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Mistress, a Powerful Word to Waste

  

Credit: http://art247.com.au/


Margaret Sullivan of the New York Times would like to see the word “mistress” retired as a term past its prime, outdated and sexist (Is ‘Mistress” a Word That Has Seen Its Best Days?). Cued by her readers’ comments, she specifically takes issue with using the term in news stories about women having extra marital affairs, i.e., the Patreus affair. 


She complains the term denotes a woman’s long-term sexual affair with a married man, and, as some readers pointed out, which also suggests financial keeping or maintenance. Sullivan believes the term should be replaced with something less gender exclusive particularly since there is no male equivalent to the term. She also notes her male editor’s response is something akin to “Yeah, it’s outdated and sexist but oh well, what else can we come up with?”

I, however, hesitate to retire a word with such a rich history and multi-faceted application.  

The Oxford English Dictionary has this to settle for the word:

HOMEUS ENGLISH MISTRESS

mistress
Syllabification: mis·tress
Pronunciation: /ˈmistris/ 
Definition of mistress in English:
noun

1A woman in a position of authority or control:
she is always mistress of the situation, coolly self-possessed
figurative work is an unforgiving, implacable mistress
MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES
1.1A woman who is skilled in a particular subject or activity:
a mistress of the sound bite, she is famed for the acidity of her tongue
MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES
1.2The female owner of a dog, cat, or other domesticated animal.
EXAMPLE SENTENCES
1.3 [WITH MODIFIER] chiefly British A female schoolteacher who teaches a particular subject:
a Geography mistress
MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES
1.4 archaic A female head of a household:
he asked for the mistress of the house
MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES
1.5(Especially formerly) a female employer of domestic staff.
EXAMPLE SENTENCES
2A woman having an extramarital sexual relationship, especially with a married man:
Elsie knew her husband had a mistress tucked away somewhere
MORE EXAMPLE SENTENCES
SYNONYMS
2.1 archaic or literary A woman loved and courted by a man.
3 (Mistress) archaic or dialect Used as a title prefixed to the name of a married woman; Mrs.
EXAMPLE SENTENCES
Origin

Middle English: from Old French maistresse, from maistre ‘master’.

So what could be wrong with a term whose first definition from a much-cited, respectable source is “a woman in authority or control”? Sullivan rebukes the term as old fashioned; a term with implied mercenary kept status should not be attributed to a modern day woman who chooses her own lifestyle and sexuality. However, the word’s true essence conflicts with what she derides, and it is her error in the term’s misconstruction. 


A mistress is self-possessed–going against the grain with her choice of sexual partner. She defies social norms, and in doing so, she carries that culturally instilled burden of shame and conscience subverted for love, power and/or sex. She is all about tough choices that expose her to herself and others, an exposure that continually challenges her control.

In addition, the wellspring of control and ownership from which the term emerges, its earliest significance being head of household, empowers the word. As queen of her castle, the mistress does have a counterpart, the master. In this equivalence, the terms both suggest not only ownership but mastery, the knowledge and competence to operate and own all of the details of a home, including the administration of her staff in running it. 

The predecessor of the modern corporate CEO, the mistress was the operations manager of the home, which may have included serving and cleaning staff in addition to family members. And for anyone running a household, even without staff, that is no menial task. 

As one who has historically taken on the role of mistress of the house, I can assuage any fears of sexism or demeaning intent in that term. Running a household of teenagers, ailing parents with caretakers, dogs and cats, is no mean feat. To keep everything running without a hitch–flawlessly–from paying bills; coordinating transportation to sports, school and other activities; financing the upkeep of the house and the people and pets in it, all while juggling work–paid or volunteer–outside and inside the home, takes the talents of an organized multi-tasker extraordinaire. It takes control.

I used to be better at it, the juggling, when my mind was sharper and my energy level higher, but even then I had to rely on spreadsheets to track everyone’s movements and whereabouts. Running a household draws on a variety of skills inborn or acquired. Though not a long-term planner, my mind is wired to work from three steps ahead backward–necessary to captain the ship. 

