I'm trying.

It was with some interest, earlier, that I read up on the concept of depressive realism after a friend of mine provided this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism

Basically, the theory is that those who have a tendency towards being mildly to moderately depressed actually have a more realistic perspective of their environment - their own abilities, their importance in the world, the scope of their locus of control etc. I can only assume that this is usually what depresses them :-/

I wish I could dismiss this theory offhand, but I can't. That would be too optimistic. Ba-dum-bum-tish...

As most of you know, I have grappled on and off with depression myself. It's not something I am either ashamed of, or inclined to use for self-pity. It's just a fact. It's more than likely due to a combination of conditional and hereditary factors - my mum has also got mental health issues, and basically I'm not the only one in the family. Although whether our shared tendency towards depression is hereditary, or because we have to constantly deal with each other, is anyone's guess. But I think it's helpful to be honest about these things - if you cannot bear to articulate your own feelings of despair, whether current or in retrospect, I think you contribute to a conspiracy of silence for other people going through the same thing. Someone has to start talking, and frankly I don't mind being that person.

Aaaaanyway - there is a point to this post, and more than likely it will present itself eventually. The reason I am thinking about this right now is because I went to see the social worker in charge of my brother's case again today, to discuss progress within my family, etc etc.

I have very mixed feelings about how the meeting went. She was marginally better than the last social worker originally assigned to Paul, although that's not saying much since the original one was about as useful as a chocolate teapot. It was cathartic to me to discuss some of my difficulties in making reports with her, but it did make me conscious of my feelings of helplessness and fear with how things are progressing in my family. I feel kind of adrift in a sea of other people's agendas, with their motivations like currents pushing me this way and that way... my parents' inability to face their own mistakes/shortcomings, the dynamic between my mom and dad, the social worker just trying to tie up all the loose ends of red tape, my extended family - who remain mostly ambivalent on the subject, but support my mom, mainly - my little brother clinging to me, my sister... god it's exhausting. Maybe I have my own motivations? I suppose I must, but honestly the only thing I really *feel* about the situation is that I want my little brother to be OK, and to minimise the adverse effect that my parents have on him. I guess what the article on depression realism said about such individuals being conscious of their lack of control in certain scenarios really struck a chord with me - I am conscious of my lack of control over all the factors at play in this situation, and it drives me crazy.

I'm the kind of person who always wants to *fix* everything. I can't see something I think is unfair and not try to fix it. My friend gets screwed over by social welfare, I write to them to complain. I read something that annoys me in the paper, I write to it. I read about unethical practice of a company, I boycott it. I see my brother being abused by my parents, I report them to social services. Seems simple, and clean cut, but it isn't.

The emotional fallout from reporting my parents in February has been enormous. I have been in turns ignored, made homeless, guilt tripped, accepted back, chastised, blamed for everything, and denied access to my brother. It's been a roller coaster, emotionally, and to be honest at this stage I don't know my head from my ass. Every time I think I'm reaching some kind of mental plateau where I can accept the situation as it is and deal with it, something else happens to make me question my sanity/maturity/motivations.

I love my parents, but as the social worker said this morning, they categorically deny everything that happens at home. Both of them deny ever hitting my brother, or that there are problems at home, and they resent the social worker's intrusion and questioning of their parenting abilities. What the SW said this morning is that my parents have preconceived notions of the kind of people social services deal with - layabout drunks, mainly - and they don't see themselves as being at all in this category. Which is fair enough, but kinda misses the point. I need scarcely point out the fallacy of thinking that you have to live in a council estate with piebald ponies roaming your front garden, drinking Stella Artois in a wifebeater vest at 1 o clock in the afternoon, for there to be child abuse - or for social services to be necessary. It makes me crazy, because every now and again I'll think I've made a breakthrough, if a small one, in getting through to them. Usually, I'll have a discussion with my dad - the more self-aware of the two, whereby I outline erratic or dangerous behaviour in the past, on mom's part especially, and he acknowledges it. But it's like he just can't *face* the extent of it, so the next time I see him I'm practically back to square one of "problems? What problems? I don't see a problem, except you."

I just so bloody unfair. I'm aware of how petulant that sounds, but it's just so cruel. I know I have shortcomings. I don't mind admitting them. There have been times where i have said things I shouldn't/didn't mean, and when Paul was attacked in June I was too slow to report it to social services. I should have done so immediately, I recognise that now. But I'm scared. I'm scared of hurting my parents, I'm scared of severing my relationship with them forever, I'm scared of causing more pain - but more than anything else, I'm scared of letting Paul down. He needs me, and if I have to be the only one in this scenario willing to stand up and say that our family is fucking messed up? I'll do it. I just wish I wasn't alone, one voice shouting against a howling wind comprised of contradiction and misplaced guilt. Where's a bloody fairy godmother when you need her...

Look, a new format!

I thought my old one was looking a bit... bare.

I'm not a particular fan of minimalism - sorry! - so I felt it would be nice to have a change. I put books in the background! The colours are warm and inviting! The template seems to say to the reader - "come in, have a cup of tea and a beanbag, and read my inane ramblings."

And I'm full of crap as usual... I just liked the pretty colours!

Tune in next week for further insight.

Self-indulgent, I know.

As much as on one level the idea rankles with me as a combination of arrogant and self-indulgent, I have decided to write a book. It's something I've always, always wanted to do; as a 13-year-old I completed several chapters of a Tolkienesque fantasy epic before my lack of self-confidence put a cap on the proceedings. Writing is somewhat of a love of mine, and I've decided to return to it, albeit this time not in the genre of fantasy. The work I'm looking to complete this time will be non-fiction.

I'm looking to tackle the issue of women in Ireland, or more specifically feminism in Ireland. You see, I'm in a bit of a quandry as to which I'm actually dealing with, since the two are pretty intrinsically linked. But perhaps an explanation of my reasoning in pursuing this topic will help to clarify.

I cannot tell you how many people I have spoken to in recent years, who have *informed* me that feminism is no longer relevant, or important, in contemporary society - as though we had reached some kind of plateau of equality and could progress no further. I also cannot tell you the precise extent to which I disagree with this. Not only do I disagree with it, but I take grave offence to the attached implication that women's treatment and emancipation is of limited importance, and we should not inconvenience society by pointing out how much further there is to go.

The truth is - according to me, which you are obviously free to reject - that feminism, or the struggle for perfect equality, will never cease to be necessary. It is not a finite project with a clear, preset goal which, once achieved, renders further endeavours pointless. It's incredibly complacent in my book to ever even suggest that society has reached some kind of pinnacle of equity - society can regress just as easily as it can progress, so that even if things are relatively just and equitable now, ideologies like feminism will always need to be vocal to prevent our society from backpedalling.

As it stands, in its' strictest interpretation, the most central goal of the feminist movement can never be *perfectly* achieved - that is, the absolutely equal treatment of men and women in all areas of society. For the most part, we cannot even agree on what that means as applicable to several areas. Personally, I see it as the availability of maximum choice - of lifestyle, career, etc - and the assessment of each individual on their own merits, rather than a broad assumption of their merits due to their belonging to a specific subset of the population. Namely, women. In my view, this is only attainable to a certain extent because it is part of the human condition to sort others into categories in our own mind for the sake of simplicity, if nothing else. Humankind, and the complexity that makes us so incredibly special and wonderful, is ironically something that we cannot seem to handle. Instead we break ourselves up into neat compartments - blacks, whites, men, women, children, elderly, Muslim, Christian, atheist - and assign each group a set of attributes. "Black women are bossy", "Irish people are all alcholics", "Germans are really uptight", "People under 30 have nothing to contribute", etc. etc., ad nauseum. I'm not commenting on how accurate or otherwise these assumptions are, just that we all have them to one extent or another.

Not only do we assign people categories, but very often we attach values to them as well. The extent to which we do this is largely dependent on our own levels of maturity and self-esteem - the more insecure we are individually, the more likely we are to project our inadequacy onto others in a classic "diminish the value of others to make yourself feel better" manouvre. Like the quintessential playground bully, we find a series of criteria according to which we can deem ourselves superior to our counterparts. Now, I'm no psychologist, so all of this is purely based on my own observation thus far, but I think it's fair to say that if we think about it, we kinda see this all the time.

Why Ireland, specifically? Well, obviously, it is the country of which I have the most first-hand experience and knowledge. I would want to do some pretty extensive research in order to feel comfortable tackling women's issues within an alternative cultural context. I also think that feminism is highly relevant to Ireland, perhaps even more so than to other European countries. Progress in the area of equality in general has been slow and hard-bought, and mostly at the behest of the EU since our membership began in 1973. Think back, in 1973 - contraception was still illegal, as was homosexuality, and women were still forced to quit their jobs int he private sector upon marriage. Because naturally, women cannot expect to be both a wife AND an employee, that would just be patently ridiculous!

As much as progress *has* been made, there are still major speedbumps along the road to perfect gender parity in Ireland - a road which has no definitive end. I want to look particularly at the way in which issues like domestic violence, sexual assault and discrimination are handled here, as well as Irish legislation that impacts on the independence and wellbeing of women in general. In my experience, there are major flaws in the way violence against women is handled in this country, and the experience of the victim seems to hang dangerously on the level of sympathy they receive from individual Gardai/lawyers etc they encounter. This is more than likely the case in many countries, but there seems to be very little recourse for those whose cases are mishandled.

