Ok, so before we get into this, some disclaimers:

• I’m getting into this because I really want to believe that we, as the young, hip, full of shit, touchy feely generation, can make a genuine and concerted effort to do better. For ourselves and for others. A big part of doing better starts with being real about what you need to fix. I’m going to be very real with you.
• I am not going to be present in most, or most likely any of your actual life situations. If a guy is coming at you with a fucking knife, or you feel impending violence on deck, that’s not the time to get witty. That’s when you fucking run. And if you’re white, probably when you call the police.
• This is 100% anecdotal. It’s shit that’s happened to me. It’s a tactic I’m trying out. There’s no scientific study. There hasn’t been a peer review. I’m just spitballing here. Take this with a grain of salt. It’s not fucking gospel. I’d rather you toss it out than try it in the wrong situation and end up dead.

If you think I’m being overdramatic, here’s a handy list of over a dozen women who died because they didn’t make themselves available for some total lunatic’s sexual and romantic whims.

It took a 2 second Google search to find that. It’s not some deep dark secret. It’s not some illuminati shit. An American is sexually assaulted about every minute and a half. From the time you clicked on this until now, probably 1-5 people have been sexually assaulted, depending on how fast you read.

Every 8 minutes, one of those Americans is a child. By the time you finish reading this, more people of all ages than you could comfortably fit in a minivan will have been sexually assaulted. This country has a huge problem. Enough people are wandering around harassing, groping, raping, and killing people of all ages, at will, out of sexual entitlement and resentment, that in the time it takes you to listen to your average pop song, 3-4 people have experienced one of the worst things imaginable.

And if you want to read this as me going out of my way to shit on men point blank, I’m really not. When referring to the victims and even the perpetrators in these cases, I have kept it very fucking open ended for a reason. While more women are sexually assaulted than men statistically, it’s also happening to males of all ages in staggeringly horrifying numbers. Bisexual women and trans people statistically face a pervasive threat of sexual violence higher than any other group.

Especially for men, this is largely treated as an impossibility or a hilarious joke because our culture is fucking disgusting. Many people don’t even recognize that bisexual or trans people are valid or real human beings, let alone that they are dealing with this shit.

Let’s be clear, I am 100% going out of my way to shit on rapists, sexual abusers, and harassers, and those who enable the continuation of this culture either actively or passively. In my case, all of the active aggressors have been male, while those who have been complicit, by either ignoring it or actively taking the side of the aggressor, have been a diverse cast of players. I used to be like that and didn’t even know I was doing it. We’re taught to do it and not even think about it.

That’s my experience. That’s where I’m coming from and talking from. If that pisses you off, feel free to send me hate mail or whatever, I guess.

I hope that’s very fulfilling for you.

I think many people who were assigned female at birth understand the specific struggle I’m talking about. Before you are old enough to understand anything other than that you fucking like Go-Gurt, people are already impressing upon you that your body has very specific uses. If you are lucky, all of this is subtle and non-violent. You get some baby dolls and are told that it’s practice for when you have babies one day, or something. For about a quarter of female children, it is not so subtle.

Every time a man appears to be following me in the dark, even if we just happen to be going the same way, I feel panic. When men aggressively shout sexual shit at me on the street, or otherwise demand my attention, time, and try to get personal information from me, and I have to find some kind of way to de-escalate the situation without compromising my safety, I feel horrible panic.

All my life it’s just been more and more and more of this shit. When I was a kid and spent most of my time outside covered in dirt, digging for dinosaur bones I would never find with a shitty plastic shovel, men were already making weird sexual comments about me and touching me against my will. By the time I started elementary school I was already constantly enraged by the total trampling of boundaries I was being unsuccessfully conditioned to accept and weigh my worth against.  

As you can imagine, I was a fucking delight as a child.

It doesn’t take much for all those headlines, all those statistics, all those dead women, and my own fucked up experiences to flash before my eyes as an adult. To be real, I’ve experienced some shit. When I was in college, a seemingly chill dude I knew through the local music scene, who was supposed to come by to hook up, went out and got drunk instead. When he hit me up in the middle of the night, asking if he could come by drunk to fuck, and I told him not to bother, he fucking threatened to come by and “bring his boys” with him because I was a tease and I had it coming.

