Pornography fuels the demand for sex trafficking

I'm sorry to even share this but it's important for people to know. I didn't realize it until I went to a symposium at UVU last year on human trafficking (ie modern-day slavery). It happens in the US, and it happens in Utah, yes right around you. Porn creates the demand. So please don't believe anyone who says using pornography is harmless. Even if you deny the research on what it does to the user's own brain, behavior, and life, you can't ignore that you have no idea which or how many of the porn "performers" are there against their will, being horribly abused. Boycott pornography and spread the word. This is no longer an issue of personal morality. It's a public health and human dignity crisis.

Read the article from Porn Harms here.

Pornography culture - differences in men and women

This is a post requesting comments!

I hear a lot of people saying that porn is normal, natural, and not a big deal.  Men are visually stimulated, and women are emotional, so just deal with it.  Well, I think that's a lame excuse.  Since when are women NOT also visual?  I appreciate and am turned on by the look of a sexy man just as much as any man is by a sexy woman.

I think the reality is that men like novelty.  It's not that they are visual.  If that were the case, they could have an album of racy photos of their significant other (or having that person actually in the room) and that would suit them just fine.  They wouldn't need anything else.  But internet porn brings constant novelty- a new girl at every mouse click.

Watch this great TED talk for more on that novelty and the effect it has:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/wSF82AwSDiU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Now I want to talk about inequality.  I read an article this week by a sex therapist about how to talk to your boyfriend about their porn habit.  This therapist was someone who believes porn is fine, and you can never get a man to give it up.  I think she's full of crap.  She mentioned that asking him to give it up would be like asking you (the woman) to give up your vibrator and masturbation altogether.  (In my mind I am thinking, uhhh...wouldn't you give that up anyway cause you have a sexual partner?  Guess that's "old fashioned".)  Then she goes on to mention that a lot of men don't like women using vibrators because it sets up "unreasonable expectations".  :-o  Oh my, I had to just laugh so hard!  What do you think PORN is doing, genius??!!  For men, they get their unreasonable expectations from movies, media, and porn.  For women, theirs come from romance novels and movies (including Disney movies and other fairy tales), and vibrators.

Am I the ONLY person in this world that believes that we should be weeding all of these things out of our lives?!  How about for the sake of a healthy, loving relationship, neither partner has any sexual activity outside of their partnership?  And yeah, I am including self-stimulation, toys, and porn in the category of "sexual activity outside of the partnership".

Is there a way to screen people you date to find out if they are addicted to or indulge regularly in pornography?  I am sick and tired of every person I date being deep into this, and having my heart ripped out when I realize that their problem was worse than I thought, or that they aren't as recovered as I thought, or that they don't actually WANT recovery or aren't ready for it.  I would LOVE to have a way to weed guys out on the first couple dates so I don't even get involved with them.  Porn is a total deal-breaker (and heart-breaker) to me, so I want none of it.  I'm sick of this world.

Yes ALL Women

#YesAllWomen  Even the fat ones.

I remember being a teenager and hating myself and my overweight body.  But in kind of a sick way, I was also grateful for my unattractiveness.  Why?  Because, "well, at least I won't get raped."

I was still afraid when walking alone at night, but I had a measure of reassurance that if there is a rapist creeping about, he would probably not be interested in me and would wait for the next female to come along.

Then I found out that someone close to me HAD been raped.  This sickened and maddened me, and my heart broke for her.  But it also kind of served to confirm what I believed.  She was what I'd consider more attractive than myself.  She got raped cause she was more desirable to men than I was.  She was the next female to come along.

With this kind of environment and fear, is it really any wonder I never fully had the body transormation I longed for, and still haven't?  I'd like to know that a guy loves me for who I am, not what I look like.  What better way to weed out the shallow guys than to just not be that physically attractive to them in the first place?  Decent guys can look past physical flaws and get to know a person, and shallow guys never will.  It's safer to stay fat.

I just read this Blog about Misogyny among nerdy guys, and it brought me to a realization.  My role in relationships and society in the past has been to be the backup plan for those guys who couldn't get the girl they really wanted, because of their nerdy or otherwise "lesser" status.  But being with a guy who doesn't *really* want me is better than being alone, right?

