1.Reading Halloween (1978) Through the Lens of Labor (October 30, via) "Parents, historically, have been the most recurring threat to babysitters in their capacity to exploit and prey on them, and yet with Michael on set, the threat of the predatory employer-parent gets completely displaced."
5.Too many rats? Birth control is one city's answer (November 1) "For all these reasons, Somerville is trying something else — an anti-fertility chemical that targets the mature eggs in female rats."
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Links related to the antichrist:
1.America's immigration crackdown is disrupting the global remittance market (October 28) "What leads Yang to argue this is that immigrants in the United States send a jaw-dropping amount of money back home to their families. These remittances, as they're known, have dwarfed the size of official foreign aid that the U.S. spends on things like economic development, health, and humanitarian assistance."
3.Trump administration sets lowest-ever cap on refugee admissions to U.S. (October 30) "'It is egregious to exclude refugees who completed years of rigorous security checks and are currently stuck in dangerous and precarious situations,' said Sharif Aly, president of the International Refugee Assistance Project. He said that the number of those with confirmed travel plans to the U.S. is greater than the new refugee cap."
4.Trump Admin Attempts To Ban Trans Youth Care Nationwide With New Federal Rules (October 30) "Now the administration is escalating with a blitz of three new rules that could effectively end most transgender youth care nationwide if enacted—pressuring many medical institutions to drop trans patients from receiving the care they need out of fear of federal reprisal, and punishing those who do not comply."
5. The Myth of the Woke Right: A Response to the New York Times (October 24) 36-minute video from Big Joel about how that felon never actually understood "free speech" to mean "free speech"; how the New York Times wrote an article about "The Woke Right" but that's not really a thing, and the people who use the term use it to mean all sorts of different things; and the difference between cancel culture and government censorship.
And: Trump administration faces Monday deadline on use of contingency funds for SNAP (November 3) "The situation leaves millions with uncertainty about how they will feed themselves. Benefits will be delayed in November regardless of the outcome of the court cases because many beneficiaries have their cards recharged early in the month and the process of loading cards can take a week or more in many states."
"Change my mind" meme with a guy sitting at a table outside- the banner on his table says "Shanghai Disneyland Throws the scariest Halloween parties. Change my mind." Source: WeChat.
Hi all, here is an update about what's happening with covid in Shanghai.
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Stats
First of all, to give an overview of the situation, I think it's important that I tell you the actual numbers. Here in Shanghai, a city of 25 million, where we are all required to get covid-tested every few days, recently there have been around 0-10ish cases detected per day.
Graph showing local covid cases in Shanghai, up to November 4, 2022. Image source.
(As I've said before, pay no attention to the difference between "confirmed cases" [which they are using to mean "symptomatic", for some unfathomable reason] and "asymptomatic infections." Because they define "asymptomatic" as "doesn't have symptoms of pneumonia." So it doesn't actually mean asymptomatic.)
Here's what happened: On October 31, a person tested positive for covid. Turns out this person had gone to Shanghai Disneyland on October 27. Therefore, on October 31, everyone in Disneyland was required to get tested (and couldn't leave the park until the results came out), and also everyone throughout Shanghai who had been to Disneyland any time from October 27 to 31 was told they needed to get tested. (They should get tested every day for 3 days, I think is the policy.)
Also, Disneyland closed because of this, and we don't know yet when it will reopen.
And I heard rumors on WeChat that "the Disney princesses are in central quarantine, in the shipping containers that have been converted to quarantine rooms." (ie, the actors who are employed as princesses at Disneyland.) I don't have any actual evidence that this is true. I am sure Disney is not going to confirm this, because they have to keep up the image of Disney magic and all that, and I am sure the government-controlled news media is not going to confirm this, because they have their own image of zero-covid magic they're keeping up... so yeah, not really possible to get actual evidence on whether it's true.
Anyway, on November 1, my son's school closed. And in the WeChat group for my son's class, the teacher asked all of us if anyone had gone to Disneyland October 27-31. Later that day, we found out that apparently a kid from my son's school had been to Disneyland, so now all the kids from that grade level have to stay home from school for 7 days.
