There be dragons

Why is it that -

1. We are taught to fear attack by trans women ("but if we let THEM use OUR bathrooms how can we protect ourselves against being raped by the hypothetical penises we show a creepy amount of interest in??") when a) there is not a single case I am aware of where 'bathroom panic' has been justified, and b) trans people are exponentially more likely than cis people to be the victims of violence, and
2. We are taught to fear attack by people with mental illnesses, when a) people with mental illnesses are no more likely to commit violent crimes than the rest of the population, and b) people with mental illnesses are significantly more likely to be the victims of violence and abuse, and
3. We are taught to fear sexual assault from gay people ("don't drop the soap!"), when a) there is no evidence that gay people are more likely to commit sexual assaults than straight or bisexual people, b) gay people are targeted for violent assault because of their sexuality, and c) the vast majority of sexual violence is committed by men, against women.

(An obvious caveat: this is not about individual members of these groups. Trans, mental, and gay (or any combination thereof) people can and do commit horrible crimes, and sometimes their victims are cis, straight people with brains full of sunshine. This is about the net flow of violence between groups, and the popular conceptions of which groups are dangerous.)

I'd love to tell you that this is a calculated program of misinformation, designed by malevolent moustache-twirling policy wonks in the Ministry of Social Injustice (possibly dwelling in the musty basement of Senate House) for the explicit purpose of Fucking Shit Up, but sadly, this is like everything else: it's more complicated than that, and we all contribute to it, every day.

Where the evil happens

I think it's primarily about fear of the unknown. Everyone is scared of things they don't know: that's just how our brains work. But no one wants to think of themselves as being scared of the unknown, because that would make them a bigot: better to fill the threatening blank space with big, hard, concrete REASONS to fear people who are Not Like Us. And if there aren't any, better to make some up.

Because being scared of someone who is 'below' you in the Universal Pecking Order would make you kind of pathetic, right? You're the one with the power, and yet you're quaking in fear.

So to maintain two key beliefs about yourself - that you are not a bigot, and that you are not a coward - it is imperative that you believe that these marginalised populations pose a genuine threat to your safety.

Underwhelming folk devil

If I'm honest, the only reason I came back from sick leave was the fear that the Sun would somehow extend its deadly tendrils into my Facebook page, and run a story about "She says she's too DEPRESSED TO WORK, but she's been CAVORTING in BRIGHTON with GAYS! And FOREIGNERS! And FOREIGN GAYS!!" and I'd become a national hate figure and be cast out from society and have to wander lonely as a cow for the rest of my days.

Though on reflection, they'd only care if I was on benefits. As my brain-wrong is only financially hurting a charity - a charity which is not Help For Heroes - as folk devils go, I'd be a bit of a disappointment.

(This is one of those moments where you want to fall to your knees in gratitude for the unbelievable luxury of sick pay, and not being reliant on private insurance to keep you in meds and food: because otherwise, looking happy on Facebook could literally take the roof from over your head.)

I'm still braindead, unfortunately. Tell me things to be outraged about.

Insert pussy pun here

Ho ho ho, "insert".

I think we could all learn a lot about sex from cats. My own feline beast has been responsibly neutered, so he doesn't see much action, but his attitude to physical affection is an example to us all.

"Hug me! Tickle my head - cheekbone - right under the chin, yeeeah, chin's good, more of the chin. I'm sitting on your lap now. Keep on the chin stuff. No - no more chin, back to the cheekbone. Don't touch my belly, I don't like it. If you keep touching my belly I will slash you with my gigantic panther paws. Okay, good hug, I'm off now, don't follow me."

There's no obligation, no awkwardness, no "that's not actually doing much for me but I'll tolerate it because I've been socialised to think that if I refuse your ministrations you will leave me and I'll deserve it," no "well, if it doesn't actually hurt, I'll grin and bear it and gently try to hint that actually I'd prefer something else".

Sure, in a hopefully equal relationship between humans you can't really go "THIS IS WHAT I WANT OKAY I'M DONE NOW BYE", but having such a clear idea of what you want - and communicating that to your partner - is surely something a lot of women could learn from.

I wouldn't recommend the 'trading affection for food' model, though. That's just creepy.

"You do not appear to be hugging me. Please address this."

Beneficent boners / dead inside

I feel that the fact that I got out of bed at all this morning merits some sort of parade. That I came to work, in clothes I did not sleep in, and have actually achieved things and interacted with real human beings, is clearly grounds for a national holiday. All of which is to say that given that staying in the shower long enough to rinse off the fever sweat was a feat comparable to a marathon, so the idea of shaving my legs - or wearing tights in this heat, still running this temperature - is to be met with the phrase "you're having a fucking giraffe".

So I feel that my response to the gentleman who passed negative comment on my appearance was positively polite, under the circumstances.

"Oh no! Does that mean you don't want to have sex with me? I am crushed, Random Dude I Have Never Met Before; I am CRUSHED at the thought that I have failed in my sole endeavour in this life, which is, of course, for you to want to touch me with your penis. Want me! Need me! How else will I justify my futile time on this earth? BLESS ME WITH THE BENEFICENCE OF YOUR BONER!"

