I'm sure I'll have occasion to expound upon all the things I love about roller derby. Over the next two plus weeks, I'll hopefully have the good fortune to skate in two (or even three!) pride parades, and play in a fabulously queer bout. This would be appear to be an opportune time to share some of the reasons that I, a queer woman, love derby.
The main reason that my hobby is what it is is that it's freakin' awesome. Plenty of folks (myself included) have deep, emotional connections to things they do, but I don't want to fall into the trap of treating every personal action as a profound act of healing or whatever.
Still, here's a story:
I was interviewing for a job doing research work at a field station; walking transects through bogs and marshes in the middle of summer, etc,. One of the folks asking the questions wanted to know whether I was tough enough to do this sort of work. So, I responded by telling him about hiking through everywhere, about walking on mats of vegetation floating above nearly freezing water, about strapping a fifty pound backpack onto my hundred-and-thirty pound frame on the hottest day of the year, donning a respirator, gloves, long-sleeved shirt and pants to spray pesticide along rocky trails. That sort of thing. After which, with a glazed look, this guy said something to the effect of 'yes, but have you done anything tough? We're looking for someone tough.' The two of us repeated the cycle for what seemed like five minutes.
The next day, I was talking to my advisor (who I swear to this day is one of the smartest and sweetest guys on the planet). 'Did you know that if you wear a skirt, people will think you're not tough?' 'Really? That seems far-fetched. Are you sure you didn't just misunderstand things?'
I don't like that story so much.
Back to derby. When I finally dragged myself to a bout back in Madison (go Mad Rollin' Dolls!), I was amazed. In part, the sport was awesome, although I didn't really figure that all out until I started actually playing. What initially caught my eye was the crowd. Here there were players' parents, grandparents, and small children, bikers, creepy guys (they're everywhere), and every 5th queer person I knew in town, all hanging out together, and having a fabulous time watching amazing skaters, divas in platform heels, and some guy in S&M gear (one of many mascots). At halftime, there was belly dancing. Or drag kings. Or school age children trying to hit various mascots with foam clubs. Where had this been all my life, and why hadn't the president of it issued me a personal invitation?
When I moved out East, I started playing. I certainly didn't feel like a badass. Partly, this was due to the fact that I couldn't roller skate (by which, I mean that I typically held on to the wall). In time, I got to know my teammates, and I slowly learned how to skate (and in turn, play). I don't know that folks who meet us outside derby consider most of us tough, despite the fact that, y'know, we are.
Derby girls (and yes, we call ourselves girls... perhaps that's another post) get to pick out alter egos. I've seen Annie Cockledeux, I've skated against Emma Scoldman (uniform number: 0 gods, 0 masters), and been entertained by the fabulous Miss Ida Feltersnatch. It's a playful sport. Derby girls wear as much (or as little) makeup as we feel like it, and show as much (or as little) skin as we feel like. Much to my surprise, there are a lot of folks that seem genuinely intimidated by us. Aside from occasionally getting harassed by minor authority figures (A pack of women wearing stripy socks! Send me reinforcements before it's too late!), it's actually been a pretty common experience for strangers to tell me I'm tough, or otherwise seem a bit overwhelmed by my wiry frame towering over them, dripping glitter and sweat in their general direction.
These are not reactions that I, or most women, get outside of roller derby. Particularly, as a trans woman, and as a femme lesbian, I revel in all of it.
In addition to the many, many levels on which I understand the actual sport, I have another reason for loving derby. There are five players on each team. It's abundantly clear that (unless the ref messed up and called a penalty on one or more of your teammates) that there are four women out there who have your back. It also becomes clear pretty quickly that there are five women out there who want to fuck your shit up. They will try to do so. Repeatedly.
I have learned to get back up. I am very good at getting back up. When I step onto the track, I get thrown around, hit, kicked (it's not supposed to happen, but wev) and generally put on the ground. I have learned: 1) to fight to stay up, and 2) to get the fuck back up. When I'm at home, fans cheer me when I get back up, something that didn't really happen in my life a few years ago. Regardless of where I'm skating, at the end of the controlled violence, there are hugs, beer, and food. Again, compared to my run as a queer woman, the hugs and beer are a welcome change of pace. It may be violent, but it's still a game. A game among family.