So yeah, my husband and I have been taking turns working from home because Square Root couldn't go to school this week.
Note that this is not a quarantine. Square Root is not in quarantine. We are allowed to go wherever we want, just not his school. And he has not been marked as a "close contact" or anything like that. It's just the schools being much much more cautious than other venues in Shanghai.
(I saw some jokes on WeChat about "wow this is a dream come true for kids- they go to Disneyland, and then after that they get to stay home from school.")
This Disneyland thing affects A TON of people. Like, thousands of people go to Disneyland every day (people from all areas of Shanghai) and multiply that by 4 days- and also it was Halloween weekend, so it might have been more crowded than usual. On November 1, I heard from several of my colleagues who said that their kids' schools had been closed because of it. The amount of random chatter about "oh so-and-so is working from home because her apartment is in lockdown for 2 days" has been higher than average this week. This is affecting a lot of people.
But, as far as I know, everyone at Disneyland tested negative. (Except that one person who started this whole thing, obviously.) And I kind of feel like, if things get closed for a few days now, and then nothing really comes of it and we just move on with life, that's a much better scenario than if the covid-case numbers grow and then we get locked down for 2 months.
Also, when looking at western news articles about this, I'm looking at the headlines like "WTF?" For example, from Reuters: Shanghai Disney shuts over COVID, visitors unable to leave. SO MANY headlines that make a big deal about people being "unable to leave" or "trapped" inside Disneyland. Makes it sound much worse than it is. Everyone inside the park needed to get tested, and couldn't leave until their result came back negative. This is obviously a huge inconvenience, and must certainly have resulted in people being stuck there several hours longer than they wanted to be. But the western news headlines make it sound like a horrifying thing... One thing I will say, though, is the Reuters article also mentions the panicked rush to the park exits- "Videos circulating on China's Weibo platform on Monday showed people rushing to the park's gates, which were already locked." Now, that can actually be dangerous. And yes, I definitely believe people were running to the exits in a panic. We all have lockdown PTSD here.
Also, you may recall that this same thing happened last year: On October 31, 2021, Shanghai Disneyland had to close, and tested everyone inside the park, because someone who had been there on October 30 turned out to be covid-positive.
I know someone who works at Shanghai Disneyland, who was there on October 31, the night that every single person in Disneyland and Disneytown had to get covid-tested because it was discovered that a traveler who had been in Disneyland on October 30 tested positive for covid. (All tests came back negative.) I saw videos shared on WeChat, the pandemic staff covered head-to-toe in their white hazmat suits, sitting at tables administering covid tests to one person after another after another, and the Disney fireworks show in the background.
Wow, this is bad. This is really tragic. A boy died from carbon monoxide poisoning, after the boy's father was blocked from taking him to the hospital due to covid-related restrictions.
The boy’s father dialed the city’s emergency hotline four times in three minutes on Tuesday but did not get through until the last time, according to a report issued by local officials on Thursday night. On his fourth try, the dispatcher told him that because he lived in an area considered “high risk” for the virus, he could seek only online medical counseling.
The father then sought help from officials in his neighborhood, but several instead reprimanded him for not wearing a mask, the report said. Nearly two hours after he first dialed for help, he finally got his son to a hospital — less than a 10-minute drive from their home. The boy, Tuo Wenxuan, died soon after they arrived.
I read this, and ... yeah, a person with an actual medical emergency being told they can't get help because they're in a "high risk area" and that's just the way it is- that totally is happening in China now. Similar things happened during the Shanghai lockdown. It's not shocking to me that no one in a position of power was willing to help this child. That's really the way it is here now.
Yeah, people in China are mad about this.
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Miscellaneous
So I skipped one of our apartment complex's "mandatory" tests. We've had to do mandatory testing every few days since March, and this was the first time I have skipped. I just didn't feel like going, and I had been tested the day before anyway, so, whatever. I've still been getting tested every 2-ish days, but this particular time I didn't do it on the specific day that our apartment complex said we had to.
