Male Peacocking

So I'm sitting with my friends Matt and Jess on the NYC Subway, probably one of the better places to people watch in the safety of an air-conditioned space (in August, this is a godsend) and a man across the aisle from us catches our eye. Granted, this man would never be on the cover of GQ, but immediately he catches my eye as something to be desired, which Matt quickly confirms and we both know why. Without a second thought, Matt says "What would that man's beard equate to in breast size?"

I like me some beards, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows me well. But this wasn't always so--being one of the many girls who grew up in the 90's with fresh faced boy bands I was subconsciously bread to use them as the benchmark for the pinnacle of everything that was to be desired in a man. But then by about age 14 things started to change...basically, puberty. I distinctly remember we had this orchestra TA my sophomore year, Mr. Sokolik, who was the biggest jolliest looking man I'd ever seen. He was obviously going bald, but what he lacked on top he more than made up for with his gloriously full facial hair and, needless to say, I found it fascinating. Men can grow hair on their face, I thought, that's so badass. It was a weird kind of worship, the epitome of I-can't-do-that-so-therefore-its-cool envy (sorry Freud, you had the wrong kind of envy). Beard=man=good. For me, that was the beginning of my love affair. Ever since then, I've had a deep fondness in my heart (and parts ;)) for beards. It's just my preference. Only lately, it's not just my preference. Beard lovers are everywhere.

Work it, boy.

Which brings me back to the NYC Subway. As we began objectifying this man based on his beard length, fullness, and style with which he accentuated the beard (we gave him a solid C) it began to sink in what my friend Thomas asked me months ago after the hipster fad seemed to have pretty definitely claimed beard-love as their own.

Are beards the new form of male peacocking? 


The fact is, males over the past 30 years have become cultural sexual objects. While it still may not be to the level that women experience, the fact is men are being looked at as needing to be aesthetically pleasing--meaning that men are re-entering a level of consciousness about their own sex appeal and need to impress outside of the evolutionary biology traditional narratives we give men as being desirable only to the degree to which they can "provide." There are many opinions about whether or not this is a good or bad thing, which I'm not going to get into now, but the fact is that today men are being asked to step it up.

 #team USA  #conceited ass hole

And with this latest hipster fad, they are. They really are. In this whole shift towards a more trendy-backwards-hippy-natural-traditionalist youth culture we have right now, beards have become the way men establish their manliness and sex appeal in a pretty straightforward way. It's a way of embracing the obvious difference men and women, accentuating a trait that is all man--basically the definition of peacocking to a T. And men know it, and men proudly sporting facial hair have popped up all around the country--so much so that there is not only just a culture of obsession around them, but an actual economic market. There are fb groups, there is merchandise, there was a tv show, and there is even an entire month dedicated to mustache worship as well as international competitions dedicated towards the art of growing facial hair as a way of increasing ones sexy-factor. It's even become so popular that studies have been popping up proving the benefits of facial hair (yeah, science bitch!), not to mention lots of celebrities have started popping up sporting the unshaven look, setting a new standard for sexy. And ladies are taking notice.

While not all woman may love the full beard look, I don't know any who aren't at least a little turned on by a bit of 5 o'clock shadow. Whether it's biological or cultural, the fact is beards are having an impact on the way that men promote themselves as objects of lust and the standard by which some women determine their partners attractiveness. The fact that I can sit there as a woman and rate different men's desirability on a scale to which men have equated women based on another uncontrollable biological predisposition with breasts is an interesting turn of events and roles within the mating-game.

I'm not saying that the latest facial hair fad is here to stay, or that I completely reject men who don't grow facial hair, or that we need to perpetuate this cycle of domination with the objectification of the male body. But I will say facial hair is playing an interesting part in the mating game right now, and in terms of peacocking the one's who do grow facial hair definitely stick out to me in a crowd. Whether its the sexy scruffy look or full on homeless beard, nothing screams "look at me, I'm a man! Take me!" more than facial hair.

And frankly, I kinda like being impressed.

Faith

I didn't go looking for sadness, so it didn't come looking for me
like the laws of physics the object that was my life
continued in motion, unperturbed by the smooth surface that allowed my
suspension of disbelief to continue into adulthood.
I believed people were kind, or at least my people were kind
the friendly faces at the door, the gentle hands that tucked me in at night
like the air filled butterfly I was being bread to become, not seeing the
cage my cocoon had formed itself into. It was easier to imagine
that everyone was right than I was wrong, the night air feels cooler on your skin
when you choose to leave your coat at home and find solace in the arms of a creator.

