I’m going to do this, I’m going to go there. If ever I wanted debate or comments on any blog post, I think it would be this one. Here’s the truth I absolutely, 100% completely judge women (and men) based on what they wear. If you look like as slut, well, that’s the first descriptor that pops into my head when I see you. If you wear vagina shorts to the gym I think you’re there to show off you hooch or backside as much as your strength. If you wear a running skirt, I assume you must be a more than modest woman. If you wear pajamas to the store, I think you have a low self-esteem, are depressed or exhausted with life. If you wear camo, I expect you to be a hunter, Carhartts a working man with thick callouses. If you’re all name brand from your head to shoes, I assume either you’re wealthy and it’s your norm or that you’re obsessed with image and idolize yourself. Marley shirts, you’re 420 friendly. Suits, business, politics or religion.
I judge. I’m not proud that I make these judgement calls but I admit I do. And I know I am not alone. It’s what we do, we categorize, we sort, we order our world and our people. The worst part for me is that that slut judgement call I made… might, maybe point right back to me. It’s possible that my assault happened because of something that I wore. It was risqué, and I put it on with the intention of having people notice me. I felt pretty… I can’t say sexy, but definitely pretty. Did I intend to provoke an assault? No, but a reaction for sure. Did I ask for it? Absolutely not! ... But I’ve always struggled with the what ifs of that night. If I hadn’t chosen THAT to wear, would he have done what he did? If my legs were more covered, access more restricted, could I have saved myself? Was my choice of outfit the reason I was assaulted? Could my clothing have been a consideration for him? Compared to naked women in some equatorial developing countries I was definitely more covered, so it couldn’t have been my clothes that begged him to touch me, right?! Or was it? Am I responsible… even in the smallest way for his violation of my body? In my heart of hearts, I truly believe evil will be evil no matter what the situation is. I do not think my choice of attire should have been a factor in his decision to assault me. I do not believe I should have been assaulted, or anyone should be sexually assaulted ever! No matter what! No matter why! There is never a reason for anyone to violate the sexual boundaries of another. EVER! So what does that mean? Can I dress seductively if I feel like it and expect to be as safe as if I dress like I’m going to court? I’ll be honest, I feel super sexy in fishnet! I LOVE the way my legs look and feel in them, I feel pretty when I wear them… but am terrified to wear them around men in too short skirts! I love seeing my shape, that I’ve trained hard for, and I can only see it in clothes that hug my curves. I want to show off my hard work, it didn’t happen on accident. But is that wrong? Provocative? Do I consider how others perceive me? Of course! That’s part of the reason I dress as I do. Since I was offended, I’m careful in what I wear, how low or how high it goes and when and where I’ll dress in certain things. But why? If I feel pretty, sexy or cute in it, shouldn’t I be able to wear it? And yet I still sit in judgement of ladies that dress provocatively. I judge! Me! The one who was offended. Do I think they’re asking for it? Maybe? Or maybe it’s fear, that they’re gonna get it. I know what an offense like that feels like. I know how the question will haunt them, if they’re violated for the rest of their lives. Do I judge because I think they’re provoking evil ? And why? Why do I make that call when I would feel pretty wearing the same thing? I don’t know. Do you judge? Do you have an opinion on the topic? Can you speculate on why I judge them the way I do? Please leave comments and dialog on this one!
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If you’re over 30 and reading this and have never been sexually assaulted or molested, congratulations, your likelihood of being offended is significantly reduced. Most sexual assaults go unreported but we know 44% of victims are under 18 and 80% are under 30. Also, boys and men are far less likely to ever report an offense… but, and this is my opinion (with a little bit of statistical data to back me up) they’re offended as often, only usually at a younger age or by a same aged peer so that it is perceived as a playtime activity instead of rape or molestation. This means our youngest, weakest and most vulnerable are the ones most likely to be offended.