Eh, whatever. (Honestly, I sort of wonder what percentage of people don't pay attention to which specific day is the "mandatory" test, and just go by their own schedule and at least make sure they always have a valid test from within 72 hours. And also, I wonder how many people are just showing a screenshot of a green code to any security guard who asks, and not actually bothering to get tested at all...)
In other news, I saw 2 different ads for Halloween parties in Shanghai which said you CAN'T dress up like pandemic control personnel (ie, the big white hazmat suits). First of all, lol that's hilarious that some Halloween parties are specifically making that a rule, and second, I mean, yes, I can see why that costume is just TOO SCARY.
Man apprehended for standing in for others to take PCR tests (October 26) "The 54-year-old man surnamed Xu who lives in suburban Jinshan District took PCR tests for 26 of his family members, friends and colleagues between August and September."
Registration for inhaled COVID-19 vaccinations begins (October 25) This is good news- China now has a covid booster shot which is inhaled! (No needles!) For now they are saying it's only for people who have not already had a booster shot. So far, China is not allowing people to get a second booster shot if they've already had one. (Ie, you can get the vaccine 3 times but not 4.)
From link #1, AI-generated image of "studio photo of a playful black cat wearing a turtle costume". "It has also taken the libery of adding a pumpkin to the costume, I see."
3. The Ethics of Looking And The “Harmless” Peeping Tom (March 22) [content note: rape culture] It's about how SO MANY MOVIES have men spying on women who are taking their clothes off, and this is presented like it's no big deal and that's just how men are. Yeah, this trope is really NOT COOL, and it's good that Pop Culture Detective made a video to point out how messed-up this is.
7. Atop a Lonely Sichuan Mountain, Grit, Hope, and Survival (October 30) I've posted links about this before- this is about Gan Yu, a power station worker who was stuck on a mountain alone after an earthquake, for 17 days, before he was rescued. This article gives a lot of details about what happened.
8.Do You Believe in Halloween Jesus? (October 31) "I was taught that Jesus was fully human and fully divine—a doctrine that has confounded and confused the greatest philosophical and theological minds for the past two millennia—but in reality, it was divine Jesus who got all the play."
11.What does it mean to be ‘open-minded’ about sex? (November 1) Wow, I am very impressed by this article- this might possibly be the first time I've ever seen an article about sex, written for a mainstream audience (ie not specifically for an asexual audience) which is genuinely inclusive of asexuals. Usually I see articles that are like, describing sex or giving advice about sex in a way that makes no sense to me as an asexual, and then somewhere near the end there's a little disclaimer about "oh also some people are asexual"- like if you know you're asexual, then the writer is saying you shouldn't take their advice, but everyone else should! This is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
But this article, "What does it mean to be ‘open-minded’ about sex?" talks about how the concept of "being open-minded" can be used to pressure people into sexual things they don't want to do. This is certainly a concern for asexuals, but hey, even if you're not asexual, there must be some sexual things you don't want to do, and it's NOT COOL if people are pressuring you to do them in order to be "open-minded" or "sex positive." The article mentions the word "asexual" just 1 time- but it's not as a disclaimer, like "none of this applies to you if you're asexual"; no, instead it's an example of a reason why someone might not want to try all the sex things. Just one example of many. There are many many valid reasons to not want to try all the sex things. ("I don't want to" is a good enough reason all by itself!)
2.Scientists plan a new orbiter mission to Pluto (posted October 30) "The mission timeline we created is as follows: Launch in December 2028, a Jupiter gravity-assist flyby in October 2030, braking into Pluto orbit beginning in 2046, and concluding in 2059." Cool!