I didn’t fucking go back to my apartment for days. I wondered if he was gonna use me to add to our country’s rape statistics for my age demographic.

It never fucking stops. And every time some dude does a different shade of the same shitty thing, it all comes back.

A few months ago, an Uber driver bombarded me with uncomfortable questions about my sex life and then asked me if I lived alone. I got so freaked out I bolted out of his car at the next light we stopped at and walked a mile back to my house.

As I walked home in the rain, angry and freaked out because this motherfucker had my address, I really reached a breaking point.

I asked myself how I can stop this from happening to me, short of not appearing to be a woman anymore.

While it should not be the victim’s responsibility to prevent their own abuse, because people shouldn’t walk around torturing each other, they can, they do, and they will.

A single person cannot change cultural evils, but they can understand them, and in some cases, play with them.

If you want to combat something, first you must understand it. If you want to cheat at a game, you first must know the rules.

When men get weird and inappropriate with me on the street, or men I know and sometimes even thought I could trust, take weird and damaging liberties with me, they have centuries of violence and a whole culture that tells them they are entitled to my time and body backing them up. While I don’t think that any man who has yelled at a woman on the street “I would yank all over them tiddies” actually ever got to “yank all over them tiddies,” that didn’t fucking stop the guy who yelled that at me twice a week at least for a semester from howling at my tiddies like he was a werewolf under a full moon.

I think a lot of the dudes that do shit like that don’t even know the scope of what they are doing.They have been conditioned not to see women as complex people, and have grown up in an environment where reducing women to flesh sacks with holes you can dump cum into is just how it is. In moments where men do shit like that to people, they aren’t really recognizing them as an individual. They transform their victims into an empty thing they are asserting dominance over.

I wanted to steal that moment of dominance from them. I didn’t just want to get men to stop harassing me, but I wanted them to feel violated and uncomfortable, as they have been doing to me since I was a child. And I wanted to do it in a way where I would not end up fucking dead.

I have come to think that the kind of men who do shit like that to other people have bought so unthinkingly into hypermasculinity, that they have an incredibly large, soft, and vulnerable Achilles Heel. They have most likely become so emotionally constipated and repressed in the pursuit of an unattainable masculine ideal that they are an unexpected emotional experience away from utter fear.

I theorized that all it would take is a genuine outpouring of vulnerability and emotion, which many men who behave in this way are probably completely unprepared to handle, to get them to back away, faster than if you pulled a gun on them.

So, what does this look like in practice?

About two weeks ago, a man blocked my way while I was waiting for the light to change and traffic to stop so I could cross the street. I was on my way to Planned Parenthood because a few months ago I got an IUD, specifically to spite the American Right.

Anyway, I had headphones in, because I always walk around with headphones in, even though I rarely listen to music in public. That’s how much I don’t fucking want people to talk to me. I am an exhausted, deeply fucked up, unsociable motherfucker. I wear headphones and large dark sunglasses constantly. I am a no eye contact and no conversation zone.

Despite that, this dude tried to talk to me, saw that I had headphones in, and then kept poking me in the shoulder and trying to force eye contact until I took them out. When I did, he rapid fire complimented my (objectively gross) physical form, told me I was “gonna have to get to know him better now,” and then asked me if I had a boyfriend.

I looked at this dude and thought about everything I wanted to accomplish, to emotionally violate those who would so casually violate me with complete honesty.

I replied, “No. I have horrible emotional and psychological problems and am not good looking enough for anyone to ignore them long term. I will probably die without trusting another person.”

If you think that is an insane thing to say to a stranger, is it not also insane to walk up to a stranger, touch them, physically block their way,  and make personal demands of them?

He let out a totally confused “What?” and I repeated exactly what I had said.

Motherfucker looked like the hand of a primordial god struck him. He shifted from foot to foot, his eyes bugged out, and he looked at me in sheer terror like in all his time spent harassing women it had never occurred to him that it’s a shitty thing to do.

He felt stuck in a conversation he did not want to have, with someone who made him deeply uncomfortable, and was not respecting his boundaries. He didn’t know what to do.

For the first time in my life, a man who had harassed me on the street apologized. He grunted out “sorry.” and fled.

Not every man I have done this to responds so well. Most of them who carry on like this seem pretty much incapable of any self-reflection, and decide that I’m too crazy to be worth it, and back away of their own choice.

