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Feel free to contact me here about anything at all. Anon posting is turned on and anon comments are screened.
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If you know me in real life, that's cool. There's nothing here I mind you seeing, but if you look around enthusiastically enough, you may get squicked, and it'll be your own darn fault.
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The username is from Diana Wynne Jones' book The Spellcoats, which I heartily recommend.
The username has changed! I am still me! The curious can find an explanation of where '![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) scien' came from in this post.
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I've been struggling with beauty and appearance related stuff a bit more than usual lately. I'm not really sure what I'm hoping to achieve by inflincting my musings about it on the internets, but I've been wondering recently about how to break out of the endless, unproductive loops that make up a lot of what goes on in my head in relation to my appearance, and writing seems a good way to start reaching some kind of understanding and acceptance (or maybe anger and active protest, I don't know yet). To some extent just writing it out has already helped, but I also greatly look forward to the discussion.
I'm going to be as honest with myself as I can, and try to strip away the posturing and identity constructing that I normally accompany discussions of these things with, as a self identified 'I don't really give a fuck' type person. A part of me writing this is being really aware of whether it makes me look good, or at least interesting and thoughtful and mainstream society rejecty, but I'm trying to ignore it and just write simply about my experiences.
As with many things which have caused me distress and annoyance, the issues are 75% laziness, and 25% a confused mess of issues. We will be concentrating on the latter here, but trust me, there is an awful lot of laziness and apathy going on too. And I wouldn't say I struggle with this stuff daily or anything either, it's just background. I certainly think of myself as someone who doesn't really care.
So here we are: me and my relationship with traditionally feminine beauty, and all the things you seem to have to worry about to look 'good', anatomised for your perusal. With a lot of looking back at How it All Began for me.
Warning, long. I mean it.
In ascending order of importance to me:
( skin )
( nails )
( body hair )
( figure )
( makeup )
( clothes )
( hair )
Ze end.
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I really would love to hear from you all about your experiences, whether they're similar to mine or not. One thing I noticed as I was writing was that I don't have a clue whether what I'm describing is completely typical or me being a weirdo. So tell me, what's your relationship with looking 'feminine', 'good', or any other cultural ideals? What were your introductions to grooming and appearance like? Did you enjoy them? Did you resist them? Were they maybe more social and mutual with your peers than mine were? More formal and explicit? How have your relationships with these things changed over time? How much do you feel it relates to your sexual orientation, and your gender identity?
While I normally welcome vigorous debate, this is a touchy issue. Accordingly, for the sake of my peace of mind I will not engage with any criticism, whether it's telling me to care less or more. Also, just as a reminder, anonymous commenting is enabled throughout my journal, and anonymous comments are screened. I will be unscreening by default but I'm happy to keep things private if you mention.
I have to say if I've got anything from these 3am scribblings it's realising just how much of this beauty stuff is socially learned and not at all innate to myself as a woman. Intellectually I knew that, but still kind of felt like a fail for not getting it right, and it's interesting to see how that happens.
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I am suffering from crampycrampycramps and feeling self indulgently icky. Anyone want to join me?
Tell me all about what brand of ickyness you suffer. I want to know all the gory details.
( How does bleeding from the crotch feel to *you*? )
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Because I know I always get confused when people do this: I have changed my LJ account name.
I originally created this account years ago when I wanted to make a post that absolutely should not be recognised by anyone I knew. And then after that was over with and deleted, it was a handy account to use when I wanted to join communities about naughty things that would merely embarrass me if anyone saw, and then four years and fifteen thousand comments later I found myself still using a username I had never liked, and cringing slightly whenever someone called me by it. I've been waiting for the right name to come along for a while and finally took the plunge.
So, new name: scien. It's short, it contains some of the same letters as my real name, it doesn't sound like a 14 year old girl trying desperately to be liked*, I'm happy.
* Note: I was never that 14 year old girl. I just registered an account that sounded like one. Sigh. Anyway.
I've also been on a 'looking things up in the OED' kick lately, just because I can. 'Scien' appears to be a variant spelling of 'sign': 'A gesture or motion of the hand, head, etc., serving to convey an intimation or to communicate some idea.'
Not bad eh? Although the only place I actually found this exact spelling used was in the context of one of the other definitions, 'A device borne on a banner, shield, etc.; a cognizance or badge'. Which is what a username is, really.
I don't know that it's perfect - lots of names I would have liked to have were taken. But I'm kind of relieved.
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Speaking of names and labels. Something I've been finding interesting lately is the way some terms seem to take on a reality and strength of their own.