It didn't make sense to leave, to know god was to hold fast
to hold fast was to move fast, to beehives to mia maids to laurels to relief society
never really relieving yourself from the inevitable call to womanhood
I knew by body would one day be called to serve. There was stillness, to be sure
everyone knew god came as a whisper but sometimes
he came to me like a scream and I awoke from terrors at being found
not worthy. Of being found uncounted among the flock.
Of being left out of the flock altogether.

And so I read myself into faith as was promised and found joy. I found
people and places and miracles that proved that I
was no different but that I could be different if I only chose
to follow the iron rod instead of curiously wandering into the great and spacious
for a glimpse of coveted independence. That was not to be done.
Apples can only be cut on teethbone closed against the
same questions that tore the original mother away from her promised land
by the tempting serpent. Knowledge is the greatest gift of god
only saved for the next life Sydney,
and you are no serpent
you were chosen in heaven.
Be patient. Everything will make sense in the temple.

There was this idea, this idea that I was above
no beside, no behind, and I never quite knew what papers laid in front of his
warm pudgy hands as he leaned over his desk sizing up my worthiness card.
Pictures of whitewashed men looming behind him in an incandescent glow
of superiority with all-seeing eyes reading over his list of depersonalized qualifications.
he wanted to know everything that time, even when I felt it wasn't between us
he wedged himself like a hammer between me and my god
the hierarchy had been decided, it wasn't just today it was eternal
and I better get used to it if I ever wanted to wear white again.

Sometimes I wonder what would have been, what could have been
with what god gave me under the circumstances of who I was meant to be,
of who I am in the process of becoming. With knowing how blindness ended up being a virtue,
how forgiving and forgetting sounded a whole lot like denial how
not asking too many questions sounded like not swallowing too many hard answers.
I won't lie and say it was easy, I won't lie and say
sitting on fences didn't cut my legs some days leaving me crippled and bleeding like the
Jew we're all supposed to look after as good Samaritans,
though none of us were ever allowed to play the part of Jew. It's not that I needed saving,
it's that I didn't need celestial closure that my life had an organized purpose. I guess no one told them
books are meant to be read from front to cover and life
maybe isn't supposed to be planned, and maybe the meaning of salvation
happens along the way and maybe none of us are right in saying
we know. We testify. We affirm.
Maybe we should just wait until the end of the novel before we start forming discussion questions.

I didn't go looking for sadness, but it finally came looking for me
in the hands of lovers I could never have, of lands I could never see with a baby on my back
of power I could never feel without being labeled a heretic and it hit me like a thick brick wall
halting the momentum I had spent my whole life accumulating. It didn't feel like falling from grace
but every sidelong glance became a silent weapon letting me know
I had questioned the wrong answers. I was no longer one of us.
I had become them, and I guess you can never really explain
to people who are drowning that they're drowning while still in the water they have to
feel the rock of salvation for themselves to know that redemption
is validated in the soul, not in a pew.
That forgiveness doesn't come from a desk, but from a mirror
that love isn't offered in a piece of bread but in the way
you let someone love you for the scars
you never wanted to forget were part of who you have become
because god loves all his children full stop.
and I know that days will pass, and well meaning prayers will still be uttered
in temples around the world on my behalf
and nicely pressed suits will continue to knock on my door
asking if I need any yard work done but the day will never cease
when I won't fight for my right to the eternal, in whatever form it may come
asking all the right questions without the curtain of Oz making
beautiful illusions for how I am supposed to get there.

Viva Las Vegas

Now that I'm settled and nearly dying from heat stroke in Utah, it's time for a recap. Because last weekend was awesome.

So I set out from Los Angeles last Wednesday in order to meet up with my friends Harley, Chloe and her boyfriend Hank. Harley's friend Etta from Washington also came down for a few days of vacation to hang with us in Coronado. For those of you who have never been to Coronado, it's an amazing little island/cove right off of San Diego that you can get to via bridge. It feels a bit too white upper class planned community, but it's also a really nice place to live. So Hank and Chloe invited us to come and help them pack for moving out/just hang out in SD before heading to Vegas on Friday morning. It was a fun couple of days helping Chloe to finish school assignments, sushi eating, packing, and playing card games--nothing too riveting since we all wanted to be prepared for Vegas.

