Apparently, millions of Indians are deeply offended by Oprah’svisit to their country
which she filmed and used as part of her Next
Chapter series. Oh wait, by millions of Indians, I mean several Indian media houses. By the way,
not everyone in the media houses,
just those in a position where they understand clearly they are working as the
Government’s PR Companies, helping it to attract foreign investment and
tourism. They have a special job to do in painting a certain picture of
India at all times- Up and coming G8 nation! Glamorous Bollywood! The Modern
India! High Tech India! Rapidly Changing To Gender Equal India! So when Oprah
showed the poverty in India or the fact that most Indians eat with their hands
(I don’t know what so embarrassing about that. How else you suppose to eat
paratha?) or the fact there is still a caste system in place, it tarnished the
shiny lie.
You see as a Caribbean woman in general and a Trini woman in
particular, I real familiar with this
scheme. I know it because I living in a tourist-isle right now that trying to
constantly attract Investment. The media here tends to be rather lax about reporting
the unflattering news of which there is plenty. I know it because of Patos days
when he make my force-ripe T&T pretend to be Up and coming G8 nation for
Obama’s visit and used Chinese slave labor to do it. And the so-called
Afro-centric people who love him so in the ghetto don’t even realize that if
you really “FOR BLACK PEOPLE”, the first thing you would do is honor your
ancestral heritage by NEVER inflicting the pain of slavery unto another race of
people like it was done to your ancestors. But in Trinidad, it was “the black
people dem Government” having Chinese people living in slave quarters, getting
sick, not getting paid. And for what again? Oh yes, a pappy show!
In Patos days it was woe to any media house that did not applaud
at the pappy show. No unflattering coverage of T&T was allowed. We have a
Hyatt godammit! And a retarded version of Sydney Opera House round de Savannah.
We REACH!!!!!!!!!!
The one positive
stereotype about India that actually proves to be true is the spirituality
found there which was primarily Oprah’s focus.
So we started painting a picture of Trinidad and Tobago that is
not entirely real. We even got our very own episode of Househunters on HGTV.
What was it about again? Oh yes, an oil worker from Texas having to relocate to
work in our country’s petroleum sector. They eventually settled for a gated
community with full time security of course! We REACH!!!!!!
Perhaps if it was a story of a returning Trini American family
coming back here to retire or an foreign artist who came to live here because
of being inspired by the culture, maybe I would have been less suspicious. Only
because that would be so far-fetched it had
to be true because nobody would believe it even if it were a lie. We know
damn well that NO Trini American family EVER returns to Trinidad to retire.
Times real hard in the USA and it becoming racially hostile yet you seeing St.
Lucians returning home. You are seeing Grenadians returning home. You are
seeing even Dominicans returning home. Trinis, they will stick it out till the
end! Romeny will have to use the
National Guard to get them out (those without visas anyway) if he get elected
president and his law enforcement better prepare for some serious fight…with
obeah and thing. Most Trinis too chicken
shit for the physical pain of resisting arrest. We don’t do hunger strikes. We
are also not the standing in front of a tank Teinemen Square types. We had a
Government Minister called Hulsie who tried to protest and as soon as she
bamcee touch the highway a soca tune start playing and everybody forget what
she was protesting about. We cannot even throw a proper coup. So the most the NIS
have to worry about when they come to drag Yasmin and she anchor baby Jaleel to
JFK and put her on a flight to Piarco is she offer them “sweat rice” or make
them a so foot.
You just have to LOVE the juxtaposition of the photo and the main headline. This sums up Trinidad and Tobago PERFECTLY!!!!
As for a story about the foreign artists who come here. Well,
that love affair’s shelf life is only as long until the first assault, rape, burglary
that happens to them. It is not the crime itself that makes them fall out of
love. They know that unfortunate crimes happen even in their first world
countries. No, it’s the ineptitude of the police and the constipation of the
justice system that makes them cool considerably towards the land of calypso. Of
course, if you really want them to
flee, make them use the public health facilities.
But we REACH right? Just
like India.
What I find a bit confusing though is, How come these offended
Indians were not complaining about all the episodes of The Amazing Race on CBS when the contestants went to India and the
film crew captured real racing footage and almost everyone in the Western
Hemisphere with cable saw India's true condition for more than a decade now,
the crowded streets, beggars, street children, filthy water, poorer castes,
hungry eyed men gaping at the American women and groping them on the train. And
what of Slumdog Millionaire that
showed the real conditions of the poor in Mumbai, including the outbreak of
religious violence between Muslims and Hindus resulting in terrible deaths?
