Coloured Paper

My original post on this is on the Melbourne Colouring Book

A few days ago, the Australian Government released
The White Paper : Australia in the Asian Century, which "sets out a strategic framework to guide Australia’s navigation of the Asian Century."


The official website says more:

"The scale and pace of Asia’s transformation is unprecedented and the implications for Australia are profound. Australia’s geographic proximity, depth of skills, stable institutions and forward-looking policy settings place it in a unique position to take advantage of the growing influence of the Asian region.

The Australian Government commissioned a White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century to consider the likely economic and strategic changes in the region and what more can be done to position Australia for the Asian Century"



An example of an action that the paper raises is around a long-term investment in "Asia literacy", including mandating that schools across Australia will teach at least one of four priority Asian languages (Mandarin, Hindi, Indonesian, and Japanese).

This, of course, has interesting implications for our national identity. Australia has, colloquially, tended to be referred to (by others, and also self-referentially), as a "Western country," despite being more accurately geographically situated as an island in the South Pacific (Northwest of Aotearoa New Zealand, and mostly actually Southeast of our closest continental neighbour: Asia)...

The word "Western" is very loaded, of course, and I interpret this to mean that Australia tends to trace its national heritage to European, U.S. American, and Anglicised continental roots, while paying lip service to our indigenous Aboriginal heritage. Another connotation of the word "Western," beyond cultural legacy, is of course the suggestion of Whiteness...

There is something quite powerful, as a statement, about nationally committing ourselves to being more geographically honest, in this regard, while also being most economically feasible as a long-term national and cultural investment in this sort of regionalism, in Asia...

A wonderful essay has been written in the Sydney Morning Herald which explores some of these implications...:

Australia's Asian-ness is barely visible

by Tim Soutphommasane




Now, I am no politician nor economist, but as a layperson, and as a citizen, I write this post as mere conjecture:
As a queer Asian-Australian man, the thought of an "Asian Century" intrigues me.

The phrase itself speaks to the part of me that is perhaps embarrassingly parochial... Since I was 3 years old, I have not lived in a country in which I was a citizen, nor, since my adult life, one in which I was part of a racial or ethnic majority... I am, of course, simultaneously critical of the ways that nationalist identities can and do reinforce certain forms of racial and cultural supremacy. Extreme nationalism to me has often been suggestive of violence, and at least in the context of the USA and Australia, a subtle and not-so-subtle White supremacy.





And then:
There is something in here, in the metaphor of the "White Paper" and the "Asian Century" which interests me, from a queer perspective.


First, to play with this:
What of a metaphor of Coloured Paper?
(as a metaphorical canvas upon which we could explore policy as well as culture?)

What of a Queer Asian Century?

What does multiculturalism look like, outside of a "Western" framework?
What room is there, given the explicit use of the term "Asian" (as opposed to, for example, "Eastern"), to raise issues not just of multiculturalism (such as Australia has done thus far), but also of multiracialism (e.g. in the case example of Singapore)...? What are the implications of including this explicit discourse of race, given the racially-charged name of the "Asian Century"?
As Soutphommasane has written, where are all of the Asian people in this country already, in terms of being featured in positions of civil service?
What would it mean to inherit a British Parliamentary system, including a number of the cultural 'advancements' that we have made as a country for example around the decriminalisation of homosexuality, when we contrast this with other countries in Asia (or the Asia-Pacific region)?

What happens when a baton is passed, from an Anglo-normative government to a pluralistically Asian-normative government?
Is this actually going to happen?

And what will race look like in such a context?
What will racism look like in such a context?

Paradoxes of Group Life...

Kenwyn K. Smith & David N. Berg's "Paradoxes of Group Life: Understanding Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamics" just arrived in the mail a few days ago...

Just started reading it, and I am very pleased with their consideration of racial(ised) subjectivities and the diverse cultural lenses through which certain forms of group behaviour or 'governance' are constructed as normative.

Also really glad that in their intro, David Berg writes that his interest in paradox emerged through engaging with his Jewish heritage, and in particular, Talmudic exegesis (Rabbinical commentaries on the Torah).

He remarks, "The purpose of [the] arguments [that he had as a child with his father] were rooted in a tradition of Talmudic dispute... to explore an issue and generate some insight, not to defeat the other side. In the Talmud, there are a number of famous pairs - sages whose names, linked together, are a symbol of opposing views. One famous pair -Hillel and Shammai - dispute a number of legl matters throughout the Talmud. Those who have studied these judical texts know that when all the arguing is done, the legal rulings almost always follow Hillel's reasoning. The obvious question is: If the law is always according to Hillel, why have Shammai's arguments been studiously preserved for almost fifteen hundred years?

Perhaps this inclusion is meant to suggest that the other side is also inside the law somewhere and inside us always. The presence of both sides allows us to examine more fully, to understand the complexity of a situation without reducing it to a simple rule or adage. The fullness of our understanding - an understanding that carries with it the other side - enables us to empathize with, make a relationship with, and listen to the other side within us and within our social groups."

Suffered Enough

Haven't you suffered enough?!
Breathe, dear friend,
comrade,
lover;
Enemy, even... breathe:
We can fight again tomorrow...

Our other work, all through this while,
when we have the space: to work on healing the rifts
inside our own hearts and minds.

Be kind, yes,
even to those who hurt us,
Not least, to ourselves...
We are all wounded soldier-prisoners of a war
that we have only inherited.

Crash

You will not find proof of God in a book,
no.
So Stop Looking
and there She is!
They are! in myriad Forms (all formless beauty,

integrated Ugliness,
fucking poseurs
more Authentically Me than I've ever been)

oh dear:
I'm a Theist in Atheist Buddhist garb,
perfectly loose clothing for meditation...
I am slumped over the wheel of civilisational carcrash
slow bleeding anomie from my forehead,
jaw crushed from too much proselytising
my mouth permanently shaped into an "Om"
or an "Oops"...

...Lord knows which!

Angkor

Hundreds crowded the stoned ruins of Angkor
Every temple we cycled to,
packed with tourists and more tourists and more tourists still

grasping for a glimpse of some sacred history of Empire
a lost era
a faraway, distant... distant , lost memory...

A religious Empire slave-built,
Stone.

The Khmer Empire
Buddhist-Hindu, not quite one nor the other, nor did it really pretend to be, for it was and must have been, many many different things...



Someone European wanted to take a picture of me.

A Buddhist-Muslim prelude

The West imagines Islam.
Islam imagines the West.
We all live in the ghosts
of this delusional dream of
who we all are.

The West imagines Buddhism.
Buddhism imagines liberation from dualism.
We all live as ghosts
of what we have learned
from the soup of perspectives we swim in
And our mouths sing similar dreams.

How, as a Buddhist, do I imagine Islam?
How do Muslims imagine Buddhists?

Are these even meaningful questions outside of the context of what our languages tell us to perceive as the "Buddhist" and what "Islam" they are imagining, or as the "Muslim" and what "Buddhism" he or she is imagining?

To what extent are these perspectives that I am swimming in --> Islam = backward, violent, 'evil,' hate-filled
--> Buddhism = peaceful, non-violent, 'good,' meditative

actually limiting my ability to fully embrace
the true, lived reality of Muslims, Buddhists, and everyone else alike?


There is a weird 'privilege,' a sort of model-minority pressure, which comes from being perceived as 'safe' because I present myself as Buddhist in Melbourne. One of my best friends, who is Muslim, experiences a different pressure here: To downplay his Muslim background in the context of mainstream society for fear of subtle persecution...

