This is SUCH a good essay. Loved this: "Life actually is bigger than being an object of desire, and I am coming to understand that the longer I stay committed to beauty principles that do not serve me, the longer I will feel alone." I love your work. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing.
I read this for the second time today and you are a very fine writer, whatever your vanity problems.
IMO, we're at a state between the sexes where there is no way out for men or women, and we've done it to ourselves. I'm not a troglodyte and was raised in a ridiculously liberal environment, but there's no going back from all the progress and/or devolution on the marital front. I'm not sure marriage was ever about two people loving each other in the way you put down here, but that was the dream everyone living today was raised on, yours included. I think marriage was a much more pragmatic relationship built on survival, than anything to do with romantic love, and that is confusing. I think, man and woman are expected to perform too many roles for each other nowadays for a marriage to work - business consultant, creative consultant, best friend, only lover, spiritual consultant, guardian, parent, etc. - and no one can make this work.
On an academic level, you brought up a subtle but significant point in this essay that we all absorb the literature of our time that makes an impact through the culture, but this is different than studying it. I was raised on Free to Be.... You and Me....like you were probably raised on the Bible, and that was how I learned about the fragile relationship between feminism and the patriarchy, though neither of these ten-cent words were used. I also went to U.C. Sanat Cruz that could turn a conversation about a leaf into a feminist discourse. But.... like you.... I haven't done the heavy lifting and read the literature, because I was also into things like experimental theater that felt much more important, and maybe they were, but it has left a hole in my understanding.
Most of modern western astrology is based on psychology. Jung was a hero to a whole school of 20th century astrologers, and they essentially do a psychological read of a birth chart. The goal was to take it out of a "fated" study and to give humanity some free will, if only they understood their psychological make-up. I actually think it's really hard to be even a decent modern western astrologer without studying psychology and not just absorbing it through TV and movies, and who does this? We're getting to a point where the assumptions about our present state are merely that because our educational system is a sewer, and this is only going to make communication between the sexes worse as we live through unparalleled times.
Thank you for reading!! Yes, absolutely I also think that relationships feel so broken now because the reality never matches up to the expectations we were raised on. So everything just feels like such a disappointment. I also agree that probably the only way out of this/around it is by understanding psychology and doing the internal work to become a whole person.
Traditional gender roles have broken down even in Texas and no one in a marriage knows what is expected of them anymore. I don't see marriage in any real way lasting much longer.
wow WHAT an essay i also just finished communion by bell hooks and was floored by her articulation of heterosexual love outside of patriarchy. love cannot coexist with hierarchical power! love itself is the relinquishing of status and power as the primary framework thru which we move through life ! l
This is brilliant, Allie! One of your best pieces. Spot on. And so is your Taylor Swift piece--which I just read for the first time. Sharing with friends. You should be getting paid to write this stuff at a major publication.
I called my elderly grandma when she was in isolation in the covid unit in her nursing home. She'd die of COVID just a few days later, but when I talked to her she was OK. She was eating a bowl of ice cream and lamented "I can't do this too often, I don't want to lose my figure." 80 something, with dementia, about to pass and still chasing the dragon of "don't get fat." That changed something in me. I haven't been perfect since then, but I think about it on the rare occasion I have ice cream. There's something really sinister in there in the way we are all on this hamster wheel.
I've been re-reading some of my Y2K era magazines and thinking about just when I started caring about having crushes and chasing crushes over..... literally everything else. So this rings so familiar. Bookmarking this as a reference text, basically!!
This is SUCH a good essay. Loved this: "Life actually is bigger than being an object of desire, and I am coming to understand that the longer I stay committed to beauty principles that do not serve me, the longer I will feel alone." I love your work. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing.
Thank you for reading!!! It was a long one!! 🩷🩷
I read this for the second time today and you are a very fine writer, whatever your vanity problems.
IMO, we're at a state between the sexes where there is no way out for men or women, and we've done it to ourselves. I'm not a troglodyte and was raised in a ridiculously liberal environment, but there's no going back from all the progress and/or devolution on the marital front. I'm not sure marriage was ever about two people loving each other in the way you put down here, but that was the dream everyone living today was raised on, yours included. I think marriage was a much more pragmatic relationship built on survival, than anything to do with romantic love, and that is confusing. I think, man and woman are expected to perform too many roles for each other nowadays for a marriage to work - business consultant, creative consultant, best friend, only lover, spiritual consultant, guardian, parent, etc. - and no one can make this work.
On an academic level, you brought up a subtle but significant point in this essay that we all absorb the literature of our time that makes an impact through the culture, but this is different than studying it. I was raised on Free to Be.... You and Me....like you were probably raised on the Bible, and that was how I learned about the fragile relationship between feminism and the patriarchy, though neither of these ten-cent words were used. I also went to U.C. Sanat Cruz that could turn a conversation about a leaf into a feminist discourse. But.... like you.... I haven't done the heavy lifting and read the literature, because I was also into things like experimental theater that felt much more important, and maybe they were, but it has left a hole in my understanding.
Most of modern western astrology is based on psychology. Jung was a hero to a whole school of 20th century astrologers, and they essentially do a psychological read of a birth chart. The goal was to take it out of a "fated" study and to give humanity some free will, if only they understood their psychological make-up. I actually think it's really hard to be even a decent modern western astrologer without studying psychology and not just absorbing it through TV and movies, and who does this? We're getting to a point where the assumptions about our present state are merely that because our educational system is a sewer, and this is only going to make communication between the sexes worse as we live through unparalleled times.
Thank you for reading!! Yes, absolutely I also think that relationships feel so broken now because the reality never matches up to the expectations we were raised on. So everything just feels like such a disappointment. I also agree that probably the only way out of this/around it is by understanding psychology and doing the internal work to become a whole person.
Traditional gender roles have broken down even in Texas and no one in a marriage knows what is expected of them anymore. I don't see marriage in any real way lasting much longer.
Thank you for getting vulnerable with us. This is incredibly well-written and a needed warning for many young women
Thank you for reading!!
Ever thought about going NC with your parents?
Thats the cure.
Xoxo a former fuckgirl
wow WHAT an essay i also just finished communion by bell hooks and was floored by her articulation of heterosexual love outside of patriarchy. love cannot coexist with hierarchical power! love itself is the relinquishing of status and power as the primary framework thru which we move through life ! l
It’s seriously such a stunning and ground breaking text!! Totally changed my perception on relationships!
This is so brilliant, I sent several excerpts to my friend in shock! You said everything I've been thinking for years, thank you for this
Thank you for reading !!
This is brilliant, Allie! One of your best pieces. Spot on. And so is your Taylor Swift piece--which I just read for the first time. Sharing with friends. You should be getting paid to write this stuff at a major publication.
Thank you, Kryssa 🩷🩷 working on it!!
I love this and... me too?
I called my elderly grandma when she was in isolation in the covid unit in her nursing home. She'd die of COVID just a few days later, but when I talked to her she was OK. She was eating a bowl of ice cream and lamented "I can't do this too often, I don't want to lose my figure." 80 something, with dementia, about to pass and still chasing the dragon of "don't get fat." That changed something in me. I haven't been perfect since then, but I think about it on the rare occasion I have ice cream. There's something really sinister in there in the way we are all on this hamster wheel.
I've been re-reading some of my Y2K era magazines and thinking about just when I started caring about having crushes and chasing crushes over..... literally everything else. So this rings so familiar. Bookmarking this as a reference text, basically!!