For those of you who follow my blog, what do you think? Do you have any ideas? Do you think there's a place for such research? Let me know what you think, I'm always open to feedback :-)

Promiscuity - getting what they deserve?

I spend quite a lot of time on forums. I enjoy it immensely - I find interpersonal communication so much easier via keyboard than in person. I'm not sure what that says about me as a person, but who cares? You find some incredibly interesting discussions on there.

One of the aforementioned interesting discussions was that old chestnut - whether or not women who dress "immodestly" (as if modesty were somehow objectively quantifiable to begin with) contribute to their own misfortune if they are raped. Essentially, whether or not you blame the victim. Whenever this question arises, I am simultaneously shocked and despairing at the amount of people who say yes.

The general consensus, which seems to be fairly equally shared by men and women, is that if you dress to attract men sexually, you are increasing your risk of being preyed on sexually because the manner in which you attract men is arbitrary - basically, you don't know which kind of guys are checking you out. Nice guys, or sexual predators? Sounds like a fair point, but I think it actually displays a pretty low level of understanding of the actual nature of rape, and those who commit it.

I'm currently researching the topic of sexual violence with the view of writing a book on feminism in Ireland, and a recurring theme in my study so far is that people actually have very little understanding of the subject. The stereotypical image of a "rape victim" held by the majority appears to be the old chestnut of the drunken bimbo in a miniskirt and stilettos making her way through a bad neighbourhood alone at 3am, who gets dragged down an alleyway by a lurking stranger in a trenchcoat. I know that's a tad on the descriptive side, but you get the general gist of what I'm saying. People seem to feel that many of the "causes" for the occurrence of rape lie somewhere within the behaviour and/or character of the victim, rather than the perpetrator. That if the victim had worn a longer skirt/ hadn't "flirted" unduly/ hadn't had anything to drink/ had chosen a different route home, the incident would not have occurred - and, by extension, if this *modest* behaviour were replicated by all women, the frequency of rape would consequently decrease.

This hypothesis, however, is not congruent with reality, and I will try to explain why. With the aforementioned hypothesis comes the underlying assumption that rape is about sexual gratification on the part of the perpetrator - his sexual urges simply overcome him at the sight of a woman's skin, and he becomes aroused to the point of being unable to control himself.

Here's what I posted on the forum in question:

Even debating whether or not the dress of the victim "causes" the rapist to commit the crime is inaccurate. A combination of misogyny, narcissism and miscellaneous psychoses are usually much closer to the root cause of rape. The "causes" are on the part of the rapist, not the victim. I can't remember where *exactly* I read this, so excuse the lack of citation, but I read an article on the subject, and one of the claims that stood out was that according to many psychologists, sexual gratification was actually pretty low down on the list of contributing factors to a developing rapist. It's not about *sex*, people. It's about power, control, and sadism. You cannot accurately cater to the mindset of a sociopath unless you either are one, or you're trained in fucking behavioural analysis.

There is a very, VERY limited extent to which you can *prevent* yourself from being raped. And I don't think that arguing about what women "should" be able to do is idealism, either. Someone brought up the analogy of a black man in early 20th-century American society falling in love with a white girl, and it was countered by how you shouldn't expect to rail against social norms like that and expect ignoramuses not to react explosively. But there is a difference between railing against such norms arbitrarily, and railing in a targeted and informed manner. The people countering such racist "morality" - in modern days, sexist "morality" - are not necessarily ignorant of the hostility they are going to be met with. But the fact is, if nobody ever countered accepted social norms such as these, society would never change, and we would remain in the same "moral" position ad nauseum. They have to be gone against, if they are ever going to evolve. If women dress modestly to protect themselves - ineffectively - against rape, it only perpetuates the notion that the control of an individuals' sexuality is womens' reponsibility.

Once more, it is important to remember also that the hypothesis being put forward here, that womens' dressing modestly would decrease the incidence of rape, is not borne out by evidence. Quite the contrary. In countries of South East Asia and the Middle East - my own boyfriend is from Pakistan - particularly in Muslim countries, where women are obliged by law to dress "modestly", rape is even more common than it is here. Women get raped wearing full burqas with greater frequency than they do miniskirts, because the kind of society that dictates to women how they must dress simultaneously tells men that women are not autonomous, and as such their choices and feelings are essentially worthless.

You want to decrease the incidence of rape? Pull your focus off of what the victim is wearing and onto the rapist. Impose stricter sentences on those convicted, and look at the messages we send out as a society to young men. Sexist advertising, levels of acceptance of "lesser" crimes against women such as harassment, stalking and domestic violence. Smash the glass ceiling. Pull our collective heads out of our collective arses.

Food for thought? What thinkest ye all??

The Logic of the Damned, Pt 2

I have little patience for stupidity or wilful ignorance. I have always known this, and yet some kind of underlying masochism in me requires me to occasionally engage with idiots over the internet. I think it must be some kind of catharsis for the frustration I don’t often get to express in person, being the nonconfrontational sort that I am. Either way, I find myself every now and then getting really sucked in to heated “discussions” with people who are in possession of roughly the intellectual capacity of an iceberg lettuce. I don’t fully understand why I do this to myself, but I do.

Part of the reason why I find myself in these situations, though, is my few remaining links to the church group I used to go to – it is populated by some of the most breathtakingly vapid people I have ever known, and their interpretation of “Christ’s love” and “Christian charity” are nothing short of mind-bending. I am about to provide you with an example of this.

While I was a Christian, I always found it odd that of all the Biblical characters, Jesus was one of very few I actually felt an affinity to. He cared about the poor, he had his priorities straight. I could *identify* with Jesus. I got him, and I liked him, as a person. He challenged people who felt they had some kind of status in society, and propagated equality among all people, even in ways that made him less than popular. He actually talked to women like they were human beings. If he saw a need, he met it. He never lost sight of what was really important, and he had compassion. Other Biblical characters like Paul, and the apostles I could not relate to in the same way. They were too dogmatic, and I felt like they really lost sight of what was important. They had their eyes so firmly fixed on the “spiritual” that they neglected the practical. Jesus, in my eyes, didn’t do this – and even now, when I no longer consider him the son of god – it still frustrates me when those who claim to want to emulate him instead parrot his dogmatic early followers.

Example time now!

I have a number of FaceBook “friends” from my old church who have thus far failed to block me. I usually try to ignore their status updates, as they are almost universally saccharine enough to make you feel an actual ache in your pancreas. There are only so many consecutive exclamations of “I love Jeeeeesus” and “The lord is so good!”, because apparently you prayed for your car to start and – hey presto! – Jesus worked his magic juice on it, that I can bear without wanting to embark on a Columbine-style rampage at their next coffee morning.

About 2 days ago, one of them I had failed to notice was pointed out to me. One of the girls, let’s call her Sarah, had a photo of what looked like an ice cream van up, with this message:

So excited to go out tomorrow and show God's love to people. Heading to X Park with [girls’ name, let’s call her Claire] and we will be handing out free tea and coffee. Thanks again to [boys’ name] for his coffee van! Its kinda like this one in the picture. :) Its so cute!!! :D

Underneath the photo, someone made the excellent suggestion of charging 1 euro, or even having a collection there for the victims of the floods in Pakistan. This idea was immediately dismissed, based on the reasoning that god had “spoken to them”, and that apparently this was what he wanted them to do, because god was using free hot beverages to “bring people to him” - cue smiley faces. Passive aggressive, much? Anyway, I felt obliged to respond by pointing out that it was in fact an excellent idea, and that I couldn’t quite understand someone who claimed to model their worldview on that of Jesus considering offering free hot drinks to a Cork population already drowning in Barry’s tea more important than ameliorating the immediate suffering of the extreme poor after a natural disaster. Long sentence I know – but the response I got was thus, from Claire:

"Because i am called to be a servant to the Living God and do whatever He asks of me not what the world asks of me. Sorry that you don't understand this Grace but I'm living the impact and change God has had on my life so it is very importnat to me that those sick and dying in their souls know He can save them. :)"

I have a number of problems with this, but I feel it is necessary to be fair here and point out that I know this girl quite well, and the response was possibly not *quite* as passive-aggressive as it may appear. She’s actually very nice, and I feel somewhat disappointed that I must take such vehement issue with her approach. But I must, so I do. It’s not even the fact that they refused to organise a collection that annoyed me. If that just wasn’t the point of that particular event, OK – fair enough, I guess. I wouldn’t like it, but it wouldn’t annoy me half as much if they hadn’t more or less dismissed the plight of the Pakistani people as being less important than that of Corkonians to accept the Lorrrrrrrrd into their life. Just how far up your ass does your head need to be, in order for your set of priorities to be that arseways?

First off, the obvious. How precisely does bribing people with hot drinks – on a warm summer day, no less - ameliorate their “spiritual health”? Corkonians drink tea and coffee like fish drink water, and knowing them as I do you’d nearly have to tie them down to listen to a sermon while they drink it. They’ll just take the drink and fuck off. Why not do something even vaguely useful? For me, gags like this in the absence of any kind of collection for charity, etc., completely removes any facade of altruism and reveals these people for what they are – relentless proselytisers who want nothing other than to add more sheep to the sheep pen.