Friday morning we set out in Chloe's car at around 10am so we could get to Vegas by check in at 3. Chloe's car is super nice, but also completely ridiculous for road trips. A two door sporty little thing, the 5 of us packed in there like sardines with all of our luggage pushed into every possible crevice. I'm pretty sure purgatory could be equated towards the feeling of being in that back seat with one midget (Harley) and one over 6 foot tall albino (Cole). You could feel every breath that the person next to you took with your arms pressed against their ribs, your shoulders hunched inward in a way that promoted scoliosis and cracked collarbones. Combine that with the occasional overheating of the car which required us to turn off the air conditioning while driving through 113 degree weather, and Chloe and Hank's hilarious game of "lets roll down the window and suffocate/burn the prisoners in the back" and you've summed up our journey from SD to Vegas. Thank God it was only 5 hours.

We get to Vegas and check into our hotel room while trying to plateau the level of mounting bitchiness from uncomfortable car rides and hunger. Throwing our stuff down into our very nice hotel room at the MGM Grand (thanks, Hank), we begin wandering around the hotel avoiding going outside on the strip just yet (literal hell). Finally settle on the Rainforest Cafe where I order my first drink, which anti anticlimactically they didn't card me for. Oh well, that's Vegas. The 'Panama Punch' was delicious though, Bacardi, Rum, Peach Schnapps, Banana Liquere, and other various juices. Ate to our heart's content and then us girls went back to the room to get ready while the boys went out and bought the alcohol to pregame with. Hank had been adimant about introducing us to his signature "danger juice" who's potency can be surmised from the name.

Us girls get our sexy on (basically an hour or so of Miley Cyrus's "We Can't Stop" on repeat--guilty pleasure) and the boys return. In natural male standards of dress, they're ready to go so we start drinking. Hank's two friends from Reno come up to party with us so it's a grand old time of getting to know everyone and getting psyched out for Vegas. Danger juice (otherwise known as jungle juice) is flowing freely, with Cole and I trying to match each other drink for drink because we're poor and want to be as ready to go as possible before we leave. It should also be noted that we were consuming said beverage from an old gas container which only solidified its sketchy nature.

After we are thoroughly pre-gamed we venture out onto the casino floor, and straight to Fat Tuesdays for a yard slushie. I'm pretty good at this point, but hey--it's my 21st birthday. Good isn't good enough, apparently that means trashy. So Hank generously buys me my first yard and I couldn't even really tell you what was in it it but it was delicious and it was a lot of alcohol and sugary deliciousness. We didn't really have a game plan for the night, so we just start walking around the maze that is our casino/hotel looking at everyone playing and stopping here and there at the slot machines. Also happen to hook up with some friends from Washington, Reed and Omar who came to get away as well for the weekend. I'd like to say this is the point at where I went to some crazy bar/dance club and started going Coyote Ugly on everyone's ass, but being the old grandma that I am and being a tad worried that my only form of identification was my passport, I wasn't trying to get too too rowdy in unfamiliar/far places. So we walked around...a lot. And with so many people navigating the casino floor, you could basically call it a dance. It was crazy.

Next day we woke up and I had no idea who was in which bed. Luckily we all ended up back at the hotel, including Reed and Omar who had paid for and yet not slept at their room at the Stratosphere way farther down on the strip. Said goodbye to them, freshened up, and went down for the breakfast buffet. Words cannot describe the delicious food that we consumed at that meal--anything you could ever possibly want, there. And we ate it all. Harley and Hank decided mimosas were a better hangover cure than anything else, but I abstained. All I saw was bacon and creamed cheese bagels with smoked salmon. My life was complete.

With still very little energy, we peeled ourselves from our post-breakfast food coma to go lounge by the pool and float in the lazy river. It was the first time I had ventured outside of the MGM grand in almost 24 hours, and it was hot. You come out of the water and within 5 minutes you are burning and completely dried from the sun, so naturally Cole the Albino stayed inside to sleep off his hangover. Sleep off, die. We weren't really sure, but he looked comfortable so we let him lie like a vegetable upstairs while the rest of us admired all the sexy bodies at the pool.

Finally after the pool we actually ventured off of the property and went about exploring the strip--the Luxor, Venetian, Caesars, Paris--the lot. And they were super cool themed, when I was in the Paris one I was legitimately surprised at how authentic it was aesthetic wise. Made me miss it. The only thing that sucked about these hotels was that, although the strip isn't very long, you don't want to be oustide in Vegas ever. It's so unbelievably hot (109, when we were out) and so you say to yourself "that hotel isn't too far--lets just walk there" and you want to kill yourself 20 feet later. For fellow fat girls like me, don't walk the strip without spanks. Chaffing is real, don't do it. And on top of the heat? You'll thank me later.

