Wow. I Can’t Type.

whatever typing skills i had gained over 4 years of constant blogging fail me now, i cannot type anymore.  at all.  however, i still want to connect, and to say HI, and to report back on what i have seen and learned over the last year when i was away.  on my way out, i had been commenting, rather at length, about how and why our “movement” probably looks the way it looks, and acts the way it does.  the nuts leave.  i wanted to add something to that parting thought, which is that women are not meant to communicate this way — using words.  we just arent.  realizing this has been interesting for me, as a (formerly) prolific writer, because i still believe that getting the important stuff in writing, so we can access it both now and later is, well, important.  having our beliefs written out in a logical, unassailable form that is easily conveyed and understood by other people is important.  but it is just the beginning.

for example, i have had the great pleasure in the last year of encountering stray animals and “taking them in”.  bizarrely, i found myself sing-songing to them, meaning, i spoke to them, but not in any recognizable language, a bit like women have always sung to babies (and animals!) but not being a mother myself, i had never experienced this.  this “baby talk” is so demeaned and devalued in this culture, and it is also misused (in het relationships, between partners — blech) that it was humiliating to me to realize that i was doing it.  but the more i sat with it, the more i understood it.  i now believe that womens voices can be used for so much more than just speaking — we communicate through sound when we want to, but the way we connect is non-sensical.  it is jibberish, and yet something is conveyed — a thought, perhaps, or a feeling, or just a way of filling the space between us, our sounds (and our silences!) matter.  i now believe that women, and animals, are largely nonverbal, and that this is the way its always been and is much more natural to us than using language, which came later.  sonia johnson explores this in her books, unsurprisingly.  nothing new under the sun.  i get that this may sound bizarre to those who have never experienced it (and even to some who have).

and to take this a bit further, *if* it is true that women are largely or naturally nonverbal, like animals are, then quite a lot of mensworld begins to make sense.  i immediately think of “pick up artists” and how they have been training each other for years how to capitalize on this — women say NO to men, and to PIV in hundreds of (nonverbal) ways, but to the PUA, unless a woman shouts NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (or kills him in self defense) none of our NOs matter.  we are not communicating NO to them on their terms, using words, so the many ways we *are* communicating it do not matter.  they have free reign to rape us, and if it comes down to it, law enforcement will probably agree with them — that our nonverbal NOs were not communicative, or not sufficiently communicative.  of course, men rape women anyway, even when we do say NO (and women are also “socialized” to be coy mute, so theres that).  but there is something here worth parsing, i think, having to do with communication, versus language.

and the bottom line might be, it is better to just stay away from men completely, if they do not respect/accept our “language” and the many ways women speak/communicate which do not follow mens rules.  and the evidence suggests that indeed men do not respect/accept it.  also, we can never win with them, which is another great reason to stay away (see scat, and michael stipe — men have long been recognized and allowed to communicate nonverbally, using the voice as an instrument, but women have not).

i would also like to report (again!) that i have experienced “womens land” over the last year, and that it is quite unlike anything else on earth.  women who have been doing this for decades (and longer) already know this of course and i do not wish to demean their experience and contributions to our collective knowledge by merely repeating it.  to hopefully expound on it, perhaps like the patriarchal toxic waste that is left behind in mensworld by men, i think that women using women-only space leaves some kind of energy behind that is palpable to those who come later.  when women-indentified-women use a shower, or toilet, or table, or room, they leave something behind, and it is palpable — the opposite of the gross and palpable evil that males leave in their wake, women-identified-women leave behind female identification, and female life.  the women that come after, if they are sensitive to such things — and probably even if they arent, this is partially what is so exciting about it — *feel* what has come before.  and it invites more of the same, and more of the same.

to wit, a “shower” on womens land feels different than any other shower — everything that is expected to, and does, happen in there with female bodies, minds and our entire reality while showering is normal, to be expected, and acceptable.  it is (we are) not tangential, tertiary, dysfunctional, or weird.  and this means something.  there is a reason we are not expected or allowed to ever experience this, or to know this.  our bodies, and everything that we do and everything we are, can be experienced as normal, expected, and accepted.  this is possible.  i know this now.  and i just wanted to document it here, along with everything else.  i believe that this is at least as important as anything else we have discussed here or anywhere, and i will therefore leave comments open for as long as women are actively discussing.  that is all.