’s name while he has *just* found out that the baby is a girl.
The fact that when John is living with Mary he has, once again, nightmares
The fact that Sherlock says that fire exposes our priorities and we see John running towards Sherlock after the explosion and Sherlock trying to save John from a fire
The fact than Sherlock tells John not to write about the unsolved cases but then he explains an unsolved one in front of everyone just to praise John
The fact that in Irene’s living room Sherlock deduces that John has a date tonight but we later see him at home saying he’ll be next door of sherlock needs him
The fact that Sherlock sees Mary in a wedding dress shooting him and Mark Gatiss said they did it in case somebody didn’t understand the first time that John marring Mary is killing him
The fact that when Moriarty says that John is in danger Sherlock’s heart restarts
The fact that Sherlock says you might need to restart my heart looking at John
The fact that john shaves for Sherlock
The fact that when Sherlock’s winking when he meets john for the first time is out of character until you realize that in Many Happy Returns Sherlock says that people seem to like it when he winks
The fact that the relationship that mrs Hudson describes between herself and her husband reflects the relationship between Mary and John
The fact that in front of the least sensual and sentimental kiss between Sherlock and Janine john has the most excessive reaction
The fact that in Sherlock’s speech when he says “you know, he is a romantic” he then turns towards John and winks
The fact that John doesn’t remember that his girlfriend has a dog but he remembers how many messages with “that sound” Sherlock has received and then Sherlock answers “thrilling you’ve been counting”
The fact that Sherlock tells Irene that sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side but he tells John “two people that love you most in this world” and on the same episode John says “the two people that I love and care about most in this world”
The fact that they both have to include Mary when they confess their love for each other
The fact that when they are both drunk John leans forward and touches Sherlock’s knee and then says “I don’t mind.”
The fact that Sherlock never begs for mercy but he begs for John’s life in Irene’s lining room
The fact that when Irene asks “are you jealous” John avoids answering directly and he simply states that they are not a couple. Therefor he shouldn’t be jealous.
The fact that Irene who has an interest in Sherlock she comments on his cheekbones and on the next episode John makes a comment on his cheekbones as well.
I made this list like forever ago and I found it yesterday and I thought “It doesn’t hurt to share”
Also the fact that irene clearly uses dinner as a sexual metaphor, which Sherlock repeatedly rejects…and when John asks “dinner?” Sherlock replies “starving”.
When I was nine, possibly ten, an author came to our school to talk about writing. His name was Hugh Scott, and I doubt he’s known outside of Scotland. And even then I haven’t seen him on many shelves in recent years in Scotland either. But he wrote wonderfully creepy children’s stories, where the supernatural was scary, but it was the mundane that was truly terrifying. At least to little ten year old me. It was Scooby Doo meets Paranormal Activity with a bonny braw Scottish-ness to it that I’d never experienced before.
I remember him as a gangling man with a wiry beard that made him look older than he probably was, and he carried a leather bag filled with paper. He had a pen too that was shaped like a carrot, and he used it to scribble down notes between answering our (frankly disinterested) questions. We had no idea who he was you see, no one had made an effort to introduce us to his books. We were simply told one morning, ‘class 1b, there is an author here to talk to you about writing’, and this you see was our introduction to creative writing. We’d surpassed finger painting and macaroni collages. It was time to attempt Words That Were Untrue.
You could tell from the look on Mrs M’s face she thought it was a waste of time. I remember her sitting off to one side marking papers while this tall man sat down on our ridiculously short chairs, and tried to talk to us about what it meant to tell a story. She wasn’t big on telling stories, Mrs M. She was also one of the teachers who used to take my books away from me because they were “too complicated” for me, despite the fact that I was reading them with both interest and ease. When dad found out he hit the roof. It’s the one and only time he ever showed up to the school when it wasn’t parents night or the school play. After that she just left me alone, but she made it clear to my parents that she resented the fact that a ten year old used words like ‘ubiquitous’ in their essays. Presumably because she had to look it up.
Anyway, Mr Scott, was doing his best to talk to us while Mrs M made scoffing noises from her corner every so often, and you could just tell he was deflating faster than a bouncy castle at a knife sharpening party, so when he asked if any of us had any further questions and no one put their hand up I felt awful. I knew this was not only insulting but also humiliating, even if we were only little children. So I did the only thing I could think of, put my hand up and said “Why do you write?”