So I'm this Queer Derby Chick
I Think I Need a Fedora Now
So, this weekend I'll be in Toronto, attending OXFAM's Gender Justice Summit 2010 on your behalf, as a blogger from Shakesville. I get a Media badge and everything. Though, sadly, I have no fedora in which to stick a card with the big letters P R E S S, as generations of movies have taught me is the standard garb of the ink-stained wretch. I will have to dress, instead, as a pixel-stained wretch, I suppose.
Well, I'll be at the Saturday morning and afternoon, and the Sunday morning. Physically, that's all I can manage. And at the rally on Saturday afternoon. And I'll be taking along my camera, and my laptop (though I don't tweet, being no kind of small bird, and thus you must wait until Monday for my report, unless I have the energy on Saturday night).
What I want from you, Shakers, is for you to have a look at the program linked above, and let me know which of the offerings (from Saturday morning to Sunday lunch) I should attend - which ones are you most interested in hearing from/about?
I'm open to whichever you would rather I went to, if you have a preference. If you don't, I'll probably pick the one with the fewest attendees.
If you happen to be attending the conference yourself, or will be in the area of Ryerson University and want to maybe get a quick bevvy, e-mail me, and we'll see if we can manage it. Or you can take your chance and wander around. I'm not hard to spot, as not that many folk use canes, and the other people that do rarely wear stripey knee socks.
That's my weekend, anyway. :)
I'm a Man and I Enjoy Mancations
All right, you collection of tree-hugging limousine liberals, pinko Commies, dope fiends, queerbaits, ladyboys, fat chicks, feminazi castrators, and assorted freaks: You wanna talk about mancations? Let's talk about mancations.
The last vacation I took was when me and my stepmom Cheryl went down to Branson to meet some of our high school friends for a sorta reunion. Mostly it was a bunch of Choraleer dorks that Cheryl knew from her days singing Hall & Oates medleys while dressed in some poofy-sleeve shit that looks like it was made from my Uncle Frank's track pants. She's still got that crap in her closet, too.
Anyways, the whole weekend was a total bust, because, first of all, the hotel was shitty—it didn't even have water in the outdoor pool, so I was just like running around in there, which was totally boring after about ten minutes—and every time the guys wanted to have some man fun, the women would start driving us crazy with all the whining. "Will you stop shooting your guns off in the parking lot? We can't even hear the TV!" Blah blah blah. "Will you stop prank calling the front desk and ordering 'titties' from room service? You're gonna get us kicked out!" Nah nah nah. Like that.
So you see why I don't go on vacations anymore. Now I go on MANCATIONS.
Me and my friend Dick Balzac, and his cousins Rod and Peter, who are a coupla real stand-up guys, take a week once every year to get away, just the four of us dudes. Dick's got a great cabin in Kentucky—well, it's actually not a cabin, but this RV he was living in after his divorce…? Anyways, it broke down there once in these woods just outside Big Bone Lick State Park, and he never fixed it and no one ever hauled it away, so it's basically like our secret getaway and shit.
Yeah, so we head down the second week of July every year, which is when Boone County puts on their annual Sausagefest, a celebration of sausage-making and whatnot. Maaaaaaaan, it is great. Just four guys chowing down on sausage, like Real Men.
And there's plenty of other manly shit to do, too. We go buck hunting—them guys use pansy shit like bows and rifles, but I hunt armed only with my wolf-like senses and a pair of nunchucks. We never caught anything, though, but whatever. Also, we catch frogs in jam jars and race remote control cars and set off fireworks and…what else?...kick stuff. I dunno. There's a lot of fun stuff to do!
Dick and Rod and Pete like to do this Civil War reenacting while we're down there sometimes, but I don't really get into that, so I use that time to go down to the Pick-A-Part and wrestle old wrecked cars, so I can brush up on my transformer-bustin' skills. Just in case, man. Just in case.
Oh, this one time I found a $20 bill on the front seat of an old F150. That's the kind of awesome stuff that never happens when chicks are around.
