stavvers

Kill the SWP inside your head

Content note: this post discusses rape and rape apologism

Another woman has come forward with an account of her experience of sexual violence within the SWP, and how the disputes committee handled it. My heart goes out to her, as it does to all of the survivors.

Once again, I am filled with rage that this organisation with its inbuilt mechanisms for avoiding accountability for sexual violence continues to exist. I am fucking furious that people continue to be members of the SWP. Once again, I must state that I will never organise with them, or any of their front groups. This is both in accordance with the survivor’s wishes, and is also very much in accordance with my own personal feeling. I want to see them hollowed out and rotting then burned atop a pyre of their own shitty, shitty newspapers.

I will never organise with the SWP, and if you care a jot about sexual violence and its location within a broader liberation struggle, neither should you.

In a way, it is easy to see how the SWP found themselves in this position, and how easily something similar could happen within any radical circle. The ingredients are all there. We were all born and raised into a system wherein even those of us who are not cops absorbed a hell of a lot of cop lies about rape. That the survivor is possibly making it up and it requires investigation. That rape allegations will ruin a man’s life, and therefore ought to be investigated thoroughly. That there must have been some reason, some mitigating factor that made this happen: was the survivor drunk, or giving mixed signals, for example? That evidence is required to conclude the investigations. That the survivor doesn’t know best about what will begin the process of healing, it is a decision for someone else to make.

These lies and myths are ingrained. They are why so many of us will not go to the police, but they are also why so many of us would not report our rapes to our own friends.

These lies and myths need unlearning as a matter of urgency. For things to get better they can be and they must be. They need to be as forgotten as the charred skeleton of the SWP. All of this can happen again if we do not tear the rot out at the roots and let go of these rape apologist beliefs.

So kill the SWP inside your head. Identify which of these beliefs you have swallowed, and unlearn and undo them. Make sure you will not be another disputes committee. Challenge these beliefs in your community. Make sure your community is not just another SWP.

And remember the wishes of the survivor. Do not organise with rape apologists.

In honour of World Mental Health Day, I state the fucking obvious

Content note: I talk very frankly about my mental health problems in this post. Some of you might find it upsetting.

Today is World Mental Health today, so now is as good a time as any to be honest. I have alluded to this in previous posts, and Twitter, and so on, but let me say this outright: my mental health is not exactly tip-top.

I have depression. I’ve had it for so long that it’s just kind of become a part of me. I remember going through a brief period in the middle of it when I wasn’t depressed, and I felt so light that I might float up, up and away into the atmosphere. My usual state is kind of numb and apathetic, weighed down by a burden I barely notice any more. Sometimes I literally cannot be bothered to do anything, and will sit around and stink. I don’t usually feel miserable, instead I tend to feel nothing at all. And when the emotions do creep in, if I’m own they’re not usually the nicest ones. It’ll be misery, or anger, or frustration. I eat whatever is easiest to cram into my maw when I feel hunger; I smoke a lot so I feel slightly more sated by the crappy food I prepare.

I get anxiety from time to time, particularly as I emerge from the depths of numbness. Sometimes it’s a dull knot in the pit of my stomach which accompanies me throughout the day, and other times it’s like I’m drowning. It does not fuck off easily.

Sometimes the two bastard things team up, and I make some fucking dreadful decisions. I become reckless. Very, very reckless. Not in a “making-out-with-the-wrong-person” kind of way, but more like not crossing roads very safely because at that point half of me is not caring, and the other half of me seriously wants to be able to stop thinking. It’s not like I want to be dead, rather that I’d really like to be unconscious for a bit which will mean I don’t have to pretend to be a functional human the next day and it might hit the hard reset on the anxiety.

I’m not on medication. I have epilepsy on top of everything else, and most antidepressants don’t exactly mix well with that. I’d have to go back on daily epilepsy medication–a side effect of which is not being able to feel a fucking thing. I get prescribed a benzodiazepine for my epilepsy, to take when I need it. Sometimes I accidentally-on-purpose confuse the feeling of anxiety for the feeling of an oncoming seizure. I don’t do this very often at all, because I know benzos aren’t a good thing to have regularly. I probably don’t even take the stuff as often as I need.

I tried mindfulness therapy once, because this was what was on offer. I don’t think it helped. Before I had the therapy, I’d had a tendency to somatise my anxiety: rather than feeling shit, I’d kind of puke a lot and my body would hurt. The mindfulness took it out of my body and into my mind, and then it stopped because you can’t seem to get free therapy for very long at all.

