Post Script Thoughts

I am chewing gum with great ferocity.
I am listening to music louder than necessary.
The lights are buzzing.
I hope to use nauseous hunger to create a new universe.

My Friendship is Like Oral Sex

It all started when I stole someone's cat. Only I hadn't stolen anyone's cat. This misunderstanding, however, would be the reason behind much frantic adventuring and detectiving. The phone call was urgent, accusatory, and bad-mannered in a way that could only be achieved by someone who was very good-mannered. Her name was Beatrice and I knew at once from the sound of her voice that she wore watercolor sweater sets. I had stolen her cat, she explained, and I would get it back for them or she was going to the police. I tried to calmly explain that I had done no such thing but her response was a forceful suggestion that I prove it unless I wanted a lawsuit. Beatrice hung up and I began my road trip across a mirror image of the United States of America.

Amanda was my driver and sidekick (in reality it was sometimes Amanda, sometimes Kate, occasionally a woman that I used to work with at Fire (in Cleveland) but to keep things simple we'll say it was Amanda all the way). Without any good idea of where we were going or what we were looking for (how exactly does one find a missing cat the existence of whom one had, until recently, no inkling?) we headed south and then to the other side of the country. The roads were braids of silver and the sky often went into yellow and soft orange hues. More frequently than not Amanda and I completely forgot what it was we were looking for, preferring to enjoy the classic American open road and sing loudly to Bruce Springsteen.

We arrived in Virginia without any more idea of what, where, or why this cat was than when the trip began. Amanda and I found Beatrice's house (address 420) amid rows of identical lawns with significant difficulty seeing as the numbers were displayed more hypothetically than actually. The entire process consisted of a lot of swearing on my part and a lot of talking me down by Amanda. We finally got to the disgustingly soft pink door and knocked.

The interior was just as I had pictured it when Beatrice first placed that hurtful and accusatory phone call. Lilac carpeting seemed to crawl up the wall where it then disguised itself among disturbingly pleasant landscaped paintings wrapped in gaudy gold frames. The couches and love seats placed with meticulous care around the living room promised drowsy comfort to anyone brave enough to take a seat and I was sure that Beatrice kept a pitcher filled with sunshine for any neighbors who happened to stray from their own plot of suburban perfection. I was expecting cold cruelty from this puppies-and-bluebirds woman but encountered quite the opposite. Her small son opened the door for us and when he told his mother we had arrived, the woman practically dissolved into tears amid a collection of my and Amanda's arms. Her Mr. Rogers husband hovered behind her with cups of hot chocolate for when the hug had finally been achieved.

Beatrice explained that she was so sorry that she had ever accused someone so clearly responsible and innocent. Her husband had told her all along that it had been Alex but she refused to accept it. He was always a trouble maker but, being her only brother, she always tried to see the good in him. Now, her husband added, there is simply no question as to who took that cat and we're simply beside ourselves with worry. Their son nodded with sad, boyish eyes.

Somehow in the fifteen minutes it took to be told this news, Amanda and I went from being completely annoyed and creeped out to being simply overwhelmed with sympathy for the white-washed family. We backed out of the doorway with a thermos of hot chocolate and blueberry muffins promising that we would do what it took to find the cat. Now, at least we had some information to go on. Alex Smith was a disturbed 20-something-year-old who had a habit of dying his hair black. He called himself an artist, a title which the rest of the world had latched onto as well: he was moving to New York to do commissioned work for some rich person or another. He was leaving that very day. We had to stop him.

Like a movie pair of outlaw detectives, Amanda and I peeled out of Nowheresville, VA to head to the gallery in Washington D.C., where Alex worked and from where he was leaving. I was motivated with the driving need to clear my name and Amanda was motivated by the delicious hot chocolate we had been given. We were unstoppable. Except that when we got there, Alex Smith had already left. The old man who worked behind the desk suggested that we take a look at his work that was apart of the current Employee Art Show. Amanda and I wandered from piece to piece with a deflated sense of purpose but trying, desperately to put something together from the paintings of this kitty-stealing madman. Already I could sense that the plot was thicker than Beatrice suggested. Smith's dark, curvy lines implied a trapped loneliness, an egoistical inability to communicate with those around, a self-fulfilling desire to be misunderstood but simultaneously a hidden hope of being discovered.

