The Bilerico Project

Irene Vilar's Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:00:00 -0500

The title of Irene Vilar's new memoir, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict, is a bit misleading. Although Vilar chronicles 15 abortions over 15 years, "addiction" as a diagnostic category is only hastily grafted onto her tale of existential angst. Cynical readers will wonder whether the packaging of this story as "abortion addiction" originated in the writer's workshop or the marketing department.

Whatever the intentions behind the title, it has provoked pro-life ire--one blogger refers to Vilar as a "serial killer"--and pro-life smugness--a spokesperson for Americans United for Life points to Impossible Motherhood as proof that "abortion is part of a very sad story for women."

There has been favorable coverage of the book as well--most notably a Washington Post story that portrays Vilar, now a mother of two daughters, as a woman who has finally "embraced the role of motherhood" and given reign to her "maternal instincts." The accompanying slide show features romantic photos of Vilar in the nursery, surrounded by her children and their toys. In coverage like this, we can witness the power of motherhood as redemptive fetish.

Continue reading "Irene Vilar's Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict"...

Queering Twilight

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:00:00 -0500

In preparation for the release of the latest Twilight movie, I've been thinking a lot about the series' leading man, Edward Cullen.

Edward is mysterious and masterful, chivalrous and cool. He decides when his lover can touch him and where. He rarely gives up sexual control. His chiseled chest is as hard as a rock.

In other words, Edward is a stone butch top.

In other words = totally hot.

Continue reading "Queering Twilight"...

The Chaos, Hubbub, and Order Scale

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

6:30 comes early when you go to bed at 2. Last night, my wife's heavy metal band played to a packed house of head-banging lezzies. Of course we had to go out for triumphant post-show pancakes. Now it's my turn to take our son to school, and I'm feeling decidedly less celebratory.

On the clock radio, an NPR announcer is explaining, for the umpteen billionth time, about credit default swaps. I think I understand: as a mother, I'm always struggling to balance love, work, creativity, and the mundane obligations of domestic life. I know the temptation of a little creative accounting. Right now, I'm trying to leverage the possibility that I might know the location of my son's shoes for ten more minutes of sleep.

I roll out of bed, start the coffee, and search the living room for my hat. Blue hair seemed like a great idea when I was plotting to be the belle of the freak fest, but this morning I have to walk the gauntlet of parents between the car and the door of my son's kindergarten class. Four hours of sleep have not prepared me to make small talk about my hairdo with friendly straight people.

Continue reading "The Chaos, Hubbub, and Order Scale"...

The Lazy Queer Parent's Guide to Sex Ed Books for Kids

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:30:00 -0500

One night in the bath, my five-year-old son poked at his testicles. "What are these things called again?"

"They're called testicles, but sometimes people call them balls," I said.

He seemed momentarily satisfied, but the next night, on the toilet, he returned to the subject.

"These tentacles..." he started.

"Testicles."

"Testicles," he repeated. "What are they for?"

Continue reading "The Lazy Queer Parent's Guide to Sex Ed Books for Kids"...

Butch is Back? When Did Butch Go Away?

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:30:00 -0500

In the middle of the summer--on the day I was leaving for vacation, in fact--Bil Browning, our illustrious editor-in-chief, put an article on my virtual desk. It was the cover story for the Village Voice's queer issue, titled "Rachel Maddow, the New Sexy: the Butch is Back, with a Poster Girl."

Throughout my summer travels, I tried, unsuccessfully, to get this article out of my mind. But I can't seem to let it go. Thanks a lot, Bil.

It's not just because the author, Winnie McCroy, looks to TV producers and straight people as the arbiters of dyke culture. It's not because the article repeatedly evokes the stereotype of butches as "mullet coifed" man-haters who see "men as the enemy."

No, what irks me most is the way that this article--and loads of other trendspotting articles about the "new" butch--get queer history wrong.

Continue reading "Butch is Back? When Did Butch Go Away?"...

Saturday Morning Cartoons: An Interview with aGLIFF's Jake Gonzales

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:00:00 -0500

One Saturday morning, my son was sitting in the living room, watching an animated video about numerals.

"Mom!" In keeping with his TV-watching custom, he was shouting, even though I was only a few feet away.

"Mom, Mom!" he persisted, never removing his eyes from the screen, "all of the people in this video are straight!!"

While Waylon took the whole thing in stride (he seemed more curious than anything else), his epiphany about heteronormativity was a bit sad for me. Which is why I was so excited when I found out that the 22nd Annual Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival is sponsoring Saturday Morning Cartoons for kids.

Follow the jump for an interview with AGLIFF Program Director Jake Gonzales.

Continue reading "Saturday Morning Cartoons: An Interview with aGLIFF's Jake Gonzales"...

A Road Trip, Told as a Series of Pit Stops

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 11:30:00 -0500

It's the kind of truck stop where a voice on the loudspeaker calls out "Customer 47, your shower is ready." In the back, plywood covers a large hole in the wall, a monument to some past collision. In the front, porcelain bald eagles are arrayed next to bright yellow boxes of energy "vitamins."

When I was a straight, white college student, I used to appreciate places like this as kitsch. That was before I traveled the U.S. with my ex--a gender non-conforming man of color, a non-citizen. Now I sense the undercurrent of violence. I can taste the ambient terror.

