Child-Free 101

A few of my closest friends have accused me of being "hostile against parenthood" or that I must "hate children" because of my previous statements about choosing NOT to have kids. That's not the least bit true, actually: I like kids plenty, I have neices & nephews that I love to bits. But don't mistake me openly expressing my personal sentiments on parenthood itself for being the same thing as saying all parents are just mindless breeders who will never know the taste of a truly free life. I don't want to have kids, I realized a long time a go that I am just NOT "Mommy-Material" and this doesn't upset me one bit. I have taken medical precautions to ensure this for myself and I have no regrets about it AT ALL, and I never believed in that "Biological Clock" bullshit, either. 

Your Grandmother very likely made up the "Biological Clock" myth to guilt your Mother into having YOU, probably for no other reason than that's what was expected of her.

And PLEASE don't think that I'm trying to be a complete asshole here, as I have friends & relatives who very recently had their frist kids becuase it's something that they really honestly wanted more than anything else in the world: They are intelligent, kind-hearted people and they'll be awesome parents because of it. I wish MORE people that had kids were like that, but I know that at least half of them could give a shit. I also wish that more people were brave enough to really think about certain social & cultural norms and honestly say NO if they find something undesirable being pressured upon them: No one in the United States ABSOLUTELY HAS TO get married, there's no law that required anyone to marry if they don't honestly want to, but I still support the rights of any consenting adult couple (or even a group of consenting adults, for all I give a shit) to marry if that's what they really want.

If anything, I think that people who engage in certain activities & institutions (marriage, parenthood, enlistment, celibacy, etc...) because on some level they feel like they HAVE TO and not because they really WANT TO, those people sap more meaning and fulfillment out of it than anything else. I'm far more offended by women who relegate themselves to the life of the eternal haus-frau and become 100% reliant on their husbands because "well what else am I supposed to do?" than I'll ever be of two grown men that love each other and want to publicly express their love and comittment in the face of that last-bastion of shitty argmunets that most people call "tradition." When I was begining my military career, I met A LOT of young Soldiers that really honestly DID NOT WANT to join the Army, but did so because family and friends pressured them into it: Many of these young men and women came from military families themselves, so they basically relegated themselves to upholding a family legacy in a day/age/society/country where for the most part, no sane human being would sign away their entire young lives during a time of war for that reason alone. Many of this misguided young'uns didn't make it through Basic Training, the rest were drummed out during A.I.T.

"Tradition" is the fall-back of those who have NOTHING LEFT of real value or substance to contribute to the conversation. And just like religious and military contexts, this is especially true in a familial one.

"Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, hey Mom, Mom, Mom, Mommy, hey Mommy, Mommy..."

There's no shortage of "lists" on the Internet, these days EVERYBODY has something they'd like the public to know about and the cybersphere often seems like the perfect place to brain-dump: I've done this myself many times, usually by way of this very blog that YOU, good reader, have managed to find and continue reading (and for that, you have my sincere thanks.) So I'm going to be a total cliche of myself and make another goddamn list of things often uttered by the unknowing or willfully ignorant about choosing not to have kids. 

