A Pretty Good Week After All

Despite all of my bitching and moaning and frustration of Monday and Tuesday and even into Wednesday, the week turned out to be pretty damn wonderful.

Nothing came of all of my sound and fury at management, and ultimately my complaints became moot when the temperature warmed up (thank goodness!). I think that was part of their less than customer-service-oriented attitude. Eventually, they knew, the problem would disappear as the weather improved, so they could ignore complaints. I did, however, find the last space heater for sale in the city. It was only for sale because someone had returned it to the hardware store. For a tiny little box, it can generate a lot of heat. I'm sure it will also come in handy at work, since the HVAC system in my building has three settings: oven, freezer, and off. We shall have freezer until next winter, when we will have oven, except after 6:00 pm, then we have off.

On Thursday, I had a lovely lunch with the world famous VUBOQ. We did totally order the same meal, without checking with one another or anything. VUBOQ knows all the great places to eat, and the best things to order. His buddy Str8Guy put in an appearance, too. For his amusement, I did, in fact, whip out a boob. Here is a picture of it:


Perhaps you would like more context?:

Maybe a bit more information in that context?:

It's a tag that you hang in your shower to remind you to do a breast self-exam. The boob on the tag is made of some sort of silicon that has the same consistency as an actual tit, but it also has two lumps in it. This is an ingenious addition because all of the health pamphlets tell you to feel for lumps, but you never quite know what a lump should feel like. You can't quite see in that last picture, but the silver rectangle tells you that this is from the Lesbian Health Initiative in Houston, Texas.

As Str8Guy points out, the boob is a bit sticky. That's because it is old. I've had it for a number of years -- about ten, now that I think about it (where does the time go?). VUBOQ wanted to know if that's what happens to real boobs as they age. "No," I said. "Real boobs just droop."

I got the boob at my Women's Group when I lived in Texas. Members of the Lesbian Health Initiative were part of the group, and they handed them out. During our meeting, I sat it on my leg. A fabulous, beautiful Persian woman sat next to me and started to play with it. That's how we formally met. We became pretty good friends. She is now a doctor in New York, as married as the law will allow two lesbians can be to another Persian Lesbian Feminist Separatist (as she always identified herself) doctor.

After lunch on Thursday, I wandered over to the hardware store near the restaurant. I was actually looking to feed my plant addiction, but that was where I found the space heater. Then, I killed some time before heading out to see the Shakespeare Company's outdoor production of Hamlet.

Now, let me tell you, I loves me some Hamlet. I first learned the story in fourth grade -- yes, FOURTH grade -- and it stayed with me ever since. A brooding, depressed intellectual who over thinks everything before he can act, then, when he does, disaster ensues? I'm sure the play has warped my personality in ways that I have yet to fully comprehend.

What an amazing production! The actor playing Hamlet brought an element of youthful arrogance to the role that I have never seen before. His characterization was a pitch perfect depiction of a college-aged kid, full of energy and full of himself, with no idea how to deal with both that energy and the tragedy that has hit his life. He delivered all of the soliloquies naturally, with not a hint of awareness that these are some of the best known and greatest lines in the English language. The actor playing Polonius, one of the more thankless roles in the play, brought such sympathy to his portrayal that I was actually kind of sad when Hamlet killed him. A wonderful, enjoyable evening!

I had to wake up early on Friday because, on Friday, I was going flying. Hot Married Math Professor is also a Hot Married Private Pilot. (I shall take to giving him they name Fyodor, after Fyodor Dostoyevsky, because he said that the last book that he read was The Brothers Karamozov -- in the original Russian). He just got his license this year, and will take any excuse to get some more time in the air.

I love flying (although I despise the shit you have to go through to fly on commercial jets these days). My first plane ride, according to family legend, was at three months of age. Many people don't like flying in small planes because you can feel every gust of wind and change of pressure; but that is precisely why I love flying. The thrill of using one type of force to defy another, of using lift to defy gravity.

Then, of course, the view! To be above everything, to see the water and the land and the contours of the earth. Do you know that, from 1000 feet up you can see the Appalachian from the Chesapeake? You can see the sand bars spiking out from the islands. You can see the marshes and their tenuous hold on the air above water. You can understand why the land itself is called Tidewater. You can see tiny islands that look as if they are bits of algae floating on the surface of the bay.

But, I will save that story for another post, because it will take longer to tell.

Stimulus or Bribe?

