On Identity

Thanks to the internet, we've learned over the years (and had it driven home with the whole Te'o fiasco), we can be anyone.  We can be any version of unreal we want -- whether it's simply the best possible version of ourselves or someone entirely different.

We've been trained in the Lady Gaga school of Identity: reveal enough that interests people, and you can control the questions they ask.  You can end up an entirely different person, simply by marshaling what you share and what you choose to keep a secret.

This pliability of identity can be liberating, and to some extent, it can be amazing.  But, of course, it also has its negative upshots -- complete anonymity and shifting identity lets people believe they can't be held responsible for the things they do...in spite of the fact that, very often, you can.

But the fact of the matter is that I can be the best, wittiest, happiest version of myself on the internet... more so than I ever could be in the offline world.  Even the name I use in my blog is a partial construction, pruned to be the person I choose to be.

I'm still tossing this idea around, but I think this idea of constructed identities is really necessary.

Identifiably yours,
Rachel Leigh

On The Right to Slut

Four days ago, a blog post surfaced called "What the Right Doesn't Get About Elections."  I am not going to link you to it, mostly because I don't want the asshat's blog to get any more traffic than it already has.  What I will tell you is that The Guardian, Gawker, and Jezebel have all done response pieces that use actual excerpts from the post, and you should go find those.

Basically, what the post explains is that Romney lost because Barack Obama won the "Slut Vote," young, unmarried women.  These young, unmarried women take birth control, get breast exams and cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood, support their own or other women's rights to have dominion over their own uteri, are poor black women, rich white suburban brats, and single mothers.  And they want the government to pay for their "right to Slut."

Now, we've talked a bit about Slut Shaming here before, but let me reiterate what it means, despite the fact that it is not the main purpose of this post.  Slut shaming is the idea that a person's worth can be inversely correlated with the number of people they have slept with -- that the more partners or pre- or extra-marital encounters a person has, the less they deserve to be treated like a person.  This contributes, in large part, to the disgusting societal idea that a woman who is not a virgin cannot really be raped, that she "was asking for it."  Slut shaming is a problem.  A person's sexuality does not determine their worth.  You totally have a Right to Slut, if that is what makes you happy and seems like the right choice for you.  You also have a Right to Abstain, if saving yourself until marriage is something that really matters to you.  A person's sexuality, regardless of how it coincides with your personal beliefs, does not determine their worth as a person.

What we're really here to discuss today is Mr. "bskillet"s ideas of what defines a slut.  He points to women who are young and unmarried, because "older and married women vote Republican."  Clearly, every unmarried woman is a slut who wants the government to subsidize her promiscuity.  Despite the fact that many unmarried women either abstain or only have a single partner before they marry.  But clearly, SLUTS AHOY.  He goes on to say that poor, black women voted for Obama because he supports their rights to get government handouts for the babies they kept and have the government pay for the babies they didn't want.  The fact that this disgustingly frames all poor, black women as baby-machines that want to do nothing more than have sex and pop out children so the government will pay for them apparently eludes this man.  I also wonder if he's ever met a black woman or if he's only heard from Fox News about what they're like.  Actually, I'm just going to expand that to all women.

And theeen we get into my favorites: all women who take birth control or go to Planned Parenthood are irresponsible, promiscuous, rich, white brats.  The majority of Planned Parenthood's work includes important medical services like breast cancer screenings.  Last I checked, tumors don't care whether you're male, female, sexually-active, or celibate.  And free breast exams are the best kind of breast exams.

So not all women who go to PP are whores, but of course, why would you take birth control if you weren't slutting it up all over the place?  Well, aside from those women who, again, only have one partner but aren't ready to be parents, married women who are still on the pill because, again, they are unready to be parents, and girls who are exercising their perfectly healthy right to control their own sexuality without the risk of pregnancy?  Medical necessity.  The most common treatment for ovarian cysts?  Hormonal therapy - also known as birth control.  Debilitating cramps that leave you out of work or school for days?  Birth control.  Severe migraines?  Some doctors will suggest birth control.  Abnormal periods?  Birth control.  Bad acne, hair loss, breast sensitivity?  All can be treated with birth control.  There's this funny thing about birth control in that it contains large doses of estrogen and other synthesized female hormones -- which means that it's often exactly the right thing to fix whatever lady-problem you might be having.  None of these are problems that "putting an aspirin between your knees" is going to fix.

The takeaways here: not all women are sluts, there's nothing wrong even if they are, and the far Right REALLY needs a lesson in how birth control actually works.

Yours (But Still Entirely Mine),
Rachel Leigh, proud member of the apparent "Slut Vote"