When the kids were pre-schoolers, I knew at the outset of any day trip that one of my daughters was going to need a series of five, three and one minute warnings of departure as she was not good with transitions. And just the mathematics involved in planning for the outing, the gear required to anticipate any probable need ordinary or extraordinary (accidents), plus the time factor to shove kids in and out of carseats in time to meet the next appointed destination on the agenda, kept my mind in continual twists and turns of addition and subtraction:  add a few minutes for Jordyn’s resistance or chase before we leave plus a few more minutes for changing Remie’s diaper, which will inevitably be an emergency by the time I round up Jordyn and get her in the car–an exercise in figuring out the smallest movements needed to achieve the greatest effect, something like understanding quantum mechanics. 

The abilities to run, round up–kids and numbers–calculate, estimate, zoom, balance, gather, recoup, resist, stay alert, maintain composure and sanity, all while wondering where pride and sleep went is spectacularly challenging and a tremendous show of competency when done without tearing hair out, my own or anyone else’s. Not a very sexy proposition but one declaring mastery of intellectual, emotional and physical strength beyond compare–power.

Power. Mastery. Sex. To Sullivan’s point about sex, sexism and subservience, I must agree with her editors that the definition nowhere includes financial maintenance, and so the term is not as sexist as she protests. In fact, the illumination cast upon the term from its etymology, derived from the French word maitresse, master, and its name for a teacher, one of the oldest, most widely recognized longstanding, respectable working roles for women (not to be confused with the oldest profession), is the domain of mastering knowledge and communication. What could be more empowering than forming the minds of a population? 

Women are distinct, singular each, work in different ways from each other and from men. Words that carry history as performances past that umbrella performances present should not be discarded lightly, especially in the case of a word that I believe furthers the cause of empowering women–for the informed and language sensitive, that is. I take issue with divorcing ourselves from our past. It is a mistake. We need the reminder, nuanced influence and acknowledgement of who we are, where we come from and where we are heading. 

Keep the mistress as master-ess of her domain.
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OMG, nooooooooooo!!!

  


Yes, it’s tragic. I can tell by the frequent wailing and gnashing of teeth around here. Zayn is leaving.  My daughters are heartbroken.

When all the eye rolling is done, I have to ask myself if this phenomenon, the three, four, has it been nearly five (?) year love affair my children have had with this boy band (now man band), is something to deride. Perhaps the resistant nod to the importance of this group on my part comes from the force feeding I have endured over the years, trapped in a car with screaming teens and pre-teens, windows rolled down as they shouted along with the blaring music,”You don’t know you’re beautiful!!”, at passersby, laughing, arm-waving and car-seat dancing. 

While I have maintained the appropriate role of music critic, one of many as a mother, explaining to my daughters with aplomb that cuteness is not one of the criteria for musicianship, I must confess to knowing most of the lyrics to at least two of the albums and have been caught singing a 1-D song while cooking dinner in the kitchen a time or two…or five. The truth is, I like the band, and my daughters have been warning me that this day was coming, the breakup of the band. 

They would know as they follow every word ever uttered by mouth or in print on Twitter, Snapchat, Vine, text or telephone from fellow fans befriended while waiting in line for tickets, movies, and concerts, or at fan sightings and school about these adored entertainers. My 16 year old has told me during more than one car ride to school or a friend’s house with grave admonition and dread that their five-year contract, made when the band members were her age, is almost up and it is doubtful they will re-up given their rigorous touring schedule lo these many years. She suspected burnout all along.

And now it is slowly unfolding, the story of Zayn’s quitting–or was he fired? My 19 year old gave me the lowdown this morning about how it may actually be a firing from the slave master, corporate, money-grubbing, greedy-bastard managers (her characterization, my words), when he dared to walk off a tour after publicity of Zayn’s cheating on his fiancee, or so it was made to appear by the evil media. She explained that Zayn was the more sensitive one and just got sick of the twisting of his life with all the fan-dom gossip and media lies. 

So says she, who somehow coaxed me on more than one occasion several years ago to drive all over Los Angeles chasing these boys for a possible sighting. One time, I flipped out on her and her friends after a six-hour chase that made me question my sanity–truly. There is a limit to a parent’s indulgence of teenage fantasy addiction, and I had exceeded that limit by legions.