Why are these media houses acting like this is the FIRST time
their country's no so flattering side has been exposed?
Were they expecting SOMETHING of Oprah they would not expect of
the powerful white, male CBS directors and white male Hollywood execs? Were
they expecting her to kowtow to them and do their tourist and political public
relations for them? Why? Because she has Deepak Chopra on her show every now
and then and urges her guests to practice meditation? Does that mean she must
also give up her journalistic integrity? She started out as a newsperson. This
is what people forget and she will explore the story for what it is at the end
of the day. India is way too vast to explore and its population too large. So
she picked a poor family and a wealthy family and since the vast majority of
India is poor, I would say she actually gave “Wealthy India” more than fair
coverage.
That aforementioned, is me thinking of the best case scenario for why the Indians are offended at her because
the worse case would be they think that because she is a woman and black, they
can intimidate Oprah while they keep their polite smiles on for the white, male
CBS directors and white male Hollywood execs and the Brangelinas of the world, who
highlight all the poverty and inequality of India more often than Oprah ever
did.
Modern India indeed!
In true modern societies the media does not have to play sycophant to the Government and spread propaganda to the world. It is not just the Caribbean and India that should take note but America too. Unless you are living in utopia, true patriots of their country always have a love hate relationship with it. Oh and it is an "out of the closet" relationship. You share both what you love and hate about your country with the world in an effort to appeal to be honest and forge true understanding on a global scale.
They look (with a mixture of revulsion and pity) at the quiet, creative, effeminate teenager or the
out of the closet news anchor or you and your life partner minding your own business. Although you did not ask for their opinion or even care to
hear it, they feel it necessary to declare, “Homosexuality is a sin! The BIBLE
SAYS SO!”
Of course, they are entitled to their opinion.
Free belief and free speech are fundamental rights. But so
too is everyone’s right to a private family life, equality under the law and
freedom to love, live, be productive and happy, at least in most civilized,
western democracies.
The problem is that many anti-gay biblical literalists claim
that you, as an LGBT person do not deserve to enjoy those aforementioned human
rights, at least not while living as your sexuality dictates. Since they cannot
make a valid case scientifically, sociologically, civilly and legally that the
equally valid and happy existence of LGBT people will rob anyone else of their
fundamental rights or ruin the planet, they are left with one last resort. You
are not only making them
uncomfortable, especially if they have to explain society’s acceptance of you
to their children, you are making God very pissed off!
In fact, they claim that every
time you feel attraction, get a crush, fall in love or make love, God gets
madder and madder with you. Some will
even go as far as to say that living your life honestly is the gravest sin of sins. How
do they intend to prove this is actually true? By using the bible, which they
claim is God’s infallible word and the final authority on everything that
exists, everything we could ever do or conceive of doing, even things the
bronze-aged men who wrote it had no concept of in their time. And so, armed
with this assertion and the 66 books, they go campaigning for punitive action
against LGBT people at worst or at best quoting biblical verses out of good
intentions with the hope it will cause you to feel just as they do.
How do you deal with such people? How do you answer them? Why
bother answering them at all?
Well the bible-thumpers who are impassioned, virulent,
unstable and clearly beyond reasoning I would indeed recommend ignoring them and
if their actions go beyond free expression and descend into harassment, they
should be met with zero tolerance.
But many who express their biblical objections to LGBT
people are not foaming at the mouth or picketing the funerals of soilders. They
condemn gays and lesbians with smiling civility and purport to be reasonable
people with no hate in their heart. Lately such people are also met with zero
tolerance and many gay activists and their supporters would argue, rightfully so especially when these
“love the sinner hate the sin” types inconsiderately and some would say
irresponsibly express their courteous condemnations at inappropriate times for
example in public response to gay teen suicide and bullying.
After the spate of
gay suicides and bullying of gay teens, certain spokespeople took the opportunity to inappropriately blame the victims for being
homosexual. The complete lack of empathy on their part was even more gut-curdling
than the foaming at the mouth Gods Hates Fags people because it was done often with a big smile.