As an English student, along with the OED obsession I got it thoroughly pounded into my skull that words don't intrinsically 'mean' anything, but that the meaning of a word lies in the way it is used and understood, which can be a messy cloud of associations that varies by time and place. (You can point to a dictionary all you like - classifying words and usages as 'correct' or not based on their etymology and the whim of the editor went out of fashion with Johnson. Lexicographers these days see their job as following usage, not dictating it).
And intellectually, I understand that. But as a day to day shorthand, it is much easier to just get on with life under the assumption that the word 'sock' directly correlates to an actual 'sock'. In the case of a sock, that's probably a pretty safe assumption. But in some contexts this gets somewhat less accurate or helpful.
I already touched on this in my post about virginity, in which I talked about people treating virginity as though it was an 'either/or' status that actually existed, and with enough information we could divine which one they were. When in fact it's a term that is (self contradictingly) medical, technical, cultural and personal all rolled into one word.
( The same sort of thing applies to other labels )
Also I'm curious, dear readers, about what labels you choose to describe yourself with and why. I wonder if there is as much variation as I would expect. What considerations brought you to one word over another? Do they feel like a perfect fit, or an uneasy one?
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A couple of days ago I had a bit of an epiphany about something small but (to me) significant.
( People often complain that in advice communities we jump to 'dump them' too quickly )
So that was my spiel. What do you guys think? Am I completely nuts? Do you think breakups need a particular kind of reason to be permissable? What does commitment mean to you? Indulge my curiosity!
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So, I am on Dreamwidth, with the same username.
Is anyone else reading this there? I haven't done anything with my account yet, but please do say hi there so I can find you.
I haven't had a chance to really look yet, are there any sex positive/feminist/etc themed communities getting started?
Note: I am not jumping ship. I am here to stay. I'm just curious.
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I seem to only get inspired towards social commentary when things really get up my nose. For anyone who finds this dull, I apologise.
( In which I get annoyed about a bog standard TV ad )
I think one of the reasons this annoyed me quite as much as it did was that it was in two completely unrelated places, neither of which (a comedy about a bookshop and an article on anger management skills) is somewhere where an ad about how much I need to lose weight seems particularly appropriate. I know it doesn't take much to achieve that kind of coverage, certainly for a company like Keloggs - this was either a global ad compaign, or doubleclick.net was serving up region-specific ads, which is very common and makes perfect sense. Heck, Channel 4 know my sex and age from when I signed up, I don't know if they target their ads but that too is possible.
But it kind of makes me feel like I'm up against something which is infinitely bigger, wealthier, and most likely cleverer than I am. And to avoid it entirely, I'd have to not consume any media that needs to support itself by ad revenue, which, forget being unenjoyable, is simply not feasible. There is something terribly disheartening about that.
I just feel like it shouldn't have to be an uphill battle to avoid this nonsense. Not seeing this sort of thing should be the norm. You shouldn't have to be constantly hyper aware and analytical to break these things down and avoid being affected as best you can. And given that wishes aren't horses, beggers aren't riding and we live in a world in which that is necessary, it seriously angers me that doing so and thinking about it is not at least seen as a major and essential part of child and young adult education.
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I usually have a mild dislike for memes. And even when I do think they're entertaining they're not usually relevant to this journal. But this one caught my eye.
The Five Things meme: you comment on this post and I'll tell you five of the things I closely associate with you, and you take those back to your journal and write about them. tacky_tramp gave me five things to write about.
My addition: I'd like it if you posted your answers in reply to my comment as well as in your journals, if you're comfortable doing so. I often run across posts like this and get intrigued by some of the lists my friends post for their other friends, but don't wish to dig around other people's (often locked) journals to find how they responded.
tacky_tramp gave me:
Advice
Sandman
Wisdom
Snark
Sex
( Read more... )
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Okay so I was going to finish my writeup of stuff related to the book I read recently today, but I am instead going to interrupt the scheduled broadcast with a rant. I just want to tell the world: I CAN'T STAND THE TERM 'FOREPLAY'. PLEASE LET IT DIE OUT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Please.
( But why? )
Grrrrr. I for one will thank you if you never use the word again without self conscious quote marks.
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Virgin: The Untouched History. Hanne Blank, Bloomsbury 2007.
Part one: a book reviewSo, firstly and most importantly: Yay. I enjoyed this book. It is readable, lucid, very well informed, interdisciplinary, and the basic approach and assumptions are such that fit very comfortably with my own. By which I mean it's feminist, sex positive, and open minded. Hurrah! More such books like this should exist and I should read them. ( Read on... - edited )Part two, in which I use and abuse random sentences from the book as jumping off boards for my own ramblings (which have surprisingly little to do with virginity), will be posted later this week.