And there is an even darker side of #YesAllWomen for fat girls, as talked about in this other great blog post I found: Fierce Freethinking Fatties.  The perception that a fat girl who gets raped is lucky, cause at least SOMEONE wanted to have sex with her.  This is the poisonous flipside of what I grew up believing - if I was safe from rape because of how unattractive I looked, naturally, I should also be grateful for a sick, depraved rapist willing to lower his standards to take advantage of me, so I can get SOME action.

Is this really what people believe?  Is this really what we want girls growing up now to believe about themselves?

That blog pointed out a t-shirt that says, "Fat Girls Can't Say No....(and when they do it still means yes)."  Are men actually being taught to believe that they will be less to blame for raping a fat girl than a thin one?  That's kinda what it's sounding like to me.   Men are getting the message all over the place that women actually WANT to be raped.  (Hello, pornography?)  But fat girls apparently want it even more, cause it could be their only chance.

Please, people, stop believing these kinds of lies.  We need good people - and, I'll just come out and say it: we especially need MEN - to stand up against this garbage.  It isn't just rapists who are the problem.  When you make jokes with undertones of rape, or simply laugh at or tolerate those jokes, you are partly to blame.  (FYI: Rape is- any form of not getting consent, or of ignoring a "no" from the person you do sexual things with!  It doesn't matter if you know them or not, what they look like, what they're wearing, how much you think you're not in control of yourself, etc.)  This is really no different than any other issue of social inequality in our past.  It's not much different from white supremacy.  It's male supremacy.  The only way for that to stop is for men to stand up WITH women to fight against it.  Please....do what's right.

Naked face

Makeup.  What purpose does it serve?  Is it to accentuate, to draw out your natural beauty?  Or is it to deceive and conceal?  How does it make you feel?  Can you go without it?  Is it a luxury or necessity?
 
Sometimes it's fun to wear interesting colors or go all-out crazy with the makeup just for kicks.  That's cool, I have no problem with that.  I don't even have a problem with makeup in general, I just don't think it's for everyone.  I also don't think anyone should feel compelled to wear it if they don't want to.

I have personally decided to go mostly without makeup.  I will still probably wear it occasionally like if I get professional photos taken or go out on a nice date.  But even then, why should I?  I don't think makeup is evil, but the truth is this.  I don't want to feel like even if I'm running late I haveto put makeup on to be presentable out in public.

A year ago, I was at home in my grubbies on a Saturday.  I had an unexpected visitor show up from my church to just check and see how I was doing since I just recently moved in.  We had a good conversation for a few minutes.  When he left, I said out loud, "how embarrassing, I didn't even have my makeup on."  My 8-year-old boy turned to me and said, "what do you need makeup for?  You look fine!"

Well he sure told me...haha.  I began to realize how silly it really is.  I also began to notice how many women there are that go without makeup, and did that mean I thought they were ugly?  No.  I was never really into using makeup growing up.  I thought it was stupid and never wore any all through High School.  I thought girls who spent an hour getting ready every day were really dumb.  Then I met a guy who convinced me I needed it and I became indoctrinated with the idea that I had to "take care of myself" in order to be a functional member of society, ward off depression, and be acceptable.

Speaking of "functional member of society", here's just a little proof that women are taught they can't be acceptable without being adequately "made up", particularly as we start to get older.  This is a graphic made by Beauty Redefined:

Click for an Anti-Aging blog by Beauty Redefined, the source of this graphic

Brad is considered handsome and distinguished with his naked face, and Linda is still supposed to look like she's 20- or 30-something, with a face so painted it looks fake.

I have never felt comfortable with that level of makeup.  I tried out a lot of stuff, at one time (when I was with that guy I mentioned) using the full twice-daily regimen of cleansing, toning, and moisturizing.  My makeup routine included using foundation, powder, blush, bronzer, eye shadow, eye liner, mascara, eyebrow liner, and tweezers to pluck stray eyebrow hairs (OUCH).  I found it cumbersome and ridiculous to spend so much time and money.  My skin isn't so bad anyway, so why cover it up with a bunch of junk that gets mostly rubbed off by mid-day?  I don't think anyone's skin is that bad in fact.  I HATE when women with freckles use makeup to make them disappear.  That's a shame.