This is also fine. They’re not wrong. It also leaves me totally unharmed and free to live my life with at least one threat neutralized. I have been doing this all year; a total of about 5 times, and no one has threatened me, attacked me, or demanded anything of me.

Our culture, which fosters and encourages these behaviors in men, has led to many women being insecure, existing constantly on alert, and being actively traumatized. I am all of those things, and on a base level it feels really good to tell these people all sorts of things about myself I have been taught to be ashamed of and hide. Why should the shame lay with we, who have had to live with what has been done to and ingrained in us, and not be felt at all by those who do have taken those actions and uphold those terrible standards?

Again, if a man is chasing you with a knife, we are probably past the point of flipping the script. There’s a time to get revenge, and there’s also a time to fucking run. But, next time a dude won’t fucking let up, consider trying out some brutal and raw emotional honesty™ and inappropriate vulnerability© to get him gone, instead of just standing there silently praying that he gives up quickly, or lying about an imaginary boyfriend.

Put him in his fucking place. A place far away from you.

 

If you are a victim of sexual assault you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline, available 24/7: Telephone: 800-656-HOPE (4673). You can also talk to someone online at https://www.rainn.org/

 There are resources for you if you have been sexually harassed. You can find them at-  http://www.feminist.org/911/harass.html.

 

Support Isadora’s writing on our site by subscribing to our newsletter on this link, Subscribe here!

---

Isadora Teich is a freelance writer and traveler. They’ve written social media copy, tabloids, news, erotica, opinion pieces, quizzes, have worked on film scripts, and do some ghostwriting from time to time. Isadora lives for artistic experimentation and is working on a novel.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glamthane/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlamThane

 

If there’s anyone who understands complete pessimism and the strange seduction of reactionarily giving the fuck up, it’s me. I understand that in the face of all of the terrifying possible futures for America, it’s really easy to collapse inward and totally withdraw. Our political climate is tumultuous and unsure, and shit is fucking terrifying.

I’m not looking to undermine the realness of this threat, or to shame anyone who has to disengage for their own mental or emotional well being. I don’t know you personally, and if you’re realizing what you need to do to stay afloat and are doing it, good for you, my dog.

However, working on your mixtape while Rome burns is a shitty option, regardless of how on fire it is. In fact, because of the way our political system operates, you (YES, YOU) actually have a lot of power to effect change. Even more than you realize. And it doesn’t actually take you chaining yourself to a tree, throwing blood on people in fur coats, or marching anywhere; other than to a polling place for a few hours occasionally.

You are probably thinking “But Trump won. This is proof that the lizard people run everything. We tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter.”

Again, it’s mad easy to think like a Linkin Park song when World War III seems imminent, but we are not 14 anymore. We can think more critically. We can do better than this.

While the 2016 election was highly controversial, and everyone blames everyone else for the disaster we’re currently dealing with, numbers are not controversial. They are not subjective. Whether you want to blame this shit on Russia, on people in coal country who won’t admit that there hasn’t been coal in decades, on sexism, on the DNC, on middle class white people who want to buy hummus at Trader Joe’s but not sit next to a vaguely Middle-Eastern-looking person on a plane, on clickbait, people like this guy (who my roommate used to sell cigarettes and batteries to at the gas station because he was banned from their hometown WalMart), or fucking aliens, it’s actually really easy to know exactly what the fuck happened.

Y’ALL MOTHERFUCKERS DIDN’T VOTE.

Voter turnout was at a 20 year low in the 2016 election. About half of the country didn’t even show up. A lot of people went, “I hate Trump and I hate Hillary, so I’m not even gonna fucking bother. That will fucking show them!”

Y’all showed your damn selves.

I say this with the understanding that to an extent, being able to vote in America is a privilege. Over two thirds of the people in this country have less than a thousand dollars in savings to their name, and are a flu away from complete destitution. On a single night in January 2015, over 500,000 people were outside sleeping on the fucking street. America is in the fucking shit. When you can barely afford food or housing and are on the brink of, or in the middle of, total fucking ruin, voting for shit is the last of your concerns. And unlike in other countries where the president can play piano, has solid fucking taste in Romantic era composers, and can speak in full sentences, Americans don’t get the day off on voting day.

You ever think about how fucked up it is that we vote during the workweek? You ever think about why?

