Addiction is an Abusive Lover

Addiction is like an abusive lover, and the program of recovery is like the cops. We can want to be rid of the abusive lover and call the cops for help. The cops will come, remove the abusive lover, and even put out a restraining order if we want. Here's the catch:

Sometimes that ex-lover will come a-knockin' on our door. When they do, if we are feeling kinda low and lonely, or if we are feeling kinda high and really good about ourselves and think we can handle it, we might open the door and let that lover back in. IF we let that abusive lover back in, there ain't a darn thing the program of recovery or the cops or all the restraining orders in the world can do about it. We can kick them back out again, and the cops will come every time to help. But it will get harder each time; the abusive ex-lover will become more determined each time, based on previous success;  we will become more discouraged each time, based on previous failures.

Cravings are like abusers. They don't let go easily and rarely go away forever. So when that knock comes, when the craving hits, when the thought to pick up floats through our minds, we MUST remember what's under all that sweet talk, what's behind the flowers, what's inside those chocolates. Addiction is like an abusive lover. It's all sweetness and light until it's gets us back, then quickly knocks us down and proceeds to kick the shit out of us once again. BUT if we keep the door closed and don't let them back in, those knocks on the door will become less frequent, the abusive ex-lover becomes discouraged, and eventually it will become second nature to ignore the knocking at the door.


The program of recovery reminds us to keep the door closed and locked. The decision to do so remains ours.

Queer Assimilation?

I've been meaning to blog for awhile and just not getting around to it. Today's response to a facebook post got me going. I'm a lazy ass at times. Too many times. Ah well, seems sobriety is starting to take care of that. 




Anyhoo, onto the topic. Queers and assimilation into the straight world. Are we, can we?

I came out at 17 and was ostracized by the local lesbian community at the time for not being the "right" kind of lesbian and for not wearing the lesbian uniform properly. I hid in the hippy community as a bisexual for many years after that, being wounded and with nowhere else to go. The straights sure as heck didn't want me.
When I reclaimed my lesbian identity, and with it my queer identity (queer wasn't in use when I first came out), I also claimed my right to self-definition. NOBODY gets to decide whether or not I am queer enough, or anything enough for that matter. And I am pledged to defend the rights of others to self-define.

As for assimilation, well wtf? What is it that is really being sought? What I'm hearing is a lot of "I don't fit within the dominant culture so you shouldn't either." and that's just ridiculous. NONE of us fit within the dominant culture. We may have a degree of acceptance, depending on the specifics of our realities, but we don't fit. Two cis people of the same sex may be married and one may even be in the military but they are only accepted in part and by some. Same-sex marriage is nowhere near equal to straight marriage. To think it is equal is delusional. And that's part of what makes me wonder why queers who choose to marry are judged as assimilating. Is it not a big "FUCK YOU" to the right-wing haters, that two queers can walk into a church and be married - in the eyes of a god who many claim hates us - and have a congregation celebrate it? Not that marriage is my thing, I see no reason to pay the government so I can tell them who I'm screwing.
I'm also hearing "If you don't conform to *our* ideas of how you should be then you are assimilating." The catch is that we cannot assimilate. We live in a culture that is predominantly heterosexist at best. We are still considered too "confusing" to kids for public schools to be open about us. Queer teachers are closeted and queer students are quietly shuffled off to the guidance office. High school might be different if there is an active GSA.

Instead of tearing at each other, why not attack the powers that be who make the rules, who perpetuate the hate, who insist we strive to be like them or else? Why not call out the institutions designed to cater to the married couples? Why not demand of school districts that queer be part of the agenda, that there be queer history month just like there is a black history month? Let's look at how we can help each other instead of seeking reasons to hate each other. All of us. I'm not suggesting only those who don't "pass" ease up on those who semi-pass... I'm also suggesting those who semi-pass take a look at life for those of us who don't pass.

These are just the thoughts of an under-educated, single parent, Witch, sometimes fem sometimes not sometimes both, genderqueer, genderfuck, fag grrrl dyke who is sick to death of all the infighting and judging and general intolerance.

