women talking about how they hate men are like “yeah i just would rather like be alone and focus on growing flowers and organic vegetables than be around men, who have physically harmed me personally in the past” and men talking about how they hate women are like “i can’t wait to set a woman on fire because she didn’t make sexy enough eye contact with me”
“Sex is the least genuine and most superficial way to achieve [though most likely feign] intimacy with someone. People swapping fluids like it’s gonna change who they are. A bit of friction doesn’t change anything. Sex can be a manifestation of intimacy, but it isn’t intimacy. People wonder why we’ve got a generation of desperately lonely people, who also happen to be libertines - because they’ve been taught that sex liberates you, when in reality honesty liberates you - emotional honesty, a lived pattern of genuine and innocuous behavior. Most sex isn’t honest at all, it’s a performance, an attempt at achievement - prove you’re something, prove you’re as liberated as the world demands - that’s an act, acts imprison you, masks suffocate us. You won’t find fulfillment in sex, and looking for it there will kill your heart, as it will be a procession of emotional mirages. It’s only present if it’s already present, it doesn’t manifest within the act.”
— my friend deleted his blog a while back, but this was a post he made three years ago and I still think about it a lot.
When people tell stories about how their parents beat them, it’s always interesting to see their face change because they expected me to say “me too lol” but I instead say “I’m really sorry. You didn’t deserve that”
Last time a co worker who also has West Indian parents was telling me in a joking way how he remembers being beaten with a belt because lied about his report card. As he was laughing it off and saying he deserved it, I just said “wow that’s awful hun. You didn’t deserve that.” And his whole face changed. Like it hadn’t occurred to him that it’s messed up that a part of remembering his childhood is remembering how badly it hurt to be beaten so badly at such a young age.
Another time I had a friend, non West Indian parents, who talked about how she made a mess on a dress that her parents got her. It was really expensive apparently and she spilled red juice on it. She talked about how she was ordered to take the dress of and was beaten with a belt too without any clothes on. And she was laughing and said “I was a bad ass kid lol” and I said “no hun you were just a kid”. And she looked at me and immediately stopped laughing and just sat there like “yea…I was just a kid. I don’t know why they did that to me”
My mom was raised in a household where she was beaten so badly….I just don’t understand how she is so loving now growing up in a home where she got so little love. They called it discipline, but once she became a social worker she began to see that it was abuse. That she grew up terrified of her parents, although they thought it was respect that my mom felt. It was fear.
We have to get comfortable challenging what is often seen as cultural norms. We have to be a generation of people who are not ashamed to say “I would never beat my child”.
