The Friend Zone

I have this . . . acquaintance* who asked me about the "friend zone" and how to avoid it the other day. If you're not familiar with the concept, the friend zone is that hideous place wherein you know a woman and you have to talk to her and be all nice to her, but she doesn't give you vaginal access.

And that right there is my problem with the entire concept. What a bother, what a burden, what a horrible thing to be friends with a woman. Because what fucking good are we if you can't stick your penis into one of our orifices, amirite? Talking to us without getting at least a blowjob? What the fuck is that about? Listening to us and knowing as as people without the payoff that is sex? Who does that voluntarily? Honestly.

I don't think this guy is a bad guy. The friend zone is a cultural staple in the US, much discussed, much derided, generally acknowledged to be a place to avoid. I'm sure it didn't occur to him exactly how insulting it was to have this conversation with me, the woman he's never going to experience any sexual activity with, the woman he was asking for advice from . . . you know, the woman he's currently in the friend zone with.

Seriously though, how insulting is that? I'm not saying that I don't think people, both men and women, are highly sexually motivated. I'm not saying that there is a certain degree of disappointment to wanting to engage in sexual activity with a person who does not feel the same way. However, it is insulting that my friendship is some sort of horrible gag prize when you're not getting access to my vagina. It is telling of the patriarchy/rape culture that friendship with a woman is the undesirable result of not getting sexual activity, isn't it?

Anyway, this is what he was told, by other men, concerning the friend zone: don't wait too long to get laid, or you'll be stuck in the friend zone, loser! This was what I said in response to that: it doesn't take me, or any woman, long to decide whether or not we'd like to fuck you. How quickly you "move" on us isn't changing that, i.e., if we wanted to fuck you, we would, if we don't, nothing you do short of rape is going to do anything about that (and rape isn't sex, anyway).

It is possible, however, that we may initially have wanted to fuck you, but further acquaintance with you introduced us to facts about you that made you undesirable (oh, 5 kids by 2 different women and you don't pay child support on any of them? awesome!), but it's not like we wouldn't have figured that out anyway. Though I suppose you at least would have gotten laid in that situation, huh. Asshat.

*I can't really call him a friend, but I've known him for a long time. You know, one of those.

Hey, Baby, Wanna Blow Me?

Filed under "Dispatches from the Rape Culture", I give you two unrelated but related vignettes:

The weather's been trending upwards lately and I've been taking the opportunity to walk around at lunch. Outside, away from my desk, in public. I know, I totally deserved what happened yesterday. Being out in public while female. What was I thinking?

I'm waiting at the corner for the light to change and a blue Jeep with the top down (it hasn't been that warm out) full of guys careens around a left hand turn, taking the opportunity to ask if I'd like to engage in sexual activity with them. Actually, one of them yelled, "Hey, Baby, wanna blow me?" as they barreled past me at a high rate of speed. I guess they weren't exactly prepared for a positive reply.

Welcome to the Rape Culture, "baby", where sexually transgressing against passers-by is good clean fun.

*******************************************************************

The CEO of the local hospital we represent is a woman. I talk to her all the time, and while she is always perfectly polite, she is not in any way friendly or happy. She is business. A coworker of mine was complaining about it, "Oh, the bank vice presidents are always so funny and she's just mean!"

She's not mean. She's business. And those bank vice presidents are all men. And they are jovial fellows for the most part. Always with a joke and a smile. Whatever you call a woman like that- it's not "jovial"- you don't call her CEO of a hospital. Men have a little breathing room to be funny, women are too busy working twice as hard and convincing everyone they do not like pink. Or flowers. Or fluffy kittens. A man in a suit is business until proven otherwise, a woman in a suit will have to convince you. And then apologize for being "mean".

Vaginal Metaphors- Criticism and Review*

[trigger warning: rape after "The Match". Please enjoy this delightful otter instead]

I'm a fan of similes and metaphors. I use them all the time. It's my thing. Unfortunately, similes and metaphors can be a bit like using a rocket launcher in an enclosed space, it'll get the job done, but you're going down, too. And you'll forever be remembered as that idiot who used a rocket launcher in a bathroom.