Faith?

A friend of mine commented to me earlier that she wishes she had my faith. That got me to thinking, because I generally don't see myself as having faith, or even beliefs...  my most common response when asked what I really think is that I don't know. All I know is how it seems to me and that's probably wrong.

The following is my response to her, and that's probably wrong too.   

I don't know that I'd call it faith... I see too much evidence, including from the world of science, to believe anything other than that Life = Love... I am a thread in the tapestry of Life... how can I not be Loved beyond all reason? Not by some being outside of everything, but by the Everything... as I would hopefully love every cell in my body, would the metaphorical tapestry not Love every thread of which it is made? Would it not be the thread's own acts of isolation that would make it unaware of being part of a greater whole? When I have been cut off from Godde, it has been through actions (including thinking) of my own, not hers.

the curve ball

Isn't it strange how we can be standing at the ready to bat, and see that pitcher there ready to throw a curve ball, yet still miss it? We can know what's coming, we can be as mentally prepared as prepared can be, yet we still miss, still strike out. And isn't life like that too. We can see it coming, know what's ahead, see the signs, heed the warnings, yet still be knocked out of our socks when tomorrow becomes today and that curve ball comes sailing through. Fortunately, unlike in a softball game, we don't have to strike out.

Reshaping

Here we are in a new year and I'm finding myself filled with the need to write. It doesn't matter what I write, I just need to write. I have a lot to say...  lots of thoughts on queer and community and feminism and gender and sobriety and so on.

2011 was a hell of a year. In her song "Eye of the Storm" Jennifer Berezan sings "You'll need nerves of steel, and a heart that's broken wide." 2011 was the year my heart was broken wide. Personally, locally, and globally. I learned how to feel again, how to be in the moment again, and wow does the moment ever make me angry. I shed tears of rage and impotence over people I loved, over shale gas, over Occupy, over the Tar Sands and governments and assaults on trans people and so many more. And somehow, while shedding those tears, a miracle happened. This heart of mine, the heart that had just been broken wide, melted. Like clay that has been warmed, it lost it's shape. It ceased to be formed, dry and cracked and falling apart, and became instead something soft and malleable, something the Goddess could work with. Something the Goddess could shape. Then I laughed. Because until my heart broke to be softened by my tears, I'd thought it was open. I'd thought I knew how to love. I'd even thought I knew how to love unconditionally. And maybe I did a little bit. But not enough.

Like the snake shedding it's skin, I've let the energy of Yule, the energy that is with the turning of the wheel, take that old skin and tear it away. Take the old me, the old protective coverings I wore, and return them to that great compost we call her cauldron. She can do something useful with them. I can no longer wear them. I suspect they no longer even fit since she's started reshaping me.

So here's to change. The deep slow changes that we sometimes don't even see until they erupt all over us, turning our lives upside down and gifting us with those fresh perspectives.

Here's also to nurturing those changes, tending the new, and learning from the old.

Family Values. The new opiate of the masses?

At first when I hear the phrase family values I think of children, and of community support around the raising of children... many many people loving and caring for children. Family.

I'm now realizing that's not how it's meant. The phrase family values has nothing to do with children, nothing to do with love, nothing to do with family as I think of family. It's all about structure and control. It's about erasing anything that challenges the status quo. It's about ensuring everyone either fits into a nice little box or spends their lives in the attempt. Today's version of family values is about maintaining the illusion of functioning nuclear families. It's about a smear campaign implying that those who do not cleave unto the idea of the nuclear family are anti-family, anti-children. It's about painting those who don't comply into monsters who threaten the well-being of our children. So the words family values are spouted to enforce censure of anything that deviates from both the nuclear family structure and the controlled images of sexuality so often associated with it.