So you can see why I am a huge fan of the mancation. It's a real escape from the nagging I gotta listen to all the time from Cheryl and from my ex-wife/fiancée Tammy, not to mention the daily grind of selling weed and ammo out of the garage. And there's shitloads of male bonding, too. I never experience the joy of having my ass slapped by other men anymore, not since I quit BMX racing, and when Dick gives me a manfriendly punch in the balls and I wrassle him to the floor and spit in his mouth, it makes me nostalgic for the days when my dad used to lunge at me, then give me a coupla real good punches to the arm while screaming "TWO FOR FLINCHING, FAIRY!" That's real love, right there. Unsullied manlove.
The only thing that sucks about mancations is that there's no one to clean up after us. I have to admit, it's kind of nice to get back home and eat off a plate that ain't crusted with days-old sausage juice.
Pornstache: Out.
[Previously by Butch Pornstache: Happy Taxes and Teabags Day, I'm a Proud Teabagger and Real American, Men and Trucks and Shit, Cats and Shit, Books and Cupcakes and Shit, Ron Swanson Kicks Butt, Dale Peterson is a Great American.]
A Movie Review: Grown-Ups
(in lieu of the half-dozen important posts I could and should be making, I offer this bit of fluff that came to me)
There's a new movie coming out, Grown-Ups. Now, no progressive could fail to be thrilled that it will star the comedy stylings of not only noted empath and sensitive comedian Adam Sandler, but also such nuanced and capable actors as Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider. With a cast like that, how could it fail to be a piece of awe-inspiring beauty, of heart-rending insight into the human condition?
Really, I just want to congratulate the director, Dennis Dugan, for assembling this talented ensemble to examine an area of human life which is critically under-examined in modern popular culture: the man-child, and his bromantic relations. This is a sincere, innovative and ultimately uplifting story about five men who behave like children, when freed of the horrid adult-conforming lifestyle which would be forced upon them by humourless bitches, as so often happens.
I'm sure some pedantic, humourless feminist "film reviewer" will come along to pan this wonderful film, imposing her hairy-legged man-hating agenda, insisting that there are enough movies about this topic already. Nonsense, I say, NONSENSE! What the world needs is more movies about (white hetero cis currently abled) men (and a sassy Black friend, how post-racial is that, am I rite, bros?), as this is obviously an area which is chronically ignored in our ultra-feminized, post-racial culture.
I urge everyone to camp out to see this movie the instant it opens. In fact, I think we should have a write-in campaign to make them release the movie at midnight of the Thursday, so we don't have to wait all the way to Friday night for it.
In other news, Happy Opposite Day, everyone.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of Butch Pornstache's Very Manly Guide to Very Manly Mancations.
Recommended Reading:
Angry Asian Man: Help Teri Li Find a Bone Marrow Match
Latoya: Punching People and the Perils of Increased Police Presence
Jenn: Will Media Report FL Shooting As Gender-Based Hate Crime?
Rachel: Obesity and Fun Sexy Time
Fannie: Dude Just Tells It Like It Is Without Knowing WTF He's Talking About, Part 4,222,153
Andy: Michele Bachmann to BP: Don't Let Obama Make You Look 'Evil'
Mannion: The Tattooed Attorney
Leave your links in comments...
Good News for Trafficking Survivors
[Trigger warning for references to trafficking.]
This is such amazing news:
Late yesterday, the New York State Senate passed legislation, already approved by the Assembly last month, to allow survivors of commercial sex trafficking to clear their records of prostitution-related crimes by vacating their convictions. Governor Paterson is expected to sign the bill (A.7670/S.4429) into law, amending New York State Criminal Procedure Law.Yes, yes the rest of the country should do that.
The vote came the day after Secretary of State Hilary Clinton released the State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons" report, which for the first time included an assessment of trafficking in the U.S. and acknowledged the U.S. as "a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor, debt bondage, and forced prostitution."
"All too often, victims of sex trafficking are arrested for and convicted of prostitution-related crimes long before they are able to exit their coercive circumstances," said Sienna Baskin, staff attorney at the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center. "This landmark legislation will allow these survivors to start over with a clean slate. By leaving behind any criminal record, they can avoid undeserved red flags and any stigma associated with their past exploitation. New York is creating a model that will help stop the justice system from treating these survivors as criminals. The rest of the country should follow New York's leadership."
