Four Thoughts On Going To Festivals/Events/Retreats

I find myself in a bit of a lackluster state when it comes to looking into festivals for this coming up year.  I am looking to Free Spirit Gathering and Sacred Space with a rather “meh” attitude about them.  I just don’t find myself super intrigued by many of them (or even by the fire performance festivals either).  So…..WHY?

#1 I come to the events to grow, learn, and be challenged as a performer/magician.  Not to hang out and socialize

I remember my first FSG.  I was introduced to fire performance and a number of people who became good friends and it led the way to being where I am now; surrounded by a coven of remarkable people who I consider my family.  I was challenged by the classes and introduced to topics that while many of them didn’t intrigue me I was at least willing to try.

That challenge, that questioning is worth a price.

But when I went for my second year; I was no longer challenged because I discovered that the presenters never really changed.  I have made this discovery at multiple events that 90% of the classes and material every year don’t change.  Instead of being an event to grow and challenge myself.  The event instead becomes a celebratory/social event.  I go to remind myself of what I am and to see friends and family that I have not seen in a while.

The tickets for free spirit run on the expensive side at around 300$.  The truth is that I don’t feel obligated as much to pay 300$ for what is essentially a celebratory/social event (not including the cost of camping, food, etc).  The truth is I don’t feel a big social reminder of what I am should cost that much unless it’s an incredible reminder and celebration of who and what I am.

#2 …………I’M NOT PAGAN…….*twitch* I’M NOT A BURNER…………..*twitch*

I know that I am a part of a coven in a tradition.  I know that I am a fire performer  for whom the idea of a good time might get me arrested at some point.  But I am not a pagan and I am not a burner (at least not in the cultural sense as identified by what Burning Man IS NOW).  Part of the claims of both burning man as well as events such free spirit gathering is that they are all inclusive.

But, in reality they are not so much.  While the idea of these events is that they are inclusive the reality of the culture that has been created is that you are still expected to conform to a standard and that the event will also in a sense conform to the standard of the people itself.  For instance, my background is peter carol “chaos magick”, Sumerian-Hebrew qabala, and grimoires.  The chances of me finding material and classes on these topics at an event are slim to none which ends up becoming the following issue.

“If I am not paying 200+hotel room for advanced classes what am I paying for”

When looking at these events and seeing only one or two classes that intrigue me I am once again going to an event for a reminder or cultural experience.  

And to be honest,  this is the part of that frustrates me a lot because these events that I really love and enjoy but end going to and being disillusioned by.

#3  “Well then teach (run,make,etc) something!!!!”

Not everyone can be a teacher, run an event, or be a leader within all aspects of their work.  My work as an entertainer takes precedence over all of that because that is what makes me feel better spirituality, emotionally, and mentally.  The truth is that the onus for making a rather lack-luster event better doesn’t fall only upon the culture that makes up the event but also on those who organize it as well. Taking the time away from my work in that regard hurts me.  And the truth is, being involved in any way as a leader, event planner, or teacher is a huge time involvement and commitment; it really isn’t easy and it really isn’t as “glamorous” as you might think. 

#4 Options, options, options.

I have to do what is best for me, my family, and my community.  There are enough options of events in the fire performance community, magical community, and the magickal community that I find myself able to hop over to a new event and see what they have.  I hold importance to my community and friends and they are not contained by an event no matter how much my memories say that they are.  If my identity and community is defined by an event than do I really have a community or an identity.

A Magickal Relationship: Chalice and Athame Casting

This is a bit of misnomer, most of the time when people hear the word magic and relationship they snort and say and say “New Relationship Energy”.  But for me the idea of a magickal relationship, that is a relationship between two people who are practicing magick together as a couple is an interesting idea.  Now please understand that as I write this my ideas and practices are based off the fact that I am engaged in a hetero normative relationship (meaning that I identity as a cis-gendered male and she as a cis-gendered female).  While we are not even close to what anyone might call a “normative” relationship for the purposes of discussing magick we can can for the moment call ourselves that.

When we started this relationship one of the stress factors on us was the fact that we were 3 hours from each other which meant that if the mood struck us we couldn’t just “drive out to see the  each other”.  Because the basis of our relationship was the fact that both of us were heavily involved in occult studies and magick our solution for this was simply……”Why don’t we create a device for maintaining our energetic connection” which was followed by the “Here is an athame and chalice”.  ......................Which led to occult and sexual shenanigans..........