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I would like to present to you:
scien's Totally Infallible (If Not Entirely Comprehensive) Guide to Judging How Sane People's Comments Are Going To Be In LiveJournal Advice Communities By Glancing At Their Icon
Disclaimer: various LiveJournal subcultures have their own icon social mores which I thank the heavens I am not aware of.
Diclaimer continued: As far as possible I've tried to reflect my experiences with people who use these icons in advice comms, rather than my reaction to the icons themselves. E.g. as far as I'm concerned cute animals is + a meeeellion, but actually, seeing a cute animal icon is not a reliable indicator of whether the post I'm about to read is going to make me headdesk or not.
Final disclaimer: I wrote this in a giggly twenty minutes. It is for fun, not for serious.
The numbers refer to sensible/reasonable/helpfulness. More + is more better, more - is more likely to be idiotic.
- Icon includes photo of self
- Passport style headshot, and/or photo evidently taken by someone else: +5
- Myspace camwhore style shot: -5
- Photo vastly overexposed: -5
- Photo of face with name in elaborate font and other decorations overlaid: -10
- Pulling a flatteringly silly face: neutral
- Pulling an unflatteringly silly face: +3
- Kissing partner, or about to: -15
- Photo of self with partner, with names and marriage/'together since' dates overlaid: -20
( continue )
Additions or quibbles gladly accepted!
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http://www.celle.com/
'When it comes to making major life decisions, there is no time like the present. And when it comes to something as important as collecting potentially life-saving stem cells found naturally in menstrual blood, the ideal time is NOW.'
Every few months, someone posts about this in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) menstrual_cups, and I do my best to dissuade them from signing up. So far I don't think anyone has, but people have expressed interest despite my exasperation.
I'd be curious to hear your opinions/comments on this site - whether about the science or the rhetoric or the money or anything else. I keep meaning to look at it more deeply - if I get a moment this weekend I will do so and add my opinions to the comments here.
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Every now and again I run across a copy of the Saturday Times. Whenever this happens feel an unfortunate but irresistible compulsion to find the Body & Soul section (which is generally full of crap science and misinformation of the sort that Ben Goldacre loves to hate) and after working myself up to a righteous rage over every other article, turn to the final page, which is a sex advice column.
It's written by two columnists, one a doctor (whose advice is generally sound if uninspired) and one by, er, a... woman? She's written a book about how to have good sex ('leaves no gland unturned', sayeth one review, which tells you just how much it taught the reader about basic anatomy). I think the idea is that we're supposed to find the contrast between their approaches to sex very revealing and so on.
The doctor guy tends to dwell on the medical aspects of things where he can, and so his columns often come across as a bit boring - although thankfully, and actually rather surprisingly, I've yet to spot him make an actual factual error, ever. Suzi's columns on the other hand tend to be lengthy flights of fancy that only address the question in the final paragraph, and then do so with coy metaphors, sexist stereotypes and advice worthy of Cosmo. She drives me nuts.
I've written about this before so apologies to people who have seen this elsewhere. For those who haven't, she previously pissed me off with her ( Top 10 Sex Tips for Men (public repost from 2007) )
Ranting aside, another post should follow in a few days about sex in the media. I have a bee in my bonnet on this one.
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This may be surprising to some of my readers, but menstrual_cups was actually the first community to tempt me out of the 'I'm only hear to read, honest guvn'r' state that I happily inhabited here at scien in 2004-5. And I went from an initial timid post to now moderating the community, phoning up the cup companies in a self important sort of way, and owning a drawer filled with samples. Which is pretty darn awesome if you ask me.
I wouldn't say that cups are my central interest here on LJ, but they do take up a good amount of my time and attention, and of course, I've got plenty to say. And so today I'm going to write about, basically, what the heck is going on over there that inspires such a rabidly enthusiastic following?
'I love this thing. I may buy some and start passing them out to random women on the street. I will probably become one of those annoying proselytizing people who won't shut up about something.' (»)If you hang out here on LJ, you'll have seen this phenomenon. People get really, really passionate about their cups. 'Evangelical' would not be going too far as a description, to the point where people can even be very disparaging of other choices (although I try to quash that aspect as best I can). If you need a quick intro to the culture I'm commenting on, I would suggest browsing the community, our success stories and activism tags in particular. This often goes deeper than 'I'm very happy with my purchase' (»), or 'I love my Mooncup and I only wish I had discovered it before' (») and into territory like 'I am so happy I gave menstrual cups another try. I am so happy to be a woman.' (») Woah! How did we get there? let's take a closer look... ( my theories - in ascending order of importance )
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I started writing this a long time ago, when we had a rash of 'am I a virgin' posts in sextips. This has not happened in a while, but does seem to every so often. And it makes for interesting discussion. So here we go.