When I became a CASA the one hard limit I had was that I could not, would not, should not be on a case that involved sexual abuse. Because of my past it didn’t seem safe to my emotional well-being to go there. The idea of a child, young girl or boy, young woman or man being offended sickens me, actually almost makes me ill. I do not understand it. And so, because of my own assault and the yucky feelings it festers up, I have largely been like most of the good population and completely, utterly and nearly entirely avoided the subject. My hope, was that if I pretend I do not see it, it would go away. But it will not, and if we, the good people of the world, sit quietly by, or silently participate in the abuse by pretending it’s not there, it and the symptoms of an unhealthy-sex crazed society will get worse. The problem is too big. There is nothing any one of us can do to stop it. The crimes too vile. The evil will prevail, there’s nothing we can do… or is there? What if we talk about it? What if we castrate offenders... because statistics dictate that most offenders are repeat offenders, and by repeat I mean one offender can have dozens to hundreds of victims? Or what if we kill them? Why don’t we make prosecution harder if we all agree it’s so heinous? Why do so many repeat offenders go untried or reported? Because they look good and prey on the ignorant and innocent. We picture offenders as these dark, dirty evil monsters, if they were all like this no one would have a problem taking care of them. But most of the ones that get away with most of the abuse are unassuming: babysitters, neighbors, brothers, sisters, playmates, fathers, coaches, boyfriends, grandmas. Sick huh? We don’t want the devil to be someone we like, let alone someone we love. Because if evil wraps itself in a smile, who can we trust? Who is good? Who is safe? What has the world come to? My goal this year in my writing is to do something to bring attention to it. I can’t make it go away by myself but I can stop closing my eyes to it. My offender didn’t go away. My silence was out of fear, of him, sure, but more than that out of fear of not being believed. I was young, full of drama and maybe dressed inappropriately, who would believe me? Better to say nothing than to be humiliated. Then when I was brave enough to stand up to him… too much time had gone by, the statute of limitations saved him. He was safe and I was scarred. So yeah, evil smiles. Good looks away. I look away no more. I do not know what to do. This will be a process for me as much as way to bring awareness. I do know I’ll take special interest in figuring out what we, the good people, can do to stop it and what we are currently doing to condone it, because I think there’s power in us uniting against evil. I think we’re more likely to do something together to stand against sexual abuse than the bad guys are to stop themselves. As Gia’s Secrets prepares to see the light of day, I prepare to stand against the most heinous evil I have ever looked deep in the eyes. I can’t stop it, you can’t stop it, but together maybe we can do something about it! If there is one thing I have learned through this whole Leaving business it's this: Good men are EVERYWHERE, they just fly under the radar because that's what good guys do and they deserve some recognition!
I cannot and will not own parts of The Leaving that aren't mine to own but there are things I realize I could have done better. Apparently I won't get the chance to do it better in that relationship but I believe in redemption. I will do what I can now and someday I know I'll love again and I'll get to do it better then! I was given a book days after he left called Love and Respect. At the time it was like having an EMT come up and kick me in the gut after I'd just been run over. I was wounded, confused, afraid and alone and instead of consolation I got a list of all the things women do wrong with speaking to their men. As I am a voracious reader, I gobbled it down, looking for anything to explain what I did wrong to cause the man to leave. I can't say the book answered the particular questions that caused his decision but it did describe things I could be better at. All women, in fact, could be better at. See here's the thing. I, like most women, expect men to be good. And most me are. Do we pat them on the back? No! We point out when they aren't good, when they mess up, when they lost their cool. There are millions of things they do right but those things go unnoticed, unappreciated, and uncelebrated because that's what they're supposed to do. We take for granted the good they do, the way they watch out for us and how their strong presence is the comfort and solace we seek when our stupid emotions are out of control. No, we don't want them to fix it but we expect them to be there to shoulder our storm and hold us while we cry. They are good men and we forget to tell them that. Or maybe I'm the only one that did. That's the part I recognize I own, I have disrespected a good man and I have taken for granted the good things he did, I expected it but didn't recognize it the way I should have… this goes for my dad and other important men in my life too, not just him. Does confession fix my life? No. But redemption feels good and if I can't do it over, I can at least start doing it better. November is a perfect time for it. All over Facebook people are posting what they're thankful for, it's a wonderful FB tradition I've participated in for years. This year will be no different but I'm going to incorporate my desire to honor the good men of the world. If you're one of the good guys in my life... be prepared to be thanked. If you're a women confused by my desire to honor none but men, I understand, it's not every woman's cup of tea but I ask you to not bad-mouth or question my desire to honor them but instead be thankful for people you're thankful for, man or women. Happy November y'all! The question is… what did I get myself into? The answer is I'm still not quite sure. I Should have hopped in my car and road-tripped it over to visit my cousin who was only here for her baby bro's wedding. I should have done the family thing but my boys were not keen on the drive and, you know what they say, idle hands are the devil's playground...
