What's actually wrong with Suzanne Venker's perspective?

Yesterday I broke my blogging fast to write a response to Suzanne Venker. Venker is the author of the book How to Choose a Husband and Make Peace with Marriage as well as three inflammatory Fox News opinion articles (1, 2, 3), getting her a lot of attention in the Twittersphere and my own personal circles. I've had some time to think since my last post, and I have decided that it is important to articulate my problems with Venker's claim that happiness requires the admission that "men and women aren't 'equal'". Why? Because Venker's perspective is a frighteningly popular one, a 'guilty pleasure' admission to which people will and do latch as an excuse to perpetuate what may seem on the outside to be an attractive traditional pathway. In reality, these articles reveal a limited understanding of a complex world, tempered by unacknowledged and poisonous privilege.

These articles are dripping with privilege, perhaps evidenced by the Freudian slip that was a picture of a same-sex couple used to depict lasting love and peaceful marriage in Venker's most recent piece. This wouldn't be a problem, if Venker wasn't writing about marriage as strictly under the domain of heterosexual couples. Since discovering the mishap, the picture has been replaced by a generic pair of stick-figure people supposedly depicting a man and a woman, public-bathroom-style. What does that tell an audience? Could they just not find a reliably heteronormative photo of a happily married "straight" couple? Wasn't the original enough to demonstrate that just because a person wears pants doesn't mean they're a man?

Sorry, Venker. The gender-fuck already happened, and no picture on the web is going to erase that stain from the internet's memory.

The ironic thing about it is that Venker's article attempts to dismiss her critics because she doesn't believe gender is a construct. "[T]he truth must be heard..." she writes. "Unless, of course, you’re beholden to feminism. In that case... [y]ou’ll believe what feminists taught you to believe: that gender is a social construct."

Her supporting evidence is a joke. "Those of us with children know better. We know little girls love their dolls and boys just want to kick that ball. This doesn’t mean men can’t take care of babies or women can’t play sports. It just means each gender has its own energy that flows in a specific direction. For God’s sake, let it flow."

Seriously? It's not like there is a whole history of dolls and balls being forced into the faces of 'little girls and boys' by advertising and moms like Venker or anything. Obviously the submission of impressionable minds to traditional gender norms enforced by figures of authority perfectly demonstrates that gender is not a social construct.

Vernker's piece is composed of heteronormative, cis-genered privilege, but it is also the cry of an upper-middle-class white woman who does not seem to comprehend the idea of life for life's sake sans traditional marriage and babies.

Her simplistic perspective of history ignores feminine oppression, pretending feminism exists solely for the purpose of proving that gender is a construct to fuck up marriage and get ladies jobs (as if deconstructing marriage and giving ladies jobs is the worst thing that could possibly happen to anyone ever). It's so much more than that. It's the rejection of the objectification of women. It's the protection of the feminine voice. It's the refusal to accept that there is one path for which I was designed and that all others are unnatural. This separate-but-equal attitude Venker adopts (the same perspective historically adopted pre-civil-rights and used in the present day by many in the same-sex-marriage debate) just isn't reasonable. Separate but equal is an illusion, and it's not something I'm willing to entertain.

From one woman to another, I have a different perspective to offer Venker:

Yeah, Suzanne, I really like the idea of getting married and adopting children and having a family, but never in a million years would I sacrifice the rights that generations of feminists (yes, feminists, not just women) have fought for me to have just so I could acquire what you perceive as peaceful and socially acceptable marriage.

Doctor Straightlove or: How Suzanne Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Oral Sex

Re: Suzanne Venker

When I first begin reading Venker’s opinion articles on Fox News, I find myself positively exhilarated. “The battle of the sexes is alive and well”, she writes in her first article.

“Women aren’t women anymore”, she writes.

Kinky, I think. What does that make me, a person who does, in fact, identify as a woman? Master? Dog-trainer? Prison guard? Oh, baby.

From that point on it is clear to me that Venker isn’t writing about heteronormative perceptions of love and marriage; nor is she even conscious of the pro-cis-gendered lens through which her article speaks.

No, Suzanne Venker is giving EL James a run for her money, writing quite possibly the cleverest under-the-rug BDSM fiction since the poorly disguised Fifty Shades of Chicken. She is simply using the tools in her toolbox. As a woman who “lives in St. Louis, MO, with her husband and their two children”, Venker has a unique and powerful perspective that allows her to discuss kink with a subtlety that defies even the unique perceptive abilities of Fox News.

Sometimes, though, perhaps too subtle…

“In a nutshell, women are angry”, she writes later on in the aforementioned article.