So, after that nonsense, I pared my routine down dramatically.  I used only concealer for the bags under my eyes, eye liner, eye shadow only because it kept the eyeliner from running into my eye crease, and mascara.  Since I already felt good about not being a "sell out" to a full-blown makeup routine, I convinced myself that the 4 products I used daily were just what was required to be presentable.  Bare minimum.

Well guess what?  BARE is actually the bare minimum.  And it's actually an all new kind of freedom.  I no longer have to worry about rubbing an itch on my eye and if that's going to smear makeup all over.  If I cry I can just cry and not obsess about having black tears.  I don't have to stash makeup in my car and purse for hectic days.  I don't spend $9 on one freaking tube of drug store mascara.

So there it is.  I'm not saying everyone should do the same.  Makeup isn't evil, it can be fun.  But all I'm saying is don't let yourself be a slave to it.  Decide how much of your makeup regimen is actually what YOU want and makes you YOU.  What are your reasons for doing it, and how much of it is to quiet anxieties the beauty industry has gifted you and others with?  How much do you really want and need?  Take an inventory of yourself and these questions, then have the courage to do what is right for you.  Good luck and God bless.

Smash the Scale- New Year's Confessions

Tomorrow is New Year's Day.  For a good portion of my 33 years, I wasted that day writing long lists of "resolutions" (aka unreasonable-and-unreachable-goals-disguising-themselves-as-healthy-lifestyle-changes), complete with calendars, benchmark goals, accountability measures, etc. only to have the goals eventually fail, usually by about February or March. Then, as an all-or-nothing perfectionist, I immediately labelled myself as a hopeless loser, and gave up on my "healthy lifestyle", crashing and burning with flair and Oreos.

But here's the weird thing.  The reality is, that's what I wanted.  I wanted the failure as much as I wanted the Oreos, in fact probably more.  Oreos are a nice calming, happy-inducing, non-judging friend.  But failure is even better.  You see, there is a certain safety in being a fat failure.  It took me a long time to realize it, but I have a suit of armor I carry around with me at all times.  It protects me from having to let people see the real me.  If anyone rejects me, I have an instant scapegoat- it's the armor they're rejecting instead of myself, those shallow jerks.  I get to look noble in comparison to their prejudice, and I also can wallow in self-pity.  It's a win-win.

Several years ago, I stopped making resolutions to magically transform my body and my life, mostly because it always turned out badly and emotionally devastating, and I decided to be kind to myself and no longer put myself through that abuse.  I occasionally still make goals of things I plan to accomplish that year anyway, like paying off my car, taking lots of hikes, or doing a summer internship.  This year is no different.  No body transformation goals.  Instead, this:

I'll get to the "because" in just a moment.  But first, smashing the scale (ie with a sledge hammer) is an interesting notion for me, because I have already weened myself off the scale.  I actually don't own a scale anymore, and I have only a rough idea of what I weigh.  It's nice living without a scale, and I highly recommend it.  (So if you haven't yet, go smash yours!)  No person actually NEEDS to know their exact weight every day or even every week.  The only time I ever have to know my weight is for filling out my driver's license application, and filling out medical forms.  I find out my weight a couple times a year when I happen to get sick enough to go to the doctor.  Being mostly in the dark about the number on the scale is just fine with me.  Instead of a number dictating how I'm going to feel about myself on any given day, how I FEEL dictates how I feel.  (Imagine that.)

Beautiful, even sans makeup

So since I have no scale to smash, I will have to smash other modes of hiding and protecting myself.  Giving my body fat status as protective armor ensures that I both love and hate it and subsequently love and hate myself.  I want to remove that status and give myself permission to love myself (including the fat), while also letting my true self shine through.  That won't be as instant as smashing a scale with a hammer.  And I have to be careful to avoid thinking my true self I've been hiding is a skinny hottie that has to be let out of the fat suit.  I already am the hottie, and the armor is actually in my head.  My physical appearance probably won't actually change all that much as I disrobe and let people see the real me.

A few things I have already started to do this past year, and plan to continue.

