Different Gender, Different Fear

I had a great date the other night with a man who made me think. We were talking about our sexual lives, and came to a realization that I had to that moment not put together. 

I was telling him that from a very young age, I knew I was sexually driven, and also very aware that I had to conceal this. I knew that having sex was one thing, but to be known as a woman who liked to have sex? Well, that was the fastest way to elevate a young woman to "whore" status faster than you can say "do you have a condom?" My date told me that he had seen evidence of such biases in his own life from an early age.

He threw this information into sharp contrast by commenting that it is equally as disgraceful for a man to admit that he is not interested in having sex. I have written previously about the strange contradictory belief system and gender politics that exist between men and women and society at large, but this last epiphany evoked in me a bewilderment and frustration that exhausted me. 

It is difficult to know, to have the implicit understanding, that we do this to ourselves. Our fears about what the behaviors of other people say about us drives us to do hateful and hurtful things. It exhausts me. The best I can do is keep trying to be me, and at the very best, ignore it when the people around me do not accept my behavior because it does not endorse their own. 

I have been called whore, slut, etc. even by my own boyfriend. I really don't care. Sexual behavior, when it is not violent or coerced, is not deviant behavior. It is natural. It is lovely. It can be, depending on your proclivities, a large part of who you are. As it is with me. 

I know I will not change this paradigm. This is world-wide, and I know that it is by far worse in other parts of the world than it is in the US. I know that sex has more to do with power relationships than I am accounting for in this short blog post.

But I am tired. I am tired of being tolerant of people who are too insecure to be okay with my activities. I am tired of the hateful behavior I must witness on a daily basis against people who are simply misunderstood and feared for their differences. I am tired of being the tolerant one. I have said it before; the high road's air is thin. I must constantly stop to breathe when I am on it, looking down at the tops of the heads of the people who seem to have all the air their big fat mouths can use.

I understand that it is a waste of energy trying to teach ignorant people tolerance, trying to teach them about celebrating diversity. I have been in diversity training with those people. It is embarrassingly useless. If I may, I would like to have some training. Please train me how to tolerate ignorant people. I have not seen that training yet. I desperately need it. 

I am sure I will see tomorrow that I have spoken in anger; that I have said too many hateful, angry things in this post for it to have value. I guess that's okay. I will come back. I will be happy tomorrow. Today, I am kinda pissed.

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