#or going for OTHER passive feminine women with no experience who will never initiate anything

[cruelsister-moved2]

no but thinking about it gay girl game and straight girl game are COMPLETELY different so I wonder how many of them their problem is just that theyre trying to do the same thing with both. especially if you're used to men being obsessed w you and suddenly you basically have to learn a whole new skill it's easy to get discouraged and just go back to what you know.

i see these girls saying like ohhh but girls dont text first and it's like well? you text her then! its not hard to talk to another woman, you do it every day. the type of girls that expect mascs to hit on them but don't realise if someone's visibly gay and you're not, you need to be the one to approach them and make your intentions clear. if you're used to just waiting around and falling into a relationship I get why gay dating would seem hard to you. but it isn't hard. you're just really bad at it. sorry. there's still time to learn <3

[flickeringart]

Mars Retrograde in the natal chart

I’ve written about planets in retrograde in the natal chart before, find the post about Mercury, Venus and Mars here and the post about Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto here.

In this post I’m going a bit deeper into Mars Rx.

As we all probably know, Mars is the planet of personal drive, aggression, assertiveness and outward directed energy. Mars it works on behalf of the personality as the warrior – as forward movement, strength and desire. Mars enables us to be goal oriented, to stand up for ourselves and have a sense of direction and momentum. Depending on the sign Mars is in, the style in which one goes about one’s interests will vary. For example, an Aries Mars will be direct, impulsive, straightforward, loud, non-apologetic and open in taking action. Taurus Mars will be calm, patient, stubborn and energy preserving. Gemini will be cerebral, creative, mischievous and all over the place. Cancer Mars will be careful and protective of emotions while trying to secure a goal. Leo Mars will be demonstrative, proud and demanding. Virgo Mars will be purposeful and practical, going over the steps required to reach a specific goal. Libra Mars will try to smoothly get other people to get on board with one’s direction without ruffling any feathers, usually through using reason and logic. Scorpio Mars will assert its will “undercover” often through subtle yet effective emotional blackmail and strategy. Sagittarius Mars will be bold and restless, potentially quite clumsy and funny. Capricorn Mars will be serious, patient, mature, responsible and steadfast. Aquarius Mars will potentially be acting on behalf of a collective mission and thought-movement, considering what lies in the best interest of the “group”. Pisces Mars will be easily directed by influences from the environment, compassionate, soft and a bit confusing.

Having Mars direct in the natal chart means that desire is merged with action. In other words, action is employed in the name of desire. In the most basic sense, a person sees something of value (Venus) and Mars is the one who is in charge of conquering it. Venus and Mars can’t really be discussed separately for this reason because something has to catch one’s attention (Venus) in order for there to be anything to attain and achieve. Simply put, Venus is the object, person, place of esteem and Mars is the force that is in charge of closing the gap between the person and that which is desired.

When Mars is retrograde in the natal chart the drive to achieve is equally as strong as with Mars direct, but it is turned inward instead of being directed outward. This causes inner frustration, pent-up energy and often feelings of being ineffectual – unable to directly go after what one wants. Many sources state that since Mars is a masculine planet, Mars Rx is more bothersome for men, as women tend to not suffer from lacking in masculine traits as acutely because of identification with femininity (Venus). This is probably true, yet women will similarly experience the debilitating effects of Mars Rx – sometimes through the lover and partner of choice.

Some sources state that natives with Mars Rx had a childhood where they were not allowed to get angry or to stand up for themselves. Perhaps no one listened or bothered, perhaps displays of aggression were forcefully disapproved of and punished. There could have been a lack of support of the native taking initiative and paving his or her own path. I have had the reverse experience of being accused of not being assertive enough. I have Mars Rx in Virgo in the 3rd house and I was constantly criticized for lack of extroversion growing up, particularly in school (the 3rd house rules lower education) by teachers and peers. I was “too quiet”, “too inhibited”. In a sense, I was attacked for my “lack of Mars”. Unfortunately, I think this is quite common for people with Mars in Rx, we seem to invite aggression (in my case criticism because Virgo rules my 3rd house) in the area of life (house) that Mars is placed. I never attempted to “strike back” but kept my own pent up anger inside feeling worse and worse about myself, humiliated, yet for some reason unable to project the intensity outwardly – probably because it would only have caused me more reprimanding. However, the positive thing I’ve noticed with Mars Rx is that I have the ability to act independently of outside influences. In a sense I can act without desire being merged with action. Or rather, I can choose to redirect the build-up of intensity into unrelated activity. It’s definitely counter-intuitive, but it’s very useful in situations where one is required to act despite of a goal. Since people with Mars Rx have an obscure desire nature, there’s the ability to simply put one foot in front of the other and see what comes of the action.

(Buy products with my art here)

There’s something to be said about inviting aggression from the outside with Mars Rx. Other people seem to want to cause a reaction by provoking the Mars Rx person to make them stand up for themselves and display some assertiveness. This never works because Mars Rx people don’t react defensively to personal attacks on the spot. They sit tight, face the situation calmly yet is feeling a build-up of energy that is likely going to erupt later, when the situations has passed and when it’s no longer relevant. They get angry with themselves for not acting on the spot, for not saying the things they wanted to say and display the strength that they really do possess. Mars Rx people often question their potency and can beat themselves up for not being more willful. As stated, the bouts of anger come only at a later time, which does nothing to gain the individual a reputation of being impactful. The moment has passed and the opportunity to strike is gone. It’s important to not be too hard with oneself, Mars Rx isn’t a character flaw, it’s part of one’s unique blueprint and one would do better focusing on the benefits rather than the down-sides. Mars is after all about confidence and there’s no reason why Mars Rx should settle for feeling “less than” confident. The key is to not look for external proof of one’s potency and be content with knowing that one is powerful despite appearances of lack of assertiveness. With Mars Rx one should avoid comparing oneself to other people. Comparison and competitiveness don’t benefit these people, for obvious reasons. Measuring one’s strength against another will leave one feeling neither strong nor confident because the strength of Mars Rx is passive and felt internally.