This post is mostly written from a female perspective, because I have quite honestly never seen a man post saying they weren't sure whether they were a virgin or not. Whether that's because men are generally clear in their mind about what they mean by the word, or because they aren't as conflicted about wanting to keep the label, or simply because they don't post about it, I don't really feel I'm in a position to say. But feel free to weigh in on that (or other gender related points) in the comments :)
What prompted this'Virginity' is one of those words that we all use assuming that we know exactly what it means and that other people understand it in the same way. And when you ask people what they think 'virgin' means, they say 'someone who hasn't had sex', and look at you funny. However, when you get down to detail, there's a whole lot of variation and uncertainty, mostly because the definition of 'sex' is not always as clear and easy as assumed. I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here, as everyone on my friends list has seen the posts that prompted this ramble before. But for those just wandering in: we sextips readers see a lot of people asking what they should tell future partners if they've 'only' had oral or anal sex. We also get asked whether they still 'get' to call themselves virgins if they tried to have PIV sex but didn't manage to get it all the way in, or if they didn't move ('just penetration no thrusting'), or the guy didn't come. Weirdly, these posters are usually still in the same relationship and intend to lose what's left of their virginity very soon, but they still really want to know what their status is in the meantime. ( Read more... )Well, and that's my opinion. As always, agreement or otherwise is more than welcome, so go for it. What does 'virginity' mean to you? When did you consider yourself to have 'lost' it, if you have? Did/do you have trouble applying these terms to yourself? Share share away, I am always interested in more perspectives. [1] This page has some interesting photos and diagrams. This one has illustrations of different hymen types.
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I think I kind of wrote myself into a corner with my first post. I'm afraid not all of my posts are going to be quite so carefully researched and argued, sometimes I'm just going to blather and rant about things that have caught my interest lately. This post is one of those kinds.
By the way, I shamelessly stole the title for this post from the Sex is Fun podcast, so I should say at this point that they are highly recommended. While I've only listened to a few episodes, they consistently impressed me with the accuracy of their knowledge, their open mindedness, and of course their sense of fun.
And that is what we are going to discuss here, because I think it's one of the most under talked about and under valued aspects of sexuality.
( fun fun fun )
This post wanted to sprawl in several directions and I could have written a good few thousand words more about each, but I will leave it there for now. What do you guys think? Can indulging fantasies be dangerous or unhealthy? Are some thoughts better left unencouraged? Is there a correct or superior way to have sex?
[1] For those now curiously Googling: I followed her journal for quite a while after that, out of sheer curiosity and a weird sense of kinship for sharing my name, and eventually (about two years ago) the relationship disintegrated, she stopped using the name her 'master' had given her, and took the site down. Nothing to see here, move right along.
[2] Okay, that's a bit of a generalisation. 600 people have taken my poll to date, and the majority of them are not sextips regulars (there aren't that many of us!), they're just passing through. But I still think we should expect responses to be more sex positive and confident than the general population.
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Hey all, welcome to what may or may not be a change in the way I use this journal. Basically, I plan to make occasional as-the-whim-strikes public posts, containing non-snarky discussions of Things of various kinds. I'm sure you all already know what kinds. This is the first.
I have a few more half-written ones and some ideas, but how this continues will depend on how it's received, how much new material I can think up, and what other outlets I have for talking about this kind of thing. We shall see. For now, here is the first post. It is about, well, exactly what it says on the tin.
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If I had a penny for every time I've heard someone on LJ declare that their vagina was abnormally small, I'd have... about enough for a decent meal, I think. I have only heard the reverse once, and I thought it was very brave of them to go out and say those words (although it's a fear that can be heard lurking behind the words of most posters who are concerned that they aren't getting much sensation out of intercourse).
I've not actually made a poll about this, because I can't think of an appropriate venue, but I would not be surprised if the majority of young women believed their vagina to be particularly small. I think this is something worth discussing, and I'm going to look at it from a few angles here.
( On teeeny tiny vaginas, and why we all think we have one )
I'd welcome any insights, anecdotes and criticisms from my frighteningly well informed readers :) I would love to get a discussion going, so please just jump in (real life people welcome, and anonymous commenting allowed). What do you think? Are there any more explanations I haven't considered here? Did I get something completely wrong?
Also, let me know if you can think of any other topics you'd particularly like me to spout off on.
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Now, I'm pretty sure I already know what I want to do.
However, yesterday, I didn't*, and so I don't see why I can't have a nice long chat about this with you more experienced types.
( Relationships confuse me )
* Then again yesterday I couldn't entirely tell up from down. Thank you, hormones!
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