Nope, I haven’t forgotten about those New Year’s career goals I made. I had a personal essay out this past weekend in Sunday Life, The Sydney Morning Herald’s weekend magazine. I’m counting this toward my monthly goal of one personal essay byline the annual goal of breaking into eight new pubs. Come to think of it, this may also be my first international byline! Pretty exciting stuff … racking up the milestones ;)
So you see that cover teaser “I Don’t: Saying No To Marriage”? Yup, that’s my essay. It’s a reworking of a piece I wrote on this blog nearly a year ago, and I gotta say, I’ve only become more sure about my position on marriage since then, even though my relationship has surpassed the three-year mark and people *cough* Chinese relatives *cough* are starting to make all kinds of assumptions despite my best attempts to dissuade them. In any case, let me state for the record that I’m not “against” marriage in that I’m judging you for having one. I’m not naive about the coercive way the government incentivizes marriage, so that oftentimes, it’s not much of a choice at all, not even for fairly privileged Westerners. Hello, I’m in love with a dude who could get deported, and I know people who have gotten hitched for health insurance. There are some pretty good, practical reasons to tie the knot. I just wish these benefits didn’t only come with marriage, that folks who rock the single life or have multiple partners don’t get the shaft, that we don’t automatically assume those who don’t get married are “just not serious about each other” or less fulfilled as human beings.
And you know, I can completely empathize with the desire to share one’s love in front of family and friends and to shove cake into your lover’s face and to dress up like a Pretty Pretty Princess*. But how many of us think about why the state is involved in our personal affairs and why we need a rubber stamp to make it “real”? We want it so bad that there’s an entire social movement devoted to obtaining the institution despite its rather questionable history. I actually used to be a huge advocate for marriage equality, and witnessing that debate over the past few years has just turned me off from marriage even further. While I believe that queer folks are entitled to the same protection and rights as anyone else, I think it’s a shame that same-sex marriage has become THE issue and that there’s an absurd amount of money being funneled into the goal of obtaining heterosexual privilege. (I’m not going to go into a huge rant about what else that money could be used for, but suffice it to say that it’s not going toward advocacy efforts to improve the lives of poor queer people of color.) Why not dismantle the institution altogether instead of leaving single people or poly folks in a lurch? Are non-marrieds any less deserving of these privileges?
Anyhow, I’m not going to get carried away here and repeat my thesis (which, by the way, I finally extracted from the depths of my hard drive). I’ll leave some links for further reading:
Valentine’s Grinch (Part I & Part II)
Marriage Is Like A Country Club (CollegeCandy)
How Feminism Misses The Point When It Comes To Marriage
Why I’m Against Gay Marriage (And Marriage In General)
Jessica Valenti, Weddings, & Social Expectations
Reader Question: “Do you think you will eventually marry Patrick?”
My article isn’t available online, but click below to see a high-resolution version of it (let me know if this doesn’t work):
Psst … my friend Rachel Hills has a piece in the same edition of Sunday Life, on living as an ex-pat in London!
* Totally not being facetious here. My friends all know that upon my 30th birthday, I’ll be throwing myself a gigantic party involving all of the above elements in lieu of ever having a wedding. (And yes, there will be a registry.)
I just started writing for MTV’s Staying Alive campaign, the world’s largest youth focused HIV and AIDS prevention campaign. I love the project’s use of multimedia and its global outreach. Most of my freelance clients are American and focus on issues affecting populations in English-speaking developed countries, so I’m excited for the opportunity to explore how gender inequality and health care access impacts those living beyond the first world. My first piece celebrates the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, while noting the multitude of struggles that lay ahead of the feminist movement.
A brief update on one of my 2011 career goals: I resolved to publish one personal essay each month and to break into new publications. Here’s a piece about my trials and tribulations in love and blogging, published in the February 2011 issue of Underwired, a women’s magazine based in Louisville, Kentucky . I’ve written before about my disillusionment with dating in the aftermath of multiple romantic catastrophes, which I attributed to the scrutiny I received because of my blog. And then I met Patrick, who’s stood by me through some of the worst harassment I’d dealt with to date. In Underwired, I explore the mindset I was in when we met (along with my decision to not write about our relationship). You can read the piece in full by clicking below for the hi-res image:
Hopefully, I’ll soon have more positive updates on the resolution front! (Since I wrote this a few weeks ago, can we count the piece toward my January quota? I’ll have another one coming for February but it won’t be in print until mid-month.)