I wonder of this, because we share in common humanity, both of us, in my humble perspective, fundamentally the same, because of our wish to end our common suffering, and to be of service to others.

Creative Impulse

I want to identify with the creative impulse
that lurks underneath our stubborn skins.
That swims
as cells through bloodied tunnels
engendering life
and living,
ongoing Living.

Some call this God,
some the pinnacle scientific moment,
some unifying principle,
some metaphysical constant,
some Highest-of-the-High,
some bitter theme made universal,
some Truth among Truths,
some in some Pantheon of Facets of the Ultimate...

Some say nothing at all.

Role Model

Role Model


When I grow up,
I want to be just like you, Role Model.
My fair friend, my older sibling.
My wiser self,
Me at my Best.
You are that version of Me,
you are that Role I could play,
that I am already playing, as You.


You have been delegated this Responsibility to Role Model my own higher potential, reflect what is possible for me, TO me.

When I grow up,
I already am You, already always Was You, already fullest, already fully on my way, already where I need to be, already fully that I am here,
here I am.

Already "having been" for some and
"may well become" for another.

Rape

Rape is the way the vulnerable are punished.
Rape is the way we are punished for being vulnerable.
Rape is the way we punish the vulnerable.
Rape is the way we are punishing of vulnerability.

We are scared of it,
so we try, violently, to destroy or take advantage of it
when we see it
in others.

Or in ourselves:
We punish ourselves,
this unbearabile, lonely fragility of Me,
I will outdo myself this time.

"We must be the change we want to see in the world."






How To Stop Raping the World

Don't do it.
Work through it.
Elicit help through practising restraint with others.
Do not press the button "Yes" to launch our bomb.
Take the finger off the trigger.
Put down the gun.
Take three deep breaths.
Loosen the jaw.
Take three more deep breaths.
Hold our chest with our arms.
Leak one, foolhardy tear.
Take more deep breaths.
Declare we will sleep on it.
Sleep on it.
Ask for forgiveness.

Repeat.

Maintain practice with lots of deep breathing.

'Role Pathologies' of Desire

'Role-Pathologies' of Desire...

...of Excess Desire

Pervert-Creep
constructed in 'masculine' form, 'overly' aggressive

Slut
constructed in 'feminine' form, 'overly' aggressive



...of Thwarted Desire

Loser

constructed in 'masculine' form, 'under-'aggressive

Prude
constructed in 'feminine' form, 'under'-aggressive




Just some thoughts...



Note:
I write of these not because I think that these roles (and their connotated behaviors) are pathological, but rather that the words themselves have often negative connotations in our culture, and so are in their normative construction pathological.What I'm interested is the shadow aspect in here around all these, for me, and the, I suppose 'libidinal' stuff I want to reclaim in my relationship to vulnerability and my work-in-the-world.

Poem for Today

A young woman was raped and murdered in my next-door neighbourhood.

I am reminded of my own mortality
and wondering how I might go about my life
not to further the conditions in which this is still plausible?

and to further more favourable conditions
that no more people are hurt, nor hurt nor harm one another


In me: This harmless hippie,
and also another, worried warrior.

A third, then: a coward, overwrought with fear
and then a fourth: a wandering mystic
looking for love
then slowly I am
the Beloved, who is always already loved
and then the Lover, graceful and faithful


I am a loner among extroverts
and a leader among few,
yet I have known my own power to hold a heart and break it
known in my own body my power to captivate a room and then steer it
a fever in me that leaks out sometimes in music
or rashes

I am a fish in a frigid ocean
frozen among dead gods and reptiles
I give birth to Me,
first mammal and
first-Held
eyes closed, dreaming justice
heart open, allowing truth


Who will I become?

Who will we all be?

What is my role in all this?

What is our role in all this?

Are you Chinese?

Sometimes I’m resentful not because people are disrespecting my culture, but because I’m bitter about what I don’t know. This face and this name give rise to assumptions about access to culture I haven’t always had. At other times, I stubbornly refused to learn: speaking Chinese is only cool or impressive when you’re not Chinese. As a child I was dismissive – why bother when I already have the name and the face?

http://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-208/feature-juliana-qian/
On Saturday, a postal worker, on seeing my face as I opened the door for him, started speaking to me in a Chinese dialect that I did not recognize. Maybe it was Hakka. He was an older man.
My confusion registered. He switched to English and asked "Are you Chinese?"
I paused, then said "Yes." I thought, oh god now he's going to try to figure out where I'm from.
He switched to Mandarin and asked "Do you speak Mandarin (Pu Tong Hua)?"
I paused, longer this time. Then said yes in Mandarin. I could feel my dread and shame building, anticipating a conversation happening in which my lack of fluency in Mandarin would be exposed, to my discredit. This lack of fluency would confirm me as Westernized, not to be trusted, not truly a Chinese ally in this predominantly white and black neighborhood. A Complete Disappointment.
We proceeded to have a conversation about my family name, and what Chinese character was represented by the Romanized version he saw on the mail addressed to me. My Mandarin was halting, but good enough for him to understand. I understood everything he said in Mandarin, but it took me a few moments every time he finished speaking to process what he had said and to compose my response in my head.
Eventually he realized that small talk was going to be difficult for me in Mandarin. We made our awkward goodbyes. He had me sign for a package, but I think he forgot to give me the rest of my mail. I didn't know how to ask for it in Mandarin, so I didn't say anything.

No Talk, No Action

"Do you think you can take over the universe and improve upon it?
The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
In the pursuit of learning,
every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day
something is dropped.
Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
Tao abides in non-action,
yet nothing is left undone."
- Tao Te Ching

All Talk, All Action

"One of the most important shifts required in [a] new way of viewing conversation is to re-evaluate our traditional view that talk and action are separate activities. We... [suggest] that we consider revising our traditional views of talk and action, seeing them as a single integrated whole rather than as separate activities. What if, when conversations are highly energized and relevant, you are already in the action phase? What if it's not talking and discovery followed by action planning and implementation in the linear way we in the West think about it?"


....


"Perhaps the whole process is part of a single action cycle - reflection/insight/harvesting/action planning/implementation/feedback - in which conversation is a lively core process every step of the way. We're discovering that when people care about the questions they are working on and when their conversations are truly alive, participants naturally want to organize themselves to do whatever has to done, discovering who cares about what and who will take accountability for next steps. Perhaps my eighty-four-year-old mom said it best when she shared a fundamental insight from her lifetime of organizational work... "You see," she mused, "conversation is action. You can think things and you can feel things but it doesn't become 'real' until you express it. Then it begins to germinate. Other people hear it, other people begin to feel it, you share ideas together - and if it's important enough, relevant action becomes just a natural thing that happens.'"

- Juanita Brown w/ David Isaacs,
from World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations that Matter, pg 37, 38

How close can you get without having sex

Many straight American men acknowledge (and perhaps on some level problematize) the conflation of closeness/intimacy and sex when find themselves expressing feelings often constructed as "gay" towards other straight men that they want to be or are close with. These identity crises create tensions that are often released through irony and humor or violence. See terms like "bromance" and "bromosexual," and the plethora of internet clips or personal narratives of straight men (often younger, often comedians) dancing right up to, and sometimes tiptoe-ing across, with varying degrees of awkwardness, that line of sexual intimacy.

I found this scene from the movie Superbad of two straight male friends expressing their love for each other to balance tenderness and humor quite well. The top comment right now on youtube for this scene is "Bromance is the truest form of love!"

Speaking of "bromance," consider the incest taboo - a cultural norm whose existence and vehement enforcement suggests again an acknowledgment of the distinct possibility of a conceptual blurring of intimacy and sexual attraction. 