Oh, I think, obviously assuming the nutshell to which Venker refers is actually one of many cock-and-ball torture devices such as the ball crusher or the testicle cuff. Of course, she seems to be getting her gender assignments mixed up. I might have suggested “With a nutshell…” which would eliminate confusion and clearly identify the woman in this particular scenario as the dominant partner. (Remember, we're talking cis-gender here.) Not everybody is as educated on the nuances of consensual sexual torture as I am. Perhaps it is her mad attempt at metaphorical complexity that causes her mix-up (or it could be a rogue editor). Unfortunately, as later analyses will show, this slip of the tongue may be the love child of her inexperience and discomfort with this hitherto unexplored sexual adventure.

I must say, though, that I am impressed with the prose she manages despite the internal confusion. She writes, “[women have] been raised to think of men as the enemy. Armed with this new attitude, women pushed men off their pedestal ([insert some distracting bollocks about feminism here]) and climbed up to take what they were taught to believe was rightfully theirs.” The use of the word “raised” encourages the reader to presume that this is, indeed, a consensual act arranged in advance between two adults (well done, Suzie). Beyond that, the metaphorical imagery of the climb is absolutely tantalizing. At this point, I think each person is responsible for his or her interpretation of the text. (I, for instance, might choose to imagine this woman as a prisoner climbing up a ladder to take the power from the prison guard… perhaps not so black and white as I originally suspected! Oh, how the tables have turned!)

The thing that tips me off to her extreme discomfort is the fact that Venker automatically assumes the natural next step is for dom to become sub (“All [women] have to do is surrender…” and blah, blah, blah). She’s clearly still experimenting and hasn’t found her place yet in the community as she writes this article.

In the piece published just a few days later, it would seem she’s found her footing. “In other words, surrendering to your femininity means to put down your sword. It’s okay if your guy’s in charge. It’s okay if you don’t drive the car”, she writes in her follow-up piece.

In other words, Mr. Venker found the nipple clamps.

Unfortunately, it seems her third article marks the end of her explorations in the exciting world of BDSM. Unhappy as a dom, unsatisfied as a sub, the Venker matriarch puts away the family tools (and stops playing naughty with the family jewels) for good. “The battle of the sexes is over. And guess what? No one won”, she writes in an unfortunate public admission of defeat. “Why not try something else on for size? Like this: men and women are equal, but different. They’ve each been blessed with amazing and unique qualities that they bring to the table. Isn’t it time we stopped fussing about who brought what and simply enjoy the feast?”

Well, at least they’ll always have oral.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert in Suzanne Venker, her family, or her published works (and I would be positively tickled if she could be so kind as to avoid such claims regarding myself, my gender, my desires, my sexual orientation, my romantic orientation, or my humanity). I do not claim to be an expert on BDSM, either, and if I have spoken out of turn or wrongfully against any persons engaged in the BDSM community, I ask that they please graciously inform me of my mistakes and allow me to fix them.

How to Locate, Capture, and Tame Your Grown-Up

Grown-Up: 1. (adj.) having reached the age at which one is expected to walk, talk, and behave as an adult would, i.e. in a mature and respectable fashion and with absolutely no silliness allowed (oftentimes regarded as a mythical state of being, perhaps originally imagined by children but institutionalized by The Man in order to avoid chaos; regarded as unrealistic by the standards of most people traditionally perceived as grown-up). 2. (n.) an adult. 3. (n.) an older person who cares for a younger person as a parent would, who unconditionally loves said younger person despite not being related by blood or by marriage; see: mentor (and then forget it because mentor isn’t really a very good synonym for One’s Grown-Up at all).

The first thing you must understand when commencing a journey to find the holy grail of Grown-Ups is that it is impossible to purposefully locate A Grown-Up to become Your Grown-Up. Second, Your Grown-Up is naturally elusive in that he or she is in the process of becoming Your Grown-Up long before either of you is able to recognize him or her as such. Thus, it is actually impossible for one to capture one’s Grown-Up. Finally, Your Grown-Up is most recognizable flourishing in his or her natural habitat, which is wherever you are when you are most in need of A Grown-Up. During any other time, they tend to lie dormant in a haze of minimal recognition. In essence, this means that it is not necessary for one to tame or train One’s Grown-Up, as the skills associated with being One’s Grown-Up are born naturally when this person becomes Your Grown-Up.

~*~

I’m missing My Grown-Up today. I missed him yesterday, too. I was out for a walk, late at night, trying to give my brain a rest when I realized how dark it felt, and how slowly all of the cars seemed to be driving by, and how I actually know very few people in this town. I got stuck thinking about how safe it feels when My Grown-Up in the same city as I am and slowly every headlight became a flashlight seeking me out in hopes of cutting me up. It felt dangerous, and not in the adventure sort of way. It was the helpless sort of way, but I kept walking.