• "You don't have kids?" Is there ever any logical reason why, in our developed society amass with internet connectivity and large scale communication enterprises, this should ever surprise ANYONE?
• "Why not?" Because I don't fucking want to, what's it to you if I don't? Furthermore, would you be asking me this asinine question if I were a man?
• "It's your duty to continue your genetic line." I'm still waiting for someone to say this to a chick with Down's Syndrome, THAT ALONE should say something about how shallow and ignorant this "argument" really is.
• "Oh, but babies are so cute..." Google image search Harlequin Ichthyosis with the safe-search feature turned OFF. Go ahead, do it. I triple-dog-fucking DARE YOU, I hope you haven't eaten anything within the last half-hour or so. Even IF you can stomach the horrifying posibility of pushing such a monstrosity out of your own vagina, consider the possibility that even relatively normal "cute" babies don't stay cute forever. At right about 2 or 3 years, they tend to hit that phase of their young lives commonly known as "The Noisy Fucking Bastard That Never Stops POOPING" years.
• "You'll change your mind someday..." People have been telling me this since I was 16, I would usually hear this from my elder relatives. I'm 33 now, I STILL don't have any kids, I STILL don't want any, and I STILL get this same tired-ass line from time to time: Some people never learn, especially if they're lapsed-Catholic alcoholics (you know who you are)
• "You're gonna die old and alone!" Have you ever been to a nursing home? Go ask some of the residents and staff there how often their kids or grand-kids visit them. Maybe a few of them might get sporadic visits from family members from time to time, but if EVERY old-person's family ACTUALLY took care of them in their old age, I can't help but wonder if nursing homes would even exist at all. People live, they get old, then they die: I think the best thing that anyone can do is be smart about their finances & start saving for their retirement A.S.A.P. As soon as you first ask yourself "should I start saving for retirement?" START SAVING FOR RETIREMENT!
• "You'll need someone to carry on your legacy." And what is that legacy, exactly? I'm not the C.E.O of a company or an award winning scientist, I'm just ME. I'm weird, rebellious, promiscuous, creatively disturbed, socially awkward, quick to anger, slightly paranoid and stubborn as fuck: If I spawned a smaller, louder, hormone-driven version of MYSELF, I'm pretty sure one of us would kill the other in a Dragonball-Z style show-down.
• "Be fruitful and multiply" Riiiiight, because that's working out SO WELL in the Third World...
• "You're just afraid!" You're right, I'm mind-numbingly terrified of permanently disfiguring my lady-bits to the point that I'll run the risk of never being able to enjoy using them quite the same way ever again, not to mention the possibility of internal bleeding or someday dying from something called a Fistula (Yep, time for another Google image search! And don't you dare put that safe-search back on, ya pussy...) OR, more likely, the person that actually said this to me was just dying for me to knock his fucking teeth out from his ignorant, ugly fucking head.
• "Why do you hate children?" Why don't you ask the nieces & nephews that I hand-knit presents for last Christmas? I guarantee they'll just stare at you like the presumptious, jelly-headed moron that you probably are. Accusing me of "hating children" because I don't want to be a parent is like accusing me of "hating horses" because I don't own property large enough to have one: Between a kid and a horse, I'd rather have a horse. Horses are awesome.
• "But... you're a woman." Very astute observation, dipshit.
• "You'll change your mind when you hold one in your arms..." Someone at a family function (but not someone I'm actually related to) actually tried to hand me their baby once, they actually told me that BECAUSE I'm a woman I'll supposedly "figure it out very quickly." AW HELL NAW! I physically stepped back, tucked my hands into my back-pockets and proceeded to give this ignorant bitch the ass-chewing of her life in full view of EVERYONE IN THE FUCKING BUILDING. How I managed to survive a term in the United States military, at times, astounds me, because I don't handle people trying to force things on me very well. At all. I actually react VERY BADLY TO THIS, and though it wasn't my honest intent to make this woman feel bad for it's own sake, I wasn't exactly going to passively accept her sexist bullshit, either. My relatives were horrified, I was fucking infuriated, I never saw this woman again. I was later told that I scared her so badly she promptly pissed herself after leaving the room, the baby started crying, too: I feel bad for the baby, it didn't know any better. That, and the poor little fuck has an absolute moron for a Mom... The moral of the story: NO means NO, and if I have to repeat myself, you're going to regret it (and probably deserve it.)
• "Parenting can be very rewarding." So can playing the lottery, they're about on the same level in terms of input-to-result ratio in a lot of ways: I don't play lottery tickets, either.
• "You're missing out!" If I honestly WANT to treat myself to the experience of not sleeping for several consecutive days and having to constnatly keep an eye on someone who can't even take care of themselves or even speak a coherent sentence half the time..., I'll dig out my last good set of ACUs, steal the TARDIS, go to a place in Iraq called F.O.B. Warhorse in the year 2010 and basically step-by-step re-live the first half of my deployment there. Seriously, I would rather go back to war than be a parent: I REALLY don't want to go back to war, either.
• "But it's only natural..." It's only natural for some species to occasionally eat their own young, do you really want to have THAT conversation?
• "Well I LOVE MY CHILDREN!" So did John Wayne Gacy, NEXT...
• "Your life must be so empty..." Of course, I'm getting straight-A's in college and loving the ever-living piss out of my totally amazing husband for no good reason at all, really. I guess I've just been spending all of my time and effort getting the biggest academic bang from those G.I. Bill tax-payer-funded bucks, working very hard on sustaining a far-from-perfect but completely awesome marriage, volunteering my time and effort in publicly combatting the seemingly neverending plague of sexual assault/harassment and rape culture, recycling, NOT voting Republican, and finally just doing my damnedest to be a decent human being... for no reason at all -_-

I wanted to save the best/worst one for last, are you ready for this one? 

I once heard someone say that becoming a Mom was her life defining experience and that she deserved praise for not only procreating, but for coming to that realization. Look, as I've already said, I know people who ARE parents who are awesome folks and have awesome kids, and I'm happy for them all. I would never want to diminish their happiness or invalidate their experience, but nobody gets a fucking cookie because their uterus happens to work a few times. 7 billion "miracles" later, this should be obvious! If you're happy with yourself about being a Mom, then that's all well and good in it's own right, but it doesn't make you BETTER THAN a woman who ISN'T. Because what if she WANTS TO but CAN'T? What if she HAD ONE and her kid DIED? What if her kid grew up to be a peice of shit, despite her best efforts to set her/him straight? Are you somehow better than her because you have a self-defecating humunculus permanently latched onto your tit? Are you somehow morally superior to ME because I have a different set of goals in life than you did? 

If procreating is your greatest achievement in life, then your standards must be pretty fucking low.

But hey, if it's praise you want for fulfilling an every-day occurrence of biology... 

... Enjoy your "legacy", but I think I'll pass.

Military "Ownership" of Women

So THIS happened today...

Naturally, I HAD to respond...