As long as I'm in a complaining mood, I might as well air my grievances about this $600 "economic stimulus" that the government was so kind as to plop in my account on the rationale that I will go forth and spend as part of my patriotic duty in holding off a recession.*

Now, understand that $600 is still a lot of money to me. Six hundred dollars means just under half of my rent. Six hundred dollars means student loan payments for two months. Six hundred dollars means groceries for almost two months. Six hundred dollars means less gritting of my teeth every time that I buy anything between the last paycheck of the spring and the first of the second summer session.**

At one time, about 2 years ago, $600 would have been a lot more to me. Six hundred dollars would have meant that I broke even that month. Six hundred dollars would have meant that I did not have to ask my parents for the money to fly down to be with my mother during her operation or at Christmas. Six hundred dollars would have meant that I might not have to eat Ramen Noodles every night that month, or that those Ramen Noodles would have gone further. Six hundred dollars would have held off bankruptcy for one more month.

For many people, $600 means doctors' bills can be paid. Six hundred dollars means that foreclosure will be held off for another month or two. Six hundred dollars means that the part of tuition not paid by loans will be covered. Six hundred dollars means the Ramen Noodles will go further, the gas bill will be paid, a down payment on a car. Six hundred dollars means many necessary and concrete items can be purchased, and purchased without credit cards. Six hundred dollars means disaster might be averted just a little bit longer.

I am also assuming that the people for whom these $600 would make the most material difference will actually be receiving such checks. Apparently, not everyone who needs it even gets the whole $600.

This is all to say that I appreciate the importance of this $600 for the immediate future of most people; but does this really hold off recession? Does this really fix any long-term problems that have created a recession? After all, $600 would not have prevented my bankruptcy; nor will it prevent other bankruptcies (and please, don't assume that everyone who has to file for bankruptcy does so because they have a wardrobe full of Prada and a house full of Ethan Allen that they never could afford) or foreclosures. Six hundred dollars will not pay off the student loan nor pay for a semester of college. Six hundred dollars won't even move you across country to a better paying job, even if you drive the U-Haul yourself.

All of these $600 checks are supposed to total $100 billion. One hundred billion dollars. That is a very large amount of money, even in the context of the federal budget (if I am understanding it correctly). That is a vast fortune not only to whole departments of the U.S. Government, but also to public programs that help people in the key ways that improve their lives for more than the few months that the stimulus payments will last.

Might $100 billion, wisely placed, make morew transformative differences? At the very least, might they avert disaster for longer than a handful of months? Might $100 billion create jobs, even WPA style jobs? Might $100 billion actually help several school districts, colleges, after school programs, public health services? Might $100 billion improve public transportation to make it an acceptable or efficient option for more car drivers? Might $100 billion go toward research for alternative sources of fuel, or toward a plan to get those damn SUVs off of the market? Might $100 billion, collectively used, go so much further than $600 splashed around?

I'm very ambivalent about these $600 in my account. I feel that they are a trick, an attempt to buy votes and to force yet another tax cut for big businesses. Seriously, what politician could hope to survive a negative vote on a bill that plans to give the American people actual cash? What sane person would criticize such a plan? Who would give back the money, once they receive it?

Since I seem to be someone who is crazy enough to criticize this plan, and since I have no dire, immediate need for the $600, should I give it back? Oh, hell no. This administration is clearly fiscally irresponsible (and I say that with the bankruptcy on my record). They will not use it wisely, which is why it is sitting in my bank account in the first place. Someone else might. Even if I donate it to my nephew's college fund, I will have given him part of a future (although it may only be worth a single textbook by 2023) and relieved his parents of part of the concern of that future. Six hundred dollars might go further, affect more people, somewhere else other than in my account or, clearly, back with the federal government.

*I was actually under the impression that we were, for all intents and purposes, in the middle of a depression what with all of the foreclosures and financial failures and unemployment and shrinking opportunities. Then, again, I am not an economist, so some of the finer points of recessions and depressions and economic stimulation elude me.
**Our Payroll office will only disburse salaries over a nine month period. When asked why they couldn't arrange for a 12-month payment schedule, they said, "we just don't do that." When asked why, they said, "we just don't." That's the rhetorical equivalent of "because I'm the mommy and I said so." We are adults with graduate and professional degrees. I think we can handle a more complicated explanation.

SOS, aka CFP

I have a friend who is organizing a conference in Michigan for October. He told me that they welcome students who would like to get some conference experience, as well as any established scholars. Note that they accept individual papers in addition to panels. Note, too, that they are focusing on "gender," not just "women's" history. Finally, Grand Rapids is the home to the three-sided Gerald Ford Presidential Library. When else are you going to get the chance to see that?:

Gender and Society: Explorations, Discoveries, and Revelations in a Gendered World
Call for Papers: Great Lakes History Conference
October 17th and 18th, 2008

The 33rd annual Great Lakes History Conference, sponsored by Grand Valley State University, will be held in Grand Rapids, Michigan on October 17th and 18th, 2008. All fields of history as well as other disciplines are invited to submit proposals related to this year’s theme: Gender and Society: Explorations, Discoveries, and Revelations in a Gendered World. We invite scholars from a wide range of fields and disciplines to exchange ideas and research on this topic. We also welcome panels on innovative ways of teaching this year’s theme to students at every level.