It is America’s most vulnerable people who desperately need to get rid of the bloated, corrupt, and apparently actively sociopathic politicians that are literally trying to kill them, but they have to work instead. It also needs to be noted that politicians have been doing their best to undermine the influence of minority communities across the country for generations through gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and all kinds of fun shit.

On top of all that, our education system is fucking garbage. So many Americans who desperately need their voices heard, so they can have the opportunities they should already fucking have as citizens of an alleged first world country, have been thrown the fuck under the bus. According to a 2013 study by the soon to be destroyed Department of Education, 14% of US adults can’t fucking read, about a fifth of our population reads below a 5th grade level, and another fifth of high school graduates can’t fucking read. You need to be able to read to vote. And when voting on ballot issues you need far above a fifth grade comprehension.

While I was one of the privileged fucks that graduated high school and graduated able to read at a high level, I, like many Americans, left high school knowing absolutely fuck all about our shitty government. The vast majority of Americans don’t know basic shit about how our government works. They just know they don’t like it.

Bottom line: The powers that be are actually actively trying to stop people from voting, because within our system of government, votes fucking count. Knowledge fucking counts. I’m not asking you to believe in the great American experiment, trust in our leaders, or even agree with America’s national or global agendas. Whether you think America is the land of the free and a force for good on earth or a despicable imperialist war machine, I’m not asking you to change your mind.

I’m saying that if you are one of the Americans who is lucky enough to even be able to read this, and be able to comprehend it to the extent that you can decide whether you think I’m a fucking idiot or not, and you fucking give a shit, and you are in a position where voting won’t destroy you financially and you can physically get to your polling place, you need to vote. Vote nationally. Vote locally. Get your fucking shit together.

In fact, people ignoring local voting and only showing up sometimes for presidential elections is a big reason why we are dealing with so many complacent, shitty, out of touch, and even evil politicians that are actively harming the world. Unusual for me, I would like to end this article with a motivational story. Some feel good, good times shit I usually pretend isn’t real.

This is hella real, though.

I live in Philadelphia, PA. I have many jawns. I spend half of my life waiting for Septa busses and know where to actually get good cheesesteaks. If you’re not from here you don’t know, and I’m not gonna tell you.

I recently voted in the the Philly primaries. Here is proof that I voted, they even gave me the fun little sticker, so you know that unlike many of our elected officials, I try my best to do the things I talk about and advocate for. It doesn’t always work out, but this time I could totally handle it. If you live in a city, there’s a good chance your polling place is within blocks of your house. Here’s one of the many places where you can check.

Philly is a blue ass city. It’s so blue that the primaries for local democratic officials are basically the election itself. It’s been Democrat as fuck forever, which has not really worked to this city’s benefit in a lot of ways. Essentially, our democratic elected officials feel like they have carte blanche to do whatever fucked up shit they want because there is no republican threat to keep them in check, and oh boy have they. Our last DA, Seth Williams, was indicted recently on bribery and extortion charges and nursing home fraud.

This motherfucker stole thousands of dollars from his mother who is dying of Parkinson’s. He spent $20K of the money that was supposed to go to her nursing home care getting extra guac at Chipotle.

We as a society need to come together to stop giving millennials shit for loving avocados too much and instead call out Seth Williams.

Boo, Seth Williams.

Boooo.

What Philly has done that is fucking remarkable, is come together in a concerted response against our increasingly malevolent and shitty politicians. The local election had the highest turnout in years. The number of voters went up by 50%, and you know what fucking happened?

We are gonna replace a guy that stole money from his dying mother as DA with a civil rights lawyer who has defended Black Lives Matter and Occupy protesters. We are going to have an anti-drug-war and anti-death-penalty progressive as our Defense Attorney.

Fucking Larry Krasner, my dog.

What is this, a politician who cares about human beings? Do we live in fucking Norway or something?

No, we fucking don’t. It turns out most people give a shit about other people and actively want to improve the world around them. While we are not on that Scandanavian level where we put out joke-erotic stadium rock ballads about our favorite peace-loving humanitarian politicians, we really don’t have to be. We just have to realize our own influence, how we can exercise it, and do our best.