Sexism within our military (and our society as a whole) will never dissipate if we don't start confronting it and calling it out.

RANT: Failure

When I was a teenager I wanted to be a stand-up comic, the sudden (and traumatic) realization that "stage-fright" is in fact a very real phenomenon killed that pretty quickly. At my mother's insistence, after High School I went to Maine College of Art instead of to a REAL college or university. It's a mistake I've been paying for for over a decade, soon to be remedied with my recent admission to the University of Arkansas. Art school was a fucking joke, nothing quite like paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for information that not only wouldn't help me land any stable work, but that I mostly already knew. I quit after a year, and while I certainly don't regret walking out on M.E.C.A. while waving the one-fingered-goodbye, I admit my reasoning at the time for doing so was greatly flawed. I spent the next 7+ years of my life scrubbing hotel toilets after obnoxious tourists because I took a family member's insane advice & didn't have the lady-balls to stand up for myself, because I was afraid. 

In 2009, having had enough of living at the mercies of tale-twisting hotel guests & shady-as-shit management, I enlisted in the United States Army: I needed a do-over, some serious changes in my life and it looked like a great way to make that happen. It turned out to be both a blessing AND a curse, I've made some amazing friends as well as some truly frightening enemies, I got to see a part of the world both oddly enchanting and downright horrifying to any civilized mind, and also I had the pleasure & privilege of falling madly in love with someone genuinely beautiful and unique, only to eventually lose him to my worst of weaknesses, fear. 

The last I had heard from him, he was hospitalized some time last year. I still don't know what for or how serious the circumstances, I haven't heard a peep since December & it scares me to think of what might have happened to him (I try not to.) 

By some definitions, I was a shitty Soldier to begin with: I was always lousy at PT even when I DID give it my all, and contrary to anything my former "leadership" might tell you, giving it my all was what actually injured my spine in such a way it made regular PT impossible for the rest of my career (I have X-Rays & MRI scans to prove it.) Though I was only ever ONCE late for a formation, I only ever bothered to show up so that I wouldn't be listed A.W.O.L. and then promptly tried to make myself scarce, after Iraq I grew to hate my squad-mates, my Company and even my entire Unit. My departure was just as memorable as my career, I left the Army in much the same way that I had served while in it: Just like in Iraq, with my pants down out of sheer defiance and savoring every second of it. 

Behold, my last day on Fort Huachuca (and in the Army.) 

Over the course of my 32 years of life on Earth, I have fucked up A LOT. 

I just recently enrolled in college for the first time in over 10 years, it's at a legitimate educational institution this time and I am TERRIFIED that I'm not going to make it. For starters, their student networking system is a logistical nightmare: I was probably the LEAST competent Signal Soldier in the entire history of the United States Army, and I could probably set up a more reliable/less complicated system than this. Next, my math scores are atrocious. I hate going out to eat because calculating a decent tip is a chore for me, I still do my best. College, ACTUAL college, is going to be painful and embarrassing as all fuck. Looking back, I don't know why I didn't outright refuse my Mother's "advice" & just go anywhere BUT art school. 

There is one thing that scares me more than anything in Iraq ever did, and my life was legitimately in very real danger on more than one occasion (but THIS ONE especially so!) More than public speaking, more than mortars & rockets, more than heart-break or legitimately evil people posing as friends, there is only one thing in this existence that wills top me dead in my tracks almost every single time... 

I am terrified of failure, sometimes even to the point of not trying at all. 

The first (and only) time I failed a Record APFT, I had a panic attack. My first (and only) Article 15, I tried to kill myself & then tried like Hell to hide it: Soldiers & Veterans reading this, go ahead & scoff at me if you must. Statistically speaking, it could just as easily have been YOU trying to swallow an entire bottle of stolen pain-killers. The first (and only) audition I ever went to for a part in a local production, the laughed me right out of the building. For years no art gallery in all of Maine would showcase any of my work, even my own home town which only had ONE GALLERY IN IT at the time! By every common definition of the word, I fail at life.

So why do I keep trying? I'm also stubborn as all fuck and I don't particularly care about what others think of me, for the most part. Despite my crippling fear of not making it in the world, I feel bad if I don't do anything at all. Embarrassing as it is to admit, there are times I don't even try, I'm working on that. I hate it, but I'm doing what I can with what I have. 

I'm not dead, I'm not crazy (well, THAT's debatable. I'm "functional" I guess...) I can still walk on both legs, paint & write with my hands, speak & curse with my own foul fucking mouth and a whole range of other things that others who've been the same places I have can no longer do. Maybe instead of moping around about everything I've lost, I should be grateful for what I haven't. 

You can spare me the god-talk, your imaginary friend has nothing of real value or consequence to offer. 

I will keep trying to make my plans work out & come out ahead, because it's not only all that I can do, but at this point I no longer have a choice. 

Sink or swim.

Volunteer Moderating is FUN!