I mean, he was a hundred yards away by the time I'd finished, but I still felt better.

...

Do forgive the radio silence. Blogging requires an awful lot of feelings, and I am at that very special stage of A Depressive Episode where the most I can muster in the way of feelings is a rolling wave of unfocused 'meh'. I mean, I still want to die, but I don't even give much of a shit about that. Hopefully I'll resurface one day and be able to generate the necessary level of anger of the Daily Mail website sidebar.

Wrong Ex Machina

But what you fail to appreciate, you vapid, vacuous, pollyannaish cunt of a machine, is that I may be entirely accurate in my assessment that I am the worst person who has ever lived! You're assuming that I'm lovely, which is nice and all, but I might not be. You know NOTHING. I have done HORRIBLE THINGS and think HORRIBLE THOUGHTS and it's all a MASSIVE FACADE to hide the fact that I am AWFUL. What if Hitler was taking this test on How Much Your Self-Worth Is Dependent On Other People's Attitudes, huh? He'd score great! That wouldn't have made him any less of a genocidal fuckhead! Because he actually was bad, like I am actually bad, OH GOD I'M WORSE THAN HITLER...

When you're arguing computerised CBT because it refuses to agree that you are the devil incarnate, it's probably time to call it a day.

(Which is not to denigrate CBT! CBT is great, and the only talky therapy to show measurable results in trials (though longer-term therapies are more difficult to study), and I personally found it super-helpful in dealing with anxiety, and if I manage to stop arguing with it I imagine it will be similarly useful in attacking depression. Also you can do it for free at https://moodgym.anu.edu.au. Here endeth today's inspirational message.)

Mental illness: not Darth Vader

I love this. It's a massive poster in a tunnel at Euston and every time I walk past it during the commute home it makes me grin.

In related deliciously dark humour news, my manager now prefaces even minor criticism with "don't kill yourself, but..."

Not that I'm recommending this as a general policy for Handling Your Local Mental, but it's exactly the way I personally like people to deal with it. I might be losing my ever-tenuous grip on sanity, but you don't have to treat me like a bomb that could explode at any moment. Serious Voice and Sad Face will not fix the Broken Brain. Laughter may not be the best medicine - in my case, 40mg of citalopram per day is the best medicine - but taking the piss out out of mental illness (as distinct from taking the piss out of people with mental illnesses) is a lot less depressing than turning it into some all-powerful godbeast. It's not bloody Darth Vader.

Pretty on the outside: fuck elegance

I don't drink much these days, but when I do, I wake with The Hangover Of All Misery. It's not physical as much as it is emotional: I am utterly crippled by the knowledge of having done something awful. Sometimes there are specifics - public vomiting or bad kissing decisions have featured prominently over the years - but recently it's just a vague sense of having been a bit of a prick. Too loud, too argumentative, too sweary. Not elegant. Uncouth. Unladylike.

Like pretty much every other mid-20s woman who likes cats and hangs out in Stoke Newington, I am a little bit in love with Audrey Hepburn. The style, the poise, the elegance; the capri pants, the pearls, the delicate little cashmere sweaters. That late 50s/early 60s aesthetic is always at the back of my mind when I gaze at my teetering clothes rail, always what I'm aiming for on a charity shop budget.

But it was only last night, when I was bemoaning my lack of confidence in social situations (it is SO HARD TO BE ME) that I realised that elegance as a personality trait is not actually something I should be aspiring to.

Elegance seems best expressed by the oft-quoted Victorian aphorism about the proper place of children: seen but not heard. Elegant, and its sister ladylike, are about looking fabulous and shutting the fuck up. Which is exhausting.

The 90s moral panic about "ladettes" - god forbid we drink pints and have fun! - has, I think, infected my thinking on this. It's a deeply class-based prejudice, this - I don't actually know anything a bout the family backgrounds of Zoe Ball, Sara Cox, Denise Van Outen et al, but the Daily Mail's objection to them was "they're acting like our nightmare vision of working class women!" as much as it was "they're acting like MEN!".

What I'm worried about when I wake up wracked with shame is that I have acted like a Ladette, desperately needy to identify as One Of The Boys.

So what's the alternative? Smile sweetly and express the occasional opinion in a gentle, womanly tone, too demure to be heard over the Saturday night hubbub? I like getting into ridiculous arguments about sexism over several pints, setting the world to rights as we queue at the bar. I like using my chic little dress, with its teapot-print bodice, to mop up the lager I spilt gesticulating too enthusiastically. I like the contrast between ladylike dress and entirely unladylike behaviour, sitting cross-legged in a foofy 50s picnic frock while punctuating my points by stabbing the air with a cigarette.

It's all very well pointing out that subscribing to the aesthetics and hobbies of the 50s doesn't necessitate embracing their mores, but if I'm still aspiring to elegance, I've got a long way to go.

Hanging out with a gang of feminist types yesterday, I was struck by the brilliance with which the birthday girl synthesised the perceived incongruity of hairy armpits and elegant, feminine frock into something sublime. (Also: spending a hot sunny day with people who couldn't give the flimsiest fragment of a shit that you haven't shaved in a week is so restful.)

And with that, I am - no word of a lie - off to the pub.