Why I Can't Jam to CeeLo Anymore OR: Your Game of Thrones fanship is wrecking my PTSD.

Facebook asked me to comment on the return of Game of Thrones.  Shortly after posting this status update, I received the following question in my inbox.

• 
  
  
  
  
  
  

  The short answer is: Yes.
  
  Now I'll define support.
  
  Do I mean these people themselves go to the bar with rohypnol in their pockets? Probably the majority do not.
  
  Do I mean these people themselves, when they hear of an MRA rally, get out their posterboard and their markers and go join with misogynistic signs held high? Probably the majority do not.
  
  But let's look at the study conducted at the University of North Dakota, by two PhDs and one MA, published in 2014 in the journal Violence and Gender and first reported by Newsweek. ONE IN THREE of the men surveyed said they would "use force to obtain intercourse" from a woman if there were no consequences. Now, when the actual word "rape" was used in the question, those numbers dropped to much lower. But is that not the definition of rape?
  
  And that's where things get tricky. My rapist fucked me without my consent. I woke up, and he was inside me, and I did not want him to be. But he does not believe that what he did was rape. So few rapists do. In fact, marital rape in the USA only began to be outlawed in the 1970s, and was only finally illegal in all 50 states by as recently as 1993/  The definition is still tricky in at least 13 states. Marital rape is still legal in around fifty countries. My rapist, like so many others, believed he had a right to take what he wanted, and saw nothing wrong with that.
  
  I bring all this up to say, it's highly likely that a good percentage of viewers either do not regard the three horrible scenes that are most often discussed as rape at all - and if they do, it's easy enough for them to brush them away. Drogo's rape of Danerys? Well they were married, it was their wedding night, what did she expect? Ramsey's rape of Sansa? Again, she was his wife. Jamie's rape of Cersei? Well, while not legally married, they'd been in a decades-long committed relationship, right? Even the actor who plays Jamie has defended that scene vocally. I'll never watch another project he's in.
  
  But Drogo never gets Dany's consent.  He flips her over, goes to town, and the camera zooms in on her teary eyes.
  The actual dialogue between Cersei and Jamie in the “controversial scene” is as follows:
  Jaime: "You're a hateful woman. Why have the gods made me love a hateful woman?"
  Cersei "Jaime, not here, please. Please."
  Cersei: "Stop it. Stop it. Stop. No. Stop it. Stop. Stop. Stop. It's not right. It's not right. It's not right."
  Jaime: "I don't care."
  Cersei: "Don't. Jaime, don't.”
  Jaime: "I don't care. I don't care." 
  Cersei tells Jamie not here, please, don't, stop, no, it's not right, and he says "I don't care" and helps himself to her. I stopped watching when I heard about that episode, so I can't comment on the later scene of Ramsey and Sansa, but I hear it focused entirely on THEON'S REACTION TO THE RAPE and not the rape at all. And in none of these cases do we deal with the aftermath of rape. It happens as a plot device and the story moves on, leaving these victims and their healing unaddressed.
  
  Importantly to me though, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THESE RAPES OCCURS IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT. In fact, the scene between Drogo and Dany becomes a celebration of gaining her trust and her consent. Cersei literally begs Jamie to fuck her, and Sansa isn't even in Winterfell, she's far away to the East.
  
  Perhaps most importantly, this is being intentionally done and therefore condoned by the writers, directors, actors, and countless others involved in this show, in the face of public outcry against it. After the first violation in the Dany/Drogo story, there was outcry. They heard it. They answered it with more non-canon rape in the Jamie/Cersei story. The outcry was even louder. They heard it. They answered it with more non-canon rape in the altogether invented Ramsey/Sansa story. This time the outcry has been to the extent that some publications, including The Mary Sue, have said they will no longer cover Game of Thrones with any stories on their website. There was further outcry from Salon, Wired, Vanity Fair, Vulture, Hypable, Bustle, Vox, the NY Daily News, and a US Senator.  This is being intentionally and repeatedly done. These people are choosing to continue to depict this abhorrent act.
  
  So when I say I believe these people are supporting rape, what I mean to say is that they weekly celebrate a show which needlessly and grotesquely depicts the sexual abuse of women by men, disrespecting and retraumatizing me personally along with an untold and uncountable number of other victims of rape. I'm not making a mountain out of a molehill here.  My PTSD symptoms have been through the roof simply because I see people celebrating the show's return.  I've forgotten my phone at home, shown up late for work, and yelled at students who didn't deserve it.  I find myself absent-mindedly planning self-harm, and have to fight myself not to commit it.
  
  I believe that these depictions lead us to become desensitized to sexual violence and that it is this sort of attitude toward rape and depiction of it that leads to instances of, for example, this woman livestreaming her 17-year-old friend's rape but doing nothing to stop it. I'll be the first to argue that music and video games do not a school shooter make, but frankly I feel we're dealing with apples and oranges when it comes to that.
  