I've been a devout fan of a particular dating site known as OK Cupid for a good long while now. Someone I met in Iraq (yes, that same someone) introduced me to it not long after we first met. It's not like Facebook or Match.com, it's actually daily comprehensive, the results you get are almost a direct result of the "effort" you put into your profile. Pictures, paragraphs, interests and thousands upon thousands of humbling, hilarious & downright bizarre questions you can answer to better make your best "match" on the site.

And if you've been a good boy/girl for long enough, you MIGHT BE selected to be an anonymous "moderator" for  site content. 

Sound strange? I guess, rather than pay flesh & blood humans to scour the site looking for pictures of penises or Ryan Gosling, they leave flagged pictures and profiles to be whooshed into a cue for moderators to comment & vote on. OK Cupid's site has rules about what kind of photos can be posted and what can't, and every so often some people don't pay attention. On occasion, neither do the "anonymous" moderators. 

Sometimes, the results are fucking hilarious: 

I'd date Optimus Prime, but I wouldn't want to have sex with him.

Turns out it was a fake profile, but still... Is this Magicarp's hipster daughter?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of legalizing & regulating consensual sex-work, but wouldn't RedTube be a better place to go for something like this? Besides, how do I know this isn't false advertising? Are you SURE you're not a cop? Because if you say you're NOT, then I don't have to do anything you say.

And THIS is why that whole "Friend-Zone" thing is bullshit: You are not entitled to another person's affections if they don't consent to your desires. Move on, get over her. Maybe the "non" sex worker has an available appointment slot, IDK.

I swear this isn't a joke, someone ACTUALLY used this for their profile picture. WAIT, it gets better...

Sometimes people will photoshop their faces onto the bodies of other people/animals/machine, which is technically not allowed. Photos taken with filters with SOME modifications are one thing, but something about this photo set off my gaydar in a bit of a Silence Of the Lambs kind of way.

You caught it alright, caught the BAN-HAMMER!

Every so often, someone finds a profile that exists JUST to advertise really weird things to people, which is also not allowed. 

Then there are moderators who don't pay attention to what they've flagged. In this case, the picture marked Not The User actually DOES feature the user in a very... INTERESTING situation.

Fucking hipsters...

OH WAIT, now it's getting interesting!

...

If you're squeamish you might not want to keep scrolling (NSFW)

...

This guy is actually a repeat offender. Really, WHY?

I just don't get why guys post dick-pics on otherwise public dating sites. What are they thinking? Do they really honestly think "I'mma show my dick to strangers on the Internet, because THAT'LL get bitches to talk to me! LMAO TURN UP!!" If THAT is your honest strategy, or if you just have THAT MUCH free time on your hands, you fail at life & trying to attract the affections of someone just as shallow and insecure as YOU OBVIOUSLY ARE should be the least of your immediate concerns. 

An Extreme Case

"Feminist" is a tricky word to solidly define, but the general idea applies to one who would strive to see women regarded fairly and equally in all aspects of society. I can see why, even at the most basic of levels, this idea makes conservative skin begin to crawl. But it's my general impression these days that even among my fellow liberals that the term sounds pretty dicey to the mind. No one in their right mind wants to look like, sound like but especially BE a misogynist (arguably, this is one of the oldest and most deeply ingrained prejudices in human culture, it's going to take a lot of hard work to fight it out of existence) but very recently I came across one of the rare individuals whom I believe betrays the title outright.

No self respecting feminist likes the stereotype of the "Man-Hating Feminazi" but as with many cultural stereotypes, they come from SOMEWHERE. Ridiculous as they are, there are a few people out there (not specifically women, as I have had interactions with only a few men who might agree to these terms) who take ANY IDEA to the farthest possible reaches of absurdity and keep reaching out further. As with any idea, religious or otherwise, Feminism has historically been no exception to this unfortunate trend.

I believe I have found one such individual who fits the description of an extremist almost perfectly.

I'm not going to lie about it, I was drinking while filming my little "critique"

I say and do a lot of weird shit, I certainly don't expect people to agree with it and I would hope that if someone DOES disagree they can feel comfortable stating as such, so long as they clearly state their reasons and provide evidence for their claims. I'm completely fine with people questioning me, so long as they do so for good reasons (and I draw a line at threats & Ad Hominem, though I admit sadly having stooped to AH at the end of this video. I'll do my dam nest to avoid it in future content.)

I'm not joking, I think the entire premise of this piece is absolute, convoluted and speculative horse-shit, with little or no substantial evidence with which to give this particular individual's opinions any actual ground on which to stand. And ordinarily I wouldn't have bothered to acknowledge this beyond a chuckle, however OMG LOOK AT SOME OF THE FUCKING COMMENTS!!!

Wow, why would any sane/rational person ever lend credence to someone who admits to not living in the real world and/or practically being diagnosable as insane? Mentally is is not the same as being insane, mind you.

Really? THAT'S your standard of evidence? That 'every hetero female's "first time" is painful' ergo it's rape? Um, well, to be honest MINE wasn't really all that painful at all. I've had vaccinations that have hurt more than being penetrated. And if it hurts THAT MUCH, that's a sign that something else is probably wrong and medical intervention might be imminent.

