Cold, Wet, but Not Hungry.

The weather has been pretty dreadful the last 2 days, but most of it was spent indoors, so it didn't really matter. We went up to Whiheki island, a little north from Auckland by ferry to visit an old friend of G's back from god-knows-when. I thought he was married to this absolutely gorgeous girl (they had a kid, but apparently having a kid doesn't mean you're married, have to be, or should be), turns out they're something G refers to as de-facto. I don't even think you have to sign any civil union bullshit. People here are very sensible, aren't they. The more I think about it, the more I think using children as a reason for your unhappiness in a marriage that's only there because children exist, is really kinda lame.

In my opinion as a female person, woman, girl, whatever, the marriage before baby thing is one of the biggest things in most conservative societies that come in the way of female emancipation.

Females were meant to have sex, lots of it, make babies and thereafter nurture them. Think about it, people and relationships are responsibilities. Marriage can help share the responsibility, but it can also increase it. If the relationship becomes a burden, not only do you now have to manage the kids, you’ve also got to manage unnecessary emotional drama.

I can’t understand women who choose to wait until they find the right one before having a child. Because when you do find the right one, it could just be too late, much too late (I cannot get Nicholas Cage from the Vampire’s Kiss out of my head!). Besides, who is the right one, and why should you even need him anyway. Oh it’s a scam I tell you, (not trying to do an Eve Ensler here, but when a woman has become such a powerful pop icon of rights for the modern female…) It’s something a male dominated society has been using for the last few centuries to make you believe you need Them. Because apparently, they need you. Women can make babies, men can’t. And in a way, I really believe, whether They knew it or not, the past few centuries of male supremacy has suppressed the female capacity to earn and feed herself, much less another dependant, to give us a false sense of need.

That we need Them.

That was a tad too feminist for me really, I love men, and there’s no reason to be pissed of at them because it wasn’t their fault several centuries ago their predecessors were a bunch of arrogant blokes. It’s just that I honestly don’t think marriage should come in the way of a anyone’s male or female’s free choice to have a child.

The couple we met yesterday clearly, consciously decided to have one, despite not being married. They may do it in a month, in a year, or perhaps never, but the great thing is, they didn’t let a ceremony come in the way of what they wanted to do. To put it simply, marriage and having a child should not be tied together. What if you wanted to have a child, but didn’t want to get married?

I was reading this comic about Women on the Edge some time ago, and there was this cartoon of all the stuff men could get away with that women didn’t. One panel showed this old lady looking at a single mom, thinking, ‘what an irresponsible slut’, and beside that square, was the same old lady looking at a single dad going, ‘how sweet, he’s trying to take responsibility’. I will simply not get it. Why is it that in so many cultures, it’s perfectly acceptable for men to screw around and cheat on their partners, and such a taboo when women do it?

Anyway, I was really fascinated by the couple we’d stayed over at last night’s. I suppose it’s all rather commonplace here and in Europe, and in many other places, but Asia still has some way to go. And you know what? It’s not a bad thing. The breaking down of the traditional family unit doesn’t equate to the breaking down of the family until itself. Kids by single mothers are not in the possibility of getting any less love then kids from nuclear families. It’s all up to the people that look after them. I know people that have with parents that have been trying to ‘fix the marriage’ for the last two decades of their lives, and it’s really no fun. They’re married, but so what.

I suppose the more we think about things, the more we realize a lot of what we grew up with is bullshit. If we’d all just stop trying to think someone else is living ‘wrongly’ then perhaps we’ll see that happiness can be found in so many more ways then one.

I have now memorized all my lines for the film tomorrow, the G-Spot looks like an absolute angel in bed –he’s been SO sweet- I’ll leave this cold computer and find affection elsewhere.

The media hype is dying down now, which is good, because I think it was starting to get ridiculous. If you think I will do anything to make a pointless statement like, ‘posting nude pictures of yourself online isn’t wrong’, you’re wrong. What’s the point in making statements like that anyway? Posting nude pictures of myself has given me publicity, which I like and which has in a way, made me better off –if for no more then the fact that the dear Mr. Martine called me up to tell me to hang in there-, but it’s not going to produce the same results for everyone. And if I took them down because I thought it would be better to (and I don’t regret the article I got by ST about me removing the pictures) then I did it out of the same reasons I do most things. Because it felt like the right thing to do then.

And that’s pretty much how everyone should live life, because really, there’s only that one moment you’ll experience it, ever. That moment of making a decision, and doing it. The clock ticks, and it’s gone. I believe very strongly in the human instinct for grasping at the right things at the right time. It’s only when we attempt to distort it with stupid cultural barriers (that make you feel that what you feel at that point in time is not right) like you need marriage before you have a baby… that things just don’t really work out as right as they could have been.

xoxox