the path of least resistance

As in

What if, instead of blindly asserting our ‘right’ to ‘choose’ the patriarchal sexbot model, we (and by ‘we’ I mean all the roller girls, amateur pole dancers, blow jobbists, and other ’sex-positive feminists’ I’ve managed to encrabulate over the past year or two) examined what it is, exactly, we’re supposedly choosing?

I assert that we’re choosing the path of least resistance. It’s much easier to acquiesce to a set of established conventions—social, aesthetic, political, sexual, sartorial—for which the rewards (dudely approval, other women’s satisfying jealousy) dangle brightly ahead, than it is to blaze forth in a fury of white-hot anti-feminine iconoclasm and risk ridicule, ostracism, and male reproach. Life’s rich pageant is much more accessible when you go with the flow. Patriarchy, as the Spice Girls and Paris Hilton can attest, rewards conformity. Which is why the new feminism must be sex-ay, and why the only freedom it promises is the freedom to enjoy the degradation.

Well, an awful lot of women/girls really are choosing the path of least resistance. They think it will get them something they want. What they do not understand is that whatever you do in order to obtain something, that you must keep on doing in order to hold onto whatever it is you think you've gained.

If you use how you look to git yersel' a hubby/job/house/car(s)/fur coat/whatever, then you will lose those things, every single one of them, as soon as how you look changes. And you know, girls, keeping up all that botoxing and surgery and whatever else becomes mighty tiresome after a while. Not to mention that stiletto heels just kill your feet and back. And forget running in them.

Me? What do I do? Oh, and how about that massive collection of perfume, more than I most likely could wear in the 25 or so years I've got left in this body? Never mind the lipstick collection.

Well, hon, it's like this. I wear those things, and other things besides (pearls, anyone?), purely for my own sweet pleasure. If it does not please me to wear that stuff, then I do not. I've been known to go for months and months without any of it. One morning I wake up just tired to the bone of it all and decide to stop for a while. To the great consternation and confusion of everyone around me, men and women. Then one morning I wake feeling like, ... mmmmm ... I wanna wear that Chanel #22 today. With my deep, saturated coral lipstick. And my fav cashmere sweater -- where'd it go? Think I'll put some lovely soft red polish on my toes. Yes.

It's all about me. Pleasing myself. A concept that is as foreign as could be to just about everyone I've ever met. People, you see, just do not know what they want. They think they want what they see on tv. Or in the movies. Magazines. Or on the street. But, mostly, tv is the source.

I do not own a television, never have. Oh, yes, my family of origin had one, but I didn't have much say in what was watched, so I never grew too attached to the boob tube. Boy, am I glad. After twenty-five years of not watching teebee, my mind is mostly free of suggestions harmful to my mental and financial health.

As for dressing a certain way to express one's female sexuality. Well, kids. All any woman needs to do is put on clothes. Any clothes will do. I swear to whatever gods I swear to that a chador is about as counter-effective as can be if the object is to hide a woman's sexuality. Fer pity's sake! Who else but a woman wears such things. Don't they just advertise that there's something here, something that needs to be hidden away because it's sooooooo powerful and sexy and ... and ...

Yeah. Not that you'll ever catch me in one. But, you get my point.





Oh. About patriarchy rewarding conformity? Well, so does matriarchy. And all the other -archies. You want the bennies of being part of the tribe/social group/family/nation/community/etc., then you'd better conform to the norm. Or get gone.