Some dismiss anti-gay bible thumpers because they find their
presumption and lack of perspective ludicrous. After all, isn’t the Old
Testament just another set of myths, skewed history, illogical and
chronologically flawed writings by bronze aged, tribesmen who did not even know
that the earth revolved around the sun and microorganisms caused diseases? Was
not the New Testament compiled by a corrupt, politically motivated Roman
Catholic Church Empire in an attempt to forge a new imperial religion that
could render Judaism defunct and compete with the Sun-worship and incarnating
blood sacrificing deities of the pagans they wished to conquer? Obviously the
people who believe the bible is the infallible, direct word of God must be just
a little…well, nuts. Right?
Although this atheistic response is au current in most
developed first world nations, here in the Caribbean, people still place a
great deal of authority on holy texts, particularly the bible. They will not be
dismissed so easily with a Bill Maher or Christopher Hitchens quote. This
approach is also unhelpful in elevating and enlightening the continued dialogue
on the subject. Nothing ever gets resolved. Instead, both sides simply dig in
deeper with greater resentment and over-defensiveness.
Shutting down debate by degrading the bible accomplishes nothing.
In a previous essay on Bullying,
I mentioned that a fear of delving into contentious debate when someone says, “Well God’s word says…” and simply going
the route of censorship will degrade our society into a bunch of sissies who
cannot deal with differences of opinion nor critically weigh two opposing views
without feeling threatened and persecuted.
I have taken on bible thumpers in person, on live radio, in
letters to the editor of newspapers, in online chat rooms and discussion boards
and I have never once had to resort to threats, ad hominem or other fallacious
arguments. Perhaps the reason why I am able to do this is because I feel no
resentment towards the bible or bible believers. It may not seem that way to them though. Many Christians
who chance upon my blog get bent out of shape. But I am not defaming the individual believer. If any religion
claims to have an absolute monopoly on truth and God’s favor, you cannot blame one for questioning and
criticizing the existence of
atrocious, ignorant or powerless manifestations within that religion.
I was made to read the bible over and over while growing up
in a staunch evangelical household and I have found, despite all the flaws and
atrocities great universal truths in both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures. So
too have a lot of people, spiritual and not. You do not have to be a legalistic
fundamentalist Christian in order to appreciate the bible. In fact, I have
found that being a legalistic, fundamentalist Christian may actually hinder a
deeper appreciation of the bible because you are made to treat it with kid
gloves and operate on many false assumptions which the theologically
trained clergy hesitate to dissuade you, even if they know you are not seeing
things for what they really are.
I still meet
Christians today who truly believe that the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the
literal authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
As an A student of Literature all the way up to Cambridge A
Levels, this treatment of the scriptures bugged me no end. You see, on the one
hand, I was being taught at school that in order to truly understand and
appreciate any written work, you had to take the gloves off and tear into
it.
Only with the bible are we asked to abandon all reason and treat it like a mystical object.
In order to understand Shakespeare and Chaucer, I first had
to glean an appreciation of old English and the idiomatic meanings of words. I
had to understand the Middle Ages, the society, the culture and commonly held
beliefs subjective to the time. At no time did my teacher give a pre-arranged
doctrine about Hamlet or A Knight’s Tale and then taught me how
to apologetically defend it with selective quotes. Instead, I was made to
discover the writing on its own merit.
This was a far cry from how the bible was being taught during bible study. It
was not “study” in the purest sense of the word, but indoctrination and regurgitation
which made me, like most Christians, woefully biblically illiterate.
I am telling you this because if you choose to reason with a
bible quoting condemner of homosexuality, instead of dismissing them or
censoring them, you must first understand what it means to be biblically
illiterate. In fact there are Four Biblical Illiteracy Factors.
Bible Illiteracy Factor 1
A person who is biblically illiterate pays no heed to the
type of translation they use or the process by which it now sits in their hand.
As far as they are concerned, it is the Living Word made paper…and leather and
ink. With this book, they can speak for God himself in plain English. In fact, they act as if that was the original language of the writers. They can tell others right now of what God thinks RIGHT
NOW about anything, anyone, any situation. For this book is the very mind of God. And it only costs around $30 (unless you
get a free copy)and weighs less than a pound. They truly believe that the
Almighty Being who created the entire Universe can be predicted, quoted and
represented by just opening this book.
