No Right To Be Proud?

Many people who belong to minorities say that they’re proud of their heritage, or proud of their sexual orientation, or proud just to belong to whatever group they belong to. That’s fine, I think, as I myself can say that I’m proud of who I am and what I do, my sexual orientation, my kinks, my interests, my lifestyle, my motto. It’s an easy thing to say, to be proud of those things.

However, some have started to actually fight (and some rather militantly so) people’s right to say that they’re proud of, for example, sexual orientation. Their argument is that you can’t be proud of something you’ve had no hand in, that you can’t be proud of something you haven’t choosen for yourself. That you can’t take credit for something that you personally haven’t caused – like your sexual orientation.

What I think those people tend to misunderstand is that those who are proud are probably not at all saying “I’m proud that I choose to be gay/lesbian/bisexual/heterosexual”. As far as I know, most gay people agree that sexual orientation isn’t something you choose. It’s an assumption, most oftenly, that sexual orientation is out of your control. And, I think most can agree that you can’t be proud of an accomplishment that just doesn’t exist (in this case, choosing your sexuality).

So, why do people say that they’re proud of their sexual orientation anyway? Or heritage? Or color of their skin? I’ll take sexual orientation as the main example, though the theory and conclusion is rather applicable on the other examples too.

My conclusion is that the pride is not about the sexual orientation itself, but about personally having fought and conquered all the problems and difficulties that arise from being part of the said minority. Being gay or bisexual is in many societies and communities very difficult. People hate and condemn, and make life very difficult for some of us. Sometimes, we make our own lives difficult by hating ourselves based on others opinions. For example; my mother often said straight out that gays were disgusting if we ever saw two men kissing on TV and so on. Add to that all the standard fag-hating remarks and jokes, and stereotypes, and if you don’t have enough self-respect, you’ll start hating yourself as a child. At the ages of 13-15, I tried becoming straight.

I didn’t like the fact that I was gay, but I knew from the bottom of my young heart that I was completely and utterly in love with boys. I tried to change, which led to a rather painful period of self-separation and depersonalization, self-hate, shame. At the age of 16 or 17 or so, I finally decided to let the hate go, to love myself for a change, and let me be me, accepting my bisexuality as I saw it back then. It was a hard decision to accept at first, but one day, I did it. From that moment, I embarked on a rather chaotic journey in my life, to find out who I was, to merge my mind and body again, to start loving myself as a whole again. I can easily say that I didn’t do this completely until earlier this year, at the age of 23.

When I say that I’m proud to be gay, it’s just short for saying that I’m proud to stand up to myself, that I’m proud of conquering the hell of hating oneself at a young age when the body and mind are in enough turmoil as it is. I’m proud that I found strength to ignore the flood of negativity against me to strive to reach that tiny drop of warmth that was my happiness, that I decided to listen to my heart and feelings instead of my mother’s rantings, or my friends hate against homosexuals, that I stood up to myself when a nazi threatened my physical health just because he didn’t like gay people, that I’ve been my own and only support for several years. I’ve fought hell on Earth to accept myself and to be accepted for who I am, and I’m damn proud of it. But explaining everything in detail is just too much to say. That would be recapping 16 years of my life.

So, my conclusion is that I can simply just say I’m proud to be gay. I understand what people mean when they say that they are proud, and the thought of them meaning anything else than their struggle to stand up to themselves never really occurs to me. They aren’t proud of choosing what they are, they’re proud of fighting for who they are. A huge difference.

Understandably, most of those that I’ve heard saying that “you can’t be proud to be gay” just haven’t gone through many difficulties themselves. Some simply grow up in an open-minded family where they can easily be themselves without shame, building up the self-confidence and strength, and delivering the support needed for them to be strong and believe in themselves and their feelings. They never had much problems with their sexuality, and thus for them, it’s not a big deal. What they don’t understand is that others had to start off in an underworld of prejudice and hate and dig themselves up with their bare hands and nails.

You have all the right in the world to be proud of standing up to yourself.

Images: personal photos

Tags: right and wrong by KarmaSlave
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Bare Feet

I can’t understand why the majority of people today deny themselves a whole sense, by putting on socks and shoes, and wearing them almost constantly. Don’t they remember how it once felt to be barefoot, running in the grass, feeling the cool mud between their toes?

