Week 4: "How do you spell sex? N-O!"

As I was reading the introduction of Phoebe Robinson's You Can't Touch My Hair, I already noticed something specifically different about her writing than that of Fey, Poehler, and Kaling. She loves to talk about SEX. There, I said it. I will admit I feel a little "tinge of cringe" every time I say the word. Perhaps it is because I have been conditioned to, as the "good girl," or maybe it is because my parents do not show affection beyond a scandalous handholding (Barreca). When I read "lady boner" in literally the first sentence of the introduction, I knew this text was going to be different (Robinson xv). Different can sometimes carry a negative connotation, and contrary to what I know my parents would like me to say, I believe this different is a good different. Although the previous readings from our lovely triad of comediennes included sexual references, like Fey's joke about the telescopic penis, they certainly did not begin with sex (Fey 164). As I continued reading You Can't Touch My Hair, Robinson did not shy away from sexual topics and included them often. It was incredibly refreshing to witness a woman embracing sex so freely and without fear of judgement. I can only hope that one day I will be able to express my sexuality, perhaps not as openly as Robinson, but in a way that makes me feel free and completely me. In this post, I plan to further discuss this concept of being afraid of our sexuality and how we can look to women like Robinson for guidance in this different topic. 

I did not know exactly what sex was until halfway through high school. This was mostly the doing of my parents, who sheltered me (as if we were in an apocalypse) and fostered my need to please and be the perfect, pure "angel child." Fondly, I remember crying when I heard my parents first say "sex" (which was surprisingly in middle school) and was mortified for a few months following that ordeal. It is almost concerning how much of an effect that “dirty” word had on me as a child. That cringe I briefly described earlier eventually replaced the utter trauma I experienced, and I have been trying diligently to relieve myself of this distress as I have gotten older. When I think about this discomfort toward “sex,” I find it very silly and ridiculous, considering that sex is a natural part of life and is something I am more familiar with now. (Please don't sound the sex trumpets and alert my parents.) This uncomfortable feeling we have toward our sexuality as women is something that is almost innate, as it is instilled in us early and is forced into some more than others. Even if a woman grew up with accepting and relaxed parents, there is still a stigma surrounding women's sexuality in society that prevents us from truly being free. Like some of my classmates have said in discussion or in their posts, us "good girls" are not expected to understand the sexual innuendoes and jokes of our male counterparts (Barreca). If we do, we are bad and unwanted girls. 

Robinson is, however, fighting this dichotomy of "good girl" and "bad girl" with her incorporations of sex in her writing. She chooses to discount this idea completely by admitting that she had a "lady boner" at the ripe age of 14 (Robinson xv). By ignoring the expectation of being a good girl altogether, she discounts its relevance and uses sex to do so. If we could all be more like Robinson, daring and embracing our sexuality, maybe we could start to chip away at this harmful good girl/bad girl trope. Of course, that idea is easier said than done, but I think not caring as much is a characteristic we should all strive for as women. Let's face it; all women, whether they "appear" to be good or bad, have sex and think sexual thoughts (unless they identify as asexual). Just like we cannot help our gender, we cannot help our sexuality, and that is perfectly okay. 

"How do you spell sex? N-O!" is a little joke I came up with as I was talking to my boyfriend about how averse to sex my parents are. I am not exactly sure how it came about, but every once in a while, we will chant that when we are frustrated about how we still have to act like holy, little virgins around our parents. It gets tiring pretending to be oblivious to something that is so natural and a part of life, so this joke pokes fun at that ridiculousness. If only I were more like Robinson, I could spell sex like Y-E-S and be proud of it. 

Works Cited 

Barreca, Regina. They Used to Call Me Snow White… But I Drifted. Lebanon: University Press of New England, 2013. 

Fey, Tina. “Dear Internet.” Bossypants, Little, Brown and Company, 2013, p. 164. 

Robinson, Phoebe. “Introduction.” You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain, Plume, 2016, p. xv.