The truth is, I will miss these boy-men should this signal the beginning of the end. All those car rides–and there have been many–with four or five girls screaming in my car every word to every song, windows down, wind whipping through us, and even my steering wheel banging car seat dance in full swing, have been fun and meaningful, girls having fun in music fantasy, me witnessing. My younger still insists only half ironically that she will marry Harry, so there is no need for any other boys in her life.

These singer-musician cuties have played an important role in our lives, in theirs particularly, and not only as an obsession or a place holder until something bigger and better and realer comes along. Their devotion, waiting for hours to glimpse them, purchase tickets, see them in concert, find the latest about their lives, has been not only the commitment of love-sick, crazy teens with no reality that can compete with the fantasy of them, but of the true commitment of fans, caring fans who love something bigger than themselves, something to hang their hopes on for a future relationship with someone truly special, someone with greatness, ambition, good looks, talent and caring for an adoring heart.

For me, these guys have given me opportunity a’plenty to not only serve as taxi driver, crazy mom, and sage adviser about everything from music to love to addiction, but also as friend and adoring fan to these girls, all beautiful in their youth, purity and zealous affection and enthusiasm in their devotion to a lovely even if sometimes embattled over the rights to the story world, something that could be a lot worse than wholesome 1-D. If they have to be addicted, I am okay with it being a handful of benign cutie patooties. 

And quite honestly, it has been interesting to watch these boys grow, musically and personally, amazingly in sync with my daughters’ growth in the same fashion. The music is less bubble gum, evolved, adding a layer or two of musical and lyrical depth and diversity. Similarly, both girls have developed diverse musical tastes over the years that I deem mature and sophisticated, even as I question the talent of some of their selections. 

My car rides are now infected with a wild array of cynical, political songwriter-singers, not so fresh and innocent as 1-D, more so overly whiny, sardonic and anti everything socially accepted, like the Front bottoms–their rebellion phase, kind of like their mom’s Dylan, Doors and Led Zeppelin phase decades ago. But despite their clear evolving musical tastes way beyond the pop pablum of groups like 1-D, or their predecessor Justin Bieber oh so many moons ago (comparably “my” David Cassidy in the 70s), they hold Harry and the boys near and dear, laughing at themselves while seriously loving them too.

But we all move on, even 1-D dudes. Zayn is right to quit. Why not end at the top? Why not try to regain the semblance of a sane life at the ripe young age of 22? It will take another five or more years to get over the post-traumatic effects of rising and sinking so far and wide as unknown to super-star to used-to-be. Although, I somehow doubt the residue, the fractured band, as Brad Nelson of the Guardian dubbed them, “four goofy white guys shouting“, will make it and not only due to the dent in the multi-textured sound that Zayn contributed to creating. 

The fans may not be so forgiving of the Simon Legree (or is that Simon Cowell?) managers they may see responsible for the breakup or may not be able to let go of what was–the perfect quintet of dreaminess. A beloved will always be missing.

In any event, there will be the press stories and the fan stories, the truths of which may not coincide. The best part of the band for most fans is not even the music but the constant back story and just the story making itself, constantly winding in and around the social lives of imaginative teens and pre-teens flexing their minds and hearts into the vast landscape of love, music and social media. What else is there, after all?

 
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Sentimental Morning

Yesterday I read in the Huffington Post the story of A.J.’s 25 year affair with a married man, her divorce lawyer, on whom she had grown dependent for love, money and herself. Her story is familiar. She filled a space that was her, missing most probably due to the abandonment she felt in childhood, with him, but came to realize after two and a half decades that only she could fill that gaping hole.
 
The hole in my heart couldn’t be filled by anyone but me. I had to love myself more than I loved anyone else. Even him. Finally, I understood.

 

We walked out of the hotel onto Park Avenue, and without another word to him, I turned and walked away.
 
This morning I awoke from a dream the last vision of which was the face of my husband of nearly 35 years, smiling, his head leaning on someone else’s shoulders, completely content. 
 