3.Donald and Melania Trump place candy on top of child's Minion Halloween costume, video goes viral (posted October 31) I don't talk about him much because he's just THE WORST, and what else is there to say? He's THE WORST. But for some reason this- putting candy on a child's head- really bothers me. As best I can tell, the orange antichrist is standing there giving out candy as part of this Halloween event, and he's bored, and a kid shows up with a costume that has a big flat head, and the orange antichrist decides to stick the candy on top of this kid's head, just for his own amusement. This kid is in a big inflatable costume and probably can't see very well, probably can't grab the candy off of his/her own head because the costume is so unwieldy, and the candy falls off. The president is like a school bully, messing around with this vulnerable kid, whose senses and movements are extremely limited by his/her costume, just because he thinks it's funny. Complete lack of empathy.
A cake with layers whose colors are the asexual flag. Image source.
1.How Did Saying “Merry Christmas” Become a Judeo-Christian Value? (posted October 17) "The problem, I suspect, is that people sometimes forget that Judeo-Christian is not a synonym for evangelical Christian—because, and let’s be frank, that is how it is used."
2.An Indiana county just halted a lifesaving needle exchange program, citing the Bible (posted October 20) You'll be shocked to hear that the bible verse they cited doesn't have anything to do with needle exchange programs. Also, they literally said "morals" was the reason to NOT approve a program that saves lives. Just goes to show in conservative-Christian-land, "morals" doesn't actually mean morals at all. It never did.
4.Ace Community Census. A survey to gather data on the asexual community. Go over and take it~ Even if you're not asexual you can still take it- they want some non-asexual data to compare with.
5. The 'orphan' I adopted from Uganda already had a family (posted October 13) "The travesty in this injustice is beyond words. I must be clear in the following statement: My race, country of origin, wealth (though small, it's greater than that of the vast majority of people in the world), my access to "things," my religion -- none of these privileges entitles me to the children of the poor, voiceless and underprivileged."
6.On Protecting Women from Abusers, Franklin Graham Is an Opportunist and a Hypocrite (posted October 25) "In early 2016, when Naghmeh Abedini accused her husband, Saeed Abedini, of abusing her, Graham immediately sided with her alleged abuser. Graham undermined her statements publicly and went so far as to suggest, again publicly, that she was doing the devil’s work."
4.The Death Penalty, Nearing Its End (posted October 24) "In fact the crimes of the people sentenced to death are no worse than those of many others who escape that fate. Rather, nearly all of last year’s death sentences came from a tiny fraction of counties with three common features: overzealous prosecutors; inadequate public defenders; and a pattern of racial bias and exclusion."
5.An Evangelical Deal With The Devil (posted October 9) "And the devil said unto them, 'I’ll make America great again, all you need do is reach out your hand and join me.'"
7.Haw haw haw (posted October 24) "I do not believe that anyone ever converted to Christianity as a consequence of reading any of Jack Chick’s gospel tracts. But I do believe that thousands of Christians were converted by them into something else — something more like the ugly dishonesty and nasty triumphalism that were those tracts’ main attributes. He helped persuade such Christians that bearing false witness against their neighbors should be the hallmark and cornerstone of their religion."
8.So You Don’t Like Hillary (posted November 3) "I have a friend who works with underprivileged children, many of them Hispanic. She tells me that many of these children are deeply worried about their families’ futures. In some cases, their parents are making plans to leave, getting things lined up so that they can flee the country if it comes to that. Take a moment to absorb that."
1. ‘Who gets a casserole?’ (posted October 8) "That family who lost their home to fire, flood or tornado faces a hardship that we can clearly understand and that we know how to fix. They lost their home, so we can build them a new one. And once we do that, their problem will be fixed and we won’t have to worry about it anymore. But people whose problems are more chronic or enduring, whose problems don’t have such an obvious and final fix, are less likely to get a casserole."
3.Is Hermione Granger White? (posted October 9) "A story about racial hatred and oppression, in which zero major characters are actual racial minorities, would be a bit strange, would it not?"
4.Using the Bible To Run From Jesus (What If Jesus Actually Is Enough?) (posted October 9) "In the end, I found that one of the best ways to avoid doing what Jesus taught, and one of the easiest ways to find excuses for why we shouldn’t live the way he lived, was to use the Bible to do it."