In order to not feel emasculated with Mars Rx, one has to be squarely doing one’s own thing and avoid caring about what other people think one should do or even what oneself think one should do based on social values. This is the only way to be happy with this natal planet in my opinion. Stop competing = stop depleting, stop comparing = stop caring. Mars Rx people have the opportunity to be real individualists when they start valuing their internal integrity rather than the outward display of it. In a sense, Mars Rx is a very pure Mars. It’s simple action, unmotivated and unresponsive. It will not win us any battles in the moment; Mars Rx doesn’t build any momentum, energy is extended outward in bursts, starts and stops. The approach that works the best is to let action flow through, rather than directing it deliberately. This is usually going to translate into a quite soft energy but it can be quite beautiful. The famous male ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov had Mars Rx – he was especially admired for his gracious jumps and seemingly effortless soaring in his dancing. He’s a good example of Mars Rx manifesting in a very powerful way – he uses his Mars to move independently in a non-confronting “Venusian fashion”. Yet, no one could claim that he lacks strength. The famous basket player Michael Jordan also has Mars Rx and he is widely considered one of the greatest basketball player of all time. It makes sense that dance and sport should suit these people because these activities require starts and stops more than building momentum.

Mars Rx has a reputation for being sluggish and lethargic. I think this is inaccurate to accept as a rule, but it is certainly possible for these people to seem like they are. Other people often perceive Mars Rx people to be at least very chill and calm, which is not always the case, it’s just that the boil hasn’t reached the surface yet and when it does, it’s out of tune with the outer situation and its momentum. The Mars Rx person might sit tight in a social interaction, never showing any sign of annoyance or agitation, despite being pissed off. It might be frustrating to not be able to release energy directly but Mars Rx energy is better channeled into purposeful activity, into independent action. Some sources claim that Mars Rx can be prone to self-destructive behavior and self-harm because of pent-up energy and unexpressed anger. I think this is true, especially if one lives in a very hostile environment and has a hard time, because of one’s Mars Rx, to do something about it – to fight back, to spontaneously immerse oneself in “combat” and defend oneself. It could also be because one’s aggression, when openly displayed, is turned to a social disadvantage. People might claim that one is “over-reacting” because the anger response is out of proportion with the situation at hand. “Over-reacting” is common problem for people with Mars Rx, because they’re typically calm, until they burst – and then they’re commonly labeled crazy or even abusive. There’s no way to “win” socially with Mars Rx, I find – either one is accused of being too passive or too reactive. This social disadvantage could easily turn into self-hate and self-rejection, because one doesn’t get any approval from the outside. Depression is sometimes linked to planets in retrograde, and this is quite understandable, in the light of everything that they imply. Depression is after all often associated with repressed anger, of a blocked drive and frustrated desire.

People with Mars Rx say that it gets better with age and that Mars is gradually more easily expressed because of experience and understanding of oneself. This might be partly due to Mars going direct in one’s progressed chart, however, one cannot make Mars go direct in one’s natal chart, it is a fixed blueprint that one will have to contend with. This is not to say that one cannot become more conscious of one’s own psychology.

[kouhaiofcolor]

2020's finally over. Can we not go into 2021 pacifying texturism w "It's just hair" tho?

It was "just hair" until Black Women started exercising the freedom to discover the unique needs & maintenance beneficial to our hair. Then as soon as non black women got wind of it & the nerve to lurk on platforms the natural hair community was uprising thru, nowadays you've got all these non black women bandwagoning & hashtagging literally everything under the sun w/ this fake ass inclusiveness, advocacy, relatability & support for textured hair. Like all women have suffered oppression around wearing their real hair 😒. Like all races of women have been socially targeted in blatant discriminations against their hair texture, complexion, & how acceptable they are or are not together. I hate the "All Hair (Matters/Is Beautiful/Is 'Good Hair')" clout bc it talks over & totally overwrites the foundational issue around hair & toxic femininity that, at its misogynoir core, has always been that textured hair is unprofessional, unkempt, unmanageable, & ugly. Colorism also erases the initial creators of the movement — which were Monoracial Brown & Dark Skinned Black Women; put some respek onnat, period. Straight hair is not oppressed; wavy hair is not oppressed; all hair is not oppressed. Black hair is. This "all hair is good hair" bullshit is so monotonous & inconsiderate bc its almost like a passive aggressive refusal to acknowledge what antiblackness imposed on Black Women alone. None of you non black know what it's like in depth to be the descendants of a race of ppl who's features, traits & harmless existence have always been insulted, hated & envied by the whole world. Esp not all at once. That is something totally unique to us inflicted & imposed by everyone else since the beginning of time. So why be out here chasing clout under tags & movements & in spaces you are no real part of? Why wanna be a part of the Black Girl Experience that bad? Yall have identities in everything outside of us. Why vulture off of this like you even have reasons to be there? We were investing in ourselves & trying to teach generations of Monoracial Black People how to manage their hair texture & develop cathartic habits thru self care. Nb ppl ruined that.

Looser hair textures have omnipresent representation & acceptance all, over, the, world. There is no lack of being seen, romanticized or exemplified for having texture 1a-3b hair; esp on the prevalent basis around colorism we see regularly on social media & on tv. Yet what remains of the community as it stands is today the furthest thing from textured or Black at all. At this point we owe the decline (if not death) of the natural hair community to the parasitic latching of non black women, the infiltration of "pick me's" & antiblackness generally — but I still be feeling like even that's not direct enough. We're talking ab something authentic & wholesome for Monoracial Black Women created by us for us being straight up sabotaged by races of women the cause was totally irrelevant to & in regard of. Bc that's how cosmetic industries have been towards us for centuries. Bc we were always excluded & thought of least & last. By other women. By all other women; don't get it twisted. So we set out on figuring ourselves out. Doing research on our own. Incorporating self care & beneficial habits in our lives to nourish & feel better ab ourselves & disprove the racist shit non black cultures & ppl either ignorantly surmise, make up or project ab Black Girls. That includes Black Men too in case yall thought yall were safe. Yall are some of the most toxic & prevalent faces behind colorism, antiblackness & misogynoir among black ppl specifically.

But anyhow. At first a lot of the initiation of the vulturing in the nhc light skinned women were the face of. Esp w the clout around having 4c hair amongst the beige-est, most ambiguously or straight up non black individuals, good lord. Then it went mainstream for huwight ppl, whom enevitably invited themselves, & following were the masses of non black women looking to pillage for themselves while the community was being swallowed by the crowdedness & irrelevant content being put out there (specifically on YouTube, Twitter & Instagram) by "hair gurus" of the light skinned, biracial or non black texture 1a-3b variety. Hair gurus who literally may as well've fallen from the sky & met social media stardom overnight based on their hair texture & complexion alone they're so brand new. Hair gurus who aren't even in the community for legitimately informative reasons or purposes unionized in Blackness. They're whole natural hair niche be — as a favorite natural of mine put it — manipulating textured hair into a sort of submission to appear or behave like looser textures do. They'll swear by 'game changer' products they both mention & only use like once & insist you should invest in a $30 8oz. bottle of clarifying shampoo or a $35 cowash if you want your hair to behave & look like theirs. Again, mind you, these types of individuals casually claim having texture 4 hair when they're anything but, just for the attention it brings from both ppl who will gullibly follow their every word & who know what kind of scamming to look for & won't.