Secondly, the very idea of meeting the “needs” of those “sick and dying in their souls” before those of people who are literally sick and dying strikes me as bordering on farcical. It encapsulates the problem I had with people who neglected real issues for spiritual ones. I guess you could argue that the entire point of religion is to neglect the real for the “divine”, but in this case it irks me particularly, because this logical fallacy results in people dying. It’s just so, so irrational. I can scarcely get my head around it – I mean, even if it were purely levels of faith and “spiritual health” you were concerned about. I would imagine that watching their loved ones die for lack of basic food, sanitation and shelter in conditions scarcely fit for rats to live in would adversely affect the “spiritual health” of the Pakistani people.

The church is SURROUNDED by Cork people. They have their whole lives to meet Corkonians’ non-existent need for tea and coffee they can easily afford to buy anyway. The need of those suffering in the wake of the disaster in Pakistan is urgent and immmediate. If the church really cared about the poor and needy, they wouldn’t be wasting their time throwing hot drinks at bemused Cork people.

Also – seriously, would it be that much effort to have a collection there? Even if they didn’t charge for the tea and coffee, they could just have had a collection box for people to donate as and if they wished. All it would involve would be punching a hole in a box and writing on it. It would certainly involve far less manual labour than organising and setting up a hot drinks stand. It would literally cost them nothing to incorporate something like this into their event, and it would do so much good.

Even from their own perspective, at least pretending to care about Pakistan could benefit them. I for one would sure as hell be far more open to chatting to someone about anything if I felt they were supporting a good cause, even Jesus. If someone just bribed me with a drink to preach to me about the Lord, I would promptly explain that I needed the lord in me about as much as I did the beverage. As in, thanks, but not at all. It just makes them more credible as an organisation if they are seen to be doing something with an actual point. Other than shoving the love of Jeeeeesus down our throats with our hot tasty beverage.

To me, it just encapsulates everything I now hate about organised religion, especially the one I left. Even for those, like the girls above, who are relatively well-intentioned, the whole dogma of the religion removes their focus from the “world” – i.e. the problems right in front of their faces, and causes them to believe that the relationship some comfortable Westerner has with an questionably existent deity is more important than the constant, agonising suffering of people who are watching the people they love die unnecessarily. I mean, the disparity should be immediately obvious to anyone with a jot of empathy, or even logic, but both of these attributes are clouded in those who are devoutly religious by the need for “spiritual” issues to trump all others. As Claire rightly pointed out, it makes no sense to me – and to be perfectly honest, I’m fucking glad of it.

The Logic of the Damned

I have just returned from a week-long stay with friends in Germany, north of Frankfurt. I had an absolutely wonderful time, and as usual I loved my time there. I find Germans on the whole very pleasant to deal with, and I’m extremely lucky to have some wonderful friends there who go to crazy lengths to be hospitable.
While I was there, however – on the 24th of this month, to be precise – we turned on the TV to find ourselves greeted with an absolute catastrophe. Most of you will already have heard of this by now, although I’m not sure how much coverage it got yet outside of Germany, but there was a mass panic at the LoveParade dance event in Duisberg and 19 young people (so far) have died as a result. Approximately 500 more are missing still, most likely traumatised, injured, and wandering aimlessly.

The LoveParade has been a staple event for German young people for the past 15 years or so – it’s pretty much just a massive dance event comparable to any music or dance festival elsewhere. For Irish readers, think of Oxygen, only 20 times bigger. It has always been held in Berlin in the past, but this year they decided to move to Duisberg due to the chaos it causes in the capital. Apparently, though, it was very poorly planned and executed in Duisberg, and the authorities did not properly plan for the sheer number of people attending (approximately 1.4 million). The facilities and space provided were totally inadequate, with a capacity in some places of just 250,000. Uncharacteristic of the Germans I think, but the consequences were fatal. A mass panic was started when too many people passed through a tunnel in the city, and the result was sheer anarchy. The fatalities were, essentially, trampled to death. 19 young, vibrant people in the prime of their lives, cut short in a horrific manner. Just looking at the videos and the photos was enough to send a shiver up my spine – it looked like my worst nightmare realised. I experienced something similar during my time in Africa last year, on a smaller scale, and let me tell you that even if you are not seriously hurt, it is utterly traumatising. People lose their minds in a panic situation, and it’s terrifying. You can’t breathe, you can’t move, and the noise is overwhelming.

Bearing this horrible situation in mind, there is one public reaction I have come to expect and be repulsed by, when it comes to major catastrophes. That is the “it was God’s judgement” response. This never fails to make me livid with rage. Honestly, every time I hear someone say this I want to beat them over the head with a fucking Bible. Or a brick. Anything that comes to hand, really, but I prefer the irony of beating them with religious paraphernalia.

And lo, someone came out with it! The callous, shit-for-brains individual concerned we shall name Nora X, and she’s a well-known publisher who stated via her Twitter feed that the LoveParade event was always inherently sinful, that it was their [the young peoples’, presumably] own fault, and that it was... of course... God’s judgement. I don’t think there are actually words for just how angry the injustice and the sheer logical fallacy of this enrages me. It makes me see red. It’s part of what I hate about the religious mindset, or at least that of fundamentalists. I think some people are constantly searching for ways in which to determine themselves superior to others in some way – sometimes it’s racism (I’m better because I’m white), sexism (I’m better because I have a penis), status (I’m better because I have a BMW), education (I’m better because I have a degree), and often, sectarianism or religious discrimination (I’m better because I follow the *right* religion, and ergo am morally superior).

This in itself infuriates me – this attempt to denigrate the rest of the human race for being different to you. What brings the “god’s judgement” response onto a whole other plateau of assholery, however, is the element of being willing to use a catastrophe, and the grief and despair it causes, as a vehicle by which to assert your superiority. I mean, you’re essentially sacrificing the peoples’ deaths, and the despair of their families, on the altar of your own self-satisfaction. Lack of empathy to that extent is just utterly incomprehensible to me. I mean, really – what the fuck is wrong with you? 19 young people are dead - people whose characters, behaviours and personalities you know nothing of, besides the fact that they enjoy a particular genre of music. However, you (and here I obviously mean Nora X) are meanwhile both callous and arrogant enough to assert that you actually have the answer to the massive question of why this happened, and that it is the fault of the unfortunate young people in question.

Go fuck yourself. Seriously. Just do us all a favour and go fuck yourself. And if you’re more offended by that statement than Nora X’s, you need to get your head checked.

I mean, the concept of such events being a reflection of God’s judgement is both offensive and fallacious on several levels. For starters, the God you assert is so pissed with us, may or may not exist in the first place, so please don’t go making any wild claims about him. Furthermore, if God really does cause natural disasters every now and again in a fit of rage - he should probably be tested for manic depression, as frankly his behaviour seems rather erratic and his judgement sporadic at best. Also, wouldn’t God have bigger fish to fry? I know if I was an omniscient, omnipotent deity there are plenty of things wrong in this world I would care about a great deal more than young people in Duisberg drinking alcohol, listening to music, eating too much junk food and *shock* maybe having sex outside of marriage! For instance, an earthquake would have swallowed the Vatican whole fucking years ago. Please excuse me if making the world safe for paedophiles ranks higher on my list of “sins” than enjoying dance music.

The Love Parade isn’t exactly the only place in the world where drinking and debauchery takes place – in fact, if these things really were smiteworthy I’m pretty sure that Ireland for one would no longer exist. God should see what goes on in Freakscene on a Wednesday night. I’m sure he’d be shocked out.

I know my response is somewhat satirical, but please believe it is in earnest. I’m not entirely sure how to respond to such wilful stupidity – on the one hand, it is illogical enough to be met with derisive humour from anyone of moderate intelligence, but on the other it’s also offensive enough to be met with a smack in the face. If the god of Nora X is responsible for the disaster in Duisberg, then he’s as much of an asshole as she is. I mean, how is such a horrific statement an incentive to follow her religious beliefs, or to believe them valid? A god who kills random young people sporadically and in a horrific manner is not someone I would ever worship willingly. Apparently, though, some would, and I think that it speaks to their character. And not in a nice way.

So, to summarise. If you are Nora X (unlikely), or anyone who believes as she does about such catastrophic events - fuck you. If your smugness is more important to you than the grief and loss of 19 young peoples’ families – innocent people who have lost daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, and friends and are trying to reconstruct lives shattered by sudden bereavement – fuck you. As far as I’m concerned you can crawl into a hole and die, as you deserve even less empathy than you’re willing to give.

If you’re not – please accept my apologies for the language, and rant over *^_^*

For the women of Cork

I was sitting on the bus yesterday, making my way home from a night in my friend’s house. Due to certain circumstances, I was already thinking about the Irish justice system when I boarded. For the most part, I was lamenting internally its’ inefficiency and overall uselessness. It takes forever to get anything done, as I’m sure it does in most countries – but in Ireland it really seems as if the system is actively trying to screw those who are most dependent on its’ assistance, namely those who have been victimised, or abused and have no recourse to justice but to seek it in court as they cannot defend themselves. It takes forever for cases to reach court, evidence is frequently misplaced or neglected, sentences are farcically lenient, and the policework required to enable cases to reach court in the first place is substandard.

It was during this rather depressing internal monologue that I heard an announcement on local radio news, among the chatter and the noise, that genuinely scared the crap out of me. According to Garda (police) statistics, the number of reported rapes in Cork city area has increased by 500% in a one year period.

