Since the election I have spent a lot of time trying to understand this mythical other half of the country.
I have listened and repented for not listening before. I have told them that in our fight to make room for everyone at the table, they have felt pushed out of the way. Of course, I also mentioned that had they just been goddamned welcoming to people different than them in the first place...
But that's neither here nor there.
I have revisited the culture of middle America. I have thought about what it is they value and what makes them smile and laugh.
And I have realized that there was a reason why I moved away from my small town in the middle of nowhere at 17 so that I could live in a city.
I have realized why the cities are full of people like me. We escaped what we considered a pretty narrow and repressive way of life. That wholesome family, white picket, traditional judeo-christian shtick just doesn't jibe with us.
And while I do think it is important to not judge or act superior to those that do value that life—to not denigrate them all as ignorant or racist, but to value their experience in the way that we should value all human experience—I am also totally cool with the fact that this is not at all what I want for myself.
I like my liberal bubble.
I enjoy living in an ethnically and religiously diverse area.
I love late night discussions about art and poetry over jazz and fine bourbon.
I love being able to watch my friend and his boyfriend perform beautifully at the ballet, without ever having to question their morality or my sexuality.
I love books and intellectual discourse for their own sake, but also love how here in my liberal bubble, those things are considered deeply sexy.
I love that I have convinced women to come over for "Rachel Maddow and chill."
I love the amazing community and cultural events that are frequent and free in my city.
I love the opportunity for civic engagement.
And I love experimental drug use
and explorative fringe religious practices.
I love that I have had the opportunity to spend time at a swinger hotel,
and will soon get to visit a sex dungeon.
I love that I am getting to speak at an event where women will listen to men talk about their cocks and the pride and shame that have accompanied them.
I love that my liberal bubble allows me to have enthusiastically consensual, mutually pleasurable, wildly kinky, feminist fuckfests.
(though never as many as I'd like).
I haven't even gotten into politics yet. I am not sure I need to.
I will just say that I love, really truly love, that I have been exposed to all kinds of different ideas and have been privileged to have the skillset to weigh and evaluate those ideas to see which I want to keep.
That's so valuable.
As a writer, at least when it comes to my political writings, my target audience will include the white, cisgendered, evangelical middle class. It's where I come from and I feel more qualified to speak to and challenge their views than any other cultural subset (besides maybe my own). I will do so with as much respect and humility as I can. I know I might be wrong. But I want us to be able to hear each other.
But at the end of the day, when I want to relax and just be my self,
I am going to choose to spend time with the heavily tattooed satanist lesbian marxist anarchist academics.
I am grateful they have given a square like me a home.
9:33 a.m. - 2016-11-15
Recent entries:
Today - 2016-11-29
Here I am, talking about cars and sex. Just like some regular dude. - 2016-11-27
Just a Full-Bellied Ramble - 2016-11-24
I hate my brain sometimes - 2016-11-21
Love - 2016-11-18
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