If it's "just hair", how come so many of you that are non black are riding the wave? If it's just hair, why have so many of you found refuge in using the hashtags & participating/contributing uninvited? How come so many ran to get a seat at the table w Black Women only to kick them to the side the more popular it became if its just hair? How come nobody was calling it natural hair before Black Women created the nhc & started growing their own? Why was there no natural hair community before Black Women coined it, reminder, for ourselves? If it's just hair, how come so many ran to youtube to begin w to start channels for their own non-textured journeys? If its just hair, why is the nhc so damn obsessed w defining curls & length than overall health & gradual growth? If its just hair, why are white girls anywhere near this? Yall are the most out of place of anyone, honestly. Even if you're curly. Why do light skinned girls get to both represent textured hair & "good hair"? How does that even make sense? Thats just putting monoracial black girls in isolated boxes they're not even allowed to be symbols of or in. If its just hair, why's it so unheard of to see the roles of Black female characters in just ab anything played by actual Black Women? If its just hair, why have so many non or partially Black women worked in ignorant succession to water down & essentially wash out the Monoracial Black Women vital to the community's relevance at all? I really do not get the involvement of non black women in this movement at all — esp when culturally you have no reason to call your hair natural. There are no & have never been prejudice notions around having or growing texture 1a-3b hair. There's nothing oppressive ab it, either. Yall have gotta stop w that. You've already made a mockery of something that was supposed to be beautiful by making yourselves comfortable in & hijacking our space itfp. Theres far too much misrepresentation of textured hair to keep up w now. This is why i say the nhc (as well as culture vulturing generally) has just become nbwoc copying white women copying light skinned women copying Black Women, bc the audacity is unreal.

Its not just hair tho. To those it applies to, yall proved that the minute Black Women started going public w their growth journeys. The minute conversations ab "shrinkage this & 4c that" broadened & went mainstream. Yall couldn't move all at once fast enough when you realized you weren't as special as you thought & had always been told — esp w melanin at its modern value. Now all yall either "natural", seeking black men for either casual sex or cultural infiltration via fetishised reproduction, certain you have texture 4 hair or know the best tips for a DIY silk press 🤭😂 yall can't sit w us. You don't belong here. I'm calling yall out on allll the bs around this "All Hair Matters" garbage, cus yall are now sputtering the same shit while literally wearing your own non black hair in black styles. Be consistent. Make some fucking sense. I don't wanna be part of this fake ass girl squad propaganda that says every other woman never looked at Black Women's hair like it was bottomest of the barrel, foh. We're not on the same team & yall know it.

[thegoodenoughblogger]

notes on hysteria (Verhaeghe)

intro

This is nothing more than a precis of a chapter from Paul Verhaeghe’s tight, readable, immersed-in-theory book Does the Woman exist?  This precis is rough, and Freud’s theory of hysteria and femininity is, I think, very problematic indeed – which is partly what makes it so compelling.  And Verhaeghe’s analysis is elegant in the extreme.

It is 1896 when we first see the idea of the double trauma. Memories provoke trauma if they evoke much earlier, childhood, sexual traumas (elaborated in Freud’s second essay on the defensive neuropsychoses).  The child experiences, passively, a sexual trauma which they cannot understand, feel or process.  The memory remains neutral…

…but let’s be very clear, it is neutral not because it is not dreadful, but because it is so dreadful, so enigmatically awful; Josh Cohen, in his excellent little book on Freud, says: “the intolerable truth often appears in the guise of the tolerably trivial”…

…and is only reactivated later, during puberty.  Only then does the first scene release its unpleasurable sensations.

And then, the whole complex is repressed – the person converts the memory into a bodily symptom, a kind of exaggerated symbol for what has been repressed.  (And what is hysteria if not excessive?  Having been not understood for so long, aren’t these memories bound to be exaggerated?)

*

something relentlessly traumatic

Freud wrote two papers in 1898 and 1899, one on forgetting, and one on screen memories.  We see an expanded version of both in the Psychopathology.  In the famous Signorelli example, Freud describes the process of remembering – we see signifiers linked synchronically and diachronically; we see a signified linked to one particular element which has been repressed, and which becomes a kind of nucleus.  Everything is there, laid out in the Signorelli moment.

Ancient repressed content hooks onto and takes over more recent material, which is then also repressed.  The more recent repression occurs because of the unpleasure the original situation evokes.  The hysteric classically will do anything not-to-know, because knowing is too painful

A later paper, on the part played by sexuality in the aetiology of neuroses, shows that Freud never abandoned this trauma theory. There is always something relentlessly traumatic in hysteria.

So: why is there repression?  And what is there to be repressed?

*

The obvious answer to the first question is: because of the sway of the pleasure principle.  But the infantile trauma (T1) only becomes unpleasurable as a result of the subsequent event (T2) – (see here for more on the theory of nachtraglichkeit, and the effect of T1 and T2 on each other) – and yet, T2 itself is only unpleasurable because of something quietly, almost benignly unpleasurable in T1.

Freud decided there must be something inherent in sexuality itself that is traumatic – something about the awakening encounter with sexuality – so does that mean T1 is unpleasurable?  If so, why isn’t it repressed when it happens?

Perhaps because the child finds pleasure in his or her sexuality.

There’s lots of debate about the detail of this – but psychoanalysts agree: for hysteria, there must be a T1 and a T2; and repression occurs because of a conflict between them.

But there is a problem with this theory.  It doesn’t really answer our first question: why would the child repress a fantasy which brings pleasure?  And why would s/he then repeat this as a teenager in a second conflict?

*

femininity/passivity?

Freud wrote to Fliess: “Hysteria necessarily presupposes a primary experience of unpleasure – that is, of a passive nature”.  Hence, why women are more prone to hysteria.  For Freud, femininity seems difficult to describe without simply falling back on the idea of passivity.  Freud in 1897: “it is to be suspected that what is essentially repressed is always what is feminine”.

Early on, Freud discovers something: the navel of the dream, the thing that cannot be interpreted, which cannot be “psychically elaborated” – the real.  The only response to this real is anxiety.  (This real is associated with the trauma of passivity – passivity becomes a stand-in signifier because femininity is beyond words.)