That’s not a typo with an extra zero there. Five hundred per cent, since this time last year. There is of course the question to be considered as to the cause – are more women being raped, or is it the case that a far greater proportion of them are reporting it? Given the treatment of sexual assault cases in Ireland, which I have touched on in previous posts, I find it rather difficult to believe the latter. This statistic leads me to a number of conclusions, all of which are deeply unsettling.

As I have said, I find it hard to believe that a 500% increase in number of rapes being reported during a one year period, isolated within one regional area, can be attributed to higher incidence of reporting by victims. As such, the increase must be reflective of a massive increase in the number of assaults. 500% is a terrifying figure. It would also suggest to me that we have at least one serial offender responsible – it’s not a difficult conclusion to draw. We have to consider the number of rapes historically committed per annum in Cork, and the kind of numbers represented by a 500% increase. Say for example, the increase represents 150 assaults. The possibility of an increase or decrease in crime levels by such an amount is proportionate to the size of the population of the area in question. An increase by 150 assaults could much more likely be coincidental in a major city – London, Paris, Berlin. In a population the size of Cork’s, though, the likelihood of such an increase consisting of purely isolated incidents is practically zero.

It led me to thinking about the likelihood of there being an appropriate response to this near certainty (of a serial rapist, or more than one) by an Garda Síochána. I have tremendous respect on an individual level for certain gardaí I know personally – and as a profession in general I consider it extremely worthy. But as a woman in Cork, I have little faith that major perpetrators of sexual assaults here will be apprehended before many, many more women are hurt. If ever. In what little dealings I have had with the police force here, I have found their response to even the most basic of crimes insufficient and sluggish. We are totally unprepared in Ireland for serial crime. There was an entire spate of female disappearances in the midlands in the 1990s, such as that of JoJo Dullard, which are widely believed to be related but remain unsolved. Our response to serial offenders – by understanding, and consequently being able to adequately predict or apprehend the various psychoses that drive their behaviour – is effectively nonexistent. It frustrates me, because there is no want of talent in Ireland for such things, the systems are just not in place to channel that talent and expertise into effective, specialised police subforces dedicated to such crime.

So, in the meantime, if you live in Cork and happen to be female – please don’t take any chances. I don’t want to cause undue alarm, but I think the aforementioned statistics speak for themselves. The piece mentioned two specific scenarios to be aware of – home invasion assaults, and assaults on women who were heavily inebriated. Double check that your windows and doors are locked before you go to bed. If you’re drinking, either try not to drink to excess or at least stick to a group. Be aware of your surroundings as much as you can, and trust your instincts. It strikes me as hypocritical how we are so averse to displays of assertiveness in women here, be it in the form of turning guys down flat or setting firm boundaries if someone is bothering you – and yet when a woman is attacked, we often blame her for not doing precisely these same things. Should anything happen to you, or even if it has happened in the past, it was unequivocally NOT your fault. We can only be responsible for that which we can control, and since rape is by its’ very nature the deprivation of control over what happens to one’s own body, the responsibility for rape lies irrevocably with the perpetrator. It doesn’t matter what preceded it, or how much he might have felt you “led him on”. But I would rather as few women (or indeed men) as at all possible be subject to the horror of being raped, so please, if you’re reading this – be careful. Don’t put yourself in situations you are unsure of, and if you find yourself in one anyway, it’s better some random guy think you’re acting like a complete freak than you get assaulted. Try to find the balance between being cautious and sensible, and accepting that rape is never the victim’s fault, and as such your preventative measures can only ever be a precaution against something outside of your control.

Please be safe, and be aware – not only for yourself, but for the women around you. No-one deserves the pain of being raped, save perhaps those who inflict it on others – who, for the record, I would gladly have skinned and rolled in salt. With any luck those responsible for the dramatic increase in the past year will end up with a bad dose of karma, and preferably floating face down in the Lee.

S.S.S. (Sodding Social Services)

Please bear with me while I vent.

In February of this year, I reported my own parents to social services for their treatment of my younger brother. Abuse, in almost all of its conceivable manifestations, has been a part of our family life for some time now, and I really feel that my brother - we'll call him Paul - bears the brunt of this.

My mother has had issues with depression and overall mental health for some years now. Much as I love the woman - and I do - she is self-absorbed, insecure, spiteful, vicious and has a severe "martyr complex". She views herself as the eternal victim, and is entirely averse to so much as the mere concept of personal accountability. My father, while decidedly more mentally stable, is - to use a colloquialism - completely whipped. My mother has always been incredibly condescending towards him, especially in arguments. I think it's a part of her insecurity, but the effect of this on him is that I believe him to feel more or less entirely emasculated. He feels he gets no respect from my mother, but he can't punish her because that just wouldn't be appropriate, so he transfers his requirement for respect and authority(ish) onto his children. I think he is, deep down, a very good man, as I think in some ways a lesser man would just have taken this rage out on his partner, but this transference is dangerous. It is even more dangerous when you combine it with my mother's mental instability and lack of responsibility, and a complete inability on his part to stand up to her. I also think he feels incredibly isolated, and the thought of his marriage to mom actually breaking down terrifies him, so he's afraid to rock the boat too much.

Thing is, my sympathy for them kinda ends there. I love them, but they are seriously. fucked. up.

Since my teens, I myself have been shouted at, screamed at, hit, slapped, punched, choked and told that my family would be better off without me. Not all the time, just when my mother was in one of her "moods". These periods would be interspersed with relative affection and normality - whatever that is - so for adolescent me this was all rather confusing. I got on rather well with my dad, mainly because I didn't tend to try to get him involved in the conflicts between me and my mom, and I am by nature HIGHLY non-confrontational. I used to blame myself entirely for the abuse, and rationalise it by saying that my mom was just very stressed. My sister - let's call her Paula - is autistic and has numerous health issues, and this was a major stressor for my mom.

However, things have escalated since then, and now that I am in my 20s and no longer living at home, it is Paul who bears the brunt of - mainly my mother's - frustrations. He is more confrontational and a traditional "angry teenager" than I was, so he tends to get into confrontations with both of my parents. He talks back, he gives cheek, he doesn't do as he's told. Relatively standard fare, to be honest. Any of you who have, or have ever known, a teenage boy can probably testify to this. Teenagers are fucking annoying... But the response to his relatively minor transgressions is anything but normal. There have been increasinly numerous occasions where Michael is kicked, slapped, punched in the face and head, hit with objects like rods, screamed at, threatened and otherwise abused, and it makes me fucking sick. I am honestly disgusted at my own parents. I love them, but right now they disgust me.

So - I reported them. In February, initially. There was another incident that was quickly spiralling out of control, and something inside me just snapped. Paul is 9 years younger than me, and to be honest my feelings for him are somewhere smack-bang in the middle of sisterly and maternal. I'm very protective of him, and I knew that something had to break the cycle, and that furthermore it wasn't going to come from within the family, if at all. I went to the police station in town and filed a report. The police spoke to my parents, brought Michael home (I have no authority to remove him from the house, not being his legal guardian), and referred the case on to social services.

It was 12 weeks - twelve. fucking. weeks, before anyone contacted my family about the case. Never mind the fact that anything could have happened in my family during the course of 12 weeks, when they did contact the family, it was my parents they called. Reasonably enough, you may say, but they barely spoke to my brother about it, and they didn't speak to me at all. As both the one who initially filed the report, and an adult member of the immediate family, I would have imagined it would be only rational for them to inform me of any progress.

No, no - I actually had to ring the HSE, ring my brother to ask HIM what the social worker's name was, track down her number myself, ring her and REQUEST an interview in order to give my side of the story... only to be told that for me to do so, she would require my parents' consent.

Well - that's fucking bright, isn't it? Because as the ones actually being accused of child abuse here, it's not like my parents have anything to HIDE that they might not want me to say to the social worker, what with me being the only non-abusive adult involved in the whole scenario and all. There's no way they could have any illegitimate reason to withdraw their consent for me to give my side of the story. Fortunately, though, they DID give their consent, but the fact that it was necessary at all seems superfluous and illogical. It's not even like I was looking for confidential information. I was a member of the family and a witness, trying to give my perspective. Jesus Christ on a bike Ireland drives me insane sometimes.

Since then, things have gone from bad to slightly worse. Social Services are just epically unhelpful in this country. It's breathtaking. The social worker in question has gone from unhelpful, to rude, to victim-blaming, to justifying my parents, to just fucking useless to unhelpful again. There was another incident about 2 weeks ago and when I rang maybe 4 days later to report it to her, she gave out to me for not acting fast enough, saying that it sounded like a serious incident.

First off, you thick bitch - it was a serious incident the last time, too, and you took 12 fucking WEEKS to do anything about it, so hey - I guess I figured 4 days wouldn't offend you. Secondly, I was doing things in those 4 days that involved getting my only income from a charity, since I've been kicked out of home and am basically destitue, and ensuring that my brother was in no immediate danger. Thirdly, how fucking easy do you think this is for me exactly? I've basically made myself a social pariah in my own family. The only people who appreciate what I'm trying to do is Paul and Paula - everybody else thinks I'm a neurotic oversensitive bitch who just doesn't appreciate how hard her parents have it, sob sob! So you can take that attitude and shove it right up your fucking ass. This same woman told my brother in her initial interview with him that she saw no problem with a ibt of corporal punishment. There's a reassuring sentiment from a child protection worker if ever there was one.

Right now, I'm at my wit's end, basically. I reported my parents to authorities as a last resort, and they've helped about as much as a chocolate fireman would have with the Towering Inferno. Hooray, another victory for Mary Harney and her team of incompentent gobshites!!