To be close, to know somebody as well as family members or best friends know each other - how is that possible without having sex? One common distinction between these relationships and sexual/romantic relationships is the perception of the speed at which they usually develop. A family's intimacy comes over time, is almost measured as a percentage of your entire lifetime. So too with best friends (with the possible exception of "my new best friend" - often an expression used to mark out a character or person as shallow or childish).

Yet, in a recent interview, David Jay, the founder of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), and subject of a new documentary, (A)sexual, says:

Yes, [I date] sort of. In the past I had a series of close relationships with women that weren’t sexual. And we didn't know exactly what that meant. A lot of times they also had boyfriends but they were much more emotionally intimate with me. And their boyfriends didn’t know what to do with that—they got really jealous. It was a mess. And it was a mess because there were no words for a really close friendship that didn’t involve sex or sexuality. There was no status for it.

Implicit in this narrative is that the friendships with these women developed along a timeline similar to dating, one that is generally faster than becoming family or best friends. There's something particularly unsettling about this when it happens between two straight men as well, as captured in a recent episode of Louie, reviewed here on Slate. That reviewer notes:

in order to dramatize the way straight white American men stupidly struggle with—and even refuse—a certain kind of intimacy, C.K. presents a scenario that reads as gay as possible. It keeps you guessing at what’s really going on, and wondering where the episode might be headed. 

I don't really have a conclusion for this post, but this topic is something that continues to interest me. Speaking of lacking conclusions, I'm reading Judtih Halberstam's The Queer Art of Failure right now. Maybe I'll write about that next.

Tyrant

The Tyrant Father
Nothing is ever good enough for him.
Bully, big bully who
Makes ammo out of the innocuous...
Battles his Son
Acting out of his own woundedness
The ongoing war he must fight;
Those demons that just won't leave.

But Tyrant-as-Victim
is also too convenient a tale to tell
So much sympathy we can muster
"Everyone has a Story"
And so what? Tyrant may be forgiven, yet
Tyrant must still be held accountable for Tyranny

Even if this means: The Tyrant must lose his Son

An Obsessional Yin-Yang Dialectic

An Obsessional Yin-Yang Dialectic

So, typically, the assumption is that

yin = shadow = female = feminine = black half of the symbol

and

yang = light = male = masculine = white half of the symbol






and that this symbol represents their primordial interplay, which gives rise to the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water) and the ten-thousand things (all of manifest phenomena).




From wikipedia:

"In Daoist philosophy, dark and light (☯) yin and yang, arrives in the dàodéjīng (道德經) at Chapter 42.[3] It becomes sensible from an initial quiescence or emptiness (wuji, sometimes symbolized by an empty circle), and continues moving until quiescence is reached again. For instance, dropping a stone in a calm pool of water will simultaneously raise waves and lower troughs between them, and this alternation of high and low points in the water will radiate outward until the movement dissipates and the pool is calm once more. Yin and yang thus are always opposite and equal qualities. Further, whenever one quality reaches its peak, it will naturally begin to transform into the opposite quality: for example, grain that reaches its full height in summer (fully yang) will produce seeds and die back in winter (fully yin) in an endless cycle."




Here, the concept of "Primordial Interplay":


Concretely:

Their co-arising





Subtly:

Their interdependent meaning...

Their co-creation / co-definition of one other

(giving rise to the elements and all phenomena)...




And even then... once more:

Their co-existence within each other
(the white dot within the black half, the black dot within the white half...)

Yang within Yin... Yin within Yang


Before the stone is dropped into the water, so that a distinction between waves and troughs is discerned, both waves and troughs are 'integrated' in the stillness of the water...

Already embedded within the constitution of the one is the very totality of its 'other.'
The names assigned to either 'wave' or 'trough' are arbitrary, and these forms themselves are constantly splitting and dissolving into their essential essencelessness.


Back to stillness.



What is the stone that is thrown?


When we are completely strong, we will find also our brokenness.
When we are completely thrown into our weakness, there we will find our greatest strength.
Hot enough, we sweat our own coolness...
And cold, we shiver up our own deepest heat.

Full of rage, we discover our love.
And full of loving intensity, we will find our lingering resentments.

To reach equilibrium, yes, but even that imposes arbitrary 'disorder' on a territory that can never be unbalanced. (neither balanced, nor unbalanced... the ephemeral Tao)


"The Way (Tao) that can be deviated from is not the True Way"

- ? Confucius ?



Here, my motivation:
An exploration of a dynamism that underlies and overlays all my movement and stasis...



Yin and Yang
Play and Justice
Love and Anger
Artist and Activist
Ultimate Truth and Relative Truth
Oxytocin-Serotonin and Dopamine-Noradrenaline

A Sketch of an Interview project

So.

It seems a lot of blog posts, in general, are monological: They involve the voice of one writer who paraphrases, or summarises things that they've read.
I'm interested in the sense of meaning-making that comes from dialogical accounts. Conversations that happen between people. "Interviews," would be one format, but the other is the sense of the voice of two or more people involved in generating topical ideas.

The proposal:
To dialogue with friends here in Australia about issues/topics we find interesting. Time limit our conversations to 45 minutes. Record the conversations. Transcribe the conversations. And then put them up online so that there is an availability of English-language primary documents from Australia on a variety of different ideas/discourses that are usually more North-American / European-dominated.

Some ideas of topics I'd like to cover:
Integral Theory
Gender/Sexuality
Race, Racism, and Whiteness
Aboriginal issues
Disability and Theology
Futures Studies
Environmental issues and Climate Change
Queer futures

I'd likely publish these dialogues on a separate site... Details to come!

Say my name, say my name

Reading this post in PERIL, linked to on a previous post by shinenigan, got me thinking more about something that happened to me yesterday.

A friend (and colleague) and I were talking about the many situations in which schools will allow a student to informally change their name, without having to go through some process of filling out forms and getting approved by the school bureaucracy (or even more burdensome, having to go to court to get an order of name change).

This was in the context of making the case that if schools allowed students to easily change their names, they should not be singling out transgender or gender non-conforming students for especially burdensome name-change requirements when they requested to be called by their preferred name.

As some background, my colleague is White. We were talking with another attorney who was Chinese (like me). My colleague and I were quickly listing the contexts in which non-transgender students might ask for, and routinely get, an informal name change: in the case of a divorce, a student might change their last name to the custodial parent's; a student might prefer to use their middle name; a student might prefer to use an abbreviation of their full name (e.g., John instead of Jonathan, Nick instead of Nicholas). Then my colleague added that a student with a non-Anglo name might choose to take on an Anglo name.

This brought me up short. I was a little stunned, to be honest. I don't think that my colleague was intending to bring up the entire background of "othering," of Asian people feeling never quite at home in a country (indeed, because of colonization, a world) full of Anglo names. I wanted to say: let's be clear - informally taking on an Anglo name is not a preference, it is almost necessarily a (somewhat bitter) compromise. The deal is: I'll take on a less "foreign" sounding name, and you accept me as fully a member of this school community. Unfortunately, of course, since racism persists (yes! even among schoolchildren!), the deal is never made good on.