Even if the bible were infallible what makes people so
presumptuously certain that their understanding of it is also infallible? Not
even the most accomplished student of literature ever claims to know exactly
the mind of the human author whose work they spend a lifetime examining, far
less a tome written by a Higher Intelligence.
Certain Christians use the bible in order to present themselves as the spokespeople for God who have intimate knowledge of God's mind, opinions, future plans on everything and everyone.
Most Christians who approach the bible in this way have no
idea that this fetish-like, magic 8 ball relationship with the scriptures is
actually a very recent thing in
Christian history. In fact, you can bet that if someone views the bible this
way, they also are entirely ignorant about the history of the Christian faith.
Biblical Illiteracy
Factor 2
A person who is biblically illiterate is not very concerned
with what bible verses ACTUALLY MEAN. They are only concerned about what bible
verses SAY when they need certain things SAID in order to confirm the
particular doctrine or social tradition they were taught alongside the bible.
I
will use the example of the social tradition of corporal punishment. In order
to defend it, many will quote verses like: “He that spareth his rod hateth his
son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” Proverbs 13:24 or “Foolishness
is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far
from him.” Proverbs 22:15.
At first glance certain verses in the bible do seem to SAY that beating your
child with a rod is a good thing. But is that really what these verses MEAN?
Dig just a little deeper into the Hebrew language, culture,
poetic metaphors common at the time and you will discover that the word for rod
or staff is shebet. It is actually a
crooked staff used by shepherds to manage their flock. Now, shepherds do not
beat the sheep with the rod but use the crooked staff to hook a wayward sheep
by the neck and guide it back where it belonged. As a result of this cultural
practice, the word shebet was also
commonly used as a metaphor for wisdom or authority. When in Exodus, it says that Moses was told by
God that “with this staff you will lead the people out of Egypt,” it does not
mean the literal shebet but the
figurative shebet- with this wisdom and authority you will lead the people out of Egypt.
Proverbs is a book filled with metaphors and that is why its
writer can say, “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest
him with the rod, he shall not die.” Proverbs 23:13. If indeed the bible is
true, this scripture can only makes sense if the rod is a symbolic one, after all every year, thousands of children die from
being beaten with “rods of correction”.
Human life is lost when
people do not take the time to understand a book they claim to be God’s word.
Unfortunately, for the biblically illiterate, understanding
what the bible MEANS, is too tedious a process. You have to get hold of a
Hebrew and Greek concordance, read up biblical scholars, Jewish scholars, anthropology
and archeology that reveal the context of the writing, the culture of the
people, cross-reference with similar writings for clarification. Too much work
for the intellectually lazy! Others who are not lazy are simply not equipped to
do the research or have been told they don’t have to go through all that
trouble. Which brings us to the next factor of biblical illiteracy you must
understand before you engage in debate.
Biblical Illiteracy
Factor 3
The biblical illiterate believe that they will be mystically
bestowed accurate understanding. Even with just a second grade
education they CAN BE A BIBLE EXPERT.
If it requires special spiritual powers to understand the bible and two equally sincere people claiming to have received those powers from God after sincerely praying yet have come away with two entirely different understandings of the same verse, which one do you believe?
What is amazing is that so many never wonder how come the holy
spirit always seems to guide them exactly
where their pastor wants them to be. When someone tells you, “I was guided by
holy spirit to understand this scripture, so you must believe me!” or “If you were guided by holy spirit, you will
understand things exactly the same
way I am trying to show you,” what they are actually saying is that you must
put your faith in them without asking them the obvious question: “How do you know it was actually the holy spirit
guiding you or the pastor/priest/reverend that taught you? How do you prove it
could not possibly be any other emotion, mental state or trigger? What
faculties do you use to distinguish the difference?”
The irony is, many bible believers will tell you how
unreliable things like logic and science are but what they offer as a superior
methodology to enlightenment is actually entirely
subjective. Call me an arrogant, elitist intellectual all you like for
wanting things to be a little more definitive
and objective when it will be used to
dictate how others live their lives and what human rights they enjoy.
We trust evidence over speculation in almost every aspect of our daily life including a court of law. We need to have things proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in order to justify any action we take that will rob someone of their freedom or life or else it does not sit well on our conscience
You and I were given the ability to reason, discover solid
laws and depend on them enough to explore space and perform open heart surgery.
Why would an Almighty Being feel threatened by our exercise of the faculties it gave us?
