Brain Spew in Lieu of Wit

You rubbed me raw with your expectations - a little girl to bear the burdens of your desire. You taught survival, not how to live. You rubbed me raw with your anticipations - a shiny new model made in your image, to replace a bird that you broke. You rubbed me raw with your control - independent enough to entertain, but never enough to flee. You rubbed me raw with childhood orgasms and lingering looks, lustful envy and ill-placed jests, cocktails and shame. I'm still raw, twenty years later - a broken woman, bolstered by achievements and knowledge and lies. I'm still raw, desperately seeking relief - picking at scabs and long-locked boxes, clawing for release from your bondage.

Rape and rape discourse are important causes to me. They never won't be. I have been talking about them for years. I have been working through my own recovery for a decade. So, why do I want to cry upon reading an account from someone who worked at a rape crisis center? Normally, I would be filled with righteous fury and talk about the issues presented and be all intellectual about it. Why is this account so...personal? Have I really not internalized what happened to me? Have I just let it sit in my brain, not allowing it to filter into my heart so that I can actually mourn? My dad is a ghost, now - caught between alive and dead, in my my mind. I know that he hasn't passed - that he's living in Texas and trying to build a new life for himself and that there are still people who see him. But all I have left are the spectres of what he left me. The pain. The love. The betrayal. The fear. The growth. The disgust. Part of me wants to confront him. To spit in his face, to hit hi...

There are some things that I identify as integral parts of my personality: paganism, polyamory, bisexuality, intellectualism, and feminism. All of these elements started to be demonstrated at a very young age, but feminism was the most blatant of them and has proven to be the most evolving. I'll be taking the time here to explore how my experiences as a survivor of incest, as a pagan, and as a member of the fetish community have shaped my understanding of feminism. As a child (and no, I don't mean "as a teenager." I mean "as a six year old"), I was a militant feminist. If I had clung to the very rigid views and physical responses, I would today be called a FemiNazi, instead of my friends insisting that they view me as a "humanist." In my view at the time, girls were at least as good as boys, and anyone who didn't believe that should be beaten up. I had no patience for sexism, and I was always trying to find my next favorite heroine. My fir...

I have, apparently, reached a point in my recovery where I don't feel the need to post everything as it happens. Thus, I have taken suggestions for topics that my friends would like to see me discuss here. Some of the things that I'm hoping to discuss in the coming months: how my experiences have shaped and colored my feminism over time; role-playing as therapy; fetishism and recovery; how I began to distinguish myself from my relationships; my obsession with fixing ALL THE THINGS; and coping mechanism & neurosis. There has also been a request for just...brain spew. SO, this blog will be the start of that. Semi-regularly, I will be posting stream of consciousness of the things going on in my life, my recovery, my feelings, and, well, brain spew. So, here goes! This past week has been particularly...eventful. The flavor of eventful has been both phenomenal and abysmal. Last weekend, two of the most amazing people that I know were married. The wedding was lovely and perfect...