I’d always read about characters blinking owlishly, but I’d never actually seen it before. But that’s what he did, peering down at me from behind his wire rim spectacles and dragging tired fingers through his curly beard. I don’t think he expected anyone to ask why he wrote stories. What he wrote about, and where he got his ideas from maybe, and certainly why he wrote about ghosts and other creepy things, but probably not why do you write. And I think he thought perhaps he could have got away with “because it’s fun, and learning is fun, right kids?!”, but part of me will always remember the way the world shifted ever so slightly as it does when something important is about to happen, and this tall streak of a man looked down at me, narrowed his eyes in an assessing manner and said, “Because people told me not to, and words are important.”
I nodded, very seriously in the way children do, and knew this to be a truth. In my limited experience at that point, I knew certain people (with a sidelong glance to Mrs M who was in turn looking at me as though she’d just known it’d be me that type of question) didn’t like fiction. At least certain types of fiction. I knew for instance that Mrs M liked to read Pride and Prejudice on her lunch break but only because it was sensible fiction, about people that could conceivably be real. The idea that one could not relate to a character simply because they had pointy ears or a jet pack had never occurred to me, and the fact that it’s now twenty years later and people are still arguing about the validity of genre fiction is beyond me, but right there in that little moment, I knew something important had just transpired, with my teacher glaring at me, and this man who told stories to live beginning to smile. After that the audience turned into a two person conversation, with gradually more and more of my classmates joining in because suddenly it was fun. Mrs M was pissed and this bedraggled looking man who might have been Santa after some serious dieting, was starting to enjoy himself. As it turned out we had all of his books in our tiny corner library, and in the words of my friend Andrew “hey there’s a giant spider fighting a ghost on this cover! neat!” and the presentation devolved into chaos as we all began reading different books at once and asking questions about each one. “Does she live?”— “What about the talking trees” —“is the ghost evil?” —“can I go to the bathroom, Miss?” —“Wow neat, more spiders!”
After that we were supposed to sit down, quietly (glare glare) and write a short story to show what we had learned from listening to Mr Scott. I wont pretend I wrote anything remotely good, I was ten and all I could come up with was a story about a magic carrot that made you see words in the dark, but Mr Scott seemed to like it. In fact he seemed to like all of them, probably because they were done with such vibrant enthusiasm in defiance of the people who didn’t want us to.
The following year, when I’d moved into Mrs H’s class—the kind of woman that didn’t take away books from children who loved to read and let them write nonsense in the back of their journals provided they got all their work done—a letter arrived to the school, carefully wedged between several copies of a book which was unheard of at the time, by a new author known as J.K. Rowling. Mrs H remarked that it was strange that an author would send copies of books that weren’t even his to a school, but I knew why he’d done it. I knew before Mrs H even read the letter.
Because words are important. Words are magical. They’re powerful. And that power ought to be shared. There’s no petty rivalry between story tellers, although there’s plenty who try to insinuate it. There’s plenty who try to say some words are more valuable than others, that somehow their meaning is more important because of when it was written and by whom. Those are the same people who laud Shakespeare from the heavens but refuse to acknowledge that the quote “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them“ is a dick joke.
And although Mr Scott seems to have faded from public literary consumption, I still think about him. I think about his stories, I think about how he recommended another author and sent copies of her books because he knew our school was a puritan shithole that fought against the Wrong Type of Wordes and would never buy them into the library otherwise. But mostly I think about how he looked at a ten year old like an equal and told her words and important, and people will try to keep you from writing them—so write them anyway.
*sobs for like the umpteenth time this day and reblogs the fuck out of this*
This isn’t my post, but I’m going to share my own story on here and I hope that’s okay. I was a weird, bullied kid that escaped into books all the time. I loved stories and I loved telling them even before I even really knew what I was doing. As I got older I liked writing them, but I mostly kept it to myself.
Fourth grade I had my favorite teacher ever, Mr. Murphy. He was a bit of an odd teacher, had his own ways of doing and teaching things and would probably never get away with half of what he did now in today’s testing focused and high security environment (he once had a friend of his dressed up as a fur trapper just show up in the middle of class one day to talk to us). And he enjoyed encouraging creativity
I will never, so long as I live, forget the day that he gave us all an assignment: Take one sentence he gave us, and write, for ten minutes. ‘The waves rocked the boat’ was the sentence. Me and my overactive imagination wrote the first paragraphs of a story about a bunch of diplomats lost at sea.