  I do not deny that the books depict rape, but I feel personally that the books do a better job of dealing with the aftermath - repeatedly discussing how rapers are sent to the wall, Eddard Stark's declaration of Clegane as an outlaw and demanding he be brought to justice (mentioned only in passing in the show), and plenty of other instances.  While the books include rape, they do not graphically depict the details that the show visually places in front of us.
  
  People who watch this show are supporting the show. This show is indefensible with regards to how it repeatedly and unnecessarily depicts rape. Even before I myself became a rape victim (I do not yet identify with the label "survivor," though I hope I can one day) I would boycott problematic art and artists. I do not get to watch Woody Allen or Roman Polanski films. I don't listen to Cee Lo, or any artist who collaborates with Chris Brown. Cosby, Lennon, Sean Penn... the list goes on.
  
  Explain it away and enjoy the show if you want to. You have that right. I am incapable of doing so.

enough soul and a home

enough soul and a home
after francine j harris

Every soul deserves a good arm
chair. and a grave.  The soul says,
no more cell in my living room.
in my grave.  There's a christmas tree
still up in the corner, in May, garlanded
with teeth.  and souls.

Take it down, says the cell.  to the grave.
I stopped listening to the cell.  Carved
off my ears with a wooden spoon,
put them in a soup
for the soul.  for the home.

No one eats in this grave.

What a kitchen it is, the way these souls
are made up of cells. in the hallway
a dirt-garland shovel falls.  echoes
in its cells.  Rotting flowers

for the souls, and in the bedroom
souls lined like soldiers on the dump
of a bed.  I can't hear them any more

in our home. After all, there's enough windows
here to open every soul. This hissing
and thump are the cells.  are the sounds
of cells who can't let go.  are the song
I cannot hear.  Is it finished?  says the cell.
says the soul.  as it loses another hand
in the sink.  in the cell.  Don't let go.

We'll home together soon.  We'll all
home our souls good for good.

29/30 baltiMore

There are curse words far worse
than Shit
or Fuck
or Cunt.
Let these words be so despicable
that no one ever utters them again.
Let them be so foul in the mouth
that no child may ever bear their names,
let these curse names be removed
from the census, from any history book,
let their mothers unbirth them, let
their birth certificates be burned.
Do not say the name of a white cop
who murdered a Black citizen
again.  Let these unholy syllables
be not spoken nor printed
any more.

There are images far more filthy
than any X-rated film.  Do not show us
more photos
of Black bodies
in the streets.  Thinking
of a thing gives it power.

Stop.

Black children safe in their beds, amen.
Black fathers saying grace at dinner, amen.
Black mothers laughing in harmony, amen.
Black sisters skipping double dutch, amen.
Black brothers cranking open fire hydrants, amen.
A Black gay couple adopts their second child, amen.
A Black foster child finds a loving Black home, amen.
Two Black lesbians smile across a Black-owned cafe,
amen.
A Black grandmother calls her Black
transdaughter by her chosen name, amen.
A Black bus driver takes care to help
a Black wheelchair user board, amen.
Black classmates learn ASL to befriend the new
deaf Black student, amen.  Think of Black people
with love, amen. Think of Black people with life,
amen.  Think of Black people alive and empowered,
amen.
All Black Lives matter,
amen.

25/30: exhausted

I am Tired:

of being angry about houses
I don't have the tools to rebuild.
I'm tired of waiting for flowers
to arrive.  Tired of looking
over shoulders not my own.
Tired of counting and counting,
and counting things I need to be
counting.  Tired of math
and of language, tired of all
the things I don't know.  Tired
of not sleeping enough
and of sleeping too much.
Tired of sleeping around.  Tired
of Quit Playing Around And Get
Back To Work.  Tired of
Just Because You Write A Thing
Doesn't Make It True.
Tired of Mr Right Just Kidding Mr
Wrong All Along.  Tired of politics
and people tired of breathing air.
Tired of ain't got what I need, tired
of cain't get what I want.  Tired
of wanting and needing at all.
Tired of pay this and buy that and earn
earn earn tired of disparity
tired of depression and anxiety
tired
of exhaustion
tired of writing
this poem.

Day 22: Suppose

SUPPOSE
after Maureen Micus Crisick

Renisha's knock had been met
with a neighbor saying My God,
you look terrified, please, let me
help and tea and a blanket, and Jonathan
got that chemistry degree after all
and married his girl and became
a high school football coach.  John
made it to the barbecue and Rumain?
Rumain came home all by himself
and served his family dinner and not
one cop shot him dead in front
of his babies and his girl.