• Play more!  I have actually had times where I would exercise at home so I could get myself looking presentable enough to work out in public.  Now I don't care what people think when they see this fat girl hiking, backpacking, and river rafting.  I just do it, cause I enjoy it.
• Smile at myself in the mirror.  Instead of focusing in on little parts of my appearance to see if they look okay, just smile at beautiful me.
• STOP making shaming comments about myself.  Making negative comments about my appearance teaches the wrong things to my sons and anyone else who hears me.  Only positive comments, and try to avoid comments focused only on appearance.
• Avoid commenting on others' appearance.  Compliment their character, their hard work, their health, their joy.
• Lose the makeup.  I do this not because I think makeup is evil, but because my natural "me" is without makeup.  I only started wearing it when I was 19 when a guy indoctrinated me with the idea that I should wear makeup.  I eventually convinced myself I needed it in order to be acceptable or presentable.  That belief is not me, and I'm getting rid of it.
• Hug people more.  (This is a newer one.) I like to hug but I hold back in case it will make someone else feel weird or uncomfortable because they don't like me enough to hug me.  But in the process I end up making the situation feel really awkward and it's just dumb.
• Be myself.  I will only attract awesome friends if they can see my awesomeness. 

  
So, that is how I will "Smash the Scale".  Now for the "because".

Because I'm a human being.  Because I deserve to see my body as a means rather than an end.  Because I'm a complex person and my worth is not dependent on how I look or what others think of me.  What matters is what I think.  Because my body is a tool to do awesomeness.  Because my sons will learn much from me about the worth of women and how to treat them, and how they should treat themselves.  Because I am happier when I just live.  And I don't need anyone's permission to do so.

What about you?  Are you ready to smash the scale?  What's your "because"?  Please comment!

Smash the Scale is a body love movement put on by The Militant Baker and her Body Love Conference.  (Read about Smash the Scale at her blog, and visit the FB page for the conference.)  Thanks for the inspiration, Jes.

Sex Trafficking- a rant

I never use this term cause it's dumb, but it's actually appropriate now.  WTF?!!!??  I just went to a symposium on slavery and sex trafficking at UVU.  (http://www.uvu.edu/sei/events/slavery_symposium/) Oh my gosh!  Are you kidding me?  What is going on here?  This world is so disgusting!  There's not an extreme enough word to describe how debased, horrible, and evil some people are.
The first shocker...  some people (ie refugees from other countries) are actually being kidnapped and robbed of their ORGANS to sell piecemeal to the highest bidders.

Then on sex trafficking, I'm afraid I actually swore out loud at the symposium when they showed this.  In Portland, people can "rent" a 10-year-old kid for the weekend, no questions asked.  OH MY GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???!!!!!!!  (Not taking my God's name in vain here, but literally crying out to Him.)  I want to gather up every child and lock them somewhere safe!  This is so depraved and disgusting, I can't bear it.

How much of the pornography that YOU look at do you think is actually fully consensual?  People are being trafficked for prostitution and pornography all over the place.  And because we love and revere pornography so much, here's an interesting loophole...  prostitution is illegal in most places, so if you take one of those trafficked prostitutes and pay them for sex, you're committing a felony.  But, take that same person, FILM the sex and post it as pornography, pay them as a porn "performer" and guess what? It's legal!!!!  WTF again!!!???!!!

When will we see that Pornography is EVIL and needs to be done away with?!?  This really is the worst drug, evil people are making loads of money off it at everyone else's expense, and if YOU still think that watching porn on your own time does not hurt anyone....PLEASE stop lying to yourself.  You're hurting real people, even if you won't admit that it's hurting yourself (which it is), you do NOT know that the "performers" you're watching aren't actually trafficked individuals having their lives destroyed through constant rape and abuse, their families' lives threatened, etc.  Take away the demand and the supply would subside.  BOYCOTT PORNOGRAPHY!!!!

Sugar Withdrawal, Part 1

I'm doing a sugar fast at the moment, because I tend to go overboard with the sweets and eat the whole package of Oreos or whatever I have on hand.  I know that is not at all normal, that's because it's actually an eating disorder, although not one of the two well-known ones. (Binging but no purging cause I'm a wimp about vomiting - Binge Eating Disorder.)  This umm... "condition" is actually brought on my compulsive dieting.
Luckily (?) for me I binge pretty much exclusively on sweets, which I can just cut out and be fine, right?  It's not like I need them to survive.

