Monthly Archives: July 2011

Why do you care? Some thoughts on sex, judgment, and being a woman with children

Trigger warning for mentions of sexual abuse and incest.

It appears that the most controversial thing I’ve done is have sex in my very own bed.

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To be fair, it’s controversial because, sometimes, my child has been in the bed, sleeping, at the same time.

Or in his own bed a few feet away.

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What images fill your mind at these statements? What do you imagine takes place? Do you recall whispered secrets, second hand stories filtered through the memories of a friend? Do you imagine bright lights and loud moans of passion and wide eyed innocents? Do you remember confusion, frightening noises, something you could not talk about? Do you feel home, parents, comfort, safety? Do you smile as you picture last Wednesday? Do you raise your brows and shrug your shoulders and move on, nothing to see here?

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We have a standard in my culture that says sex must be kept completely away from children at all times — except in billboards, pop music, television, and the daily news, of course — because to expose children (pure) to sex (vulgar) is to corrupt them. We force sexualization on children, with heels and push up bras and Barbies to mimic, and deny them their own sexual agency, pathologizing the schoolyard kiss and the playing of doctor. We make sex huge and important and tell them nothing about it, except that they mustn’t have or want it.

We most definitely do not have sex anywhere near children. Except for when we do.

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Except for when we have it with them.

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Sexual abuse happens. Children’s sexual boundaries are violated, every day — from active pedophilia and incest to adults who over-share details or desires. Some people have been traumatized by their parents’ sexual activities. Some people are still confused, bothered, disturbed by sounds in the night, flashes from a hastily opened door. These are truths.

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These are questions: where and when do you imagine those who live in single-room habitations have sex? How do you think second children are conceived?

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Can something done one way be harmful, and done another, healthy? Can sex in the same room as our children be damaging in some circumstances, and in others be empowering?

The determinant, devilish thing, may be in the details.

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Sex is for adults, should be kept away from children. So, how much away is enough? Not inviting them to participate? Having the lights off? Being aware of the sound of their sleeping breath, the hints of their stirrings? Barriers of pillows and blankets and bitten lips? Beaded curtains? A wall? Closed doors? Locked doors? Three floors away? Another building?

How much risk is acceptable, how much is abuse?

Is it possible the answer to this is culturally informed?

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It must concern us as parents how our children perceive our sex life, not because sex is concerning, but because our concern keeps us sensitive, keeps us keyed in, keeps our attention on them and their experience and their processing, allows us to stay attuned, make adjustments as necessary.

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There are no guarantees in parenting.

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We allow for certain risks in my culture: we drive our children in cars going 50, 70 miles per hour; we leave them with strangers in the gym; we let them sleep away from us, in other rooms, in other people’s houses; we feed them food we didn’t grow ourselves, food in a can, sterile, dirtless food. And that’s fine. Those risks are deemed acceptable, because everyone does them.

Risking children waking up, hearing, seeing, and not being able to cope? It’s not what we do; we don’t accept it.

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I have no desire for my child to watch me engaging in sex. (Frankly, I have no desire for anyone to watch me engaging in sex, with the only-sort-of-exception of my lover.) I could describe the steps I take to keep it from happening, and be judged on those details, rather than the imaginings of prurient minds, but I would rather question why I am to be judged at all. Do we, as a community, have an obligation to be alert for child abuse? No question. Does that give us the right to make pronouncements based on a few words whose context we do not know? Does our distaste justify accusations of abuse? That sits less well with me.

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I have never tried to persuade someone else to make the choices about sex that I have made. I have never even made an effort to assert the rightness of those choices, to defend them as unassailable. I do not particularly care whether most people agree with me — except the part of my mind always aware of fear, of the risk not to my child but from my culture, the part of my mind that wonders “have I said too much? am I too exposed? how outspoken, how broken, how honest can I be before I am punished, my child harmed in the name of keeping him safe from me?”

I have abundant privileges protecting me, many shields for the worst of my vulnerabilities — but sometimes, they seem sparse indeed.

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What does it do to our children when we operate from fear? Why do so few care about the potential damage of that?

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This is what I want: If you agree, say so. If it ain’t your cup of tea, go enjoy another. If you have questions, ask them openly. If you disagree, do so civilly. If you have concerns, express them with care. If you feel the need to judge, walk away whilst asking yourself why?

Why is another person’s sex life the bar by which you judge? Why does disagreement call for condemnation? Why are we willing to judge women so harshly on this topic more than any other? Why has no one called The Man a child abuser? Why do we care so much about how we perform sexuality in front of children, and not about how we talk about sex with others? Why do we proclaim the ability of sex to harm the probably-asleep, while disregarding any harm of judgmental proclamations to the probably-not-reading?

Because tone does matter. Because how we treat each other matters.

In bed or elsewhere.