No one has made me weep more in my dreams than he has.
 
Though we are no longer intimate, we share a connection deeper and more profound than the silence we keep about what went wrong and what is right.
 
Love is more than dependency, but its shape and character are dependent upon lovers. There is no doubt that we fall in love with love and all we imagine it to be, including that leaning, literally and figuratively, on another. Our hearts resound solitarily in our chests, but the primal urge to sync our rhythms to the beats of those hearts walking beside us is unimaginably fierce. We don’t want to be–alone.


Graham Nash — A Simple Man


I am a simple man
So I sing a simple song
Never been so much in love
And never hurt so bad at the same time.
I am a simple man
And I play a simple tune
I wish that I could see you once again
Across the room like the first time.
I just want to hold you I don’t want to hold you down
I hear what you’re saying and you’re spinning my head around
And I can’t make it alone.
The ending of the tale
Is the singing of the song
Make me proud to be your man only you can make me strong
Like the last time.
I just want to hold you I don’t want to hold you down
I hear what you’re saying and you’re spinning my head around
And I can’t make it alone.

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Killer Thoughts

It’s been around for a while, but I just saw this delightful Ryan Woodward animation “The Thought of You,” which has made its rounds on Facebook, Vimeo and Youtube ad nauseum. And my fresh look adds yet another interpretation among the hundreds of others mostly fawning observations and applauding. The difference in interpretive tone–positive or negative–is probably affected by the accompanying song. In one version, Nick Lovell’s “Cradle in my Arms” is the backdrop, which is slow, severe and mournful, whereas the other version is accompanied by the Weepies’ “The World Spins Madly On,” a much more upbeat though just as disillusioned song.
 
In the short animation, I see thought, airy nothing, on display. I see the “lost in the world” lyric, with two ideas dancing around each other, illusive in the acting out: he grabs her but she evades him, slips from him but then there she is again, and they dance and she caresses him but he ducks away, also slippery.  
 
And the lyric, “woke up wishing I was dead…the night is here the day is gone,” floats into my consciousness as the scene changes to dream sequence, a longing, where she is an angel, the feathers falling as she flies from him. Is he about to kill her off? When they finally spin together as they and “the world spins madly on,” she suddenly becomes real to him, her clear yearning to touch him, there standing in all of her need–real–and he lets her go.  She is real, depicted with shading and fullness, depth, and he is still an idea. He lets the real go. Dreams and fantasies are far more interesting, full of potential.
 

Nick Lovell’s “Cradle in my Arms”

I don’t mind
Where I wake this morning
I will only be misjudged

 

You are here
But your mind is elsewhere
You have battled for so long

 

Just call me when you feel like coming home
Call me when you feel like coming home

 

Have I changed?
Or do my eyes just see things
So much differently now?

 

Lay the blame
Only if you have to
But it’s you who brought you here

 

The animation suggests thought as the figures are mere sketches until the woman acquires shading, a touch of reality, when she is more concretely identifiable as herself and not the projections of the male configuration’s imagination: as angel as the feathers that fall suggest or even a dancer. When she stands there just herself in want of him, not playing chase, at the end, he leaves her. He loses interest or runs in fear or both.

 

I want to peel off my skin and roll myself in salt when I see this where others–Youtube and Vimeo commenters–look to the beauty of the dance and feel warmth and loveliness. The projection of my own thoughts on someone else, making that person an extension of my own desire and will is a life-long habit and a doom to so many relationships.Too often have I wished another to fill the expectations of my imagination, which is powerfully creative and unrealistic as if totally unleashed from senses.

 

The result: not actually seeing or finding the person standing before me because I have never been there–present–in the first place to notice. Wrapped up in my mind’s eye, not my physical eye that sees not envisions, causes blindness–and eventual loss.
 
When she is an idea–a thought–it is easier to hurt her. Experiencing another as flesh and blood makes it more difficult to hurt that human being, compassionately and empathically sensed as one senses him or her own self. 
 
