I know, I know… I’m the purveyor of a hopefully artful sex blog. I don’t exactly keep things consistent with regular posts. And when I do I doubt that people really want to hear my opinions on social issues that don’t directly pertain to the politics of visual representation.

However, I would be grossly remiss in this endeavor if I neglected the fact that a substantial degree of privilege allows this project to exist.

Although I DO NOT identify as white or straight and am extremely uncomfortable with my gender assigned at birth, I pass as Caucasian, cis-gender and heterosexual.

This translates to an appreciable decrease in the frequency with which I face experiences such as racial profiling and street harassment among a myriad of other flavors of traumatizing as fuck oppression.

The decision by a grand jury–consisting of 9 white folks, 2 MoC and 1 WoC despite the fact that the demographics of Ferguson, MO are at least 2/3 black–not to indict racist shit heel, police officer Darren Wilson for the murder of an unarmed 18 year-old named Michael Brown is an appalling miscarriage of justice.  Full stop.

Over the last 36 hours, this reality has never strayed far from my mind. I have a mess of impressions, thoughts and feelings on the matter. But I don’t want to make this horrifying manifestation of institutionalized racism about myself.

Instead, I would like to listen to and in listening validate the experiences of those without the same privilege from which I benefit every day.

I saw portions of this segment air on Atlanta’s NBC affiliate Channel 11 last night. In it, MoC in the same rough age range as Michael Brown articulate with devastatingly clarity what this verdict means to them and their experience of being black in America.

Many SJA types–myself included–have an academnifying understanding of racism but that’s head-based. Until you’ve lived it day in and day out, the knowing down to the bones will be missing. As the quote that’s gone viral states to feel anger and outrage instead of abject terror in the wake of the non-indictment is a huge fucking privilege.

It’s time for me to shut up and listen.

A profusion of apologies for my absence.

Contrary to my past MO, this pause is less due to the seasonal onslaught of depressive imps–although that is a factor–and more due to extenuating circumstances.

The hope is to be able release a handful of posts this week. However, my ability to follow through on that hinges on receiving clearance to post a new artist interview. (I am ecstatically excited about this one and I hope you’ll enjoy perusing it as much as I did chatting with the artist–who is a fascinating, astute, all around charming and incredible person.)

Thank you all–each and every one–for sticking with me. As I always say I’d be doing this regardless of whether or not anyone tuned in but that any of you can be bothered with what I try and more often than not fail to illuminate here contributes a small measure of joy to my existence.

n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.

Acetylene Eyes–in any final analysis–boils down a sex blog. An admittedly high minded and sometimes pretentious one, but a sex blog nonetheless.

The degree of privilege enabling this project is not lost on me. Yes, my time and resources are limited, but I am able to pursue this due to the fact that after I labor to meet my needs for food and shelter, I have enough downtime left to spend two hours a day on Tumblr.

Not everyone is as lucky.

Further, given the tendency towards hyper-politicization of sexuality driven by Puritanical factions, it seems inexcusably irresponsible not to pause from time-to-time to ground these proceedings in the desert of the real.

:::Trigger Warning:::

Shit in our world is a total fustercluck right now: pro-Russian sepratists shot a commercial airliner out of the sky over the Ukraine; Israel continues it’s increasingly less thinly veiled terrorist campaign against Palestinians (1, 2, 3) and stomach churning stories of Florida teens torturing and murdering defenseless animals and their ilk make me question if perhaps the virus of humanity has finally run it’s course.

All the above could be viable things to post about here. I want to go a different direction.

About two months ago I had to take a giant step back from Tumblr.

Why? Well, there was a two week period beginning with some assdouche backwash Slurpee (who I will not grant the dignity of being named on my blog) attacking Corwin Prescott.

A week or so later the USCB shooting happened.

The very last thing I want to do is pick the scabs on that wound. Instead, I want to focus on a particular facet of the response: the discussion about rape culture and the piss poor logic that many on both sides foisted in defense of their biases.

What I know first hand is of my 73 Facebook friends who are women; 15 have been raped. The math suggests a 1 in what 4.8 instance. You can object to that on the grounds that being a victim I am drawn to victims or what have you but my response is gonna be little more than a middle finger–don’t you ever diminish or dictate what my experience has been/should be based on your own fucking bias.

We can certainly dicker about statistics, insist that men can be raped also–full disclosure: I am a male-bodied rape survivor, split hairs w/r/t whether or not the notion of rape culture encourages a culture of fear or whatever but doing so does exactly fuck all to address the overarching issue.

Here’s the thing: none of that shit matters. It’s just a distraction from the indisputable underlying reality: rape culture exists. Full fucking stop.

