Post-feminism and BDSM

[ataxia.girl]

In my opinion, we would all be better off if we questioned whether we really need all the things we work so hard to be able to buy.

i would agree but i do think there's more to it than that, especially in places where the housing market is really inflated.

 

[eastern sun]

i would agree but i do think there's more to it than that, especially in places where the housing market is really inflated.

But people buy beyond their means. I watched my mother go into chronic gut-wrenching debt, trying to buy a lifestyle that would make her more comfortable in this difficult world. And the chronic debt just set new negative forces in motion.

 

[Netzach]

Beware the power of the crone. It is truly the untapped, disregarded (and hence potentially revolutionary because it'll take 'em all by surprise) feminine source these days.

And with the baby boomers, the numbers are growing - which in our society does hold some marketing power at least.

(Have you seen the number of older love interests in the movies these days? And they're not all rebuilt. Joan Rivers may have won Celebrity Apprentice last year with her $100,000 make-over; but Vanessa Redgrave looks old - and beautiful. And the 75 year old salsa queen on the aol headlines this week is shaking her flat saggy butt and making audiences scream.)

Beware the crone.

In watching how my grandmother is being handled by the medical establishment, I would say the "power of the crone" cuts out when you're past MILF categorization. I mean she's nuts, so expecting her to tap some inner well of personal power isn't something that's going to happen at this late stage, but still - I'm with Kybele on this one. When you are no longer sexualize-able you're pretty much written off.

And personally, having grown up with virtually nothing, I don't mind all the shit I'm able to buy with my money and the debt I'm able to pay off. The "do you really need all that stuff" meme gets a resounding "yes" from me. The things a lot of people are striving for with two incomes are not things like that big house in the country, but a car that runs and shoes for the kids. Look outside your demographic.

 

[ataxia.girl]

But people buy beyond their means. I watched my mother go into chronic gut-wrenching debt, trying to buy a lifestyle that would make her more comfortable in this difficult world. And the chronic debt just set new negative forces in motion.

Read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and tell me those families are choosing to have 2 bread winners because of lifestyle choices.

This one is good too: Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

 

[rosco rathbone]

LOL


i'm a vengeful girl.

You are such a piece a work.

 

[eastern sun]

In watching how my grandmother is being handled by the medical establishment, I would say the "power of the crone" cuts out when you're past MILF categorization. I mean she's nuts, so expecting her to tap some inner well of personal power isn't something that's going to happen at this late stage, but still - I'm with Kybele on this one. When you are no longer sexualize-able you're pretty much written off.

I worked in a nursing home, and listened to the dreams of demented old women who swore they were visited in the night by their lost husbands and mothers. I heard the confession of a blind woman who everyone thought was insane, but was just terrified of dying and facing hell after having an abortion fifty years ago.

And it's true that those women were marginalized and institutionalized. Primarily by their families. It's true. Maybe they were impossible to care for. Maybe they should be left behind while the pack moves on to greener pastures.

But they have power. Even that senile old woman who swore at me in Italian, month after month, until she realized I wasn't going to leave her alone.

I learned more about death and dreams with them than anyone else. It's a valuable experience.

I don't think we reject them because they're not sexy, Netzach. I think we reject them because their experience scares us. Takes us to places we don't think we can tolerate - boredom, insanity, loneliness, confusion, death.

I stand behind the power of the crone. She'll be waiting for us whether we like it or not.

 

[eastern sun]

Read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and tell me those families are choosing to have 2 bread winners because of lifestyle choices.

This one is good too: Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

I will. "Nickel and Dimed" is on my shelf.

But I don't readily accept that we're all victims of forces outside our control.

I've watched women, my stepmother for one, raise their children below the poverty line using whatever they could get from government handouts, shared resources - like cars and washing machines - with other women, clothes donations from the local church.

Granted, they were angry. Often infectiously so. Enraged at the men who were not contributing financially to the children they had fathered.

But those women taught me that you only need one knife in the kitchen. And just a few pots.

I understand that kids who grow up with nothing in a culture where "having things" is so important suffer.

But we're creating this culture of ours. And the world is imbalanced.

Maybe - as a culture - we don't need everything we think we need.

 

[Netzach]

I'm not talking about personal power or dignity or inherent value. Those are the things that mean one *should* not be written off. Frankly they're nice, they make life tolerable, but substituting them for agency and power is a dangerous proposition to me. It becomes too easy to excuse the inequalities of state and society and let them off the hook when you decide that you're going to define power in some personally applicable way only.