THIS is why everyone's ideas/opinions DON'T deserve blind nods of "respect" because while certainly, people have the RIGHT TO their ideas (however bat-shit fucking loco they may be) the ideas themselves are not above criticism and scrutiny.

But I encourage my readers and friends to have a look and decide for themselves, Yes, I've been quite rude, but at this point I don't care: If I HAVE TO be able to stand to criticism and questioning of my ideas, then why shouldn't I apply that to anyone else's ideas?

You're a Very Bad Person

I've already written a piece covering my position on some aspects of Army-Wife Culture and why I find a good lot of it fucking abhorrent, and then yesterday I happened across a particularly shiny little polished-turd that made my jaw drop. I found this Print-Screen/Copy/New-Document/Edit-Paste monstrosity via the Overly Sensitive Military Wives Facebook Page, of which I've been a devout fan of for quite a while. No, seriously, this is un-frikkin-believable...

Oh, your precious HUSBAND is offended by women being in the military, is he? Maybe he shouldn't be an Officer anymore, then! 

No, you don't deserve any more "pats on the back" because the only reason that you agree with your undeserving husband's point of view would either be because you are inexperienced and ignorant  of what the lives of military women are like, or possibly he verbally/emotionally/physically beat it into you. Really, like military MEN don't pack on a shit-ton of weight for seemingly no reason? Aside from this entitled parasite's complete dismissal of male service-members' who also steal credit for false accomplishments (I actually DID go to Combat, BTW: In two wars with no definable "front lines" whatsoever, combat finds YOU whether you want it or not) yet again she seems to think that a spouse serves a role in their service-members' actual career: NEWS FLASH, unless you picked up an M-16 and got on the plane WITH THEM, no the fuck you don't!

After 22 years of this person supposedly being an Officer in the American Armed Forces (and no, lady, Post Security doesn't count) HE really should know better. In all honesty, our military has seen administrative, tactical/strategic, policy change out-the-ass over the last two decades and you honestly mean to tell ME that he's either too full of himself, too stubborn, too stupid or (possibly after that long) too fucking senile to recognize and comprehend that while the military may not WANT it's female service-members but that they do in fact NEED THEM? 

Every Officer has SOMEONE supervising them and governing over their actions, I can't help but wonder how they would feel if the entirety of America knew what a misogynistic sack of crap they have representing them...

I HAVE been to Combat, I HAVE seen some pretty horrible shit when I was in Iraq, I HAVE come home with some fucking problems, and yet despite all of the experiences I've seen and survived (for good or ill) I wouldn't trade ONE MEAGER SECOND of it for the life of a bottom-feeding Dependapotimus whom, rather than get off the couch, go out into the real world & actually doing the shit yourself, settle for little more than the occasional "pat on the back" from a domineering over-lording dictator of a husband who demeans his own fellow Soldiers: Regardless of the organs they were born with, he wears the same flag and uniform as THEY DO, and if he's "offended" by the idea of serving with women, then it's time for him to take it off and hang it up. I DO NOT want someone who thinks of me as an inferior being in charge of me in a combat situation, I would sooner shove someone like that in front of me once the bullets start flying.

You don't deserve a "pat on the back" for being a misogynistic parasitic Haus-Frau, you deserve a cold-hard (proverbial) kick-in-the-teeth and an ice-bucket wake-up.

And don't hand me that "women can't be misogynists" bullshit, Case-In-Point: Sarah fucking Palin. You have no idea how truly far-reaching the consequences of your husband's hatefulness and Vaginaphobia can go, do you? Did you ever think for but a moment that posting his bigotry and endorsing it publicly on the internet, with your name attached, couldn't possibly reach the eyes and ears of whoever his unfortunate superiors are? Were you completely fucking oblivious to the SENATE HEARINGS concerning the plague of violence against women in our military that out-dated mind-sets like his contribute to? Did you REALLY THINK that female Soldiers and Veterans weren't going to be royally pissed about your misguided statement categorizing us as little more than lazy brass-grabbing sluts in uniform? IS THE CONCEPT OF CONSEQUENCE COMPLETELY LOST UPON YOU?

What the flying fuck would you really know about military women anyway? The last thing you "served" was probably a sandwich to that undeserving fucktard you're married to. Well good for you, precious, as long as you insist on vicariously living your life according to someone else's deluded opinions, that's all you'll ever amount to in life: Another Bragg-Bagger Dependa who's too chicken-shit to actually take any real steps to experience her own life, but instead whines and squeals from inside the belly of whatever unfortunate host you decided to latch your hideous parasitic-self onto and expect us to give you a "pat on the back" for it.

If you're still reading this, granted that you can read at all, then I hope you understand by now EXACTLY how wrong your situation really is.

Yes I curse like a Marine, my Dad was one, deal with it. I'm a grown-up who uses adult language, I "defended" my right to Free-Speech and I'm GOING to use it as I see fit: Women like you give women like you an even worse reputation than already previously sunken down to, but for YOU especially...

Fuck you right in the eye with a burning snake-turd.