The sole of the foot has the highest (or maybe it was the second highest) concentration of pressure receptors on your entire body. Not even your hands has the same concentration. And, considering the feet were undoubtedly made to stay barefoot and move us through life, it’s not really that surprising. We need to see where we’re going, but still keep our eyes unoccupied so they can be used to look at other things. Our feet are perfect; they feel everything, and if not completely abused by shoes, they’ll feel anything that might be dangerous and act accordingly and put less weight on that particular spot, and so on. Two of our most important extremities. With so many muscles, with supreme shock absorption unsurpassable by any shoes, part of a system of bones, tendons and muscles stretching up through our legs, and our backs, with so many receptors to sense the ground and temperature of the surrounding leading the body to compensate accordingly…

…and people confine them in socks and shoes. Stubbornly so, because some who even stops to listen to all the negative sides of wearing shoes, and the positive sides of being barefoot, they take pride in wearing shoes, and almost get deeply hurt if someone were to question them.

But – I’m not going to rant about all the good sides of being barefoot and all the many side effects of wearing shoes, like flat feet, back problems, knee problems, athletes foot, fungus, and so on… others do it so much better than me.

What I wanted to say with this post is to try to explain the indescribable feeling of having taken a long walk outside a hot summer day like this, on scorching asphalt, through cool damp grass, in stores on strangely textured carpets, on ice-cold stone floors, grasping grass with your toes, touching and feeling everything and anything, from cold to hot, from smooth to rough, from grass to rocks. Then, coming home, and then have all those sensations echoing for hours. It’s almost a childish feeling, a feeling of simple and pure shameless joy.

Such a simple thing to do. Yet so few do it.

 

It’s far less unhygienic than shoes, it’s not smelly, it’s not disgusting. What is disgusting, unhygienic and smelly are all the bacteria that marinates in people’s shoes. What is terrible is that people actually think that shoes are better than bare feet. They aren’t. Sure, sometimes we need protection against hazardous things like chemicals in laboratories and such, but in our day-to-day lives, that’s not necessary. Shoes don’t let your feet’s muscles work as they should, which affect your knees and legs, and in extension also your back. You pound down heels first like your legs were hammers and your feet were some sort of lifeless lumps, and then you wonder why your knees hurt and your back is stiff? Bah.

So simple to take of your shoes. Such a wonderful feeling. Yet so few dare fight the norms of society just a tiny bit.

For more facts and sources, mythbusting and information, please visit www.barefooters.org.

Check out the Barefoot Spirit section related to this post, with tasteful and remixed photos and wallpapers of our two main links to the earth beneath us.

EDIT: An interesting Japanese study showing that what I already know; that no socks/shoes lead to the body getting better at raising its’ temperature and keeping warm, and another study showing that barefoot children learn to avoid dangerous obstacles better and to keep cleaner than shod children.

EDIT 2008-05-13: A very interesting and straight forward article about how we are wrecking our feet with every step we take. Or rather, that you take – I’m fine.

Images: personal photos

Tags: Uncategorized by KarmaSlave
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Traditions

Traditions and stereotypes are fine as long as they don’t stand in the way of someone’s happiness. I don’t believe in traditions dictating right and wrong. Stereotypes and traditions are created when something occurs many times, a sort of statistic norm and shouldn’t be seen as anything other than that.

Yet, many people seem to think that traditions and norms are rules to follow and obey, and that if you don’t follow the norms, you’re doing something wrong. Is it so wrong to break the norms and traditions to pursue happiness, if it doesn’t hurt anyone? We aren’t figurines created from the same old molds, we’re all individual creatures.

Tags: right and wrong, short by KarmaSlave
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A Dream About Home

I had a somewhat cool dream this night, of me being back in school. The 7th to 9th grade or so. Here, I attended some sort of class with old and new friends, but I can’t seem to remember what it was about. However, that’s not important – the cool thing was that during a break I got to borrow a special new pen from the teacher which also acted like an activation trinket for a transportation device. Me and my mate took off to the closest teleportation node, which was of course hidden. From the teacher we got described how to use the system, and first we had to go to this ice-cream place, buy a certain ice-cream, and just sit on a tree bench outside and eat the ice-cream. It wasn’t so much the ice-cream itself, although delicious, but the owner of the kiosk knew that if someone bought it she would throw a switch and activate the teleportation node, which was located at the bench.