Time passed, the sky seemed to darken steadily more and more as I approached my destination: a literal-hole-in-the-ground called the Shakespeare Pit. I stayed there for a while, alone but not unhappy. I thought about sleeping in this pit in March and having my first drink in it on Thursday. I thought about crying in it in January when I found the hole in my heart that made me believe I was a Blank Person. (This was the night I realized that the Shakespeare Pit is actually only as good as your memories make it.)

I have an e-mail saved in my inbox titled “Re: This e-mail does not have a subject.” It’s a painful e-mail with painful things attached to it, but I don’t keep it to remind me of the painful things in life. I keep it so I can look back at where My Grown-Up wrote me the words: “And don’t back down.” I read it over again from time to time to remember how I didn’t back down and how I might have backed down if he hadn’t told me it was okay not to.

On nights like yesterday, though, when I’m sitting alone in the dark in the Shakespeare pit, I don’t remember the words exactly as he wrote them. I remember them sounding more like, “And keep moving forward” or “And everything is going to be alright” or “And keep fighting.” The words don’t match up but the sentiment seems to well enough, and I can take his advice again, though the circumstances have changed almost entirely. “Don’t back down,” I tell myself as I slink back home in the shadows, imagining that I’m the dangerous one, that I’m the strong one, the powerful one. Don’t back down.

I know that the things My Grown-Up has given me will transcend distance and that he may not be physically near me but that doesn’t mean he’s not still keeping me safe, the way that words have that special ability to keep us safe. This isn’t dependence, I don't think. This is the way One’s Grown-Up becomes recognizable, flourishing in its natural habitat.

Ice Cream: Breakfast of Champions

Dear Mom and Dad,

Proceed with caution.

Sincerely,

Your Loving Daughter

I woke up on Sunday morning feeling less-than-enthused about life. It’s not that anything was wrong, per se. It’s just that it was Sunday morning, soon to be Monday morning, and I didn’t have any plans for the day, and my bladder forced me out of my bunk bed at 9am when I would rather have slept until noon. Somewhere between opening my computer and losing faith in the possibility that I could be productive that afternoon, my mind wandered to the kitchen.

I needed to find myself some breakfast so I took a tour of my mind-refrigerator (like a mind-castle but made out of groceries and exaggerated poverty). There came a point in my search where no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to navigate away from the freezer. I was hyperaware of the fact that there was a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Red Velvet Cake ice cream on the bottom shelf of the freezer door, and nothing in the world sounded better in that moment than tiny chunks of red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting swirls in frozen cow milk with sugar.

The part of my brain that plans to go on a diet once a month adamantly refused the proposal. No, she said. It isn’t proper. You aren’t allowed to eat ice cream for breakfast.

But the part of me that doesn’t give a damn Googled “ice cream for breakfast.” The third result in the search looked most promising to me, a column titled Go AskAlice! wherein a reader called “icecreamlover” had asked: “Is there anything wrong with eating ice cream for breakfast?”

I had no reason to trust Alice. I didn’t know this woman, nor did I know her qualifications to be giving me nutritional advice.* However, somehow the phrase “if your body is able to deal with the high doses of sugar and fat first thing in the morning, which many adults cannot, there might not be reason to toss out the ice cream scoop just yet,” really spoke to me. By this I mean that I completely and totally ignored her cautionary tone and somehow managed to read: “if your body can handle it, then who the hell cares!”

Well, challenge accepted. I was downstairs in an instant devouring the tiny red chunks of cake. Looking at the nutrition facts didn’t even phase me. 250 calories in half a cup? Ha!

I went so far as to imagine what would happen if my roommate (the girl, not the fish) came downstairs and challenged me.

“Is ice cream a breakfast food, Julia?” she would ask, giving me a look.

You know, one of those looks designed to make you feel like you’re doing something wrong.**

“It’s no worse than your sugary cereals!” I would cry, pointing at her accusingly. “Everybody knows nobody only eats three quarters of a cup of Cap’n’Crunch!” Of course I was wrong but at this point I was past the point of no return with the delusions of grandeur that came with eating ice cream for breakfast. Eating ice cream made me feel bold. I felt like I used to when I was ten and would successfully sneak sugary treats for breakfast:

MIGHTY!

Will I suffer for my Sunday breakfast choice? Probably not in any lasting way. Ultimately it’s just one little thread in a tapestry of decisions I get to make for the rest of my life. I don’t eat ice cream every morning. (That’s why it still makes me feel MIGHTY! when I do!) Most mornings I eat boring old oatmeal or boring old cereal or boring old toast. But yesterday I didn’t eat boring old just anything for breakfast. I ate something that transformed into an extraordinary breakfast simply by being just a tiny bit rebellious.

I ate ice cream, and it was delicious.

Notes:

*Later I would learn that "Alice" is actually a team of professionals from Columbia University.