Army Wives

On many of my past ranting sprees about life as a female Soldier, one thing I catch a legitimate amount of flak for talking badly about is the "Real Army Wives" stereotype: Because in at least half of the cases I've PERSONALLY witnessed & dealt with, it's completely true. Now to be fair I'm perfectly well aware that, as with ANY stereotype, there are going to be a large group of people that the shoe won't fit. For the rest of this post, however, I'm going to be specifically addressing the ones that the beer-stained pink Crocs DO fit and why they make life miserable for other military spouses and service-members alike.

There's an unflattering term for this kind of spouse, the Dependapotamus:

Not the kind of wife who tries desperately to manage the house and family while you're away, but the kind who desperately tries to vag-cram her way into EVERYONE ELSE'S as fast as possible before you get home. Not the kind of wife who tries to be your rock of support when your PTSD starts controlling and destroying your life, but the second you start having issues she divorces you and takes half your deployment pay with her. I'd like to be able to honestly say that these are few and far between, but they're just not. I think there might be a reason for this, though, just like the military life itself creates a culture swarmed with it's own horrifying problems: The atmosphere that many military spouses, male and female alike, have to live in is creating a culture of trying to pull "Silent Rank" and ridiculous entitlement complexes. 

Many of us Veterans recall the story of the famous FRG Meeting held by an officer, the specifics of the story vary greatly by there person telling it, of course (Fort Bragg, Fort Gordon, Fort Huachuca, Rammstein, etc..) but the basic story is something like THIS: An officer orders a group of Army Wives to form up by rank, they shuffle around each other like a herd of angry cats and just before they start tearing each-other's hair out the officer screams at them to STOP! "You don't have any rank!"

This may sound mean-spirited, and the story itself is likely exactly that, but unless you're enlisted/commissioned yourself, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY RANK. Struggles at home while your spouse is deployed are nothing to look down your nose at and trust me, I understand that! My Dad was in the Marine Corps until I was 8 years old, I saw what time away for many many years can do to a family. My own husband had shit he had to put up with both while I was deployed and when I got home, and I'm all the more grateful for his support now that I'm out of the Army. BUT...

Military Spouses have ZERO SAY in Military Procedure or Policy.

When our government FINALLY lifted the ban on female Soldiers in "combat roles" (not that we haven't always been there anyway) one common argument against letting women serve as grunts & gun-bunnies was that the wives of the men object to having to deploy with other women: Get the fuck over it! Do you think MY HUSBAND had issues with me being surrounded by males while halfway across the planet? Of course he did! But did any of his complaints or concerns mean jack and/or shit to my Unit or to the Army at all? NOPE. So what makes YOUR INSECURITIES so special that I have to put my career on hold because you don't trust your spouse? YOUR marital problems are not MY hindrance, they are exactly that: YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM.

When I was deployed I was told I had to keep my voice down while a squad-mate was on the phone with his wife because she'd flip out at him if she so much as heard me speak. Bitch, I don't want to be here any more than HE DOES! But I still have a job to do, so you can stuff your sexist bull-shit and get the fuck out of my way! Unless your spouse is wearing the same uniform that I once did, carrying the same rifle that I once did, dodging the same bullets and rockets that I once did, she's not qualified to lick the filth from my government issued boots if she thinks she can try to tell me that I can't speak to my squad-mates from the other end of the Globe just because I so happen to be assigned to the same unit as her husband.

Unless you are enlisted/commissioned yourself, you ARE a civilian. PERIOD.

In a conversation I had with a friend many years ago, who is herself a military spouse who also has concerns about life as such, she once made the suggestion that perhaps female service-members should have to meet-and-greet with the wives of the Soldiers/Marines/Etc that they'll be deploying with as a way of re-assuring them. While membership isn't mandatory in most cases, there's already a kind of organization that does that: The FRG (stands for Family Readiness Group) and they're supposed to include all service-members' families who choose to join. However in my friend's case, her husband is a Reservist and they get next to zero actual support because of it, even though Reserves and National Guard deploy more frequently than Active Duty personnel do.

My issue with her suggestion is that, and at the time I don't think she thought of it that way, it implies that I have to preemptively apologize for being in the same unit as their husbands and that if THEY did something that jeopardized their own marriages, it would somehow be MY FAULT even if they didn't do it with me. I'm not going to apologize to anyone for having a vagina or just reporting in for duty, again, someone else's insecurity is not my fault nor my problem. I'm going to continue to do my job and if you and your wife doesn't like the fact that I'm there, too fucking bad: When I signed up for the Army, I didn't get to pick what unit I'd be assigned to or who my squad-mates would be, the Army decided that FOR ME and, just like you and your wife, I had to be a grown-up and deal with it.

My other problem with this suggestion was that it was solely one-sided: Not one of the male Soldiers in my unit made any effort to greet my husband and re-assure him that none of them were going to try and rape me (and one of those, who was himself married at the time, DID TRY & FAILED) but it implies that female service-members somehow bare that burden alone. At this point in time I'd like to point out that not once had I nor my husband been invited to a single FRG function when I was in the Army, and I would never have gone because I genuinely hated the people I had to report to and still want nothing to do with them.