By definition, there is no signifier for the real. And there is no signifier for femininity.  Therefore, we could say that the real is equivalent to the femininity.  Or we could say, the lack in the symbolic system is equivalent to Woman.  Or we could be really arithmetic and say, Woman = A.

(All of this, by the way, seems more satisfactory than the equation of femininity with passivity – to me, anyway.)

This real cannot be repressed, because there is no signifier to repress; instead, there is “the intensification of a boundary idea” – that is, S(A), the signifier for the lack in the Other. This is primary repression – an intensification of a particular surrogate signifier where originally there was none.  Secondary repression – “repression proper” – comes later.

*

the purpose of fantasies

So: primary defence aims to cover up a gap – it puts up a structure, which becomes “the first symbol of repressed material” – and is covered over by a substitute signifier, S(A).  This signifier becomes increasingly complex, as it attempts to psychically work over the traumatic real.  Signifiers become constructions – hysterical fantasies.

What’s the purpose of these fantasies?  They “elaborate an understanding, a posteriori, of what was originally not understood.  Where the symbolic lacks a signifier in the real, the hysteric appeal to the imaginary register, in order to find some kind of interpretation that works”.  In other words, the real enters the symbolic, but incompletely – there remains some unsymbolised, unarticulated real.  So the hysteric looks to the imaginary.  But of course, the Borromean knot of the RSI shows us that the imaginary is in part subjected to the symbolic – so this lack in the symbolic is bound to keep reappearing.

5 clinical things to note here:

a)    Hysterics prefer visual representation – the less words predominate, the more images do – as Freud noted when he could see the painting by Signorelli clearly, but couldn’t remember his name.  when he did recall the name, the image faded.

b)    The imaginary leads to the symbolic, where the symbolic will predominate (words taking the place of images), or it leads to the real: “the hysteric tries to produce a solution to A in the imaginary, and this results in the overtaking of the functional soma by the imaginarised body”.  This is where we find representations in the body – where, in lieu of speech, the body talks.  The free-floating uterus of ancient hysterical theory is just such a representation in the body.

c)     “The hysteric sexualises everything” – well, of course!  The hysteric asks a question – what is a woman? – which has no answer in the symbolic, no equivalent to the phallus.  The hysteric therefore tries to make everything the phallus.

d)    The imaginary interpretation won’t work – the hysteric may agree with it, but she will simply add it to her already vast imaginary system of interpretation.  Only a symbolic interpretation will work.

e)    Hysterics are perfect patients because they associate and associate, without ever reaching the traumatic end of that chain – they don’t want to get there, they just want a decent answer to the enigma of that original lack.

Early on, Freud notes those erogenous zones which give pleasure for the child and are then “left behind” – the mouth, the anus, etc.  The impulses which start from these zones are initially purely physical, but are retroactively psychically elaborated through fantasy.

The hysterical fantasy is one that identifies with the father – this is itself a primary defence, but it might become a target of subsequent repression.

*

an identification with the man

So, again: a trauma in the real is defended via an imaginary psychic elaboration – specifically, via a fantasy directed to the other, (specifically the father).  Or: “the end point of the defensive elaboration by the imaginary is an identification with the man”.

So now we have a primary and a secondary conflict: the primary conflict is an opposition between real and symbolic (there is no signifier in the symbolic for the woman to extricate herself from the real; the secondary conflict, which is the solution to the primary conflict, is being a woman by identifying with a man).

It is the second defence / conflict which Freud calls repression proper.  The hysteric “excessively” represses her masculine sexuality at puberty – the primacy of the clitoris must give way to the vagina.  Freud defines puberty as “when girls are seized by a non-neurotic sexual repugnance and males by libido”.

*

bisexuality

Freud and Fliess had subtly but fundamentally different views on infancy and gender.

Freud said: children avoid passivity / femininity until puberty, therefore one cannot speak of gender as a differentiated opposition – there is only one gender.  Or, “there is only one signifier for both sexes and this signifier is the phallus.” Only one signifier means a lack of differentiation, which in turn means the impossibility of rapport – hence, il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel.

Fliess described a complementary bisexuality, with a dominant and a repressed gender.  Therefore, an hysterical woman is someone who hasn’t repressed her masculine side – she’s a kind of failed man.  And an hysterical man hasn’t repressed his feminine side – he is homosexual.

Let’s go with Freud’s rather than Fliess’s.

So for Freud, the formula is:

mono-sexuality until puberty + non-neurotic sexual repugnance = woman.

Cf. Freud’s “Hysterical phantasies and their relation to bisexuality” – 1908.  Hysterical phantasies contain a double fantasy – active/male and passive/female. The same conflict as in puberty.

Cf also “Some general remarks on hysterical attacks” – 1909. “Hysterical neurosis … represents an excessive accentuation of the typical wave of repression which … allows the woman to emerge”.  Which tells us two things: that a normal becoming-a-woman involves the repression of masculine sexuality; and that hysteria occurs not when this repression fails, but when it goes too far, when it is excessive – i.e. when the girl doesn’t want to be a woman, but The Woman.

*

recapitulation

1.     Primary experience – traumatic – the real – lack of signifier.

2.     Psyche cannot deal with this.

3.     Defensive working-over via “boundary signifiers,” then fantasy.

 So, at the beginning of this account we had unpleasure as the motive for repression – but this seemed iffy because infant sexuality seemed to bring pleasure.  In fact, children’s sexual play, like all play, has an active part which seems to be directed at a dreaded passive part – like the fort-da game.

Does passivity mean unpleasure?  If so, are women doomed to unpleasure after puberty? And why the equation between passivity and unpleasure anyway?  Apparently passivity was the big taboo in the later Roman Empire.  But why?

Lacan’s theory of jouissance … at first, there is a sense of the child being a passive object of the mother’s desire, without an existence of its own.  So passivity means “being enjoyed by,” and that means beinglessness.

What frees the child?  A place of its own, marked by a signifier of its own – the Name of the Father.

But what is that signifier?  Note it is always “of the Father” – not just the literal name, but the phallus which is the only game/name in town.  So it is always going to be problematic for girls (or rather, for the feminine).

Repression is now normal: “we are all to some extent hysterics,” says Freud.  We are all polymorphously perverse to begin with – but with women, that “perversity” will remain largely unchanged, for lack of a specific signifier for femininity.