I have a hell of a good support network, which I believe has been the key to me never sinking too far, and giving me a reason to get out of bed. I have friends and lovers who I adore, wonderful people who have handled me at my worst and also get to enjoy me at my best. I talk to a lot of amazing people online, who help me more than they’ll ever know. Twitter is truly a beautiful source of mutual support. Work is pretty understanding, too, and I have got time off when I’ve really needed it.

So that’s me. I felt like I should tell my story because I don’t doubt that it’s similar to others. I felt like I should tell my story in case there’s a magic wand that could make me not depressed that anyone knows about. I felt like I should tell my story because we don’t talk honestly about how we’re not OK anywhere near enough. I felt like I should tell my story in an attempt to smash down stigma surrounding mental health problems. I felt like I should tell my story because I haven’t been able to talk about it this fully until now. I felt like I should tell my story so you can know me better.

Poly Means Many: The sweet shop of terrible ideas

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month, the PMM bloggers will write about their views on one of them. Links to all posts can be found at polymeansmany.com

This month’s topic is Fear Of Missing Out, or FOMO as basically everyone says. I struggled to think what to write about for a while, as it was a thing I wasn’t sure if I’d actually experienced or not. I’ve always been kind of “yay, my partners are happy and I didn’t even need to do anything to make that happen”. So I suppose I wondered if I should sit this one out, as apparently I don’t experience this big thing which poly people are supposed to experience.

Then I remembered that fuck it, Poly Means Many. And I do get this feeling–it manifests differently, perhaps, but it is definitely a fear of missing out.

When I first started doing poly, I was like a kid in a sweet shop. Not one of the well-behaved ones, but one of the ones who eats everything and ends up on a sugar high and then eats more sweeties and then is sick everywhere. In short, I didn’t want to miss a thing. I wanted to be everywhere, do everything (and everyone). I’d tear around like a tornado of sexual energy, not go home for days at a time because I was too busy with… actually probably making some terrible decisions.

See, during that time, I don’t think I ever said no to anything. I ended up doing a lot of stuff which was actually pretty terrible for me. I had sex I didn’t want, I ended up in relationships I wasn’t particularly sure about, and to say I burnt the candle at both ends is a bit of an understatement. I let a lot of people down, because it turns out it’s physically impossible to be in about eight places at once.

The reason I did all of this was because I was afraid that if I didn’t seize every opportunity as it appeared, it would be gone. I feared that there might be some sort of expiry date on human contact and so I had best enjoy it while it was fresh. I was scared of missing out by not doing everything immediately.

I was lucky, I suppose, that my FOMO didn’t lead to any life-alteringly drastically bad consequences. I pursued a lot of thoroughly awful ideas at that time.

I finally got over it. I realised that I didn’t have to do everything all at once. That this lovely sweet shop I found would stay open, and if I didn’t cram everything into my ravenous face-hole all at once, I’d enjoy it far more. I would miss out on precisely nothing by putting my own needs and self-care first.

Sometimes the feeling rears its head again, and I’m not going to pretend that I magically started making excellent decisions after all of this. Hell, I still make highly questionable choices from time to time. The difference is I’m aware now of precisely why I’m doing it, and I’m much, much better at not making a hot mess of my silly, silly life. I feel more secure in myself, and in my relationships with others, which helps me negotiate and meet my own needs.

I know I’m not going to miss out. I feel it most of the time. And now, at least, I’m starting to learn what to do with the feelings when they skew the other way.

The Sun’s mental health splash: it’s not about the numbers

No doubt a lot of you will have seen the front page of the Sun today, announcing that people with mental health problems are big stabby monsters who will murder you. If you haven’t, this is literally their front page.

I have the “privilege” of peeping behind the Scum’s paywall, so I checked out the article. It will surprise literally nobody that the data are totally wack, and to make up for the lack of content, the Scum added a lot of pictures of pretty girls who were killed by the scary mentals. Oh, and in a particular double V-sign, they then add a small box pointing out that people with mental health problems are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators.

If you’re interested in the actual facts surrounding dangerousness and mental health problems, you can download a fact sheet here. In short, even the Sun can’t manage to substantiate their front page claim.

But here’s the thing: it’s pretty easy to attack the figures, because they are a nonsense. But in doing that, we lose sight of what is really going on here. We stop asking the questions that need to be asked. Why on earth would the Scum decide to whip up a panic about people with mental health problems?