Now for the brief definition were going to need.

“The Chalice and Athame are used to engage in the Great Rite within our magickal practices”

For us, this not only served as a method to touch base with each other but we also incidentally formed a forge to create things and works that we did not originally intend on creating with this idea

:Theory:

To break this down, within magickal practices both the Chalice and Athame have many different perspectives that have been placed upon them.  Within the metaphysical map of this magickal relationship though they are holding in place the concept of “masculine” and “feminine”.  Now in a magickal space the act of combining these two elements is referred to as the great rite and is a symbolic act that represents the act of sex.

 

Magically speaking the act of being able to balance and hold that which is female and male within us in balance and placing them together is what we refer to as the great rite.  This can either be done by two individuals or by one individual (or groups or acting in place of these two).  But ultimately this is an act of unity; in which two things became one.  The original idea for us that was we could mix our energy between the two of us creating a constant connection using these two tools since they would now also count as just one.

While this is no way a primer on sexual magick (which is a huge topic) but I need to focus on eastern techniques for a moment.  It is thought that part of the goal was to achieve mutual release of both partners in order to heighten the effect of unity.  That unity being the dissolving of the masculine and feminine identities into a single moment of unity and oneness.  Both with each other and with the world around us.

The energy of the masculine and feminine is different from the energy of release that we speak of when we speak of the masculine and feminine.  I know the energetic feeling that comes when I pour out my energy into my partner both with the physical action of release and it’s energetic equivalent.  The difference in that energy for me is the difference between these two, while they are based from the space energetic space, are radically different. 

They are also fundamentally creative forces when combined.  The act of release itself is an attempt at a form of creation.  While human beings engage in this act as recreation, it is also wired into our biological selves that it is a method of creation as well.  So with that being said why not use this energy for magickal purposes.   The two of us have used this as a form of creating new magical work and in order to create a space where we wish to open up the possibility of something being created that we did not necessarily intend or we wish for something to be more of a permanent creation.

Athame and Chalice Casting

Both Individuals need to be aware of the experience of the female and/or male orgasm and need to be able to channel the energy (and the feeling of each)….while this doesn’t have to be a gendered casting if you can’t or question your ability to hold this feeling then my suggestion is to allow it to be a gendered casting.

Secondly….understand that this is a space of fertility so bear that in mind for sex and prophylactics during the working and for a period of time around it so you don’t have any unintentional consequences (unless you are just using this for added fertility magick at which point have fun).  This casting is more effective for people who have already engaged with each other sexually as well.

Both partners start facing each other from the distance that will cast the total space over ( no specific orientation in circle is needed for this casting).  Begin by simply holding the energy of the “mode” in question.  Feel this energy sharpen towards the feeling and the particular energy of release as you start walking towards each other the goal is that you should have that feeling of energetic release the moment that the athame and the chalice meet (as when the great rite is normally cast).

  Now instead of that energy being released into the act itself it is necessary for both partners to hold the energy of release and let the moment freeze.  As the moment is frozen and the energy is held each partner steps backwards carrying with them the shared energy of unison….in your mind’s eye see that the energy form a seed like shape until you reach your original position at which point see that place the tools onto the ground or “alter” as appropriate.

In order to clear the space…..taking the tools and simply reuniting them in the great rite and letting the energy release as it would otherwise normally do so completes the rite.

So while the space has been erected feel how the space feels like and which energies are more easily manifest.  Understand that this space wants to create something so any energy that you place into it will have much more of what I might call a “run-a-way” effect than they normally would and this space is also going to have a sexual component which may or may not be good for what you are attempting to do or whom you happen to be working with.  I have some more thoughts on magick within a relationship but this is just a piece of it for the moment.

Why I feel the Dialogue has stopped...... please read.

"You will never understand what it is like to be a women or have a women's experience"

This is perhaps the one statement that often is a precursor to a large number of arguments that I have had in the last two years since I graduated from the degree program at Drexel University with a piece of paper that said I knew something about philosophy.  Since then the topic that seems to have trailed after me is the concept of "privilege", social justice, and my "maleness" in relation to these concepts.  I have had multiple arguments about this and since then I have never really had the words in order to talk about them so hopefully these are the words that will work.