He gathered everyone’s papers and to my horror began to read them aloud. This was fourth grade, mind, so almost all the other ten year olds had pretty much written cutsey fishing stories, not the start of epics.
Finally he got to mine and though I couldn’t vanish under my desk I waited to be dismissed or scoffed at or told that i had Done It Wrong.
Instead he read it and looked at me and in front of all my classmates said “This is really good. You’ve got talent.” And it was the first time in my life someone outside of my parents said I was good at something.
The bullying didn’t stop, of course, but I knew then beyond any doubt, that I could write. That it was okay that I liked to tell stories. That it was okay that I had a big imagination. He encouraged me writing all through that year and when I self published my first book a couple years ago I found he still taught at the same school and emailed him to thank him for all he’d done.
To my shock and surprise, he still remembered me, 25 years later. And he was glad to know I was still writing.
I was tagged by @songlin to do a “this year in writing”. I feel like I didn’t do much, but we both know that’s not quite true, is it?
January: This was I think my most productive month, at least half of which was fueled by Sherlock Seattle. Ten fics this month of which I’m most pleased with Proposition (my first pegging!), What Makes you Beautiful (stupid frothy fun) and
April: This is where things are dropping off because I was out of work and writing to make money more then writing for fandom. But I still got out one,
Some Kind of Home is G rated Jack Harkness feels. Some more pwp and harkstiel in there too.
August: Two again.
Coming Home will have more added to it at some point, I don’t feel like it’s totally finished. I need to work on it again. Also the fic demanded that it be johncroft. I didn’t plan it that way.
Take Me Back to the Start, a feelsy s3 johnlock fic. Also some mystrade in there too and johnlock pwp.
December: Five, plus I’m sitting on one that I’ll probably post in the next day or so, so I’m going to call it 6. Mostly for the Harkstiel advent that I utterly failed at. And also
Well, that’s more than I thought I did. Not as much as some other years, but I really should stop feeling guilty for not writing more. 47 Fics in total is nothing to sneeze at, especially since I got in some longer ones. Now do I poke my muse and try to get to 50 before the first?
Also I’m presently sitting at 320 total fics. August 1 was my 2nd anniversary in the Sherlock fandom and
This post is going to be a mess, because I’m just …untidily angry right now. It began with a series of tweets I made today about my ever-broken Datsun. The mechanic had told my husband that he was “working on that Datsun just as fast as I can because now that I’ve met her I can’t wait to get that little girl behind the wheel again.”
Little girl.
As I tweeted that I was 33 and had earned each of those years and thus preferred to be referred to as “Danger Smog-Dragon” or “Rage-Mistress” or “Ephemeral Time Lady” or “Maggie Stiefvater, #1 NYT Bestselling Author of the Raven Cycle,” a well-meaning fellow replied that perhaps I should “use [my] words, politely but firmly, to his face…” He further observed that he’d told his wife that “you know, Honey, unless you’re willing to SAY THAT to (those people), NOTHING is going to change”.
(note: please do not go search for this fellow on twitter to rage at him; this is not about him. He is set dressing, made more appropriate to the conversation at hand by the fact that he probably is a perfectly nice guy who really didn’t mean disrespect).
I told TwitterMan that I was tired of have to use my words.It’s been 33 years of using my words. Why is it my job to continuously ask to be treated equivalent to a male customer? Why is that when I arrive at a shop, I’m reminded that I have to push the clutch in if I want to start my own car? It’s 2015. Why is it still all sexism all the time?
I discovered that I was actually furious. I thought I was over being furious, but it turns out, the rage was merely dormant. I’m furious that it’s been over a decade and nothing has changed. I’m furious that sexism was everywhere in the world of college-Maggie and it remains thus, even if I out-learn, out-earn, out-drive, and out-perform my male counterparts. At the end of the day, I’m still “little girl.”
Possibly this is the point where some people are asking why this tiny gesture of all gestures should be the one to break me.
Here is the anatomy of my rage.
