Bubble

So... this is the blog I didn't post on Friday. The feelings-rich not-fun bad things blog.

This is a rant. This is not sexy or funny. This post is going to touch on some horrible shit that's been happening in our country lately. I give this warning in case you don't want to read something like this today, or from me, or ever. 

[Trigger Warning]

I live in a bubble. It is a bubble of my own making, my own choosing.

I think it is both a characteristic of my personality and a self preservation device that I tend to see the best in people. I tend to believe the world is a happier, safer, more loving place than I know it to be.

I choose to don rose colored glasses in my everyday because to not do so would have me confront the horrible nature of the world around us all the time, and, frankly, who the fuck wants that?

But life always has a way of breaking my bubble, no more so than in the past month.

When the shooting happened in Newtown, I was at work. I'd been awake since 4:30am and had been working since 5am. The particular facility I was working in that day had poor cell phone service for my carrier, so I had not bothered to check Twitter or social media.

During a break, though, around 10am, one of my coworkers, who did have cell service, popped on Twitter. And then the words "school shooting" and "little kids" came out of her mouth. She is a mother of a child close in age to the children who were killed that day. She was alarmed, scared. I was numb.

I went on with my work day, which would last longer than anyone liked. I got about thirty minutes of sleep that night, not because of concern from the news but because my next gig started at 6am. I didn't have time to think, really think, about the news as it trickled into my existance. I had to work.

The following day, after another eighteen hours of work, eight hours of sleep, and four more hours of work, I found myself in a restaurant with some coworkers eating burgers and barely noticing the President talking about the shooting.

I did, however, have my PDA/hand moment, so I guess my subconscious was tuning in while my id made me push through my job.

As the holidays came, as I saw family and friends, as I felt myself overjoyed by immersion back into my community, it was easy to blow my bubble back up. The shooting had deflated it, but not quite collapsed the structure. Frankly, "school shooting" is a phrase I've heard many times since I was a kid, since Columbine, and another elementary school shooting, and metal detectors, and all the rest you know.

And then, a few days ago, I was on Twitter. And I happened to click on a link. And I read about the rape in Stuebenville.

Pop.

The bubble, which had withstood the shooting mostly because of exhaustion and forced ignorance, finally burst.

And now I'm hearing all those things I was trying to ignore. Now I am noticing how angry I am. How frustrated I am with our govenment. How much I want to scream at the head of the NRA for his fucked up speech. How much I want to scream at this country's rape culture. How scared I am for my four year old niece and the world she was brought into.

I had an appointment with my GYN today. If you've read this blog for a while, you will know I have less than stellar thoughts concerning her, but I keep going back because it's convient. Sometimes I hate how much I put up with because it's convient.

And, as per usual, when I mentioned I wanted an STI screening because it's been six months, and I've had two new "sexual" partners since last seeing her, I could just feel the judging going on in her mind. At least this time she didn't talk. This time she just pursed her lips, mumbled "mmm hmm", and proceeded to take the cultures.

But it's her reaction, that judgement, the belief in the denegration of slut, that is part of the basis for some of the evils in our world.

Now my GYN is far from evil, just a judgemental prude. But it's the culture of judgement. Of slut shaming. Of believing "she wanted it but just couldn't say it". Believing that some rape isn't really rape. Believing that there is an inappropriate way of expressing my sexuality with another consenting adult, or an inappropriate amount of sex that I'm having with an inappropriate amount of people, that is more than rage-making.

Some people have been permeating the thought that if gun laws had been less severe, the Jews could've protected themselves against Hitler. Really? Really!?! Read a fucking history book, go visit the Holocaust museum (I have), and shut the fuck up.

These folks also have a problem with a national registry of guns.  I have to ask, Do you own and drive a car legally?  With the title, tags, and... registration?  Does your car still have its VIN branded on multiple parts of its body?  Then shut the fuck up.

I don't know what it will take to curb the evils of gun violence and sexual violence in this country, but I know what won't. Ignoring the problems won't solve them, but will instead make them worse.

Believing that more guns solve the situation is a level of lunacy I am not willing to even entertain.

Shame around sex, talking about it, teaching it to our children, will only make sexual violence more pervasive.

What happened to compromise? What happened to working together? Oh, right... It's much easier to get elected when you rail against a problem than when you fix it.

Sex is not the enemy; violence is. Sex is not the enemy; rape is. Sex is not the enemy.

Consent counts. Consent, in fact, is all that matters when it comes to sex. No means no. And being too drunk to walk is not an invitation into someone's pants.

When a coach defends his rapist players instead of standing up for their victim, instead of trying to figure out what went wrong, it's obvious that he is part of the problem. When it takes Anonymous to help pull forth the truth, when people are willing to live Tweet this horrendous crime instead of coming to the aid of the victim, I don't know what to think about this country except disgust.

In India, a woman was gang raped and people rioted in the streets. In America, children were killed. In America, a girl was gang raped while people blogged about it. And we are arguing about semantics?

Land of the free and home of the brave...? Complete and total bullshit.