Not visible, and you had to have the special key device to use it. So, finishing the ice-cream, I went to take out the pen, and started twisting a certain ring on it located by the back of the pen. One time counter clockwise, two times clockwise, and one time counter clockwise. This would unlock the teleportation node. Then, I twisted it two times counter clockwise, and in an instant I was transported to my destination.

I don’t quite remember where I ended up; in some other part of town or in another town alltogether, but I remember looking for someone. A small girl, strangely enough, my daughter who had lived with my ex until my ex had decided to die in a helicopter accident, or something. I remember picking her up at some location, and bringing her home or something. Which… was quite remarkable. Not that I had a daughter or anything, but that I could actually find my home in my dream. I have probably never ever found home in a dream. My dreams are usually about going home but never finding or remembering wherehome is. Then, I used the teleportation device to return to school and continue class.

Tags: Uncategorized by KarmaSlave
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Right and Wrong

 

I follow a very simple motto which perfectly and flawlessly describes my views towards everything. I live by this motto, and in my opinion, I need no other rules or norms to help me decide whether I think something is wrong or right.

My motto is:
Nothing is wrong as long as no one is harmed against their will.

Simple, yet extremely powerful, and applicable to life, sexuality and really everything.

As long as noone gets hurt against their will, you can do whatever you want. If you want to love someone who loves you back, and have sex with that someone and spend your life with that someone, do so. If you want to smear yourself in honey and roll in the grass a hot summer day just because you like the tickle of bees on your naked skin, then why not. If you’re a dendrophilia and really have a crush on that old oak in the back yard, why not rub yourself against it? Do you really like to lick the cows in your barn, then why not? Or, do you want to make a living out of having sex? Well, as long as you like it, I can see no reason why someone can forbid it, it’s your body. No one gets hurt. You may get some splinters from the tree, or stings from the bees, or silly cow-behind-bacteria on your tongue, but it’s your choice.

Some old fart once told me that my motto was vague and very irresponsible. That my motto makes me “passive” and that I find everything Ok. One of his examples were that my motto would make me think that it’s Ok to, for example, ban homosexuality. Don’t ask me how he reasoned, really, but banning something that doesn’t hurt anyone sounds awfully wrong to me. Though, his belief was apparently that I thought that the banning of homosexuality didn’t harm anyone. Well, yes I do believe it does. It takes away the freedom to love and live of many people. But not banning homosexuality wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not directly. Everyone would be able to choose the paths of their own lives.

Of course, one can always say that some are “hurt” by the fact that others live their lives the way they want to. That some get “hurt” because some people doesn’t fit into their fantasies of a perfect world. I say it’s their own problems that hurt them. If you want to live in an ever-changing world with as many lifestyles and sexualities and feelings as there are human beings, you have to learn that everyone is indeed different. Believing otherwise is only hurting yourself, and hurting yourself is just stupid unless you like that perticular sensation…

Sometimes, it’s a grey line though, the definition of “hurt”. What harms someone and what doesn’t? I would dare to say that in some cases, people aren’t harmed by certain actions but instead the victimization that the society projects upon them. A simple example; you get your pants pulled down in front of lots of people when you’re 5 years old. At that time, it might mean nothing to you. Why bother? However, as you grow up and is told by society that being naked in public is wrong, bad, dirty, shameful, you may think back at that memory and suddently feel bad about it. You’re indirectly harmed, not by the situation/action performed to you at that time itself, but by society telling you that you should be harmed, that you should be ashamed. Why do society do that?

Another example is my own sex debut. My first time was when I was about 7-8 years old, with a boy my age. It was on my initiative, and we were both consenting. Sure, we didn’t know everything there is to know about sex at that point, but we didn’t need to know much either. We were experimenting, learning, trying things, and had fun. We were both boys, no one could get pregnant and STDs were miles away. A while ago though, when I and a couple of friends were talking about sex and slipped into the subject of “legal ages” and someone mentioned that in Japan, the legal age of sex is 12 (for girls), I said that I didn’t find it that strange, and I told them openly about my sex debut. I figured I know these people, I can be honest with them. Then, an interesting thing happened – they looked at me, and started saying how traumatized I must have been, and how much it must’ve hurt me somehow, how wrong it must have felt. The most intruiging thing with it all was my own reaction to that – I actually suddently, 16 years after my first happy experiences, began thinking that yeah maybe it hurt me, maybe it’s damaged me somehow, and I felt a ashamed, a bit dirty. Those who were happy memories for me, suddently got questioned and my best friends started telling me that these memories and experiences were evil and ugly and dirty!