That is how genocides or near genocides have been possible in the past–making whole populations an idea, a problem needing a solution, the Jews of pre-War World II Germany as only one example. No human being but the most unfeeling, the sociopathic, could be convinced that the economic solution for a failed economy and the woes attending such is to kill another singular, seething human fleshly being standing right before one’s eyes. No, that person would have to become an idea–the economic drain, the problem, caused by immigration, greed, religious destiny, or some other idea.

 

For me, fantasy has always been greater than reality and my heart is a painter. Those who show up to be my canvas often cry out, insist on themselves as I sketch and color them brighter, fuller bloom. 
 
The Weepies’ “World Spins Madly On”
 
Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
I thought of you and where you’d gone
and let the world spin madly on

Everything that I said I’d do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on

I let the day go by
I always say goodbye
I watch the stars from my window sill
The whole world is moving and I’m standing still

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
The night is here and the day is gone
And the world spins madly on

I thought of you and where you’d gone
And the world spins madly on.

 
“And the world spins madly on…” The world of the imagination is a mad spin, crazy making in its delusional world making.

 

How many of us do this–imagine what we want rather than experience what we have?

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Vibrators and Misinformation Again

  

  

The Guardian article, “A vibrator is not a substitute for a partner. But how do you tell men that?” by Tracy Clark-Flory fortuitously appears this relaxing Saturday after a week focusing on the vibrator and women’s orgasm on the blog (here).

The article’s content in large part has been covered on this blog previously, the major take home ideas being as follows: sex toys are still a taboo subject despite 43% of heterosexual men having used one with a partner, men feel intimidated by vibrators while women feel insecure about speaking up in light of men’s insecurity, and the unwillingness of couples to speak honestly about introducting the vibrator into the bedroom is due to culturally-reinforced misconceptions of penetrative sex as the cornerstone of sexual fulfillment.  

In light of that last persistent, patent lie, the most significant reason for repeating material is to disseminate sexual truth and keep the discussion ongoing, so that some day that report–that there exists “the cultural expectation that women orgasm during and as a result of penetrative sex” despite the ample research that “shows that most women simply do not climax from penetrations alone”–will no longer be fact. The “culture” needs to stop expecting that. Such misinformation leads to couple insecurities, which Clark-Flory writes “makes for really terrible sex.”

Get over yourself America (though the article is directed to a wider audience, American attitudes about sex are majorly dysfunctional). Men, stop thinking a penis is all you are, the end all and be all. Women, stop thinking your role in life is to be “pleasers and soothers, above all else.” 

Vibrators are not replacements for men, not necessarily intercourse substitutes, and men who think so need to be disabused of that notion by curative cultural “normalization” of the facts. Women, take the lead on this (except for those women who really do prefer vibrators to men). You are the life bearers, the stronger sex. Be bold. Be honest. Tell him what you need, respectfully. Or else, keep supporting the sex-toy industry. Apparently, the options for bigger, bendier and both-partner accommodating vibrators are abundant. 

Above all, have fun. 

Peace,

the Gaze
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A Little Perspective

Teaching Amy Leach’s You Be the Moon (Sail on my little Honey Bee) today in class, I cannot help but think of David Eagleman and his brilliant TEDtalk on posibilianism. Though the made up term is interesting enough, I am completely enrapt with this twenty-three minute talk for its first three minutes when he reveals what the deep field Hubble experiment yielded several years ago. My jaw no longer drops because I have shared this talk with my classes semester in and semester out for the last few years but my mind’s jaw still does.

Posibilianism is also a fun kind of idea too.  Enjoy.

 

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Is that a vibrator in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?




What I treasure most about blogging is the many contributions from readers whether in thoughtful or supportive comments, or suggestions of what to “gaze” at as today’s content donor put it. It makes my day when someone sends me a bit, a piece, an image, video or an article, some snippet topical to the blog’s thematic interests. Today’s gift is an article in the New York Times paying tribute to Dell Williams, former actress, advertising executive and army WAC, who started Eve’s Garden, a Manhattan sex boutique opened at a time when openly flaunting female sexuality took some daring. 