We are pleased to announce two very distinguished keynote speakers for this year’s conference, both of whom have authored numerous significant publications in the field of gender history. Judith P. Zinsser is a Professor in Women’s Studies at Miami University, a former President of the World History Association, and representative at the United Nations World Councils. Her most recent book is La Dame d’Esprit: a Biography of the Marquise Du Châtelet (Viking 2006). Our second keynote speaker is Bonnie S. Anderson, who is Broeklundian Professor of History at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her most recent book, Joyous Greetings: The First International Women’s Movement 1830-1860 (Oxford UP, 2000), demonstrates how early radical feminists in Britain, France, German and the USA came together to form the world’s first international women’s movement. Judith Zinsser and Bonnie Anderson co-authored the 1988 classic A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present, a publication whose twentieth anniversary will be celebrated and recognized at this year’s Great Lakes History Conference.

We welcome individual papers and arranged panels addressing this year’s topic. We encourage comparative work across regions and chronological boundaries. The conference will be organized around themes that have dominated recent scholarship. If you are interested in presenting a paper, please send an abstract of approximately 200 words and a curriculum vitae by June 15, 2008. Please include your address, email, and phone number. Those interested in commenting on a session should send a CV and indicate areas of expertise. Papers must take no longer than 30 minutes in a 2-paper session or 20 minutes in a 3-paper session. Sessions will last 90 minutes.

Conference headquarters will be at the L.V. Eberhard Center of Grand Valley State University in downtown Grand Rapids. Hotel accommodations will be available at the Days Hotel of Grand Rapids, which is across the street from the Eberhard Center. The conference is within easy walking distance of museums and restaurants. Grand Rapids is served by most major and regional airlines.

Please address all inquiries and abstracts to:
Dr. Craig Benjamin benjamic@gvsu.edu
or Dr. Scott Stabler Stablers@gvsu.edu

Cold and Wet in the Summertime

Despite being mid-May, the temperature outside is a balmy 55 degrees Fahrenheit, plus rain. The temperature in my apartment is below 60, and I have a chronic cough. Why don't I just turn on the heat? Well, I can't.

That is, I can, but only cold air comes out of the register, despite the thermostat being set at 80 (not that I want it at 80, but I put it there to see if that raised the temperature of the air. It didn't). I called maintenance. After reaching a busy signal for 30 minutes, a friendly lady answered the phone.

"Why don't I have any heat in my apartment?" I asked.

"The heat has been turned off in preparation for the air conditioning," she said.

"But it's cold, and will be for the rest of the week," I said.

"The heat has been turned off in preparation for the air conditioning," she said.

"But I don't need air conditioning, I need heat. I'm sick," I said.

"The heat has been turned off in preparation for the air conditioning," she said.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"The heat has been turned off in preparation for the air conditioning," she said.

"So I can't get heat until next winter?" I asked.

"No. The heat has been turned of in preparation for the air conditioning," she said.

"There's nothing I can do?" I asked.

"No. The heat has been turned off in preparation for the air conditioning," she said.

After another fit of coughing, I went down to the management office. Only the concierge was there. He didn't like the situation, but he couldn't tell me anything more beyond something having to do with sediment in the pipes that has to be cleared out before the air conditioning can be turned on.

"Sediment?" I asked. "In what pipes? This means nothing to me. I'm cold and coughing and the temperature is supposed to be in the forties tonight."

"I know," he said. "But they will tell you the same thing. Other people have called. One lady said she had a little baby. All I can tell you is to turn on the oven and open its door. The gas bill will be higher but you will be warm."

"Isn't that illegal?" I asked.

"What else can you do?" he said.

All of the managers were at lunch. At the same time. He was the only person in the office.

I'm not sure if this is a situation that can be considered "uninhabitable" according to law. We haven't had heat for over a month; and while we have had warm days during that month, none have called for air conditioning but many on end have called for heat. This place has been doing "renovations," which seem to mean only cosmetic changes because, if you have a system that allows only heat or air, and over a month of neither before you can switch from one to the other, shouldn't that be the first thing to replace?

Of course, this is the same place that replaced the carpet and ceiling tiles in the hall, but not the leaky pipe that has left a large, visible mildew stain on one and led to the removal of tiles, exposing the leaky pipe, from the other. This is the same place that threatens eviction if you turn in your rent on the second, instead of the first; has hired a towing service to sweep the parking lots nightly but can't seem to get the security lights in the same parking lots to work; and doesn't check to see if their contractors for these renovations have actually done the work for which they were contracted.

I like living up on the 20th floor. I like the space and the view. I like the balcony. But, holy shit, shouldn't I be able to get heat when the weather is wintry? Should the response to this be "just move"?

I'm not sure if I should contact a lawyer.

