Strawberry Fields excerpt

So this month I'm trying to finish a first draft of the novella I'm working on. Instead of writing a proper post this Monday, here's a snippet of what I've got thus far--

Jugendstil oder Funktionalismus?

Or Art Nouveau vs. Functionalism. I've been learning about the two styles in the context of German classes and museums, so the German terms come more naturally to me at the moment. Anyway. Both of these styles flourished in Germany around the turn of the century, and I really like both of them. At the same time, both can be overdone--a room full of art nouveau can feel kitschy and stifling, but at the same time, a room with nothing but functionalist designs (think Bauhaus furniture) can feel cold and jarring. The Bauhaus school's principle of functional beauty for everyone is one that I admire very much, but that doesn't mean I think they always succeeded at it.

Nonetheless, I think a little art nouveau goes a long way. I like tins and stationary with art nouveau designs, but that's really about it. One thing that art nouveau was heavily influenced by was nature (resulting in furniture with asymmetrical, organic-looking designs, tableware with various flower or vine designs, and craploads of paintings of fields and forests.) Personally, I would rather have very functionalist tableware and simple furniture with craploads of actual plants. If said plants are edible, then they become useful (functional!) as well and create a sort of fusion of the elements of both styles.

Simplicity in general is something I generally find pleasing. When I was younger I enjoyed clutter as long as it was MY clutter (or clutter that was so wondrous to behold that it didn't matter whether it was mine--like 15 Minutes, a store absolutely crammed full of vintage toys that used to exist in Minneapolis.) I used to marvel at rooms like Howl's bedroom in Studio Ghibli's Howl's Moving Castle and aspire to one day have a house like that, but as I get older I realize that would actually be rather nerve-wracking for me. I'm actually trying to get rid of as much stuff as I can bear now (which still leaves more stuff than I want to have, but I'm scaling back more and more.)

The important thing is finding the balance--for example, I like pin tucks and ruffles in lolita, but not craploads of lace or busy prints or even complicated designs in general. Often times I find myself deciding I don't like much of anything being offered when I decide to really look through brand websites, even if I enjoy the overall aesthetic. As for interior design, I like simplicity, but the textures and colors must be pleasing and well-coordinated.

"Politically Correct"

I find "political correctness" troublesome for several reasons. I think part of why the idea gets so thoroughly rejected by some people is rooted in privilege. But maybe not all. Another problem with political correctness is that I think it sometimes gets thoughtlessly applied--someone says "don't say [insert word here] because it offends [insert minority here]" and leaves it at that. Sometimes they understand why what they're saying is a reasonable request and assume any remotely respectful person would think the same, but it's also possible that they're parroting what they've been told not to say in order to appease others without really pausing to think about why it hurts some people to hear such language and how they can improve their own use of language without degrading it.

Another thing that might not be thoroughly considered enough is that some words are more hurtful than others. I think here that lack of emphasis may be justified--just because one word hurts more than another doesn't mean that they aren't both painful to hear and disrespectful to use. But when you equate saying a more commonly accepted word like "stupid" with politically loaded racial slurs, you lose credibility to people who are privileged enough to be skeptical of how much their every day use of language can really convey a sense of disrespect to the ears of less (or differently) privileged people.

Which brings me to another reason why the term "politically correct" makes me pause. It's not just a matter of politics--it's a matter of respect. Just because you don't face the lack of understanding and the societal bullshit other people face for being part of a minority doesn't mean the words aren't hurtful. Using slurs and turning words that apply to minorities into slurs isn't just politically repulsive--it's flat-out disrespectful, especially when you've been told that those words are harmful. And all that aside, if you're not a politican or a business trying to appeal to as many people as possible so they'll give you their votes and/or money, it seems odd that you should even care about being "politically correct". The term itself de-emphasizes the behavior's importance.