So, apart from granting survivors freedom from the substantial burden created by criminal records, giving them an immeasurably better chance to rebuild their lives, this legislation will also ensure that more people survive in the first place and are able to remain free:
"Our clients include women trafficked into commercial sex who were arrested more than 10 times. Their fears of retribution prevented them from informing law enforcement about their exploitation," added Baskin. "A criminal record for prostitution is a barrier to their recovery, especially when a potential employer asks these survivors to explain their convictions. These women have suffered enough and simply want to move on with their lives by finding a good job and a safe place to live, or applying for immigration status. With that economic security, we believe this bill will help these women escape being victimized or coerced again."Joy joy joy.
[H/T to Shaker tehkenny.]
Good News in Reproductive Health
An FDA panel of 11 people, nine of whom are women, has unanimously recommended that the FDA approve Ella, a government-developed drug that can prevent pregnancy for up to five days after unprotected PIV sex.
[Ella] appears to be more effective than Plan B, a morning-after pill now available over the counter to women 18 and older that gradually loses efficacy after intercourse and can be taken at latest three days after sex. Ella, by contrast, works just as well on the fifth day as the first after sex.If approved for sale, Ella would first be made available only by prescription. Plan B has now been available without a prescription since 2006.
Ella blocks the effects of progesterone, a female hormone that spurs ovulation. It is a chemical relative to RU-486, the abortion pill.
Naturally, there had to be some bullshit at the hearing:
[S]ome mystery remains over exactly how it works. That mystery spurred a fierce debate outside the committee over whether it should be considered an abortion drug, a debate that prompted the posting of several uniformed police officers around the meeting room.Well, if the president of Hand-Wringing Misogynists of America says it, it must be true! Fuck you, SCIENCE!
…The dispute is whether the drug works by delaying ovulation (as the pill's manufacturer claims) or by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting itself in the uterus (as anti-abortion advocates say).
Dr. Jeffrey Bray, a pharmacologist at the Food and Drug Administration, said that ella may do both.
…Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative group, called ella an unsafe abortion pill that men might slip to unsuspecting women.
"With ella, women will be enticed to buy a poorly tested abortion pill in the guise of a morning-after pill," she said.
By the way, with regard to Wright's claim that "men might slip Ella to unsuspecting women," like everything else, she's got it precisely backwards: Reproductive coercion is a serious and insufficiently addressed problem, but the central issue is not men who try to keep their partners from getting pregnant; it's men who sabotage their partners' birth control in order that they become pregnant and thus connected for life if a child is born.
If Wright were really concerned about women, and of course she isn't, she would support making available every option for women to terminate unwanted pregnancies, which include those caused by partner abuse.
[H/T to Shaker Samanthab.]
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
[Trigger warning for discussion and imagery of sexual violence.]
Deeky: By the way, this* is the world's worst tattoo.
Liss: No this** is the world's worst tattoo.
Deeky: I stand corrected!
Liss: Did you note the "lunch"?
Deeky: Yeah, the wolf with the knife and fork. Which makes it not about cunnilingus, but something much more disturbing,
Liss: Totes. Can you imagine being a woman who goes home with that guy and he takes off his shirt to reveal THAT fucking mess? Christ.
Deeky: I refuse to believe that dude has a woman in his life.
* The image for those who can't, or refuse, to look at it (they're both mildly NSFW, just FYI), it's a picture of a man's tummy with a cat tattooed across it. The dude's belly button is the cat's asshole.
** Another man's belly, tattooed with a nekkid lady with her legs spread. The man's belly button doubles as the woman's vajayjay. Over her shoulder stands a cartoon wolf, knife and fork in hand. The word "LUNCH!" hangs over the woman's head.
Department of State Monsters
I have no idea what's actually going on in those pictures from Secretary Clinton's recent state trip to Colombia, but I'm pretty certain if international relations were managed primarily through fun monster impressions, instead of terse diplomatic negotiations and wars, the world would be a much more interesting, and safer, place.