I believe in a philosophical question; that for each intellectual age that there arises an intellectual statement or ideal (called by philosophers a "thesis") to which in response also arises an anti-thesis.  I feel that in our modern time that the thesis "subjective experience is as valid as the objective world" seems to be our particular thesis.

And it is a thesis that has caught the world by storm; where once you were separated, now blogs by similarly minded people are simply a google search away from each other.  You are able to cultivate a social network of similarly minded people who agree with you.  But I can not and will not perceive of this as being truly a good thing as it is not being used.

I have the ability to look at opposing views on topics of every nature and every sort.  But I also have the ability to only look at views that I agree with.   Bear with me for a moment as I bring in a few outside elements from academic social psychology.  Within the model of social psychology we have a few theories of "social consciousness"; I wish to discuss a few.  One of which is referred to as the "Halo Effect".  While it can be googled to short hand it.

"A general notion of talent and skill is assumed by the existence of one good quality".

We see this a lot notably in Hollywood in which the popularity of a given actor is assumed to have some sort of moral component...... or as  comedian Christopher Titus would say.
"If someone like Tom Hanks were to come up to a Nun and punch them; the first thing you would ask is What did that NUN do to Tom Hanks"
The idea here is that we associate positive qualities to people whom we already "like" and we similarly associate negative qualities to people whom we dislike.  I wish to hold this idea here for a second;

Good qualities aren't necessarily associated with simple single characteristics....but also those characteristics are shared by a group.  As well or to borrow another term from social psychology.
  Another From Simplypsychology.org
"Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s).
Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.
In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong. For example, England is the best country in the world!  We can also increase our self-image by discriminating and holding prejudice views against the out group (the group we don’t belong to). For example, the Americans, French etc. are a bunch of losers"

When you look at me; what you see is a series of sexual and physical characteristics ; these are the characteristics of race, religion (if i Flag), social class, gender(cis/trans).  In no way do any of these things highlight anything about my internal experiences.
Rape is not a "female" experience.  Being sexually assaulted or domestically abused is not an experience limited to just women.  But there are no men's shelters, no legal protection in many states for men.(while I disagree with many of her points she does bring up several valid points)

Or to restate " You can't understand what it's like to have that taken away from you; your not a women".  We associate this experience in our culture with being female.  To people who have undergone it becomes a part of their identity.....people talk about it and discuss it.  And it becomes a part of the female social identity that it is something that they have to fear.......
But men don't (at least according to this notion).....

So when you tell me that I can't possibly understand this experience because I am (through the veil that is halo effect and social identity theory) you are stopping this discussion.  It doesn't become about how "rape" is bad; but rather how rape is bad for women.  It doesn't become about how "sexual harassment" is bad; but rather how it is bad for women.

I believe that the process of the thesis/anti-thesis is in reality a dialogue that takes place in an age.  And for cultures to exclude each other means that this dialogue stops and we don't progress as a society.

If you remove me from the dialogue because I can't "walk" in your shoes..... because I am one of "them"....then it doesn't matter anymore what I have experienced...it only matters that a represent a "they".

They is a dirty word.  Each time we removed one of "them" from our face page book friends list we kill the dialogue a little more; instead of trying to help each other and continue the dialogue we move a little further towards becoming just a "they".

Saying my argument or experience is invalid because I am one of "them" is unfair and stops this dialogue from ever happening

And so I vow to continue this dialogue....that if I see something wrong instead of ignoring and turning that person into a "they" I will continue the dialogue and see if I can change them or if I myself need to be changed.

"The Chaote Guy For the Pagan Eye"- A Primer On Chaos Magic and how it can be applied to other magical practices

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted" 

With this phrase Peter Caroll grabbed the attention of thousands of aspiring magicians from around the world and helped to bring about what is now considered to be essentially a spectrum of magic by most of it's adherents and those who practice it. Though if you were to ask those thousands of magicians what the central principle or pillar of chaos magic was, chances are you would get thousands of answers.

Unlike forms of paganism or or what is known as ceremonial magic there isn't what one would call a "hard" and fast line with Chaos Magic, there aren't any central pillars or observations and in fact even the quote that is so loved by many has no "agreed" upon translation. Within ceremonial magic we have references to neoplatonic philosophy and qabala. Paganism of course has historical references to various deities and such. Those who study grimoires have hard and fast rules about the rituals contained therein (three words :Lion Skin Belt).