What did I say?
I said: what if Trayvon makes it home,
and Tamir is playing on the swings
in the park even now, and Kajieme lives
in a world that believes he is important
and treats him like it, too.  Suppose cops
become social workers, and the first time
Aiyana Jones rides in a horse drawn carriage
is to her high school prom. Eric and Eric
are still breathing, funeral homes go out
of business, convert into
amusement parks, guns dissolve and explode
into rose bushes. Suppose bullets
are bright foil balloons
and Walter Scott comes home with two
for each
of his four sacred children.

10/30: reasons to be angry today

1. Because I set my alarms for P.M. instead of A.M. and woke up just in time to not technically be late to work.
2. Because I can't use my air conditioner, because it pisses water all over my belongings.
3. Because I'm ovulating and there's no one around to Do Me Right.
4. Because I didn't see the sun set.
5. Because I never see the sun set.
6. Because Dove has a new Beauty campaign out that still doesn't address how much easier it is for white able-bodied ciswomen to claim Beauty than it is for their sisters in the struggle.
7. Because too many white able-bodied ciswomen leave their sisters behind in the struggle.
8. Because the struggle.
9. Because I make my students do their homework, but I still haven't finished grading their tests.
10. Because I don't know how to reach some of them.
11. Because I had to teach them about Ferguson.
12. Because Amerikkka.
13. Because maybe there is no good country in this world.
14. Because this world.
15. Because depression.
16. Because antidepressants.
17. Because infinite downward spirals of existential thoughts.
18. Because I didn't have time to eat until 10PM.
19. Because I've already stayed up too late again tonight.
20. Because tomorrow *isn't* another day.
21. Because I still haven't finished unpacking into this new place.
22. Because I don't know where my heart is.
23. Because I'm scared to visit home, because what if I don't want to leave, because what if I never want to visit again.
24. Because I want to be home now.
25. Because home is a place where companies turn the water off on poor folk.
26. Because home is a place where white men in blue shirts shoot black men black women black children black people who did NOTHING.
27. Because too many black family trees are missing limbs these days.
28. Because this makes me sick, but I have the privilege of being able to stop thinking about it because I'm white.
29. Because home is a place where businesses can tell me get out cuz I'm queer.
30. Because I'm queer and woman in a world that hates queer and woman and black and and and.
31. Because that should be so alarming that we all immediately understand how wrong it is and change it.
32. Because people don't find it alarming and don't change it.
33. Because at 10PM my alarms did in fact go off.

2: Asa Cut-Up

This is a bill that in ordinary times would not be controversial. But these are not ordinary times.  This bill is not really complicated.  It's a balancing test.  The bill itself does not pick winners and losers.  It balances two competing constitutional obligations that our founding fathers gave to us.  But the issue has become divisive because our nation remains split on how to balance the diversity of our culture with the traditions and firmly held religious convictions.  It has divided families, and there is clearly a generational gap on this issue.  
--Governor Asa Hutchison of Arkansas on 1st April, 2015, announcing why he would be vetoing HR1228.


Balancing has become
founding.
This bill
is not ordinary.
These are
complicated times.
There is clearly a gap
between diversity
and religious convictions.
Split the founding fathers.
This nation is split: winners
and losers.  It's
controversial.  Test this bill.
This issue
is not really complicated.
Ordinary times?  Families,
traditions, convictions clearly
compete.  Our nation split
itself.  This bill is con-
troversial.  Test the times.  Really.
Two fathers are winners
and losers. and families.
and our nations.  and ordinary
culture.

15/30: Prompt - write about something that will never happen

HALFWAY DONE WITH THE MONTH SUCKAS!  LET'S PARTY!

(oh yeah i'm supposed to give you a pome):

The day you called me and said

I’m sorry, truly, for all of it, I woke up speaking

every language.  Rivers flowed

from their deltas to their springs. I checked

my bank account to find all I needed and more;

politicians quit telling lies.

I looked into the heavens and saw

the sun going round the Earth,

the earth going round the moon, I reached up

to slice a hunk of cheese off the moon

and ate it calmly with wine while I watched

the parade and the bands go by.

9/30: Dear Veet: #notbuyingit

(Backstory here)

I still vividly remember the first time I shaved my legs.

It was being granted the permission more than anything, honestly, having watched

the other girls shed their peach fuzz one by one, congratulating one another

as it happened, and me, I mean

come on.

Look at me.

They had peach fuzz but I was outgrowing most of the boys,

and of course that carried plenty along with it.  But my iron mother,

who ruled the house and my body from hairy head

to hairy toes, said no, said

I needed to keep my childhood, my innocence, a little longer.

Whatever.  Eventually she caved and who knows why

but it happened and I wrote her a thank you letter afterward

in which I described how the only thing that felt finer than my clothes

brushing against one of my new naked legs was the other leg.  I stood

in the kitchen rubbing them like some diva cricket.  I went to school

and no one said a thing.