Question of the Day
Yesterday was Bloomsday, meant to celebrate the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. Avid Joyce fans in Dublin and elsewhere relive the day on which the book takes place -- June 16, 1904 -- by visiting the haunts of Leopold Bloom and reading passages. What setting of a novel would you like to visit and perhaps relive some of the events in it?
For me it's easy: The Lake District and the Norfolk Broads in England that are the settings for the Swallows and Amazons books by Arthur Ransome. As a matter of fact, I did on my first trip to England in 1971. The "Lake" in the books is an amalgam of Lake Windermere and Conniston Water, but the books set in East Anglia depict real places and Ransome was very true to the local geography. I was delighted to find that Horning, the small town that is the main setting for two books -- Coot Club and The Big Six -- is exactly like it was described, right down to the little hotel on the edge of the River Bure.
I was a little disappointed when I arrived at Windermere to find that it wasn't exactly as it was described in the book, but it was close enough, and I wish I had had the money and the time to rent a little sailboat like the ones in the books, which closely resemble the Beetle Cat boats popular on Cape Cod. Next time, I will.
Shaxicon Nominations
I'm going to be updating the Shaxicon soon, so if there's anything you'd like to see added, stick it in comments!
Depressing.
So remember that mediocre speech given the other night by the President? Apparently it can be summed up something like this:
Obama's nearly 10th-grade-level rating was the highest of any of his major speeches and well above the Grade 7.4 of his 2008 "Yes, we can" victory speech, which many consider his best effort, Payack [Paul J.J., president of Global Language Monitor] said.The President was not at his best when speaking at a tenth grade level because that's too high to connect to the American people.
"The scores indicate that this was not Obama at his best, especially when attempting to make an emotional connection to the American people," he added.
OFFS x10000000000000000000000000.
Edited to add: stellamod, in comments, passed along this article which refutes Mr. Payack. So, nevermind. Perhaps his claims are just shite.
Not Someone Else's Problem
[Trigger warning for human trafficking.]
Shaker Anitanola emails (which I am publishing with her permission): "To round out this extremely difficult day, here's a report about our country being ranked among suspect nations in human trafficking. Maude bless Hillary Clinton."
Indeed:
On Monday, the State Department released its 10th annual report on "Trafficking in Persons," which assesses the efforts that 177 countries are undertaking to combat human trafficking, or "modern day slavery." For the first time, the U.S. has been listed as a "suspect nation" in an analysis that experts describe as "candid" and "doesn't pull any punches."After eight years of the Bush regime, I still can't believe we've got people in office who want to acknowledge this nation's failures and work to fix them.
"Human trafficking is not someone else's problem," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. "Involuntary servitude is not something we think or hope doesn't exist in our own communities."
Particularly failures that affect so many women and children.
Read the whole thing here.
Quote of the Day
"I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is—again, in my words—amounts to a shakedown. So, I apologize."—Rep. Joe Barton (R-Eeally?!), apologizing to oil-spilling corporate behemoth BP for the "$20 billion shakedown" orchestrated by the White House, which is his characterization of the "$20 billion that BP agreed on Wednesday to put into a compensation fund for victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, following hours of negotiations between BP and the White House."
Since even other Republicans went totes apeshit about that hot mess, Barton has since retracted his statement.
Shaker Cim, who gets the hat tip along with ShakerTS, points to this BBC article, which notes that "shares rose more than 6% after it agreed to put $20bn (£13.5bn) in a fund to compensate victims of the spill." Comments Cim: "So [BP] gets a quarter of that $20bn back in increased share value instantly anyway, and doesn't have to actually pay up for months. Some shakedown."
Indeed.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Background.]
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Discussion Thread: Cornell University and FGC
[Trigger warning for female genital cutting and sexual assault. To quote meloukhia, "There are not enough content warnings in the world for what you are about to read."
At New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, there is a pediatric urologist named Dr. Dix Poppas who has performed clitoral reductions on girls whose clitorises he has deemed to be "too big," and claimed that follow-up examinations have proven he has successfully removed parts of the clitoris while retaining sexual sensation.
First: There is no such thing as a clitoris that is "too big."
Second: The follow-up examinations to evaluate sensation, referred to in Poppas' paper by the remarkably clinical term "clitoral sensory testing," consist of what is, by any reasonable definition, sexual assault.
