My version of not rational

[vicarz]

I am on my work computed during my week of leave. I took a phone call about a compelling case for settlement, and then wrote a summary to my boss and noted I was happy to discuss. She replied that's great, and we can do so. When. I return from leave next week. She's a mom and it shows.

So I'm here typing because...I just logged onto work so I can coordinate my social calendar, but as I start to flip through my emails it's nigh impossible not to start working. Not only do the tasks just beg for my attention, but each tiny one only takes a moment and ... it's fun.

So it's hard not to work, but I'm doing NOTHING productive at home. I think I only did laundry because it was at V's place while I played with the cat. Somehow I can play video games all day, but filing a stack of papers feels too much like work, while doing actual work does not feel one bit like work. Hooray?

Sex and oppression.
This is a weird one for me. At my tender young age, I think I've come to a deeper understanding of objectification and how annoying it can be. Everybody wants to be pretty, and sexy, but not all the time. Or, not to the point anyone feels entitled to engage you all the time. I'm personally tired of being distracted by 'hot chicks in sports bras,' or random slutty-dressed people I don't know and am not going to know. I can only imagine what it must be like to be female and hot, constantly harassed by people who feel your looks are their privilege and when you dare deny them, it's a hateful act. Sure, it's nice to be attractive, but imagine if my work wasn't taken seriously or was always pushed to the background if I reveal so much as a hint of cleavage?

Then again you don't have to dress sexy. I would like to have purple hair, but it elicits certain predictable reactions. I elicit attention but would be foolish to demand it were all positive.

I've sort of combined my understanding of how as a male, a strong male, I live in a different world than women who are always in physical danger; can't go to their car alone, can't walk in x part of town, have to sit in the outside metro seat to avoid a creeper grope attack, putting up with random gropes, needing to have friends to run with to literally prevent rape...
and how I can't imagine being degraded by people who literally see women as they do porn.

How do I feel about sexually aggressive gay men? I quickly "sigh" when any male attention turns into the hard-press low-chance-but-always-trolling mansexcall, but it's not effecting me at work, is not followed by hostility, and I'm not physically threatened.

My selfish angle is...I'm tired of being distracted by sex. I'm in a relationship without arrangements, and while I want to feel...relevant and alive, I don't want to waste my energies or be distracted. Sure, I'm wired so I'd like to have sex with pretty much everyone I see who is remotely in shape, and that seems to be deeply ingrained. At the same time, I don't want to miss out on people's other benefits, pulled in directions I won't go in, or have someone else "sigh" because they can tell where I just drifted when they'd like to share their other talents.

Comments

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Well you are sexah Kim...it's a curse :D

No, you're 100% right, and females in the workplace are slaughtered for looking bad while men look like sacks of potatoes and that's somehow unquestioned. If you're too sexy in the office it's frowned on, but so too is being too dowdy.

Being bi I may objectify men and women, but it's still something I'd like to move past. Not to the point of that side of me changing, but something where I can separate TPOH from work?

[wantedonvoyage.livejournal.com]

I want to wake up in the world where guys are subjected to this expectation in the workplace, just once. I am surrounded by pot bellies in polyester polo shirts.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

And those polyester potbellies make the decisions about what health care to offer...

[wantedonvoyage.livejournal.com]

Yup... well my particular ones don't, but ... yup.