Ode to Margaret Cho

I’ve always liked comedian Margaret Cho. I saw her perform in Fairfield, CT, a few years ago. After reading the interview by Danielle Bacher, Margaret Cho Gets Deep About Past Sexual Abuse: 'All I Have Is Ownership of My Own Suffering,’ for Billboard, I like her even more.

Jessica Chou from Billboard

There is such an honesty in her art and performance. She is someone who it seems is truly being real and being herself. She has found a way to express herself through different media—comedy, song and prose—as she needs them.

I see her as a role model: she says what she thinks and feels and experiences without a filter and then finds ways to express and heal through her art.

This piece is inspired by hearing Cho talk about her childhood abuse. She helps me feel like I don’t have to censor myself so much. She makes me feel empowered to express what’s real.

Rope

The rope he used to tie

my thin white arms

behind my back.

He leads me into small cold bedroom,

pushes me down onto dirty sheets—

ones his mother gave him with little yellow flowers.

It’s dark except for slants of light

crossing in from living room.

I’m on my stomach,

choking on flying feather balls.

Tears are soaking the pillow.

He ties my ankles together;   

it hurts, it cuts into my skin.

He opens the left side door of his closet

takes out his brown leather belt

it was hanging there

he’s making sniffling sounds

I can smell his Marlboro

I am crying and I am saying

do it do it do it whatever it takes

whip me whip me

the words pathetic, clichéd,

but that is what I said

he is he is he is he is he is he is whipping me  

honestly and it makes this slapping sound

this cutting feeling on my back

on my buttocks

I didn’t know he’d do it

so hard and he keeps it on going

now I’m saying      

please stop I love you oh god oh please oh stop  you’re high you don’t know when to stop

then just like that I hear the belt’s buckle

clink on the tile floor and he walks

out of the room and I smell his cigarette

smoke again.  I peer back over my shoulder

but it’s too dark to see the welts

then there he is his face

pink red and his blonde hair spiky

he stares at me with cold marble eyes

takes his belt off, pants off

I’m crying and he comes

over to me and fucks

me from behind

while I’m crying lying there

This is what rape feels like.  

Her Body is Not Your Business

It’s understandable why someone might actually be concerned for another human being’s health when they see someone extremely skinny or obese.

But regardless if a person falls into either of these categories, there’s never an excuse to chastise them or make rude comments.

We’re extremely familiar with fat-shaming, but there’s also skinny-shaming, as model Genevieve Barker would have us be aware of.

It’s never okay to say “Eat a burger” or call someone a derogatory name based on their body size.

Genevieve also argued against the notion that skinny-shaming is considered "empowering," since those that do so believe they are "speaking out for 'real women.'" 

"I am thin, I am a real woman!" she added.

Keep in mind that you don’t know if that person you are looking at does have an eating disorder or not. An eating disorder can affect any body, any age, any size, any gender.

If they do have an eating problem, then being ridiculed about their body may in fact trigger or worsen that issue.

The best thing to do when you see someone that you feel the urge to say something to about their size is ask yourself if it’s your place.

If it’s a friend or family member whom you are concerned about, you’re certainly not going to make snide remarks, you’re going to show concern and love.

If it’s a photo you saw on Instagram, it’s probably best to follow the age-old adage: If you don’t have anything nice to say…

Ditch the Corsets, Ladies!

My waist doesn’t want or need to be trained.

But all the celebs are doing it!

There have been lots of reports urging people not to practice this “fitness hack,” which involves “wearing a corset-like device for hours at a time to compress your core, which will supposedly decrease the size of your waist permanently over time.”

I’m no doctor, but do you really need to be one to say, ugh?

I mean, do we really want to encourage women to  head back to the Victorian era?

In a time when every other essay you read celebrates positive body image, how can celebrities seriously be endorsing such a barbaric practice meant to forcefully change one’s body shape?

But endorse them they do.

I don’t even care if not all the health risks are true; how can anyone want to encourage women to alter their normal body shape?

 We are an anti-corset generation!

We are all about empowerment and being who we are and being proud!

Or is all this positive body-image talk just a bunch of bull slung by marketing teams?

We get to decide.

Step one: ditch the corsets, ladies, and breathe.

Clothes that Send a Message

Blac Chyna and Amber Rose wore some attention-getting outfits to the 2015 MTV Music Video Awards.

Brittany DeShields and Iris Barbee Bonner of These Pink Lips are the designers of the clothes.

The body-hugging outfits are adorned with insults that women receive, like stripper, slut, whore, and hoe.

I like the idea of oppressed people taking back words used against them and finding new and improved meaning.

Do you think these loud and in-your-face expressions on clothes can have a positive effect on language and power?

Or do you think the messages might have an opposite effect and just make some people think it’s OK to continue to use these words against others?

Miley Cyrus, Yawn, Hosts the MTV Video Awards

Is it just me? Or is scandalous just so last year?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, but Miley Cyrus and her MTV Video Awards outfits were kind of boring.

It was almost like if someone had to imagine what Cyrus would wear before the event, these were the outfits they would laughingly suggest.

For someone who likes to push the envelope and surprise and shock, wouldn’t it have been more shocking to actually wear clothes with, you know, material?

Or maybe I’m just getting old.

But it feels like Cyrus is actually becoming a parody of herself.

Or maybe shocking is just so overdone that she would have actually had to come out naked to make me say, oh, that’s a little different…