Ironed Orchids

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Dear girls of the world today;

There is nothing wrong with you.

Everything I see, everything I read, everything I hear, is geared toward telling you that something is wrong with you. You’re too fat. You’re too thin. Your skin is terrible. You look too young. You look too old. You’re too smart, you’re too dumb, you talk too much, you don’t talk enough, you’re broken, you’re flawed, you’re bad. And all those things are lies. They are exaggerations. They are designed to pick on the things you feel insecure about, and convince you that you will never be happy unless you force yourself into their standards of perfection.

They will tell you that you are weak; that girls can’t deal with spiders or do math or love snakes or run nations or be scientists. They will tell you that you must be indecisive, flighty, more interested in the interests that are chosen for you than the ones that you choose for yourself. They will tell you that you have to change yourself to suit them, and then they will keep moving the goalposts, so that you’re never done changing, and you’re never allowed to be you. And they are wrong. They are so, so wrong, and you are better than the lies they tell you.

If you are a girl, you are a girl. Period, finish, end statement. It doesn’t matter what you look like or what you enjoy doing. It doesn’t matter what your assigned birth sex is or was. It doesn’t matter who or what or why you love. All that matters is that you love, and that you accept that you are you, and you are awesome.

It’s okay if you love pink. Some girls genuinely do. I genuinely do. Once, we would all have been viewed as cross-dressing and weird for liking pink, which was a male color. Times change. If you want to own your own pinkness, do, and don’t let anyone tell you that makes you less of a feminist.

It’s okay if you hate pink. You’re not denying your gender or letting down the side, or anything else like that. You’re a person, and there are a lot of colors out there to fall in love with. I recommend orange, green, and anything that sears your retinas.

Frills and lace and high heels and makeup are all fine. So are denim and combat boots and tattoos. So is everything between those extremes.

Collect dolls or knives or books or interesting rocks. Watch horror movies or romances or cartoons. Run races; go to spas. Eat cake or lettuce. Buy yourself a toy light saber and make your own wooooom noises while you wave it around; build a cardboard castle and chuck plush mushrooms at your would-be rescuers. Live your life, the way you want to live it, and understand that no one can kick you out of “the girl club” for doing it wrong, because you’re not.

You’re doing it exactly right, and I love you for that.

Corn maze love,
Me.

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"But the brouhaha over Hilary Rosen’s injudicious remarks is not really about whether what stay-home mothers do is work. Because we know the answer to that: it depends. When performed by married women in their own homes, domestic labor is work—difficult, sacred, noble work. Ann says Mitt called it more important work than his own, which does make you wonder why he didn’t stay home with the boys himself. When performed for pay, however, this supremely important, difficult job becomes low-wage labor that almost anyone can do—teenagers, elderly women, even despised illegal immigrants. But here’s the real magic: when performed by low-income single mothers in their own homes, those same exact tasks—changing diapers, going to the playground and the store, making dinner, washing the dishes, giving a bath—are not only not work; they are idleness itself."

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If a person, any person, whatever your previous relations have been, doesn’t want to have a sexual experience with you, any kind of sexual experience, any kind at all, whether it’s responding to flirtation or spending the weekend in bed with you or anything in between, no matter how inexplicable, strange, and downright wrong-headed that is of them, they don’t have to, they don’t need to give a reason, and you’re not allowed to make them do it.

1) “But…”

No.

2) “But what if…”

No.

3) “But maybe they…”

No.

4) “But I just want to…”

No.

5) “But you don’t understand, I was just …”

No.

6) “You’re not listening to the particulars of my very special case, I…”

No.

7) “But I don’t mean any …”

No.

8) “But I really really …”

No.

It is that simple. You do not have some other kind of deal. This is not some incredibly fraught and complex debate about balancing competing imperatives. The world doesn’t owe you any sex at all, and neither does any person in the world. There actually isn’t some kind of huge incomprehensible grey area. You only get to engage in sexual activity with people who want to engage in sexual activity with you. Also if there is any doubt at all you must ask. If you don’t want to ask because you don’t want to “break the mood” you already know the answer is no and are trying to pretend you don’t. Stop that.

I’m glad we had this little chat. Carry on, and do let me know if you have any further questions

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"You don’t make a poem with ideas, but with words."