[elizas-writing]

The Evolution of the Disney Princess

***Author’s Note: So if you can believe it, I took a Walt Disney class in the spring. I really needed a filler class, and this seemed like the best option. Anyway, one of the major assignments was a research paper (6-8 pages) with six topics to choose from. The one I chose? Compare and contrast two Disney female characters. This topic pretty much has endless possibilities to work with, but I had to narrow it down, and I ended up comparing Snow White and Moana. What more fitting than comparing the first princess with the latest? And I ended up getting an A- which is pretty freaking sweet. This is edited from what I turned in after getting feedback from my TA, and of course, works cited at the end. Enjoy!

One of the most notable properties in Disney is its princess line up. They are the young women who typically female audiences look towards as inspirations on how to lead their lives with kindness, fearlessness, patience, and an infinity of other qualities. Yet it is not always a static image as there are countless princesses for people to choose from as an ideal role model, each with their unique ways to solve whatever problems come their way. From 1937 to 2016, the ideas of what a girl should strive for also significantly changed which can be seen with comparisons between the first Disney princess, Snow White, and the latest princess, Moana. From a homemaker to a leader-in-the-making, these two princesses also reflect on the changes of the Disney studio’s storytelling to not only be more dynamic, but also inclusive of many world-wide experiences.

           Snow White illustrates a young girl of her time, both in the 1937 film and the original Brothers Grimm tale written in 1812. With particularly the film, Snow White presents the typical fashion of the 1930s with a short bobbed hairstyle and red lips and rouge against her white skin, setting the iconic image most audiences think of with the character. But true to both the film and fairytale, her major role is a homemaker, taking care of the house for the seven dwarves while they are at work. According to Cassandra Stover, Snow White embodies “traditional femininity” by following stereotypical gender roles of a woman who stays at home while the men go to work, which were ideas spreading fast in the media during the Great Depression’s tight job market and Catholic moral reforms. At the same time, censorship increased to eliminate the “silent screen vamps and early talkie spitfires” to promote passive and domestic women instead, taking a step backwards from the flappers and suffragettes of the previous decades. Her “pure maiden innocence” and embracement of domesticity “appealed to Depression-era escapism” in trying to maintain hope for a better America (Stover 2). While women had limits of going into the workforce, being a homemaker still requires work effort and a sense of community to maintain order in the household and keep up appearances, like when Snow White has the dwarves wash their hands before dinner is ready. The restrictions of female characters in the 1930s took away the sense of independence which was prevalent in the Suffrage Movement and Roaring 20’s, but with the hard times of the Great Depression in mind, it is understandable Snow White was so inviting because she perfectly set the dwarves’ home in order like the perfect housewife was expected to do. However, nothing else is known in either the fairytale or film about Snow White aside from being a kind and gentle homemaker, and her limits as a character have been subject to critique since the film’s initial release.

Modern viewers, particularly feminist critics, often claim Snow White is “helpless and in need of protection” with only “a desire for marriage” on her mind (Sawyer 9). While she does fawn over the idea of romance, it is not the main drive of her actions; it is the need for survival, not only to run away from an abusive stepmother, but also remain positive even in the most bleak of times. Again, this was part of her appeal during the harsh times of the Great Depression, generating major positive political responses of “Disney’s populist heritage” sneaking in, and including a Marxist analysis from the People’s World which described Snow White “as a symbol of ‘human decency being persecuted by a capitalistic stepmother’” (Watts 84-85). As a victim of abuse, of course Snow White needs some protection and safe space from her abuser, and it does not make her weak because of that. Her household duties are also of her own choice, not of forced servitude, in exchange for a safe place away from her wicked stepmother who is out to kill her. She is still strong with her massive capacity of kindness for others, but it is also her major flaw. The problems with Snow White lie not in the traditional gender roles she observes or seeking romance, but a lack of character development and dynamism.

As Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was one of the first full length animated feature films, there was already struggle enough at Disney to maintain a character for longer than seven minutes, the typical run time for one of their Silly Symphonies. Even Walt himself admitted that that they needed “to learn how to put personality into characters” without relying on their usual stock characters of the Silly Symphonies (De Roos 54). Some inconsistent storytelling is to be expected for such a daring feat. Unfortunately, Snow White’s character is lacking-- at least by modern standards on how viewers see a well-rounded character-- as she does not grow or learn anything new. Her only character trait outside of the traditional gender roles is solely kindness. She brings change to other characters like Grumpy, who slowly becomes caring towards her as the story progresses, but nothing about her changes that much.

While there is more to her than what most feminists typically critique on, Snow White is still an idea of what women should be rather than a realistic character with a broad range of emotions or interests who audiences can identify with. Her kindness proves to be her downfall as she takes the poisoned apple from the queen who is disguised as an old hag, only slightly hesitant at first but easily convinced that if she takes a bite, a wish will come true, which results in her sleep-like death. This displays her youthful naivety, especially since in the Grimm tale Snow White falls for the queen’s tricks three times, even after being told by the dwarves to be wary of strangers. After the trauma of almost being murdered, one would think she would be a lot more cautious before placing immediate trust in a stranger so insistent on her taking a bite from an apple. Yet her extreme gullibility is never addressed again in the film, and Snow White just gets her prince and a happily ever after anyway, as though to say that without some male figure to closely watch over her, she cannot live contently by herself. Aside from running away from her stepmother, Snow White does nothing else to achieve her happy ending, which is not too realistic for abuse victims in similar situations.

Moana does not just present the radical differences in treatment of female characters; it also shows the massive changes in Disney itself and how society views the princess films in 80 years when compared to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. As feminist theory grew over the years, audiences became more critical of female representation in Disney films, calling for independent women who can take care of themselves and are not just bound “to be beautiful, acquiescent, skinny,” and all-around perfect housewives. Media does have “a powerful role in forming the attitudes, and behaviors of it viewers,” whether positive or negative, and some view the older Disney films as harmful to children, especially girls, as they can promote these outdated ideas of women only serving as supports of “male dominance” (Sawyer 3-5). Films like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin try to address gender issues and make their female leads autonomous and equal to male characters, but it does not mean it is always handled well. Such films focus on the “pressures and entrapment of pre-feminist culture” and escaping those oppressive surroundings, but once “the heroine’s needs have been met… [she] no longer need dream of anything outside of her prince and the promising future,” letting Disney’s marketing take advantage of “selling empowerment as commodity,” which has questionable intent in “a society where advertising still encourages women to associate self-confidence with specific outward appearance” (Stover 4-6). So there is more pressure in newer films to create genuinely empowering female leads and continue their dreams outside of the male characters.

