intellectual properties

post script/ramble

at first i was afraid of the act itself, but with some words of encouragement, i soon got over that. later, it was realizing that with the internet, what would have formerly been a discrete (and discreet) experience now lives on forever in the public eye.

walking down a runway in front of 300 of my peers with nothing on top, a corset, and hotpants. no bra, no shirt, no pants, no skirt, no fishnets, no tights. this might not be that big of a big deal, like going to the beach, if it weren’t on a runway, but getting up on a stage on a bathing suit would also be incredibly uncomfortable for most women. therefore, i almost turned down the opportunity to do this thing that i really wanted to do because of body shame, and also because of a nagging question that goes something like: what kind of girl does that make me?

what does it matter? some antiquated thoughts about being a properly lady mixed in with the memories of my father not wanting me to wear long earrings and my parents upset at my first tattoo rattling around and up against my rebellious nature and my feelings that our culture is so incredibly stupid about bodies and what they mean and are meant for, wanting to say “fuck you” to the notion that “nice girls”, smart girls, real women don’t have flaming red hair and tattoos and they would never, ever take their clothes off.

so at the moment at the fitting when i had to decide “yes i will do this” or “no i won’t”, despite my anxiety, i couldn’t bring myself to look at the designer and say “no, i’m sorry, i can’t do that.” i realized i would be more ashamed of saying “no, i can’t do that” than i would be of being naked. so i said yes. partly to challenge myself, to do the thing that scares me, and partly to be part of the growing movement that says hey: first of all, stop making us feel ashamed of our bodies, and also: sexy+woman does not = any lesser an anything.

i also recalled vera’s similar experience over a year ago, and the feedback she was given: “You’re totally fine. Enjoy this. One day you’ll be 90, and your body won’t look like this anymore. Be thankful for what you have now.”

but then watching some horrible reality show on VH1 the other day i see women with fake boobs and lip injections and hair extensions and stripper shoes – and i struggle to balance my image of myself and how i might appear to other people against that extreme. i don’t want to look like *them*. but now, with this, who thinks that about me?

i know mainstream culture has come a long way around on not judging books by their covers, but it will never be full circle. millions of years of DNA and basic human nature prevents that. so was this some sort of post – post- feminist (re)action, or playing into generations of objectification? so many strippers will tell you that they are feminists, and that they are not the ones being used, but the users.

i’ve been waiting all week to see how i would feel when the photos came out, knowing i can’t take it back. i don’t have any regrets about it. yet. and i don’t know if i will or won’t.

in short – this is one of the bravest and most uncomfortable things i’ve done in a while; i think i needed to push that line to see who i really was/am in that respect, and i’ve been processing it for days. any harsh comments will promptly be deleted; i’ve thought enough about it already.

more alchemy09 photos

originally uploaded by wetribe.

i would post some more of the ones of me here, but they aren’t…how shall i say? safe for work….

http://www.claytonjmitchell.com/alchemy

http://www.cultouremag.com/alchemy3/
(because of this The Black Angels “Manipulation” is my new favorite song. bonus! )

xplr drxns

i feel that maintaining a consistent blog has forced me to do all of these things. this is why i like blogging. it causes me to explore.

~via, taken from thebarstoolromantic, which i just discovered today, and sadly, just today, it went on hiatus.

the sound of

.

“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen”

or

“Where (or of what) one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence.”

– Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein

.
.
.
in the places where i am silent, i am soft and brittle.

that which is revealed and unobscured is real, but it is not the essence.

the weight of the unseen, the mysteries of the darkness, the places where we only sometimes go and find the truth -

the silence after a gunshot, the lack of breath, the stillness of a night alone -

often, the strongest thing you can say or do is nothing.

learning which fights to fight, which words to speak, which thoughts to corral and which to let go into the ether:

a silent struggle inside, the end of which is only the beginning.

(see also: How to Deal with an Existential Crisis)

always a woman

over the weekend, i thought a lot about what it means to be a confident woman.

and while my pondering was mostly related to the physical, it was also about just what it means to be a woman these days, and what to do with this sex we are born with, how it changes our perception of who we are, will be, and might have been, affects what we feel comfortable saying or doing, where we can walk at night, and what our desires be. among so many other things.

it’s funny how when you think about something long enough, the world starts to change to present things to you on the subject. two things i read this morning:

1. Why Michelle Obama inspires women around the globe

Heather Ferreira works in the slums of Mumbai, India, where she has watched thousands of women live under a “curse.”

