June Cleaver : Femme Friend or Femme Foe

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by aishah

i wanted to share something about why i personally find comparisons to june cleaver and the 50s upsetting.

i know one of the things people often say when this stuff comes up is, "well, it's just what i like! i shouldn't get a history lesson shoved down my throat every time i talk about it!"

to me, that is a function of privilege. to be able to look at the 50s and just focus on a relationship dynamic or on the fact that people supposedly had better manners then or whatever is a huge privilege.

when i look at the 50s i think about boarding schools, sterilization, institutionalization, and lynching, for starters. the only way i can wrap my head around being able to look at the 50s and think june cleaver is awesome and people were nicer and you don't need a history lesson is because...well...your family didn't go through that. or if you were in the 50s now you wouldn't be going through that. maybe i am totally off base.

the ability to willfully ignore that history is a function of privilege. and that's why, when people start romanticizing the 50s, history is brought up. because some of us don't have the luxury of thinking of the 50s out of the context of some really traumatic history. and that history continues to shape current oppressive policies and systems.

okay. so i'm asking for a teaching moment.

what then do i do about my "lifestyle preference"? do i just shut up about it? i'm not being snarky. i honestly want to see options for altering my participation that do not deminish or negate the experiences of others. i dont personally romanticize the 50s. i've never referred to myself as June Cleaver. i dont give a rats ass about June Cleaver except as the representation of a cultural mindset that deserves to feel the full weight of its shame. if someone tried to make me into a 50s version of June Cleaver they would be deprived of my consent. the minute someone treats my service as an obligation my submission switch turns to OFF. i recognize my privilege. i GET TO say "no" and have it be ok. it's the luxury you say it is. i acknowledge it as such. i also acknowledge that i've stopped defending myself, my preferences, my "kink" and everything else that powers my panties, my heart, my ego and my general happiness. i have decades of shame, planted in childhood, around who i am and what i want. i'd like to think that i could take defending myself off the table when i'm having a discussion about an issue that touches on my identity performance. let me be clear, i do not feel attacked or disrespected. i do not feel disrespect toward anyone participating in this discussion. i feel curiosity and interest and a some pain at reading about the experiences i dont have to cope with and i feel a sincere desire to open up my head about the way i communicate and engage in respectful dialogue with people who do and dont share my privilege.

do you have the energy (and you dont have to) to help me out with ways of participating from an authentic and honest place without derailing this amazing conversation? i have no desire to come from a "i''m so misunderstood" place and i do not identify with June Cleaver as a role model or hold her up as one for others. June Cleaver aint Femme. June Cleaver is an illusion that contributed to both the active and passive marginalization OF A LOT OF PEOPLE, not all of them women. i dont have a single solitary cell in me that wants to be her. but i am a service oriented submissive and the language available to me, at a certain less aware time in my life, was the "50s lifestyle" label. i guess i fixated on the word "lifestyle" as the indication that there was something there that should imply illusution, namely because i dont have a lifestyle. i have a life. so anything i do in that LIFE that is mimicry of the 50s (or anything else i might use to fill in the blanks when describing myself) is MY version of myself, not someone elses. i'm not diminished by someone who might see me as less than themselves. that says something about them, not about me. but again, i'm coming from a place of privilege and i know that. i have the luxury of standing that ground with some attitude. but i would like to stand that ground as an individual rather than as a stereotype and i would like to back other people up when they stand their ground, whatever that ground may be. i would like to know ways of authentically and honestly participating in this discussion, coming from my own place, without having that place be perceived as romanticization of the 50s or a purposeful negation of the expression and experiences of others.

June Cleaver aint Femme. June Cleaver aint shit. this discussion, right here, THIS is Femme.