In our tumultuous political climate, where sanctuary cities may play a huge role in fighting against the complete moral and functional collapse of our country at the hands of a bunch of crazy people, who think that school children across the country need guns to protect themselves from bears, and you can spy on someone using a microwave, people who know and care and are in a position to stand up for those who have been systematically barred from participating in our governmental processes really need to get their fucking shit together.

Be politically aware, locally and nationally. You can march and scream and wear all the fucking pink hats you want, but if you are in a position where you can vote, and you choose not to, you are fuckin up, my dog.


Support Isadora’s writing on our site by subscribing to our newsletter on this link, Subscribe here!

---

Isadora Teich is a freelance writer and traveler. They’ve written social media copy, tabloids, news, erotica, opinion pieces, quizzes, have worked on film scripts, and do some ghostwriting from time to time. Isadora lives for artistic experimentation and is working on a novel.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glamthane/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlamThane

 

Jobs is hard, man.

While I can’t speak for you personally, something along the lines of this exact scenario has occurred to me and so many of the other working people I know, that it can’t just be a one off weird thing.

You see a job description. It’s entry level. They want two or more years of experience and a list of degrees and skills that reads like a James Joyce novel. The description is also full of avocado culture conscious capitalism bullshit about how you will “grow with them” and “spiritually evolve” by making less than a dime off every dollar you rake in for them. It’s kind of terrifying. You figure there’s no way in hell you’ll get it, but you figure, “what’s another resume and cover letter thrown into the void?”

You hear back from them. At the interview they tell you a weird version of what they are looking for, so convoluted that you aren’t even sure what they hypothetically want you to do. You just know that it sounds very businessy. They say a lot of official sounding words, but none of it really means anything. You thought you knew what they did going into the interview, but now you’re kind of unsure. It’s like an absurd play— one that you went tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a sliver of a shot at being cast in.

“…millennials are particularly infamous for being unsatisfied at work, and tired of this shit, when no one has ever liked it”

[Read more…]

So, let’s get a few things thing out of the way before we start this up. I’m bisexual. I’m Ashkenazi Jewish. I was born with a vagina. I come from a pretty financially unstable background, and I’m mentally ill as fuck. While I look white enough that a cop isn’t gonna shoot me in the face in broad daylight and claim that I deserve it because I have an attitude problem, white Christians have been doing their best to oppress and exterminate people like me for thousands of years.

While the risk I face is not as dire as the millions of people Trump wants to deport, or the middle eastern children Trump and his friends will bomb to supposedly protect, but are not willing to allow into our country, which is largely descended of immigrants and refugees, I cannot help but look the fuck around and notice that shit is so fucked up right now. I also can’t help but notice that the people who only wish their ancestors had done a better job of killing my predecessors, so I would never have been born and couldn’t mouth off, are in power.

Fear is in my DNA. Being able to properly assess threats and sheer luck are the only things that separates me and my family members from the millions of our dead kin. My great grandmother escaped the pogroms in Russia on a fucking boat with a baby and (probably) a potato strapped to her. I’m only alive because she went “fuck this” and came to America. In her honor, I have looked around, said “fuck this,” and am now working on hopefully leaving America.

[Read more…]

 

If you truly believe that all young people hate older people as viciously as they seem to hate us, I guess the popularity of Bernie Sanders with young people would be confusing to you.

If you are really that set on ignoring everything Bernie Sanders has ever said and stood for, and the complaints of the majority of Americans, because you deeply believe that people of different age groups are destined to fight each other like some kind of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon bullshit, I honestly don’t even know what to tell you.

I’ve encountered this mindset a lot. Older people who have done shitty things to me have tried to dismiss my anger by telling me that “I’m just too sensitive” or “I just hate old people.” When I was a college student, a middle aged woman I was at dinner with bragged about her wealth and famous connections for hours, and then tried to nickel and dime me into paying for her dinner and wine. I don’t think I was old enough to even legally drink at the time.

Obviously, I hated her. And I’m not subtle. If I hate a bitch, the bitch knows about it. You know what this woman said to me?

“You don’t like me because I’m old. I can tell.”

Let’s get this shit out of the way. Most normal people do not inherently dislike or like somebody because of their age. You know what most people like? Feeling validated. You know what most people don’t fucking like? Feeling ripped off.

“When we say “What the fuck, America?” most older people straight up ignore us or tell us to shut up.

Bernie Sanders has been asking “What the fuck, America?” and actively trying to fix it for decades.”