Wow, what traffic!

Wow, what a burst of popularity when I was linked to by the Saving Ethnic Studies facebook group. That was especially weird as I didn’t know that they were linking me until I saw it on my facebook feed! I definitely will blog more about that, especially once I go to the big state march against SB1070/HB2281 at the Capitol next weekend. (Psssh: Big march in Phoenix on May 29)

Not all Arizonians are racists, but a lot are.

I live in Arizona. I have lived here for the past six years, and will probably live here for at least three more; totaling near a decade of life in Arizona. Since the (elected Democrat) Janet Napolitano left to be Director of Homeland Security and was replaced with the (unelected Republican) Jan Brewer, the Republicans in the Legislature have been running amok making horrible bill after horrible bill, sure that she as a good Republican lapdog will rubber stamp anything they hand to her

The most recent Republican blunders are SB1070, a draconian measure that lets police *legally* harass anyone “suspected of being in the country illegally”, and HB 2281, which refers to teaching non-white ethnic-centered classes as promoting anti-American sentiment and treason.

Last Friday, I was at the graduation ceremony for Primus’s college’s graduation at the University of Arizona. He is in the College of Social and Behavior Sciences, which encompasses Judaic, La Raza, Africana, Middle Eastern and Gender and Women’s Studies. The professor who was the speaker at the graduation was associate professor Dr. Soto, who teaches in both the Gender and Women’s studies and the La Raza studies. I personally have had the pleasure of being in one of her Gender and Women’s Studies class. She brought up a very relevant topic by talking about SB1070 and HB2281 as many people fear that Republicans in the Legislature will attack ethnic studies at the University level next.

The people who screamed at Professor Soto that she was “politicizing their graduation” are white people who frankly, need to shut the hell up. Their is a very large latin@ population at the school. Bills like SB1070 are outright politicizing their bodies and they will never get to escape from that. Bills like HB2281 are politicizing their culture and heritage, and treating them like criminals for wanting to transmit that culture. The white people who are complaining have never experienced the politicizing of their bodies or culture, as their color protects them and makes them “normal”.

These white people who boo are so threatened by latin@s and latin@ culture that they aren’t even listening to what Professor Soto is advocating, a clear an open dialog free of fear-mongering. I also think that the conservatives in the crowd were reacting to fact that Professor Soto herself is a latina, and as they believe that the other is always politicized because of their bodies, whenever a latina woman talks about bills directed at latin@s, she will always be considered “extreme” and “radical” if she does anything but meekly accept it.

As a spectator, I do want to say that there were an equal amount of people cheering her on, and at one point it looked like the two sides where going to duke it out in the stands.

Search Terms

So I was looking at the search terms that people use to get to my blog:

poly blogs
macktivist.wordpress.com
fat-phobia airline
too depressed to function
natasha bhuyan
crazy dating situations

As I really do what to make this a blog that deals with fatphobia and poly, I’m really glad people can find my blog that way. The fact that someone actually searched for my blogs name is fascinating to me. Who is actually reading my ramblings? The two “too depressed to function” and “crazy dating situations” make me sad that people looking those up, but they do tend to go hand in hand.

Wow, almost a whole month…

…has gone by without me posting here. Well, I’ve technically graduated undergraduate but I still need to work on one more class. My romantic life has been improving, and I haven’t talked to Secundus in almost two weeks, which may or may not bee related to the previous statement.

More early tomorrow, or later today; which ever way you want to look at it.

Too depressed to function

Secundus broke up for good on Sunday and now I am so depressed I just cannot function right now.

Soldiers with Kittehs

Whenever I look at old-timey war pictures, it’s so hard at times to think that “Hey, these are REAL people who lived over a hundred years ago”. But seeing them with kittehs suddenly humanizes then to me.

Dating situations

I went on a Coffee pre-date today. All of my friend know that I believe in having “pre-dates” that usually include getting coffee, as it’s cheap and non-creepy to ask pretty much anyone to go get coffee.

There’s a girl whom I found on OKC because of a funny post that she made in the blog section of her profile. We friended over facebook and even exchanged phone numbers. We’ve been trying to meet up up for over a month, but between her crazy work schedule and my illness over the last week we haven’t been able to meet up.

Well I met up with her today, but I don’t think that she was interested me as anything more then being friends. She’s been in my town for awhile, but she doesn’t seem to have many friends. I didn’t even get to talk to her about poly, but I’m sure that she isn’t interested in me.

Secundus is back-ish in the situation. I don’t know, I think we came to a compromise, although I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being “downgraded” or being put on probation of some kind. Update, nevermind

Traveling While Female

Even though I had been hospitalized on Sunday, and for the subsequent day since have felt like shit, (both due to my physical health and other dramatic goings on) yesterday I tried going to the one class I’m taking to graduate. Now this class is across town, so I need to take public transit to get there. On the best of days, when I’m feeling at my best, this hour plus long commute is draining.