But it is not just feminist theory that affected how people view Disney today; critical race theory played in these changes as well. Much like how feminists argue these older films being male-dominated, critical race theorists see Disney dominated by white Americano/Eurocentrism, which is just as dangerous for the young audiences, especially as Disney provides the most well-known “visual representation of fairy tale characters” than any other film studio in the world. Focusing on worldwide “dominant social groups,” particularly white Americans and/or Europeans, massively affects not only personal beliefs but how we view ourselves “in relation to notions of good, bad, pretty, and ugly.” Even at a young age, children pick the common associations in mass media of white being good and beautiful and black and darkness being ugly and bad (Hurley 222-223). Children of color do understand the implications of race early on when they do not see themselves represented in media. They wonder what these stories have to say, if anything, about them in regards to their skin color and if they properly belong in society, which is why critics stress the importance of representation for people of color in children’s media so they can develop self-esteem and a sense of belonging (Hurley 228). Disney is no exception to this criticism, including its popular Princess Line where only four of the eleven characters in the franchise-- not covering Anna, Elsa or Moana as they are technically not part of the line-- are women of color. Simply having one princess per race just is not enough as there are still about a dozen white princesses in comparison, and there is more than one experience of being black, Native American, Chinese, etc. If the idea behind the franchise is that anyone can be a princess, then it makes sense to have more princesses of color for people to relate to.

Moana, both the film and character, succeed in delivering the best version of the feminist and critical race desires so far, stepping away from the usual tropes of a Disney Princess film. She follows the familiar Disney princess look of youthfulness, a round face and large, expressive eyes. However, as the first Pacific Islander of the Disney Princesses, she diverges from her white predecessors’ “skinny-Barbie image” (Travers) with her brown skin, thick and frizzy hair, thicker eyebrows, broader nose, and a slightly muscular build, straying from white and thin Americanocentric/Eurocentric beauty standards that many previous princesses abided by. Unlike Snow White, Moana’s main occupation is training to be a great chief for her home of Motonui. She is constantly learning how to solve problems or support her people, but not all the responsibility is dependent on her as everyone actively contributes to the village regardless of gender. Her role as the chief’s daughter demonstrates how women are capable of much more than the traditional gender roles of a housewife; women can be leaders and incite change among others, which audiences see with Moana as she revives the tradition of wayfinding, encouraging her people to explore beyond the comfort of their island.

Moana is also unique in being one of the few Disney princesses without a love interest; in fact, romance is never brought up in the film. She can just become a leader “without the caveat of needing to marry first,” and the plot “does not arise from an arranged marriage or love interest, but from a desire to explore the open ocean in search of a solution for their island’s deteriorating resources” (Renfro). Her character is more complex than Snow White with an inward struggle to maintain her father’s standards of a great chief—a role she will “be satisfied if [she] play[s] along”— but is also drawn to the supposedly dangerous ocean and what lies beyond the reef. She has a more broad range of emotions outside of simple kindness, and is not afraid to be assertive when she needs to be, something that would shock a 1930’s movie-going public. She proves assertiveness is not an inherently bad quality, as it is sometimes necessary to achieve a higher goal, especially when persuading a stubborn demi-god like Maui to fix the mess he made and return the heart of Te Fiti, the creation goddess.

There are some similarities between Snow White and Moana with their selflessness towards their communities before their personal needs. However, Snow White does not have any other character growth aside of her traditional feminine role and solely exists to please others with her model housewife skills. Moana still has a drive to follow her wayfinding roots and do whatever is necessary, including breaking her father’s traditions of reclusivity from the ocean, to save her home. She leaves on a journey not just for her island but also for her own reaffirmation that she will be a good leader and take Motonui to a future renewing wayfinding. She still has to learn how to properly wayfind from Maui, but Moana is the main catalyst to keep the story going as she is the only one willing to take dangerous routes where even Maui, a macho masculine warrior, is too scared to go. While Snow White needs a male figure to assure her happy ending, Moana takes it upon herself to achieve happiness when Maui leaves after their first encounter with the fire demon, Te Ka, and restore the heart of Te Fiti, to which Maui returns to offer support and keep Te Ka at bay as long as possible. Moana follows the familiar Disney Princess formula of kindness and selflessness, but as opposed to a conservative figure like Snow White, Moana takes more risks to step outside her comfort zone to find a happy ending, and break certain traditions to revive others which will progress her community forward.

In the decades since Disney’s first feature-length animated film, the studio adapted to rising criticisms to create more dynamic and complex stories and characters for multiple kinds of people to identify with, especially with their most marketable property, the princesses. These young women can be more than kind and gentle housewives; they can be loud and assertive leaders with the power to provoke societal change. And they do not have to conform to one biased idea of beauty; anyone of any skin color can be a princess. Certain character traits will always remain for the Disney Princesses, but there is an effort in the company to listen to these criticisms and create diverse stories up to date as society progresses.

Works Cited

1.      De Roos, Robert. “The Magic Worlds of Walt Disney.” Disney Discourse. Ed. Eric Smoodin. Routledge. 1994. Print.

2.      Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. Little Snow-White. 1812. Web. Accessed 14 April 2017: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm053.html

3.      Hurley, Dorothy L. “Seeing White: Children of Color and the Disney Fairy Tale Princesses.” The Journal of Negro Education. Vol. 74, No. 3. 2005. pp. 221-232. Web. Accessed 2 May 2017: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40027429

4.      Renfro, Kim. “Disney's new masterpiece 'Moana' is an exhilarating movie experience with the strongest female role model yet.” Insider. 17 November 2016. Web. Accessed 4 May 2017: http://www.thisisinsider.com/disney-moana-review-2016-11

5.      Sawyer, Nicole. “Feminist Outlooks at Disney Princess’s.” James Madison University. Accessed 2 May 2017: http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/34990708/Feminist_Outlooks_at_Disney_Princesss.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1493867888&Signature=8ZvYo9X6jGLdHGD7gZJUzPvXvAU%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DFeminist_Outlooks_at_Disney_Princesss.pdf

6.      Stover, Cassandra. "Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess," LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 29. Univeristy of Southern California. 2013. Web. Accessed 3 May 2017: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/lux/vol2/iss1/29/

7.      Travers, Peter. “'Moana' Review: Disney's Animated Polynesian Musical Is a Feminist Delight.” Rolling Stone. 23 November 2016. Web. Accessed 4 May 2017: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/peter-travers-moana-movie-review-w451909

8.      Watts, Steven. The Magic Kingdom. University of Missouri Press. 1997. Print.

9.      Moana. Dirs. Ron Clements and John Musker. Walt Disney Animations Studios, 2016. Film.

10.  Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Dir. David Hand. Walt Disney Productions, 1937. Film.