I wrote for a while then let my hands be still. Scarlet and Rusty's story is hot and I love it but, as with all the love stories in this series, there is a social cause I'm trying to bring awareness to. This story's social cause is childhood molestation and its tough to write, turns my stomach and gets me angry. That, coupled with the fact that I use the Pomodoro Technique when I write lends itself to frequent breaks from the story. Sundays are my day off of social media so… I checked in on a favorite new past-time of mine… “missed connections” on craigslist! Calm down before you get all upset, or concerned I was not looking for myself. It's strictly entertaining. With that said I have no problem with online dating but I assure you if the time comes to go there I will not be using craigslist, no offense to anyone who does, but that's a little too redneck even for me. (And yes, as a planner I already have the time to start dating online planned out... if that whole 'real-life' dating thing doesn't work out for me in its due time) Anyway I LOVE the missed connections on craigslist. I first found out about them after the leaving, but before the moving because of a morning radio spoof on my commute into work. Before then I had no idea how entertaining craigslist can be. These precious posts, written in a moment of hope or desperation were totally cracking me up. Since then I find great joy in surfing all the major craigslist city sites for missed connections. Some are creepy stalker-ish. Some are obviously people who are way too into themselves and are convinced a random person they don't know would remember the red shirted person that looked their fine a** up and down at the Texaco! My point is they are simply adorable and the words written in passion deserve to be read and appreciated. Yesterday, I looked through them again, hitting the local section first, because you never know what kind of local love connection can happen over a craigslist missed connection. There is an ulterior motive for reading them too, someday, I will write a craigslist missed connection love story. I have it mostly roughed out in my brain, just need to get the words out. But I digress… back to my story, I bet you're expecting me to say I found me in a missed connection aren't you? Wouldn't that just be ironic, the one person NOT looking for themselves but simply appreciating the words and passion finds herself the center of one of them. Yeah, well that's fiction, it didn't happen. What did happen is the point of this comeback post. I exhausted the local missed connections and I remembered a conversation I recently had with someone who also peruses the craiglist personals. I promise I have NEVER looked at them except the missed connections… before yesterday that is. But you know, I was bored, I needed reprieve from a particularly hard scene I was writing and I am single and officially calling myself available now so I did a really dumb thing and I looked at more than the missed connections. Again… I should have driven the car to the cuz! I should have looked at Seattle or New York's missed connections but no, I looked at local personals. I justified it to myself by calling it research though and to prove I was “researching” here are my findings so it doesn't seem too depraved or desperate of me to be snooping around on craigslist's personal section. Here's what I found: women are a lot less likely to post an ad than men, sorry guys if you're looking for your honey on CL she's not there, but there are a handful of women in their 50s looking for love... Men outnumber the ladies approximately 3 to 1 and most of them want a picture of you to know it's not a spambot, mmmmhmmm. Also, strictly platonic is a lie. I'm pretty sure no one knows what the word actually means, which for the record is, “a non-sexual connection” I think people think it means they don't have sex on their first “platonic” meeting or something like that ;). Now comes my situation… it's about time after all these words, yeah?! Here's the story (and it's true I promise). I was looking in the m4w and had surmised that these men are pretty much all cheaters looking for a “sex kitten,” “partner in crime,” “something discreet,” or looking for someone who wants a daddy, so ewww! BUT, I'm writing a story with an infidelity theme in it and these posts are fodder for my fiction! I put an ask out on FB and got amazing feedback from cheaters of all ages, genders and socioeconomic backgrounds (as based on my FB friends). What I learned from those interviews are cheaters cheat for a multitude of reasons but their mindset is completely different from mine. I am a serial monogamist. By nature, by nurture and by my choice of faith I don't have the slightest desire inside me to have more than one intimate