6.When There Is No Justice in Scripture: The Rape of Tamar (posted October 12) "Throughout my life in the church, I had never heard the name “Tamar.” No reference to this daughter of King David. No remembrance of her profound suffering and grief."
7.Why White Parents Won't Choose Black Schools (posted October 15) "Our schools are more segregated than they have ever been. Our educational system is deeply inequitable. Things are only getting worse. They shook their concerned liberal head in sadness wondering what they could do. Then they made sure their child got into the very white, pretty affluent charter school that is not representative of their neighborhood."
11.How being poor can lead to a negative spiral of fear and self-loathing (posted June 30) "The study also reported a “negative self-stereotyping” effect, whereby people in long-term poverty absorbed the prevalent media stereotypes of people on benefits or facing unemployment as being “low in warmth and low in competence”."
Hi everyone and happy Halloween! I made a Harry Potter jack-o-lantern and I'd like to show it to y'all.
But first you need to know I'm in China and jack-o-lanterns are SO not a thing in Chinese culture. The Chinese word is 南瓜灯[nán guā dēng] which literally means "pumpkin lantern"; though the name makes it obvious what it is, from an American perspective I would say the average Chinese person does not really "get" what a jack-o-lantern is supposed to be. Because it's not a thing in Chinese culture. They don't know about choosing a perfect pumpkin and carving it with your family and scooping out the goopy parts with your bare hands and using big knives that make it difficult to cut round shapes.
I see little cartoon pictures of jack-o-lanterns in some malls that put up Halloween decorations, but that doesn't mean Chinese people are actually familiar with what they are or how to make one. Or anything about what Halloween is.
(For example, the school where I work had a Halloween party with food and costumes and games, but no chocolate candy at all. Uh what?)
Anyway, behold! The 2 pumpkins I bought. Why are they so small, you ask. Because that's what I found at the vegetable market. Actually, I have NEVER encountered a pumpkin in China which is anything like an ideal size for a jack-o-lantern. The biggest ones I've seen are about the width of a dinner plate and have a height of maybe 6 inches. (And all have the same short/fat shape.) I tell people that to make a jack-o-lantern you want a pumpkin that's definitely bigger than a basketball and they're shocked that a pumpkin that big could exist.
So, the pumpkins are small but it's okay! As an American, I never imagined using a pumpkin this small for a jack-o-lantern, but guess what, it still works! Here's my Harry Potter pumpkin:
My boyfriend made a cat jack-o-lantern. Pretty good for someone who's never made one before:
I didn't have any candles, so my boyfriend used the flashlight from his phone:
"when u lose ur phone in the couch but u can't find it" Image source.
1.Yes I Take My Poor Children Trick-or-Treating in Your Rich Neighborhood (posted October 27) "I’ve looked at the boundary map for her school, and it looks like someone went out of their way to piece all of the poor neighborhoods together while leaving out the wealthier ones. And guess what? Someone did."
4.Sanctity of the Wedding Mill (posted October 20) "They claim to have married 'roughly 35,000 couples' which indicates how discerning they are in making sure the couples they marry are really ready to enter into this life long covenant."
5.Despair, the Hard Work of Theology, and Abraham's Test (posted October 27) "Put another way, to believe--even in the face of the most astonishing pyrotechnic display of supernatural fireworks--that God was actually commanding me to kill my son, would be to give up my faith in the goodness of God. It would be to stop believing that God is love."
6.The Slaveowners and Me: On Nurturing Empathy for Oppressors (posted October 30) "Whether our ancestors were complicit in oppression or whether they bravely stood up against it, it’s worth nurturing the curiosity and introspection it takes to wonder why."
7.Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly ... in bed (posted October 31) "Ask, 'What does the Lord require of you as a single person?' or 'What does the Lord require of you as a spouse?' or 'What does the Lord require of you as someone who is LGBT?'** and the ensuing discussion won’t sound anything at all like the last half of Micah 6:8."
1.For battered NFL wives, a message from the cops and the league: Keep quiet (posted October 17) "Token suspensions and resignations do nothing to solve the problem and may even worsen it, because players who are abusive... use the threat of punishment to keep their partners quiet, the wives say."