The Proud Female who Plays with Dinosaurs and Swears like a Sailor

            All of my life I’ve never really felt as if I fit into the check box of a “girl.” I do identify as a woman, and I am proudly a woman, but I never really understood why I was expected to act certain ways or maintain certain stereotypes.  When I was about 5, my mother took away my toy dinosaurs.  She said that they weren’t girls toys and encouraged me to play Barbies or Polly Pockets with my sister. She bought my sister me an American Girl Doll, and continued to push for me to choose those toys over my preferred toys: my trains and my dinosaurs.  I remember pretending to ballroom dance with my sister as a child. I always wanted to dance the male part, as I felt that’s what I identified more with. Never because I felt like a boy trapped in a girls body, but because I didn’t feel like society’s idea of a girl. I was never dainty. I was never quiet. I liked to play rough and wanted to ride my bike with no hands like the boys who played in the street over from mine.
             Reading about the “Good Girl” expectation in Barreca’s text felt all too close to home. All of this was shoved down my throat so harshly that all I wanted to do was retaliate. I wasn’t like my Good Girl friends. I didn’t stay quiet in class. I didn’t want to change myself to be what boys wanted from me. I didn’t play innocent. All throughout elementary school, I wanted to be seen as equal to the boys. I couldn’t wrap my innocent mind around the fact that I was going to be expected to act a certain way just in order to make other people happy.  That was until middle school came around. All of a sudden I couldn’t be friends with guys. I couldn’t act like the guys. I had to be the Good Girl if I wanted to make it out alive.
             Like Barreca mentions in “They Used to Call Me Snow White...” in order to be accepted by the guys and not be torn to shreds for having “no sense of humor” (whatever that means,) I took the harassment. As my chest developed, I took the jokes about my breasts and I laughed them off because after all that must be what I am supposed to do.  I adopted the self depreciating humor into my normal every day conversation in order to fit in amongst boys and girls alike. Boys appreciated that I attacked myself so they could continue to feel superior, and girls jumped in by one-upping my self deprecating comments by tearing themselves down worse, or proclaiming whatever was wrong with them was way worse than any thing that could ever be wrong with me.
            Along with what Fey mentions in “All Girls Must Be Everything”, I began to realize even more was wrong with me as girls complained about things they were experiencing which I was also experiencing. I’d previously not seen an issue with these things, but as soon as someone pointed it out as an issue in themselves, it then became this huge flaw in myself. Through all of this, I continued to use humor to laugh off these flaws, secretly hoping maybe if I made people know me as the funny girl, they would ignore all of these flaws society pinned to my existence.  Being known as the funny girl only lasted for so long.  These jokes I pinned against myself began to only open doors for people to feel more welcome to tear me down.  I feel this happens quite often as humor is misunderstood.  Ali Wong joking about her promiscuity in her younger years may seemingly open the door for people to attack her for being promiscuous.  It may make people feel as if because she is joking about this herself that she won’t care if someone makes a joke to her about her being a “slut” or a “whore” or any other beautiful name women are often called for having sex (I could easily go into how when men have lots of sex it’s celebrated, yet for women it’s highly frowned upon, but I am sure you can all assume where that conversation could go.)
           Through my comedic take on my pain and awkward teenage development, I opened the door for people to only wear me down even thinner until I utterly fell apart.  I had filled every ounce of my soul with self hate and disgust because my “coping” jokes actually tore me apart where it was supposed to be a band aid which covered up the wounds, not pulled them open every day refusing their healing process. As a few other blogs mentioned how self love is a journey that they’re traveling, changing the internal dialogue which narrates their day. After falling to pieces from years of self depreciating humor, I made the same change. I still follow the expectations of female humor and make jokes about  “women’s things”, but any guy I spend time around will tell you I have the mouth of a dirty sailor. I am again fully comfortable with saying “I don’t fucking care what you think” (like Poehler) in regards to what a man, or any human for that matter, tells me I can or can’t do.
            Self love and moving away from home freed me to take my journey to be myself once again.  Honestly, I hope my journey is never ending. I hope I’m able to love myself more and more each day. I hope I’m able to make people laugh each and every day, hopefully without tearing myself to shreds every time.  Will I continue to roast myself because that is just my type of humor? Probably.  But will I continue to say “fuck you” to any expectation someone has for how I’m supposed to act, think or speak? An unwavering strong Y E S. Reading these texts only made me feel stronger. It is always motivation so to hear another woman publicly say, “Yeah, I’m doing my own thing, and no one can stop me.” I hoe that wave carries on and is able to reach every woman.