Anyway, that's sort of what was running through my head, but I didn't say anything at the time. Partly because I didn't feel that strongly about it right then (or am I numb to the pain of racism?), and partly because I didn't want to get into a whole discussion about it at the time (it was lunch!). Today, I decided to send an email to my friend about it. Here's what I wrote:

I just wanted to drop you a note about one of the examples you used when we were talking informally . . . about situations in which students get a school to acknowledge and respect a preferred name. You gave as one example that some students with non-Anglo names would adopt a name that's easier for people to say. I totally agree that this is a not uncommon practice, and that you are right that many teachers probably are almost even relieved to make the switch to the more Anglo name, but I wanted to let you know that it brought up the whole history of racism and xenophobia in this country for me.I didn't feel THAT strongly about it at the time (or I would have told you right away, of course!), but it did make me somewhat uneasy, and when I was thinking about this later, I thought I'd let you know. Part of me feels like, even though it's actually a great example of a common reason for students to use a preferred name over the name given at birth, that it risks bringing up that whole history for someone in the room. We were talking about it informally in a small circle of friends, so that was obviously less risky!However, I think that if we use this example in public (and I kind of want to at some point), we should acknowledge that part of what's going on there is a kind of compromise with a racist society, and that this is something people of color do all the time to have some safety or to not constantly be overtly "othered". I'm sure there's some less "heavy" way to acknowledge that, of course, and would love to get your ideas.I thought that you did a great job acknowledging a related issue with gender identity and medical intervention (that some trans people decide not to change their bodies in a particular socially-prescribed way, acknowledging that it's society that has a problem with their bodies, not them, and that all people deserve respect for their gender identity whatever medical intervention they have or have not had).

Some examples of Asian Third Wavery

This is an expansion, likely part of a series, of my previous post on "Third Wave Asian Poco Asian Politik"

Just wanted to share just a few examples of what I've been reading/exposing myself to in considering a 'third wave' sort of expression.

The excellent Asian-Australian blog Peril 

(in reference, mockingly, to way that of waves of Chinese and Japanese gold rush migration to Australia and the USA were seen as 'Yellow Peril')...

And a sample of some emblematically 'third wave'-type articles, by Eurasian Sensation:

"Taking on an English Name"

"When White People Cook Asian Food"

"Shut the Gate Once you Get In"

"Racism and the Many Different Australias"

And, just for a bit of historicism on the specificities of difference between Asians in Australia and Asians in the USA (where Asian-Americans start to become hegemonic, at least for me, in representations of diasporic Asian folks in the English-speaking world... to the extent that we ever get a chance at hegemony):

"Comparing Asian-Australians and Asian-Americans"

Here is an excellent article by queer Shanghainese-Melburnian Lia Incognita, also on the same blog:

"Why I Have a Queue"

with this gorgeous quote, "For me, it’s the hairstyle of Yellow Peril. It’s what Chinese people looked like when white Australians were still shit scared of us, before all that model minority crap which is intended to divide people of colour from each other."

Lia Incognita also has an incredible poem, "Typography"... you can listen to it on the link, or you can read it, at the bottom of their tumblr:

http://lia-incognita.tumblr.com/

(a rendering of Lia Incognita by Aron Hemingway for the Melbourne Poetry Map.)

The Asian American blog, Angry Asian Man

is another excellent example of this 'straddling' of multiple loyalties; partially 2nd-wavey in formation (in its interest in representations of Asian Americans in mainstream white-dominated media), as well as with lots of 3rd-wavey zeal (sometimes ironic (re-)appropriations of Asiatic motifs in self-representation)

The excellent book, by gay Japanese American law professor Kenji Yoshino, called "Covering"

from his website review:

"Everyone covers. To cover is to downplay a disfavored trait so as to blend into the mainstream. Because all of us possess stigmatized attributes, we all encounter pressure to cover in our daily lives. Given its pervasiveness, we may experience this pressure to be a simple fact of social life.

Against that conventional understanding, Kenji Yoshino argues that the demand to cover can pose a hidden threat to our civil rights. Though we have come to some consensus against penalizing people for differences based on race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, and disability, we still routinely deny equal treatment to people who refuse to downplay differences along these lines. Racial minorities are pressed to “act white” by changing their names, languages, or cultural practices. Women are told to “play like men” at work. Gays are asked not to engage in public displays of same-sex affection. The devout are instructed to minimize expressions of faith, and individuals with disabilities are urged to conceal the paraphernalia that permit them to function. In a wide-ranging analysis, Yoshino demonstrates that American civil rights law has generally ignored the threat posed by these covering demands. With passion and rigor, he shows that the work of civil rights will not be complete until it attends to the harms of coerced conformity."

More to come.

Third Wave Poco Asian Politik

from AngryAsianMan


A reflection on Waves.
I first learned of the metaphor of 'waves' of activist leanings from feminism. While arguably Eurocentric in its articulation, I still find it a helpful metaphor when considering some of the emergent sense of identity in being Asian in Australia.



Briefly, and from wikipedia:
1st Wave feminism
focuses on de jure inequalities (or sex/gender-based inequality enshrined in law)... The first of the most important struggles was/is of that to vote (to participate as full citizens in a nation).

"Women deserve the right to vote"

2nd Wave feminism
sees a slow shift to de facto inequalities (or sex/gender-based inequality enshrined in non-state-based institutional practices, as well as in socio-cultural norms). One of the major cultural issues I see at play here is, in particular, the importance of advocating for increased participation of women in historically demarcated 'male' or 'masculine' spheres of influence (e.g. 'public' spheres, managerial/government positions, etc.)

"Equal pay for Equal work!"
"Rights, not Roses!"
"The Personal is Political!"


3rd Wave feminism
sees yet another shifting disposition, into politicising the intersectionality of gender as one of and among many factors that constitute the lived material reality of women's lives. Thus a focus on pluralism, multiculturalism, inclusivity of sexual diverse, transnational discourse, migrant women's issues (as opposed, strictly, to woman-as-citizen) etc.
Here also: the 'reclamation' (or simple 'claiming') and radical valuation of positions historically constructed/demeaned as female/feminine: e.g. Slut-walks, 'lipstick feminism,' etc.

"The Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house" (Audre Lorde)
"Stop slut shaming!"




Once again, I recognise that this is a very broad and sweeping brushstroke. I certainly do not mean to diminish the diversity and specificity of the actual histories and herstories of feminism(s) as it/they have unfolded til the present and hereafter.

My interest here is not in feminism per se,
but about the way that feminism, as a movement (or series of movements) has been historicised into 'waves'.
(i.e. my interest is not in history, but in historiography)


Can this metaphor of waves be helpful in considering the unfolding of postcolonial/diasporic Asian-ness (within Euro-/Anglo- American/Australian-dominant spaces)?



Here is a beginning stab at what this might mean:

1st Wave Poco Asian Politik
We see first the waves of migrants from Asian countries into European/White-dominated national settings, fighting around de jure inequalities... Most simply: To be regarded as naturalised citizens. Sometimes, historically, at least in the USA, as far as I know, this has taken on the fight by some ethnic migrants (particularly those of Indian and Japanese descent, as far as I am aware) to be regarded as "White" by the state (and thus be conferred citizenship).

"Let me be a citizen!"


2nd Wave Poco Asian Politik
We see new naturalised Asian citizens struggling around de facto inequalities, particularly pertaining to profession and cultural membership. These include being seen as individuals in highly individualistic cultures, politics of representation in historically white-dominant spaces. For some Asian men (certainly for myself), this can sometimes take on a body-politik of fashioning myself as passably 'masculine,' given Eurocentric body-/and behavioural norms.

"I speak English!"
"Asian men can be muscular / hot / athletic!"


3rd Wave Poco Asian Politik
Here, the issue of intersectionality... And also about the 'reclamation' (or simple 'claiming') and radical valuation of positions historically constructed as Asian/"Asiatic," particularly by those who experience the entitlements and privileges of citizenship.

