on slut-shamers in my newsfeed

why do men feel entitled to tell women what behaviors are wrong, especially when those same behaviors are ones that they endlessly exploit? why does society criminalize the sexuality of women at the same time that it objectifies women for this purpose? why do men act like they really have any conservative standards for women's attire and sexuality at the same time that they watch porn like they drink water? why does this sexually repressed christian boy on my newsfeed feel he can police the actions of women in the most obnoxiously patronizing matter? does it make him feel powerful or in control? does he get himself off by being able to violate our wholly personal choices? does he think he's bettering this world by educating women about the dangers of wearing short shorts? WHY IS THIS EVEN AN OBJECT OF YOUR CONCERN? fuck slut-shaming. fuck your ignorance, your entitlement, your confused fears, and your misidentified sources of frustration and insecurity.

More on slut-shaming: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/what-is-slut-shaming/

from "poetry is not a luxury" by audre lorde

"Sometimes we drug ourselves with dreams of new ideas. The head will save us. The brain alone will set us free. But there are no new ideas still waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves - along with the renewed courage to try them out. And we must constantly encourage ourselves and each other to attempt the heretical actions that our dreams imply, and so many of our old ideas disparage. In the forefront of our move toward change, there is only poetry to hint at the possibility made real. Our poems formulate the implications of ourselves, what we feel within and dare make real (or bring action into accordance with), our fears, our hopes, our most cherished terrors."

context

this past summer felt out of context
moved "back home" to a new place
new love in old settings.
old love in new ways
in juarez for a new life,
for every re/union, a goodbye.
new perspectives on old circumstances,
old wisdom informing new insights.

(back) to the place that was never home
but where part of me has always lived.
all the things that could not be carried,
if not recreated, remaining
a constant reference point for our ways of being
soon to become all that surrounds me.
with nothing planned but a date of departure,
home wherever i go, always returning.

i feel like i'm around the corner from one of those moments when all my random experiences and daily inklings and realizations and theories collide and unify into a clarified, life-altering discovery.

home

I wrote something cheesy on my flight back to California, 2 months ago, just to capture how I was feeling at the moment of leaving. Though extremely belated, I wanted to post it now, since, with my mom living in a new city, my current stay in Juarez, and my upcoming move to Korea, I'm feeling a bit discombobulated.

July 6, 2012 - While living in New York for the past 6 years, I clung to the idea of home as that place I was from to which I could always return. But I realize now how much my concept of home has been challenged and transformed. The home I found in New York was one where my community was based on choice, invention, and shared passion, rather than any idealized fantasy or circumstance of birth. My "immediate family members" were my amazing friends, by beautiful necessity, which opened up space for incredible new bonds. And my comfort zone was not something to be escaped as if it were bordered externally by fear, but celebrated as the capacity to find peace and strength in challenge, a capacity expanded from within through a deepening understanding and acceptance of myself.