Words. Sometimes. Maybe...: staystaystaystaystay

I spent my Saturday night with my friend, Dan. He was avoiding a girl named Hayley who he didn't want to kiss, all the while he was too drunk to realize that I didn't want to kiss him. To distract Dan, who is truthfully a nice guy and was too inebriated to be anything more than a slight nuisance, I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. He bumped into me when he slowly realized that I had stopped dead. We were standing under a tree and I looked up. Vermont's light pollution, while still existent, is lesser than in many other places and so the stars were pretty bright and the leaves on the trees were heavy with the red, orange, and gold of fall. Dan is in my Irish Lit class and had been quoting Yeats all night. So, pointing and staring at the sky, I told Dan that we should write a poem. He stumbled through a suggestion that came to him too quickly for him to say clearly. "We--we should, like--we should alternate words." And we tried to, but. I don't know. You read it.

The leaves are
contrasted by
the color of
the underboughs

We stand gazing
up, hoping for
a clear in the
cirrus clouds

Sammi and Dan take Ryan

Sammi and Shae are cute as hell.

Sammi and Dan take Dion

***

I feel like it's been a really long week, and so I'm going to write down a story I told Hobey this Summer. This story inspired him to ask to see pictures of me as a child, "because you seem like you would be a weird kid." Anyway, this story begins at Montessori preschool. I was unaware of, I don't know what to call it, classroom etiquette, I guess, and didn't know that in a large circle, the best way to get attention was to raise my hand. Instead, three-year-old Sammi sat, a very small person in a very large circle, adamantly repeating, "Excuse me. Excuse me. I need to go to the bathroom. Excuse me. Can I go to the bathroom?" I didn't like breaking the rules and when I tried to get up and go the bathroom without asking, I was yelled at by my teacher who had somehow decided she didn't like me. I was growing more and more agitated, but no matter how loudly I talked, or, probably more accurately, how loudly I thought I was talking, no one heard me. In a surge of frustration, I decided, despite the fact that I was wearing my "big girl undies," that I was going to the bathroom. Being, I want to say, vindictive, I peed, right there on the floor.

Let me tell you, the lady who had to change my underwear was very unhappy with me. She grumbled under her breath and roughly pulled up my new underwear. I got sent home and I think that I started associating peeing on the floor with going home so from this one incident, sprung a series of unfortunate days where I peed on the floor during circle time and ran to my grandmother or mother, whoever had come to pick me up. I always tried to ask to go beforehand, but if I wasn't heard, it was no real loss to me.

Eventually, my mother asked me what was wrong. I told her that no one ever heard me when I asked to go the bathroom, so she met with the teacher and told her what had been happening. I remember hiding behind my mother's skirt, not wanting to look the lady in the eye. Then my mother explained to me that I should simply raise my hand, ask to go the bathroom; I would be allowed to go, and when I finished, I could just come back and join the circle. I nodded along. My mother and the teacher talked for a while longer, but I still didn't like the teacher's tone and I didn't like the way she talked to me. I knew she didn't like me but I felt like I hadn't done anything to deserve her rudeness and dislike. Her smile, I felt, wasn't real.

The next day, at circle time, I did as I had been told the day before: I raised my hand and was granted permission to leave the circle and go to the bathroom. Then I walked my little self to the bathroom, shut the door behind me, turned on the light with my little fingers, put my hands on my little hips and made a decision. A bit later, I flushed the toilet, washed my hands, walked my little self back to the circle, and peed on that lady's floor.

This was the series of incidents that led to my parents believing that I wasn't potty-trained until I was five. Needless to say, I didn't return to Montessori preschool.

I'm definitely a bit older in this one, but it's got my sister in it.

***

Alright, now I'm mad. Could I end with anything other than a rant? (I mean, probably, but that wouldn't be any fun.)

First, I'll present the media that I find problematic.

If you don't feel like listening to this song, I'll provide the necessary information. It is sung from the perspective of a man who thinks that the girl he is romantically chasing (which is sort of an oxymoron) is either a lesbian or a bisexual or perhaps pansexual, it's never specified which. Now you're like, "Sammi, what the hell are you complaining about???? Don't you want representation?????" The answer is yes. I want representation for all marginalized groups. The problem with the representation that females who are attracted to other females usually get is that it borders on pornographic.

Now, what does that mean? It means that anytime a girl is kissing another girl, it's because that kiss has been fetishized. The reason that kiss is appearing, that these girls have perfect, long, brown hair, that they aren't wearing pants in the middle of a field, or making out in the back of a truck, is because they exist purely for male pleasure. It's not representation when straight guys watch lesbian porn, and this is the same thing on a smaller scale.

Both girls are very feminine, which while this is very possible and definitely breaks the mold that lesbians (or whatever orientation those girls are implied to be) are butch, it doesn't leave room or provide representation for lesbians who are butch. While I know that two feminine girls could be perfectly happy in a relationship, I feel like this is also a reflection of the type of girls we like to see in music videos. If you guessed "the kind of girls that boys find attractive," then boy! did you hit the nail on the head.

Honestly, the fact that these groups are treated with such disrespect is infuriating. Imagine, being someone who is questioning their own sexuality and seeing either a lack of media representation or a representation that portrays the kind of relationships you think you wish to have as only promiscuous trysts, (which I support whole-heartedly if they are what someone is interested in) which can be scary and can portray a culture that isn't true. I am upset at this, and you all probably feel like I'm putting too much weight on this one music video, but if you think about how many girls, when they come out as bisexual are either asked if they want to have a threesome or asked, "Are you gay/straight now?" depending on the sex of the person they are currently seeing. Think about how many bisexual or pansexual people's families are hoping that they will settle down in a heterosexual relationship. Think about how many transgender kids are kicked out of their homes, verbally or physically abused, purposely misgendered, told they cannot participate because of an incongruity between their sex and their gender. Think about the fact that people don't even know about or believe in asexuality. Honestly, I'm mad about all of this. This issue that I've drawn attention to is a tiny, tiny facet of a ginormous problem that shouldn't, but does, occur.

If my rant and frustration isn't enough to get you to see this as an issue, let's consult the suicide rates.

"LGB youth are 4 times more likely, and questioning youth are 3 times more likely, to attempt suicide as their straight peers. Suicide attempts by LGB youth and questioning youth are 4 to 6 times more likely to result in injury, poisoning, or overdose that requires treatment from a doctor or nurse, compared to their straight peers. Nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives, and one quarter report having made a suicide attempt. LGB youth who come from highly rejecting families are 8.4 times as likely to have attempted suicide as LGB peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection... Each episode of LGBT victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse, increases the likelihood of self-harming behavior by 2.5 times on average." (Source)

I don't like to think about how many kids wouldn't be inclined to take their lives if their sexuality was more accepted and represented in the media.

Here is a music video that sings about a girl who likes girls and doesn't fetishize bisexuality/homosexuality. I know that Brendon Urie is sort of naked in this music video and that it isn't a case of perfect representation, but I just wanted to show that there are instances where I can say that representation is representation and the fact that people of other orientation besides hetero exist is getting attention is something to celebrate and continue. He sings about a girl who has a girlfriend but also a boyfriend that she's using to keep up pretenses and he's the one who is naked.