Step one: It is 1999 or 2000. I am 16. I go to college. A professor tells me I’m pretty. A married man in the bagpipe band I’m in tells me he just can’t control himself around me: he stays up nights thinking of my
skin. Another man tells me he can’t believe that ‘a little bitch’ like me got into the competition group after a year of playing when he’s been at it for twenty years. After becoming friends with a professor’s daughter, I’m at her house sleeping on the couch, and I wake up to find the professor running his hand from my ankle bone to my thigh. I pretend I’m still asleep. I’m 17. “If something happened to my wife,” he tells me later, “I could be with you.” At my next visit to her house, I see the wife’s left a book on the kitchen table: how to rekindle your husband’s love.
Step two: It’s 2008. I finally buy the car of my dreams, a 1973 Camaro, and make it my official business vehicle. The first time I take it to put gas in it, a man tells me, “if I were your husband, I wouldn’t want you out driving my car.” I tell him, “if you were my husband, I’d be a widow.” The car requires a lot of gas. I get cat-called every other time I’m at a gas station. Once, I go into the gas station to get a drink, and when I come out, a bunch of guys have parked me in. They want, they say, to have a word with me,
little lady. We play automotive chicken which I win because I would rather smash the back of my ’73 Camaro into their IROC than have to stab one of them with the knife on my keychain.
Step three: It’s 2011. I’m on tour in a European country, on my own, escorted only by my foreign publisher. I am at a business dinner, and say I’m going to my room. My female editor embraces me; my male publicist embraces me and then puts his tongue in my ear, covering it with his hand so that the crowd of twenty professionals does not see. My choices are to say nothing to avoid making a scene in front of my publisher’s people, or to say FUCK YOU. I apparently was never offered the choice of not having a tongue in my ear.
Step four: It’s 2012. I buy a race car. Well, a rally car. Someone asks my male co-driver if I’m good in bed. Someone asks me if I got sponsorship because someone was ‘trying to check the woman box.’ People ask me if I drive like a girl. Yeah, I do, actually. Let’s play a game called: who’s faster off the start?
Step five: It’s 2014. I’m driving my Camaro cross-country on book tour. It breaks down a lot. I’m under the hood and a pick up truck stops beside me. “Hey baby,” asks the driver, “do you need any help?” “Yeah,” I reply, “do you have a 5/8 wrench?” He did not.
Step six: It’s 2015. It’s sixteen years after I learned that I was a thing to be touched and kissed and hooted at unless I took it upon
myself to say no, and no again, and no some more, and no no no. My friend Tessa Gratton points out that a male author used casually sexist language in a brief interview. She is dragged through the muck for pointing out how deeply-rooted our systemic sexism is. The publishing industry rises to the defense of the male author as if he has been deeply wronged. I tweet that the language was indeed sexist, though I didn’t think it was useful to condemn said male author. A male editor emails me privately to ask me if maybe I wasn’t being a little problematic by engaging in the discussion?
Step seven. Still 2015. Someone very close to me confesses
that her college boyfriend keeps trying to push her past kissing, and she doesn’t want to. I tell her to set boundaries, and leave him if he doesn’t. A month passes. This week I find out she just had sex for the first time after he urged her to have several glasses of wine. She doesn’t drink. She was crying. She says, “I didn’t say no, though.”
It’s been sixteen damn years. I’m tired of having to say no. I’m tired of the media telling me that it’s mouth breathing bros and rednecks perpetuating the sexism. No: I can tell you that the most insidious form is the nice guy. Who is a nice guy, don’t get me wrong. I carry my own prejudices that I work through, and I don’t believe in demonizing people who aren’t perfect yet — none of us are. But the nice guy who says something sexist gets away with it. The nice guy who says something sexist sounds right and reasonable. The nice guy’s not helping, though. It’s been sixteen years, and the nice guys are nice, but we’re still things to be acquired. We are still creatures to be asked on dates. We are still saying no, still shouting NO, still having to always again and again say “no, please treat me with respect.”
I was just invited to a car show; the well-meaning guy who asked wanted me to bring my souped up Mitsubishi. I clicked on the event page. It’s catered by Hooters. I’m not going. Yeah, it’s a little thing, but I have a lifetime of them. I’m taking my toys and going home.
“I can’t wait to get that little girl behind the wheel
again.”
I call complete bullshit on these stories they were simply made to make men look like pigs when most if not all of these did not happen
My friend, I invite you to come to any of my events this year: http://maggiestiefvater.com/appearances/ and say this to my face. I would like to see the expression on your face when you’re saying it, so that I can understand. And then, I’ll tell you these stories with the actual details, and perhaps a dozen more, and I would like you to look at the expression on my face when I tell them, so that you can understand.