Mensa, here I come?

Very recently, I applied to sit the supervised test to prove myself eligible for Mensa membership. That may appear to some a pompous thing to do, but for me, it was important. I passed the home test some years ago, but ever since I have long put off sitting the supervised test. Why? I am not entirely sure – I think that a part of me was afraid of failing it. My intellect is as much a part of my personal identity as my nationality or my hair colour, but one I am significantly more self-conscious about. I sometimes find it hard to acknowledge my own cognitive ability – I was taught for so long to downplay it so as not to make people uncomfortable. I often wonder if I would have been so encouraged, had I been born a boy. Certainly, as I got older, I came to realise that demonstrating superior intellectual prowess made boys uneasy, and the vapid hair-tossing, giggling Beverly Hills wannabe variety of teenage girl was what I was expected to aspire to. Think more Tori Spelling than Virginia Woolfe. That, combined with the fact that I was condemned to spend my school life unfulfilled and neglected, has significantly hindered my acknowledgement and nurturing of my brainpower.

As a child, I was always told I was bright. I was a bright girl, very clever. A real bright spark. This was usually accompanied by a pat on the head or a similarly affectionate but condescending gesture. Even as a little girl, I was made to feel like a dog that had just managed to sit on command. In retrospect, it was a bit more than that. I read my first words off the side of a doll box when I was two, and by the age of five I had memorised the precise distances between the planets of the solar system. I knew what a black hole was, and how it worked. I had a reading age comparable to someone in their mid-teens by the time I started school at the age of 4 or 5. I was obsessed with dinosaurs, and knew the difference between vertebrate and invertebrate creatures. I wasn’t “bright”, I was prodigiously intelligent. I’m not saying that to be obnoxious, that is an entirely toothless statement. What I am trying to express is that I was consistently taught to undervalue and neglect my intelligence, rather than nurture it for what it was.

When I started school, I was actually made to repeat my first year because I never paid attention. The teacher seemed to be under the impression that I couldn’t keep up with the curriculum, when in fact this couldn’t have been further from the truth.
I was bored out of my skull, and on top of this I was terribly afraid of my teacher. I developed a phobia of going to school, and I was scream and cry when my mother would wake me in the mornings to bring me. Eventually, my parents entered into a deal with the school whereby I was permitted to leave class earlier than normal that year, in exchange for repeating the class. My parents were desperate – by this point I was all but clinging to their legs in the morning, and this was all that would calm me – so they agreed. The results were disastrous. This decision all but ensured that I would spend the remainder of my school career constantly ahead of the curriculum, and bored out of my tiny mind. Within two years they were bringing in extra work from higher classes, just for me to have something to do – but by then, I was socially well-adjusted so they never remedied the situation by moving my forward.

Anyway – please bear with me, for this post does actually have a point besides lamenting how bored I was as a child.

For me, going to Mensa would be the beginning of a truly new existence. One where my intelligence is acknowledged and nurtured, rather than undermined and ignored. Part of my quest for identity, now that I have left the church, is figuring out just who I am, and trying to form associations with people I have a great deal in common with. I want to seek out the company of people who have something in common with me, be it intelligence, political worldview, (non)religious affiliation, interests, or personality type. I think everybody could benefit from doing this. My intellect, to me, is a talent, no more or less to be appreciated than the ability to sing or draw well. I want to love being who I am, and that involves recognising my individual qualities, and caring for them accordingly. I would like to think that this could encourage you to do the same, because if you are reading this you can be sure that it is no more than you deserve also.

Dogma is abuse

I had reason, recently, to deal with my old church group again, under the worst possible circumstance – the funeral of a very young woman who had died suddenly without prior medical problems. It was a heartbreaking service, and I personally was distraught at her death. I left the church, and the faith, with far more regard and affection for some who remained behind than others, and this particular woman was decidedly one of the former. She encapsulated all that I admire in a person – kind-hearted, generous, compassionate, funny, and optimistic. One of the major fallacies I see in the reason some people have given me for why I left the church, in that I must have been hurt by somebody and therefore be throwing the baby out with the bathwater - is that if a few measly “Christians” behaving badly and being hypocritical was enough to make me leave the church, people like this woman should have been enough to make me stay. She was, if you’ll forgive the cliché, an angel. I was honestly mad about her and I feel such a sense of sudden, violent loss that I scarcely know what to do with myself. It scares me a little, admittedly, that I now no longer have the certainty I once did pertaining to the afterlife. I hope, for my friends’ sake, that there is something after death, as the part of me that requires justice likes to think that there is something out there to reward her for being such a stellar example of a human being. However, she left behind two small boys and a husband, so I think there are some very pressing, practical things we left behind might do to pay homage to her memory.

As usual with this sort of thing, of course, it got me to thinking. It aroused some very conflicting feelings in me. The removal and funeral services were conducted by the church group to which we had both belonged, and naturally there was much reference made to my friend’s strong faith in Jesus, etc. etc. It made me very uncomfortable, and at first I couldn’t put my finger on why. I realised afterwards that I felt I was almost betraying my friend by not holding that faith which she understood to be of paramount importance. I felt almost that I should have been able to force myself to believe as she did, and that that is what she would have wanted. Because outside of that faith, there would be a barrier between us, limiting the depth of our friendship because I was no longer a “buhleeva” – I would be an outsider. And as we all know – or at least those of us who have been members of an evangelical/pentecostal church know – we are nothing without Jesus.

The way they spoke about it at the funeral – it was almost as if this faith was the single most positive, admirable aspect of my friend’s life and person. Her faith was what defined her, and it was presented as her main redeeming facet. The thing is, though, that it wasn’t. My friend was the best kind of human being, with or without Jesus (although I know she would have contended that herself). I listed just a few of her beautiful characteristics before. She had enough going for her sans Jesus to be worthy of our love and admiration. The fact that we now had different belief systems should never have been an issue. People – friends – differ on things all the time, without allowing it to form some cataclysmic rift between them. I think what I am trying to get at is that Christianity uses belief in Jesus Christ as a marker of your humanity, basically – it sorts the human race in all of its beauty and complexity into two very crude categories. Saved, and unsaved -those who are something (because they have Jesus), and those who are - literally – nothing (because they do not have Jesus). It’s that simple. The Bible frequently makes reference to our worthlessness and inherent evil without the intervention of the divine - in other words he who possess the ability to redeem us, and save us from our own depravity, our own thorough uselessness. Outside of the Almighty, we can do nothing. This was an integral part of church rhetoric when I was there – “without Jesus, I am nothing”, “I used to be *insert repulsive term here*, but then I got saved”, “without god, I’d be dead now”, “I could never have done this myself, it’s all god”, “Jesus saved my life, I couldn’t live without him”, “without Jesus my life would be meaningless/empty/without purpose”. I am guilty of saying these things myself, in the past. I have been thinking about it, more and more, and the more thought I give to it the more this particular aspect disturbs me greatly.

It encourages us, both as written in scripture and as used incessantly as a mantra within the group itself, to regard Jesus as our saviour and the source of all that is good in life, and ourselves as incapable of operating satisfactorily without clinging desperately to him. Without Jesus, life is empty and desolate. We might even die, and if we die without Jesus we will be abandoned forever – because without Jesus we cannot be acceptable to god. Even though, he made us to begin with. Even though he made us exactly to his will because he is omnipotent, and to a flawless design because he is omniscient, we disgust him without his son – who is actually himself – to defend our right to exist and be happy to him. There’s a headscratcher for you. I know people will make the argument of free will at this point, and I accept that some people use that free will to be fairly shitty specimens of human beings – but the fact is, not all do. My late friend is an example, and I hope I am too. Some people use that free will to make enormous sacrifices for their fellow man, and are compassionate and good and tolerant. I try to do and be these things myself, and I refuse to be held accountable for original sin. Original sin = bullshit. I am not Eve, so anyone who wants to hold me responsible for her listening to a talking snake, in a scenario that clearly never happened anyway, can fuck right off.

That’s right, fuck off. But only if you think I’m responsible for the actions of a mythical woman.

It makes me wonder what kept me buying this crap for so long. Since I’ve left the church, not only has my life not fallen apart, but I feel more self-sufficient and capable than ever before. My life is not empty and desperate, quite the contrary. I’m not saying I don’t face problems, but rather that refusing to rely for assistance on someone who regards me as inherently worthless has made me much stronger. I CAN do things for myself, I am a very capable woman. Sure, life is shit sometimes, but I’ll do my best, and when I can’t handle things alone there are plenty of non-deities around to help me in the form of friends and family.

But – I have a final point to make. Like I said, I wondered why I bought into this for so long when it’s so clearly a lie. But the more I consider it, the more the dynamic in this instance between “The Saviour” and “The Saved” bears a jarring resemblance to the dynamic between partners in a mentally and emotionally abusive relationship. I grew up within a highly abusive household – my mother was emotionally and mentally abusive towards myself, my father, and my brother. Quite a number of my friends have been involved in abusive relationships, and I have even read a number of testimonies of women who have escaped such relationships. So my experience of such covert abuse is pretty extensive, and now, looking on from the outside, I can see how my relationship with Jesus was like an extension of the worthlessness I was made to feel by my other abusive partner – in my case, my mother.