I'm talking about power that makes one's life tangibly better - your self determination, your ability to advocate for yourself, your ability to get a piece of the pie, action, or access. Or to have someone who can do this for you.

I'm not sure that it's a ton better to be an old man than an old woman, from a care perspective, but I do think it's better.

My grandmother's relationship of non-questioning to her MD isn't winning her anything. The fact that he has medicated her Crohn's disease for a decade now without running a SINGLE DIAGNOSTIC is, as far as I'm concerned, criminal. He would never do that to someone my age, well maybe he would. But take an 80 year old woman, and it's fine to pretend to listen to her for five minutes and prescribe, it's fine to go ten years with not one piece of imaging.

 

[ownedsubgal]

Maybe - as a culture - we don't need everything we think we need.

absolutely, agreed 100%. thank goodness i'm not the only one, it gives me hope for our society. since when did the acquiring of stuff...especially bigger, shinier, less functional, and constantly newer stuff...become so dang important, and why does it seem like everyone is happily buying into this new religion?

Daddy and i live comfortably on one income...his. my occasional whoring for perv/therapeutic purposes may allow us to go out to eat someplace nice or to a nightclub more often, but it is not paying any real bills, trust me. people look at us in shock and wonder when they realize i don't work, that our household has only one breadwinner. they are amazed we are able to afford clothes on our back and gas in the car tank.

it is falsely assumed by many americans that in order to live with one income a couple or family must either live like a pauper, or that the one income must be well into six figures. that is simply not true. we just don't have the need or desire for all the stuff that so many seem to find essential to life function. one car, one cell phone, delicious homemade meals 95% of the time, new wardrobe every year as opposed to every week. we still live in a nice home, nice quiet suburban neighborhood, get all the bills paid on time, have fun when we want, and managed to pay a 10K+ private school tuition for many years (went public for high school as disciplinary action for poor grades...turns out he loves it ).

 

[Netzach]

Read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and tell me those families are choosing to have 2 bread winners because of lifestyle choices.

This one is good too: Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

I think I am morphing into a less articulate Barbara Ehrenreich every day. Welcome To Cancerland is almost a manifesto of illness for me.

No one's arguing that a second cell phone is a must have. When you are paying 2/3 of your income toward rent and half the last third on health insurance, as many people are, you can't exactly do it on one salary, no matter what you want to do. Worrying every time someone needs a tooth pulled and not having cash for a few nights in a hotel if your roof is damaged - these are not things that you can be critical of someone for wanting to avoid.

"You only need one knife" sounds great, when you have more than one knife. When you have one knife, you kind of wish you had a serrated one too, sometimes.

I'm hardly going to be critical of that person, at any rate. Yes, some of us have a shit ton of things we don't "need" self included at present. A lot of people don't.

 

[eastern sun]

I'm not talking about personal power or dignity or inherent value. Those are the things that mean one *should* not be written off. Frankly they're nice, they make life tolerable, but substituting them for agency and power is a dangerous proposition to me. It becomes too easy to excuse the inequalities of state and society and let them off the hook when you decide that you're going to define power in some personally applicable way only.

I'm talking about power that makes one's life tangibly better - your self determination, your ability to advocate for yourself, your ability to get a piece of the pie, action, or access. Or to have someone who can do this for you.

I'm not sure that it's a ton better to be an old man than an old woman, from a care perspective, but I do think it's better.

But I think the pure number of old folks that are going to be on our hands in the coming decades is going to give them political power they haven't had for some time.

It's the same generation that gave us the women's movement and civil rights movement, the sexual revolution and the me generation.

But now they're entering old age.

So far, the major impact I've seen is in fact on the health care system, both in its ballooning profit margins, and in the need for government regulation. But I'll be very curious to see how this plays out over the next twenty to thirty years.

Old folks' personal power and dignity will either be recognized and valued because it simply can't be ignored in these numbers. Or we young-uns will decide that certain conditions ought not be covered in their health care packages, and they won't live such long useless lives. More and more people will be encouraged to go quietly into that dark night.

And since women statistically live longer than men, this is a huge issue for our post-feminist age.

 

[ownedsubgal]

I think I am morphing into a less articulate Barbara Ehrenreich every day. Welcome To Cancerland is almost a manifesto of illness for me.

No one's arguing that a second cell phone is a must have. When you are paying 2/3 of your income toward rent and half the last third on health insurance, as many people are, you can't exactly do it on one salary. "You only need one knife" sounds great, when you have more than one knife. When you have one knife, you kind of wish you had a serrated one too, sometimes.