The cool thing about this exchange will be that one of us will be telling the truth. The cool thing about the internet is that they already know which one of us that is. Do you know why? Because you have become just another one of those stories.
In case you haven’t noticed: the guy offers Dean a hot-dog and Dean answers that he wants one… then Amara stops him from having his hot-dog, but then she makes him reappear there and Dean look around and there’s still the hot-dog guy selling hot-dogs
So the question is: will Dean get his Cas hot-dog at the end of the show?
“How do you like your hot dog?” “Yay big, trench coat, sensible shoes…”
“Dark hair, blue eyes…”
Seems accurate.
First cake, now hot dogs? Do destiel shippers just love making bisexuality into food?
Oh, you have no idea! I love making asexuality into sushi. I have a pan friend that loves making pansexuality into sakura mochi, right @domlerrys?
Also I’m flattered that you found my post so interesting and relevant that you felt like commenting on it. Thank you!
I’ve been featured into the destiew tag! It’s great honor.
I think now I’ll go and make a meta about how apple pie represents familial love and pecan pie represents family in general and cherry pie represents Dean’s attraction to women, with a special mention to tacos and pig in a poke… I might also take Sam into consideration too and discuss how salad and organic food represent his desire of feeling “clean”. I might also discuss how corn syrup represented corruption while honey represented purity. And maybe also discuss the link between Death and junk food. And maybe if I still have time I’ll write about the opposition between alcohol and coffee!
What do you think?
I think someone needs a trip to the sensitive house for taking such offense for being called out on their blantent disrespect towards misrepresenting sexualities.
The funniest thing is that I was talking about Cas being the “dog that thinks he’s people”.
I actually love your meta outline, it’s full of truth. Corn syrup vs honey, I love it! Whether or not you want to involve bisexuality in particular, it’s clear that food and drink have symbolic meanings on Supernatural.
That thing where crazy!Cas offered them honey and sandwiches… I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was being really helpful. The Leviathan corn syrup was in all food and drink by then, so Sam and Dean had been living on bananas and water. They needed some real food to boost their energy for the fight. Cas had collected the honey himself and he had sourced the raw materials for the sandwiches himself, in Europe. He offered them food that they could trust, that they could eat.
I love all of this. And yeah, while crazy!Cas was running around finding untainted and pure foods to sustain Dean and Sam, Dean was actively complaining to Sam that he couldn’t live off the stuff they could find locally that was “safe” to eat, because he’s a warrior. Makes you wonder if Dean’s longing for a decent sandwich was what sent Cas off on that quest for a decent sandwich…
But when the plot of an entire SEASON of the show revolved around food (from the Biggerson’s TDK slammer goo to the tainted corn syrup to the leviathans trying to farm humanity as their own perfect food source), it’s idiotic not to at least look for other instances in the series where food has been used as a metaphor for something else, from Gabriel and his sweet tooth to Dean’s longstanding fixation on pie and recent interest in cake.
Season ten also featured NUMEROUS occasions showing Dean sampling everything from croissookies to kale to egg white omelettes, and every cuisine in between (including one scene where much was made of the ridiculous variety of foods he had on his tray at one time). Someone took the time, money, and effort to stage all of those scenes, to include the foods specifically. In a tightly budgeted tv show, every prop that features on screen matters. Sure, some of the background stuff is probably random, but things that feature directly in the dialogue are usually there on purpose. This is just how visual storytelling works. To say that there’s no subtext implied with the very specific food choices the writers, producers, directors, and set designers are including in the show is just plain silly, and every writer I know will agree with that.
I’d also like to draw attention to the numerous instances where Sam sat back and watched Dean eating while having nothing himself (like when he first came back from Purgatory and Sam got Dean that cheeseburger), after we have several canon references to Dean being the one to ‘go hungry’ while giving Sam his choice of the limited food they had available. The cereal from 1.18, the fact that Dean got himself arrested trying to steal peanut butter and bread in 9.07… and Sam still side-eyes Dean over his gross and indulgent eating habits, but he’s often the one indulging Dean in the first place. Somewhere deep down, Sam understands it.
Gah. Like @postmodernmulticoloredcloak, I could find a million food-related tangents to run down, but not right now. I need a snack. This post made me hungry. 🙂