Today, I'm addressing metaphors for virginity preservation. They are legion, and they are, to a one, Teh Stoopid.

The Present

Your vagina is a present and no one wants a regifted present. Any sexual activity, including kissing, is like unwrapping the present. You can't ever get that wrapping paper to look as nice again.

First of all, I'm sure a collector of first edition books would be thrilled to get a book somebody else owned. Secondly, people are not objects and your breasts feel the same no matter how many people have touched them.

Thirdly, this displays a rather appalling lack of manners. Sure, I like wrapping presents and I like unwrapping presents, but wrapping is only there to give you an extra moment of "oooh, what could this be?" If someone hands me an unwrapped gift, I receive it with no less enthusiasm, and anyone who does deserves an angry badger stuffed down their pants.

Really, I wonder if these people realize they are implying that first time sex is the only sex worth having. I mean, even if you're married, that gift is unwrapped. It's pointless and unspecial now.

*****TMI ALERT******

You're about to learn something about me you may not wish to know.

*****TMI ALERT******

First time sex is never the best sex, and I'm not even talking about virginal sex, which tends to be awkward, embarrassing and involves a lot of "oh, sorry about that". For example, I've read enough erotica to know nipples are supposed to be where it's at. Maybe I'm a freak of nature, but my nipples aren't that sensitive. You know what is? My collarbones. You know how I found that out? (It's not like touching my own collarbones does anything for me, though I can tickle myself.) By making out with a guy who had a thing for chomping on collarbones. If not for that dear, dear man, I may never have known that.

And that's why first time sex is never the best sex. It takes time and experience to figure out what works for you. Sex is like a book printed 200 years ago: it's only getting better with time.

The Cow

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Because women aren't farm animals and sex is not the point of marriage, or it shouldn't be, anyway. I'm sure that might work out for a few months, but eventually you'll have to talk to one another. You might want to have something in common other than a raging libido. Just a thought.

The Cookie

This is a favorite of Mormons. A group of children are asked if they would like a cookie. Being children, they agree enthusiastically. Then a plate of crumbled, soggy cookies is brought out and those children are told that if they have sex, they're like those cookies- inedible. I'm not sure why anyone would wish to be attractive to cannibals, but whatever.

The vagina is not a cookie. The penis is not a cookie. They do not get worn out or crumbly or soggy or loose. Breasts do not develop permanent hand prints if touched too much. Neither do asses. Even if they did, why would having lots of sex with one person be different in that matter from having lots of sex with lots of different people? C'mon now.

The Match

This applies to making out before marriage, but may be the most disturbing of them all. Why light a match if you don't intend to start a fire? (To light a candle, to provide a brief moment of light, to light fireworks?) Why make out if you don't intend to have sex?

If you think about this for more than 5 seconds, you realize how very steeped in the rape culture this analogy is. Think about this for 10 seconds and it gets frightening. Kissing leads to touching and touching leads to sex, so don't kiss anyone if you don't intend to fuck them right there on the spot. All kissing must lead to sex. All kissing, touching, making out is only a prelude to sex, so don't start anything you don't intend to finish.

Look, I know you said "no" when he ripped off your pants, but you were kissing him. You let him touch your breasts. Why would you light a match if you don't intend to start a fire? Slut.

Yeah, that got rapey right quick, didn't it? That's because obsession with virginity is all part of the rape culture. The one you're living in right now. Cows and presents and cookies? Those are all devices of the rape culture, too. Just so you know.

*Someday, I'm going to get a PhD. This will be the title of my thesis.

Dumb Bitches Get Acid in the Face

(trigger warning: acid attack, rape, domestic violence. please visit these delightful otters instead!]

I can't promise that this entire post will be up to my usual standards of writing (not that I'm exactly Samuel Coleridge to begin with) because this fucking rape culture misogynist bullshit makes me that angry.

I don't know how many times this needs to be said, but I'll say it again: in an attack of any kind, from unwanted touching to rape to acid thrown in the face, the blame lies with the attacker, not the victim. There is nothing anyone can do to "deserve" having acid thrown in their face. Nothing. Certainly not being confident and independent.