We live in a society where there is a vast stigma surrounding mental health. Small gains are occasionally made: nice national treasure celebrities can now talk about their depression and so forth, and a fuss might be kicked up about naughty supermarkets selling nasty costumes. It really isn’t enough, though, and as we dig our way towards being treated with basic human dignity, we hit wall after wall after wall.

Our mental health marks us as other, and we become acceptable targets in a society built around kicking the marginalised at every opportunity. It is no surprise that it is the oppressed who are scapegoated for everything that happens, and not the privileged. It is no surprise that the Scum decided to pick the weak rather than splash THOUSANDS KILLED BY MEN. It is no surprise that this will go far less challenged than the fact that they print pictures of norks on the third page.

If the climate of fear remains, we will remain alienated. This stigma can kill. It keeps us lonely, stops us from healing, and it blames us for our own isolation.

And this allows those with the power to continue doing what they’re doing, to maintain their chokehold relatively unchallenged. They are able to perpetrate these assaults, and we continue struggling uphill to fight against tropes that should have died a long time ago. It keeps us down, it keeps them up.

Does it terrify those with the power that the oppressed are gaining a voice? I think it does, and this is why they keep turning up the volume on their attacks. They are scared of us, and want everyone else to be, too. It’s working, perhaps, and that scares me.

The Scum have a rich history of lying about those without power. We know this, but we choose to attack the easy bit rather than the harder bit: that society is built this way, and needs so much to change before most of us can exist comfortably within it.

Use the Sun as kindling, but there’s a hell of a lot we have to burn.

Things I read this week that I found interesting

Happy Sunday, you lot. Here’s some things I read this week that I found interesting, and perhaps you will too.

Activist Burnout I: An Anatomy (Alice B. Reckless)- Stunningly good piece on how activism intersects with mental health and it’s horrible and fucking hell go and read it, because I reckon a lot of us are feeling this way.

On Gloria Steinem’s Apology (Toni D’Orsay)- Very important analysis of Gloria Steinem’s apology for transphobia, putting it into context.

Migrants tragic death toll in Lampedusa, Italy: only 6 out of 100+ women survived (Flavia Dzodan)- Flavia reminds us why immigration is–and must be–a feminist issue.

Why capitalism hates consensual sex work (sometimes, it’s just a cigar)- Some interesting ideas in this short piece.

Why is the media debate about Syria dominated by men? (Rach Shabi)- Names a problem within the media pretty effectively.

Speaking for those who already have a voice: why the Twitter Elite cannot speak for minorities. (Finger-steepling and Sharks)- How do we solve a problem like the Twitter Media Clique?

The eclipse and re-emergence of the antipsychiatry movement (sometimes explode)- A brief history of the anti-psychiatry movement and how it shaped modern psychiatry.

No More “Allies” (Mia McKenzie)- On the identity of “ally” and how that’s really not good enough.

And finally, have 50 intellectual jokes, and let me tell another one. Two helium atoms walk into a bar. As one goes to pay, she says “ah, fuck, I think I lost an electron”. The other asks, “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m positive.” So then the second helium atom goes up to pay, and the barmaid says “For you, madam, no charge”.

Fuck the Daily Mail?

HEY GUESS WHAT EVERYONE, THE DAILY MAIL ARE BEING MEAN ABOUT A DEAD WHITE GUY.

WE SHOULD, LIKE, SET THEM ON FIRE OR SOMETHING.

Forget about the woman they hounded to death. Or the relentless racism, the vicious homophobia, the rampant misogyny, the perpetual incitement to violence against anyone marginalised.

Now they’re being mean about a dead white guy, that’s just a step too far.

Yes. You may say you were pissed about all of those things, too, and that this is the last straw. I get that. I really, really get that.

But here’s the thing. Most of the evils of the Mail are not actually this particular newspaper. The Mail, for the most part, is a dark mirror which reflects disgusting attitudes which pervade society. It phrases them a little more bluntly than many are comfortable with, perhaps, but it is just an amplification of prejudices which already exist. The Mail didn’t invent xenophobia, it merely turned up the volume.

It is only really for white dudes that the Daily Mail is creating any kind of novel hate. For most of us, it’s just repeating the same hate we hear every day, in a louder voice.

