Because I'm feeling kind of random. But I was catching up on NCIS as I do - on the internet - and the whole episode was all ANGRY WHITE MAN SEEKS DAUGHTER LOST TO SEX TRAFFICKERS. Now I'm not trying to say that doesn't happen or doesn't exist - there are far too many instances of women and children being sold into sexual slavery to deny it.
BUT...the tee vee seems to be kind of weirdly focused on this smothering rage of white men that their little princesses might BE VIOLATED. Even the shows I've caught lately that haven't been about WHITE GIRL KIDNAPPED have been about dad's and their creepy pervert protectiveness if their daughters and their virginity.
Not their daughters as people - as walking virginity.
That really creeps me out.
Now it creeps me out because it's creepy and demeaning to women and girls as people - but also because it reminds me of my own weird relationship with my father and his obsession with my sex life 20 years ago.
Because even now, as an adult aged 43 - my parents are convinced my "gender issues" are really about who I had sex with at age 18 - 20 they didn't approve of - because well, girls aren't supposed to have or like sex with anyone, including their husbands. Women that like sex are whores and sluts by this lack of logic. And changing means that someone must have been really terrible at it. (True, some of them were pretty terrible at it, but who isn't at first? Not a cause.)
They aren't related in the slightest. Living in here, I know this. But to them - there is this whole weird world where women are not people and dreams and aspirations and even relationships are crushed by this overwhelming need to control other people's sexuality and purity. And by other people I mean vagina holders - because men are just fine and don't need quizzing about who they had sex with at 18 - 20 that wasn't parent approved.
My brother doesn't get asked these kinds of questions. He gets congratulated for being sexually active back then. Me - not so much. Even being the first kid to get married and even "looking normal" isn't enough - because they know that evil vagina is still lurking in my pants fooling people. Really. I've had whole throw down phone fights about how I am "misleading" people by being myself - because somewhere genitals are used for secret greetings or something and they are worried I can't do the penis shake - I can. Just for the record. I'd be a pretty crap orthodox Jew if I couldn't show my snippage. But that just infuriates them too - whole other diary. LOL
But this weird thing about men and purity needs to stop. It wrecked my relationship with my dad - I went from being a kid to being a vagina with legs that MUST STAY SHUT when I still wanted to goof off and hang out with my dad. It warped everything. He couldn't talk to me as a person anymore. He was worried about things I didn't know or care about - but he sure thought I was just out there letting anyone grope and rub and feel - I didn't have friends, much less anyone trying to get in my pants at 12.
My mum felt like puberty was some kind of permission to let me into the secret shitty world of womanhood - where everything hurts all the time and you just have to deal with it and smile. No child should ever hear about their parents disappointment with their intimate life. With details. It's just gross. There was no sympathy for the horror of being phobic at the sight of my own blood - tampax would "ruin me" so I had to stare at pads. Pills? We don't need no stinking pills, just deal with the pain, it's the way it's supposed to be.
Thank G-d for Coach F. He taught the best sex ed class (and only sex ed class) I ever took - but he had the facts and he gave them to us in 1984. He talked about AIDS. As much as you could in 1984 which wasn't a lot - but he was like - "Um, condoms are a good idea if you like other guys, because I don't want anyone dying because they didn't know they could at least try to protect themselves. So just remember that if you find yourself a gay adult at some point." He was the bomb and he's still teaching. He taught us we were people, in charge of what happened with our bodies - and that we could do things to protect ourselves, no matter who we were or who we were attracted to within our species and proper legal age requirements - and it was ok. That was a man who empowered girls to be women.
I remember when I was about 14 and had some particularly crap secondary melody line in some fairly complicated orchestra piece and I made the mistake of complaining about it. Now I had been immersed in science and anthropology and politics from about age 9. I wasn't sure if I was going to be an astronaut, Indiana Jones or Maggie Thatcher (shut up, it was a republican home, I got better) or all three. And she looked at me and told me how lucky I was to play flute, because when I was 30 and a hausfrau I would be able to play on my couch and make everything better. I was just stunned and went back to my room.
Even to my mum, I was just a vagina, waiting for someone to own me and make me a hausfrau - what I wanted or planned didn't matter.
Don't do that to your daughters. Let them be people.