Whatever.

Fast Forward.  And there’s angry red bumps, painful stubble, cuts and bleeding;

razor blades get dull and need replacing and I’m less pretty 

than the other girls because of my stubble, my red bumps,

my ingrowth, then someone said

try Veet.

I did.

It didn’t work.  At all.  Whatever.

When I moved to Wisconsin I quit shaving.  A girl from Arkansas

dabbed smack into winter, I mean come on.  Of course

I took what extra insulation I could get.  Then I was married

and who cares at that point, right? But after the split I was working

in the UK and my friend said

try Veet.

I did.

Different formulas in different countries?  Who knows.  Oh, it worked.

Diva cricket was back and wearing bikinis all across the Mediterranean

even taking her top off here and there, so hairless and proud and sexy

and woman and sexy and woman and hairless and proud.

Then my stems and I were back in the states again, where it didn’t work.

Again.  Whatever.

Until a woman taught me to epilate and the pain

was real

but worth it.  No hair and no stubble and it stayed gone

for weeks but when it came back it came

ingrown and I had to pick

at the bumps to get it to break through

and there were angry red bumps

again and sweet merciful fuck all I ever wanted

was a sexy, hairless, thirty four inch inseam

to outshine all the other girls because this

is what we do, right?  Our lot

as women, we change

we alter we torture we fix we improve upon

because we are broken and wrong and naturally

not

desirable and it’s so so important

that we be desired.

Whatever.

I reassessed.  Decided function was so much more important

than frivolity.  Let it all grow in, everywhere, all of it

for learning, for science, found my armpits

were a huge disappointment.  It grew in short

and sparse and only made me stinkier.  So that came back off.

My downstairs?  I keep a trim welcome mat

because I like having something that differentiates me

from a nine year old but beyond that

it’s hardwood floors baby because when company comes calling

I want to make sure no one ends up flossing, and my legs?

Well.

They’re just as Atheist Jesus made me because there is literally

no function served by getting rid of all that and red bumps

can shove off except now,

Veet,

your commercials have told me that if I have hair on my legs

I am actually an actual man.

In actuality.

That’s right.  The commercial starts with a handsome gentleman

waking up to his lover’s leg being thrown across him and he reaches

down

to rub hair.

And jumps up.

And shrieks.

And grabs for the covers because his lover is now

a man in a silk nightie apologizing, explaining,

“I just shaved yesterday.”

Bitch I ain’t shaved more years than I have, how much

of a man am I now?  Does this mean I don’t have

to be afraid in parking garages at night

any more, can I get equal pay now, can I wear

what I want to a party and drink

as much as I like and not watch the glass?  Can I cut

in line?  Take up too much space
on the train? Can I interrupt women and explain things to them

that they already know?  Can I get called on more

in class ?  Can I get promoted

more easily and without being asked

who I fucked?  Can I be 49% of the US population but 83%

of its government?  Can I choose not to have children

without being asked why?  Keep my surname without

being interrogated about it?  Get better funding

and sponsorship for sports, be angry and justified rather

than “on my period,” drive carelessly without

having it blamed on my sex, can I fuck as many partners

as I like and be applauded rather than branded?

Can I now be told by Almighty God that I deserve

to be head of my household, that no woman

may try to teach me or even speak when I’m talking?
Hey Veet?  Can I now be the same gender

as Almighty God himself?  Hey Veet --

the man who wakes up in the bed in your commercial?

His chest is hairless, his face is beardless, is that man

now a woman?  Hey Veet, let me offer you

some direct quotes from my male lovers who I began

to ask, after fucking, what they thought

about my legs:

1)      “I didn’t even notice.”  That’s from the man

who actually squatted next to my legs

as he cuffed my ankles to a spreader bar before we spent an evening

exploring boundaries together.  He was probably lying

but that night was amazing.

2)      “I just figured it was part of your whole thing

you got goin’ on.”  That man fucked me four times

in one night.

3)      “When you fuck like that, who cares?”  That’s

my personal favorite.

Which is to say, Veet,

not one of them squealed

or grabbed for the covers

or pulled away after their hands brushed

against my legs; these lanky cricket legs

have been wrapped around more heads

than it took to approve your bullshit

BADvertisement campaign and each face

is left with a smile.  Hey, Veet

your series of commercials checks so many

boxes it may as well have come straight

from the first season of Mad Men, talkin’

misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism --

oh yeah, there's an Asian pedicurist, too --

but WHATEVER:

I'm exercising

my VEETO.

I'm fucking perfect

just as I've grown.

I ain’t buyin’

yo shit

and no

you cain’t even

have a sample

of mine.

**drops mic, leaves stage**

5/30 chop and screw a quote