Hey y'all. Somebody hacked into my site! I'm flattered in a this-is-how-you-know-you-exist-in-the-digital-age kinda way. It's like getting t-p'd. (It's too early in the morning to figure out how to spell that one).

Anyway the site would still be silent but for an angel named Shawn who swooped in to save the day! Thank you kind sir. I've always depended on the kindness of strangers.

So, glad to be back, to have a placed to rant, and to have foiled the evil Trojan Horse implanting hacker!

Ha!

xoxo

dyb

by Diana York Blaine at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I just spent an amazing holiday weekend having fun with friends. We dressed up as the cast of the Wizard of Oz, with yours truly as the Wicked Witch. After handing out candy to various charmingly dressed young people, we went to a dance where I realized that on some fundamental level I have always needed to be holding a broom while I boogied.

Our Dorothy, a radiant young friend of mine, cut out early, before the costume contest. I felt a moment of panic--what's the cast of the Wizard of Oz without Ms Gale? But this problem was quickly solved: another Dorothy was at hand. She too was dressed in blue and white checked gingham. She too had put her hair in pigtails. She would definitely do. There was, however, one fundamental difference between her rendition of this character and ours.

She was Slutty Dorothy.

Now this was an adult dance. And I am certainly no prude. We took first prize and were wildly popular, Slutty Dorothy or no. But it did lead me to ruminate one more time on the bizarre turn that Halloween has taken. I don't mean the by now accepted fact that women feel free to express themselves in erotic ways on this holiday. I mean the unaccountable tarting up of characters that don't have any association with sexuality. Like the tin man for example. As I was cruising the internet for ideas, I was dismayed and perplexed when I ran across a Slutty Tin Man costume. Huh? No, it wasn't even for men, the MAN in Tin Man notwithstanding. The outfit consisted of a tiny tin tube, allowing for maximum exposure of female flesh. I'm sorry, this is just weird.

I've seen Slutty Bumblebees, Slutty Raggedy Anns, Slutty Cowboys--the list goes on and on. In fact, Christa Getz, the purchasing director of Buycostumes.com says that 90-95% of all female costumes send a sexual message. The company has had to break their "sexy" category into three divisions this year just to accommodate all the erotica!

Isn't it lovely to think that women are getting in touch with our sexuality? Isn't it hard to believe that this is what the corporate co-opting and commodification of Halloween means? Yep it is. I believe that this show of flesh is less a sign that we are free than proof that we remain trapped in limited definitions of what it means to be a woman. What if we weren't attracting male attention? What if we expressed ourselves in non-sexual ways? What if, what if, what if?

I'll tell you what if. We'd be having an amazing time. How do I know? Because this is exactly what I have been doing for the last few years. I have gone on Slutty Strike. Let other women convince you that they want to be your Slutty Cavegirl. I would rather please myself than you. And the results are marvelous.

It started last year when my friend Jan and I decided to be Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Cat in the Hat. This decision directly assaulted the unspoken but pervasive dictate that we signal our sexual attractiveness in extreme ways on Halloween. As I dressed for the evening, in an enormous red bag, with a blue fright wig and whiteface, I was unsure how it would feel to mingle with a roomful of sexy women and the men they were trying to attract. Well, it felt great! I'd never danced so freely, I'd never felt so free, I'd never been as free. It was one of the best nights of my life.

Oh yeah and we attracted a lot of attention and won the costume contest.

But the victory for me was an internal one. I don't have to make you think that I am hot to feel valuable or special or deserving. YAY! Let me repeat that. YAY!

And lest you think that one middle-aged woman's personal victory over her own internalized sexism is a private matter, please note that the sexualization of Halloween costumes for women has now extended itself down into the girl category, with elementary school aged females feeling pressured to be sexy on Halloween. Yes, you read that right. According to GenderPac, "The traditional pirate, witch, and school teacher costumes for girls now have a sexy or vixen undertone to them. Costumes are outfitted with miniskirts, leather high-heel boots, shirts that expose the mid drift, low-cut corsets, and other overtly sexualized accessories."

I look back on my childhood Halloweens, when I was an old man (with a full beard my wonderful brother Pete, a theater major, affixed hair by hair), a pair of dice (with my friend James), a hippie (with a sign that said "don't trust anyone over 8). I was free to let my imagination run wild and I did. I was whatever clever thing I could think of. What I wasn't was Slutty. How lovely to come full circle, to get to play with the freedom of a child and hand this sexist culture back its imperative that I define myself--and our girl children--as objects of sexual desire.

Won't you join me next year?

by Diana York Blaine at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I live in a really lovely little town. It was founded in the early twentieth century for the citrus trade by folks who recreated their midwestern homes, building charming little bungalows with front porches and river rock foundations. They planted lots of trees. They left lots of room for parks.

