I don't ordinarily do much about Valentine's Day. Besides being the anniversary of the day my back was damaged (22 years now - half my life ago), I've a number of friends who are single but don't want to be, and who find the day really unpleasant and painful as a result, with its strong emphasis on dyadic happiness.
But this year, one of my partners (a woman) happened to be in town (I have two long-distance relationships at the moment - we're all polyamourous, no "cheating" involved) on V-Day, so we went out for dinner, to a local steakhouse we like reasonably well.
It's a fairly ordinary steakhouse/sports bar, lots of TVs tuned to various mercenary companies playing sundry forms of "put the MacGuffin in the scorehole more often than the other bunch does"*.
Anyway, we went, and were seated, and were handed the V-Day special menu, from which we ordered - it was a thing where you could get various dishes "for two", as it were, served on a main plate with the intent of sharing it.
In the background, the TVs blared eight different McGuffin-moving-matches at once, and faintly, if you listened carefully, you could hear a succession of bland pop songs under it all.
Just after we ordered, a song came on: I Kissed A Girl, I don't know which version, but it made me smile.
And then recognize what this was: we were, very evidently to anyone, on a date, two women in a sports bar, effectively, having a romantic dinner like any hetero couple might. And were served off the "couples" menu, while listening to a pop song(!) in which a woman loudly proclaimed how much she'd enjoyed her moment in the lesbo sun.
My mind went back, to many dinners with many dates, over the years, and how it used to be we would travel to Toronto to have such a romantic dinner so we could have it on Church Street and not have to worry, being surrounded by other queer and/or queer-friendly folk - rather than face dirty looks and slurs, poor service, and all kinds of "you're not welcome here, dirty queers" responses, that generally stopped short of anything you could report to the Human Rights Tribunal.
That is what the homomentum does for me. It means I no longer have to drive a two hundred kilometre (hundred and twenty mile) round trip to have a date. It means popular media include me, and people like me, at least a little. It means matter-of-factly handing the "couples" menu to any group of people as wants it. It means relationships that look like mine don't make heads turn.
It isn't about special rights. It's not about having a lifestyle. It's about having a life, like anyone else's: to be able to go out for a nice evening together, and to be free of harrassment, opprobrium, and not occasionally physical danger.
So maybe we don't all need same-sex marriage, even the queer folk. But even if you personally don't need it, its existence is yet another piece of making it so being queer isn't...well, queer. It's another tiny piece of making us part of "normal".
And on that level, every single jurisdiction, no matter how small or remote, adds another teaspoonful to that big sack of homomentum.
Thanks, Maryland. And all the others.
* And geez, what do you think Freud would have to say about that? Group after group of large, physically masculine men, gathering in groups which they prefer not to include women, to symbolically stick their McGuffin in the scorehole as often as possible. Getting any sense of metaphor here?
A Different Way to Feel the Homomentum
Feel the Homomentum!
Woot! Maryland to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other places:
Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) declared Wednesday that Maryland will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and that its agencies should immediately begin affording gay married couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.I really love his matter-of-factness about it. While opponents are going apoplectic, Gansler just gives a straightforward soundbite about it, casually underlining that equality isn't a radical notion.
With Gansler's decision, Maryland in effect joins [Washington D.C.] and a handful of states including New York that recognize same-sex marriages performed in four New England states and Iowa. [D.C.] also has its own measure legalizing those unions that is expected to take effect next week.
Gansler, a supporter of legalizing same-sex marriages, was asserting his authority as the top legal adviser to state agencies to answer a question that experts say had been left unclear by Maryland law. He was responding to a legislator's request that he issue an opinion.
The attorney general's opinion unleashed a torrent of emotions from both gay rights advocates and those opposed to same-sex marriage, adding a potentially explosive issue to election-year politics in Maryland. It is likely to be quickly challenged in court, Gansler acknowledged.
...In a news conference, Gansler went beyond the written opinion, saying his writing should dictate how state agencies respond when same-sex couples from elsewhere request benefits and legal protections.
"It's not that foreign of a concept. I mean, it's just people. It's just like any other heterosexual couples," Gansler said. "However a heterosexual couple is treated that was validly married in Maryland or elsewhere, [a same-sex couple] will be treated like that here in Maryland, unless and until a court or the legislature decides differently."
(Or shouldn't be.)
Del. Heather R. Mizeur (D-Montgomery), an openly gay delegate ... was joined at the [celebratory news conference Wednesday afternoon] by her spouse, Deborah.Blub.
The couple held a marriage celebration in Maryland in 2005 and was legally married in California in 2008. At the news conference, Mizeur held up a copy of their marriage certificate.
"The [attorney general's] opinion says my state can and should recognize my marriage," Mizeur said.
This will see a court challenge, and opposition will be fierce and obnoxious and rude and unfair and hateful, but it also has the potential to move Maryland one step closer to legalizing same-sex marriage.