ETA: Turns out I don't have to call a lawyer just yet. A county department handles this sort of thing. For free.

ETA, 6:30 pm: The county says that the complex should be giving us space heaters. In fact, they specifically told me, "Go to the management office, go to Manager X, and she will give you a space heater." Manager X, her co-managers, and the supervising General Manager are unaware of this arrangment. They have no space heaters. Maintenance has no space heaters. The receptionist, who relayed all of this information to me, told me to take the situation to maintenance from now on. In other words, management does not want to be bothered with it.

Other people in the building are heating their apartments with the gas ovens, which can lead to carbon monoxide poisoning. Management is unconcerned; or at least the receptionist is unconcerned and did not relay my message to the managers.

I may call that lawyer after all.

Hot Fun in the Summertime!

People keep asking me what I'm doing for the summer. When I was affiliated with four-year universities, I learned that the proper response was, "I'm researching my next project in some exotic location where I will never see the light of day, while also polishing up my eighteen different articles that are up for publication at the most prestigious peer-reviewed journals. And you?" Summer meant research and writing, intense work, REAL work, not vacation. To suggest otherwise was to be branded "lazy" and "not serious," or, more damning, "not progressing."

That was part of my ambivalence about entering academia. I wanted to research and write; but, from time-to-time, I also wanted to travel somewhere that did not involve work or family. I wanted to go to Italy and ride a Vespa through the streets of Rome. I wanted to swim in Greek waters as deep as forever. I wanted to watch the sun rise and set from the same beach in Key West while drinking rum-based concoctions. I wanted a wild summer fling with a hot Parisian -- male or female, it didn't matter.* Research and writing are great, but not ALL OF THE DAMN TIME!

That ambivalence led me down the road to That Place. There, the people that I "worked with," ran off to Italian villas or bicycle trips across the Netherlands or tours of England. Much better, right? Wrong. "Where are you going?" my "co-workers" would deign to ask me. By that time, that question infuriated me. "Going?" I would think. "I can't even afford groceries on what I'm paid here and you want to know what my vacation plans are?" When I said that I wasn't going anywhere, they would make self-important remarks about what shame it was that I wasn't going to travel because a person can't really be educated or intelligent or open-minded unless they have travelled to Europe. "Oh, bite me," I would think. "Have you bitches ever been to the border? (No, not that one.) Have you been ten miles outside of this state inside of the U.S.?"

The bitterness. It still burns like acid.

Here, some of those economic issues are relieved, so I'm not quite so furious. Still, I am asked, "What are you doing for the summer?" The proper answer seems to be anything. If you are working, people here understand that that it is for a reason and don't snot their supposed sophistication at you. If you say that you are not working, they are happy for you. My co-worker, the Other History Professor (who really should have a pseudonym, but I can't think of an appropriate one yet), says he's going to Mexico for a few weeks, then camping with his kids. "What fun," everyone says. "What about you, Clio?"

I'm at a loss as how to respond. What are the lines in the script here? After over ten years of bullshit, of "proper answers" and snobbery, I'm flumoxxed by what seems to be genuinely polite inquiry. Do I downplay the time off, so I don't look lazy? Do I downplay the work, so I don't look like a classless drudge? I'm confused!

What am I doing this summer? Well, no Vespas in Italy, or swimming in Greece, or hot Parisians.** There will more than likely be some rum-based concoctions (or at least cheap wine). Instead, I am going to Minnesota, and to Mississippi! I'm also teaching, and heading off some of next year's work at the pass. I plan to write, and to get my sagging ass back to the gym. I fully intend to see the cultural sites of this part of the country. Already, I have tickets to see Hamlet this week, Lyle Lovett and Ani diFranco. I've even developed a system of deciding what site to see when (a jar and slips of paper: the classics never die). Surprisingly, when I mention any of these things to people with whom I work, I feel no judgement except my own self-deprecation.

*Actually, that sort of happened, except it was one night, he was from Nantes or Lourdes or somewhere else that was not Paris, and we were in Manhattan. Quiver!
** My hot Russian turns out to be married, which is for the best in the long run.

Leading Horses to Water

Once more, thank you for your comments on my last post. Eventually, I will get my act together to comment on them individually, much as GayProf does. To address some of your specific comments:

