I must have a bajillion other things I could post about but this particular issue chaps my ass. Why, why oh motherfucking why is it such a big motherfucking deal for a woman to curse?
I understand vulgar and graphic language is not for everyone but why is it in soooo many cases, at least in my experience so far, is there such a fuss over a woman using this language, while the reaction to a man's use of it is a disapproving head shake or merely ignored? Oh the wealth I would have inherited if I had a dollar for every time some one thought I should speak more like a "lady" or "broaden my vocabulary". Well fuck yourself. Seriously. I am educated, well read, killer at crossword puzzles and scrabble, and not to mention, just plain intelligent.
I am a strong believer in not just free speech, but free expression. Free speech allows you to say what you want with whatever words you want. Free expression allows you to say it how you want. The latter, I believe, is key to personal freedom. If you must hide your feeling behind appropriate language, your propriety will suffocate your liberty. So then what's the point? Sure we have laws allowing men and women to say what they want, along with other equal "legal" rights. However, the gap between the law and how the law is applied, is vast. Sure we are legally protected, but are we socially? Will the privileged and powerful give enough slack for the rest of us to actually feel equal or will they cling to "if you give an inch they'll take a mile"? Will the rest of the non-privileged fight hard enough and loud enough to gain any ground? Who fucking knows? All we can do is try.
I can say this, it does get pretty exhausting defending yourself constantly. Not just defending your choices, but defending you, your self, your essence. Even when it is your choices, isn't that why people live and move to this country, isn't that what people want most in their lives? Freedom? Well freedom isn't swimming against a heavy current every day of your life. It isn't being judged, ridiculed, corrected, controlled, or blamed. Unfortunately, that's what people do to each other, all the time. Its what we teach our kids to do, its what our parents did to us,along with teachers,politicians, law-makers, media, even our friends and spouses have done our whole lives. Doubt and insecurity haunt us and follow us like our shadows, and we wonder why?We get coached, trained, baptized, and advised on how to improve but rarely do we follow our issues to their core and roots.
We walk around so often with broken hearts and spirits. Some of us from past traumas like abuse or illness, some of us from a status of incessant invisibility, from situation after situation of receiving judgment rather than compassion. It can get pretty fucking lonely when everyone knows how you should deal with things, but no one understands how you feel about them.
Well if I may take a stab at advice, mine would be, just to do you. Take whatever courage you can muster and say what you want to say, do what you want to do. Just keep in mind all the broken souls of the world that may feel the same way and may want the same acknowledgment and validation you do. Don't flatten yourself to fit in the boxes made for you. The only box you should ever fit in is your coffin. When you're dead. And if its possible, when you see someone brave enough to be themself, tell them. Look at them and tell them you admire them. We can all drive down the road to see how far it goes, we just need a little fuel sometimes.