Finally we make it all the way down to Caesars and fall heavy into a booth at Planet Hollywood. Delicious grub, cool atmosphere, and we move onto the Stratosphere for the ride Hank has been looking forward to all day that I refuse to go on because 1) I'm afraid of heights 2) It's expensive and 3) I don't want to die of a heart attack. Despite my resolved stubborn nature, Hank insists he will make me go. And like a sign from the gods, we get there and it's closed for about an hour. Exhausted, but looking to make the most of the situation we settle on playing a bit of 21 and blackjack which is my favorite. You don't win every time, but you also don't lose every time. I played for about 20 minutes, gaining and losing money before I walked away and we headed back towards the hotel for the night--exhausted from the heat.

Here is where happy Vegas trip ends. The next morning's entire mission I swear was to elevate my blood pressure.

So I'm supposed to take a greyhound bus from Vegas to Salt Lake to meet up with my friend Anson. Get there an hour early from my 7:55am bus and get in line. When there is about 20-30 of us left they close the door and tell us that there are too many people, we will have to wait until the 10pm bus going to Salt Lake City. That's right, they overbooked us by that many people. And didn't apologize, offer alternatives, or even refund our money. They. were. assholes.

So I'm fuming, thinking I'm about to go to jail for arson or murder when I meet two other passengers in my situation and we decide we need some food. The girl is from Argentina, traveling the US for 6 months while the other guy is Tongan from SLC. They're super nice, and we have some great conversation about interculturalism and stereotypes before heading back to the bus station. To wait. For over 12 hours.

3 hours in and I'm looking for sharp objects to "fall" on. The bus station is hot, stinky, and I'm pretty sure filled with sketchy alcoholic homeless people. Since I've made friends, I feel comfortable enough going to the bathroom knowing someone is watching my stuff, but even so. Not where I wanted to be stranded.

About 1 o'clock is when things really start blowing up. So this black girl about my age comes in and starts charging her phone, no big thing. No one notices anything crazy about the girl. A half hour later two white male cops come in and start talking to the girl. I'm in my usual computer addicted state and not paying enough attention, though when I start hearing her yell "I didn't do anything violent!" and I look up to see the cop twisting her arm at an ungodly angle, I perk up. Next thing I know, they push her down into the floor face down and one is straddling her while the other keeps her arm twisted and she's not letting them pry her other hand from her armpit. She keeps screaming "I didn't do anything violent!" and they keep yelling at her to remove her hand, part of which is resistance but part of which is also the angle at which they've pinned her down and she can't  move.

A circle of us have now formed watching this happening in shock and a few get out their phones to start recording. Next, the police officer not straddling cups the back of her neck and pushes down, popping her head back like a sick pez container. It's getting way out of hand and I start screaming at the police officers to get the fuck off of her and that I'm calling the cops on them, grabbing my phone to make the call. While the girl is still not being violent but wriggling trying to breath from the officer pushing down on her neck, the police officer gets out his mace and shakes it as if he is about to shoot her in the face. This is completely where I lost my shit and start yelling even louder, at which point he looks up and sees the circle of us angrily recording and shouting and puts it aside, barely letting up. They finally pry her hand away with a baton and cuff her, taking her away to the police car.

I'd already called the police to report the unnecessary brutal force with which they treated the girl, and soon the sergeant was on the scene questioning the girl, officers, and the rest of us. It becomes pretty apparent pretty fast whose side they are on with issues of race, gender, and general corruption come into play. She takes my statement and listens to stories and watches video, but still she is wary. Others don't even bother writing down a statement, so disillusioned by past experiences to believe any justice will be served. They say they are releasing the girl, but by the time they left I didn't see her walk free. Meanwhile the police who arrested her however are laughing and looking at shit on their iphones while she sits shaking in the back of the police car hyperventilating. Fucked. up. shit.

I'm going to be honest, it was that moment that race became real to me. Not in a theoretical intellectual way, but as a straight up honest truth. As the sergeant went around taking statements, visibly disregarding statements by the black bystanders I finally internalized their frustration, seeing my own very real privilege as a white woman. Shaking myself, I was very doubtful that anything productive was going to come from these conversations and even more enraged by the lack of awareness of the officer's privilege and the way these issues of gender, race, and class played into this whole scene. Their  mind was made up, she was obviously in the wrong.