• To start (because I was so embarassed!), Dame Eleanor Hull, thank you for the distinction between "discreet" (as in "shhhh!") and "discrete" (as in "separate"). Clearly, I don't practice what I preach!
• DykeWife, I don't recall being taught actual grammar myself. Or, rather, I do recall the class going over the workbook, but I was too busy writing stories in the blank lines of the exercises. I'm not sure if they do or don't teach grammar in school around here. A lot of the serious grammar problems that I am encountering have to do with non-native speakers. Sometimes you can determine the syntax of a non-English language by the way the student constructs their English sentences. In one of my online classes, I had a student who had such abyssmal grammar that I took thirty minutes to decipher one sentence. My higher ups told me to just grade him; but I felt that something had gone terribly wrong in the system if he was able to take a junior-level class without being able to write a subject or an object, much less with agreement.
• Which brings me to Madwoman in the Modern World: because of that language issue, I doubt that you violated too many items on my list! I was an English major as an undergraduate, so I completely identify with the different conventions of tense in writing paper for two different disciplines. That has become quite frustrating when trying to write a history paper about the literary content of, say, Frederick Douglass's autobiographies!
• Susan, I discovered that compartmentalization of courses many years ago when explaining to a student the ways that she should approach the essay portion of her test. "Oh," she said, as a little light went on over her head, "like the rhetorical analysis in English?" A choir of angels sang out. So, I keep reminding them, "like in English! Like you learned in EN101!" I also gave them a template for a 5-paragraph essay. As silly and basic as that may sound, it has helped immensely. Just not enough.
• GayProf, I feel your pain! I end up writing comments that go something like this: "You have a well-organized paper here, but this is a class on African-American history before 1865, so a paper on Edward Hopper doesn't quite address the assignment. Grade: 0."

I kept thinking about your comments and that post in order to figure out what frustrated me so much about those papers. Obviously, many of my complaint are just the complaints of your average teacher; but I think the root of my frustration comes from some of the real problems of teaching at a community college. How does a teacher actually teach their own subject (which includes remaining current in their own field), when they also have to continue to reinforce the basics of communication and study skills? How much class time should I devote to teaching a set of students how to research a paper? How much of my time outside of class should I devote to critiquing their paper for grammar and organization? How much time should I devote to reiterating what they spent a whole semester learning in another class? How much should I break an assignment down into its component parts for comment and critique, to make sure that they are doing the whole assignment correctly? In other words, how much can I assume that any given set of students already knows when they walk into my class?

I'm gradually learning that I have to assume that they know nothing. I have to explain even the most obvious of assignments, like "multiple choice quiz," as simply and in as much detail as possible. At the same time, many of my students are in my class because they can't afford to go to bigger schools. So, how to I also meet their intellectual needs at the same time that I am meeting the basic study-skills-level needs of the other students? Indeed, since many of my students will transfer to the four-year universities, how do I prepare them intellectually to suceed there, while also building these basic study skills.

Perhaps "how" is not the actual question that I'm asking. Perhaps "when" is more accurate. When do I find the time, both in the class for them, and outside of class for me? I get very exhausted. Frustrated, too. This is the challenge of teaching at community colleges; it is also on some level, the down-and-dirty political work of empowering the masses through education.

I suppose part of my frustration in my last post, too, had to do with my own sense of failure. I did not lead that particular class through the assignment as well as I could have. I gave them guidelines for the paper, then left it all up to them to ask me questions. I did not do my usual, "turn in the topic, turn in the bibliography, turn in the revised bibliography," steps that ensure they proceed properly, but also ensure that I am grading constantly. I was being lazy and I relied too much on assuming what they knew. My motto is usually "you can lead a horse to water." That's my job: to make damn sure that I've done everything I can to lead and to put the onus of failure on them. I felt that I failed them by not leading well enough.

So, onward. I won't make that mistake again.

On Grading Research Papers

Dear Students,

You are trying. I just know you are. I believe that you are; or, as Fox Mulder would say, "I want to believe." I know that you think the content of your papers should mean so much more than the spelling, grammar, form and other technical details of essay writing, but it doesn't. The second actually makes the former stronger and more credible. So here are a few tips on writing research papers. Some may strike you as familiar from class, either this one or your English composition class.

1. History took place in the past tense. Hence, history papers should be written in past tense. The police did not "arrest demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic convention," they "arrested" them.
2. An apostrophe s (-'s) indicates a possessive noun, an s alone (-s) indicates a plural noun, an s apostrophe (-s') indicates a plural possessive noun.
3. Paragraphs! Remember them? You separate your ideas into discrete sections by pressing "enter" and "tab."
4. The website advertising a book is not the same as the book and does not count as a source, much less a separate source from the book.
5. A website or book with "Encyclopedia" in the title is, actually, an encyclopedia and a forbidden source as stipulated in the instructions.
6. "No late papers" means "no late papers." It does not mean, "oh crap! A paper is due? Today? Can I turn it in late? What's it supposed to be on?"
7. An extension on a paper, due to illness or death in the family, still includes a deadline. The semester does have a end date. The paper is due sometime before then, usually on a mu tally agreed upon date. If you miss that extended deadline, you lose.
8. Buying a paper online is not the same as researching and writing a paper. Not even if you allegedly wrote that paper for another class and sold it to that website. (Yes, a student actually gave this excuse this week.)
9. From here on out, you may not in any way use Google as a research tool. The first ten hits do not constitute "research" nor a "bibliography."
10. If you are writing a paper on a particular person, and if a charitable organization is named after that person, the website for that organization does not constitute a research source.
11. "X was the greatest person ever!" is not a valid thesis statement.