Two of the paintings had been removed and I knew, the way one knows, that these were the two paintings that could solve the puzzle. Just as I was about to tell Amanda that we were heading to New York, I saw it. A hallway lined with wiry lines and cold whites. At the entrance stood a larger-than-life full-body portrait. The man had dark tousled hair and a shadowed expression. His thin scarf blew in some imagined wind and though he stood apart from the rest of the piece, his body dared you to enter. On the right was a mountain scape; mathematical and precise. On the left, cartooney clouds blew hither and thither in an impossible blue gradation. The end of the hallway, the focal point of the entire painting, was an empty blue and just before it, on the right, a collaged-in canvas stood out, in line with the mountaintop on top of which it sat, but warm in a puddle of sun the source of which could not be seen. The title of the piece was "Alex's First Self-Loathing."

A felt the warm satisfaction of a conclusion begin to waft over me and just as I felt I understood what was going on, my phone sliced through the dream and woke me up.

By Shane Jones and Liza: A GChat Story

Please be aware: all "haha's" and "ok's" and "hmmm's" have been removed from this conversation for your convenience.


Shane:
so there's Little Mustache
everyone hates Little Mustache
he has little legs and little arms
and a little penis

Liza: (don't you always want it to be spelled moustache?)

Shane: yeah
Little Moustache walks around by himself all day
he punches trees to feel strong

Liza: (and he wears a big coat)

Shane: yeah, his coat is too big
so one day Little Moustache
i'm watching television now
this is hard
one day Little Moustache meets Big Beard

Liza: oh shit

Shane: yeah, Big Beard is terrible
he kicks Little Moustache right in the center of his moustache

Liza: bully

Shane: okay, now i need your help
Little Moustache could start lifting weights

Liza: I think the kick makes Little Moustache's moustache get really big

Shane: yeah, it just starts growing
into this massive beard
it's gigantic

Liza: huge!

Shane: "Fuck you Big Beard!"

Liza: "My Little Moustache is Bigger than your Big Beard!"

Shane: i'm going to send this story to Paris Review

Liza: as you should
so Big Beard gets so embarrassed that he's clearly lost the pissing contest

Shane: he starts jerking off

Liza: wow- that's one way to deal with humiliation

Shane: let's just throw a bunch of flith at
the end
Little Moustache shits on everyone he's ever known, fucks every woman

Liza: and this one guy he always had a thing for
He pisses on trees
and the dogs pissing on trees
wait

Shane: then there's a giant fuckfest...the end?

Liza: I'm confused

Shane: this is out of control

Liza: does Big Beard start the filth?
or does Little Moustache?
which one starts jerking off?

Shane: ummm
maybe they both can

Liza: great

Shane: they have a jerk-off contest
that makes sense

Liza: maybe B.B. starts out of humiliation and L.M. thinks it's a terrific idea

Shane: hairballs are flying through the air

Liza: hairballs?
wow
from the fuckfest?

Shane: yeah, that's awesome

Liza: the end

here's one my granny used to tell me.

By A Crippie

"it wis a caaaaaaulllld, daaaaaark nicht in the scottish highlands when a bonnie wee american arrived wi' nothing but a smile and a suitcase full o' arborio rice. it wis sae caaaaaauuulld and daaaaaaark. the bonnie wee american didnae ken wheresae ever to heid so she asked a kindly lookin' auld lassie, sitting drinkin' whisky oot o' a boot and mumblin' tae hersel' aboot knickers or kippers or crippies. "buggery!!" she gret, the bevvie reekin' on her rancid breath screechin' through the caaaaaullld daaaaaaark air. the bonnie wee american recoiled in horror, turned aboot hersel' and, seein' only vomit and wilderness, she shrugged acceptin'-like and wi' nothin' but the auld adage "when in glasgow, dae as the weegies dae" ringin' in her ears she sat doon wi' the witch on the caaaaaauulld daaaaaaark nicht and took a lang glug of whisky. well, nothin' but that and a suitcase full of staple foods."

