8/20/20
Last night R gave me push-up kisses, like how we give Baby sometimes. Like I was lying down on my back (on the couch I think) and R hovered over me and every time he came down from the push-up, he kissed my forehead. it made me feel so cute. I felt like maybe how Baby feels when we do it to him. He did a lot maybe like 7 push-up kisses. LOL
8/21/20
a really weird realization I just had today after hearing the word “sluts” on tv. I was watching the last episode of Little Fires Everywhere and the character Moody said it. I realized…there’s an element about marriage, or the idea of marriage, that’s helping me feel more safe&secure/immune/maybe protected from something that I think totally does not have the same effect on my husband. It’s that…now that I’m married, so supposedly am only having sex with one man…that now, I can’t be a “slut.” Like, I can’t really be called that name in society anymore because of my marital status, I think, I feel. Like I wasn’t being called it before or anything, but there always existed, I truly feel, the THREAT of being called it, if you stepped out of line as a single woman. And now, with marriage, I feel a little better about it- just me in relation to this word- because its literal meaning can’t really be used on me anymore. But also I’m thinking: how horrible that I even instinctively feel this way. Like- that a threat, a word, a culture, how a woman is perceived—how it weighs so heavily on her, even me- a girl who at my core, tries to ignore it/fight it (“even in my own femme head, patriarchy oppresses me.” – Enola from No Gods No Mattress -14 the travel issue zine). It’s hard to ignore things steeped and integrated into our culture, I guess. And the other bad/weird thing about it: I think there is no equivalent feeling for my husband. Like as a straight guy in our culture, I feel it’s totally okay and permissible and even “macho” for him in our society if he was perceived as sleeping with people left and right. I even remember a guy around the time of our wedding telling him jokingly something like “congratulations, now you’re in chains” or something like that. Like wedding/marriage—for a guy—because of our strict gender roles/expectations—this experience is…seems…lived totally differently for a cis man and a cis woman, in a way. In these ways. Like I know what *I’m* going through. But it makes me wonder what he’s going through – how different it is for him. For men. Does marriage even change them at all? Like it changes me? How?
“Imagine your ancestors’ wildest dreams being fulfilled by you taking control of your power and not bowing down to oppressors.” –Protest Safety Training video – http://www.rosehipmedics.org/ around 1 hour 3 minutes, something said during a guided meditation.
8/23/20
something else I’m noticing about representing myself as married – if I forget to put my rings on b4 leaving house, I feel this huge compulsion to go get them to make sure I wear them, and I do. I feel like it protects me – as a woman- the sight of my wedding rings. Like maybe guys who see it will stop messing with me, take me seriously and not say/do stupid catcall shit. Because…it kind of is a symbol that says, “Look I’m connected to a man. Who might be a powerful man who might kick your ass if you mess with me, so leave me alone.” idk. I just know I feel this way, and now I’m thinking for a man…it must be like…totally opposite? Like…men don’t feel they need “protection” from catcalling/being hit on in close quarters when they go out, I think. What do they feel the ring says to others?
Now even remembering farther back, to around a year ago when I first got married and went back to work after honeymoon and BG asked me as we walked to the elevator at the end of the day how I liked married life, and I was genuinely happy, genuinely beaming as I told him that “now I don’t have to worry about dealing with guys”. Like, I remember feeling genuinely relieved that now I had a Really Good Reason that abruptly and legitimately excused me from guys trying for my attention (I’ve found in the past that saying “sorry I have a boyfriend” still does not deter them). And I still feel this relief. But…does my husband feel this kind of relief? I feel like it’s different for him. How does this difference affect us? Affect our marriage? Affect how we relate to each other and just the idea of the institution we’ve entered? Good? Bad?
So…from marriage, as an unexpected side effect of it (and not the reason I got married), I am feeling all this protection from societal and sexual harassment, and feeling sexually validated in a way. AND I think this is all like gender-specific to me, like…I don’t think that…men feel this way, feel all this relief that I am feeling from it. So…Why do men get married?
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Today walking around the lake early morning I thought I saw a swan flapping its wings on the water. But I looked more and realized it was a dude who was walking far ahead of me on the same path, crossing the bridge, whose light grey sweatpants as he strode were reflected in the dark water.
Marriage Journal 