Not an invitation to slide your hand up my leg.

I open my window.
Snow dances off the rooftop edge less than five feet away in wispy patterns.
The temp is -12.
The sky is black with dwindling clouds i can only describe as icy grey-blue. But they linger heavily. Close my window and step down.
The Vagina Monologues were playing (live acting) over at the other college. Cobb and I walked over, through the snow. It was really enjoyable, but I was mostly glad it was being shown, because many people need to be exposed to this sort of media. Supposedly all the profits went to help fight violence against women and children as well. It was a classy act, though; filled with good humor. Health. What everyone needs a bit of, what I was yearning for awhile ago, and got. At the end we were all clapping and laughing with them; they ran offstage, grabbing randoms from the audience to go dance, myself included.
So I'm pretty comfortable with human sexuality, the body, nudity, etc. More tomorrow on that, but it still stands-I've read about it, talked about it, lived about it...it's not shocking, though I did once feel someone was looking over my shoulder about it once. There is a lot of ignorance surrounding the mystical mystical vagina. It's something that needs to change, and is, slowly. I saw a video on female circumcision where the women in the tribe were telling the camera that unless the clitoris was removed, if a woman gave birth the clitoris would travel up the body of the mother, burst through the head and kill the whole tribe-woman and child being born included.
...
That justifies cutting out an organ in the body made just for pleasure? A small cluster of super-sensitive nerve endings? God forbid a woman enjoy herself sexually for a second. No, lets cut it off. Should we discuss the repercussions of this need to mess up another human being? How about the lack of sterilized materials or numbing of the pain, the holding down of the patient, the obligatory and highly socially pressurized ultimatum of the circumcision process for the tweenies...a.k.a. if we can't fuck you up, you get kicked out of the village because you are unfit to marry some older guy and make babies.
There comes a point when you can't hide behind ridiculous excuses for human mutilation. When the human in you kicks up a storm and makes you say, "Stop."
Oh wait. Apparently not. Nazi camp, anyone? Domestic violence, anyone.
My favorite quote i remember from the Monologues?
"Why have a handgun when you can have a semi-automatic?"
As an art major, I don't prefer attaching shame to the word VAGINA. Nude drawing is a part of my lifestyle. But it is an awkward somewhat sterile medical name. The vagina is self-cleaning, so all douches aside on that one. haHA. My point? I've already exposed myself to similar stories as in the monologues, but... not even. There was one:
A 20-year old strides onstage in a form fitting dress made of stretchy material. Not much is left to the imagination, but it is dancer-garb-esque, and backless. Barefoot, she begins.
"My short skirt is not an invitation for you to come near. To slide your hand up my leg. It is not me, asking for you to do anything at all. It is not an invitation for rape, though it has come to that in the past. It is not a comment on my IQ level, in fact, it has nothing at all to do with you. It is liberation for my upper thighs, for the wind to travel around my legs and up my skirt, NOT anything else. It is my choice of clothing, it is so that when I travel the streets I own them" etc.
It was good.
And as one that has made fun of the short skirt, that has failed to understand in the freezing cold why girls have endured it: I hang my head and rethink my position. ...Yes, even I, learn a thing or two. Or twenty. I've never been an advocate of cutting down the girls around you, the potential sisters and joking friends; intelligent colleagues.
However, the glaring double standard expectation here in Oneonta between the dumbass in an oversized grey hoodie and a dolled up female in a short jean skirt and eye shadow still mystifies me. I just want to shout across the mountains.
I've been thinking about it since earlier today. My interest was piqued by a girl's blog on here..she mentioned she was sick of being pressured to be pretty, as being judged by her body before her mind, regardless of where she was. That she cut her hair short and got question both on her sexuality and if she "was a man".
Yes. Actually, she is a man. Actually. No really. You can't tell behind all that not so long hair getting in the way, but you're spot on. You got it.
Good night, world.