The story goes that she opened her sex shop after a humiliating experience at the hands of a young “pimply faced” clerk/interrogator when, in 1974, she purchased a vibrator. This spurred her mission to establish a place where women could purchase sex paraphernalia in peace. This kick-ass entrepreneur spent a majority of her life defending the right to open acceptance of women’s sexuality, something perhaps taken for granted today as more of a given than in her lifespan. 

Though it is still not a given even today.

While attitudes about female sexuality have progressed from denial by the patriarchal societies of Western Civilization to acknowledgment that it exists, there is still some distance to go before female sexuality is fully, openly celebrated, let alone discussed, by men and women. 

Thanks to vibrators, and women like Dell Williams who fought for freer access to them, there is an interesting history from which to start a conversation about women’s sexuality that does not seem so contrived, cliché or awkward. In fact, I used today’s research to pique the interest of my 15 year old, a sly engagement of her unsuspecting provincial sensibilities, to talk about sex, something she is loathe to do with her mother.

It turns out the vibrator is the tool that has not only traveled well through the centuries but also one that has propelled female sexuality and feminism into its current state of the question I have heard of late: Do we even need feminism any more? While the answer is yes, for many reasons, economic equality access being only one of them, that is a story for another day. The advent of the vibrator is a story of patriarchy, capitalism and power.

It begins with Hippocrates in 4th Century Greece, or at least he was the first on record to theorize that hysteria, a condition ascribed to women who displayed symptoms such as fainting, nervousness, and bad temper, more commonly known as “dry womb disease,” which seems to me as overall unhappiness most probably due to a lack of sexual excitement (read: not pumping out the lube) or fulfillment with men and the “normative” practice of penis-penetrating-vagina sex, what Rachel P. Maines in her book The Technology of Orgasm terms the “androcentric standard” of acceptable sexual practice.

The medical treatment Hippocrates and generations of physicians thereafter–until 1952 when hysteria was no longer diagnosed–for women experiencing hysteria and dry womb, was manual manipulation of the vulva by physicians to hysterical paroxysm, the medical condition better known as orgasm–in other words, getting women off. This treatment, an ongoing therapy, took up too much time for doctors to make enough money from other patients and was a routine and rote task that clearly could and should have been the work of midwives but for physicians not wanting to forego the income, prestige and power over the female body. As such, devices were developed to facilitate that “chore.”

Coupled with attitudes that women should not be touching their own bodies or have pleasure outside of marriage and what men could provide–androcentric sex–the vibrator was kept in the hands, so to speak, of the medical establishment until 1902 when Hamilton Beach patented the first take home vibrator, a large and noisy (we can heeeeaaaar you) apparatus. The hush of sexual repression quietly deposited these household objects from the hands of doctors into locked drawers, despite their popularity. According to trojanvibrations.com, these early vibrators emerged as one of the most common household electrical appliances invented even before the electric iron:


By 1917, there were more vibrators than toasters in American homes, claiming to cure everything from headaches to polio, deafness and impotence. Some ads for vibrators even claimed to be able to put a glow on your face.


In the radical feminist 70’s, the vibrator came out of the closet and into the hands of women trying to bring all things woman into the forefront, but particularly her sexuality as her power and her own.  Today, approximately half the American population uses or has used a vibrator, according to a survey of statistical findings I conducted on the web, only one of which is livescience.com.

Maine’s first chapter of her book mentioned above is available online and is a fascinating detailed history of the vibrator in context of sexual history from 4th Century B.C. through the Victorian era til modern times, citing wonderful hysteria treatment tools like horse simulators and other early curative devices designed for women’s orgasm, wickedly delightful apparatus to an unappreciative audience, my guess.

The covert manipulation (pun intended) of attitudes toward women’s sexuality–sexual pleasure that demanded more than male vaginal penetration as well as women’s ownership, participation and education (To know why, see Huffpost’s 13 Reasons Every Woman Should Masturbate Regularly)–derived from what Michel Foucault, French philosopher and author of the History of Sexuality, deemed the male medical establishment’s “hystericization of sexuality” (using their authoritative power to keep women’s sexuality as well as homosexuality in the realm of disease vis a vis the normative sexuality of the culture), patriarchy and capitalist greed.