And it is important. I don't mean that we should completely strike certain words from our lexicon--they have historical importance, if nothing else--but the language we use does make a difference. It's a subtle difference influenced by thousands of tiny implications coming from the connotations and the associations carried by the specific words we choose to use. Even things you think are innocuous (whether you use "gay" to mean "stupid" when you really mean "ignorant" or "inconsiderate" or "disagreeable" or say "men and women" when you mean "people") send out little flags about what kind of person you are. Most people think of themselves as respectful (or at least, respectful when they think someone deserves their respect). They won't usually tell you if they're misreading you or they think you're in some way inferior to them because of some trivial quality you have no control over. Sometimes they don't consciously realize it themselves. So we have to recognize the signs in the everyday language they use without thinking too hard.

That doesn't mean I think everyone I hear saying "men and women" when they mean "people" is a horrible person. I don't hear that and automatically jump to "this person is a binarist asshat who has no respect for me whatsoever." What I do hear is "this is probably a person who is misreading me, or at least misreads other people like me until they are corrected". I get the impression that you don't and maybe won't ever understand who I really am, or that I am not an anomaly. I fear that if I tried to help you understand, you would disrespect me by dismissing those efforts. If you aren't family or a close friend or someone I admire very much otherwise, I may decide that the effort and the risks aren't worth it and I don't want to get any closer to you than necessary.

I'm not silently judging you unless you say something genuinely nasty (in which case, I might also not be silently judging you). I'm not even claiming that my use of language is perfect--it took some growing up and personal realizations on my part to come to the understanding of language usage that I have now. I used to scoff at the idea of "political correctness" like many other privileged, irreverant people who mean no harm but can't get past their own privilege and see how their use of language can impact people. I'm still working to improve my own language usage, and I know that relentlessly policing the language of others is irritating and potentially counterproductive. But when I stop and think about it, it still saddens me to see the notion of using respectful language carrying the stigma that it does.

Binary Gender

I keep thinking about my... relation? to the gender binary and feel like writing a post on it to maybe exorcise the habit (haha yeah right.) Anyway. I don't get it. Not only does it not apply to me, but I have a hard time understanding how it applies to other people. I understand that it does, somehow (otherwise why would we have binary trans people?) That was not always the case, though.

Until I was fifteen or so, I think I basically assumed the separate social classifications of "male" and "female" were devoid of any real, consistent meaning. We just kept them around as relics of a more patriarchal time in our society that we weren't quite comfortable getting rid of yet even if they were useless and divisive. As I got older, I eventually became aware that some people were attracted to people of the same sex (I didn't want to deal with the possibility that my sexual orientation made me part of a minority for awhile, though--thinking about sex by itself was troubling enough.) I also know I learned about trans people at some point, but none of that knowledge ever threatened to radically change my view of the world.

Keep in mind I was (and still am) kind of dense when it comes to societal ugliness that I don't like. I'm pretty good at blocking it out. Even when I started to think maybe there was something more than their bodies that made men and women different from each other, when I checked with my mom nothing she said could convince me (I chalked it all up to different hormones, which were still just part of the body even if they do affect how you think. I still think this way, actually.) But one day my mom brought home a BEM test she'd learned about in one of her classes--normally used to measure traits that were considered masculine or feminine in people to see how well they can relate to others (the closer to the middle, androgynous zone both parties in a couple land, the easier it'd be for them to have a healthy relationship. Or something like that.) So I took it out of curiousity. And I landed right in the androgynous zone, leaning slightly masculine.

It felt validating. It felt right. Perhaps I blocked out the idea that there was any meaning to the distinction between men and women because some part of me knew that the whole thing didn't apply to me, and if I acknowledged that then I would have to acknowledge that I was fundamentally different from everyone I knew of at the time. The test didn't convince me I was gender neutral, it made me feel like it was safe to explore who I really was. That I wasn't just some sort of anomaly.

I didn't settle on the words "gender neutral" right away--I just knew I was nonbinary in some way. But I did some research on gender and found the writing of other nonbinary people and figured myself out eventually. I understand my gender (or perhaps lack thereof) now--but what exactly makes other people male or female still eludes me. I don't understand, nor do I think I'll ever totally understand.