I realized quickly on that I wouldn’t be able to stay through class, so I left very early. However, because of the way the transit system works, it took over an hour just to get to the transit center where I catch my second bus which can take up to forty minutes to bring me back to my neighborhood.

So, yesterday I’m sitting on the bench near where my bus is taking forever to be ready to leave. I have a pounding headache, and I am wondering if I am going to pass out then and there. Then, some guy gets in my face and starts asking me all these personal questions, clearly trying to chat me up. I respond with short, clipped, three-word-at-most sentences while wishing he’ll go away.

He seemed to realize I wasn’t having any of it and his face scrunched up in annoyance. “Hey, I was just trying to be nice…” He protests.

“I’m sorry, but I am not feeling well and I would rather not talk.” I say as firmly as my sick self can muster.

Obliviously annoyed, he stomps off. This has happened before at this bus station, where some guy continually tried to chat me up, first by charmingly screaming “Hey you!” while I was trying to get some water from the fountain, then him telling me his friend Phoenix knew me (I have never knew any one by that name ever) from, uh, that place, and, uh, do I want to, uh, hang out with him. In the bus depot.

Once-upon-a-time, I would have felt bad but now I don’t. Just because I am female, that does not make me the entertainment folder for any male individual. I do not have to flirt back with them or acknowledge their interest. After reading things like fugitivus’s post (which I sadly can’t locate right now) on how rape culture is bred into us by making women’s boundaries easily and commonly tread upon. Also, from Shapely Prose there is the classic post Schrodinger’s Rapist. I have boundaries and standards, and if you’re yelling at me across a street or “Just trying to be nice” while I wait for a bus, I am not going to reward you with flirting.

Dear Cis&Straight Poly/Kinky People – You are not Queer

Ugh, I’m dehydrated and sick, but this post has been cooking on the back-burner of my brain for awhile, and a post I read yesterday on a poly community brought this to the for front.

Dear Cis and Straight Poly/Kinky People,

No you cannot call yourself “queer”. I know that in all the hipster liberal alt communities it is cool to call yourself queer. The word Queer, for all of it’s sordid past, is actually a rather elegant sounding word . It has a “kw” sound at the beginning, which is rare in English, causing the mouth to pucker then draw back wide into a long “ee” and “r” sound.

Sorry for going into a linguistic nerdgasm for a second. Back to the point. The basics first, poly and kinky are not queer. There are no reports of poly/kinky people being dragged from cars because of what they do. Mobs do not dig up poly/kinky people and desecrate their graves. This is no such things a “poly/kinky panic” defense that people can make for killing a poly/kinky straight person. There have been time when people have argued that it is okay to kill someone just for them disclosing the fact they are LGBT.

Yes, there are some way in which and can be hard to be poly/kinky in today’s sex-negative culture. Yes, in some communities and jobs people can become penalized for this. But never to the extent that queer people have to face.

Also, the overall poly/kinky communities are not queer. Some may be queer-friendly in some ways, but a lot of the mores of the poly/kinky communities are a microcosm of mainstream straight culture- such as swinging clubs/dungeons/poly groups that frown on any male-male sexual contact but encourage females to get it on because males think it’s hot, and couples with OPPs. To me that is outright saying male-male sex is scary and disturbing while female-female sex isn’t even “real sex” and therefore a harmless distraction. And where does this leave people of ambiguous genders/sexes, whether it’s mental or physical? That is not queer friendly.

I think that straight and cis people in the poly/kinky community who want to co-opt the term queer need to get over their persecution complex, and actually help the queer community gain rights and protections, rather than try to sneak in the back.

This may be the exit of Secundus

…And honestly? I’m not sure if I care.

Secundus has decided to blame me for trying to make myself “an obligation” to him by, um, becoming so sick I had to go to the hospital. After five months of dating he “wasn’t ready” for me to become sick. He also is throwing out all the rules we had made because he went on two dates with a 19 year old girl and doesn’t want me to meet her because he is afraid I might not like her.

These are all rules that HE HIMSELF pushed for, but do as I say not as I do I guess. This is sleazy, desperate side of him I guess I refused to see before.

Edit:
This situation reminded me of a quote I read in Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up. One poly person talked about how people who seemed to think that poly people were just about using “normal” people for sex, usually turned out to be the people who most cruelly treat and then leave poly people. I feel like that was Secundus’s downfall, he was so obsessed that I would never treat him right because I already had Primus. And then he goes and pulls this shit on me. Classic.