This current definition of family values is not about a lack of sex and sexuality; it's about controlling sexuality. There is no passion, no wildness, no ecstasy, in the sex presented as compatible with family values. The sex must remain hidden and polite. Queer sex most especially must remain hidden. Because queer sex is not polite. It's not nice. It's dirty and messy and crude. There's nothing pretty about it. Queer sex is bodies hot and sweaty and touching in places that aren't even taught about in elementary school. Queer sex is about connecting. When someone has queer sex they connect to the world. That wild animal side is released. It's that wild animal side that is so dangerous. It's that wild animal side that wakes us up, that tells us that something isn't right, that disables our abilities to close our eyes to the world around us. So that wild animal side that revels in the carnal must be kept sedated. Chasing the dream of conformity – being just like everyone else, accepted by everyone else, validated by everyone else – is great sedation for some, drugs and alcohol offer a better alternative for others including those with little to no hope of ever being able to conform or pass. But that's another rant.

Policing each other to insist on compliance with a value system created by a social order that only grudgingly accepts gays, and even then only accepts a specific breed of gay, does not further equality for gays. It only serves to support a social order that breeds contempt for what is different. There is no celebration of diversity here, only a very clear message that we must change who we are and how we live, and become “just like everybody else” in order to be accepted. In order to be permitted to live in peace. In order to not be burned out of our homes or beaten to death on the streets. I do not accept those terms. I WILL NOT accept those terms. If the social order under which I live refuses to accept me as I am then the social order needs to change because I'm not. If this social order will not change then I will remain on the fringes of it and work day and night to tear it down, to make space for something better, something healthier, something more inclusive and less dependent on conformity. Something that truly celebrates diversity.

This current definition of family values does no less than royally piss me off. This idea that sex is something vile and shameful from which we must protect our children pisses me off. This insistence on disconnect from our bodies and our nature pisses me off. The implication that anyone who revels in their sexuality is a danger to children pisses me off. The acceptance that queer sex must be hidden pisses me off. Sex IS a Family Value.

The Success of Patriarchy

On my mind at this moment is women and patriarchy. How well we have claimed patriarchal values for own, how well we police each other if one of us should dare to step out of the patriarchal line, should dare to challenge patriarchy, or worse than that - if one of us should raise herself as high as a man, should expect the same respect when she speaks, demand the same deference to her opinions. And what if one of us should show the same degree of lustfulness as a man.

The exception to this is, of course, the woman who contains within herself many masculine traits. It's not that this woman necessarily condones or willingly supports patriarchy. Rather it's that patriarchy condones and supports women with masculine aspects, as long as it's only to a point. These women are not accepted as equal to men, but they are accepted as being a step above women who are less masculine. This is in many ways similar to how men who are less masculine are seen as less when compared to men who are more masculine.

This acceptance by patriarchy of masculine women sets up a self-defeating cycle for women. The women who are less masculine see the approval and acceptance granted to their sisters and struggle with it. So often it results in a rejection of women who are masculine by women who are no so masculine. Call it self-protection, resentment, fear, it all ends up the same. It results in a divide and conquer situation. These masculine women, the ones who so often have the skills to swim through patriarchy, are rejected by their sisters. so they in turn reject and move away from their sisters. And we continue the push pull. The prejudices of patriarchy insinuate themselves into the psyches of women and instead of fighting together for equality, we fight against each other for scraps of the left-overs. We use the language of patriarchy against each other. We do such a wonderful job of policing ourselves and holding each other down that the patriarchs have never anything to fear. Even when the occasional women or less masculine man gains a degree of power for a short time, it does not last for those upon whom patriarchy treads will be sure to pull them down. Perhaps the idea is that the more of us there under the foot, the less the weight will be. Perhaps there is no idea or thought to it, perhaps it is simply unconscious action driven by the need to preserve what little bit of the pie one has.

I am sad over this. Sad that we continue to see and treat each other as enemies. Sad that we still tend to even realize when we hold the masculine as having more value than the feminine. Sad that we reject those who do not conform to our own little sub-cultures. And even more sad that we police ourselves so effectively and save the proponents of patriarchy so much of the time and effort it takes to control people.