As I kept talking with the sergeant, she kept on telling me "If I told you she assaulted a cab driver before coming here, would that change your perception of the events?" to which I was horrified. I wanted to respond with "Would the officers have acted to violently if the woman was white?" but knew from other similar statements made by others in the station that she was not willing to see it as a factor in this arrest and I don't think anyone deserves that kind of retaliatory violence. And that's only going along with the "hypothetical" situation they gave me of her first act of violence. Who even knows if the girl did anything? She looked just as scared as the rest of us by the officers sudden arrival.

Needless to say, after that I knew I had to get the hell out of Vegas. Within 6 hours my friend Anson had driven all the way down from Salt Lake to pick me up, and I said adios to the most bittersweet weekend of my life in Vegas. Once in a lifetime trip--can't see it repeating itself any time soon or wanting to, and I'm ok with that. Pretty sure these stories are enough to last a lifetime.

Feminist Majority Foundation Tribute

So today is my last day as an intern for the Feminist Majority Foundation and woman, what a crazy summer it's been here. Between campus visits, blog writing, speakers, and summits it's been a great journey in understanding my own experience as a woman and how others connect with my story. My fellow interns are some of the most creative and knowledgeable people I've met, and sitting in the intern pit with them dissecting underlying gender politics in different articles and getting rallied around an activist social group has been completely inspiring. Love these connections I've been able to make and the ways in which my mind has been opened up to all of the inter-sectional complexities of the feminist movement. There were ups and downs of couse, but overall it's really been a really rewarding experience.And without getting too mushy, I also just wanted to shout out to all you crazy feminists out there--both in and out of the organization--who help to remind me that I'm not alone. That will probably be the biggest thing I take away from all of this. Love you all <3

So I didn't expect to write a tribute poem, but several weeks back when we were in Santa Barbara and I was trying to fall asleep I just got this weave of inspiration and have been working on it ever since. And though I'm not sure whether or not I'm comfortable with it just yet, I figured I pass it on as kind of a "thank you" to the FMF and my internship this summer.

________________________________

Don't be that girl
by Sydney Odell

They didn't want us to talk about it, the night we rode the midnight blur

of the express train because they thought proximity was dangerous.

if they only knew the deeper cuts they tore into the

parts of our bleeding hearts that were never really yours to begin with because

you couldn't possibly understand as you are a little girl

and everyone knows god only speaks to his little boys

whose orifices are the only ones divinely sanctioned to make policies for ours.

You tell me I’m more than a number, that this

fetus is more than how many weeks you can point to on a calendar

but you continue to degrade my body into a mathematical equation,

So here are some numbers for you

where I come from, one plus one means subtraction

means lost in action

trying to find the enemy lines through the thick fog

of all the post racial political bull shit I see draped as closure

over a 16 year-old black teenage girl still looking for a home

after growing up to find that not all mothers are born into white picket houses.

Covering the mother of three who found that four

could keep the door to safety locked by the same hands that leave her blue at night.

Holding the 1 in 5 whose skirts must have asked for it because

in these instances the body did not find a way and their

wombs are forever forced to be cultural baptisms

for horny men’s "nature."

You tell me you don’t want to hear

but I don’t want to see, don’t want to feel the way 

your noose feels tight around my neck every time he’s taught

he’d rather not, it’s more pleasurable this way.

Tell me the choice in this. As if agency

was something we decided on in theory

but like communism fall apart in practice because

all I know is the day man invented the wheel was the day woman got left behind

and we’ve been running in circles ever since chasing a horizon only meant for a few

but promised to all.

Forgive me if I don’t regurgitate the preferred statistics

the 1 in 4, the 75% though none of it means anything

if you can’t acknowledge that I bleed when you do

that actions mean more than the words you profess to

believe in because our bodies are battlefields being pulled to the right and the left and

don’t you know red is on its way out

it's time to bleed humanity blue

it’s true that I am more than a number and you

are more than the physician you profess to be, but

to see the way out we have to know the way in so

This is for the women, this is for the men,

this is for those who are too busy loving to care

and the ones who don’t project blanket assumptions but instead use their arms

to cover the wounds of strangers,

to pull the stitches out of other people’s mouths

this is for the ones who feel too fat, too tall, too dumb, too black, too white

too loud, too poor,

too tired to keep fighting for a humanity you no longer believe in

but wake up each morning with forced amnesia towards past failures

in order to create a more perfect union

and this is for that girl on the train and the

story she was able to tell when she fell from grace

and finally saw the face of God in her window’s reflection

and saw that it was good.