The original text of the Libir Null and Psychonaut was a text on the methods of sigilisation of ones intent and desire using various methods that were specifically removed from the concepts of the divine or various god forms. In fact that was almost a hard and fast rule in this work.  There was very little to know mention of any concrete deities or godforms through which one worked.

For those unfamiliar, a sigilisation is a method by which one creates a "random" pattern that acts as a method of linking the unconcious desire and conscious desire into an magical act with intention". Chaos Magic then is for me a method of applying our own beliefs structures through a rather different filter.

 Or to reinterpret Peter Caroll's own wording.

  "Nothing is inherently true, everything is permitted a chance to prove itself" 

It doesn't matter if it is in a book by my favorite author or if it was something cockamamie scheme I cooked up in the deepest recesses of mind; both of these ideas have equal footing in that I don't actually know whether they will or will not work for me. They both have an equal chance to prove their usefulness as a magical technique. In other words it is the scientific method as applied to magic; that we test our hypothesis before we make claims to truths.

Within many magical traditions there is a notion of this is the way it's done. It might be historical reconstructionism creating ye olde pagan traditions or grimoirists listing the fifty highly expensive ingredients necessary for a goetic evocation experience. Just because it was done a certain way doesn't mean that it cannot be done better or differently, holding to a certain attitude or mindset about how magic should be done creates a limitation in what we can truly accomplish if we wish to.

We as magical individuals are attempting to touch that which is infinite in our work, to grasp some form of the divine. In the same way us looking at others and saying that there method is wrong is to me a negative concept; who is it for us to say that their own concepts and ideas may or may not allow them to grasp and touch the divine regardless of how we feel about the situation; we can only tell from the evidence of their work after it is done.

 If the divine and the gods are a manifestation of infinite nature of existence then in that there must be an infinite amount of ways or methods in order to do so. In this, the concept of chaos magic as a method is useful in that it allows us to grow and evolve who and what we are.

~Some Food For Thought

Speaking from the Soul:tone policing, emotion, and logical fallacies

Our emotional selves provide the fuel which feeds are goals in order to construct change,  but we cannot assume that the emotional self we know is a shared experience with shared goals.    I ran into this head first earlier and wish to talk about it.

Logic is the area of philosophy that deal's with the construction of arguments.  And argument is normally constructed of a series of rhetoric and logic in order to present a perspective on a particular issue or problem.  Logic is simply the meat of the argument, the nutrients while rhetoric is the taste so to speak.

(A Very Simple Logical Constructed Argument)
 P->Q (If P then Q; If it rains (P) then the roads will be slick (Q))
P (It rained today)
Q(Your going to have a harder time getting home safely; please drive slower honey)

A good argument can normally be translated into a form of logical construction that if all of it's constituent parts are true then the argument has no other options but to be true.  It is a method of separating the chafe, the rhetoric from the actual content of what your talking about.   Rhetoric is a series of techniques and methods of convincing a person that they should hear what you have to say and that your right.

Within Rhetoric however there are a series of techniques that undermine the logical construction of an argument; these are referred to logical fallacies.  There basically methods to hoodwink and undermine logic

Introduction to Logical Fallacies

Our experiences and our emotional reactions to those experiences form the foundations for why we struggle to fix problems or share our said experiences within the worlds.  But our individual spiritual and emotion experiences can never be another person's reason for why something is inherently true.  I could say that this is because our individual experiences are built upon the context of our entire lives and therefor they will be unique to each individual.

Attempting to force said emotional reactions upon another in lieu of an effective argument is a form of logical fallacy; in this case it is called an appeal to emotion.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-emotion

Our spiritual and emotional experiences are what make us "special little snow flakes" though the foundation of all experience lies in what it means to be "human" (be those experiences be based in whichever religion or non-religion you might practice/believe in).

I write this in response to a concept called Tone Policing which is a form of problem in argumentation in which someone takes offense at a particular point of view of another (which changes the nature of the conversation from the one being a victim to victimizing others).

Tone Policing:Why It's Bullshi*t

The problem is that while our experiences are related; they are also fundamentally different and have each led us to a different place in which we perceive causes, and problems as being different.  As the article says our emotional reactions doesn't make us fundamentally wrong about our perspective; but it also doesn't make us fundamentally right.  We need to realize that the subject of our perspective may be different even though it has led us to the same discourse of problems and issues which will naturally lead to different emotional topics and outcomes.