I apologize. I should have kept closer watch on you throughout the semester. I shouldn't have assumed that you learned these things in your English composition class; or, rather, I shouldn't have assumed that you would retain that information once English comp had ended. I keep forgetting that not everyone can intuit these things; so make your next teacher happier and remember this list.

Thank you,

Dr. Bluestocking

Things that Never Seem to Occur to Most Men

Afroman left a message for me the other night.

Afroman works in the library at school and is earning his MLS online. We met while I was checking out books and having a discussion with a student who had just donated about a foot and a half of her hair to Lock of Love or some similar sort of an organization. I was thinking of doing the same, since I have a good foot of my own that could stand to be liberated. Afroman, whose hairdo is reminiscent of Huey in Boondocks, chimed in, "Do you think they would take mine?" Good question, actually; but he had asked more to participate in the conversation than to solicit information.

He started to refer to himself as Afroman in e-mails to me about books that I put on hold for my students. For the next few months, we had a friendly rapport and we even went to lunch once. I thought, "hey! A friend!" I can be embarassingly naive. So naive that, at some point, I gave him my phone number so we could stay in touch over the summer. Silly me, thinking that straight people of different genders could be friends.

Then he started to make suggestions, without actually making suggestions. I hate that very very oblique way of making a pass. The guy never really comes out and asks you on a date because he doesn't really want a date. What he wants is no-strings sex. While I'm not at all opposed to no-strings sex, I am opposed to this method of aggressive circumspection that leaves me in a position where I have to say "are you talking about fucking? Because if you are, the answer is no."

I think I've written about this before, but I deleted the post because it concerned a close friend doing just the same thing. In these ambiguous situations, the guy doesn't ever ask for what he wants because he is trying to preclude that "no" until the very last minute. Then, he is hoping that you will be too far gone, too overwhelmed by the moment, or just too damn polite to say "no." He will say that he doesn't have any expectation, and that he wants things to "just happen," all while angling you toward his bed or backseat. That's bullshit. That's manipulation.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like Afroman. He has these affectations. For instance, he has cultivated 1970s esthetic, including the Afro. "Were you even alive in the '70s?" I asked. This affectation makes me think that he is playing a character, and in that respect, he reminds me of an old friend from high school and college who desperately wanted to be the love child of Humphrey Bogart and P.J. O'Roarke.


I see Afroman around campus and he is quite the playa, or fancies himself as such, always sidling up to attractive young women and chatting for a while. Then, there was that time we went out to lunch and ran into a woman with whom he clearly had some sort of prior connection. He couldn't remember her name, so didn't introduce her to me. He made no explanation about how they were old friends or used to work together, or how he and I worked at the same place, or any of the usual formalities that people use when introducing two people to one another. She and I both knew what was going on; but he clearly hoped to vanish into thin air.

From a distance, watching this is amusing. Up close, this is the reason that I don't trust him.

So, as soon as he started to make these non-suggestions, my defenses went up. Using my own method of circumspection, I just kept saying that I was too busy to go out (although "out" didn't seem to be the specific place he wanted to go), counting on the three strikes rule to kick in on his side. Negotiating these waters without being insulting, without alienating the other person, gets so tricky. That's reason number 569870 why I don't date. The little games just bother me because, as with most games, there seems to be a winner and a loser.

Apparently he doesn't know about the three, and four, and five, strike rule. That's what I get for being oblique myself. Then, he called and left a message that began, "I neeeeed to see you soon." Time to cut through the crap.

"You do realize that your message sounded like a particular kind of call, right?" I asked. "Just so you know, I don't do that anymore." Not as direct as if I had used the terms "booty call" and "fuck around," but it did get the point across.

"Hey, those kinds of relationships are the best, just for the physcial and natural pleasure of it," he replied. "I don't have time for commitment. Am I the only one who is curious?"

At which point I sensed his age, which is a good fifteen years less than mine. I'm not sure that he is aware that the gap is that large. That, or he is so used to the sexually experienced playa role, that he doesn't realize that a 40 year old woman might, at some point in her past, have encountered the booty-call, the hook-up, the fuck-buddy, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. Also, he hasn't figured out that the worplace is probably not the best pool from which to draw your fuck-buddies. That's what Craigslist is for.

So, I told him that I get where he is coming from, but I'm not in the "all fun" place, as he is. I'm in the "trying to unlearn some fucked up ideas" place (without going into details, of course), which precludes those types of calls.

Maybe that was too much information right there. Maybe "just not interested" would have been more appropriate; but just the hint of more than "not interested" was a sort of test. His response went something like this: "Whoa! Wow! Have a nice life."