[gp-synergism-blog]

The Sublime’s Effects in Gothic Fiction

With ghosts, spacious castles, and fainting heroes, Gothic fiction conveys both thrill and intrigue. Gothic literature is a combination of horror fiction and Romantic thought; Romantic thought encompasses awe toward nature. Essentially, Romanticism is a reaction against the Enlightenment, a time that revolutionized scientific thought, and emphasizes emotional response and intuition over clinical knowledge. Romantic literature elicits personal pleasure from natural beauty, and Gothic fiction takes this aesthetic reaction and subverts it by creating delight and confusion from terror. This use of terror is called the sublime, which is an important tool in these narratives. Examples of Gothic literature range from dark romances to supernatural mysteries.

In Gothic novels, no matter the setting or villain, the sublime exists as a different experience than appreciating natural beauty. In fact, this concept deals with how authors capture their characters’ trauma and fear. It is important to look at the sublime in the lens of both the characters’ experiences and the real world contexts that influence them.

Beyond identifying the sublime, a crucial part of looking at this technique is seeing how the fears present in Gothic literature factor into real life concerns, such as the enforced roles and restrictions faced by women. The use of terror illuminates how the marginalized, once given a voice, cope with their harrowing predicaments, and reading about these struggles helps foster comprehension and empathy.

Defining the Sublime

What separates experiencing the sublime from experiencing beauty is the disruption of harmony. As stated above, it shows elements of Romantic reactions to human experience while utilizing fear as well. According to Edmund Burke, the imagination experiences both thrill and fear through what is “dark, uncertain, and confused.” 1 In setting the sublime apart from beauty, the sublime creates more than a positive, appreciative response to an aesthetic, such as a beautiful painting or sunlit meadow. The sublime stems from potent awe and terror that stresses someone’s limits, surpassing all other responses and overloading the recipient in both their revulsion and fascination.

In regards to the Romantic view of the environment, the sublime can occur when natural grandeur overwhelms an individual to the point of causing fright or a feeling of helpless insignificance. Overall, approaching the sublime occurs when a sight or experience is “awesome” or ” awful” in the old meaning of both words: characterized by or inspiring awe, and awe is an emotion containing fear, wonder, and reverence. The sublime questions the stark dichotomy between pleasure and pain because a fear-invoking scene can also cause wonder, an odd sort of delight. In a contemporary sense, it could be viewed as watching a train wreck: horrifying, but captivating to the viewer.

Because of its potency and Burke’s gendered views, he viewed the Romantic or Gothic sublime as a more masculine and powerful experience than beauty, which he perceived as feminine, and therefore more fragile and superficial. However, Mary Wollstonecraft, an English writer and avid women’s rights advocate, argued against this perspective and its depiction of women as inherently weak and passive. For Wollstonecraft, the sublime dealt with the self and its subjective views of society and spectacular natural scenery.

Interestingly enough, Ann Radcliffe, the English writer who pioneered the Gothic novel (as well as the “Female Gothic” novel, Gothic literature for women, by women), maintained that horror and terror exist as separate entities, and that terror, not horror, creates the sublime because, while horror is definite, terror provokes ambiguous emotions, which in turn “expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life.” 2Horror involves witnessing the monster, of seeing blood or a corpse, while terror burrows into an individual’s unclear psyche and entails multiple, conflicting emotions stirring at once.

Gender and Evoking the Sublime

Going off of Mary Wollstonecraft’s view of the sublime as a part of her relationship to society (and how 19th century Western culture treated women’s intelligence and education), the sublime, through overwrought sensory details, can reveal what scares the character based on real struggles. For women in Victorian England (1837-1901), the sublime is triggered through a fear of confinement and suppression based on societal expectations; an example of this fear appears in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre 3.

In the beginning, Jane experiences terror when her aunt locks her inside the red-room, the former chambers of her dead uncle. As her imprisonment lingers, the experience takes its toll on Jane, and she soon believes her uncle’s ghost, a patriarchal symbol, will rise and attack her. She states, “My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated; endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort” (11).

Jane Eyre becomes enraptured in an experience that affects her on both a physical and emotional level, an experience that strains her, that challenges her and extends past the capacity of her imagination. The sublime creates hysteria, and the concept of “hysteria” derives from the archaic belief that cis women act in excess or have uncontrollable, irrational bouts of emotions when their uterus does not function properly. Considering the Victorian woman’s experience, as well as earlier ones (though published in the Victorian era, Bronte set the novel in the Georgian era) the red-room may be red for a variety of symbolic reasons: menstruation (Jane is ten at the novel’s beginning and will soon enter puberty); passion; torment; blood.

Furthermore, Jane’s imprisonment in the red-room stems from punishment for confronting her male cousin after he hits her and insults her because she is dependent on his family and because the books she reads are not her own. She suffers for rebelling, for educating herself and living in an environment where she does not possess her own independence, so the surreality of her break with reality emphasizes the terror of her experience as a girl approaching womanhood.

In Jane Eyre, this issue also manifests in the character of Bertha Mason, the wife of Jane’s love interest, who spends several years locked in an attic because of her mental instability. Because of society’s treatment of mental illness, especially in regards to Bertha’s gender and racial identity, Bertha becomes as trapped as Jane was at the start of the novel, and her ordeal culminates in a result that is both terrifying to witness but dazzling and gripping in its own terrible way: fire.

Frankenstein: Awe-Inspiring Feats and Standards of Beauty

5 The Sublime in Gothic fiction

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein  4 deals with many complex themes while invoking the sublime. She considered the novel her own monster, with herself as the creator. While many of her male contemporaries mainly worked with poetry and operated in exclusive chats, Mary Shelley wrote a complex novel at a young age.

The narrative deals with the impact of nature. In fact, Frankensteinchallenges the aspect of nature itself as the titular character, Victor Frankenstein, researches both modern science and alchemy to defeat death. In terms of the environment, the Monster comes to life due to a violent storm. Before that, Victor speaks of feeling jubilation from a startling and intriguing natural event.

When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.

This scene not only shows the sublime, but foreshadows Victor’s ruination. Victor’s own accomplishment is an awe-inspiring feat; it is an action that incites inspiration and terror as the Monster becomes a strikingly intelligent living being, but suffers marginalization because he is the embodiment of the sublime and not beauty. The Monster is painful to look at, and therefore mistreated and accosted.

Victor becomes the modern Prometheus, the Titan who brought fire to humanity at a terrible cost. By mirroring the Titan’s fate, Victor performs a grand feat, fueled by knowledge and breaking boundaries, and suffers not only for his transgression, but for neglecting his grotesque creation, his child, for a superficial reason.