…

By now I’m sure everyone is familiar with #YesAllWomen. Most such comments were v. on point–based on knowing something about the experiences of women in my life.

Of course there was some misguided and in some cases foul and logically fallacious notions that went viral. I am primarily thinking of the notorious poison M&M meme.

As ridiculous and obviously preposterous (not to mention unsourced) as the proposition is–you don’t have to ever eat M&Ms but unless you are cloistered in a convent you will interact with men–people I consider to be observant and insightful immediately suggested that the way to illuminate the bigotry inherent in this framing was to substitute Muslims or blacks for men.

No. Really, stop and for the love of Christ learn to fucking logic. Such a substitution entails that all oppression shares more or less interchangeable structures. Bullshit. The matrix whereby women are oppressed is fundamentally different than systems of racial oppression. Read Marilyn Frye or consider Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s infamous blunder. Simply: when a claim is so colossally wrong it’s staggeringly disappointing to see such a limited, lame brained response from people who should damn well know better.

…

For the record, I actually have less of a problem with the misandry–which is not a real thing, by-the-by–of the M&Ms assertion than I do to the inept refutation of it.

There are two reasons for this fact:

1. The assumption that being a ‘misandrist’ is incomptible with being a feminist piss me off
2. My own experience suggests that men are, in point of fact, taught to at least tacitly benefit from rape culture.

Let’s take those in reverse order.

Coming of age I was brought up with the notion that the only emotions a man could show were varying shades of stoicism, anger and frustration. I was taught that women were to know their place and serve men. That no mean maybe, maybe meant yes and yes meant yes always. No one and I mean no one ever taught me that rape was wrong. It’s something I figured out on my own, thankfully.

I don’t necessarily assume my experience of being taught to at least tacitly accept rape is universal. But given how many of my dear friends have been raped, it does make me wonder.

Further, it makes me empathized with the perspective–whether founded or not–that 10% of men are poison. I know the argument that allegedly being fearful makes you an easier target. But in my experience, if someone has it in for you it matters fuck all what sort of attitude you project.

A lot of feminists who expressed support for this post were summarily stricken from the feminist charter by other feminists. Look: It’s easy to say feminism entails equality. It’s a simply elegant solution with which no one is going to argue. But the inability to reach a ‘feminist consensus’ on issues such as headscarves to pornography to Beyonce should be a clue-in to the fact that when you sit feminists down and ask them what ‘equality’ entails, the answers will be so diverse as to be incompatible. That’s not a bad thing. It’s part of what makes feminism so incredible, in my mind: a woman who claims men have had their turn, now it’s ours is just as vital a voice in feminist discourse as one who exercises her right to refuse to participate.

…

Sorry, I know this is overlong. I have one more point to make and then I will shut up.

The notion that undifferentiated equality lies at the root of feminism leads to an implicit fake it till you make it perspective on sexism. In other words: we’re not equal but the only way to achieve equality is to forget we aren’t until we are.

It’s a ridiculous, losing proposition. And it leads to elevating the ideals of certain groups that really ought not be legitimated. Lindy West over at Jezebel elegantly summarizes how the aims of feminism and the aims of MRAs are actually not opposed at all–both object to and aim to address systemic concerns with one thing: patriarchy.

Everyone tells me I apologize too much. I know it’s true; but I just assume everyone judges me on a comparable scale of harshness as the one I deploy in self-criticism and that compels me to seek absolution for persistent failures everyone around me seems to only vaguely notices as afterthoughts…

I don’t have a good excuse for not posting any-fucking-thing in course of the last month. There have been extenuating circumstances; but honestly, none so severe as to justify being so remiss in my duties. I apologize profusely for my dereliction.

Things are kind of weird right now and while I can’t promise a return to the post-a-day golden days of February and March, I will try my damnedest to eke out 3 to 4 posts a week until things settle into a more sympathetic routine.

Two other small bits of news.

1. Keep your eyes peeled. Something big has been in the works for a few weeks and I am hoping it’ll be ready to post by late this week or the beginning of next. (Hint: Acetylene Eyes pursued and was inexplicably granted the opportunity to interview an increasingly popular Tumblr photographer!)
2. For those who have followed my shitty soap opera script life, I am no longer unemployed. I started a few weeks ago. It’s just about as far from being my dream job as you could imagine but it looks like it’ll mostly pay the bills and depends on me being my own boss more than reporting to any sort of codified authority structure even if I am in way over my head as far as what they think I am qualified to do as opposed to what I am actually qualified to do. Cross your fingers for me, I guess…