Lend Me Yours

Hey! I've been thinking a lot about collaboration and I want some of it. So. Why don't you write me a story (in the "comment" section of this entry). I'll read it and post it on my blog under whatever name you want it to be under...and we can creatively exist in the ether of the internet. Stories can be whatever you want them to be: visual, fiction, history, whatever. Just make it cool. And do it. I'll look stupid with a lot of blank entries.

perhaps the solution

I'm in a bit of a pickle (that I've complained about to most of my friends) with regards to underwear. This is just one of the reasons why I'm almost terrified to purchase new lingerie. It's relatively easy to find sweat-free/organic clothes. At the very least you can buy second hand and not feel like you're contributing TOO much to the decline of our world. Underwear, however, is not quite as easy. Panties are a little easier to track down but bras are almost impossible. Especially underwire bras. If it's not made my children in Cambodia, it's made by prisoners. If they're made fairly, then they're made by a company that has it's own questionable morals (that article, by the way, is over three years old). In an attempt to branch out and buy something I felt comfortable putting my money behind, I went here. I do really like what I got, but was dismayed when I realized that it had been made in China. I've come to the conclusion that you simply cannot buy "intimates" and keep a clean conscious. Instead I'm trying some other options:


undies

bras

If you get any other good ideas, please let me know.

mozzarella

When I was ten or something we lived in a house across the lane from the house that we had just moved out of and around the corner from the house in front of the cemetery where we moved when my parents split up. That house had mice. This new house (and it's direct predecessor) sat on the corner of Hampshire Rd and Hampshire Ln. Across from Musicians Towers which I always thought was an old folks home for Russian women but someone recently told me is actually a housing project. Who knows.

The different between HampshireHampshire I and HampshireHampshire II was that HH I was the bottom apartment of a three story house. HH II was the right side of a two-way split house. One was short and wide, the other tall and skinny and not particularly conducive to the four-woman, four cat (not including kittens), two dog household that my mother ran. We had hay stacked up against the back of our kitchen window. "For insulation," my mom always told me. I never got why we didn't have hay stacked around other parts of our house if that was the case.

We had only just moved there at the time of this relatively unimportant story. As I already mentioned, I was about 10, but already knowledgeable about the joys and wonders of a mozzarella, basil, tomato, balsamic vinegar salad. And at the time of this unimportant story I was just being served a plateful of the deliciousness. Ready to enjoy it on the porch of our new skinny home with my mother and her friend. I piled my fork full of fresh cheesiness and crisp greenness and full redness and watched as the oily vinegar dripped onto the colorful plate below. I put the mess into my mouth and closed my eyes ready to be bombarded by the wonderful taste sensation that would inevitably follow. Much to my dismay, however, instead of being greeted by the friendly saltiness and pillowey sweetness I anticipated, i encountered a cruel sour taste that made my eyes squint and my mouth turn into something that should be in a comic book.

Naturally I screamed and made some sort of show about the whole thing, causing my mom to come careening in from the kitchen to see what was wrong with a swiftness that only a mother can conjure. Of course she was wearing her Basic Threads cotton socks and mid-careen slipped on the hardwood floors and plummeted towards a broken leg. Just in time for our annual road trip across the country to the Southwest where she would have to enjoy Arches National Park on crutches.

The End.

thinkin'

Mission Violence

As of September 6th, there have been 11 killings in the Mission District this year. In the past month, two of them have been on Treat Ave- the nice little residential street where I spend most of my time working, procrastinating, and socializing.

For lack of a better way to describe my frustration, anger, pain, sadness, fear, etc: this fucking sucks.

I've never really understood violence. It's just not something that was put into my vocabulary. And I've certainly been around it enough. All of us have. Growing up in Cleveland Heights (suburban though it is), you knew that there were certain streets you didn't walk down because a friend at school got jumped there the day before. Girls brought brass knuckles and razors to Roxboro Middle School. Fights broke out all of the time. At Heights High we had at least one riot a year (usually in the Wendy's across the street). There were plenty of hallway fights. Not to mention Cleveland itself that likes to hang out (statistically) with other cities that suffer from crime, poverty, and racism.

So it's not like it's foreign. It just still really surprises me that it still happens. I mean, haven't we all seen where this is going? Don't we all recognize that it's a horrible thing to have a family member or friend killed? Is there anyone for whom this doesn't suck?

And the Mission in particular. With it's vibrant murals, amazing food, smiling neighbors, great art. Of course there's poverty and all of that but there are also paintings of Cesar Chavez and Zapata everywhere reminding us that we're all in this together. And instead we're (I mean this in the broader human sense. I'm not naming myself as a Mission native) killing each other. Imagine how incredible it would be if this community realized "we're stuck in the same system. Let's start working together, overthrow the system that's keeping us murdering each other. We all have the same goals!" You know, revolution and stuff.