Though he initially seeks for his creation to be beautiful, the actual result elicits terror. Victor states, “No mortal could support the horror of that countenance.” When the living creature moves, it then “became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceive.” The situation, as miraculous and groundbreaking as it is, becomes Victor’s own personal hell. As his life unravels, the reader becomes the recipient of a sublime experience: as horrific as the downfall is to witness, the narrative propels the reader forward to the bleak and devastating conclusion.

One could also determine that this Gothic tragedy also displays elements of dissecting the fears of Victorian cis women, though the Monster’s creation and how people treat him have also become representations of brilliant but morally-questioned modern innovations (genetically modified food; cloning animals) and contemporary marginalization (issues of race, sexuality, transgender identity, disability, etc.).

Concerning the fears of Victorian cis women, Mary Shelley’s mother, the aforementioned Mary Wollstonecraft, died from a post-birth infection, and Shelley herself suffered from miscarriages and the deaths of infant children and dreamed of one of her babies returning to life. It is entirely possible that Frankenstein contains Shelley’s thoughts on both the wonder and trauma of childbirth, since Mary’s own birth caused her mother’s infection and death.

In the preface for Frankenstein, Mary Shelley writes, “And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.” The Monster and his creation are not only representations of the sublime, but the novel itself, for it exists as both an entity of woe and happiness concerning the author’s past, present, and future misfortunes.

As an important part of Gothic works, the sublime helps readers uncover aspects of humanity. The commingling delight and terror deal with personal emotions and experiences for both the characters and the works’ authors, as well as the audience. It is essential to not only be able to define and find the sublime in Gothic literature, but to also determine the causes of fear in hopes that the reader can empathize with the complex, overwhelming struggles presented in various works. Though this is a 19th century concept, the pivotal issues presented in Gothic works such as Jane Eyreand Frankenstein reverberate in modern culture.

Works Cited

Burke, Edmund, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Part I, Section VII. ↩

Bruhm, Steven. Gothic Bodies: The Politics of Pain in Romantic Fiction.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994. ↩

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Harper Collins, 2010. Print. ↩

Shelley, Mary W. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. Project Gutenberg, 2 Mar. 2005. Web. 5 Dec. 2015. ↩

[loveanywayliveanyway]

it’s not weak to be weak at all

Oh and I confess That none of this makes sense A new struggle everyday But I know sometimes We gotta be lost to find To find our way Don’t be afraid

Even the strong cry When no one’s looking We try not to be scared on the outside But I know that there’s strength from the fall It’s not weak to be weak at all.

Ever since I was young, people have called me “too sensitive.”  I remember my Dad saying it to me when I would come home crying because someone called me a name on the playground.  I didn’t understand; what was wrong with that?  What was wrong with crying when you were sad?  I now know that he was trying to keep me from letting people hurt me all the time with their words, but at the time, it confused me.

When I was barely a teenager, I let a boy in for the first time.  I cared for him when no one else did.  We talked every night.  I confessed fears and hopes to him.  I gave him a place in my heart.  And he destroyed it all when, in an empty classroom, he sexually assaulted me.  I didn’t know what it was then; I thought that I had caused it, deserved it even, because I went with him willingly and then didn’t want to do everything he wanted to do.  I cried, and he didn’t care.  He did what he did, and then left.  Five months later, he made an attempt on my life at a school event.  My parents and I wanted him expelled.  And what did the high school administration do about all this?  They said I was overreacting to a boy who simply felt rejected because I told him I never wanted to speak to him again.  At the time, I thought they were right; looking back now, I want to scream.  He reacted to a rejection by taking steps to cause me physical harm, but *I* was overreacting by asking that they remove him from school.  *I* was somehow too sensitive.  

The older I get, the more I see this inclination our society has to make it seem en vogue to be aloof, withdrawn, or secretive about our feelings.  I know that in many cases, people do that because it’s their natural state, and that it’s genuinely how they handle life.  I get that.  And there’s nothing inherently wrong with it.  But somehow, it’s become almost trendy to go against the natural instinct we all have to want to connect with people.  I think that’s how the whole “emo” trend came along, which is ironic, because the genre is supposed to focus on expressing emotions, but a lot of the people I encountered during my time in that subculture seemed to encourage hiding behind some kind of wall as a way to be cool and mysterious.

I was having this conversation with my best friend a few weeks ago.  She agreed with me that there is this pervasive myth in our culture that expressing emotion is “weak” somehow.  For men, it’s “too feminine,” and for women, it’s “too sensitive.”  It’s become something of a personality flaw to not only feel, but to express those feelings.  I told her that sometimes, it seems that’s how people view me; too emotional, too sensitive, too expressive.  I tend to be very open about my feelings, good or bad.  I am quick to cry, at everything - movies, songs, anger, pain, love, joy, you name it.  I’ve never been passive-aggressive; whatever I’m upset about, you will know it, and you’ll know why.  I was never one to hide behind the pain in my life, even when I was raped.  I may not have told anyone for a good long while, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel the pain, or that I hid it.  I wrote, all the time.  There were entire journals filled with the pain from that experience (I no longer have them.  I burned them, with the yearbook from that year).  I’ve always believed in telling people how much I love them - friends, family, boyfriends.  When I’m in a new relationship, my partner might think that it’s just the initial “swirly” feeling new love gives you.  It’s not.  It’s just the way I am.  

I remember what she said when I told her all this.  She reminded me of what she said at my wedding, when she was my maid of honor - “Karyn has always been a prolific writer of love stories.  You can feel her emotions jumping off the page, whether her characters are in love or in pain.  And if she can create a life with Alex that is as full of honest emotion as she always has been, then their life will be a love story as powerful as she’s ever written.”  And she told me that to this day, she’s never met anyone as “emotionally intelligent” as I am.  For the first time in, well, ever, someone told me that being sensitive and honest and open wasn’t a bad thing.  It may be a “weakness,” but weakness isn’t always bad.  What’s bad is pretending that you’re never weak, never hurt, never emotional.  That’s dishonest.

The marriage may not have worked.  And since then, I’ve been hurt, monumentally.  But it never stopped me from hoping, from being a romantic, for wanting to love again and again and again.  It may have delayed me from trying, but it never broke my will to want to.

Some people call it “coming on strong.”  Others call it “too sensitive.”  People say it’s an easy way to get hurt, because people are awful and will take advantage of “weakness.”

Maybe all that’s true.  

But I would rather wear my heart on my sleeve and get it broken than keep it to myself and never feel anything.