"RESPECT: Take your shoes off when you come into my home"


Let's see how this one unfolds...

Acknowledging, for now, some of my limitations in this post:
Where women have been constructed as Euro-/White-/American women
and examples of Poco Asian Politik have been male...
No explicitly queer examples ------>        >:(

Wanting to expand and rectify in future posts.

Techno Narrative for Tuesday

As late afternoon light dwindles to make way for early evening dark,
grey skies; smoky, dusty dusk
I sit here with incandescent glow of my Apple iMac swindling me of my attention...

A re-join of Facebook as I end my fast... one of many, periodically
pendulum swinging between engagement with my virtual community commons
and solitude with my Amazon Kindle, without any further thoughts of
publishing my commentary in hopes of being Liked by those whose names I might forget
without the internet as my memory bank.

I google Google's commitment to Legalise Love worldwide, the behemoth's support of decriminalisation of homosexuality;
And I consider how much Singapore has changed since I grew up there...
Population almost doubled, new Mandarin-speaking Chinese migrants making the island republic their home
and labour laws still punishing the incumbent homosexual from ever allowing publicity of his or her
wish to be taken seriously...

Perhaps the internet changes this, perhaps this has already changed, significantly...
We hear of the collective intelligence, a global consciousness feeding into Wikis and Leaks of classified, prohibited Intelligence;
rendering translucent what may once have been inaccessibly opaque,
from governments and banks and corporatised bullies.

In the meantime, Time magazine says I am the Person of the Year, but I feel like a Fraud;
I flatten my buttocks imagining social change
and the seas still acidify from rising CO2 levels; I turn on my heater because it is a punishing Melbourne winter...
Coral reefs die
and Ice caps melt
and I pendulum swing from hope to despair and then back again
Still allowing myself the time to safely consider shifting meanings of Work and Love and Play and Justice

I think about money; I think about Chinese workers from elsewhere settling elsewhere picking up Else's language and speaking it fluently within half a generation
I am a descendant of Chinese migrants; several generations, several seas away.
I am melancholy about the meaning of a rising China (in deadlock)

I read Fridae.asia religiously because I bond my sexuality with my racialised global identity and allow this to speak through me in English, and I receive news of Others' journeys in turn, from such Enlightened forums arising out of primordial cyber-chaos.

Kate Bush sings out of Logitech speakers her 50 Words for Snow, and I am shivering under fleece, waiting for Friends to play on Channel 90 on the telly; my favourite show from the 90s...
Some vestige of a time I was ever-forgiving of the heteronormative, white liberal New York-centric medium that promised me American cool in exchange for my embeddedness in Southeast Asia...

Now I am rootless, yet nutrified by Global media as hydroponically grown Diasporic bean.
Who shall I become? I dissolve into these words and imagine myself thus gone,
even though I have yet, thus, to come.

Different Happinesses

Our standards of happiness shift as we age...

I remember, when I was younger, associating the term 'happiness' with excitement and adventure, while, as I've got older (and indeed, as my peer network has gotten older in turn), I am more likely to associate the term 'happiness' with peacefulness, contentment, and serenity...





So I may see a picture of this child, and project traits in them that are typically associated with older people: Maturity, wisdom... "old for their age"


Or:





I might see a picture of these older people and project traits in them, at least for this circumstance, that are typically associated with younger people: Feisty, playful, excitable... "young for their age"

Contingency and Essentiality

My reflections on this piece: 
"The Poetics of Subalternity"

by Michelle Cahill



"The essential argument of [Gayatri Chakravorty] Spivak['s piece, "Can the Subaltern Speak"] is that when the gendered subaltern performs an act of resistance without the infrastructure that would make us recognise resistance, her act goes unnoticed, it is not registered as a sovereign speech act. Or in other words, it is not that she cannot act or speak, it is that there is nobody listening. Subalternity provides us with a powerful metaphor then. It enables us to more fully acknowledge that it is the sovereign speech act, the endorsement, the registration of identity within speech that ultimately confers agency or subjectship."


Both ‘Contingency’ and ‘Essentiality’ are themselves contingent concepts.

To privilege contingency is to also forget its also metaphorical, amorphous nature... the term itself points to no-Thing in particular, and yet... After all... contingency is also the ‘nature’ of all phenomena. In other words, we could just as easily say that “the essence of all things is their inessence, their contingency”… Which is not, therefore, to suggest that there is NO essence, but rather that there is not one discrete thing that we will find anywhere..

For the subject who has political agency, it is powerful and important to stress Contingency, or relationality… We have seen all too often the pathologies of essentialism here, or self-reification, particularly for people with power. The emphasis on relationality here brings forth a potential for transformation of the self and its antecedent social structures, which can ripple out in the service of all of us.

However, this is only and especially relevant for the subject who not only HAS political agency, but who also is conscious of the agency she has.

For the person who is experiencing a vaulted sense of his own victimhood… The emphasis on relationality may not only be painful to hear (i.e. “You have no inherent self, your sense of your own victimhood is related to others keeping power, etc. etc.”), but it is also potentially cruel.

This is not to dispense with relational language entirely… It is simply that, it needs to be more strategically deployed: The victim in relation to those who can lend their support, rather than as determined exclusively and by definition in its relationality with the oppressor/perpetrator.

As Cahill writes, "Strategic essentialism can be a useful way for minority groups to utilise their common ground to achieve political goals."

Here, to add language which stresses an independence of selfhood (such as a sense of bounded self which can rely on other ‘selves’ for support) may be as helpful as relational language. 

“I am my own person!” 
“I am strong!” 
“I can do this!” 
“I believe in myself!”

In this integration of Contingency and Essentiality, my self-identity (in both the individual and collective self-sense) needs to be made coherent, on its own terms, while resisting both the monolith of a rigid, inflexible Guardedness, as well as another extreme of a forever deeply oppositional relationship to the Privileged Other.

Here: Self-Esteem...

Act First...

A great blog post:
The "Do Something" Principle

The author describes that we typically imagine that, in order to begin with Action, we need to start with Inspiration, and then Motivation...:
Emotional Inspiration –> Motivation –> Desirable Action


However, he is proposing that it's actually more like a chain:
Inspiration –> Motivation –> Action –> Inspiration –> Motivation –> Action –> Etc.


In other words, one can BEGIN with Action, which can allow for the arising of Inspiration, then Motivation, and then FURTHER Action (which, in turn, generates further Inspiration, etc.)

In other words, we can "re-orient our mindset," beginning anywhere in this chain...:
Action –> Inspiration –> Motivation


This is an especially helpful reorientation if my tendency is toward Stuckness, or lethargy... I cannot claw around 'searching' for inspiration or motivation... Sometimes it really is just about just "Doing Something"... Getting off my bum, rather than hoping that inspiration will spontaneously kick in.

Particularly important if the other tendency is also to rest on my laurels and call that meditation...

Good Enough

"Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien."
"The Best is the enemy of the Good"
- Voltaire

Sometimes I get stuck in planning, lost in a tyranny of choices available to me. Barry Schwartz explains this well in his excellent book "The Paradox of Choice," where he looks at the phenomenon that, up to a certain point, an increase in available choice correlates with an increase in satisfaction around any decision we make around these choices (because we have a chance to consider the factor of 'quality').

However, after that, the increasing number of choices produces diminishing returns in terms of satisfaction around any decision we make. Every decision we make, when we have that many more choices, also leaves us with so many more burnt bridges; something which we experience as painful.

