re-do

I was planning to write my paper on heterosexist coercion because my last journal entries were getting to be so personally enlightening. Thinking about it some more though, I've decided that it's just waaay to personal a topic to write about. Reliving a rape experience as well as the negative vibes of the marriage was taking it's toll on my outside life i.e. I was getting very depressed.

I'm going to turn back to looking at gender marking and parenting and whether I'm a resistor or perpetuator with my own kids. I dunno how that will look in the end. I mean, I teach ballet - can't get more feminine than that. My boys turn everything into swords. Even just calling them 'the boys' is heterosexist. I should maybe be calling them child 2 and child 3....though that implies status. Names? do I call them only by name? Well, not on a public blog, that's for sure.

Is there a parent who fully resists heterosexist culture? I wonder. No one that I know, that's for sure and my travels through LLLC have taken me inside the dynamics of many North American families.

I guess I can try. I wish I knew how to better respond when the ballet students ask me about boys wearing toe shoes and tutus. There are some ballets where they do, but only as parodies. [double sigh]

anderson and the 'dirty squaw' or 'their home and native land'

Anderson's article ties into the concept of heterosexist coercion. Ick. What a phrase. From the History of Marriage course I took and also Women in Canada and U.S. I learned how the derogation of Native women occured - from high status to low, Earth Mother/Indian Princess/Dirty Squaw. Now, according to Anderson, it is a belief that Native women are sexually available... like the women from Gavey's Heterosexual Coercion article. According to Anderson, these women are not individuals - they are a group: Native. None is assessed on her own behaviour, she is lumped in as a group which is it really representative? What is the ratio of Native sex trade workers : non-native sex trade workers based on total population? Are there societal constructs that lead to a higher ratio if that is the case? Is it a self-fulfilling prophecy?

The root comment to make on Anderson's article I suppose is that Native women are defined by their sexuality as it relates to heterosexual men, i.e. all Native women are sexually available to heterosexual men; all Native women are heterosexual.

rethinking heterosexist coercion, more on Gavey

Last post I thought I do not engage in sex that I do not want. Discussion of Gavey's article for the group project has made me realize that I do perpetuate this. I make myself have sex even when I'm tired/stressed/busy/not interested. I am guilty.

This week I have been crazy busy writing (mostly) the group report, papers for other classes and studying for midterm exams. I just finished my period. I am more stressed than I have been in a long time. I'm trying to complete the paperwork for my divorce (yes, still, 5 years later) prepare for a ballet exam, start a new business not to mention raise three children and keep house as a single mom - the facts of life that never change.

My partner has his daughter on weekends, has a good job, business on the side.... he still struggles, but in comparison, he has a lot of free time. He doesn't fall asleep as soon as he sits down. I do. Sitting down with him to share a cup of tea and relax is a guarantee that I will be asleep before the teacup is empty. Going to bed together is for sleeping.

I can tell that he's missing sex - "I just know." heheheheheh. Seriously, I tell him it's only 2 more weeks - like I need to tell him the dry spell/work is only temporary. I feel a need to reassure him that he's attractive. I don't want him to think I'm not interested, as if sex is what proves my interest.

I equate sex and love apparently, i.e. giving sex, earns love. I know our relationship is more than that because we go through this cycle at least twice a semester (midterms and finals). We've still been together each time when exams are done. But if we're going to bed together on a night that he's come over and he says, "would you mind..." more often than not I'll just agree because it makes him happy and it doesn't take that much time or effort - it's a compromise I make for the health of the relationship. On Gavey's terms I'm caving to the coercion, but what choice do I truly have? And is it such a wrong thing to do something for someone that makes them happy? Is it any different than picking up dry cleaning, taking out the trash, returning a library book? Is it costing me anything? I don't think so.

It would have been nice to discuss some of this in our discussion group: this is another one of those topics that just doesn't get talked about. Because of the nature of the group though and its focus on lesbians, it just wasn't something I would have felt comfortable raising.

I've talked about this with other adult divorced and remarried women and the consensus seems to be that even if we're not 'in the mood' to start, we might find ourselves enjoying it if we allow ourselves to be 'talked into it' ('convinced' is the word they use. Gavey would say coerced.) Isn't compromise the key to a lasting relationship?

My own cycle of desire is very much influenced by my hormones and my workload. My partner doesn't seem to have a cycle and only rarely do his external pressures cause him to lose interest. Our arrangement seems to work for both of us so far. Sometimes he does without because I'm not interested, sometimes I participate because I want to do something for him.

More often than not when I share my anxiety at the lack of sex in our lives during the busy times he assure me that he's a grownup and quite capable of taking care of himself. I really do wonder if it's my issue completely.