At annual visits after the surgery, while a parent watches, Poppas touches the daughter’s surgically shortened clitoris with a cotton-tip applicator and/or with a “vibratory device,” and the girl is asked to report to Poppas how strongly she feels him touching her clitoris. Using the vibrator, he also touches her on her inner thigh, her labia minora, and the introitus of her vagina, asking her to report, on a scale of 0 (no sensation) to 5 (maximum), how strongly she feels the touch. Yang, Felsen, and Poppas also report a “capillary perfusion testing,” which means a physician or nurse pushes a finger nail on the girl’s clitoris to see if the blood goes away and comes back, a sign of healthy tissue. Poppas has indicated in this article and elsewhere that ideally he seeks to conduct annual exams with these girls. He intends to chart the development of their sexual sensation over time.There is more, oh so dreadfully much more, at the link.
…[Co-authors Jennifer Yang, a pediatric urologist, and Diane Felsen, a pharmacologist, who reportedly did not participate in the follow-up examinations, which were performed by Poppas and his nurse practitioner] and Poppas describe the girls "sensory tested" as being older than five. They are, therefore, old enough to remember being asked to lie back, be touched with the vibrator, and report on whether they can still feel sensation. They may also be able to remember their emotions and the physical sensations they experienced. Their parents' participation may also figure in these memories. We think therefore that most reasonable people will agree with [Ken Zucker, a psychologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto] that Poppas's techniques are "developmentally inappropriate."
Alice Dreger, a Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, who co-authored the above-linked piece with her colleague Ellen Feder, also has a piece here, further explaining the issues surrounding why these bullshit surgeries are being done in the first place, and why they shouldn't be.
I could talk endlessly about why this is wrong and how it has been allowed to happen—because, fuck, this is just wrong on every conceivable level—but I simply don't have the will.
I will only say this: Human rights violations exactly like this are the inevitable consequence of a culture in which female bodies and/or bodies with variant presentations outside some arbitrary spectrum of "normal" are treated as property of someone other than the person within whose body resides the mind capable of making decisions regarding autonomy and consent, but denied that fundamental right.
And now I'll turn it over to you for discussion.
[H/Ts to Shakers Quixotess, The Chemist, Michelle, Claire, babydyke, PeggySue, and Cait. Many thanks to each of you.]
The OFFS Awards: Mancations
Are you having a hot bromance with another dude? Well, grab your beach towel and slip on your mandals, because it's time for a mancation!
Ask Marc Van Driessche about a recent vacation, and he will describe an adrenaline-charged shark-diving expedition off the Mexico coast with two menfriends. While he enjoyed his up-close encounter with Bruce, a great white shark the size of a bus, the family stayed home."Menfriends"—seriously?
There were two spinster sisters who lived in the first floor apartment of my grandmother's rowhouse in Queens; Clara and Marie had lived in that apartment since their childhood, and neither of them had ever married or ever had children. When Clara died, Marie, then in her 80s, suddenly started going grocery shopping and on dinner dates with a man named Frank. Frank was referred to as Marie's "gentleman friend."
When I worked at a real estate office on the weekends in high school, back when Jesus was still riding dinosaurs, there was a realtor who everyone (except the boss) knew was gay. Fred's roommate and BFF sometimes came into the office with him on Saturdays, while I was there working the phones and dying of boredom. He was introduced to me as Fred's "gentleman friend."
Basically, what I'm saying is that "manfriend" reminds me of the antiquated term that was used for the boyfriends of old ladies and queers, by people who squirmed at the idea of ladies and queers doin' it.
But I digress. Back to the mancations with your menfriends.
Pop culture has a term for it: the mancation.No, pop culture does not have a term for it. Spike TV and Men's Insecurity Weekly might have a term for it, but Lady Gaga's next single isn't going to be about mancations. I don't make many predictions, but I'm pretty confident about that one.
More men are getting away from family, work and household duties…All the various Things That Suck, then.
…for trips with male friends who will watch your back, push you if you lose your nerve, and take care of themselves if they get seasick, Dr. Van Driessche says."Let's get one thing straight, Bob: I ain't holding your hair if you puke over the side of this here boat!"
