Groundhog Day, Taboo Night

I bought some kvass today at the Ukrainian import grocery store, and I'm enjoying some as I write this. I don't know what is different about this new brand*, but it seems to be both sticking my brain into overdrive, and making me a little more disinhibited in thinking.

If the cold snap we had, with wind chills dipping down to -48 degrees, had extended into today; and if any groundhog, like Wiarton Willie**, was a resident here in Saskatchewan, I'm imagining that the result after prodding the little bugger to give us a forecast would be just a scene of a furry little rodent arm sticking out from the burrow's entrance, just long enough to give everyone the finger, and then quickly disappearing; with no other trace of him to be seen again until well into mid-April (of perhaps next year).

Thankfully, for this Groundhog Day, it has finally become 25 degrees 'warmer' (the wind chill was still below -20). Groundhogs weren't poking their heads outside around here today, but at least the people finally were, most looking quite grateful for the reprieve. It was my day off, and being concordant with the spirit and theme of the movie, Groundhog Day, I have been desperate for anything radically different from what's coming to look like an infinite loop of cold mediocrity.
I couldn't think of anything else happening locally that was a more fitting way to get out to a social venue and celebrate the escape of such monotony than to explore Taboo 2013.

Taboo is the first consumer expo I got to check out for the year for this new trade show season. It's basically a forum for all things erotic, sensual, and generally anything else 420 friendly. Around this conservative town, this is the closest it gets (as far as I know) to being anything as sort of Mardi Gras-esque. Watching the dancers was the most entertaining part of the event for me. I have a new respect for the strength and grace involved in the art of pole-dancing. It was packed. I don't usually opt to go to such crowded venues, but this was different. I show up to such things to view and study them anthropologically: to basically people watch.

What really makes me happy and interested about such an event, besides seeing scores of beautiful women, is seeing all types of people, of all adult ages, come out of the woodwork, and enter this public place walking around there with a sense of being liberated and being real about what they enjoy and want to include in the most private aspect their lives; it's like you can see it in their eyes. The atmosphere is sort of rich with good karma when people are in a zone with the intent of finding, or learning about, something that's pleasurable for themselves and their loved ones. When people are leaving the useless emotions of guilt and shame at the door, being completely honest with themselves about what truly pleasures them on the level of bodily sensuality, delusions are shattered. I'm happy when I find and discover people genuinely being this honest about themselves. One would find more honest people at a event like this than they would in a church, or any other religious congregation***. When delusions about living are stripped away, we approach enlightenment. This is what Zen teaches me****.

After being there, I realize that this is the first time in a long time that I've sensed that kind of air of positivity. I'm wishing now that this event occurred more than just once a year.

Adding this thought latently: if I were the groundhog responsible for forecasting the climate of others' negativity, I'd be seeing lots of ominous shadows. Hunkering down somewhere, away from it all for the next six weeks, seems pretty much like the more attractive option right now.

* Perhaps it was brewed from rye grown around Chernobyl, that was tainted with some sort of radioactive ergot spores, that made some super-potent residue LSD. Just a theory.
** Canada's version of Punxsutawney Phil
*** It's been my experience that the more people are tuned into religion, the more likely they are to slander and back-stab me.
**** I forget the name of the monk involved in a Zen story I heard, but the story goes as such: there was once a Zen Buddhist monk in feudal Japan who was approached by the abbot of his monastery, who heard testimomy from reliable sources that this monk often caroused, and took carnal pleasures with consorts and other servants. When the abbot confronted him about his conduct, the monk's open and honest retort was something like this: "Enjoying the company of, embracing, and making love to a beautiful woman . . . how can anyone ever think that this is the gateway to hell?" 

International Women's Day

I’m one of very few men who, in their lifetime, have worked in a sexual assault crisis centre. That was many years ago. Whenever International Women’s Day comes around, I do a lot of reflecting about what social attitudes there were back then about the crime of sexual assault, and how far we have come along in changing them.  

It dismays me to say that I feel the progress hasn’t come that far after close to twenty years ago since I worked in such a place. Yes, with the growth and expansion of the access to the Internet, we gradually became better at communicating the subject of sexuality better, or at least more openly, but we’re not any better at dealing with gender targeted aggression, we are just better at exposing more of it now that there is more global transparency.

It’s shameful that in this age where the ability to access information has multiplied so greatly, that there are forces out there, mostly radical/ultra-orthodox religious* based ones, who are supporting and out rightly condoning the violation of women and their rights with social sanctions, physical and even sexual violence.  We have exposed the barbaric treatment of women in Afghanistan and Pakistan with acid attacks and other torturous mutilations inflicted upon them for daring to explore  social circles beyond their own home and family, or taking on non-traditional roles. Sadly, it took full scale invasions of involving other political issues before the news media ever brought this stuff to light. Women in some parts of this world are still sentenced to stoning and legally sanctioned ‘shame-rapes’ for things like adultery. Access to education, or even basic literacy, is not reality for some girls and women on this globe. Here in Canada, we recently closed the Shafia affair in court, but it’s sickening to know that there is still yet a community of supporters out there who sympathize and even condone his action for the “honour killing” of the female members of his own family.

Stories still appear about immigrant families from Africa, and South/Central Asia living in Western nations are still sometimes caught performing clitorectomies and other forms of genital mutilation on their female children. One can imagine that it’s happening much more commonly in their original homelands.

From a year ago, but still very much valid. Thanks again to Dame Judy Dench and Daniel Craig.

It’s not much better in Western/industrialized countries. If you have ever read the Stieg Larrson series of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there was exposed just about every issue of abuse, power and control over women in what one would think is a very civilized country with a more secular society. Of course that was fiction**, but there were lots of corellates and congruencies that showed up in those books that matched up well with the dynamics exposed through the real life statistics I processed, and files and reports that landed on my desk back then (minus the murders thankfully). The use of physical force, sexual aggression, financial control, and isolation/alienation*** from society are still very much at play against women here in Canada.

If there are going to be any misogynist assholes out there who are going to pooh-pooh my words about this matter, I think the best lesson they should have is the shock of being woken in the middle of the night to get to a hospital to witness the aftermath of a violent sexual assault, like I’ve dealt with back in the day. I’d have them witness such a thing happening to their own family member just to make the point hit home. Unfortunately, that would necessitate having yet another victim, and it might be just a moot point anyway for guys who are that indifferent, insensitive and uncaring, since most violence towards women is committed by someone known to them, like spouses and family members.

I’m sorry ladies and friends that the subject material was such a downer of a posting on your special day. I hope it’s a better day for you than this picture I’ve painted here.

*- Another reason why I can’t delude myself into thinking that I’ll find any promise of “salvation” in any religion.
**- I drew a general example from fiction mostly to avoid specifics of cases that I know about. I'm relegated to uphold confidentiality up to this very day.
***-I think more specifically of what I’ve seen as incidents that happen rurally, and on the First Nations’ reserves.