**It is completely beside the point that Laura (my actual roommate) never would have given me one of those looks, and that if she had, it would have been the most sarcastic and accepting edition of those looks possible. Nonetheless, when you’re eating ice cream for breakfast, everyone’s a critic in your brain.

Blogception (or: A Blog Post About Blogging)

 This morning, whilst pining for school to start already so my Sundays could have a purpose again, I had the brilliant idea to start a blog to fill my time. I like creative non-fiction, I thought. This could be a good exercise in writing, I thought. Practice makes perfect, I thought. Then: blogs are for squares, I thought.

I don’t even know where it came from. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was this criticism mulling about amidst all of the ideas and the positivity and the enthusiasm. I couldn’t even bring myself to visit the blogosphere and select a domain because I had found that—for some inexplicable reason—I was violently prejudiced against blogs.

Why?

Maybe I thought blogging was narcissistic. When somebody signs up for a blog, chooses a template, selects the option to show up in search engines, and begins writing and posting their thoughts, they are essentially saying: I am important and you should want to read what I have to say.

Really, how could anyone be so self-important as to think they’re worth my screen-time?

Instantly, I can identify about five things that are wrong with that statement, the first and foremost being the absolute hypocrisy of it. I have a Facebook page that I update daily with statuses and links. I have two Tumblrs with follower counts I’m rather pleased about to which I compulsively reblog things when I’m bored or can’t think of anything else to do. The most heinous example of hypocrisy is my Twitter account, which I also update daily about such inconsequential things as my fish (who I, incidentally, believe that everyone should know and love), oftentimes because I think the things I’m saying are clever. My success on all of these sites is measured by the number of likes, comments, reblogs, favorites, and retweets I receive. Meanwhile, 69% of bloggers surveyed in The2011 State Of The Blogosphere reported that they measure the success of their blogs by their own personal satisfaction.

Show-offs!

Granted, 70% also said they used their blogs to share their personal expertise with others. However, when asked why they blog, they didn’t seem to have the option of answering “because I find it personally fulfilling.” Plus, a great deal of those surveyed were self-employed professionals or being paid by corporations to blog (meaning they probably did have some expertise worth blogging about). These bloggers had a number of reasons for blogging, and they all seemed more reasonable than “because I want everyone to know my fish is the coolest pet on the block.”

So I’ve done a decent job of debunking my prejudice in my own mind. It seems to me that most successful blogs are worth reading. I’ve determined that the concept of feeling important enough to have something worth reading is more a product of confidence than of narcissism. So what’s my problem? I obviously think I have things worth saying! Facebook! Tumblr! Twitter!

Perhaps not. There’s a chance that I’ve overblown the significance of the aforementioned social networking sites, misinterpreting frequency of posts for quality of information exchange.

It seems to me that Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter are designed so as to disallow real conversations about real and important things. I tend to avoid Facebook confrontation because I know what it’s like to wince at a status about the election with 102 comments bouncing between five people (all of whom think the other four are complete idiots). Tumblr oftentimes seems like a masturbatory indulgence for those who use it for social justice, where users follow exclusively people whose posts they already know they’ll like to see on their dashboards and anti-anon-hate pages and other things of the like pop up around every tag. Currently the Tumblr posts that get the most notes are all either pictures of cats, memes of the Queen, or the one valiant user who has managed to really stick it to an anonymous user’s unprompted “lol u suk go die!!!!1!!!111” in their ask box. I once watched hundreds of users flood the “epilepsy” tag with massive posts attempting to push down triggers with things like “STAND WITH THE EPILEPSY TAG! STOP THE TRIGGERS!” and “I can’t believe someone would do something like this.” Tumblr is a place where we fight these little battles, but once the battle is finished, and whether it’s won or lost, in the grand scheme of things it all seems sort of ephemeral. The battles themselves are manifestations of the dangerous side effects of social networking, where Tumblr is a large community of heroes defending their territory: the internet. That’s amazingly cool, but sometimes it feels like repairing rollercoasters in Rollercoaster Tycoon: fixing problems in a self-made society that’s always at least little bit removed from the real world.

Honestly, I think my most used tag on Twitter is #proudfishmom.

Of course, it’s possible to use these websites for productive conversations, and I applaud those who do, but I ‘m just not savvy enough to make them work like that for me.

So let’s get back to the original problem: that nagging reluctance to start a blog. If my prejudice is not so unfounded as I originally thought, then what am I really afraid of? Am I afraid that what I have to say isn’t important? Am I afraid that I’m going to offend someone? Am I afraid that I’m not actually smart enough to post intelligent criticisms and significant musings on life and living?

Apparently not anymore, or at least those things don’t seem to matter as much as they mattered this morning.

Welcome to my blog.