I'm so glad that I have reasonable and smart friends, they help me see things objectively: Once I (much more politely and calmly) explained these quandaries to her, I think she saw the flaws in the idea and dismissed it immediately. 

I didn't sign up to serve my buddies' wives or girlfriends, or in some cases husbands or boyfriends. And on that note, just to serve as a reminder, women in America's armed forces are vastly out-numbered by men so singling out female spouses is not intentional discrimination, merely a matter of numbers. I wore the flag of the United States of America on my right shoulder, not a picture of your lady-friend. Conversely, since she's a civilian and a Soldier isn't, she is under no obligation to salute THEM and they are under no obligation to salute HER.

In case you need a (not very polite) diagram...

Proper respect for rank is one of those pivotal ideas that many credit for keeping a functioning military unit in good order. Rank, be it among enlisted or officers, determines (albeit superficially) a service-member's position in the leadership scale: A Sergeant outranks a Specialist, Specialist outranks a Private, a Private and a 2nd Lieutenant are only on the same level intellectually but at least the Private knows they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Without rank to tell them apart, you'd have a bunch of people with weapons all yelling at each-other. "Silent Rank" as many military spouses call their station in life, are "Silent" because they don't fucking exist. I don't care if it hurts your feelings, unless you actually stood front-and-center at your own husband's Article 15 hearing right next to him, "Silent Rank" is just a catch-phrase put on t-shirts at Clothing & Sales so you'll buy them: Nothing more.

Now please don't misunderstand me, running a house-hold practically by yourself is no joke. Seeing a person who used to be the man you loved transform into an anger-panicked wreck because of PTSD is also nothing to be taken lightly. There are times I look back at how John and I somehow managed to survive with the ass-load of issues that I had to wrestle with when I go home from Iraq, were it not for some serious effort and communication emphasis I don't know where we'd be right now. Your suffering and struggle, however, does not trump ACTUAL rank or time-in-service.

Being married to a service-member is not the same as actually doing a job, if it WERE you'd be getting up at the ass-crack of dawn and going to PT Formation with the rest of the Unit.

As previously mentioned, I'm not in the Army anymore. I actually ETSed in the summer of this year. I wanted to stay in, I had every intention of re-enlisting. Then after an unexpected spinal injury and all the nonsense that followed just trying to find a competent doctor, I had a good long hard think about what four more years of being told that I'm a lesser being than the guy next to me would really do for me: I did my time, played in the sand-box with the big-kids, I'm done.

Rank does have it's privileges, but only if it's YOURS.

Shout-out to Overly Sensitive Military Wives fan-page, Represent.

Vae Victis

I have a "War Story" that I need to tell, it's long and ugly but I need people to hear me. I've alluded to this particular incident in some previous blog posts, but I just recently wrapped up making a recording that goes into more explicit detail. It's almost 20 minutes long but I just wasn't able to edit some stuff out, even for time (I'm still using the same piece of shit laptop that I've had since AIT in Ft Gordon, I want to replace it with a tablet but I haven't found one that really works out for me yet.) 

12-AUG-2013 EDIT: If you can't get the above video to work, try it HERE.

I'm so royally fucking DONE choking on this ordeal, time for SOMEONE ELSE (preferably those responsible) to start losing some sleep and facing themselves for a change. 

This was a defining experience for me, this whole situation changed the way I think about everything: People, the law, religion, sexuality and relationships ... EVERYTHING. Among many years of experiences and situations, especially while I was deployed, THIS was the ultimate moment where I realized that not only were people going to look for any reason they could think of to justify their own bad behavior, but that I was in fact an atheist. 

When "doing what's right" involves getting people hurt, especially in such an extreme capacity, it ceases to be what's right: At that moment, it becomes justified and rationalized evil. And yes, I purposely excluded the part about trying to kill myself by stealing my roommate's medication and trying to OD with it. THAT, for some reason, upsets me more than the incident itself.

I'd be quite grateful indeed if this could acquire massive re-posts, tweets & re-tweets, shares, pins and such: This shit has got to stop.

Thank you, I really do appreciate your help.

Chains are Broken

As of the 4th of this month, I am no longer in the Army. Honorably Discharged, GI Bill bennies and a month-and-a-half of paid vacation later I am finally free to be my bad self. I'd like to take a moment to thank all of the good people I met along the way who were there for me when I needed them, I wouldn't have made it without you guys: Good Soldiers and outstanding leaders are indeed too few and too far between. 

Ian, you are the Silent Bob to my Jay: I'm alive because of you. 

So what are my plans? Since the 18th of June my husband and I have been driving our 1996 Dodge Ram across the country from Arizona to Maine and various points in between. I've posted a couple of 'highlights' on YouTube for people to check out, including our truck hitting it's 200K Mile mark on the odometer. It may not sound like a huge deal to many of you, but road-tripping across the United States is no small feat. It's not as easy as getting in your vehicle and driving off, but so far it's been worth it. 