2.Risen Again: China’s Underground Churches (posted October 21) "But having survived the ravages of the Cultural Revolution, the faith is now flourishing: a 2010 study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated there are 23 million Christians in China. In 2011, Pew Research put the figure closer to 67 million, or 5% of the population."
4.What the World Eats. Really sweet graphs here, and check this out: Americans get 37% of their daily calories from sugar and fat, Chinese get 11%. This is EXACTLY my problem. It is SO HARD to get decent desserts in China. Drives me crazy.
5.The Religious Right’s ‘Just Lie’ Strategy Is Finally Starting To Backfire (posted October 22) "When a conservative professor of theology in one paragraph uses the phrase 'radical and aggressive LGBT activists trying to advance their agenda against all morality,' and then several paragraphs later has to call bullshit on the very legal group opposing said 'radical and aggressive LGBT activists,' then the religious right has a big problem!" Yeah, every word that Focus on the Family and ADF ever said about LGBT issues was all BULLSHIT. And they claim they're fighting to protect "the family" and Christianity. If that's not taking the Lord's name in vain, I don't know what is.
8.Mike Brown’s shooting and Jim Crow lynchings have too much in common. It’s time for America to own up (posted August 25) "Images and stereotypes built into American culture have fed prevailing assumptions of black inferiority and wantonness since before the time of Jim Crow. Many of those stereotypes persist to this day and have mutated with the times. Last century’s beast and savage have become this century’s gangbanger and thug..."
9.I'm Angry (posted October 22) "I’m angry that defenders of the system want to talk in dry language about defending the reputation of Christ (as if they had even a tiny chance of doing such a thing), rather than having the compassion to show love to a victim of abuse."
10.Evangelicalism’s Poor Form (posted September 5) "There is a sort of evangelical folk religion, most of which is largely unauthorized by pastors or elders, a folk religion driven and populated by TV preachers, purity culture, uninformed theological speculations in democratic Bible studies, Chick tracts, evangelistic bumper stickers and T-shirts, Thomas Kinkade paintings, VeggieTales, Kirk Cameron movies, Amish romance novels, the Left Behind series, Focus on the Family literature, Christian bloggers, CCM, Christian dating guides, Answers in Genesis books, sappy mass-produced devotional literature, study Bibles for every conceivable niche market, and much else besides. Unsurprisingly, many presume that this all passed quality control and received the imprimatur of Evangelical Central Headquarters." Amen to that.
11.Rethinking the Stumbling Block: Christian Culture as a Barrier (posted 2009) "Second, even when the new believer or nonbeliever understands that to follow Christ he or she does not need to wear a Christian tee-shirt, think Fireproof was the best film of 2008, or enjoy Christian stand-up comedians, this person could still feel alienated if he or she is lead to believe that Christian community is Christian culture."
1.My Face is Not a Halloween Costume (posted October 29) "They tell their parents they're scared or hide behind their parents' legs. Honestly, this saddens me; I don't want to scare anyone. I think that it's because they've not seen people with visible differences before, but I also believe it's because they have seen masks and screen characters who are depicted as evil."
3.Single and not waiting (posted October 24) "I’ve wasted my time, my energy, and my emotions on this concept that singleness is just a waiting room for a relationship. I’m tired of this view that my life begins when I wake up next to my husband, because I’m pretty sure my life began 23 years ago when my mom gave birth."
9.Even Klansmen have their angels. (posted October 30) "At least the man's son had the decency to thank Ms. Thomas for literally saving his father's life."
10.No, Christianity Today, These Women Do Not Have a ‘Porn Problem’ (posted October 25) "The problem isn’t that they’re addicted to porn. The problem is that they fear any kind of sexual pleasure that doesn’t involve a husband. That’s *far* more damaging that wanting to watch late-night HBO when you’re a teenager."
Of course I had never worn a sexy Halloween costume before this year. Because they are "immodest" and therefore evil.