That said, even if I don't understand why people are men or women, I do of course know that it's not my place to question their identities (just like it's not their place to question mine) and that I need to respect them by using the correct pronouns and taking their word for it when they tell me how they identify and what their sexual orientations are. And that both of those things are small parts of who they are--in the end, we're all human. We may have different genders (and have faced radically different formative factors in life based on how people perceive us regarding gender, race, class, ability, and all kinds of other things we can't really help about ourselves), but it's important to focus on the commonalities. I will probably never understand why other people are male or female, but that's perfectly all right, and it won't stop me from loving and respecting them.

Uplifting Things #5: Lolita

 I'm getting a bit bored assembling links to things and explaining why they're awesome, so I'm introducing a new (hopefully more entertaining) kind of "Uplifting Things" post talking about various fashion styles and/or subcultures.

This Monday I'd like to talk about lolita. It's come up a few times already, so it seems like a good place to start. I very much like the way lolita fashion looks (and have admired it from roughly the first time I found out about it--which would probably have been when I was fifteen or so. Around 2006, then.) Due to the expensive and difficult-to-obtain nature of some of the key garments involved in this look, I've never really been able to try it out properly (although it's had considerable influence over my choice in thrift store clothes, and I'm getting close--just need a proper skirt at this point.) Nonetheless, I have been able to figure out what elements of the style I actually would enjoy incorporating into my own style and what parts I prefer to admire on other people.

Lolita has a few key "rules" that seem to be in constant (though slow-moving) flux. There's a basic silhouette involving a knee-length skirt and a petticoat that roughly defines the look, but the skirt length is not set in stone (as long as it's not "too short") and there are some dresses that will look "lolita" enough without a petticoat. These rules are important to lolitas because the style is a bit extravagant compared to mainstream fashion and it can very easily go from tastefully decadent (lolita) to incredibly tacky or boringly formal (not lolita), and the boundaries of the former can be very blurry due to their subjective nature.

One thing that I really like about lolita and try to incorporate into everything I wear is how fastidious one must be when coordinating outfits. When I apply it to my own style it results in me mostly only wearing black (to avoid worrying about colored garments and accessories matching perfectly), but I like wearing black, so it works out. I also like the sense of eccentricity that gets conveyed by wearing such outstandingly decadent clothing. There's a sense of gender neutrality in the style that also appeals me.

The fashion may be feminine to an extreme, but at the same time the focus on a silhouette created by the clothes means that it can be great for covering up a body type that might otherwise not be read as feminine (or in my case, it manages to hide my actual curves under artificial curves created by the skirt, which I'm much more comfortable with.) There are plenty of cis men who look just as beautiful and feminine in lolita as women. Since the clothes by themselves are so feminine, they can be used to play with and celebrate femininity in itself without necessarily reflecting the gender of the person wearing them. The childlikeness conveyed by the knee-length skirts (and shorts, as used in boystyle/ouji) also have androgynous potential when worn by adults.

The childlike quality of the clothes (especially in sweet lolita) is appealing in itself to many lolitas, but I'm more interested in the eccentricity implied by wearing more subtly childlike versions of the style (especially gothic, but I think that eccentricity also comes through in classic lolita. The Victorian and Edwardian clothes that have such a heavy influence on lolita were not knee-length for adults and teenagers, after all.) I like to think it works as a nice social filter--simultaneously repulsing people with whom I wouldn't have much in common (or at least motivating them to display repulsive behavior before I bothered to get to know them) and attracting people I'd probably like. But mostly I just like the look of it.

Industrial Lust

Oh no. It's coming back again. That horrible lust after some material thing or another that makes me always picture the object of my desire in my head and feel like I could just have it (or more of it) then it would solve everything that brings me down and make me happy. I was just getting over the clothing thing, too.

This time it's sweets and fancy tea and tea sets, which are at least more obtainable than lolita clothes. So not quite as pernicious a fascination, and one that I can view a bit more reasonably. I am and was last summer in no position to buy up craploads of dressy clothes to actually see if they made me feel better, but I know from experience that if I binge on sweets they will give me a headache and make me feel generally crappy, no matter how high quality they are. Sugar is sugar.