Yes, knowledge is power but no amount
of empowerment we achieve could ever intimidate a truly Almighty Being that is
also supposed to be benevolent. The human custodians of religion on the other
hand, well, that is another story. The empowerment of their fellowmen is often the last thing on their agendasand they inculcate their followers in being forever dependent and disempowered.
Does a human
grandfather feel threatened when his grandchild makes her first steps or does
he instead feel proud and happy?
I hope you fully understand the factors at play in many of those
who come at you with their biblical justifications for why LGBT people should
be treated as second class citizens. Once you do, you are ready to learn how to
reply to them. Knowing one’s opponent in any battle and that includes philosophical
debate is very important and that is why the best rebuttals to this argument come
from those who actually KNOW THEIR BIBLE and sadly most do not, on both sides of the issue.
Even among
those who do know and can stand up to anti-gay biblical literalists with solid
bible-based rebuttals, a kind of weariness sets in after a while when you have
to make the same argument over and
over again. But do not stop! Your counteraction is very important. Why?
Well, it is important for two reasons. I mentioned one
earlier. Nobody’s holy text should be used as justification for robbing another
human being of their fundamental human right to a private family life, equality
under the law and freedom to love, live, be productive and happy if that person
in no way threatens the fundamental human rights of anyone else.
The second reason is even more important and I warn you, I
am about to use some fighting words. Here it goes:
Anti-gay biblical literalists are hypocrites.
They may not be consciously aware that they are acting like
Pharisees but they are. You may have noticed that I said earlier that there are
Four Biblical Illiteracy Factors but
so far I only mentioned three. I saved the fourth for last.
Biblical Illiteracy
Factor 4
All biblical illiterate people inadvertently find themselves
cherry-picking, back-tracking , falling into inconsistencies and failing to
carry the same burdens they try to load upon the shoulders of others.
For example, they have no problem cherry-picking Leviticus
18:20 out of the 613 Mosaic Laws in order to condemn sexually active (and even
celibate, virginal) homosexual men and teens. They will even use it to get the
Government to take punitive action against adult, consensual, relationships,
even committed ones lasting many years. But ask these same people why they do not also follow the other 612 laws. How
come they do not ask the Government to enact the death penalty against people
who work on the Sabbath or quarantine menstruating women or declare themselves
unclean after a wet dream or stone children who throw an expletive filled
temper tantrum? Why do they eat shrimp and tuck into the Christmas ham with
gusto every year?
This is the main
reason why we must engage and answer anti-gay literalists. They are being
dishonest not only with themselves but all of society. The same honesty that made you live your life truthfully despite persecution and rejection is what should drive you to set the hypocrite…straight.
The same unflappable need to be honest that made you come out of the closet even if it meant waiting generations before the rest of society learned to be tolerant, should make you fight hypocristy when you find it.
Next installment, we will show how the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures, namely: Genesis 19 (The
Story Of Sodom), The Mosaic Law and Kings are wrongly utilized in order to condemn LGBT people today. In
the installment after that, we will explore the New Testament.
A second sexual revolution?! Geez wasn’t one enough?
Well, no.
Certainly, thanks to Kinsey and other pioneering scientists we learned women can orgasm, several times in fact in one setting. We learned there is a spectrum of sexual orientation and gender identity. We learned how ridiculous it was to expect seven billion people to fit into one sexual mould with rigid gender roles. That would be just as unnatural and creepy as the entire world population all having the exact same creative talents or personalities.
Most importantly, we began to refine and redefine what was morally acceptable or dysfunctional based on more informed, universal and humane benchmarks instead of asking a religious authority if it made God mad enough to bun we ass in hell.
We lost faith in that old method because it became apparent to many of us that it was a ruse.
When it comes to dictating religious standards about sexuality, there is always leniency for the rich and powerful and Draconian measures for the poor and unrepresented. I can understand if you do not see the rat, but even the most avid believer in any organized religion must smell it by now.
So we began asking more important questions: Was the aspect of human sexuality in question harmful to the individual? Was it harmful to society, in particular children? Did it threaten the fundamental human rights (life, liberty, security, property) of anyone else?