And they made way for lots of hate.

I know everyone doesn't think like I do, doesn't share my belief in freedom for women, in equality for homosexuals, in peace not war. Still, I have to admit I have been shocked by the signs that have popped up in my neighborhood advocating a ban on gay marriage and advocating the election of conservative John McCain and his anti-female female running mate. Their houses look so cute. How can the ideas propounded therein be so ugly?

I already knew weird religious people lived on my street because every single morning I pass the signs in their window that call me a murderer for having elected to exercise my right to safe and legal abortion. Sometimes I feel hurt, sometimes I feel angry, sometimes I feel compassion, sometimes I feel nothing. But always I wonder why they think they know better than I do about what I am capable of handling, and I also wonder why their religion promotes self-righteousness instead of love of neighbor.

Still as I have grown used to this omnipresent scold, I deluded myself into thinking that they were some kind of exception, that all the other pretty bungalows were filled with people who understand that the fundamental freedoms we enjoy in this country are indeed what makes America great and that trying to erode them would be tantamount to trying to destroy our very nation.

Well I was wrong and they are trying.

So what can I do besides voting my conscience? It occurred to me that I could take pictures of these signs with me in the photo and blog about the consternation I feel every time I pass a house filled with people who want to take away my self-determination and that of my gay friends. And so I am.

The other Dr Blaine agreed to act as photog for the mission, so we set out on this picture-perfect day through our beautiful neighborhood filled with flowers and trees and birds and.... anti-woman, anti-peace and anti-gay messages. First stop I knew would be that house on the corner, the one I pass every single day with the huge message ABORTION IS HOMICIDE. I often feel impotent looking at the sign, as I know I have no intention of going to them and saying the various things I think of saying, some asking for understanding, some sarcastic, some flat-out mean.

Finally today I got to "do" something about it. I got to get my picture taken in front of their house in my "this is what a feminist looks like" tee-shirt. And I got to hold up a sign that says "thanks for hating." It felt real good.

We moved on to the Yes on 8 house that I see when I come home from Target. It has little stick figures of a happy family, clearly one that doesn't include abortion-loving feminists or their fag friends. I smiled real pretty for this one, holding up my Thanks for Hating sign. Finally I was starting to feel ok about things.

The last stop was a double-winner, both Yes on 8 and McCain/Palin. But this one didn't go as smoothly as had the other two. The minute I stepped onto the lawn (which I knew was trespassing btw), a man shot out of the house and demanded to know what I was doing. I was prepared for this. I smiled sweetly and said "taking a picture of your sign for my blog." By now wife had joined him, holding baby (not aborted and one hopes for her sake not gay). Wife screamed "get off our property." "Of course," I said, complying immediately. Like I said I knew stepping on someone's grass was indefensible, so I hopped to the curb.

I pointed out to my hubby that we could easily still take the picture from the sidewalk. This is where it gets fun. As soon as I said that the man demanded that we leave that spot as well. We nicely said that he doesn't own the sidewalk. Well, that was news to this anti-gay marriage pro-republican La Verne homeowner! "Yes I do," he screamed. "You can't just go around taking pictures of anything!" And the wife added "you are the ones who are hating!" (Apparently she had noticed my sign. Sheepish smile....)

Anyway by now we had our photo and were headed to the car, but we also kept calmly repeating "it's still a free country." The irony is not lost on me, and I hope it's not lost on you either. These people want to determine who can marry, who can abort, and who we should kill overseas. So why should they stop there? They also want to prevent people standing on public property from taking pictures of signs posted in the public sphere.

Maybe they can get that measure on the ballot as well.

by Diana York Blaine at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently I watched the movies "Knocked Up" and "Juno." Each of them had some laughs. I enjoyed them for that. But it was strange to me to see how they treated the topic of abortion. It's like I am viewing the productions of some foreign culture. I mean I understand that super religious people are flipped out about the procedure. Every day when I leave my house, I pass a neighbor's window in which they have hung a huge poster saying "Abortion is homicide." There's a picture of a plaintive child staring out at you, as if to say "Hi I am what you abort. You suck. I, however, am precious and deserve protection."

My husband calls them the weird religious people, as in "the weird religious people dropped off some avocados today." (They were delicious.)

But what I don't get is why films that aren't being made by the religious right represent abortion as some unthinkable disgusting procedure. In the case of "Knocked Up," in fact, it's treated as just about unmentionable. When someone does suggest to this loser, stoner, porn-website-producer dude that he and the woman who got impregnated during their drunken one-night stand not carry this hapless fetus to term, a GREAT idea, he cannot even use the word. He says "smu-smor-shion." I am not kidding. We are supposed to believe that a group of guys who pride themselves on hyper-frat-boy behavior--flaunting every disgusting bodily afflatus and sexual obsession--are too delicate to say the word ABORTION. Are you kidding me? Seriously. What is up with that?