relationship. It's not me, it's not how I operate. I guess, until I did the interviews I sort of supposed everyone was like-minded. Sure, people cheat but it's a thing that happens that causes guilt or conflict internally or is otherwise deemed “wrong” by the cheater. That's not really so and it was shocking to me to learn this. It was another paradigm shift. How had I come 38 years and not realized some cheaters, dare I say most cheaters, like to cheat and get something out of it and think of it in a completely different way than I ever have? I am in no way, shape or form interested in changing my choice to be monogamous. I like, I want, I need to believe in having a soul-mate, a one and only lover that I'm free to express my deepest secrets to unabashedly. But this other way of thinking, fascinates me even as it is unsettling to my sensibilities. I want to understand it. There I was on craigslist in the middle of multiple cheater posts, just waiting for my email. So… I emailed and I got responses. And that's where I'm at. I'm not entertaining any of the cheaters, I'm simply asking open-ended questions to understand why. And they like to talk as long as it's anonymous, which for me it's not because they know I'm a writer writing a book that deals with infidelity. What I should have done differently was invented an anonymous email for myself instead of using my author one. I should have looked at posts in other far, far away cities, I should have waited until I have my gun rights back in case any creep comes after me now because it's slightly scary to be dialoging with people I know NOTHING about. But all in all, I am floored, confused, unsure how their mindsets can be so different. I guess it makes me sad for the partners if they are monogamous… more than sad it breaks my heart for them. It hurts so bad and I don't think the hurt can be translated in a way a cheater mindset would understand. It is a topic I'll continue to research but never participate in. And that, ladies and gentlemen is the situation. :D I'm faced with homelessness. Don't worry, it's not that bad. If I wanted to I could uproot my child from his school and pull my soul away from the city I love and find a place somewhere else but I am a stubborn something else of a woman and I really, really, really want to stay in Leavenworth...in town… on a sidewalk. So, instead of taking a living arrangement in another city I'm holding out for something here. I'm running out of time, though. My landlords want me out when my lease is up. I have exactly 24 days to find something or … potentially be homeless until I do.
This is where my stuff becomes a burden. We have places to stay until something pops up... but what about the stuff? What do I do with it? This is a question I've been struggling with and now I'm in emergency mode. I have to get a storage unit but thinking about paying to store stuff makes me sick to my stomach. Aren't storage units the epitome of being a spoiled rotten over consuming American???? I mean no offense to anyone else, to each their own, but I, at a primal level, DO NOT want to be this person and yet I have all this stuff I have been left with and nowhere to put it. Here's the back story: I've called myself a minimalist for quite a while. I like to not over use or consume or waste. Furthermore, if I'm truly honest, I'm just plain cheap, I hate wasting money on stuff (although I can totally justify spending it on running events and concerts so… yeah…). Because of this most of the stuff I have is second-hand, hand-me-down, well used, worn out and what most Americans would probably consider junk, and I do not love it enough to store it. Now, with no where to go, my minimalism is put to its biggest test… what do I keep, how much do I purge? I had a sale this weekend and sold most of the filler goods and furniture I once owned (or gave them to my daughter). I have little left. It's scary, it's kinda sad but… it's OK. I don't need to pay to store stuff that carries with it memories of a life I once had. I need a new beginning. In paring down the things I have, I've researched the minimalist movement and I like it! For the most part I've been embarrassed to admit I'm a minimalist, now I don't feel so alone. Minimalists are people too. We have have feelings and we value people, experience and life just as much as anyone else, we just don't see it in stuff as much as in people and community. From this day forward I am going to make a more concerted effort to be unashamed of my minimalist tendencies. I do wonder though how a person with a “gifts” love language views the minimalist lifestyle. Could someone with a gifts love language embrace minimalism? I would welcome feedback on this topic from “gifts” people. |
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