They are departing from traditional male golf outings or fishing trips to engage in extreme sports, from off-road racing to machine-gun training.Machine-gun training is my favorite sport. I like it almost as much as xxxtreme machete flinging.
Also, more men are heading to destinations long regarded as more alluring to women—many with added "man caves" and other mancation-style amenities, such as poker tables and cigar bars.AND TITTAYS!!! Oh, sorry, I got carried away there. My apologies. The upstanding men of mancationing are interested in looking only at other men; that's why their wives aren't there.
The trend shouldn't be confused with the bachelor-party stereotype of drunken bar crawls or partying at casinos, says James Hills, founder of mantripping.com, a two-year-old Web site that helps men plan their trips. Nor are they "singles trips" aimed at finding partners, he says.Fair enough. I mean, hell, women are even taking over the English language, creating absurd portmanteaus that lay their feminine claim on gender-neutral words. Get a load of these broads sullying "mancation" by mashing it with "vagina." I mean, what the fuck is a "vacation"?!
Instead, more men are using trips to deepen friendships, teach each other skills or push each other into adrenaline-charged activities that their families prefer to sit out. Others want to recapture the camaraderie of high school or college sports, or escape what they regard as an increasingly female-dominated world.
"My wife does girls' trips and she does stuff I wouldn't want to do. They go off and see 'Sex and the City' and get manicures. For me, that's not fun," Mr. Seligson says. "For me, there's just something great about being able to let loose and be a macho idiot with a bunch of other guys."To get serious for a moment, there's nothing wrong with women doing something they want to do with their female friends, or men doing something they want to do with their male friends, but this rigid binary is just absurd to me. There are stereotypical female things I like to do with female friends, and there are stereotypical male things Iain likes to do with male friends, but that's coincidence, by virtue of the other people we know who happen to share that particular interest.
When I saw Brazil play the US at Soldier Field, that was an outing organized by my best girlfriend. When Iain's best mate last visited from Scotland, they went clothes shopping together. The last long videogaming session I had was with my mom. Iain's watching the World Cup with a girl! Many of my favorite activities typically associated with either gender are done with dudes—and I've been on holiday with male friends, straight and gay—because many of my closest friends are male.
My favorite person to do anything with is Iain, because he's my best friend. I wager he'd say the same about me. But there are some things he doesn't enjoy that I do, and some things I don't enjoy that he does, so we do them with someone else (or alone). Sometimes that's with other women, and sometimes with other men. And it's never because we feel some uncontrollable need to "let loose and be a [gendered stereotype] with a bunch of other [people of the same sex]."
There's a line between enjoying the company of other wo/men in an affirmative and celebratory way, and enjoying the void of wo/men because you define your wo/manhood in contradistinction to its opposite, and the line is not all that fine. Men who can't really feel "like a man" except in the absence of women have notions of what constitutes both manhood and womanhood so rigid and narrow that the only way to defend those boundaries is gender segregation; the slightest evidence of a woman behaving in a "masculine" way (enjoying the fine sport of machine-gun training, say) is a threat to their masculinity.
Which, really, is pretty tragic. I'd be sad for them if these buttholes weren't the jack-booted enforcers of the Patriarchy.
But I digress. Again.
Travel providers are tailoring offerings to male groups. Mancation Nation opened last year in Parker, Ariz., on the Colorado River, offering wake-boarding, golf, fishing, simulated dog-fighting in vintage airplanes, tactical-weapons training and a no-women-allowed residence. Visitor Don Ashforth, Escondido, Calif., says wake-boarding there with other guys was "kind of a primal thing. The camaraderie was incredible."It's interesting, ahem, how many of these mancation activities are centered around weapons training, violence, and/or killing animals. These are men who feel powerless in their everyday lives, threatened by the slow erosion of limitless male privilege, and instead of embracing a new role in their families and at their jobs and in their lives, the power of a different sort of strength—the strength of compassion, of listening, of empathy, of being present and engaged, of loving hard and boundlessly—they are eking by with mancations where they restore their macho mojo with chest-beating male-bonding that has no place in a modern egalitarian world.
These guys don't need a vacation; they need a time machine.