I'm hardly going to be critical of that person.

i'm not so critical of that person...i'm far more critical of those who consistently struggle to pay the bills, yet own and maintain two SUVs, NBA/NFL season tickets, get weekly mani/pedis/new hairdo, and have a designer purse to match every pair of shoes and dress in their closet. this would describe most of the folks in the community in which we live, and these are the folks who i often hear proclaiming, "you just can't survive today on one income!"

the health insurance thing is a good point however, and perhaps the single most irritating/frustrating/depressing thing about being an american citizen. having access to good (or any) health insurance, being able to afford health insurance, the health insurance you can afford actually being adequate for your needs, etc. hopefully in our lifetime some major overhaul can take place and folks will no longer have to refinance their home in order to pay for cancer treatments.

that is one reason Daddy and i went the legal route...i needed the health insurance badly. paying for health care with insurance can be difficult enough...but imagine receiving hospital bills of 30K and more (for a 6 week hospital stay and all the myriad fees therein), getting your wisdom teeth pulled (1K per tooth), going to the dermatologist monthly and of course don't forget about birth control...and having ZERO insurance and not qualifying for any. it was a ball, i tell ya.

 

[eastern sun]

"You only need one knife" sounds great, when you have more than one knife. When you have one knife, you kind of wish you had a serrated one too, sometimes.

My serrated knife was the first great gift I gave myself.

 

[Netzach]

i'm not so critical of that person...i'm far more critical of those who consistently struggle to pay the bills, yet own and maintain two SUVs, NBA/NFL season tickets, get weekly mani/pedis/new hairdo, and have a designer purse to match every pair of shoes and dress in their closet. this would describe most of the folks in the community in which we live, and these are the folks who i often hear proclaiming, "you just can't survive today on one income!"

Well that's just one of those things I chalk up to batshit insane. LOL. We're in agreement. Suburbs are freaking weird. I don't know people directly into that kind of conspicuous consumption since I got out of retail.

I do remind M when he's getting an attack of the spending jones that the people he works with who have "this and that" may also be debt ridden up the ass for it and he's like "good point."

the health insurance thing is a good point however, and perhaps the single most irritating/frustrating/depressing thing about being an american citizen. having access to good (or any) health insurance, being able to afford health insurance, the health insurance you can afford actually being adequate for your needs, etc. hopefully in our lifetime some major overhaul can take place and folks will no longer have to refinance their home in order to pay for cancer treatments.

that is one reason Daddy and i went the legal route...i needed the health insurance badly. paying for health care with insurance can be difficult enough...but imagine receiving hospital bills of 30K and more (for a 6 week hospital stay and all the myriad fees therein), getting your wisdom teeth pulled (1K per tooth), going to the dermatologist monthly and of course don't forget about birth control...and having ZERO insurance and not qualifying for any. it was a ball, i tell ya.

Oh, it doesn't take a huge act of imagination on my part. I'm still indentured to the fine folks at the hospital for a while yet. Our getting hitched wasn't on the schedule we'd have liked, and there wasn't a wedding. Maybe a good tenth anniversary party to make up for it.

 

[JMohegan]

But I think the pure number of old folks that are going to be on our hands in the coming decades is going to give them political power they haven't had for some time.

It's the same generation that gave us the women's movement and civil rights movement, the sexual revolution and the me generation.

But now they're entering old age.

So far, the major impact I've seen is in fact on the health care system, both in its ballooning profit margins, and in the need for government regulation. But I'll be very curious to see how this plays out over the next twenty to thirty years.

Old folks' personal power and dignity will either be recognized and valued because it simply can't be ignored in these numbers. Or we young-uns will decide that certain conditions ought not be covered in their health care packages, and they won't live such long useless lives. More and more people will be encouraged to go quietly into that dark night.

And since women statistically live longer than men, this is a huge issue for our post-feminist age.

Old people are already the most feared demographic in the political world. The slightest whiff of a threat to their entitlements is political suicide. Even "no socialism" raving teabaggers scream "HANDS OFF MEDICARE!"

Why? Because old people vote.

All of that notwithstanding - I agree with the rest of your post.

 

[BiBunny]

I still think if you can do it for old folks (Medicare) and for folks who can't/won't/whatever work (Medicaid), then you oughta do it for young folks who will work. But I realize that's neither here nor there at the moment.

 

[JMohegan]

I'm not talking about personal power or dignity or inherent value. Those are the things that mean one *should* not be written off. Frankly they're nice, they make life tolerable, but substituting them for agency and power is a dangerous proposition to me. It becomes too easy to excuse the inequalities of state and society and let them off the hook when you decide that you're going to define power in some personally applicable way only.