16 Comments | Posted on 29 July 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy, Parenting | Tags: attachment parenting, cosleeping, sex, Sexuality

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Naked Pictures of Faceless People: Inside and Out

Welcome to RMB’s Naked Pictures of Faceless People, a series of guest posts from diverse anonymous writers. (Read more about NPFP’s origins.) These are the posts that are jumping to get out of us, but for whatever reason — safety, embarrassment, conflict of interest, protection of loved ones’ reputations or feelings, or so on — we don’t or won’t or can’t post at our own blogs. Anyone, whether blogger or reader only, is welcome to submit or discuss a potential post by emailing me at arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com.

Trigger Warning: There is a trigger warning on this post for fear of and references to sexual/physical assault.

Inside and Out

I’m afraid of being seen.

I want to be seen.

When I leave the house, I rarely talk anymore, afraid of my voice giving away the unbearable truth of my history, the bulge in my crotch, the knot in my throat. Afraid of facing more violence, of the crack of knuckles against my skin. Of the wrong words applied to my body. Of that look that says exactly what you think of me.

Of seeking hands, again, feeling inside my clothes for a truth I can’t reveal, a desire I can’t satisfy. Again.

But I’m afraid inside, too. Living too much in this virtual world, feeling too much, everywhere. Afraid of losing my ability to work, afraid of not being clever, competent, together. Having to produce, be better, faster, more insightful.

Of being found out. Of being a huge fucking mess sometimes. Of being ridiculous, overly dramatic, sentimental, immature. Falling just for the rush of it, wanting just for the feel of it. Aching, yearning, needing I not know what.

Knowing:
how often I cry
how hard it is to sleep
how much pain there is

that there is precious little space to talk about this, of needing there to be.

but that’s when we would be free….

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Please support the Naked Pictures of Faceless People project by commenting on the posts. Comments which attack or attempt to guess the identity or any aspect of the identity of the blogger will be deleted, however. Protect and respect this space as though it were your own work on display here, naked and faceless.

Anonymous comments are welcome on NPFP posts. Simply put “Anonymous” or any pseudonym in Name, and either your own or a fake email addresses (ex me@me.com) as the email. NOTE: If you have a Gravatar associated with your email address, it will show up even with an anonymous name, in which case please use a different or a fake email address.

5 Comments | Posted on 27 July 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Naked Pictures of Faceless People | Tags: beautiful words, Mental Health, trans, violence against women

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Quick hit on paid parental leave

The kid just threw up. And this is why we need universal paid parental leave.

No really.

The kid just threw up, and his preschool has a 24-hours-without-vomiting rule. Which means he can’t go to his (long) day of preschool tomorrow. Which means I lose 6 of my weekly 10 work hours this week. Because I have to stay home with the kid.¹

Why?

I, being self-employed, don’t get any paid leave, so there’s no scrimping needed there², whereas we’re saving every minute of The Man’s paid time off we can for after the baby comes.³ So he can’t take tomorrow off (not even for a half day) as he used to do regularly when the Boychick was sick.

Just one tiny example from a relatively-privileged family, but still: my kid threw up, and this is why we need universal paid parental leave.

No, I can’t work while he’s home, even if I plant him in front of the TV. Ariel Gore wrote about distractability in How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead: when we can be distracted or interrupted, even if we’re not, we cannot really focus. Maybe not true for everyone, but absolutely true for me. This is yet another reason I do most of my writing at night, at the cost of my sleep (and thus why I’ve been doing so little writing recently, because sleep is, at this stage of pregnancy, far less sacrificeable). ↩
And not having a salary or a direct dollar-per-hour payback for my work — and, really, not getting paid much/anything for my work at the moment at all — it’s a lot easier on the budget to sacrifice my hours than his. This is not normally something we pay attention to, but when we’re trying to buy a house, pay the midwife, and save for the babymoon? Yeah, it does matter. ↩
And it still won’t be enough. With him having a “really great” salaried position, he’ll be able to go 40 hours in the hole on PTO, which means he’ll probably be paid for about 2 weeks off. And if we can, we’ll take another 2 off unpaid. I know to be able to do so, even potentially, is a sign we’re fucking privileged. But it’s still criminal that a new parent gets so little time. ↩

11 Comments | Posted on 25 July 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Kyriarchy, Parenting | Tags: class privilege, paid parental leave, pregnancy, Privilege, sick, USA

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For your edification and edjumacation

Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiinks!¹

In case yesterday’s overextended metaphor wasn’t enough for you, check out this piece on the dog and the gecko, an amazing metaphor for privilege. If you haven’t figured out what I mean by “privilege” yet, read this.

And then there’re dogs and smurfs: why women writers and stories about women are taken less seriously (don’t worry, it’s not a metaphor — or rather, interrogates a trope we take as metaphor).

If you’ve ever asked yourself “Why does she stay with that jerk?” here are twenty answers. None of them is “she’s stupid” or “she deserves it”.

Filed under further rhetorical questions, would B. Manning be treated the same if out as a trans woman? As Emily says, not bloody likely.