Cover Artist: Vana Chupp
Special to Underwired Magazine February 2011
I don’t usually write much about my family or my mother, but this piece just went up today and I wanted to share, because it’s a little more personal than what gets published on this blog. It’s a first-person essay I wrote for AOL’s women’s site, Lemondrop:
When I announced on my blog that I didn’t believe in marriage, I expected the typical reactions: Don’t you want a ring and proposal? (No.) Will you ever trust your partner’s commitment to you? (Yes.) What about children? (What about them?) I got those questions, along with some comments in support of my views. But what I didn’t quite anticipate was that a random commenter would insinuate my beliefs were “f**ked up” because of the way I was raised... [read on at Lemondrop.com]
I don’t think most people in the First World realize that romantic love is a luxury and a privilege. It’s not something that my parents got to indulge in. Their conception of love is totally different from my own. I wouldn’t have said this a few years ago, but being only one generation removed from a life of poverty and hunger absolutely affects my views on the way Western society constructs concepts like “romance”. But if I don’t believe in marriage or “the One” or any of that, it’s not because my parents divorced. In fact, I spent most of my childhood totally buying into all that chick flick crap, precisely because it seemed so perfect and wonderful. Someone who would love me forever and ever and also throw jewels my way? Sign me up!
At some point, I grew up and realized that none of that shit matters. My parents didn’t have a wedding; they didn’t even have wedding rings. But if they did, would that have prevented them from splitting up? People place emphasis on the wrong things. I’m completely, utterly, sickeningly in love, but I will never ask of Patrick an engagement ring or a marriage contract. I’m happy with just love, this elusive thing we got in exchange for capitalism.
Love is a luxury, don’t ever forget. It’s rare and it’s fragile and it’s something you can only pursue fully when you don’t have to worry about how to feed, clothe, and educate your children in a foreign country where you have no money or marketable skills. Now that both my sister and I have become adults (albeit, young ones), I can only hope that it’s a luxury my mother can finally afford.
I have a piece out in Glamour Magazine’s December issue (their 20th anniversary special edition!). Yes, the one with Fergie on the cover wearing a blazer and no pants.
ask lena: how can I help the cause against bullying? | gURL.com
Do you have to be a celebrity to stop gay bullying? Absolutely not! My latest “Ask Lena” vid for gURL.com responds to a reader who wants to know how everyday teens can do their part for social justice.
Previously on gURL:
Talking Virginity With Therese Shechter of “How To Lose Your Virginity”
Lena’s Advice: “I’m The Only One Of My Friends That’s Single”
Lena’s Advice: “I Really Want A Baby And I’m 15”
Lena’s Advice: “At 13, Am I Too Young To Have Sex?”
Sex vs. Abstinence: Lena’s Perspective
Tracy Clark-Flory, a senior writer at Salon, wrote of anxieties running high as subjects squeezed into uncomfortable shoes and deceptive shapewear at a photo shoot for More magazine’s November 2010 feature on young feminism, which both Clark-Flory and I participated in. Her conclusion? “There isn’t much that’s feminist about a feminist photo shoot.”
I largely agree with Tracy’s assessment, but I don’t think things are quite so black-and-white. Are dressing up and putting on make-up always anti-feminist activities? What about having body anxiety? Real feminists are immune to that kind of negative thinking, right?
In this article for The Frisky, I debunk the above myths, employ a somewhat convoluted analogy involving Spanx, and sing kumbaya with my fellow young fems. Thanks to Shelby Knox and Latoya Peterson (who were also profiled by More Magazine) for having last-minute interviews with me yesterday when I was finishing up my piece!
By the way, Latoya is currently fundraising for the fantastic race and pop culture blog Racialicious, of which she’s editor. It’s not easy to run a frequently updated, consistently well-written blog as a volunteer effort. (As a non-paid blogger myself, I can assure you that this is largely a labor of love.) I highly encourage anyone who can spare the change to join Racialicious’ $2 Challenge to support the start of Culturelicious, which would offer arts and culture reviews and showcase the work of artists of color. Check out the above link for more on the project!
Latest vid for gURL.com: How do you get a guy to ask you to Homecoming?
No, I do not actually own any of the things I’m wearing in this video. Yes, I do quite enjoy giving feministy love/sex advice to 14-year-old girls.
Here’s my welcome post where I wax nostalgic about growing up with gURL. If you want to send in a question for me to answer in upcoming weeks (don’t worry, it can be anonymous), just write to askanexpert@gURL.com.
I’m also pleased to have a gURL.com email address, by the way. I made my first-ever email account on the website when I was 11! (It’s long gone now …)
And yours truly is the head blogger! I’ll be answering reader questions (in writing and on camera), repurposing posts from The Ch!cktionary, and brainstorming ways to more directly engage with readers. Alloy Digital (who owns gURL.com) filmed a bunch of stuff with me last week when I was in New York, so there will be video content up too. As part of the blog’s debut, I’m working on a multi-part series about virginity right now, which you guys know is a favorite topic of mine.
Check it out and let me know what you think! I really, really loved gURL.com when I was growing up and credit it with a lot of my sex-positive, feministy beliefs, so you can imagine how happy I am to be a part of this project now.