I am interested in moving away from the pursuit of the Best; the way this can sometimes immobilise me from making decisions about anything, such as finding a job, reading a book about any given topic, or indeed, being satisfied with a lover or a friend just the way they are. When I'm constantly nervous about the existence of the Better or the Best (which, sneakily, always seems to be other than who I already am or what I currently have), I start to ignore the implicit perfection of the Good.

The Perfection of the Good, which comes from being able to limit the scope of my desires (a classically Stoic move), which in turn, renders all that is Good in my life into the Perfect manifestations of my humble needs, sated.

Ethical Impotence

"Impotence is at base... a symptom of respect, a fear of causing displeasure through the imposition of our own desires or the inability to satisfy our partner's needs. The popularity of pharmaceuticals designed to combat erectile dysfunction signals the collective longing of modern men for a reliable mechanism by which to override our subtle, delicate, civilized worry that we will disappoint or upset others.

A better and drug-free approach might consist in a public campaign to promote to both genders - perhaps via a series of billboards and full-page ads in glossy magazines  - the notion that what is often termed 'nerves' in a man, far from being a problem, is in fact an asset that should be sought out and valued as evidence of an evolved type of kindness. The fear of being disgusting, absurd or a disappointment to someone else is a first sign of morality. Impotence is an achievement of the ethical imagination - so much so that in the future, we men might learn to act out episodes of the condition as a way of signalling our depth of spirit, just as today we furtively swallow Viagra tablets in the bathroom to prove the extent of our manliness."

- Alain de Botton, in his new book "How To Think More About Sex"

Porn as Distraction

"It is perhaps only people who haven't felt the full power of sex over their logical selves who can remain uncensorious and liberally 'modern' on the subject. Philosophies of sexual liberation appeal mostly to people who don't have anything too destructive or weird that that they wish to do once they have been liberated.

However, anyone who has experienced the power of sex in general and internet pornography in particular to reroute our priorities is unlikely to be so sanguine about liberty. Pornography, like alcohol and drugs, weakens our ability to endure the kinds of suffering that are necessary for us to direct our lives properly. In particular, it reduces our capacity to tolerate those two ambiguous goods, anxiety and boredom. Our anxious moods are genuine but confused signals that something is amiss, and so they need to be listened to and patiently interpreted – which is unlikely to happen when we have to hand one of the most powerful tools of distraction ever invented. The entire internet is in a sense pornographic, it is a deliverer of constant excitement which we have no innate capacity to resist, a system which leads us down paths many of which have nothing to do with our real needs. Furthermore, pornography weakens our tolerance for the kind of boredom which is vital to give our minds the space in which good ideas can emerge, the sort of creative boredom we experience in a bath or on a long train journey. It is at moments when we feel an irresistible desire to escape from ourselves that we can be sure that there is something important we need to bring to consciousness – and yet it is precisely at such pregnant moments that internet pornography has a habit of exerting its maddening pull, thereby helping us to destroy our future."

- Alain de Botton, from Let's Talk About Sex, Live Q&A on Guardian.co.uk

Alms and Giving

(img from BeamsAndStruts.com)

Trevor Malkinson writes in his article "Give Alms to Everyone That Asks" about the practice of alms giving... The title was inspired by a line by Walt Whitman. The article is worth reading in its entirety.

Inspired by his article, I would like to reflect a little of my own some thoughts about almsgiving.

Like Malkinson, I have encountered the ethical dilemma for me of deciding on or deliberating over the decision of whether to give money to all folks on the street who ask for it.

Several thoughts, mostly privileged and presumptuous, come to my mind:
"What if they use it for something harmful or not useful for themselves or others?"
At the same time, "Who am I to deliberate on whether something is harmful or useful for somebody else?"
"What if this is a scam?"

These are not thoughts I am proud of, but they are there. I would like to look into them, for I think they reveal something about the way I have been conditioned to think of the world around me, and how I should behave as a citizen of it.


Something Harmful or Not Useful

I remember reading, in an admittedly American-centric version of political dualism, a few things about how our political leanings may also influence how we give:
--> Small-'l' liberal people tend to be better educated, and to favour the state as an apparatus of redistribution of wealth, but are also less likely to give generously in interpersonal interactions than...
--> Conservative people, who tend to be less well-educated, favour lowering taxes for the wealthy, yet are more likely to give to people interpersonally.
[I'd like to find this article where I first encountered this information, and post it here]


Other thoughts that arise: The feeling of scarcity (do I have enough change? Is it convenient for me to reach into my pocket right now to retrieve money? Don't I need this money for myself? Are there 'better' things to do with 'my' money?)

But then also, followed by...

...Who Am I...
... to make a decision on somebody else's life? To decide what is and isn't the 'right' thing to do with 'my' money? To decide what is helpful or harmful for others without consultation and communication? Is it not a violence to impose certain models of propriety onto others who haven't even consented to being roped into my constructions? Who am I to exert power over another, or for that matter, to withhold something that is in my possession when it is asked for by somebody else who needs it more than I? How do I use this power responsibly?

And in turn, what sort of power does this person have over me? In what sense does this power manifest? What does it look like? How does it feel in the body, in my gut, in my heart? In what sense is the information conveyed through this surveying of my sensations influencing the decision I make (spontaneously or after conscious deliberation)?


Scam?
The lust for authenticity, the assumption of the inherent badness of others, the fear of the Other, the Stranger...
...before allowing for the simple reality of their presence.

I want to reflect on Malkinson's idea of almsgiving as a type of spiritual practice in its own right, to move beyond the obsessive political posturing of small-l liberal avoidance (in other words, the thoughts that: Because I organise politically to prevent the arising of poverty to begin with, I am exempt from needing to engage directly and in person with those who experience the direct consequences of being victimised by a system whose rules I did not write), and into a space where my heart is completely broken open to receive the humanity of the Other who asks for alms...


No Giver, No Gift

I also want to reflect on the Buddhist conception:
Give without knowledge of giver, gift, or recipient

That ultimately, the notion of giving as a form of spiritual practice can itself be co-opted by egotism... That I might give, because I experience the joy of "being a giver," and that this can reify attachments to inflating the illusory sense of Selfhood (which is ultimately a form of suffering).

On the other hand, I must beware of the very FEAR of this co-optation, which leads to the AVOIDANCE of giving... In other words, because I am afraid of feeling the attachment to the joy that spontaneously arises from giving, I choose not to give! While this may seem a bit ludicrous at first, I suspect many of us have similar experiences, such as the red-facedness we experience when we are complimented, or regarded by others as 'good.'

For now, I am going to practice Giving Alms to Everyone That Asks. I am hoping it only begins as a practice, and that it will metamorph, over time, into a habit pattern that absents any obsessive deliberation by a hungry ego, and that what can truly emerge out of all of this is touching upon generosity as a very fundamental principle which nourishes my existence in the first place; that I am but a vehicle by which this universal principle is made manifest.

On Complicity

that problematic Middle Way between
Guilt & Innocence

"Porn is Not a Dirty Word"

“Many men believe pornography is harmless and women should stop banging on about it...”

So begins the article, “Porn is not a dirty word,” by Bettina Arndt for The Age newspaper.
(image above is taken from the article posted on theage.com.au website)

What follows in her article is, predictably, an apology for mindless male entitlement; in this case, for the right to remain blissfully ignorant about some of the reasons that people might 'bang on' about it in the first place...
I’d like to unpack some of Arndt’s arguments one by one, and offer my response to it given my recent deconstruction of porn-as-unproblematic-product.

“Everywhere men look there’s another woman banging on about the dangers of porn.”
Not even preceded by an ‘it seems’ nor with a consideration of the many women who enjoy porn, nor also of the men who bang on about porn’s dangers as well.