Luckily, I snapped out of it. No one is going to victimize me. I wasn’t a victim of anything! I had sex and I was a child. Apparently, that just can’t be positive in some people’s eyes. For me, those memories are some of the fondest and dearest memories I have.

It’s interesting – people seem more likely to conclude that I’m hurt by the experiences, that I am a victim, than they are to just ask me how I feel about it.

No one got hurt, but by trying to convince someone that a good feeling actually is bad and shameful is hurting someone. It’s not the actual action that is shameful, it’s you trying to convert good to bad that should really be ashamed, because it’s actually you who cause the pain.

 

Don’t hurt anyone. Think of what your actions may cause. But, using my motto, one could easily come to the conclusion that I have no problems with adults having sex with little children. Why? Well, an adult doesn’t have to actually harm the child. Small children wouldn’t know the difference of a standard lap-ride and an naked lap-ride where daddy has his tool between little one’s thighs, and would probably just have fun. No pain, just playing. All’s well? No. As I’ve just described, even though no pain or harm was done at that time, it is most likely that society’s norms and standards will teach that child that what happened was very wrong, very shameful and very damaging. Thus, even if the action itself wasn’t harming the child directly, it did through the invervention of our lovely society.

Before anyone even thinks the thought; of course I’m aware of rape of children and nonconsentual rape of adults and animals, and if you’ve understood anything of what I’ve written here, you’d know I’m against it.

Partly continued in the post “Sex before age of 15“.

Images: Po Ju (manga), personal photo

Tags: right and wrong by KarmaSlave
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My path towards artism

I know lots of people and friends who are really good at drawing things. These are often left-handed of some reason, not all, but many are. Somehow, it’s almost even possible to see if someone is left-handed or right-handed. Those I know who draws with their right hand tend to do details well, but take a look at the whole picture and it’s often off in some way. Those who draw with their left hand tend to get all shapes and sizes to fit perfectly as a whole, but they tend to lack detail. Of course, this is a fat and perverted generalization.

When I was younger, ending when I quit the gymnasium (I really didn’t like that place), I used to draw a lot. I’m right handed, thus left-brained. I’m really into details, but I kind of suck when it comes to seeing the whole picture. To see relations between spaces and shapes. I’m more into technique and patterns, systems and mechanics, while the more artistic people seem to be more into feeling and relations and intuition.

What if I can learn to draw. Seeing some pictures on the web by some artists, it’s clear to me that they can’t just work on feeling and abstract systems alone – they have to know techniques, systems, hard and concrete rules. Otherwise, their images wouldn’t be so perfect as they are. Take some colorings and shadings for example; they can be so perfect and give an almost flawless sense of depth. Is that feeling, or a complete and “cold” understanding of objects and light and space?

Anyhow, I don’t doubt that I can with training become a good artist; I’m just wondering what path I must take. What should I begin with? Should I learn the techniques, the systems, the cold math behind drawing what I see with my inner eye, or should I learn the feeling and intuition, the fuzzy and abstract way of building a picture out of nothing, forming it as I go? Which way would be easier for me, as an analytical and detail driven mind?

I should go deeper into this subject, but I think I’ll save that for a future post. I’m new at blogging, and I feel just a little impaired by the English language. I realize that posting in forums and writing diaries/blogs are two quite different things. First, a blog isn’t primarily intended to be discussed. It’s my point of view. Thus, to avoid sounding completely stupid, I should be rather clear in what I think and what my point of view actually is. In forums, you can keep a more questioning state of mind. You don’t have to have answers, and you can change your mind depending on other peoples’ replies. A blog, unless you use and read comments to your entries, is more like a one-man forum.

Tags: Uncategorized by KarmaSlave
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