Suddenly a greater amount of sexual freedom became permissible. Some would argue it was a premature opening of Pandora’s Box. Others would argue it was a jolt back to reality, honesty and natural authenticity. For in their view the world that existed before the Sexual Revolution was unnatural, overly-controlled and detrimental to authentic happiness for many people who could not fit into the narrow gender and sexuality molds.
Fashion sensation Andrej Prejic is in his early twenties…yes I said HIS. He has not had any surgery. This is all him and he is considered one of the most beautiful examples of natural androgyny. He models both male and female clothes. We have thanks to more enlightened perimeters embraced the existence of gender diversity in our natural world. It hurts nobody, poses no threat to society, robs no one of their fundamental human rights.
Many of those who still feel inadequate, wronged, disempowered, scared, uncertain, confounded by human sexuality often hold it and the Revolution in contempt. Some accuse it of untethering us from the beliefs that confined and controlled our inherently fallen, evil-prone sexuality.
For them, the training wheels or life-jacket is more important than learning how to master our balance, momentum and steering of our sexual lives. And gain the ability to swim, despite the weight of our animal inclinations and the turbulent sexual waters. They point to the fact that when the Sexual Revolution took off the training wheels and threw us in the deep end, there were casualties.
They are right.
Marriages ended. More children grew up without any comforting wool pulled over their eyes. Men saw an increase in sexual rejection by women, even by many who were supposed to be grateful for any attention at all. Insecurities and uncertainties increased as did expectations of porn-star-esque bedroom gymnastics. Herpes, HIV, new strains of the clap and chlamydia came out to play!
But it would be also be dishonest to pretend that the Sexual Revolution did not also free and save lives by forcing society to deal with issues like incest, sexual abuse, sexism, violence against women and homophobia.
Gary Ross, Director and Producer of the critically acclaimed movie Pleasantville had this to say about the film, "This movie is about the fact that personal repression gives rise to larger political oppression...That when we're afraid of certain things in ourselves or we're afraid of change, we project those fears on to other things, and a lot of very ugly social situations can develop". In the movie, those who became free of personal repression in the 1950s utopian, black and white television world started to manifest color and certainty gave way to uncertainty but also freedom. What we had before the Sexual Revolution was not the utopia that many social conservatives make it out to be, even if it was less complicated and had more reassurances built into it…like riding with training wheels.
The Sexual Revolution was not perfect and worst of all, when it was not even half-way finished it was co-opted by mercenaries in the corporate world. To put it crudely:
We were taught how to fuck better, feel better about fucking, associate more products with fucking, watch people fucking and sing catchy songs about fucking while doing dances that made us want to fuck some more. But we were not sufficiently taught how not to fuck up ourselves, not to fuck up those we love and not to fuck up the planet. It was style without substance. A hard cock without a soul or mind behind it. It was knowledge without power and freedom without responsibility and our priorities became well….fucked.
The darlings of corporate oligarchy, the pharmaceutical companies, tackled erectile dysfunction instead of breast and cervical cancers. Hollywood and the fashion and cosmetics industry promoted unnatural standards of beauty and exploitation of girls and boys as sex-objects as soon as their endochrine system whispered, “puberty” and sometimes even earlier *ick*.
After the Jean Bennet-Ramsey tragedy, what’s to say Toddlers & Tiaras is not the equivalent of Cinemax after eleven…for pedophiles.
Religion continued to exploit our fear, guilt and shame with ex-gay programmes, advocacy against women’s choice; opposition of equal rights for sexual minorities and promotion of Sharia Law. As usual, while there was more severe punitive action against the poor while loopholes were made available for the rich and powerful. It has become so glaring now, we have people like Newt Ginrich speaking about the "sanctity of marriage" while on his third. Meanwhile the plebs beat up their gay teenagers, continue to support a church that allows priests to rape our children, give money to pastors on the down-low and excuse imams advocating for terrorism, domestic abuse of and subjugation of women.
Isn’t the goal of any revolution to bring a greater sense of power to the powerless? Well the Sexual Revolution left us with all kinds of powerlessness the most glaring being:
The billions of men who are floundering, grasping, struggling to hold on to self-esteem, sense of purpose and power that for far too long could only be enjoyed at the expense of other people and the planet.
The Revolution is also not complete because we still have billions of women still carrying the yoke for their societies, while being denied the fullest benefits of those societies. The billions of women who can enjoy the fullest benefits of society, but still carry the scars of guilt, ignorance, shame, disempowerment and so sabotage themselves in ways that can still be used to hinder their progress.