Yesterday I was walking down Treat wearing a red sweatshirt and a group of young guys commented on how they liked it. For the first time since high school I was suddenly aware of colors. Like, how maybe I shouldn't wear red. If red is even a gang color out here, I don't even know. But I guess that's the point, I don't know shit about what's going on. It's so great to go out in the Mission and work here and enjoy it, but I don't know shit about what the Mission really is. And sure, my goal is to work with a community, not just from it, but is that what I'm doing? Is that what I want to do when people are being killed around me?

It's absurd to limit it to the Mission, or to the Fillmore, or Oakland, or Detroit, or Cleveland when it's so clearly the trend of the day all over the world. These are little microcosms responding to a global epidemic that has been going on since...well...since forever I guess. How can we expect communities to support each other and get along, when our governments are allowing and committing atrocities every day? Violence is still violence and I have no words to express how I feel towards the people that perpetuate it, but it is interesting to see how a society seems to respond to the aggression of it's government.

How frustrating. To be here among all of this and know that it's not going to stop. There's certainly nothing that I can do about it. We can be outraged and horrified and scream and yell and cry and be really inspired and empathetic and it will all keep going.

Art Sucks

Yesterday on the phone my dad asked (as he usually asks) "Well, what do you see happening in your life now?" I answered with my usual "oh...I don't know...I like it here...I could see myself being here...I could see myself leaving" non-committal bullshit that I usually disseminate. It's actually not entirely bullshit. The fact of the matter is that I am in a good place with things and while, yes, I see that change is on the horizon, I also see that the horizon could be anywhere from one to ten (to twenty?) years off.

We live in a lie of a society that tells us one of the stages in life is "settling down." Thing is, not one person I know is "settled." We are always changing all of the time. The second you stop changing, life starts getting real boring. So part of me doesn't really see the point in rushing into making a decision about the "next stage of my life" when this one is suiting me just fine.

OK OK...there's more to it then that. It's that Art Sucks. I feel like it's this illusion that taunts me something terrible. A sexy dress revealing a fleshy thigh on some western road asking for a ride but when you pull over there's no person there. Just some heat rising from the asphalt. Every time I try to pin=point it, figure out what it is, where I fit into it, I feel like it dissolves in my fingers.

I get uncomfortable around words like "art," "artist," etc. Who the fuck am I to claim something I can't define? And the prospect of pursuing such an invisible rainbow does not sit well with my hard-lined capricornian ideas of how things are supposed to exist.

Then again. There is nothing that makes me happier than that terrifying flirtation with a blank piece of paper. Is there anything sexier than running your fingers down the spine of some invisible thought that shivers out of the ether to spread itself out before you? I can't fathom an existence without that feeling. But I'm scared to commit to something so inconclusive.

And that's not even getting into the bullshit that comes along with being in the art world. The SCENE, the PEOPLE, the lack of community and that depressing realization that it's every man for himself and that each one thinks more highly of themselves than you could ever imagine. That conviction you MUST have in the face of adversity. What a tricky temptress this thing is.

Moments of Beauty

Inspiration
Positivity
Hell Yeah

music!

gogogogoggo

My New Favorite

Her name is Lucy Mclauchlan and I think her stuff is beautiful.

indeed

Strange that it is the stillness of this moment that makes me want to play something loud, say something loud, smash something loud, make the moment heard- remove the pillow, lift my head above the water, open my mouth wide and...what am I supposed to say? An empty need for noise that gets buried under logic. I know we all yearn to scream.

variation on a theme

I have been thinking since yesterday about my last post. This isn't a negation of the previous post, but an addition to.

The conclusion that I have come to is this: the "hipster" doesn't really exist the way in which we talk about it. The reason why no one wants to claim that identity for themselves is because hipster means mindless following of trends, blind consumerism, apathy, inaction, etc...no one really wants to accept that as something that defines them. While there may be entire groups of people that follow this life-style, something tells me it more describes the aspects of our own lives that we are uncomfortable with.

I had a conversation with a puppeteer about something kind of similar. He was grungy, punked-out, and completely involved with and aware of today's issues. I was frustrated at the general state of things and talked about how our society attaches to aesthetics first, before ideals. And today, businesses and advertising agencies are so good at what they do, they spot an aesthetic trend (that may or may not be a reflection of an ideology), and they sell it. So the movement kind of stops there. All of the sudden you have an entire fleet of people wearing shirts that say "punk's not dead" and having no clue why they're wearing it. So when you stand up to talk about DIY culture, all anyone sees is an H&M ad. So that annoyed me. Dave responded by saying "It's not about trends or aesthetics. It never has been. When a group of people start relying on fashion as opposed to ideas, there was nothing there in the first place."