Of course, being trans doesn’t mean Manning is, therefore, a woman — and being nonbinary doesn’t mean one is genderfluid, either.

Elizabeth of Spilt Milk is blogging at Feministe, and I couldn’t be happier. Check out especially Feminist mothers (you, being here, don’t need to be exhorted to read women who are parents and writing about feminism, but DO check out the other recommendations at the end of her post) and In defense of children.

Further to meta discussions of feminists, read this long and wholly worthwhile piece on white privilege in feminist organizations, especially those seeking “diversity”.

Race and gender are hardly the only axes (for lack of a better term) of privilege/marginalization, as you can read about in The Mental Burden of a Lower-Class Background.

But speaking of race and gender, do yourself a favor and watch Random Black Girl. (Lyrics, and a bunch of blather, here.)

This is, though rather male-centric, more or less how my mind works regarding writing.

Finally, this post is being pre-written and scheduled, because by the time you read this, I will have seen the final Harry Potter film installment, with the awesome Amy of Anktangle. But oh, do I wish we could have seen Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series instead…

For I am the zombie of the blogosphere, and posts are your brains. Tasty, intelligent brains. ↩

4 Comments | Posted on 21 July 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Kyriarchy | Tags: anti-child hate, class privilege, classism, Gender, Links, Race, racism, trans, transmisogyny

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Parenting by the balls (a metaphor gone metastatic)

You are a ball. Your child is a ball too.

You’re the bigger ball: you have more power, more weight, take up more space in the world. This is inevitable, because you have been rolling around and growing, Katamari-like, for many years longer than your little baby/child/teenager ball.

Your child-ball started out tiny, a glass marble: it had its needs, and that was that, and it was small, and noisy when it rattled around, and hurt if it was used against you, and you were always aware it could shatter if dropped, but that’s ok, because it was tiny and couldn’t move on its own and you could pick it up and carry it around with you more or less wherever you pleased. It could be in a plastic container, or tied to you with a soft cloth, but as long as you got it out every once in a while for a nice polish (and the noise of it rattling around didn’t drive you insane), it did more or less ok, and so did you.

Now your child-ball has grown a bit, and is bouncy as rubber; not as rigid as the glass it once was, it’s nevertheless as inflexible as a hard rubber mallet (and can do as much damage when it gets going and strikes against something). It’s still much, much smaller than you, but moves on its own now, and often bounces in ways you don’t expect and out of all proportion to the amount you nudged it. And it keeps trying to bounce off you, pushing and pushing and testing you everywhere, over and over again, from all different angles, trying to map out what it’s going to look like and act like and move like when it’s all grown up like you.

Now, if you’re very, very lucky and very, very skilled and have done lots and lots of work over the years, you are a large, soft, heavy, agile, but unshoveable ball, and your little glass ball baby was nurtured deep in your soft warmth, and now your rubber ball child finds only warm embrace when it bounces into you, while you, unfazed and undamaged, stay exactly where you want to be, moving only as and when you decide to.

But if you’re like the rest of us, you have a few scars, a few spots that never got softened out, some leftover rubber (or fragile glass) shell. And inevitably, your darling rubber child finds these, and bounces off them again and again and again. Rather than sinking into you, held and comforted, causing you not a bit of pain nor unwanted movement, it bounces off, bounces away, and probably rocks you back a bit (or maybe a lot) in the process. You bounce off each other, until something breaks, or something gives, or (rarely) it gives up, or you manage to turn so your child ball hits a soft, fully-grown spot and you can be near each other again.

If you’re lucky, and you have resources, and you work hard, you can learn to make these scars smaller, and reduce the scarring your rubber ball will carry in to its adulthood. You can learn to turn them away from your child, learn to redirect its bounces into the areas where you are lovely and unbounceable. And sometimes you’ll still bounce off each other over the years, but as your child-ball gets bigger and bigger they’ll get softer and heavier too, and you’ll be able to roll together, comfortable and content in each other’s presence, able to be near or far from each other as each of you choose.

If you are not lucky, or you don’t have resources, or you don’t work hard, or your hard work proves not enough — or you buy into cultural beliefs that say grown-up balls are supposed to be unyielding and hard, rather than soft and heavy — you’ll keep bouncing off each other. Your child ball will learn that to be a grown-up ball is to be hard, to push away. As it gets bigger, each bounce leaves it farther and farther away. You may feel grateful, because finally you’re not being rocked around all the time. But you likely also miss the closeness you used to have with your little marble, and wonder what happened.

Let yourself be a fat ball — big and strong and soft and warm — and dance with your bouncy rubber child. Don’t blame your kid ball for being bouncy, because that’s how it’s supposed to be right now. And don’t blame yourself for having rubber bits, having glass bits (even cracked and sharp broken bits), having bits that hurt you, having bits that hurt your beautiful baby ball: you grew the best you could given the area you rolled and bounced and grew bigger in. But map those bits, so you know where they are. Love them. Heal them, as best you’re able. Be the soft spot for your ball-baby to land.