threeplusfire: (Vice)
[personal profile] threeplusfire
Bettie Page died tonight, far away from me in the neon glow of Los Angeles. Nine days ago she had a heart attack. She was 85. By tomorrow, they will be trimming their bangs and wearing hats with black veils, lighting candles before framed photographs and flowers. She fell ass backwards into notoriety and cultural relevance, in thousands of photographs and America's sexual double standards. I wonder if it balanced out the tragedy of before and after, if she saw girls on the street wearing their bangs cut short and wondered.

I've never had Bettie Page bangs. I remember the first girl I ever saw with them - C., pale as Death with long black hair and blue eyes. She was tiny, and looked almost like a doll but drove a stick shift sports car. She was a dominatrix in her 'real' life, one of two working in my office to have a respectable W-2 form at the beginning of the year. The other was J., who stood almost six feet tall and carried her gear in her high school drill team bag. They were both stunning, gorgeous women in different ways.

Working at the dot-com was one of the best and worst jobs I've ever done. I was paid a stupidly large amount of money and given absurd amounts of responsibility and power for a nineteen year old with no experience. I also worked insane hours overnight while going to the university full time during the day, so I never slept and spent too much time in the office. My monitor was enormous by the standards of the day, there was no dress code and the office was stocked with more soda and junk food than a convenience store. I hated it and loved it, even when we outsourced half the office to India.

During that time I became questionably involved with J., who was my boss. At the same time I was flirting with a married man on the day shift and my Russian professor, letting the creepy guy from New England spank me after work and engaging in a lot of questionable BDSM and sex with my boyfriend at the time. I'm not ashamed of the things I did, but I am embarrassed that I was so artless and so foolish to behave as if I knew what I was doing or that it was in any way clever. At nineteen and twenty, I was raging and arrogant beyond belief. I didn't think much about why I was doing anything I was doing at the time. I did the things I thought I wanted. I fucked and I bruised and I was cruel. That was how I discovered that while lifestyle BDSM was hot I was a lousy submissive and a lot of things were better in theory than practice, that I was terrible at saying what I needed or what I wanted.

In 2001 after the dot-com crashed and I ended my engagement to my boyfriend, I spent a lot of time on my own and had the luxury of free time for introspection. Was all that bondage just some fucked up attempt to deal with being raped, was I just dumb, was it the relationship, was I just permanently crazy from the years before? Was all that pornography warping me? Why was I just never comfortable in anything? It took a few more mistakes before I hashed it all out inside my head. There was no moment of epiphany or clarity, just the slow realization that time and experience make all things change.

Some of it makes me laugh now. I don't think alt.sex.cthulhu caused any permanent scars. I made peace with most of my sexuality eventually. I realized not everything had to be about what happened to me as a teenager and that I didn't actually have to do anything about it anymore. I remembered my obsession with tying up my action figures as a kid and worked on my sense of guilt. I found fandom online and realized I probably wasn't the only person writing sexy stories about David Bowie instead of taking notes during high school. I finally admitted to myself that there were untold numbers of people like me out there - frustrated, hungry, sexually confused, gender confused, and still just people. I was not a totally unique, eight sided snowflake. I fell, ever so slowly, ass backwards into being something closer to fine.

Date: 2008-12-12 04:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caersidi.livejournal.com
Great post.

I was thinking of Bettie today as well.

Date: 2008-12-12 05:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Thank you, very much.

Date: 2008-12-12 06:40 pm (UTC)
shadowwolf13: (Default)
From: [personal profile] shadowwolf13
Wonderful!

Date: 2008-12-12 09:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Yay! I'm really glad.

Date: 2008-12-12 06:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bewize.livejournal.com
Great post!

Date: 2008-12-12 09:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Thank you - I appreciate it.

Date: 2008-12-12 08:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] brightflashes.livejournal.com
This is so well written and so nice to read how you've come to feel a bit better about yourself with introspection. This is very well told. Thanks for sharing! : )

Date: 2008-12-12 09:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Thank you, so much. I wondered if it was just too self interested and rambly, if it wasn't interesting because it was lacking in salacious detail. I'm really glad others are liking it.

Date: 2008-12-12 09:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] solstice-singer.livejournal.com
Closer to fine is a good place to be. Self-discovery can be a difficult road.

I really liked this entry. Good job.

Date: 2008-12-12 09:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
I can't remember where I heard it, but the phrase 'closer to fine' has stuck in my head for days.

Thank you. I'm really glad this was of interest, since it lacked racy details or many chuckles.

Date: 2008-12-13 07:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] water-damage.livejournal.com
but you totally are the most fabulous snowflake :) aww the dotcom days and the SKU liberation army

Date: 2008-12-13 05:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
SKU Liberation Army! Ahh, I should included the many times I threatened to hit my superiors with coffee pots or keyboards.

You know who I really wonder about? Heather and Scott. I wonder what they are up to.

Date: 2008-12-13 05:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] water-damage.livejournal.com
heather's on my facebook but i haven't had a conversation with her in years. i think she may have gotten churchy and I think she may have gone back to school.

Date: 2008-12-13 05:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] water-damage.livejournal.com
there was also the frequesnt mention of a certain boss and duct tape

Date: 2008-12-13 02:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ckocher.livejournal.com
I resonate with so much of this - I love this entry.

Date: 2008-12-13 05:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Yay. I am glad you enjoyed this.

Date: 2008-12-13 02:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bodlon.livejournal.com
Yeah, sometimes these things aren't just "kaboom!" moments. They're more like snowballs. Or something. (Can't brain. I have the dumb.)

I finally admitted to myself that there were untold numbers of people like me out there - frustrated, hungry, sexually confused, gender confused, and still just people.

Also, THIS. Yes.

Date: 2008-12-13 05:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Rolling balls of coconut covered marshmallow? ;)

As sad as it is to find kinship in sufferings, it is such a relief that I'm not crazy. I spent so many years thinking that I would never meet anyone like you or [livejournal.com profile] rm, who made more sense to me.

Date: 2008-12-14 12:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tigrkittn.livejournal.com
This is an awesome post! And we're all arrogantly stupid when we're 19 and 20, it's universal law. And you are a unique and special snowflake, just like the rest of us ;)

Date: 2008-12-14 04:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Thank you, very much.

Date: 2008-12-14 02:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thndrstd.livejournal.com
Good post. Thanks for sharing.

Date: 2008-12-14 04:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Thank you for reading.

Date: 2008-12-15 03:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] baxaphobia.livejournal.com
Well written and honest. Great post!

Date: 2008-12-15 06:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Thank you. I have to admit, I wondered for a moment since a few of my LJ friends remember me from that time and some of them even worked in the same wacky place. I think I said what I needed without going over the edge. ;)

Date: 2008-12-15 04:00 am (UTC)

Date: 2008-12-15 06:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Thank you!
(deleted comment)

Date: 2008-12-15 07:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Haha! I love it. I was running a dollhouse bordello, patronized by many GI Joes.

Thank you muchly.

Date: 2008-12-15 10:45 pm (UTC)
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