What I got out of that is this: we are an image-based society. No question. But perhaps the goal has always been and should always be that it doesn't matter whether you're drinking a PBR and look like you're wearing an American Apparel shirt, what matters is what you're doing with your life. What choices are you making? What things do you hold dear?

Which brings me back to my original point. There are no hipsters because "hipster" is an image-based term. You could point to me on one day and say I'm a hipster because I'm wearing black jeans, but my lifestyle does not match up with the ideological wasteland that we associate with that term. What hipster is, is that little "cool" microbe living inside of us that makes us nervous. That makes us wish we could just say "fuck it, I'm going to be ironic for the rest of my life, instead of doing something interesting with my time." No one person does this completely because if anyone did, there'd be a growing void of anything interesting in the world and they'd surely die of boredom. Even the most classic "hipster" must actually DO something. This, in my mind, means they are not a hipster, because to me, that term necessarily requires inaction.

We all are a part of this thing and want to outsource our apathetic guilt and so label as many other people with it as possible. Maybe that guy with the plastic rimmed glasses and trendy haircut is actually doing more to better the world than you. But you can at least point him out in a crowd, label him, and feel better about yourself.

The solution? Be who you be. And never stop being involved with the world. We'll always want to be cool. But the sooner we realize that's a meaningless construct, the better (I know, I know, I'll keep dreaming). What matters is what you're doing with your life- not how you chose to dress in the morning (unless of course what you're wearing is undermining global economies and generally harming the world. Sorry- had to put it in there).

perhaps every generation feels this way....

"We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new."

From Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

Ah the hipster- that strange cultural anomaly that every knows exists but that no one will claim for themselves. I wonder if it can even be fully explained. Anyway- this article sort of sums up that feeling of impending cultural doom I sometimes get when I go to Dolores Park on a Sunday. That "do any of us actually care about anything" sort of feeling. And I think we do, but each generation turns against the generation before it. And perhaps we're still in the backlash against the DIY years. And probably when other counterculture movements came around, there was some other group of people that everyone pointed to, criticizing their apathy and mass consumption. So it's probably a little harsh to say that this group in particular is going to destroy culture. Maybe that's giving them more power than "they" have or even want. Moreover, since it is an embarrassing label that no one choses for themselves, maybe we should all look to that inner hipster within ourselves and find out where our values actually are.

Rediscovering Music

In my Cleveland excursion I got to go into the infamous tool shed into which I had stuffed all of my hopes and dreams (read: art supplies and CDs). While it was upsetting to have my beautiful charcoal set covered in mouse shit and to watch as huge centipedes (my kryptonite) crawled all over my stereo, it was also so much fun to revisit with my old things. For the first time in my life I was a little bit embarrassed about the sketchbooks and journals that I came across. All I could think was "there are people who knew me when I did this stuff and are still friends with me?"

Now that I have half of that stuff back in SF with me I'm able to start re-digesting my old tasty morsels of culture. Namely- my music! How sweet it is to have it again. As we speak I'm listing to Blazing Arrow for the first time in a year. It is such a good fucking album. I know that this is old news- but sometimes it's important to recognize the oldies. The songs fit so perfectly together and his lyrics are so damn good and the guest artists are exactly right for each song.

What's also funny is how I can track my musical taste by format. When I first started listening to music I bought a lot of CDs (I think Jagged Little Pill was my first purchase). Soon the Napster started getting big and I did a little bit of downloading but I don't think I ever really got comfortable with it. So I just turned a lot of CDs into MP3s and then burned a lot of CDs. So now more than half of my musical collection selection is composed of burned CDs. Now, however, I'm a big fan of buying music again.

Furthermore, I've noticed that while I love music that I genuinely like, the majority of the music I like I like for nostalgia. I feel like every time I listen to a new band it's been introduced to me by someone. Therefore when I listen to their music, I think about that person. So I might like really shit music but I associate it with people who I care about and so I will listen to it with pleasure Example

Back to work.

Cleveland

Look to the right- that's me in the big jacket and chelsea cut. ahhhhh high school.

Anyway. I know I'm always waxing poetic when it comes to Cleveland but it really must be said that I love this city. (and don't want to live here) Despite the fact that just about everyone in my immediate family has shown up here (often a source of unending griping and general unhappiness), I think we're all having a really nice time.