Yet when I don't have them I still kind of want them. It comes and goes (and when it's at its worst and I just feel like shoving food in my mouth I know better than ever that it won't actually help--part of me just wants to.) I'm learning that it's not *actually* the sweets I want, but that they symbolize something. In this case, I think they're an escape. They remind me of drinking afternoon tea while I was traveling in the UK in beautiful tea rooms, or of having currently-an-ocean-away friends over and talking over tea and snacks. Plus they're just pretty. Comforting.

What I really want is relief. I'm not even all that busy--but I still feel pressure (when it's not pressure to quit putting my homework off, it's pressure to get enough sleep and go to bed at a decent hour so I can wake up in time to go out and do things. Or anticipated pressure at staying within my food budget which would be fine if I didn't buy expensive sweets XD. So things that I don't really imagine going away, basically.) And I guess when my brain feels like I'm not doing enough to alleviate that pressure, it gives me the same need coded as something else that's easier to obtain. Not surprising, I guess. Probably a lot of people (if not most) think that way. What about you, reader? What do the material things you want mean to you?

"Progress"

[Oh look, it's Monday and I haven't written the Thursday piece I had brewing. ANYWAY. *ahem*]

I've been thinking a lot about my idea of social progress lately. One thing that strikes me is how it seems contradictory to the actual definition of progress. A lot of what needs to get done in order for our society to be where I feel it should be is actually clearing away previously developed societal bullshit, like heterosexism and cissexism. Or the idea that you always have to somehow earn/pay for everything positive that happens in your life--especially things like information. Also when it manifests in the form of a moral obligation for everyone to "pay their dues/do their fair share" or whatever being prioritized over the moral obligation to make sure your fellow humans don't starve and aren't forced to be homeless. Human obsession with fairness, basically.

My actual ideals of progress aren't really all that relevant to this post, so I'll stop there. Anyway. Clearing away accumulated societal bullshit is in a way almost regressive--going back to a time when these things weren't problems. Although actually, a lot of these problems arise from instincts that were useful at some point. Before we had them, we weren't the same humans we are now. Fairness, for example. It's necessary when you're a small hunter gatherer tribe--stinginess or laziness is death. It's absolutely imperative that everyone does their fair share (meaning what they're capable of/best at doing, not necessarily the exact same thing as the other group members.)

I don't think I actually mean some sort of regression. More like examining our accumulated values and social mores and determining how they actually function, then tossing out the ones that don't work (or never worked.) That doesn't mean they all need to function--it's just that the harmful ones (like sexual shame and fear of differences, if you look at my specific ideals) need to go away.

Trouble is, of course, everyone has slightly (or radically) different ideas of what should be defined as "harmful" and what they consider "ideal". I like to hope that I will at least live to see a society that has progressed to a point where we don't need words like "transgender" and "gay" and the like because everyone has come to accept whatever gender identity and sexual orientation (or lack thereof) without question or judgement. There will be no standard of what is "normal" or "better", and so there will be no need for specific words for people who fall outside of those standards. Perhaps the people who actually find them convenient to describe themselves will still use them, but we will no longer need labels to empower ourselves because there will be no need to explain ourselves to people whose genders and sexual orientations aren't as uncommon.

The above is, of course, a rather selfish hope, in that it focuses only on the societal bullshit that hurts me directly. I think it can be expanded to other situations of intolerance of differences, though (instead of questioning differently-abled people or assuming they're inferior, find ways to integrate them into society, thus reducing the amount of disabled people whose difficulties are more a result of not conforming to the expectations of the society they live in than not having certain abilities, for example. Ditto assuming some cultures are inferior to others. Obviously prejudice based on skin color/appearance needs to get lost.)

I don't mean to write a laundry list of my ideals of social progress. I just don't feel I can post something like this without elaborating what I mean at least a little bit if I don't want to write something that comes off as pseudo-inclusive. I'd stop before I go on more tangents, but before I do, I should also mention that I don't actually believe in progress as a steady force in human society. I think society is shitty sometimes, and more shitty the rest of the time, but not necessarily in that order and in the same place. Yet, politically speaking, I still consider myself to be "progressive". But I wouldn't be progressive if I was satisfied with human society as it was. So I think what I really mean is "idealistic".