According to the article, a recent Q&A program (a television program exploring current affairs and topics of general interest, often with guest speakers and audience participation) featured British sociologist Gail Dines, whom the article insinuates is one of those women ‘banging on’ about the damage done by “body-punishing, brutal, dehumanizing and debasing” pornography.

The choice of Dines’ admittedly extreme words, accurate or otherwise, is then contrasted with the level-headed voice of reason by a male audience member, Jeff Poole. Poole states on the program that he “had been watching porn for more than 30 years” and “In all those many thousands of hours of wobbling pink bits, I’ve never seen any of the things you talk about. I’ve never seen the degradation of women or men for that matter. I’ve never seen rape, real or simulated. I have never seen violence.”

According to Arndt, Poole “spoke for a huge audience of men who hear constant negative discussion of pornography and wonder why their own experiences are so very different… bewildered at women’s outrage at what they see as a harmless outlet for the strong male sex drive…” Arndt then adds, “To many men, porn seems a perfectly normal aspect of male sexuality that provides comfort and entertainment, and redresses the serious sexual imbalance between male and female desire.”

There are several problems with resting on men's perceptions of our own porn use as plainly acceptable, particularly just because it seems a "normal aspect" of our sexuality.

Simply:
1. What is normal is not necessarily good, true, healthy, or wise.
2. Arendt makes no further effort to problematise this normative assumption of the differences between male and female sexual desire, nor does she address the equally problematic assumption that porn actually SATIATES men’s presumably 'excess' desires (relative to...?).

Arndt does at least mention that there seems to be a difference in the types of stimulation that men use today compared to a generation ago, when she writes,
"While the older men in my project wrote about poring over dad's stolen Playboys, today's young men grow up with an internet sexual smorgasbord. Most report roaming far and wide, from vanilla sex to the ''oh my God'' offerings. One mentions breakfast conversations at his university college, dominated by boys sharing notes on the latest online ''girl shagged by donkey'' type video. Throughout history there has been sexual material designed to stir male loins, from Roman frescoes and Japanese screen prints to Victorian ''dirty postcards''."

However, Arendt does not seem to make a link between these generational differences and the reasons why some people might 'bang on' about the potential problems of porn use.

Porn and Desire

In her blog, Cupid's Poisoned Arrow (which she co-writes with her partner Gary Wilson), Marnia Robinson has written in a series of different different articles...
(a few, for example:
"Sexual Superabundance Part I"
"Sexual Superabundance Part II"
"Porn and Perception: Is Your Limbic Brain Distorting Your Vision?")
...that porn, far from sating our desires, is actually complicit in ratcheting them up. To defend porn because it temporarily sates our 'excess' desire is like defending the marketing of an itch cream that temporarily soothes our itch, while actually also being one of the very conditions which further entrenches and exacerbates the itching itself, making it far more difficult to ignore later.

Robinson writes, in her Sexual Superabundance - Part I essay,
"Men... have been learning to pursue orgasm even more efficiently and frequently--with a lot of help from today's media. They can also generate super-stimulating porn with a mouse click. In fact, as my husband says, 'an Internet user can see more hot babes (or whatever gets him going) in an afternoon than his ancestors saw in a lifetime.'
Are men more satisfied and happier? Are their relationships stronger? According to psychiatrist Norman Doidge, patients report increasing difficulty in being turned on by their actual sexual partners, spouses or girlfriends, though they still consider them objectively attractive. Initially porn helped them get more excited during sex but over time had the opposite effect." (information that Robinson cites from Norman Doidge's excellent book "The Brain that Changes Itself")

In an earlier post of mine, I've already covered my thoughts about the limitations of Robinson's writing, particularly in prescribing and reproducing tired heteronormative relationship types. Nonetheless, I reiterate that Robinson's strength is in helping to address the problem of Arndt's defence of porn as a harmless, sexual-excess-satin' tool for straight men...


The Sexless Marriage

Arndt writes, “The problem comes when men try to bully women into things they don't want to do - but arguably porn has nothing to do with the insensitivity causing men to behave in that way, which stems from their cultural and social backgrounds.”

Um... As if porn isn’t ALSO a part of culture and society, as if porn was not a PRODUCT of culture and society, as if porn does not also SHAPE, CHANGE and AFFECT culture and society.

It would be pretty ludicrous to assume that, for example, fast-food chain advertising in mainstream media plays NO part in influencing how we experience our desire for food, and concurrently, how we might articulate this desire when we choose to share food (or avoid food) in the company of others. So similarly, it is pretty ludicrous to assume that pornography would play NO part in influencing how we experience our desire for sex, and concurrently, how we might articulate this desire when we choose to share sex (or avoid sex) in the company of our partner(s).

Robinson’s writing is here far more sophisticated than anything I can render, in her compassionate reading of the neurochemical basis for the transition into sexlessness from what may once have been passionate liaisons. Habitual orgasm to a single stimulus (either a single woman, e.g. one’s wife, or a single image on a computer screen), diminishes the capacity for that stimulus to titillate in the same way. i.e. One requires more diversity of stimulation, or increased novelty, in order to achieve the ‘same’ orgasmic outcome.

This is not inherently a problem, of course, if one is able to understand the dynamism behind this bio-logic. However, the problem in this sexless marriage between a man and a woman requires multiple ignorances:

Two at least:
1. Of the woman, for the man’s need for variety / stimulation in order to achieve orgasmic ‘satisfaction’
2. Of the man, for the fact that this underlying dynamic is actually further reinforced, reinscribed and exacerbated through the use of porn. It is not necessarily a harmless remedy.

Arendt’s proposed remedy, one which poses itself as sex-positive, is for these women to just get over their prudishness, and be open to the inherently different needs of their innocent male partners’ militant libidos which will always be in relative overdrive because of their sex.

(which, while posing as a liberated, sex-positive view, seems to me frankly gender-reductionist and regressive)

Sure, we may ask our partners to be more compassionate about our use of porn, and we may even experiment (with their consent) to a MUTUAL use of porn. We may certainly insist that we should not be shamed because of our use. These are legitimate calls for autonomy, and the basic need we have (no matter our sex or gender) to be respected as decision-makers around the organisation of our sexual impulses.

However, another remedy, which is one that I am and have been proposing throughout my few pieces on porn, is for men to actually catch ourselves in the thick of this cycle of habituation to variety and stimulation, and our tendency to ignore the addictive potential of this game of habituation (desensitisation to stimuli).

We can learn to de-condition ourselves from this cycle. We can actually consider that there IS an alternative to normalising and habituating to porn use for managing one’s libido, including within the context (or confines?) of a sexless marriage.

Here are some thoughts:
1. Sexlessness is not necessarily a problem.
2. To the extent that it is a problem, it does take at least two in a relationship for there to be a problem... In other words, acknowledge our own complicity (as men) in creating and/or maintaining this problem.
3. Consider that habitual porn use may be a part of how we are complicit.

I want to re-stress... This is not strictly a moral issue for me, nor do I mean to condemn the use of porn, any more than I would condemn the consumption of sugar. Sexual desire and hunger are two inevitable and indeed, even joyous and pleasureable parts of human experience... particularly with good company. I also certainly mean no lack of compassion, empathy or understanding for those of us who truly do feel stifled by sexless marriages, or sexless partnerships (or indeed, unwilled singlehood or partner-less-ness). Indeed, I empathise with the genuine belief in pornography’s benign role in assisting in relief, and its role in sexual liberation. After all, I have certainly felt this way myself for much of my adult life.