It's not that my family doesn't like each other. We love each other. And think that every person related to us is the most wonderful, intelligent, beautiful individual on the face of the planet. I just don't think we've quite learned how to understand one another. Which is a little frightening because if you can't understand the people that are essentially responsible for your personality, who can you understand? (or perhaps a better way of phrasing it: If the people responsible for forging your personality can't understand you, who will?) What it all boils down to is: Family is stressful. Or at least mine is. And I'm very relieved that so far, my family has not been causing me much stress.

And though it is very hot in Cleveland, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. I'm dripping with sweat but also relishing that I only need a sheet at night, and can wear a tank top without needing to bring along a sweater. Or a scarf. Or gloves. Or my jacket.

I'm somehow totally zen about work as well. Despite the fact that I just discovered our fall tour is dangerously dangling from the edge of "underfunded" and also recently learned that all the late-night work I did before I left has to be re-done because of several last minute changes, I'm cool as a cucumber and looking forward to forgetting everything I learned today and going to sleep. With only a sheet.

And of course I got a milkshake here! Going to Tommy's is always such a trip. There's usually someone there that I know but for the most part it's new blood. The same slightly artsy high school girls behind the counter making shakes, the young skater (or preppy) boys clearing the tables, Tommy's daughter's serving, and the cooks who are either Tommy's daughters' husbands, or the same great guys who have been cooking there forever and always give me the best hugs when I walk in. What a strange thing to walk into a space that used to be part of your world. It's still there, and things are still happening, but you're not a part of it anymore. In a sense I guess Cleveland in general is like that- or any community from which you leave and to which you return.

Well- my eyes are getting heavy and so is the heat. To market to market to buy a fat pig- home again home again jiggity jig!

OPENING WEEKEND!

COME SEE THE MIME TROUPE IN DOLORES PARK THIS WEEKEND! IT'S FREE!


Click here for a full schedule

Henry

Check it Out

maybe if we just called it something other than....

...a "rape fantasy."

Ever since reading this, i've been thinking something fierce about the whole rape fantasy thing and it's not sitting well with me. that "story" in particular strikes me funny for a number of reasons. The first being that i can't really stand anyone talking about sex the way that she does, but there's this strange thing that some people associate with feminism that seems to allow for that way of talking. I think it stems from the whole "men can talk that way, so can we" thing, but that just pisses me off. It's gross when men do it, it's gross when women do it...to me anyway. Secondly, she's awful to the prostitute she hires. If a man wrote as dismissively about a female prostitute as she does about her male one, he would be called a chauvinist. What you can get from her attitude is: "It doesn't matter how I treat him, I'm paying him." And that fucking sucks for any human being. Do your thing, but come on.

Finally, and mainly, the reason why this story pisses me off is the whole rape thing. She hires a man to rape her. SHE HIRES A MAN TO RAPE HER. THAT'S NOT RAPE. That's called domination, maybe violence, maybe power play- whatever- but it's not rape. She was and had to be in control of the entire thing- they even had a safe word.

That got me thinking about this allusive "rape fantasy" and I've concluded that it doesn't exist. OK, maybe there are some people for whom that exists in the way I'm thinking about it, but on the whole the terms are mutually exclusive. If you're fantasizing about something, you're probably enjoying it to some extent or at least wanting it, and that is exactly what rape is not. Rape is not wet or exciting, it's terrifying and awful and dry and painful and all of those other things that we all know rape is. What a "rape fantasy" really is, is folks fantasizing about domination. In the case of women, it's us getting excited about someone taking control, sure maybe being violent or aggressive, maybe there are bruises or maybe it's simply a "I want you" "OK!" kind of thing. The point is, in some estimation, it's wanted. Rape is not.

And rape is not something that feminists can "reclaim" like the word "bitch" (something I still have a problem with honestly...). Rape is rape and trying to take it back and own it makes it so we get to be desensitized when shit actually goes down. It's not like you can say "you can't rape me, I've reclaimed the word." I sympathize with the sentiment, we want to control the things we can't. But how about talking about it and trying to spread awareness instead of acting like rape is a thing that is awesome and that we want to pay people to do....that just gets confusing.

So. I suggest that we change our language when referring to these things so as not to confuse the two ever again. That way when someone says "rape fantasy" we can know that they actually mean it and we can then take psychologically responsible action. Let's call it "domination fantasy" or maybe come up with a euphemism...I'm not that clever at the moment, but I'm sure there is one.