Well as I'm quickly finding out due to the fact that I am also currently fasting from media (Facebook, movies, YouTube, radio, etc.), and my boyfriend, so I have NONE of my usual coping strategies, sugar is important in my regular routine.  It's amazing how much of a stress-reducer and coping mechanism sugar is for me.  It has an almost instant calming effect on me, which is why it tends to be the retreat of choice at the end of a long day.  Every long day.  Every day.

I've been dying to know why sugar is so calming for me, so addictive, and more importantly - how to deal with it.  I have researched sugar addiction and its similarity to alcoholism and other drug addictions.  But I still don't get why the body responds to it like a drug, when glucose is the fuel of choice for our body's cells.  How can it be so important but also so detrimental?  I've heard some say that it's actually fructose that is the culprit, and there could be truth to that.  Table sugar is half glucose, half sucrose.  But fruits are full of fructose and I don't have problems with that and it's considered healthy to eat plenty of fruit.  I'll still do more research on that one.  When I have time.

The "how to deal with it" part is really tough.  A lot of people say I should do "Intuitive Eating" - don't cut out any foods or food groups, but just stop eating when you're full, honor your hunger cues, eat a variety of foods, etc.  That's great advice.  But I sure do like sweet things a lot, and can find a way to have dessert with every meal.

Is it more like alcoholism where I should be giving it up cold turkey and never touch the stuff again?  And how strictly can I hold to "no sugar"?  Obviously there's some sugar in everything if you're talking carbs.  If it's table sugar, believe me, I can still binge on "sugar free" candy and crap like that, but at 3 times the $$.

When I have gone off it completely, I set myself up for a huge binge when I do mess up.  One time I was off sugar for several months!  It was out of my system, I didn't even crave it any more and I felt great.  Food no longer controlled my life.  But inevitably, little things start to bug me, like not getting to have pie at family gatherings.  Cravings creep up after a while more as a psychological thing than a physical one.  I guess I broke myself of the physical part but not the mental.  Do I really want to NEVER have ice cream or cookies or pie ever again?  After those months, I "fell off the wagon" and it has been pretty much a non-stop binge since then (several years now), perhaps cause I'm scared that I'll not have that food available when I decide to say goodbye to it again.  That's another case for intuitive eating - stop making certain foods "off limits", and giving them so much power.

Ugh...  but anyway, I'm doing a 2-week fast from stuff because I have felt really mixed up in my life and wanted to remove all my crutches and distractions, forcing myself to do more important things like introspect, clean my house, and do school work.  I didn't do this restriction as a permanent thing, but as a 2-week fast.  I know some people who fast from sugar the entire holiday season, except for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.  That way they still get their favorite holiday treats on the holidays themselves, but they aren't gorging themselves all season long.  You can't do a ton of damage in just one day out of the whole month, so it seems a pretty good strategy.

I'm at the one-week mark currently in my 2-week fast, and I'm dying right now (which is why I'm writing so I have a constructive distraction).  I was thinking the first 3-4 days would be the big withdrawal time, but in actuality, it's from about days 4-8 I think.  (At least I hope this doesn't last many more days!)  I am SO tempted to cheat right now, it's not even funny.  I keep thinking things like, "I should just have some dark chocolate, that's really good for you, and I can just have one piece."  Well that may very well be true, but it would still be breaking my fast in which I wanted to literally have NO sugar/ sweets.
What I wouldn't give for some warm chocolate chip cookies and milk.  No!  Stop that train of thought.

So, I have been snacking a lot to try to get rid of the cravings.  But really, is this any better than if I were eating the sweets?  I'm eating chips and dip (good ones though- multigrain chips with spinach dip).  I made smoothies and that helped a lot to ignore or cover up cravings, but I ran out for now.  That was also really healthy and good (frozen fruit, juice, banana, spinach, Greek yogurt).

I am going to try getting up and listening to music while I clean, and if that doesn't work, I'll just go to bed early and hope tomorrow goes better.  Wish me luck.