The women she meets in the squalid streets where “Slumdog Millionaire” was filmed are often treated with contempt, she says. They’re considered ugly if their skin and hair are too dark. They are deemed “cursed” if they only have daughters. Many would-be mothers even abort their children if they learn they’re female.

Yet lately she says Indian women are getting another message from the emergence of another woman thousands of miles away. This woman has dark skin and hair. She walks next to her husband in public, not behind. And she has two daughters. But no one calls her cursed. They call her Michelle Obama, the first lady.

“She could be a new face for India,” says Ferreira, program officer for an HIV-prevention program run by World Vision, an international humanitarian group. “She shows women that it’s OK to have dark skin and to not have a son. She’s quite real to us.”

Those who focus on Michelle Obama’s impact on America are underestimating her reach. The first lady is inspiring women of color around the globe to look at themselves, and America, in fresh ways.

(and to think i was so concerned about hotpants. perspective!)

2. this illustrated piece in the NYT is one of the most interesting things i’ve seen in quite a long time. srsly – take a few minutes. especially if you happen to be a woman.

saturday night

@alchemy with my twin, kamileon

double conjoined-at-the-waist corset by antiseptic fashion

earrings by kiyumi jewelry

airbrush by Icarus

taught v. learned

on Miss California and her statement regarding gay marriage: this part of her answer is totally fine with me:

“I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other,” Prejean responded. “But in my country, and in my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.”

i was with her up to that point. you think “it’s great” that people have the choice in America, but you don’t agree. i feel the same way about a lot of things. (i wonder if she feels the same way about abortion?) the part that put me off, however, which no one else seems to be focusing on, was the last sentence:

“No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”

first of all, anytime you start a sentence with “no offense”, YOU KNOW IT’S OFFENSIVE. and stating that makes you look like a bigot. as the most popular comment on the SF Gate article says: “Good for her to speak her mind! But her grand children will know her as the bigot that she was.”

secondly and more importantly, however, i can’t tell you how many times i’ve heard people defend their racism/sexism/ethically questionable position or action with “that’s how i was raised“. there was a time in america where the same thing defense could be said about believing black people are racially inferior and therefore not equal, or that it’s ok to beat your children as punishment. and you know what? not everything you were taught by your parents is correct. not all parents are saints. saying that, to me, is like saying: “I haven’t learned anything growing up, and I don’t have the ability to make my own conclusions. I believe what I was taught, even if the world changes and new information comes to light.”

i thought about all this when i heard it on the news, got irritated, and then sort of forgot about it. but then i read that bit in the paper yesterday about her going on The Today Show and defending it again by saying:

“It’s not about being politically correct,” she said. “For me, it’s about being biblically correct.”

and i thought my head was going to explode.

as @markmorford tweeted: “Meet the new face of Christian GOP marriage: blonde, skinny, not all that bright, does exactly what she’s told. Perfect.”

btw, here’s a pretty decent site discussing the context of homosexuality in the bible.

botany: a dance

on a lighter note related to food and eating, this should be amusing:

Michael Pollan’s breakthrough book, “The Botany of Desire,” looks at the relationship between humans and four types of domesticated plants – apples, tulips, potatoes and marijuana – in terms of human desire and what the plants represent.

So, naturally, when Alex Harvey read Pollan’s book, he envisioned a musical….

Alchemy in the SFBG

starving

last night i read a 4-year-old (2005) Time magazine that had a 30-something page special on the American obesity epidemic (that’s where that last post came from), and one of the articles was Can You Be Fat and Healthy? there was a lot of easy to absorb and interesting comparative information in there about being physiologically fit vs. perceived as healthy just by weight and pant size. and then the question:

If you eat well, work out regularly and walk away from your doctor’s office with straight A’s on your physical, what does it matter if you can’t wriggle into slim-cut jeans?

yes, what does it matter, really? why can’t we just be happy in our bodies as long as we’re healthy? how has body image become so twisted?

and then today, thx to Tiny Cat Pants, i read this article about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment (see wikipedia also), which should absolutely be read beginning to end, especially by any women who restrict their calories for diet purposes, but i’ll post a few eye-opening findings here about the effects of a 1,600 restricted-calorie diet on grown men, noting that 1,600 calories is a lot more than a lot of people on diets, especially people on CLEANSES, allow themselves to eat:

Continue reading »