One of the questions most frequently asked of women – or indeed men – who have escaped abusive relationships is why they didn’t leave sooner. Why they failed to recognise the abuse for what it was immediately and up and leave. It seems so basic, so obvious, to someone looking in from the outside that anyone who makes you feel that way doesn’t deserve you. To the person on the receiving end of the abuse, though, it frequently isn’t obvious at all. Even for those who are abused physically, it often doesn’t begin that way overnight. The abusive partner will begin to gradually erode their victims’ self-esteem and self-reliance, so that when they begin to exert their control and manipulation in a more overt manner, the victim feels paralysed. They have often been isolated from outside influences and sources of support, people who may recognise the situation as abusive and encourage them to leave. They have been told they are worthless/fat/ugly/stupid/useless, and even that they “drive [the abuser] to it”, or that it’s for their own good. They have been given the impression that they cannot leave, either through direct threats of punishment (leave and I’ll kill you/I’ll take the children), or indirect threats (leave and you’ll fail/no-one will believe you/you won’t be able to manage). The victim of the abuse comes to develop a kind of domestic form of “Stockholm Syndrome”, where they engage cognitive dissonance to justify the abuser’s behaviour. They love their partner despite everything, and they do not want to accept that they need to sever ties with them. They are terrified of what will happen if they leave, and they don’t see the alternative, however unhappy they may be in their situation. They might even convince themselves that they are happy.

For me, the above paragraph has innumerable parallels to my relationship with the church/god. I was taught to distrust outside influences (the “world”), lest they corrupt me, so I was less susceptible to discerning real alternatives to the sheltered church life I was living. I was taught that I was nothing without god, I was inherently evil, and without god to redeem me I was little more than a filthy rag. To encourage this, I was taught to perceive my own natural functions – sexual urges being a prime example – as inherently “sinful” and “wrong”... rather than natural, which they actually were. I was taught that if I left I would go to hell (direct threat of punishment), and that my life would fall apart as I failed to manage without divine guidance (indirect threat). I came to love god sincerely, despite my doubts about his behaviour (Stockholm Syndrome/cognitive dissonance), and trust that he knew best, and it was for my own good, despite the fact that a part of me still felt it was nonsensical. Finally, I tried my best to stifle my doubts lest I “fall away”, and tried to convince myself that I was happy. Ultimately, I failed – thankfully – but it’s something to think about. The parallels do not reflect well on Christianity, or indeed on religious dogma as a whole.

It's been a while... again.

Pregnancy.

I've been thinking about it again because I recently had my first full sexual experience. I reached all ten bases - or, however many there are in whatever system you use. I never could figure out that system, all I know is we went all the way!

And it was good. No - scratch that - it was awesome. The guy in question was fun, I felt comfortable with everything, and it was just right. It was the kind of first time you could really hope for. We stayed overnight in a cute guesthouse that was actually more like a boutique hotel, with the kind of baroque décor that really appeals to me, and we just spent the night experimenting, making love, and sleeping before heading down to a leisurely breakfast. We used condoms, of course, and many of them... so my chances of being pregnant now are fairly nonexistent, but I guess it was just an interesting contrast to my few experiences with sexual encounters I had with my ex-fiancé while still a Christian.

I remember at one point convincing myself - largely thanks to a guilty conscience - that I was pregnant after we "fell into sin" one time on holidays. How I managed to convince myself of this, in retrospect, I do not know, because I had my pants on the whole frigging time, but in my hysterical guilt afterwards I was determined that my fiancé's magical man-juice would manage to seep its' way through my pants and impregnate me anyway. By osmosis or something, don't ask me. I was hysterical anyway.

And I tormented myself with the guilt until my blessed period arrived. It's just incredible to think about, looking back, that the hypothetical judgement my fellow "buhleevas" would heap upon me in case of my pregnancy was enough to drive me close to suicide. I was so terrified, so ashamed of myself - the thought of walking into that church, all of them looking - knowing what I had done - facing them all with the tangible evidence of my sin as a literal bump in my form... It made me want to die, and I mean that in the most literal manner possible. I've never told anyone this, but before my period arrived that time, I actually tormented myself into experiencing phantom pregnancy symptoms. I started experiencing a lot of the symptoms of pregnancy as a sort of psychosomatic response to my overwhelming fear I was pregnant, which in turn reinforced my belief I was pregnant, which terrified me even more.

Now, I consider the possibility of my being pregnant - which is rather more likely now that I've actually had sex, you know... and I honestly don't feel anything like the shame or guilt. Sure, I don't want to be pregnant - now wouldn't be a great time for me, and I'm not sure how I'd handle it, but it definitely wouldn't drive me to abortion or suicide. Because you know what? What I do or have done with my body is nobody else's fucking business. I may not be the best potential mom that's ever existed, but should life throw me a lemon in the form of a baby I'm gonna make some damn good lemonade. And you can fuck right off with your tut-tutting and your sideways looks.

When I was still at church, I was led to believe for so long that sex was some life-changing experience. I was force-fed these pitifully poor analogies of sex as being like two pieces of paper being glued together - apparently, you can rip them apart, but pieces of them are still stuck to one another... *eyeroll* In other words, once you give "ze vagine" to someone (or indeed "ze asshole"), you are intrinsically linked to them on some psychological or even spiritual level, that you are not if you abstain from sexual activity with them. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I can now confirm to you that this is bullshit of the highest order. I, for one, feel absolutely no different as a person. Certainly not in any negative sense - I feel a bit more confident about my body now that I've exposed it fully to someone and gotten a thoroughly "firm" response (pun intended), but that's it. I like the guy in question, very much, but we could part ways in the morning and I would mourn it no more than any other breakup. I am in no way "bonded" to him like someone superglued us together, we did not "become one" - we just did the horizontal mambo, and it was very nice.

So, lads and lassies, the moral of the story is - sex is the dog's bollocks! Go for it.

Wife Spanking!

It's been a while.

It's been a while since I've felt that I have anything worthwhile to contribute to this blog. I guess it doesn't have a specific topic or coherent theme like some blogs do, so sometimes I wonder if it's too disjointed to really ever be worth reading. But the only people who currently read this know me well in any case, so perhaps that doesn't matter too much. It's not like I have a specific theme in mind every time I initiate conversation with people, and this is much the same.

I'm still adjusting to my newfound freedom from religion - every now and again I'll feel odd responding in certain ways to certain topics, because as a Christian I always felt that there were specific ways in which I was *expected* to respond, and now the freedom I have in expressing whatever actually pops into my mind is startling. I'm not used to such complete independence of thought. Even though my intellect never entirely abandoned me, and I always did give considerable thoughts to my position, it was never really from an initially objective stance, and I recognise now that if you explore a topic with a pre-formed religious stance, you can never really learn what you're supposed to. The way in which you process and interpret information is inescapably manipulated by your religious beliefs trying to defend themselves. You will find yourself subconsciously dismissing facts and perspectives which do not fit with your Christian or religious worldview, and very often you do all of this without even recognising it for what it is, it's such an insidious thing. I always felt I had to "defend" myself from opposing viewpoints, lest they actually convince me that my religious beliefs were unfounded, and now, it is so invigorating not to have to defend anything. I can just take on facts, statistics, viewpoints without prejudice or scorn, and just make what I will of them. I can believe, I can choose to accept or reject anything I want. I don't have to swallow anything unpalatable or disagreeable because some religious "leader" tells me it is a prerequisite element of the belief system I am supposed to belong to.

And man, was there a lot of that going on. I never could accept the writings of Paul, for example, on submission to be the word of God, or even right. I always thought he was full of shit, and now I can say it loud and proud! I am embracing the hairy-armpitted feminist hag within, hurrah!! And I love her, she's great, if a little bit new and scary. Feminism gets such a bad rap these days, but yanno what? It's just about fairness. As a rule, I love men. I love the broad shoulders, the forthrightness, their bemusement at the unfamiliar complexity of the female mind (this is all an example of a good man, naturally. Not all men are *good* men, I'm not naive about it) I know you can't generalise men as a category, any more than you can women, but honestly, I'm about as far from a misandrist as is humanly possible.

One of Newton's Laws of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. While this law was intended to apply to physics and the natural world, I think it can, in ways, apply to philosophy and psychology. I'm not sure if I am using those terms in the proper context, so forgive me if I am not. What I mean is that I am inclined to counteract years of indoctrination and being subliminally taught a kind of disregard for myself as a woman, and for women in general, by going to extremes of furthering gender and sexual equality. I was taught for so long that men were in some way superior, or had some kind of moral authority given by the Judeo-Christian deity, that upon finding this to be a lie I feel myself obliged to discover the truth of the matter. I need to find out where these ideas came from, what are their true origins - now that I have eliminated divine will as the cause... *rolleyes* And looking in from the outside, religious - and specifically Christian - culture fascinates me in a kind of grotesque way that can only be compared to a particularly horrible car crash. You know it will give you nightmares, but somehow you can't keep yourself from looking. There are, naturally, varying levels of extremism in every denomination and while I do not wish to tar all of those who call themselves Christians with the same brush, the general outlook on gender roles within organised religion repulses me.