It’s not the Mail that’s the problem. It’s fucking kyriarchy. And unfortunately, that’s too hard for a lot of people to attack. And so we have a moan about the Mail–god knows I’m as guilty of this as anyone else–rather than the social conditions which produce the bile that they spout.

It is the death of these conditions, the death of bigotry, the death of kicking down that needs to happen, not the death of a particular newspaper. The world around us is far uglier than a Daily Mail editorial if you allow yourself to see it.

Things I read this week that I found interesting

See above.

The Idea of Feminism Isn’t The Problem; The Current Manifestation Of “Mainstream Feminism” Is (Gradient Lair)- An absolutely must-read piece.

If You Masturbate To This, Then Your Children Will Be Next (nyebaron)- Excellent stuff on David Blunkett’s nonsense.

How to Be an Ally to Trans Women (Julia Serano)- An excerpt from her new book, which you should probably read.

When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink? (Jeanne Maglaty)- Fascinating article about the history of baby clothes.

Being bisexual and dating a trans person (Cis is not a dirty word)- Beautiful and heartfelt.

No one campaigns for back street abortions… (everyday whorephobia)- Deconstruction of a double standard within feminism.

We Won’t Kick Transphobia Out of Football with Rainbow Laces (Useful Nuisance)- A deconstruction of S’onewall’s latest crap.

And finally, here is Mads Mikkelsen near a cat, because apparently pictures of him holding one don’t exist and this breaks my heart a tiny bit.

Dear David Blunkett

Dear David Blunkett,

I was surprised and disturbed by your somewhat revisionist historical analysis. In case you’ve forgotten the speech you gave, these is the alarming sentiments you articulated:

“The Lib Dems in Glasgow debated this and decided they were against automatic protection unless people chose to over-ride it, in terms of pornography on the internet and the protection of children. I think they were wrong.

“I think we have a job in this country, in a civilised, free, open democracy, to protect ourselves from the most bestial activities and from dangers that would undermine a civilised nation.

“In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Berlin came as near as dammit to Sodom and Gomorrah. There was a disintegration of what you might call any kind of social order.

“People fed on that – they fed people’s fears of it. They encouraged their paranoia. They developed hate about people who had differences, who were minorities.

“There always has had to be some balance, in terms of the freedom of what we want to do, for ourselves and the mutual respect and the duty we owe to each other in a collective society. I think getting it right is the strength of a democracy.”

See, the thing is, David, I’m not convinced that Weimar was the worst era in modern German history. It was a pretty decent time to be queer, really; we were accepted. It also wasn’t too bad to be a woman: our sexual agency was accepted and abortion was actually legalised in some cases, almost a century ago! The music was cool: they embraced music like jazz. It was progressive, in short, and marginalised people were treated more like humans than the little bit of history that came later.

That little bit of history that came later, David, was Nazi Germany, the spectre you raise as a consequence of not treating marginalised people like shit. Those who were accepted in the Sodom and Gomorrah times suffered heavily under Nazi Germany. The queers were forced to wear pink triangles and herded into camps, murdered in droves by the state. The women were treated as breeding machines, nothing more than a means of reproduction. The rich art and culture made by people who were not white, once embraced, was now illegal, degenerate. It was a period of history which sucked absolutely enormously for basically everyone who was not a straight, cis, able-bodied white man.

For some reason, you think this was the responsibility of exactly the people who suffered the most. You know who else thought that? Hitler.

I am writing to you, David, to express concern because I am fairly sure that you have ripped a hole in the space-time continuum by twisting Godwin’s Law so much. I presume you’re decrying Nazism and saying it’s bad, while simultaneously using some rhetoric with a distinctly fascist flavour. Of course I’ll help out if some of the Sleeping Ones awaken and pass through the portal you have opened, but I’m a little annoyed that I have to, to be perfectly honest.

On the other hand, David, I’m grateful. What could I possibly be grateful for, when you are essentially blaming millions for their own genocide?

I am grateful, David, that you have laid bare the inherent authoritarianism in the moralistic attitude towards banning porn. I am relieved to see that you have managed to point out that ultimately this isn’t about porn itself, but it is far wider, and far more chilling. It is rooted in a hatred of all that is not straight, a rejection of sexual freedom for women. It reflects a disgust at the queer. You have demonstrated this with your words far more clearly than all of the commentary that comes from the marginalised.

So fuck you, and all who share your views. You frighten and sicken me, as do all who agree with you.