To his credit, he didn't begin the "hey baby, you just haven't been with a real man, I'm not like those guys, I can make it all better, don't be so uptight," and so forth, tactics. He saw that I wasn't into casual sex, and he wasn't going to push it. I can respect that; but he also didn't demonstrate any curiosity about the bad ideas or unlearning process that a friend might. So, no friend.

Somewhere during this exchange, however, I began to think that perhaps he and other men may not realize that women, especially grown, nearly menopausal women, may have a much more complicated relationship to sex than they do. The thought never seems to occur to these men that many of the women that they encounter have been raped (or nearly raped, as in my case), raped by someone close to them, sexually abused, victims of incest, or harassed. Many may have kids, which the men sort of understand, but women may have also had abortions, miscarriages, sexually transmitted diseases, and other such consequences of sexual activity. None of these has to have been necessarily traumatic, but they have taught a lesson or two that makes a woman cautious.

Women also have this whole backstory to sexual behavior that involves gynecologists and birth control; and don't forget the choir of ignorant people telling us all about our sexuality without actually consulting us for our experience. Some of those ignorant people have actually been intimate with us and still don't get the simple fact that we, as separate individuals, have a separate experience of sex from our partners. There is a lot of noise and pain surrounding women in regard to sex.

Or is it just me?

That makes me resent the implication that the default assumption about sex is a tabula rasa of experience, a pornographic scenario in which somebody ordered a pizza and everyone piles on to fuck without a past or a future. That would be great; but that is why porn is fantasy, and usually a male-directed fantasy, at that. The reality is that there is always experience. Even virgins come to the bed with some sort of context.

That context doesn't always have to include abuse. What a person wants from sex at 20 may differ from what they want at 40. Sex is part of a life, and life is a process that changes. That seems to be an element that gets missed, especially when dealing with young people.

As Afroman told me, he is in graduate school, working, and has no time for commitment. He just wants the release of fucking. That's his phase. That is not mine. I perhaps did not articulate my position well to him, or I articulated my position, but he interpreted as "fucked up," or "too much effort." The latter is probably true; but the facts are that I'm no longer in graduate school or chasing a job around the country. I have a job and a home that I like, even love. While my work is imporant and consuming, I feel this space opening that might allow me to deal with some of the crap that I have been able to shove aside all of this time.

That crap is mostly compsed of these bad ideas that I'm trying to unlearn, not so much about sex itself, but about love and intimacy. I'm trying to unlearn this Orwellian doublespeak in which love has meant abuse, emotionally, intellectually, and sexually; and in which that abuse has limited me professionally, romantically, familially, and platonically, and in relation to men and to women.

I'm also trying to do this as a feminist who is aware of the power imbalance between men and women, and that the imbalance plays out even in very intimate relationships of romantic and sexual partners, of families, and of friends. We are part of system in which politics is very much personal.

In this system, I'm trying to find a way to trust people, especially straight male people. I'm trying to learn if that trust is at all possible. I'm trying to find respectful human connection that can be the personal part of a political process that challenges that power imbalance. Booty-calls with young playas don't fit into this scheme.

Stone Walls, part 2: Happily Ever After, Once Upon a Time

Thank you everyone who provided support, comfort, and suggestions on my last post (DykeWife, the readings you suggested were great and helped a lot in formulating what follows). I had to run out of town over the weekend (that's another story) and then jump back into finals, so I haven't been able to respond or to tell what happened next. With five stacks of papers sitting in my office, I decided that this would be the perfect time to respond and better procrastinate on the hell that is grading.

The whole incident plagued my weekend. I kept thinking about it and getting more and more furious. Fortunately, I was working, so I couldn't stew, but the frustration and anger was still there. (I too, GayProf, was accused of promoting the "Gay Agenda." If that means promoting civil and human rights for gay people, then, Hell, Yeah! I'm promoting the "Gay Agenda.") Then, while waiting for my plane, I realized that I should have one of those conciousness and empathy raising activities for the last day of class, even if that meant not covering the last bit of material.

Like I wrote, I gave the disruptive student who led the homophobic opposition to my lecture the option of giving a presentation on the subject that he deemed more appropriate for class. He could go up on the block, give a talk about Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers, and we would see what would happen. I gave him this option knowing full well that he would be absent that day. He was.*

I began by telling the students that I was quite upset about the previous meeting. I told them that I was more upset when I had heard about some of the discussions that took place out of my hearing in the back of the class and that much of what was flying around the room fell under the heading of "hate speech," which was completely unacceptable, especially in a class about civil rights. I also invited students to leave the room if they felt the need to use the f-word, the n-word, the s-word (a derogatory name for Latinos) or any other similar type of word in an insulting way.