The Revolution is yet to reconcile those who wrongly thought sexual freedom and spirituality were incompatible and sacrificed their spirituality for hedonism and are now in their later years hollow and handicapped to address issues pertaining to forgiveness, inner-peace, self-love, purpose, trust, unconditional love and social justice.
The LGBT community who are still suffering under prevailing archaic laws in my Caribbean territory with no end in sight thanks to the cowardice of our elected leaders, apathy of influential gays and lesbians, ignorance of the populace and hypocrisy of the religious community.
Our planet which is struggling to keep up with our ridiculous rate of procreation.
Snap your fingers. Seriously, do it. Ten thousand babies were just born. Snap your fingers again, another ten thousand. Two thirds of those babies will be born into poverty, unjust societies and polluted environments. One out three of the girls born will be sexually abused. One out ten sold into slavery. Less than half were born to parents who want them, will do what it takes to love, care and provide for them, let alone raise them with selflessness and all the best knowledge we have on childrearing. Yet, snap your fingers and ten thousand more have been born. They have been born into a world with dwindling resources and harder choices than their parents will ever have to make. No higher mammal on the planet reproduces completely out of sync with its societal needs and natural environment like we do. We are clearly out of balance, misdirected and not fully evolved in this area of our life.
So yes, music videos are raunchier. Women can now be cougars instead of just middle-aged. A Surgeon General actually said that masturbation is good. Pre-marital sex is a prerequisite of finding a committed partner, saving a lot more couples sexual incompatibility catastrophes after a binding contract has been signed in front of family and friends. You do not feel “tarnished” if you have had more than one sexual partner or a child out of wedlock. You can buy birth control without shame in more countries. Women can divorce cheating husbands and get alimony. Underage arranged marriages and female genital mutilation is frowned upon. Women can equally require men to man-scape and manicure, primp and preen to appeal to their discriminating tastes. Gays and lesbians can get married in almost all first world nations. Bravo! I mean it, Bravo!
But in my humble opinion, the ultimate goal of the Sexual Revolution should be (1) Awareness of how to use this sexual knowledge and sexual freedom to achieve a higher state of existence in harmony with our environment and fellowman. (2) Supporting, researching and innovating ways of making the aforementioned a reality.
After all, if we are still so powerless and miserable after our sexual revolution in the West, how do we convince nations across the Atltantic that are in dire need of similar revolution that it is a good thing? That they should allow their women equality and not chop off their clitorises and marry them off to an old man for twelve sheep and a donkey when they are still too young to be fully empowered in their own mind. How can we defend the revolution when religious leaders can still point to unhealed scrapes and sprains, among those who discarded their training wheels and life vests and tried to peddle and swim using their own abilities?
We have a long way to go yet. There is still fight in me. What about you?
It would be easy to blame my work for this long absence from the Bloggershere but that would not be entirely honest. It's not that I wasn't a bit brain-fried and running on caffeine and adreneline. I was.
The reason I was however, is what was most important. Constantly going meant not having time to stop and check myself in all the areas that need checking.
But as of now, I am off the coffee/insomnia/sleeping pill spin cycle! Weaning myself off caffeine was a roller coaster of fun for all! Headaches, low energy, irritability, constipation ah yes, good times. I do not recommend it for anyone who does not have an understanding significant other and boss.
As the dizziness of the spin cycle subsided, a new state of clarity emboldened me to enter into a Fight Championship.
It’s an annual event at a Fight Club reserved for those of us who dare to confront our shit and once again, more roller-coaster fun for the whole family.
First Match: You vs. the world. You win that one essentially by shutting out the world and taking some to focus on yourself while trusting that "the world" will take care of itself and fall into place when you get your shit in order. Do that and you advance to the...
Second Match: You vs. the people you love/ed most in the world. That one always ends in a comforting stalemate of unconditional love, if you lucky and have the right people in your life. They are the kind who only provoke you because they unintentionally smoothng away your rough edges and the friction does burn sometimes.
Get through that and then it's the grand finale!
Championship Fight: You vs. Yourself. What you get out of this bout. Well, if you win, a whole lot of forgiving, asking for forgiveness, remembering to love yourself and love others and let others love you.
I real bloodied and bruise up yet somehow it was worth it. I can write without feeling like I bullshitting.