No love,

Stavvers

EDIT 02/10/13: I made Blunkett feel sad.

Bisexual adventures with stavvers

Today is Bi Visibility Day, the day of the year wherein we bisexuals stop pretending to be humans and reveal our true forms as soul-eating beings of shadow and vapour.

I’ll be honest. It irks me no end that awareness days have to exist on any issue. It pisses me off that a single day of the year is allocated to groups of humans to go “Hi, we exist, please don’t treat us like shit.” It bothers me that one day of the year is considered somehow adequate to cram in pointing out “hey, this is an enormous problem, let’s maybe do something to make this not a problem any more”. And yet this is a thing, and today is all about us bisexuals being visible.

From my first stirring of a weird little feeling in the pit of my tummy while watching The X-Files and wishing I could marry both Mulder and Scully right up to my first drunk snog with a girl at the first cool party I went to, I’d kind of assumed I was straight. Why wouldn’t I be? That was the thing most people were, right? I had not experienced some sort of weird magic lesbian transformation like Willow, ergo, I must have been straight.

Well, obviously I wasn’t, and I never had been, but the fact I fancied boys kind of complicated matters in a world where bisexuals–if they exist at all–are apparently all lascivious sex tanks, evil axe murderers, or a combination of both.

Yes. I had managed to grow up in a world where I was bombarded by media produced in a society which isn’t particularly keen on bisexuals.

I was the queerest person I knew very well, until I was quite far into my twenties. I’d met a few gay and lesbian people, maybe a bi person here or there, but for the most part I was the only one I really knew. I was presumed straight, of course. The times I mentioned I was actually bi, I saw eyebrows go up. I received demands for a complete inventory of all the sex I had had in my life, ever. I heard mutters that bi people were just doing it for the attention. I often stayed quiet about my sexual orientation unless I was drunk, because people were often dicks.

In an attempt to connect more with my lesbian side, I read The Well of Loneliness. As a bi femme, it did not make me feel particularly good about myself.

As I got more involved with feminism and the queer community, I discovered how worryingly prevalent biphobia is among gay and lesbian people. We’re in the closet, apparently. We’re ruining feminism forever by sometimes having sex with men. Basically, we’re all gross and icky and we should just make up our feeble little minds and become properly gay.

And because of this, once again, I wanted to shut the hell up about my sexual orientation; people were being dicks.

Sadly, the monosexuals still dominate discourse. Whether straight or gay, they’re there, yapping away. Most of the time, bi people are just ignored like a beige carpet. This is the best option in a society which operates under some rigidly oppressive power structures. And at worst, it’s utterly horrid. We get homophobic abuse from the straights. We get biphobic abuse from lesbians and gay people. It is a pincer manoeuvre, the discrimination we face.

I’ve internalised a lot of it, from both sides, and it’s been a long process unlearning all of it, believing that there’s nothing wrong with me or anyone else like me. I think I’m getting there.

And I’m fucking sick of it all.

Make up my mind? I’ve made up my mind, and I’m proud of who I am.

Pick a side? I’ve picked my side, and that side is a stand against biphobia.

Just come out? I am out against bigotry.

Doing it for the attention? You’re damn right that I’m going to keep screaming and shouting that I exist and maybe I pose a problem for your blinkered and tedious worldview.

I exist, and I will not be quiet.

Things I read this week that I found interesting

Hello internet. I read things.

Of privilege in progressive circles. (Dani)- Go and read this.

SWOU statement in response to mis-representations from the Nottingham conference (Sex Worker Open University)- Signal boosting this, because it’s important. Yesterday, sex workers were literally locked out of a feminist conference, and misinformation was spread. Please read their statement.

“Racists React To [thing]” posts are just passive white supremacy (4thletter!)- An explanation of the problematic aspects of a particular trope in lazy journalism.

Why #ibelieveher, and don’t believe rape suspects need anonymity. (That Pesky Feminist)- Shit that shouldn’t need saying, said well.

Don’t Blame the Victim: Freshers’ Week Sexism (quiteirregular)- Timely post on a problem that is most visible at certain times of the year.

Health is not an obligation (hlokaya)- Excellent piece on the nonsense spouted about health and weight. Content note for eating disorders and self harm.

How about no more misogyny,racism and outings? (everyday whorephobia)- Your necessary occasional reminder that there’s a lot more wrong with the Sun than the third page.

And finally, the winners of Astronomy Photographer of the Year. Pretty!