I'm talking about power that makes one's life tangibly better - your self determination, your ability to advocate for yourself, your ability to get a piece of the pie, action, or access. Or to have someone who can do this for you.

I'm not sure that it's a ton better to be an old man than an old woman, from a care perspective, but I do think it's better.

My grandmother's relationship of non-questioning to her MD isn't winning her anything. The fact that he has medicated her Crohn's disease for a decade now without running a SINGLE DIAGNOSTIC is, as far as I'm concerned, criminal. He would never do that to someone my age, well maybe he would. But take an 80 year old woman, and it's fine to pretend to listen to her for five minutes and prescribe, it's fine to go ten years with not one piece of imaging.

People with money have the power you're talking about.

The reason older women in general have less of this power is not because they can no longer shake their tits around to get people's attention, but because they are more likely to find themselves at the end of a lifetime of lower earnings, smaller pensions (if any) and/or divorced and left with the short end of the financial stick.

 

[Netzach]

People with money have the power you're talking about.

The reason older women in general have less of this power is not because they can no longer shake their tits around to get people's attention, but because they are more likely to find themselves at the end of a lifetime of lower earnings, smaller pensions (if any) and/or divorced and left with the short end of the financial stick.

True enough. Which makes me question the validity of "yay, I have tit shaking power" as enough. Even as I put my titshaking power into my new IRA, God willing.

 

[ataxia.girl]

I still think if you can do it for old folks (Medicare) and for folks who can't/won't/whatever work (Medicaid), then you oughta do it for young folks who will work. But I realize that's neither here nor there at the moment.

i felt physically ill when i got my explanation of insurance on my little ICU visit and saw the billed vs negotiated price the hospital bills because i am insured. It is sickening.

Lets just say that because i'm insured the hospital only bills 30% of what they would bill an uninsured person.

Yeah... that's not fucked up at all.

 

[BiBunny]

i felt physically ill when i got my explanation of insurance on my little ICU visit and saw the billed vs negotiated price the hospital bills because i am insured. It is sickening.

Lets just say that because i'm insured the hospital only bills 30% of what they would bill an uninsured person.

Yeah... that's not fucked up at all.

No, no, of course not.

 

[JMohegan]

True enough. Which makes me question the validity of "yay, I have tit shaking power" as enough. Even as I put my titshaking power into my new IRA, God willing.

This one little post sums up my opinion on the subject quite nicely.

 

[YourCaptor]

Yeah but i talk big

Ha ha, that's true. Enjoy the high.

I wonder if you'll end up fooling some pore little guy with your man subjugation passion.

 

[ownedsubgal]

Oh, it doesn't take a huge act of imagination on my part. I'm still indentured to the fine folks at the hospital for a while yet. Our getting hitched wasn't on the schedule we'd have liked, and there wasn't a wedding. Maybe a good tenth anniversary party to make up for it.

tenth anniversary, that's not a bad idea hmmm. there was no hoopla for our official adoption either, it's not exactly something you can shout from the rooftops and pop champagne with family about, lol. but maybe we can work out some big shebang down the road...call it reknotting or whatever the heck. i want to go all out lacey fancy girlie just one day in my life, dag nabbit.

 

[ataxia.girl]

Ha ha, that's true. Enjoy the high.

I wonder if you'll end up fooling some pore little guy with your man subjugation passion.

Uhhh

It's not exactly hard. There are men lined up wanting to be subjugated. i guess you missed my "i need a sub" thread.

i have a guy i told to go get a fast food job a month ago and send me a picture of him in the uniform. He's supposed to be saving up for one of those cage things to stick his thing in so it doesn't get in me. He contacted me today while i was offline and it sounds like he finally did it. i haven't spoken to him at all from the time i told him to do it and today.

It's not exactly hard when they want it so bad.

 

[MisterSir]

absolutely, agreed 100%. thank goodness i'm not the only one, it gives me hope for our society. since when did the acquiring of stuff...especially bigger, shinier, less functional, and constantly newer stuff...become so dang important, and why does it seem like everyone is happily buying into this new religion?

Because it makes people happy for a few moments in what is probably an otherwise dismal life and they bloody well want to because feeling happy is nice. It's certainly why I buy myself things and, since I'm in a position where I have the means to buy said things, why shouldn't I? It might sound like a selfish attitude, but I look after myself because nobody else will, and it's quite alright if that means I'm considered selfish.