This leads to be to believe that even though there they may be a singular problem that multiple people have realized; it may have more than one cause and/or effect.  In the same way our emotional relationships to these problems may be different from each other (and therefore each has an equal stake in the solving of said problem).  But this seems to lead to a disagreement of solutions and thoughts; which returns back to the realm of an "Appeal to Emotion".    I feel that when we get to this point we are no longer arguing about the "original topic", but rather our paradigm, our focus that brought us to bear on that original topic.

For example it may be the fact that our politicians are paid for lock, stock, and barrel by corporations which we can longer stand or that the interests of the government reflect the constituents who pay for it.  In both instances the government needs to be changed and fixed; but the emotional root causes stem from issues of corporate greed versus  socially instituted racism which creates different emotional paradigms that may cause friction between two people who would other wise agree that the government needs to be severely amended and both might even point by big business.  In doing so these different paradigm's create unnecessary friction between our emotional selves that impact our ability to cause this change.

Permatemps: Compromising your Health and Safety

So it's done;  I have a job now.  A full time job with some things that resembles benefits. *sigh*.  I have been holding my mouth closed for a long time out of fear and worry.   But I can open my mouth now and talk about something that is a problem.  It isn't a problem for me,  it isn't a problem for you, rather instead it is a problem for everyone.  For reasons of legalese I can't actually say the name of the company in questions so I will call them Stereotypical Medical Device company or SMD for short.
I came with SMD fresh out of college with needs for cash and money to continue paying back loans, debts, and associated expenses.  They hired me on as a temp.    What I discovered is that I was actually hired on as a permatemp; for those unfamiliar with the term a permatemp is an individual who is brought into a company as a temporary employee and then kept on for repeated cycles without any real hope or prayer of actually getting hired on.
This is a term that was first coined in Silicon Value for people who were being hired on like this in the technology sector but this practice has spread far and wide throughout.  And this is the situation that I was hired onto at SMD;  no real chance of an actual job with actual benefits for at least four years (permatemp cycles can only last two years due to legal reasons).
My job as SMD was as an medical device analyst, I would take the device and analyze why it failed so that our company and the FDA could keep track of on-going problems and report them for the safety of our patients/customers.  In other words my job was to make sure that the device that was being stuck in your body did it's job and didn't endanger your life.  I was signing off on FDA regulated forms and paperwork.
Now that you know what I did,  I want to tell you why I didn't really do it.  As an employee you are protected in a way from your employer; they can't falsely report you and they have to take measured steps if you need to be terminated from the company.  In other words you are protected.  A permatemp has none of these protections, you are literally at the mercy and whim of your employee.
If you annoy and aggravate your employer you lose your job.  In other words if I raised any questions or problems with our product, I lose my job.  If I took to many days off in order to look to permanent work or go to the doctor, I lose my job.  If I did anything that they felt wasn't appropriate, I lose my job.
Not only this,  but this method of indoctrination assured that when and if people were hired full time that this feeling would continue.  Watching a room full of full-time employees watching the help wanted adds because they full they didn't have any power in the matter is a sad depressing scene.

This meant that if I was told to do certain things I would feel that I have a choice because it's my financial well being.  In the course of working for SMD, I was told to "fudge" results, given formal written instruction to lie by omission to federal auditors whenever possible, and told that anything within the device history was to be ignored unless it formally dealt with the problems associated with the complaint itself.  I also had to sit there and observed flaws that were known about the pump cause actual medical harm and hospitalization to patients.
If I am forced by my superiors to lie about the nature of a medical device,  then my job is pointless and honestly fraudulent.

The truth is this, in ethics related positions within industry it is immoral and wrong to have someone making ethical choices about a product, device, or person when their job security is held by another. Pematemps suffice to say can't make actual ethical choices because they are compromised.  In my position at SMD I was forced to sit there as I was told to lie by omission and sit there watching as flaws designed into the product caused actual medical harm to our customers and patients.
This is a flaw in our society that causes lawsuits, damages, paint, and harm to innocents.  It is a choice made by companies in order to ease the bottom line as well as protect themselves.  This is something that we need to stop.

Being a heternormative, white, cis, male in a discussion about priviledge and issues pertaining to racism, sexism, etc.