My main concerns have to do with the lack of insight into the impermanent nature of the relief that comes from porn, indeed, into the fact that porn is one means that the original itch is exacerbated (and then essentialised and assimilated as a 'normal' aspect of male libido), the potential problem of the increasing ubiquity of porn (particularly of the escalating normative standards of stimulation) in men's lives (and increasingly, women as well), and also in Arndt's hypocrisy of hinting at women's prudish hysteria while contrasting them with the calm innocence of men in sexless marriages. 



Further Questions to Explore
The issue of the assumed problem of sexlessness (asexuality as pathology?)


Some of my Previous posts on Porn:
--> Abstinence From Porn
--> Integral Theory and Pornography

Fraternity?

"The opposite to patriarchy is not matriarchy, but fraternity..."
- Germaine Greer


Greer continues... "yet I think it’s women who are going to have to break this spiral of power and find the trick of cooperation..."


a cooperation of a kind that...
"...could make politics irrelevant; by a kind of spontaneous cooperative action the like of which we have never seen; which is so far from people’s ideas of state structure or viable social structure that it seems to them like total anarchy — when what it really is, is very subtle forms of interrelation that do not follow some heirarchal pattern which is fundamentally patriarchal."


I wonder if it must be women who break this spiral alone...?

How do we foster a culture of brotherhood and sisterhood and siblinghood,
no matter our gender nor our desire nor
some alchemical archetype of some form...


Siblinghood?

A preliminary Definition :
Through this world of strange times... we look out for one another, encourage one another to fight for the things worthy of fight. To nurture and hold whosoever needs nurturing and comfort. To hold one another accountable for the things we've done wrong that we should right. For forgiving those who have hurt us, and for forgiving ourselves for having hurt others...
and then telling one another, gently but firmly,
to stand up..., and
"Let's try again."

For sticking together no matter how difficult the journey ahead may get... this strange rush of civilisation toward ... what End?

What joy,
what a privilege,
to have space and time this precious,
to reflect and to contemplate.

Apophenia

Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. Consider the following headlines, appearing currently on my news aggregator:

1) Al Qaeda bomb plot was foiled by double agent
2) North Carolina voters approve same-sex marriage ban
3) 'Where the Wild Things Are' author Maurice Sendak dies
4) Anger at austerity, immigration feeds far right's rise in Europe
5) In Greece, coalition government proves elusive amid impasse

 Some possible things we might draw from these headlines:

1) The human condition is a miserable, fearful one, and the only certainty in life is death.
2) Violence abounds in the world.
3) The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

 Further connections are left as an exercise for the reader.

Global Woman ... and some Thoughts on Work

Today, I went to the Melbourne City Library and borrowed
  Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy 
edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild

So far, it has been an absolutely excellent read. The book is a compilation of essays covering the issues of mass migration of women from poor countries to rich countries to fill in what Ehrenreich and Hochschild call the "care deficit"...




Care Deficit?

In summary, many of the 'gains' and 'successes' of materialist feminism in wealthy, "Western," industrialised countries have revolved around the 'rights' of women within public and paid professional spheres, in other words, in spheres typically more traditionally demarcated as 'male' (rights of citizenship, rights of property ownership, etc.). While this increase in access and opportunity has meant greater/increasing economic equality (in public spheres) for women citizens, this has not been correlated with as sharp an increase, particularly in late capitalist feminism dominated by bourgeois interests, in an incentive to prioritise and politicise the importance of domestic labour.

This means a lot of the roles historically fulfilled by women, in general and in particular, domestic & caretaker roles, are now being filled, in particular, by migrant women.

In the first essay of the book, "Love and Gold," Hoschschild says it best:

"Women who want to succeed in a professional or managerial job in the First World [sic]... face strong pressures at work. Most careers are still based on a well-known (male) pattern: doing professional work, competing with fellow professionals, getting credit for work, building a reputation, doing it while you are young, hoarding scarce time, and minimizing family work by finding someone else to do it. In the past, the professional was a man; the 'someone else' was his wife. The wife oversaw the family, itself a flexible, preindustrial institution concerned with human experiences the workplace excluded: birth, child rearing, sickness, death. Today, a growing 'care industry' has stepped into the traditional wife's role, creating a very real demand for migrant women.


But if First World [sic] middle-class women are building careers that are molded according to the old male model, by putting in long hours at demanding jobs, their nannies and other domestic workers suffer a greatly exaggerated version of the same thing. Two women working for pay is not a bad idea. But two working mothers giving their all to work is a good idea gone haywire. In the end, both First and Third World [sic] women are small players in a larger economic game whose rules they have not written."


Elsewhere, Ehrenreich and Hochschild mention that this gap has certainly not been narrowed by any significant increase in involvement (within the domestic sphere) of men. After all, there is a huge economic disincentive for individuals socialised within so-called "First World" settings to participate in labour that is not only financially uncompensated, but also socially undervalued. This may be experienced as especially 'disenfranchising' for men who have especially vested interests in holding on to the privilege of access to and association with paid, public, professional worlds. Men may experience both deeply internalised and socio-cultural pressures to dissociate from spheres of experience which have been historically feminised and constructed as belonging to women.

Hochschild writes:
"...when the unpaid work of raising a child became the paid work of child-care workers, its low market value revealed the abidingly low value of caring work generally -  and further lowered it...
Just as the marker price of primary produce keeps the Third World low in the community of nations, so the low market value of care keeps the status of the women who do it - and ultimately all women - low..."


One notable exception to this trend has been Norway:

"One excellent way to raise the value of care is to involve fathers in it. If men shared the care of family members worldwide, care would spread laterally instead of being passed down a social class ladder. In Norway, for example, all employed men are eligible for a year's paternity leave at 90 percent pay. Some 80 percent of Norwegian men now take over a month of paternal leave. In this way, Norway is a model to the world. For indeed it is men who have for the most part stepped aside from caring work, and it is with them that the 'care drain' truly begins."






Caring As My Political Act

I am reflecting on the fact that I have been participating, for the most part of my professional life, in the community sector, particularly for the GLBT community. As a man, I have not necessarily consciously thought of this as a particularly feminist or even pro-feminist act. Yet, clearly coming from my undergraduate academic background in gender studies, it was no surprise to me to learn that this industry is not only typically feminised (a workforce disproportionately composed of women), but historically undervalued and underpaid as well.

I am excited about recent developments in Australia, where several unions within the community sector, particularly the Australian Services Union (ASU) have fought for, and recently won, an Equal Pay increase of between 19% - 41% for all community sector workers, which is to be phased in over the next 8 years. This is a landmark Federal ruling, which makes a huge difference in rectifying the problem of the gender pay gap.

I believe that this will have positive implications for all of us. It will allow community sector workers not only to have more economic agency, but it also is a powerful cultural statement about the value of caring work in this country.

I believe this also means that we are far more likely to achieve the outcome of increased incentive to do part-time public work (either for those of us who have had 'too little' work, constructed as 'unemployed' or 'underemployed,' or for those of us who have 'too much' work, typically people with 'full time,' 40 - 50 hour-a-week jobs). Part-time work, with increased pay within carer/community-/social work sectors, is far more likely to be financially sustainable while one is also trying to run a household (with its domestic duties), whether alone or in a shared household.

Ideally, this would free women (and men) in these sectors to pursue other more personal and domestic aspirations (family, self-care, etc.), and not perpetuate the cycle of the 'care deficit' which has been part and parcel of the problem of global inequity...

Oh this white elephant of an unfinished, late-capitalist feminist project, of which the hiring of oft-exploited migrant workers has been but one symptom.