But, you know, I'm on tao bao (Chinese equivalent to ebay) trying to pick out a costume for my school's Halloween party. (We teach the students English, and we also teach them a bit about Western culture, so OBVIOUSLY there needs to be a Halloween party.) There are so many cute costumes... and you know I'm thinking those women are so beautiful, and those costumes would look so good on me... I'm young and skinny and beautiful and I really love how I look. I want to wear stuff like that.
(You know, ever since I ditched modesty, I've been so happy that I'm free to say, "She's really beautiful" rather than judge other women for wearing the "immodest" stuff I wish I was allowed to wear.)
So, encouraged by my coworkers, who assured me I would look incredibly cute in many of those costumes, I picked one out and ordered it.
I mean, she's beautiful, right? (No no, she's totally evil for wearing that and being so inconsiderate to the men whose minds are being attacked by her sexiness, plus she doesn't respect herself, she just wants attention from men.) (Wow I'm so glad I ditched modesty culture so I don't have to think stuff like that any more.)
It came in the mail, I opened up the package and my first thought was "oh no, I ordered a child's size by mistake." Haha, no this is the adult woman costume, honey. "One size fits most."
Okay so I tried it on. Well goodness, I look freaking beautiful. I pretty much look like the woman in the picture- tall and skinny (and no cleavage). Put on my high heels and everything. Oh man I felt so good, strutting around my little apartment.
However. The skirt is incredibly short. My underwear might show when I sit down or move or whatever. So I reasoned that I had 3 options:
Wear something under it- shorts or leggings, maybe, so no one sees my underwear.
Make peace with the fact that people might happen to catch a glimpse of my underwear.
Be paranoid and careful throughout the entire party, avoiding any movement that might perhaps cause my skirt to move slightly.
And wow, I suddenly realized, every woman who dresses "immodest" (normal people use words like cute, hot, sexy, beautiful) probably thinks carefully about stuff like that, and makes a decision about what exactly she wants to show and not show.
Of course I used to imagine she would just think "haha I don't respect my body, WHATEVERRRRRRR" and totally not care who saw what.
Like, you're already wearing this evil immodest thing, you have no right to set a boundary and not let people see your underwear. (Wow if that's not rape culture, I don't know what is. Asking for it...)
So I talked it over with my sister, who said the dress would be fine as-is just for a regular party, but since I was going to a party at my job, with my boss there and me being a teacher and stuff, I should get some leggings. She said if it was her, she wouldn't want her boss to see her underwear. (My boss is a woman- is that relevant here? No, still wouldn't want my boss to see my underwear.)
I've never had to think about stuff like this before, you guys!
I told my sister, "but I want to be sexy" and she said "if you get some tight leggings it will still be sexy." OH MY GOODNESS! Do you know how many rules I broke by saying "I want to be sexy"? And wow, the idea that tight clothing is good- completely mind-blowing. Completely immodest.
Okay so I bought some blue leggings. And I still look great, I'll have you know.
So the day of the Halloween party came. When students started showing up in costumes- my students are adults, mostly in their 20s and 30s- I went into the back room and got changed into mine. I came out and was immediately made aware of Captain America's Chinese name (美国队长 měiguó duìzhǎng) because the students were all impressed and telling me I was beautiful and such- I was turning heads. And everyone was taking pictures with their phones. (Not just me- anyone with a good costume got mobbed by paparazzi.)
I knew I was beautiful. And I totally didn't worry at all about "what if my skirt comes up" or whatever- actually I totally forgot about it. I had the blue leggings so no worries. So happy.
And there you have it. My very very first time daring to be sexy in public. My very very first time unashamedly, explicitly saying I want to look sexy. Sure, there have been formal dances I've attended, where I wore amazing dresses and looked incredibly beautiful- but I always felt guilty for indulging my desire to be beautiful. It's mean to the guys, you know.
My body is freaking beautiful and I want to look amazing- something totally not allowed in Modesty Land. It feels so good to be immodest. It feels so good to dress for myself, not for guys.