Take, for example, the concept of Christian Domestic Discipline - CDD, as it is affectionately known by those who put it into practice. Basically, the concept of a husband having the authority to spank his wife for the "4 D's" - disobedience, disrespect, dishonesty, or dangerous behaviour. Supposedly "serious offences" in a marriage, I simply love the ambiguity of the terms "disobedience" and "disrespect" in particular. So, basically, anything the husband cares to take a dislike to, then? Nice. It doesn't matter that this essentially gives someone free licence to inflict physical harm on another human being in as arbitrary a manner as they see fit, though, because apparently God will hold them responsible if they misuse their power. Oh, that's OK then. I will give my husband free rein to hit me all he likes, because a non-specific deity - the existence of whom I cannot be certain - is going to be mad at him in a life after death - the existence of which I cannot be certain either - if he takes it too far - the parameters of which are not made clear. I feel much better now. He can hit me, as long as he's not mean about it. And as long as he still respects me as his spiritual equal, while I'm bent over his knee.

http://www.christiandomesticdiscipline.com/home.html

Have a look. You're in for a real treat. It makes my ovaries positively tingle with indignation, let me tell you. I also love how they misconstrue entirely the philosophy, aims, and objectives of modern feminism in order to portray us as godless, hairy-armpitted lesbians who want nothing more than to strip you of your beloved morality and eat your babies. Sensationalist propaganda, anyone? Over here, plz. Kthxbai.

While I can appreciate that this is a rather extreme viewpoint, and that it would make even the average Christian squirm a little bit with embarassment - if it doesn't make you squirm, for the record, I suggest you seek the assistance of a mental health professional - it still gets me to thinking of the Biblical respresentation of women as a whole. No matter what way you choose to look at it, no matter how many "cultural context"-based arguments you can pose, the Bible is not the kindest piece of literature with regards to women. Or, indeed, the most accurate. The mere fact that it takes a greater effort of will - in my view - to integrate an acceptance of the Bible as the word of god with a balanced outlook on gender (or indeed pretty much anything), than it does to integrate it with an acceptance of wife spanking, would cause me to question the legitimacy of using the Bible as a kind of moral benchmark at all. If you have to work harder in terms of manipulating terminology and context in order to make it sound halfway fair or palatable, than you do to make it sound like the ravings of a demented, cave-dwelling misogynist... it's probably not worth using to guage your everyday behaviour. Just my two cents.

Compatibility view is the secret!!

I was told that it's hard/impossible to post comments to my blog - I just checked there myself, to try to comment. As it transpires, I can comment once I set the page on "compatibility view", for pages designed for older web browsers... that appears to be the issue.

Hope that sorts it for anyone else :-D

So... Rage.

Sometimes, I think rage is good. Sometimes, this country I live in incites me to rage. There are certain aspects of it that piss me the hell off, so please bear with me while I outline one (or more) of these.

Right - just last week, a 63-year-old man was given a 4 year sentence when convicted on 189 counts of sexual assault and rape. On children. By luring them into his garden shed over a period of 20 years, by a combination of bribery and blackmail. Linkies:

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/sex-abuse-sentences-do-not-fit-crime-110770.html

One hundred and eighty nine counts. Four goddamn fucking years. According to the article, Judge Olive Buttimer said the offences constituted a "disastrous breach of trust" of children and that the "sexual abuse of children over a 20-year period is a most serious offence".

Yes, Olive Buttimer, clearly the sexual assault of children to you is so incredibly serious a crime that it warrants a sentence which in most nations would be considered more appropriate for serious traffic violations. Fucking marvellous. Well done, and it's nice to know that such worthy individuals are being selected for judicial service in this country. God almighty I want to break my keyboard over something to calm down. Is it bad that I find it even worse that a female judge is capable of such dumbassery? I don't know why I expect more understanding of the gravity of rape as a crime from women, but I do. Maybe that's just the idealist in me.

This rage is partly because this fiasco of a sentence is not even the exception, it's the rule. Here on the Isle of Saints and Scholars (fucking ironic), it is not unknown for judges to hand down suspended sentences to convicted rapists, allowing them to actually walk out of court that same day. It defies logic, it really does. As a woman of Ireland, it is so validating to know that the violation of my body and my dignity as a human being is of no value whatsoever in the legal system. I mean, I'm sure he didn't mean it. He couldn't help himself. I shouldn't have been walking around at night/ wearing a short skirt/ letting strangers fool me/ drinking alcohol (gasp!).

I would like to make it clear that I have, fortunately, never myself been a victim of this awful, vicious crime. I just consider this inherent lack of respect within the judiciary for women's rights an affront to half of the country's population.

Do you know what pisses me off the most? The fact that despite all of this, the government still has the front to lament the fact that less than 10% of all rapes are reported, or followed up to the point of achieving prosecution. Because - considering the psychological and physical trauma they have already undergone, the further trauma inflicted on them by the "justice" system in being cross-examined, and having to face their attacker in court, only to have him walk free that day because despite being found guilty, ruining your life is not considered serious enough to warrant jail time - it's hard to understand why women would be slow to report it. God yes, that's a real fucking headscratcher ain't it?

God if this country was a person, sometimes I'd love to string it up by the ankles. Most especially for continuously, inexplicably voting for Fianna Fáil, who have time and again proven themselves to be nothing more than a gamut of right-wing, corrupt, insincere gobshites no more capable of running a country than the badger named Stephen currently being touted for their replacement on FaceBook. Between allowing this kind of shit and the introduction of my beloved Blasphemy Law, it defies belief that they are still in power. I know that in Ireland I often feel like I'm voting for the best of a bad bunch, and honest, let alone inspiriational politicians are notoriously thin on the ground, but I think it's time for one hell of a shake-up within Irish governance. Fianna Fáil have become far too comfortable in the seat of power, it's time to put their collective fat asses out on the street where they belong.

A question of choice

Someone asked me recently if it was my time in Africa that made question my faith, and it got me thinking. I suppose that was a part of it, although I don’t know if it was the root cause of my questioning so much as a mere catalyst that kicked off a train of thought that would have taken place sooner or later anyway.
It’s relatively cliché, I think, to ask whether a loving, omnipotent god could really allow the amount of suffering we see in the world. I can understand people’s frustration in dealing with the seemingly boundless approaches that could be taken in answering that, but for me the issue goes deeper than simply querying whether god would allow it. It also raises the issue of free will, and choice.

Let me give you an example – Haiti has been in the news a lot over the past fortnight, what with the earthquake recovery effort and the enormous human suffering. But the people of Haiti were suffering long before the earthquake of almost a fortnight ago. I don’t say that to belittle the damage and pain that the earthquake has caused – but it is one of the world’s poorest countries, and like so many other developing nations, the people there struggle every single day with hunger, preventable disease, and crime. One of the documentaries I watched on Haiti talked about the issue of kidnapping, and how it has been such a problem in recent years. Largely, I would imagine, out of desperation, people turn to crime to make money – it’s not unique to developing countries, but in many cases it is more prevalent. Even in Malawi, I often found myself getting frustrated because as an obvious foreigner I felt constantly targeted by people who were after something, namely money., although luckily they were not so malicious as Haitian kidnappers.

Watching the documentary, I found myself so sickened by the levels of violence and brutality being employed by the kidnappers. I felt so angry, so disgusted with them, as I generally do when confronted with violence.

But for me, the thing is, it’s very easy to take the moral high ground. I have a good home, enough to eat, a solid education, and good friends. I’m not starving or immediately dying. Can the people I observe, whose families and lives are crumbling around them, whose incomes are non-existent, really be considered as having the same level of choice as I do? Their actions can still be considered universally bad or wrong, I suppose, but what about them, as people? We can only be considered responsible for that which we can reasonably control, and while we can always control our behaviour, we cannot always control the factors which dictate and drive it.

I guess what I’m really querying is whether it’s fair to hold to the same moral – normally religious – standard, those whose circumstances are wildly different? I guess you could argue that an omniscient god would judge each person individually based on their circumstances, but really when I examine any religious doctrine, it is by its’ very nature universal. Take stealing, for example. Universally wrong, but does a person whose family is starving really have the same amount of choice and concurring responsibility for their actions as someone who robs cardigans from TK Maxx? I don’t think so.

What also makes me question the validity of a universal moral code is the fact that, without a higher order (i.e. god), what do we base this system on? Human opinion varies wildly, and is popular consensus really reliable for dictating our behaviour? It can be influenced by so many variables. Adolf Hitler was one the most influential leaders of the 20th century, as was Josef Stalin. Both of them, particularly Hitler, manipulated the political and economic atmosphere of their time. Post-Versailles treaty Germany was an economic disaster zone, and Hitler used this to his advantage, and to further his own political agenda – he had the backing of the electorate. Their desperation fuelled his popularity, and adversely influenced their priorities, and their perception of morals.

I think, at the end of the day, it really is a question of priorities. There are certain pivotal things which are central to our survival – security, food, etc – and when these priorities are jeopardised, everything else (including moral codes) tend to suffer. As such, can those whose primary needs are jeopardised be judged according to the same criteria as those whose aren’t?

Procrastination...

It's an art I have perfected.

I read one of those motivational posters once, that read: "Procrastination is like masturbating: it feels good at the time, but afterwards you realise you've just fucked yourself". It's so true. And you know what? I'm fucking myself right now, as I type. I have about 4,000 words in terms of essays and assignments to be done for tomorrow, and I'm blogging like the big hairy eejit that I am. Well, less of the hairy. And more of the eejit.

I just can't stop myself! My motivation is currently set to absolutely zero. Nada. Niet. "Faic", as we'd say in Irish.

Must. Start. Typing. Something. Productive...

Less profound than my previous postings, but...