Yeah, you fucking read that right: A woman being confident and independent is asking to be raped and have acid thrown in her face. What does that little slut expect when she leaves her house without a male relative to escort her? What are those dumb bitches thinking when they walk around acting like human beings with rights? Don't they know any better?

Katie Piper is the Englishwoman who, as a beautiful 26-year-old, embarked on a relationship with a thuggish looking man named Daniel Lynch. When Lynch became possessive and angry, Katie Piper tried to break off the relationship. Lynch responded by raping her and then arranged for an accomplice to throw acid in her face, disfiguring her.

See, he was "thuggish looking", what else did she expect besides rape and acid? Because dangerous men always look dangerous. You can tell just by looking, unless you're some dumb slut trying to be all independent.

Why revisit this story? Katie Piper has now explained in more detail what happened in the relationship with Lynch. And I was struck by this brief description of her childhood:

Born in Hampshire in 1983, I had an idyllic childhood. My father David owned a barber shop and my mother Diane was a teacher.They doted on my brother Paul, sister Suzy, and me.

As a youngster I was independent and fearless. I never suspected there was any badness in the world. 'You can be anything you want to be,' Dad used to tell me.

There is a clash between the traditional and the modern here. Girls are not naturally independent and fearless. Traditionally they grew up in the protective warmth of the family. Katie Piper had a traditional childhood in this sense and seems to appreciate it.

But she was also raised with very modern expectations. Her father drummed into her that she could be anything she wanted to be, in other words, that the highest good to aim at was that of maximum autonomy.

See, now there's the problem- daddy didn't protect her enough. Daddy told her that she was a human being who could dream and strive and be autonomous- and we all know what that earns you. This Lynch guy is basically just an innocent bystander, caught in Katie's web of autonomy. If she had just been a good little girl and never dreamed of anything more than being the possession of a man, this never would have happened.

Really, Katie basically raped herself and threw acid in her own face.

In brief, Katie Piper had been protected as a girl by her secure family life; she made a great deal of being independent and fearless; and she saw the world as perfectly open and unlimited and without the restricting presence of evil or malevolence.

Which left her like a babe in the woods. How could she learn prudence, a "caution or circumspection as to danger or risk," when she saw herself as a fearless woman in a world without evil?

Dear Mark Richardson: I am confident in speaking for all women everywhere when I tell you that no woman, no matter how independent, is fearless or views the world as lacking in evil. Every single one of us is well aware that every man we meet could be a rapist. In fact, we're a little more aware of evil than most men are, in that men don't generally expect to be raped at some point in their lives, so let me ask you something: do you expect every person you meet to be the embodiment of evil? Do you hide in your home and only go outside with a full military escort armed with automatic rifles and rocket launchers?

Of course you don't. Because no one can live that way. You go out into the world aware that bad things can happen to you at the hands of bad people and hope for the best. And most days nothing happens. But when something bad does happen- to a man- we don't blame the victim, we blame the perpetrator. Well, from now on, when men are robbed or beaten, we should remind them that that's just the price you pay for leaving your home. You idiot.

So there is little guidance to women in these feminist campaigns about how to evaluate the risk of a particular situation or relationship. And sometimes feminists go further in hindering a sense of prudence in women, by fiercely objecting to any discussion of the issue on the basis that it represents "blaming the victim". Feminists want to focus on "changing men," in the belief that the cause of violence is a political one so that it's possible to eliminate violence against women through political reform.

I suppose, for the time being, it's up to fathers to try to cultivate the quality of prudence in their daughters (without going so far as to scare them from relationships with men).

"Now, honey, if you leave the house without a male escort, you will be beaten, raped and disfigured. What do you mean you don't want to get married?"

Mark Richardson, Mark, Mark, Mark, you fucking . . . obscenities fail me, but just assume I said whatever would offend you the most (liberal, prochoice, feminist probably), but is there any other arena where we don't try to prevent the offenders of crimes from offending? We don't blame anyone but the driver themselves when they drive drunk, do we? We don't blame anyone but the user or dealer of the drugs, do we? And while insurance will give you a discount if you have an alarm system on your home or car, the police don't drag you away if you don't have them, do they?

Yeah, it's just those dumb bitches trying to act like people we blame, right Mark?

Go fuck yourself.