Captain America
So I'm reading about how Marvel is doing "screen tests this week in its search for the actor to play Steve Rogers, the alter ego of the title character in its 'Captain America' movie," and I notice that the list of contenders—John Krasinski, Michael Cassidy, Patrick Flueger, Scott Porter, Mike Vogel, and Chace Crawford—has the same problem as Details' "Next Generation of Hollywood's Leading Men" gallery I mentioned the other day.
Now, I know that Captain America is a white dude in the comic and all, and I remember that it was fucking heresy to suggest that Star Trek's Captain Pike be recast as a woman, but I stand by my contention that a belief in the inherent equality of people renders absurd any argument that a privileged character must retain the characteristics of privilege to prevent undermining a character's heroic nature.
Which is a fancy way of saying that I don't believe Captain America has to be white. Or straight. Or even a dude.
(As an aside, I'm unthrilled with a female counterpart named American Dream. Heroines are treated as sexualized fantasy objects enough without having "Dream" right in their names.)
The questions up for discussion, thus, are: Who would you cast as Captain America? And why?
I'm giving my vote to Rosario Dawson. She hails from NYC, which is a quintessentially American town, she's a philanthropist, she's a feminist, and she's Puerto Rican, Afro-Cuban, Native American, and Irish, which is exactly the sort of melting pot make-up I would expect an anthropomorphized America to have.
Sigh
Obama Defends His Policies to CEOs:
President Obama rejected assertions on Wednesday that his domestic program amounted to big-government socialism."Seriously, dudez," he added. "I'm only acting even marginally like a Democrat because I have to."
Speaking to a group of corporate leaders, he defended his spending, tax and regulatory initiatives as the natural response to a historic economic crisis.
Declaring himself an "ardent believer in the free market," Mr. Obama challenged a line of criticism that has fueled discontent with his presidency. The policies of his first year in office, he said, "were about saving the economy from collapse, not about expanding government's reach into the economy."
Healthcare Open Thread
The Big Bipartisan Healthcare Summit is today (currently streaming on C-SPAN), and there's a lot riding on it. Here's some of this morning's recommended reading:
Michael Tomasky: The Healthcare Summit Stakes
McClatchy: Big Stakes for All as Obama, Lawmakers Talk Health Care
USA Today: Poll: Expectations Low on Health Summit
Gallup: Americans Tilt Against Democrats' Plans if Summit Fails
New York Times: Preparing for Health Debate, and Its TV Audience
WaPo: A Viewer's Guide to the Health-Care Summit
Ezra Klein: There's No Plan B for Health-Care Reform
WaPo: Obama May Compromise on Consumer Agency to Pass Financial Regulation
Discuss.
In Which I Substitute an Email Conversation with Liss for an Actual Post
Liss: What. the. Fucking. Fuck.
Deeky: No.
Deeky: Seriously. This story is a hoax, right? As is this line: "The pair has Walter the Farting Dog in development at Fox, with the Jonas Brothers starring." There is no way this could be happening. No. It can't be.
Liss: I'm just... WHUT? There is no way that anyone thinks this is a good idea.
Deeky: George Lopez thinks the big fat paycheck he's getting is a good idea.
Liss: What a total jerk. And I don't know why I'm under the totally absurd impression that people in Hollywood would consider this a BAD idea, considering the existence of the multi-part Shrek franchise, the central character of which is literally just a collection of nasty Scottish stereotypes. Still. They don't even play Speedy Gonzales cartoons anymore because they're FUCKING OFFENSIVE. Still. Jeff "Jose Jalapeno" Dunham has his own show on Comedy Central. Still. Christ.
Deeky: Also in development: Beaners: The Motion Picture, Wetback: The Musical, and the dramedy Lazy Mexicans.
Liss: And the new Baz Lurhman musical, Picante Immigrante.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker artem1s: If you could bring one person forward in time and show them how they affected the world, who would that be and why? Sort of a George Bailey moment.
"I'm doing this to demystify abortion."
Shakers KarateMonkey and Leah emailed me about Angie the Anti-Theist, a blogger whose birth control failed, resulting in a pregnancy which she decided to terminate. And she decided to use the occasion of her abortion to talk about it, via Twitter and YouTube. "I'm doing this to demystify abortion," she explains. "I just wanna let everybody know that you, too, can have an abortion, if you want one."
[Transcript below.]
Hi, YouTube. This is Angie the Antitheist. This is not a scripted video, so I apologize for the higher incidents of ums and you knows.
I found out about a week ago, Saturday, that I was pregnant. Um, for a variety of reasons, including, uh, very high health risks for me, I am having an abortion. Right now.
They have abortion by pill now—RU-486. I went to the doctor, Planned Parenthood, had blood tests and everything else done; they did a sonogram to check the state of my pregnancy; I'm at only four weeks, one—I was at only four weeks, one day, when I went into the office on Thursday. Um, they sent me home with some medicines; I've taken those. They take awhile to set in; I ended up actually going and getting a second dose, uh, but, uh, yeah, I'm having an abortion right now. It's not that bad. It's not that scary. It's basically like a miscarriage.