...but there you go! I have decided to make this blog a sort of theoretical landfill for all the things that go through my decidedly bizarre mind, so you can either bear with me or skip this one :-P

So... there's a boy. Well, not really "on the scene" per se, but in existence...Well may you pity him, he probably deserves it. But it got me thinking about the whole dynamics of relationships, flirting, the shitty politics that go with it, in a more general sense.

You see, I went out with my ex-fiancé for about 4 and a half years. At 22, that's a substantial proportion of my life, and it means that I haven't really ever been on the dating "scene" in my adult life - I was 17 when I met him. I'm taken aback at how new and strange it feels to me to be single, to see guys in a social context without automatically precluding them in a romantic sense because I'm already taken. It's all so new to me, and I find myself behaving a lot more like a giggly schoolgirl than is probably acceptable at my age. That makes me sound like a grandmother, I know, there you are.

This guy - I haven't seen him in years. And I mean years. We met as teenagers and got back into contact by pure coincidence through a mutual friend recently. There's nothing much going on to write home about, but I have to say I feel like an idiot. Some say they're envious of those butterflies you get with a new person on the horizon, but to be honest I just feel awkward and socially clumsy. Is possible to wear your heart on your sleeve without scaring the shite out of people? What if you completely build people up in your mind to be someone they're not, a figment of your nostalgia, your reminiscing?

As a nutty 15-year-old, this guy meant a lot to me. I think he was the first person I ever had feelings beyond "m'eh" for, and correspondingly when we fought and lost contact it was the first time I felt like I'd really lost something in letting go of it. Realistically, we were too young at the time for anything beyond lots of red faces and cringeworthy texts to happen, but still. For all I know, he's a completely different person now, and I'm chasing the wind. I do that, though, and it drives me nuts! Not just with this guy specifically, but in general. I have no patience when it comes to stuff like this. It's a constant struggle for me to contain my emotions and affection, and while that's arguably a good thing, it's difficult because I'm so bloody sensitive. Mmmmph.

I fucking hate politics. Why can't we all just be honest and straightforward in our communication with each other and be done with it? "Playing it cool" does not become me.

Blasphemy Law

I've said it before, to friends, but here I go again: it's a rare thing for me to find myself in perfect agreement with Richard Dawkins. Under normal circumstances I find him too abrasive and purposely antagonistic to take seriously - however, when it comes to the recent introduction of the law pertaining to blasphemy and blasphemous libel in Ireland, I agree with him wholeheartedly. Here's a link to the article I'm referring to:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0713/1224250543694.html

As of the 1st January 2010, it is illegal in Ireland to utter publicly, or publish, matter which is deemed to be blasphemous toward any religion. I'm really at a loss as to the reasoning behind the introduction of this legislation, it has me practically foaming at the mouth with rage. I'm all for respect and tolerance towards a wide range of diverse belief systems, but this is just stupid. The government itself has all but admitted that the legislation only works on paper and is unenforcable in practice. It's just... so ridiculous, on so many levels, that I don't even know where to begin.

Mr. Dawkins has deemed the new law "a return to the middle ages", and I agree with him. Not only is it contrary to my understanding of free speech (please understand, I see a clear distinction between incitement to hatred/sectarianism, and a personal disagreement with certain aspects of a religion), but to introduce such a law in Ireland, of all places, seems almost ironic. We have such a history of our government having an unhealthy deference towards the Catholic church in particular. The recent spate of reports and tribunals investigating clerical child sex abuse, including the Ryan report, have chronicled for us the miserable truth of what happens when the relationship between church and state is too close for comfort. The Irish government has a lot to answer for in terms of assisting the clerical hierarchy to cover up the pandemic of abuse that took place in this country - and unlike the church, I feel the government has never been held to account for its' role. Bearing this in mind, Dermot Ahern's move seems nothing short of brazen.

I have to wonder if this law could potentially be used to stem the tide of criticism and fury against the clergy in the future, possibly in the wake of further revelations of abuse and corruption. I mean, will some of the most vehement criticism of the Catholic church be deemed "blasphemy" and penalised accordingly? If so, was that the idea all along? I cannot be sure, but the possibility worries me.

Aside from anything else, the premise of what the term "blasphemy" even comprises is ill-defined. For instance, what is to be done in the instance of certain religious doctrines being considered blaspemhous against the premise of another religion? If you interpret many religious texts and scriptures in a very literal manner you will find a myriad of passages that could be considered blasphemous, contradictory or offensive to those of other belief systems. Are these doctrines, then, to be outlawed under the new legislation? Does the government even know? I doubt it, it appears to be beyond the skill of the current government to consider bills with such foresight and scrutiny - and it drives me bloody nuts.

We are, now, being held up in foreign media as a sort of social and legal pariah, and deservedly so. Or at least, deservedly of the government. It really just disgusts me, even the way that it elevates religious convictions above personal ones. I mean - if I hold specific beliefs as an atheist or agnostic person, that are founded on personal observation or empirical evidence rather than a theistic system of belief, my views can be freely criticised or even vilified by those who take issue with them. Since they are not part of any formal religious structure and atheism is rarely recognised as a belief system, let alone a "religion", and agnosticism never is, they are not protected by the blasphemy legislation, and people can take the piss out of me all they like. On the other hand, my freedom to return the favour by criticising people's religious views is now limited. I'm not saying that I should go out and deliberately tick people off or make fun of them - but why should the views of some be protected from vilification under the law, and not those of others?

So in my opinion the new legislation is not only impractical, it's discriminatory.

Mnnnnnnnnnnfffffffffffhhhhhh. I think I need to go calm down now.

I'm feeling rather sheepish now.

I'm fairly sure absolutely no-one is interested in what I have to say to myself on here thus far, but I still get embarassed when I start things like this and I invariably get distracted and forget about them. So, for once, I would actually like to stick at something if only for my personal satisfaction. You never know, I may eventually come up with something of value... at some point in time.

I'm desperately poor at getting my train of thought across coherently, so apologies if anyone eventually reads this and has no clue what I'm on about. I find I think in very abstract terms, and what goes on in my head moves a lot faster than my fingers can to type it all out :-)

At the moment - apart from exams and my final year thesis - the main thing on my mind is religion and the concept of spirituality. It's such a pivotal aspect of human society in general, and it's played such a huge role in my life so far. Also, my convictions have been evolving (excuse the pun) so rapidly lately I can hardly keep up with them.

Basically, I am from a Catholic background, as are the vast majority of Irish people. When I was 15, I started attending a sort of charismatic, evangelical-type group a friend brought me along to, and I was a fervent attendee up until this year, more or less. I bought into the whole shebang - praying and reading the Bible every night, listening to Christian music, reading mainly Christian literature, abstaining from premarital sex, etc., etc. You get the picture. There were always, always a few issues I really struggled with. I have always valued sincerity of belief and a primary dedication to altruism over the adherence to an unquestionable set of beliefs, despite my strong convictions - I still questioned my faith, it's just that for a long time I felt I could reconcile my understanding of the world with my interpretation of Christianity and my faith. Now, though, I'm not so sure.

Most of the issues I have struggled with centred around the patriarchal history of religion and many of its (even contemporary) structures, the subjugation of women in the Bible, and its treatment of homosexuals and those who engage in sex before marriage. I think I largely suppressed my questions on these topics during my religious period, or felt them to be in some way "disloyal" to God. Now, though, I think life is too short not to listen to your heart on these subjects. I have retained my love and respect for Jesus and his teachings despite my newfound religious quandry, and as I see it he was never afraid to tackle the difficult questions, ergo I should not be either. So if you don't agree with what I have to say, well - you're perfectly entitled not to! I will value anything you wish to say in response, and I acknowledge the limitations of my own knowledge. I am open to correction on anything.

I believe that God values sincerity and integrity even more than I do. I do still believe in the existence of a God, it's my beliefs around their nature and requirements I'm not so sure of.

However, presuming the existence of God for a moment, I do think that an honest, searching heart trying to do and believe the right thing is more important to them than merely doing or believing the right thing in itself. This is not simply because this is how I feel myself, but I believe that the existence of human cogniscence and free will is evidence in support of my assertion. This is an issue I take with a lot of organised religion - if strict adherence to a set of regulations alone were God's requirement, that could easily be forced by an omnipotent deity. If all God cared about was that we did what they wanted, they need not - and I argue, would not - have made humankind capable of doing otherwise, or making conscious choices. This tells me that obedience, or behaviour, is not necessarily God's priority so much as the attitudes and choices that provoke it. It tells me that we are supposed to make choices, and really contemplate our behaviour. So, that's what I am setting out to do. Re-evaluate my entire system of belief, before re-constructing it accordingly.

You have probably noticed already that I am referring to God as "they" or "them", rather than using the traditionally masculine pronouns. This is because issues of gender are some of my most central concerns in terms of re-evaluating what I have previously accepted to be true. Firstly, I earnestly believe that any existing monotheistic God would by their very nature transcend gender, since their omnipotence removes the need for sexual procreation. Sex is a biological function we require to perpetuate our species since we are neither omnipotent (and able to furnish ourselves with offspring by magic), or immortal (removing the need for offspring altogether). As a deity transcendent of the ravages of time and with the capacity to create contrary to the law of conservation of matter, God does not need a sex, or corresponding gender.

So there. :-P God is a "they".

I have more thoughts on sex and gender, but I'm going to write them later... I've had too much coffee and I need to pee now.