There will be more blog posts to come, I'm in the process of assembling my application to the University of Arkansas in Spring of 2014 and this is more complicated than I thought it would be. I haven't applied for college in over 10 years, I have no idea what I'm doing. Fortunately for me, the Assistant Dean of Admissions pointed me in the right direction and now I know what I have to do, once everything is together and submitted I'll be consciously trying really damn hard NOT to actually cross my fingers. 

There will be more later, so stay tuned. 

Want vs Need: Sex

I'm hosting a small dinner party at my place tonight, I'm not expecting anyone to actually show up. The guests are both co-workers of mine, I told them they could bring their significant others' with them. I'm making a huge helping of Vegetable Curry for the main meal, I've even got one of those yuppie cutting-boards with expensive fruit and cheese on it. I picked up a 6-pack of Newcastle Brown Ale, some apple juice and I'm rearin' to go.

I have a sneaking suspicion that one of these co-workers is interested in me sexually, which I'm perfectly okay with (I just hope my husband is, too)

What? Married couples can't have sex with other people from time to time? Even with the other-half being fully aware and approving of the others choice? Psh! Fuck that! it sounds boring as shit anyway! Telling me that I can only have intimate experiences with one person for the rest of my life is akin to trying to yank a burqa over my head, I consider societal-enforced sexual ownership exactly as such.

Nope, sorry but you're on your own (well, aside from whatever human-symbiote you spend your time and attention on.) If you want to chain yourself to only one human being ever because you're too afraid of what people might say about you then that's your problem. I'm not a monogamous person and my husband is okay with this, we have something we call an "Arrangement" which consists of potential partner criteria and strict ground rules.

Swinging and Polyamory are not the same as Cheating: The only moral difference between Swinging and Cheating is Lying.

Our marriage isn't perfect, we have tiffs and spats about dumb stuff all the time just like so-called "normal" couples do. But one distinct difference in our disagreements is there's no suspicion or accusation of infidelity: We both know and have met the other's partner or interest. Make no mistake though, there is absolutely NO leaving the house late at night and meeting someone in secret at a hotel-room, nor are there any "I have to work late" days where the only 'work' being done requires a towel afterward. No secrets and no lies, there's no room for those in ANY marriage no matter how you roll.

Monogamy is not the established social norm for human relationships and there is no shortage of historical and anthropological evidence to support this. At this time I'd also like to point out that in the Bible there are many examples of prophets and leaders with multiple wives and concubines, even fucking their female slaves and relatives. I'm thoroughly aware of the fact that the Bible isn't very good evidence for anything at all, I'm just pointing out that it's in there.

Most other wives I've known would flip-shit if they caught their hubby staring at another woman, and many husbands would be endlessly anxious over the thought of their wife in close proximity to another more desirable male specimen. I don't understand this reaction: It's well established that human beings find other human beings attractive, what's the harm in just looking? Same goes for masturbating to porn, absolutely no-one is being unfaithful because you're not fucking your monitor.

At least, I hope you aren't. Did you even stop to think about the monitor's feelings, you dick?

Look, people have needs. Among those is the need for human contact of a physical level from time to time, just because you enjoy your partner's company doesn't mean that you own it. A wedding ring isn't necessarily a 'Ball n' Chain' as they used to say, it's just a symbol of an intimate agreement. If the thought of your partner screwing someone else fills you with rage I get it, but that's obviously YOUR issue and clearly not MINE. I will not be told that I "can't handle a real marriage" because I'm honest with myself and with the one human being who matters most to me in the whole world.

And anyone who says that open relationships are just an excuse to cheat is obviously missing the point: The way I see it, if you can't handle the thought of people doing things very differently from you then maybe you aren't ready to take on a relationship PERIOD (see also the above stated obvious difference between Non-Monogamy and Infidelity, it's pretty cut and dry.) Grown adults with have feelings and desires that may or may not be in line with what others around them like for themselves, as long as no one is being harmed or abused there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. There is no ONE "Special Someone" in the span of your lifetime, no one only loves once and then puts away the condoms for good. Eventually you meet someone else and pull out the Trojans again, the cycle repeats over many years.

You cannot own a PERSON, regardless of their relationship to you, therefore you cannot expect to own their FEELINGS in any capacity.

Polyamory, Swinging and other variants of Non-Monogamous relationships clearly aren't for everyone and that's okay. Were it not for legal and tax issues as they currently stand I could probably formulate an argument in favor of Polygamy, regardless of religion or lack thereof. No law-abiding grown adult is in any position to tell another law-abiding grown adult who they can love or how many of them at any given time.

In the time it took me to write up this article (with many pauses in between over the course of the night) my guests have since arrived, enjoyed their meals, watched Blazing Saddles and gone safely home. No one had sex with anyone, I wasn't expecting it to happen anyway, and I'm fine with it. I'm just glad that they enjoyed my special recipe for Vegetable Curry as well as the playful antics of my two cats.

I still think there's a possibility that one of them has a thing for me, but maybe now's just not the right time.