I'm live-tweeting my abortion on Twitter. Not for some publicity stunt, or attention, or to justify this to myself; I am at peace with my decision.
I'm doing this to demystify abortion. I'm doing this so that other women know, "Hey, it's not nearly as terrifying as I had myself worked up thinking it was." It's just not that bad.
This is nothing compared to childbirth. Compared to labor. Compared to, for me and my risks, late-stage pregnancy. This is the best choice. And it's not that bad. And I want people to know that it's out there, that, if you need this, there's non-surgical options available, especially in the earliest stage of pregnancy. Um, obviously, everybody use protection, uh, sometimes that doesn't work, and, when it doesn't, there's the morning-after pill, and, if you're not in time for that, there's RU-486.
So, I just wanna let everybody know that, uh, you, too, can have an abortion, if you want one. It's okay. It's not shameful. It's not secret. It's not killing a child. I have a little boy. You guys have seen him on my video channel. He is my world. I wanna stay alive and be his mom for a lot longer. So I'm having an abortion.
My So-Called Photo of the Day
Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano, Fifteen Years Later. That's all well and good, but where the hell are Rickie and Krakow? [Photo credit: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images.]
Fuck I'm old.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Jobs Bill Passes Senate
Senate passes $15 billion jobs bill on bipartisan vote: "The Senate easily passed a $15 billion jobs bill on Wednesday morning ... The measure passed 70 to 28, with 13 Republicans joining 57 Democrats in support of the package. ... The next stop is the House, where Democratic leaders are weighing whether to pass the Senate version or go to conference to reconcile it with the $154 billion jobs bill the House passed in December."
I remain amazed how many of the GOP caucus refused to vote for this bill.
Discuss.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Liss' Lost Lust Pillow Covers, for all your sleepytime kiss-practicing needs.
Recommended Reading:
Rachel: Utah Bill Criminalizes Miscarriage
Renee: Vancouver Games & First Nations Resistance
avendya: Disability Blog Carnival #63: Relationships
Echidne: On That Public Option
Laura: Scotland Yard Staff to be Trained in Psychological Effects of Rape
LeMew: Two Facts about the Supreme Court
Leave your links in comments...
Wow
Shakers, I literally just read an article in Newsweek dissecting how female lovers of famous men should behave, and wondering what makes Rielle Hunter, John Edwards' lover (partner? I don't know their status), have such a "quiet dignity," while the women who slept with Tiger Woods "talked, posed, opined, and disappeared before we could even concentrate long enough to learn their names."
I just...wow.
I don't even know where to begin. Have at it in comments.
Quote of the Day
"I feel like God himself created mankind and he loves everyone, and he has the best for everyone. If he says that having sex with someone of your same gender is going to bring death upon you, that's a pretty stern warning, and he knows more than we do about life." — Lauren Ashley, Miss Beverly Hills 2010, and Miss California competitor, on homosexuality. Ashley reassures us "I have a lot of friends that are gay," so it's all good.
Speaking for myself, I don't have any friends I want put to death, but that's just me.
Impossibly Beautiful
We haven't had a male entry in this series since Clive Owen's ghastly Lancôme advert, mostly because men are generally allowed to look reasonably like themselves in ads and on the covers of magazines. But this photo of Matthew Fox on the cover of Emmy magazine is a good example of how men's freedom to age in public is slowly being eroded, too:
Zuh to the wuh? It looks like they recycled his head from some kind of leftover promo shot from the first season of Party of Five, and then airbrushed that into oblivion. Matthew Fox is 43 years old, and, minus the fake headwound and dirtying-up island makeup, he looks like this:
He has a wonderfully expressive face, and he's damned well earned the lines that mark it; the furrows and creases left by knitted brows and broad smiles are the legacy of being a successful actor, a husband, a father who worries and laughs. Erasing them hides the legacy of his lived life.
[Click to embiggen.]
Occasionally, when there is evidence that male public figures are being treated to the same demeaning "beautifying" processes that turn human people into mannequins, I hear someone saying some variation on, "Good. Let's get rid of that double standard!"
But adding unrealistic, dehumanized images of men to the vast ocean of unrealistic, dehumanized images of women, subjecting men to the same oppressively rigid beauty standards to which women are held, is hardly an improvement. It's a step forward only in a race to the bottom, and there is little to be gained by treating service to the lowest common denominator as a favorable equalizer.
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By way of reminder: Comments that try to suss out what changes, exactly, were made, and even comments noting that, for example, the removal of laugh lines because they are ZOMG wrinkles actually robs a face of its character or humanity, are welcome. Discussions of how "he looks handsomer/hotter/better in the candid picture" and associated commentary (which would certainly make me feel like shit if I were the person being discussed) are not. So please comment in keeping with the series' intent, implicit in which is the question: If no one can ever be beautiful enough, then to what end is the pursuit of an elusive perfection?
[Impossibly Beautiful: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38.]
Lost Open Thread
(Jack + Tears = Jears.)
Last night's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
