Tag: personal

Y’know like. Something I think about a lot re: the purity politics in fandom spaces is how a main rationalization people have for them behaving the way they do is that it’s just an age thing; they’re young and they haven’t developed enough emotionally to really understand empathy or perspective or morals beyond black and white. But honestly? I really don’t think age is an appropriate excuse because I just think back to 15 year old me, who had been reading the Vampire Chronicles for a couple years and was super drawn to the racy elements of the material so I wanted to explore more pornographic content in a literary environment, because it was the only way I felt comfortable exploring sex because I wasn’t ready to actually do it irl yet?

So I figured I’d read the Sleeping Beauty trilogy because it was already a familiar author and everyone was talking about how erotic the content was and how it was revolutionary in terms of literature because there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff like it on the market, all there really was at the time was just your garden variety shopping cart romances and those didn’t interest me in the least because they were all really derivative and less about kink and more about emotionally codependent swooning damsels. And that was not at all what I was in the market for.

So I got the entire trilogy with my birthday money and read them. Actual paper books from a bookstore. No tag warnings, no “I’m an adult and consent to proceeding” button. I was curious and wanted to know what all the fuss was. And yes, there was a bit of an actual plot in those books outside of just kink, and the story hooked me. And yeah, admittedly, it was a bit of a mistake for me to read those books at that age. I was not prepared. I was still a virgin then, I hadn’t experienced attraction to any real life person, and while I was interested in sexual pleasure, I wasn’t particularly interested in actual sex with actual people (which is honestly still the case as an adult, but I digress). Anyway. The point is, I hadn’t had any exposure whatsoever to BDSM and probably should have eased myself into it more gradually instead of just diving right into it. Consequently, it kind of messed with me a little, emotionally. I felt a little disturbed reading them, but I kept reading them anyway, until I finished the entire trilogy. Then I didn’t touch them again for a few years, because I wasn’t really fond of the emotions I felt tied to those books.

THAT BEING SAID. At no point did I presume to blame Anne Rice for the choice I made to read her books. At no point did I think “this made me a little uncomfortable, therefore this should not exist.” That notion never even occurred to me, not once. What did occur to me? “Damn, why did I do this to myself. I shouldn’t have read these books. Maybe I should have waited until I had some semblance of sexual experience.” I THOUGHT THIS AT FIFTEEN. I didn’t think less of Anne Rice for writing them, I didn’t try to blame someone else for luring me into the content. I took full responsibility for choosing to read them when I knew exactly what kind of content I was getting into based on the initial exposure I had to it within the fandom at that time (or at least the closest approximation to a fandom that existed). 

I mean, this was a good…some years ago. When I was 15, the internet wasn’t really an accessible thing that was in every home. Some schools had it, but these were the days of dial-up and geocities. There was no tumblr, no AO3, Brad had just created livejournal as a niche thing for his friends that no one knew about. So it’s not like there were these ~predatory adults~ in fandom communities who lured me into it. I was exposed to the material the old fashioned way, via actual professional literary reviews in magazines and interviews. I was choosing to be in these adult spaces, which were essentially just sections in the bookstore and library, browsing at my own leisure. At any point, I could have disengaged. I chose not to. I took responsibility for the small amount of discomfort that resulted. It didn’t scar me for life, it didn’t change or influence my perception or association with sex, it had no effect on me other than “ahh! fuck, I’m too young for this right now, from now on I’ll just avoid content of it until I’m ready.” Blacklists didn’t exist then. Tag warnings didn’t exist then. And I certainly didn’t perceive this content as, like, purely didactic material and use it as a rubric for future real life sexual activity because who the fuck does that? I understood it was fiction. Erotic fanfiction of a children’s fairy tale, even.

Which is why it’s so hard for me to rationalize this trend of young people who presume to equate personal discomfort to status of law, or that because something in fiction disturbed them a little that it shouldn’t exist outright. Like, yeah, I know what it’s like to be supremely unsettled by a work of fiction. It’s happened to me plenty of times. It still happens to me even now. But if anything, I’ve been appreciative of its existence so I could always come back to it if I chose to and engage with it at my own pace to see if my feelings have changed over time. 