Later in the film the woman's mother suggests, with wonderful vision, that the daughter "take care of it." Well, this is slightly less juvenile than saying "smu-smor-shion," but it remains absuredly euphemistic. And, even more absurd, the daughter refuses--for no good reason. She just says "no." Huh, ok.

Now of course the plot required that she not get a "smu-smor-shion," since we're supposed to delight in the romantic dynamic of the shlubby guy scoring the hottest of hot chicks (was it just me or did this seem a tad like male wish fulfillment?), but nonetheless the way it was represented seemed quite ominous. There was no attempt to explain why carrying an unwanted fetus to term was the default position. And since this film, from "liberal" Hollywood, sets the tone for a new generation, I've got to wonder what role models young women have that let them know they aren't moral cripples if they make the wonderful life affirming decision to abort an unwanted pregnancy.

Certainly they don't get it from "Juno." I wanted to like this film, and in some ways I did. I mean has anything coming out of Hollywood lately tried harder to be charming? Maybe that's what I also found kind of off-putting about it. Too many one-liners. The whole thing felt, well, scripted. But that 's not the issue for me. No, it was the representation of abortion. Here's a girl who gets pregnant in high school and decides to terminate the pregnancy but changes her mind because everyone in the clinic is on her nerves and the fundamentalist girl in the parking lot told her her fetus had fingernails. Seriously? That's it? Fingernails. Geez it also had lungs and a spleen. What about those more complex organs? Shouldn't they be more moving than fingernails?

Nope it was sentimental hogwash, plain and simple. Since this fetus has fingernails, and the adults in the waiting room were chewing theirs, Juno decides to have a baby even though she doesn't want to parent. Sure. Makes all the sense in the world. Glad the topic of abortion was considered seriously. And don't worry, there's a rich, straight, white lady obsessed with class and status who cannot wait to possess the child like another set of Eddie Bauer sheets. What a relief!

Times have certainly changed. And not for the better. When I was being socialized, the popular film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" represented abortion as the logical choice for the unwed teenaged mother. After she gets pregnant, her erstwhile boyfriend stands her up for the surgery appointment so she gets a ride from her brother. He realizes where she's actually going, and waits for her. Sweet. When she comes out, he says "you ok?" She says "Ya." He asks if she's hungry. She is. Off they go to get something to eat. No horrible consequences, no grave side effects, no psychological trauma. Just a young woman taking advantage of her right to safe, legal abortion in a country that prides itself on the freedom of its citizens. Ahh, those were the days. Glad I was raised in them.

by Diana York Blaine at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

...asked me what I think about sex, death, feminism and religion. So I told them.

Link to interview

by Diana York Blaine at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just watched the probable Democratic candidate for the presidency say that he believes Jesus Christ died for his sins.

Wow.

What to do with this information? At this moment, all I can do is shake my head in bewilderment. It's not that I don't know where I live. The United States is a Christian nation historically and putatively. It's just that I wonder how someone with an education like his can truly wrap his head around the idea that there's a human sacrifice in the past that was mandated by an omnipotent (and loving???) deity which absolves all of us from our alleged limitations. I'm still shaking my head.

First of all why on earth would you subscribe to a doctrine of original sin? I don't care to define myself as fatally flawed, permanently stained, shameful and broken; nor do I care to define myself as having benefited from the torture of a man who lived a long time ago and certainly bears no responsibility for any of my actions, immoral or otherwise. Crucifixion is a mind-numbingly abysmal way to die. After hours of agony, the body ultimately crushes under its own weight and the victim suffocates. And the knowledge of this having happened to someone is supposed to make me feel better about myself? Are you kidding?

Shaking my head again.

Second of all, how on earth can anyone believe the bible's historical veracity given what we know now about the origins of the universe? I am off to the Creation Museum in Kentucky this weekend. There I expect to cringe and guffaw at the naifs who need to cling to a fable that absolves them from independent self-definition and promotes the fantasy of eternal life. BUT I DON'T EXPECT ANY OF THEM TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Another head shake.

I don't know everything. That is the one thing I do know for sure. But I also know, deep in my soul, that limiting myself to a single metanarrative so convoluted and rife with dismal assumptions, befuddling paradoxes and outright hypocrisies violates every concept I have regarding human potential and the wonders of this astounding existence we enjoy. "Figure it out" at your peril, religious folks. I refuse to be so close-minded.

And when I die, please don't say I am in a better place. I like this one just fine.

by Diana York Blaine at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)