Thank you Hippocrates for taking the time to notice, for kickstarting the vibrator’s journey to women, promoting sexual health for both men and women, and for getting all those women off, a trend that persisted even if disguised as medical treatment (wink, wink). He was hip to the truth he and his cronies kept mum, I suspect: most women, producers of the only organ designed for pure pleasure, maybe don’t need men so much to get off once they figure out what they have and how to use it.
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The Only Organ for Pure Pleasure



An interesting short read accompanied by a HuffPost Love & Sex podcast, Carina Kolodny’s The Power of the Clitoris reminds us that this powerhouse of pleasure is not only often overlooked but most unfortunately misunderstood and misplaced. Hey, it was a revelation even to decades old me when I recently read how long that seemingly small pleasure piece actually is and how far it extends into another key erotic zone.

The podcast features the author, Kolodny, and Noah Michaelson, a professed gay man (even he finds this bit amazing) who advocates spreading awareness of the clitoris, the only human organ with its sole purpose as pleasure, by talking openly about if for not only sex education purposes but for reminding us sex is not purely utilitarian and circumscribed, a predisposition this organ’s mere existence challenges:  sex is not just procreation, procured exclusively for marriage, but exists for the pure enjoyment of it. 

While some may scratch their heads in puzzlement wondering why that is notable, there is still a consciousness among some and a subconsciousness among more that sex is confined to those traditional milieus: procreation and marriage.

And then there’s Freud…

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Sticks and Stones May Break my Bones… but Call Me a Cunt?


It may have been Christmas time three years ago, when, in the daze that was my shopping misery, I finally reached the cash register after a zombifyingly long wait in a Disneyland-like serpentine line. To my shock and then delight, the young ostensibly female Urban Outfitter employee asking me if I found everything “okay” was sporting a medium-sized (not too small and not overly large) white round button pinned to the left of the top of her left breast with the word in bold black capital letters, “CUNT” printed on it. 

After a bit of an eye widening, I settled into a smirk and complimented her on her pin. She said her pal, the manager, made it for her. I thought it ballsy to wear it in a store, hip as the location is–the anti-mall, a hipster haven–with commercial intent, especially one run by Conservative homophobes from what I recollected reading.


I immediately wanted one. Up to that year, my 51st, I had not encountered the word very often and it had an aura about it, something electric and taboo. The word had never been hurled at me as a weapon til then, though it has been since–by someone I could not have ever guessed would use it against me, yet neither could I have ever imagined that he and I could have ever entered into hideous combat the way he had. 


The initial admixture of discordant discomfort, alarm, and delight was titillating and intriguing. Yes, I understood the neutralizing of such terms through ironic deployment as many other terms have been similarly used:  nigger and queer, to name the two powerhouse terms of oppression that have been turned inside out by the intended targets’ co-opting these weapons. No, one cannot harm another with a word she turns on herself happily, so that the term is deflated, neutralized.


My reaction led me on the usual journey of the philologist (a title one graduate school professor knighted his class of comparative literature students with profoundly):  What is the nature of language?


Interestingly enough, I had this discussion about language with my class just yesterday. We had read Susan Allison’s, “Taking a Reading,” which is a playful essay examining the language of measurement, supposedly a very precise endeavor of linguists long ago. However, in it, Allison wryly asks how it is that her yard, the same word for a measurement of three feet, and that of her childhood–two different sized and located spaces–are both yards. Even the language of precision has so much slippage.


I asked my students:  If we woke up tomorrow and the word for cat was now “dog,” would it matter?  Language is merely a referent to something else, so does it make a difference which sounds and letters we assign to the object in mind, and how do we know the object we have in mind is the same referent for everyone using the same term anyhow? And what of the individual raised without a word for “cat” or any language?  Does a cat exist in absence of a word for it, to recall it to mind and give it form? Pretty abstract for a class during the need-for-a-tea-or-espresso hour.


My point was to consider the arbitrariness of language even as it forms and informs our very existence–makes our world. I am not alone in pondering this phenomenon way too much. Philosophy teems with such obsessing considerations.


