discussion on where my ideas on the importance of art as a voice for disenfranchised stem from
Windy: good morning!
so! if you had funding, effort, skilled labor, etc... what kind of project would you want to do right now?
Fin: good morning! uhm, let's see-- I don't have a lot of free floating ideas atm so I'd think of areas I wanted to address and think of ideas to apply to those areas...
Windy: like...? ;D
Fin: I think I'd want to come up with a project to work with teens who are marginalised, maybe queer/trans
Windy: interesting! that does make one wonder what your teenage years were like... you were more on the Pennsyltucky side of the state? you did tell me some stories about abuse at the hands of a male relative (being clear that I'm not asking for your story... unless you want to share)
Fin: Pennsyltucky is usually seen as the middle, between Philly and Pittsburgh; I was geographically close to Philadelphia (Norristown if you look on a map is very near) but being a small satellite town, yes, it was ideologically more like Pennsyltucky.
Thanks, I appreciate that-- I'm so transparent about my story at this point, and have been for so long, that it rarely causes me issue to bring up: I was inappropriately touched by my grandfather from about 3-4ish until he died when I was 7, I was raped when I was 14 by a next door neighbour who was 21 at the time (we lived in a semi-attached house, he cut my window, then my clothing, while I slept), the next boy I dated after that I did so for a school year and a bit, and he often engaged in nonconsensual sex with me, regularly harming me during it, like cigarette burns.
Windy: yeah I had heard some of that. was that just tremendously bad luck? to be born into a place surrounded by predatory men? or (as you referenced earlier) that your self-expression made you a target?
Fin: I think some of it was age/time - I think consent issues have become more publicly talked about, I don't think the responses from counselors and the like that I got would be so likely to happen. (I attempted to tell several people, all women, in my life what I'd experienced and the responses were largely some play on 'blame', all uninterested in doing anything about it.)
Windy: yeah I remember those stories! worthless gatekeepers
Fin: I think some of it was geography - if those responses happened, it would be more likely in the kind of town I grew up in.
Windy mmm... I am fascinated by what causes people's moral circles of care to expand or contract... I think that is why I am asking
Fin: etc. I think there are a lot of factors that went into it, and perhaps one can attribute having so many factors to make it incrementally more likely to 'luck'.
Windy: luck just means we don't understand ^^
Fin grins. ah, then yes. a large part of it was luck.
Windy: yes, mala suerte =( do you think your desire to help (in this imaginary case where we are rich with resources and energy) marginalized LGBT teens is because (in part?) of your kid?
Fin: oh, I think it's me. but yes, my kid then plays into that: I think the way I parent them is because of me, too though-- I mean, that's usually how it is, but I think I'm very open about it. I never felt like the adults in my sphere gave me space to express myself, and I felt - and had it proved! - to me that it was dangerous for me to do so. I feel that my (lack of) a childhood is the reason I border on being obsessed with marginalised/oppressed/disenfranchised people being given time and space for their voices to be heard.
Windy: I sorta figure that folks typically have energy, focus, clarity etc after a transformative event that successfully--
sometimes just playing the ideas can make a channel. the last thing you wrote is powerful-- sometimes just knowing the reasons why we act can move us, a kind of resonance perhaps (I don't think everyone knows why they act each moment etc)
Fin: I think that I've always been aware to some degree that my voice was there for others because a) others wouldn't speak for me, and b) I couldn't speak for myself. I'm also aware that this is the genesis of my feeling like I'm not worth speaking up for, and why I continue to struggle with the ramifications of that.
Windy: the younger we are, the less we realize that we do have power-- just a musing thought. and, as you pointed out upthread... sometimes we don't! much easier to look at things from a position thirty years on and say 'well, you have this whole collection of good options, let's talk about...'
Fin nods. to have had someone point them out to me then!
so! if you had funding, effort, skilled labor, etc... what kind of project would you want to do right now?
Fin: good morning! uhm, let's see-- I don't have a lot of free floating ideas atm so I'd think of areas I wanted to address and think of ideas to apply to those areas...
Windy: like...? ;D
Fin: I think I'd want to come up with a project to work with teens who are marginalised, maybe queer/trans
Windy: interesting! that does make one wonder what your teenage years were like... you were more on the Pennsyltucky side of the state? you did tell me some stories about abuse at the hands of a male relative (being clear that I'm not asking for your story... unless you want to share)
Fin: Pennsyltucky is usually seen as the middle, between Philly and Pittsburgh; I was geographically close to Philadelphia (Norristown if you look on a map is very near) but being a small satellite town, yes, it was ideologically more like Pennsyltucky.
Thanks, I appreciate that-- I'm so transparent about my story at this point, and have been for so long, that it rarely causes me issue to bring up: I was inappropriately touched by my grandfather from about 3-4ish until he died when I was 7, I was raped when I was 14 by a next door neighbour who was 21 at the time (we lived in a semi-attached house, he cut my window, then my clothing, while I slept), the next boy I dated after that I did so for a school year and a bit, and he often engaged in nonconsensual sex with me, regularly harming me during it, like cigarette burns.
Windy: yeah I had heard some of that. was that just tremendously bad luck? to be born into a place surrounded by predatory men? or (as you referenced earlier) that your self-expression made you a target?
Fin: I think some of it was age/time - I think consent issues have become more publicly talked about, I don't think the responses from counselors and the like that I got would be so likely to happen. (I attempted to tell several people, all women, in my life what I'd experienced and the responses were largely some play on 'blame', all uninterested in doing anything about it.)
Windy: yeah I remember those stories! worthless gatekeepers
Fin: I think some of it was geography - if those responses happened, it would be more likely in the kind of town I grew up in.
Windy mmm... I am fascinated by what causes people's moral circles of care to expand or contract... I think that is why I am asking
Fin: etc. I think there are a lot of factors that went into it, and perhaps one can attribute having so many factors to make it incrementally more likely to 'luck'.
Windy: luck just means we don't understand ^^
Fin grins. ah, then yes. a large part of it was luck.
Windy: yes, mala suerte =( do you think your desire to help (in this imaginary case where we are rich with resources and energy) marginalized LGBT teens is because (in part?) of your kid?
Fin: oh, I think it's me. but yes, my kid then plays into that: I think the way I parent them is because of me, too though-- I mean, that's usually how it is, but I think I'm very open about it. I never felt like the adults in my sphere gave me space to express myself, and I felt - and had it proved! - to me that it was dangerous for me to do so. I feel that my (lack of) a childhood is the reason I border on being obsessed with marginalised/oppressed/disenfranchised people being given time and space for their voices to be heard.
Windy: I sorta figure that folks typically have energy, focus, clarity etc after a transformative event that successfully--
sometimes just playing the ideas can make a channel. the last thing you wrote is powerful-- sometimes just knowing the reasons why we act can move us, a kind of resonance perhaps (I don't think everyone knows why they act each moment etc)
Fin: I think that I've always been aware to some degree that my voice was there for others because a) others wouldn't speak for me, and b) I couldn't speak for myself. I'm also aware that this is the genesis of my feeling like I'm not worth speaking up for, and why I continue to struggle with the ramifications of that.
Windy: the younger we are, the less we realize that we do have power-- just a musing thought. and, as you pointed out upthread... sometimes we don't! much easier to look at things from a position thirty years on and say 'well, you have this whole collection of good options, let's talk about...'
Fin nods. to have had someone point them out to me then!