I want to talk about my experiences with various forms of racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice that surround our society.  I feel that they shine light on an issue that I feel has been ignored about these topics. The events in question that I want to talk about are actual things that have happened and occurred within the last few years of my life. Before I make the point I need to describe some of these events but I need to describe them as if they had happened from a different perspective then the one that I currently share. Please understand before you read these things that my goal here is not a presentation of “woah is me”, but rather instead I wish to bring to light an unpleasant truth that I have encountered that serves to “stall” the process of growth in regards to various forms of bigotry and social problems. I have simply been told countless that as a while heteronormative cis gendered male that I can't possibly understand or appreciate certain things; so let me represent things.

For the purposes of highlighting the events in my life, I wish to present this not in my chosen sex , orientation, or gender. (because these are often used as counter arguments) but rather I wish to replace the gender terms and one or two other terms when possible.

#1 I fell asleep one night only to wake up to a man I trusted going down on me, I was shocked and didn't know what to say or do. He took my silence and the fact that I was wet as a “yes” and then proceeded to have sex with me.

When I went to my guy friends to ask them for advice, they said that I had put myself into a situation where it was understandable where a man would think that was acceptable.

#2 I went to a festival and then proceeded to have a good time joking around with a man about the fact that he was wearing nothing more than a loin cloth and horns. He took this as interest and then proceeded to hit on me, when I told him that I was a girl who was interested in only other girls he took it upon himself to prove me wrong and spent an hour describing why it was a fact that I should at least try having sex with a man once just to prove him wrong even though I already told him that I had tried and it really wasn't my thing.

#3 I was working one night on a public when a man asked me if he could take a crack at it. I let him try his hands at it and he proceeded to look at me and said that I was really really good, but I could never be quite as impressive at it as man. The real pisser was that I was actually technically better.

Each of these events happened to me in the way that I have described, I was sexually assaulted by a woman, I spent the better part of two hours explaining to a gay guy that I really didn't want what he was offering. And I have had female fire performers flaunt the fact that they were better than I was because they have T&A.

I have tried to argue for the fact that privilege exists within a given context or situation and been scolded for lack of a better word. But, I can talk about the fact that instances such as the ones that happen above are individual instances. What makes them wrong has nothing to do with “societal” issues. Society influences the individual but at the end of the day each individual is in my view responsible for their own individual choices. What society does is validate our individual choices.

Being raped as a woman is not wrong because I am a woman, it is wrong because it violates my body and my right to self-determination.  Being harassed is not wrong because I am a woman, it is wrong because I am objectified in a way that I do not want or like in my life.  So if I take away gender from this,  it is still wrong.  Issues of gender and such then come into play at a larger societal level in terms of how that behavior is validated.

When we go to our group of friends and say what happened during the course of a day, our friends give us support or don't give us support. They tell us that were doing is right or wrong, or that we should go with our gut and that they support us. This is a process of social validation of behavior. When that behavior is validated it says “Go ahead and do it again; there was nothing wrong with it”. Or on the other hand the behavior is said “No, you shouldn't do this” and we feel socially obligated to reject or avoid that behavior(at least publicly).

I have a question for the reader, did the difference of gender, orientation, etc make a difference in how you reacted to those above statements. Because nothing changed that had any real importance. If I die, I die as a human, if I pay my bills I pay them as an American. If it did, the question I ask is why did it make a difference? How does me being sexually assaulted, harassed, or dealing with a pay difference between genders make up for someone else of a different socially constructed identity who is going through the same thing?

When I talk about the pendulum of human nature ,what I speak of is that it feels like we as a society seem to have a non-homeopathic perspective when it comes to at fixing social injustices or problems. Instead of fixing the root of the problem, the cause, we attempt to simply bandage it or, even worse, apply a counteractive agent to the issue. We are not balancing the scale of justice we are causing it to swing back and forth like a wrecking ball destroying lives in the process.

The events that occur are individual in nature. We as individuals, and as a society, need to perceive and interact with them as such. Because a man or women should never be laughed for being sexually assaulted, because a straight or gay person should never have to spend two hours of their life dealing with someone who doesn't get the concept of “not interested”, and no one should ever have pay differences “shoved” in their faces as if the other person was simply spiking a football.

I wrote this because this conversation needs to happen.  I am a person who deals with issues of gender, sexuality, race, and orientation and because I am white, male, cis, and heternormative it does not invalidate those issues or make them any less different or impactful on my life.