But how is it that such words like “cunt” contain all that energy, all that power?  Does calling a man a “dick” have the same effect? No, it does not because of the real life power relations between men and women historically and contemporarily in physical, economical and political disparity of exchange. The magic of the term, however, must be steeped in a rich history of which I am not fully aware because calling a female “womb” or “vagina” or “twat” even does not have the same force or violence in my mind. 


Few females wish to be identified as one part of their bodies, I would imagine, and if they did, it probably would not be their vaginas more than their brains. Though, as the wonderful Betty White, comedic tough ass actress long enduring herself, has astutely joked, the vagina is a pretty damned tough body part for its resilience, flexibility and endurance in light of the beatings it suffers.  


For your viewing pleasure, an entertaining comic strip content of attitudes toward and reactions to the word “cunt” on the Nib entitled “Just a Word,” is offered for discussion. Is it just a word? A weapon? Is it enough to own the word, wear it on a pin to neutralize it? Breeze through the cartoon and weigh in. This inquiring mind wants to know.
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“55 Rules for Love”

credit:  http://markhanlin.com


I appreciate this list so much I am re-printing all 55 of the 55 Rules for Love in elephantjournal.com gifted by Alex Sandra Myles. I especially love how the list is framed by 1 and 55, cherish love and don’t take it for granted or risk it for mind games, power plays and other gambles to chase love away.

Some of these rules confirm the successful moments of my own daily practices and disposition toward not only loving another or others but self, such as being grateful, aiming for open communication, disagreement as healthy for cherishing and appreciating difference, forgiving easily, admitting fault and accepting criticism.

So many of them, however, are challenges, ones I know I must practice daily but forget, struggle with or get lazy, like 5, 8, 13, 16, 22, 23, 26, 30, 37, 41, 43 and 45. The rest are either instinctual or hard earned by practice or subsumed in other rules: cherishing love is also being grateful and appreciative.

I hope you enjoy this list as much as I do as gentle reminders how to love yourself too.



1. When it arrives, cherish it.

2. Whatever you accept, you will get

3. Understand that love is a mirror—it will show us who we are if we allow it to.

4. Only we can make ourselves happy, it is not the other person’s responsibility.

5. Don’t say words with the intent to hurt.

6. Accept and forgive easily.

7. Don’t be scared to disagree, it is healthy.

8. Never be too busy for each other.

9. Do not punish.

10. Accept honest criticism, it is good for us.

11. Admit when you are wrong, quickly.

12. Support each other when the going gets tough.

13. Live in the moment—be present.

14. Leave the past where it belongs.

15. Leave drama out of it.

16. Don’t try to control.

17. Allow a small amount of jealousy.

18. Don’t use comparisons.

19. Celebrate differences.

20. Communicate openly and honestly.

21. Listen very carefully.

22. Don’t judge.

23. Don’t manipulate to get results.

24. Learn and grow.

25. Don’t try to change each other.

26. Don’t condemn each other’s family and friends.

27. Lines, flaws and imperfections are beautiful.

28. Trust your instincts, but don’t be paranoid.

29. Don’t compromise your morals and values and don’t expect them to either.

30. Instead of power, aim for balance.

31. Space is needed to breathe and to grow.

32. Accept that you are both unique—never compare.

33. Have fun, laugh and play—a lot.

34. Be each other’s best friend.

35. Don’t play mind games.

36. Do not carelessly throw away love.

37. Don’t waste energy with negative thoughts.

38. Compliment often.

39. Discover each other.

40. Be attentive and understand what’s not said.

41. Do at least one romantic and thoughtful thing every day.

42. Take picnics and sleep under the stars.

43. Don’t just speak about it, show love.

44. Walk together, cook together, bathe together, read together.

45. Do not be afraid, love requires surrender.

46. Be loyal and faithful.

47. Trust.

48. Be grateful.

49. Fluidity is good, accept change.

50. Don’t sleep on a fight.

51. Don’t cling to it, know when to let go.

52. Discover what turns you both on and explore it.

53. Make love, but also f*ck (regularly).

54. Give and receive without measure.

55. Never gamble with what you can’t afford to lose.

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