"Beyond the hate speech," I told them, "that sort of talk is just disrespectful and rude to other students in the class." Then I took a leap (well, maybe a hop, since I am a non-practicing heterosexual). "You don't know who is gay in this class," I said. "You don't know who is gay in front of this class." The little knot of homophobic dudes in the back of the class sat up straighter (no pun intended) than I have seen them sit during the whole semester. One guy's jaw dropped. "Yeah," I said, "you don't know. Just out of courtesy, would you say those things if you knew."

"Yeah, man, I would" said one of the turtles. That actually interested me, so I asked him, "why?" He realized that I heard him, and at least had the conscience to look embarassed. "Never mind," he said.

Then, I asked the rest of the class about their thoughts on the events of the previous class. They had two related opinions on the matter. Several of the students objected to the homophobia. They felt freer to express their opinion that the disruptive "needs to grow up and see that the world is about more than his issue." Some began to talk about the concept of civil rights as human rights. "It doesn't matter if you agree with homosexuality or not, gays are people too," one said

Others objected to what they saw as disrespectful behavior from the disruptive student, even those who sided with his opinions on homosexuality. "I don't pay for him to teach the class," said one student, "he needs to let you teach the class." I was rather suprised, although I don't know why, that many defended my privledge to include or exclude information in the lecture. In some ways, that disturbed me, that they seemed so unquestioning of the teacher; but they did show me how they approach their education and my supposed expertise on a subject or at least on the craft of teaching.

I wanted to steer the discussion away from complaining about the absent student because he wasn't there to defend himself. So I changed the subject. "Why do you think the white students came down from the north and put their lives on the line for the Civil Rights movement," I asked. "Why do you think the Gay Liberation movement supported the Black Panthers? Why do you think that the educated black students of SNCC became more radical in their defense of poor blacks in the south?" Empathy and compassion, the participating part of the class said, in many more words.

Then I asked them about privledge. "Remember that idea of intersectionality?" I asked them. "The various identities that you have? You aren't just black, or female, or gay, or Latino, or anything else? You are a combination of many of those elements?" Then, I asked them to name the different parts of their identities that can be discriminated against, and I wrote them on the board. We had a pretty substantial list.

After looking at the list, we talked about the ways that some of these identies are not necessarily binary. For instance, you aren't black or white, you might be Latino, or Arab, or Asian, or a mix of many. We also talked about how discrimination can appear in degrees. A mixed race student told about how some people think he is Latino, others think he is black, and others think he is white. Depending upon the person he encounters and the situation in which he finds himself, the types of discrimination or lack of discrimination that he experiences differs.

Then we spoke of privledge. In one category, a person can experience discrimination, and in another the same person can experience privlege. Hillary Clinton came up. The women in my class (and I venture that I am the only woman who is identified and who identifies as white) do not like H. Clinton. They see her as privleged by class and by marriage to a former president. "How about as a female," I asked. "Does she get flak for being a woman?" They conceded that. "And Obama," I asked. They have a much more sophisticated understanding of Obama as a member of a black community; but they also understand his privlege of class. For the first time, I think, they considered his privlege as a male.

This discussion went on beyond the class time. They wanted to stay much longer, but many had other classes and jobs waiting. The level of civility was much higher this time than last time. I may have been preaching to the choir, since the disruptive student was not there and the intensely homophobic crowd** fell asleep or kept their mouths shut, but I'm hoping that the choir has refined some of their ideas. I'm also hoping that the "silent majority" have some ideas floating around in their head that will fester for a year, or two years, or twenty, and cause them to one day think, "oooohhhhh! So that's what she meant. Now I get it!"

After class, a big group came up and thanked me. The one student who was out to me was among them. He told me that, to recover from the class, he went to have a "Big Gay Weekend" in New York. He showed me the picture he took of Stonewall and sang a few bars from Avenue Q. The group started to talk about forming some kind of student group next semester (I volunteered to sponsor them, if they do). Then, they all wanted a group hug.

I'm hoping this is not a "happily ever after," but a "once upon a time" moment. I'm hoping that the story that follows has them forming that student group and raising awareness about gay rights and civil rights on the campus. I'm hoping that this class empowered them somehow.



* In his defense, he has a chronic illness, exacerbated by lack of insurance, that makes him miss over 50% of the class meetings (although I do suspect that he is sick maybe 35% percent of the time). I get pretty pissed at our health care and insurance system when I see how many other students are in the same boat. They work full or nearly full-time, but have no insurance. If they get sick or pregnant or have a chronic illness, these conditions go untreated until they all but collapse. One student ended up in the emergency room, and several of the pregnant women are classified as "high risk" because of their health. But that is all a ranting post for another time.

** Who are now trying to fine tune their gaydar to figure out if I'm lesbian or not. "Her? Naw, she wears skirts, she has long hair. But she did say that thing...naw...can't be. Can she?"