So like. I really think it’s less of an age thing and more of a generational thing. I mean. I don’t really have any viable solutions to offer to this problem, I just think it’s really unfair all the way around, because on the one hand it’s dismissing culpability for personal choices and shitty behavior at the same time as it’s insulting and infantilizing young people who are perfectly capable of making informed decisions. LIKE YEAH I KNOW IT WAS A LONG FUCKING TIME AGO but I was 15 once too and I perfectly remember what it was like because I was a writer even then and used to chronicle my thoughts and shit so I know what I’m on about here, don’t play me with silly excuses jesus chrits

What makes things worse is that Jolie was the last relic I had of my dad before he died. He had rescued a pregnant cat in New Orleans that had been abandoned in the hurricane and Jolie was one of the kittens from that litter. I hadn’t even planned on adopting a kitten that day, but Jolie was constantly getting pushed around by her brothers and was such a ferocious scavenger for food that I had to have her. She kept clawing her way up his leg to get at his sandwich – something she never grew out of. Every time I’d eat she’d show up instantly to beg for food and wouldn’t leave me alone unless I gave her some scraps. 

It’s like losing a child. It’s especially confounding because I’ve had this cat for thirteen years and she’s never wandered far, always stayed within sight, always obediently comes to the door when called, or if she gets locked out when I don’t notice she’s slipped out into the yard, she’ll just wait patiently until someone opens the door. Every once in a while she’ll slip through a hole in the gate to go lay in the neighbor’s flower bed but it’s rare and she always comes back within minutes. Having her outright disappear is so out of character and alarming because it’s also doubtful someone picked her up since she’s a timid cat and I’m the only person she’ll let approach her. 

Going to the AAC yesterday to ID a dead cat that someone found in the area around the time she went missing was excruciating. I’m standing here instructing a couple of volunteers in gloves to manipulate this dead cat that’s been in a freezer for a day so I can look for tiny details that might confirm it’s her, and I was so clinical about it because I was trying so hard to keep it together that it made the whole ordeal especially morbid. I spent like a straight five minutes inspecting this dead cat’s feet – the face was so wrecked I wasn’t able to tell by facial markings or teeth – and thankfully the paw pads were the wrong color and the claws were an immediate giveaway since Jolie’s an older cat and they started growing in especially thick and gnarled. But it still psychs me out because I’m like, Was I just seeing what I wanted to see and there’s a chance it actually was her? And I keep looking at the photos sent to me by the person who originally found the body and it’s especially taxing because I can’t stop obsessively returning to pictures of this mangled dead fucking cat to try and reconfirm that it isn’t her. 

And then all I can think about is how the last time I saw her was when she kept rearranging herself in my lap and I was getting annoyed with her because she wouldn’t sit still and kept headbutting my hands while I was trying to write fucking fanfiction and I kept pushing her off of me. lmao! So yeah I’m super fucking wrecked.

Sometimes I consider getting my nose re-pierced but then I remember how often I pick my nose and how getting it pierced again would seriously hinder my favourite pastime and I’m like nah

image

It looked cool tho 😦

Also lol yeah I was a delivery driver for Pizza Hut FUN FACT
How the fuck old am I that I worked for them back when the uNIFORMS STILL LOOKED LIKE THAT /wrists

So, my mother was a burlesque dancer way back in the day, from the late 1970s – mid 1990s.

She and I didn’t have the greatest relationship. As a matter of fact, it was really abusive. She died with me hating her. I still can’t forgive her, but I found some of the old contact sheets and some newspaper clippings from some of her old photo shoots and I didn’t know what to do with them. This seemed like an appropriate place to share them.

I grew up in clubs. It’s probably a big reason why I work in them now. I’ve pretty much lived my entire life in clubs, around topless women and a certain degree of excess. My very first childhood friends were bouncers and DJs. As much as I disliked my mother and how much she blamed me for the end of her career, I don’t think I’d have lived quite as fulfilling of a life if I’d gone the normie route and did the desk job/picket fence thing. I work nights. I always will.