"In popular terminology a unicorn is non-monogamous bisexual woman. She is said to be as hard to find as the one-horned mythological beast. It is possible, some say, that she does not even exist.
The lucky ones know that she is real, but as in the tales, the unicorn must be approached with care and consideration, preferably from the side and while avoiding eye contact. Anything else will send her skittering away.
Acknowledge the fact that you’re a bi girl in search of any sort of relationship and instantly you will be hit upon in the most forward manner. “You’re bi?” couples say, looking one to the other. “Honey, she’s bi! We’ve always wanted to share a woman. You can be with both of us!” All that matters, they want to believe, is that they found a suitable candidate — but after dreaming, deciding to take that bold step and then discovering how very slim are the pickings, perhaps we should not blame them for being overeager, even though in actuality it is at least doubly hard to make a connection in a situation where the unicorn must like and be liked by two others.
I have had these conversations. Pinned to the wall like a rare bird held in place for purposes of beautification, I could stand the pressure of four hungry eyes for mere moments before sliding away with an excuse, plausible or not. If they are disappointed I cannot bear to watch. Being bi doesn’t mean I must feel guilt for not sleeping with everyone, does it?"

"These two descriptions of the subject – subject for the world and object in the world – are equally necessary and essentially incompatible. …But both manifestly refer to the same self. It is just that in reflection I am compelled to describe myself in radically incompatible ways depending on the framework within which the reflection takes place."

"In every kiss a revolution"

"I can’t speak for the whole of womankind, but what is making me unhappy right now is a bogus set of measurements that can all too easily be manipulated by reactionary thinkers who believe women are only truly fulfilled when we are elbow-deep in dirty nappies."

"What happens when a muse is left to her own devices, when an object becomes a subject, when a woman is free to be herself?"

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[ME. cunte, count(e), corresponding to ON. kunta (Norw., Sw. dial. kunta, Da. dial. kunte), OFris., MLG., MDu. kunte:Gmc. *kuntn wk. fem.; ulterior relations uncertain.]

1. The female external genital organs. Cf. QUAINT n.

Its currency is restricted in the manner of other taboo-words: see the small-type note s.v. FUCK v.

[c1230 in Ekwall Street-Names of City of London (1954) 165 Gropecuntelane.] a1325 Prov. Hendyng (Camb. Gg. I. 1) st. 42 Yeue i cunte to cunnig and craue affetir wedding. c1400 Lanfranc’s Cirurg. 172/12 In wymmen e necke of e bladdre is schort, & is maad fast to the cunte. c1425 Castle of Perseverance (1904) 1193 Mankynde, my leue lemman, I my cunte ou schalt crepe. 1552 LYNDESAY Satyre Procl. 144 First lat me lok thy cunt, Syne lat me keip the key. a1585 POLWART Flyting with Montgomerie (1910) 817 Kis e cunt of ane kow. c1650 in Hales & Furnivall Percy’s Folio MS. (1867) 99 Vp start the Crabfish, & catcht her by the Cunt. 1743 WALPOLE Little Peggy in Corr. (1961) XXX. 309 Distended cunts with alum shall be braced. c1800 BURNS Merry Muses (1911) 66 For ilka hair upon her ct, Was worth a royal ransom. c1888-94 My Secret Life VII. 161, I sicken with desire, pine for unseen, unknown cunts. 1934 H. MILLER Tropic of Cancer (1935) 15 O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours? 1956 S. BECKETT Malone Dies 24 His young wife had abandoned all hope of bringing him to heel, by means of her cunt, that trump card of young wives.
transf. and fig. a1680 LD. ROCHESTER Poems on Several Occasions (1950) 28 Her Hand, her Foot, her very look’s a Cunt. 1922 JOYCE Ulysses 61 The grey sunken cunt of the world. 1928 D. H. LAWRENCE Lady Chatterley xvi. 296 If your sister there comes ter me for a bit o’ cunt an’ tenderness, she knows what she’s after.

2. Applied to a person, esp. a woman, as a term of vulgar abuse.

1929 F. MANNING Middle Parts of Fortune I. viii. 159 What’s the cunt want to come down ‘ere buggering us about for, ‘aven’t we done enough bloody work in th’ week? 1932 ‘G. ORWELL’ Coll. Essays (1968) I. 88 Tell him he’s a cunt from me. 1934 H. MILLER Tropic of Cancer (1935) 28 Two cunts sail in Americans. 1956 S. BECKETT Malone Dies 99 They think they can confuse me… Proper cunts whoever they are. 1965 V. HENRIQUES Face I Had 69 ‘What d’you think you’re doing, you silly cunt?’ the driver shouts at her.

3. Comb.

1680 ANON. in Rochester’s Poems on Several Occasions (1950) 36 Fam’d through the World, for the C—nt-mending Trade. 1868 Index Expurgatorius of Martial 32 A satire on Baeticus, who was a priest of Cybele, and a cunt-sucker. 1891 FARMER Slang II. 230/2 Cunt-struck, enamoured of women. 1923 J. MANCHON Le Slang 97 Cunt-hat,..chapeau de feutre. 1965 F. SARGESON Memoirs of Peon, ii. 28 We were all helplessly and hopelessly c…struck, a vulgar but forcibly accurate expression.

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