My six-year-old son, Waylon, has to pee. I take him with me to the women's bathroom, then begrudgingly allow him to choose a candy treat. "Those are two for one," drawls the white woman behind the counter. I just want to get out of this place, but Waylon's already made a beeline back to the candy aisle.

Just then, Katy walks up. "Do you have your phone on you?"

Continue reading "A Road Trip, Told as a Series of Pit Stops"...

Ice Age 3: Can a Queer Utopia Be Built on Prehistoric Gender Roles?

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:00:00 -0500

Last week, Zac Hart at Bilerico-Indiana wrote about walking out of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Zac's catalogue of summer blockbuster racism and homophobia got me thinking about the other movie at the top of the box office charts, Ice Age 3, which might as well be subtitled "The Crisis of Heterosexual Masculinity."

Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano) and his wife Ellie (Queen Latifah) are expecting a baby. Their descent into solipsistic nesting mode threatens the coherence of the motley interspecies tribe that has been established in previous Ice Age movies. As a result, Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the tiger (Denis Leary)--both single males--decide to go their separate ways. The dissolution of the alternative community/tribe is exacerbated by the male characters' utter inability to express their feelings.

In an attempt to create a compensatory family of his own, Sid appropriates a trio of dinosaur eggs.* Now in nurturing mode, he begins referring to himself as "Mommy" and even--unless I'm much mistaken--using feminine pronouns.

All of this, I know, sounds really queer.

Continue reading "Ice Age 3: Can a Queer Utopia Be Built on Prehistoric Gender Roles?"...

I Want Free Stuff

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:30:00 -0500

Last week I attended a six-year-old's birthday party. After pizza and ice cream and cake, the kids were working off their sugar highs by running and wrestling and generally acting like maniacs. The parents were huddled around the booze.

One of the dads in attendance, a straight male Internet entrepreneur, was extolling the latest marketing trend: apparently, companies are giving loads of free stuff to so-called "mommy bloggers" and "daddy bloggers." This guy has gotten everything from an iPod to a Diaper Genie, just for a mention on his parenting site.

"Paige is a mommy blogger," said an incredibly-supportive-straight-mom-who-reads-my-blog.

Suddenly, everyone at the table turned to look at me.

Continue reading "I Want Free Stuff"...

Passing (Or Not) at the Pool

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:00:00 -0500

It feels like 95 degrees in the shade. We're standing in line at the municipal pool. The mom in front of us has three kids and a tattoo on her cleavage that says "Ivan" or "Juan," I can't tell which. My hand moves reflexively toward the "Katy" on my own arm. Before I can solve the mystery of Ivan/Juan, the woman moves on. Now it's our turn to pay the pasty teen behind the concrete counter.

Once inside, we walk past dilapidated metal bleachers and spread our towels under a giant oak tree. By this time in the summer, we know where to sit to avoid fire ants. This is our Sunday afternoon family ritual: I swim laps while Katy takes our six-year-old son, Waylon, to the recreational side of the pool to play with his neon orange Nerf football.

I always feel like I'm getting away with something.

Continue reading "Passing (Or Not) at the Pool"...

Queer Music Friday: Peaches...and Glambert

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:00:00 -0500

Electronic shock rocker Peaches has a hilarious new concept video for the song "Lose You." Long before the latest pop-diva leotard craze, Peaches was working the spandex one-piece--usually with some pubes hanging out for dramatic effect. In this vid, she represents for the B in LGBT--or at least the P in Pansexual.

And, in case you've been living under a rock for the past week, it's our duty to inform you that Adam Lambert officially came out in the pages of Rolling Stone, which hit newsstands today. After the jump: Adam in The Gayest Tank Top Ever.

Continue reading "Queer Music Friday: Peaches...and Glambert"...

Keep Parenting Queer

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:00:00 -0500

A while back, I attended a workshop for LGBT families. At lunch, the organizers asked parents to break into small groups and talk about "things that sustain us." My group was chewing its sandwiches in awkward silence, so I decided to plunge in: for me, one of the most sanity-preserving practices has been staying connected to my queer communities.

"You do that?" asked a gay dad in his late thirties. "How do you do that?"

His incredulity got me thinking. Chosen family and subcultural networks are two of the great blessings of being queer. For many LGBT folk, our queer communities have sustained us through better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health. So why is it that, after they have kids, so many people end up missing from the potluck and the film festival, the protest and the dance floor?

Is it exhaustion? Fear? Finances? Some kind of internalized oppression that says queer spaces are not kid spaces?

Continue reading "Keep Parenting Queer"...

Genderqueer Mommy

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Sun, 10 May 2009 10:00:00 -0500

Lately, when I've been blogging about my wife, Katy Koonce, it's been about her role as dynamic front man for the "silicone cock rock" band Butch County. In honor of Mother's Day, I asked her to talk with me about mothering from beyond the gender binary. In the course of our conversation, we touched on t-ball, chest surgery, field trips, and bathrooms.

Paige: Although people on the street tend to call you "sir," around our house, you're known as "mommy." Can you talk about your identity and how motherhood figures in?

Koonce: My identity is trans-genderqueer-butch-dyke-mommy. "Mommy" is the word I used as a kid to describe the person who could take all the pain away or support me when I needed it...

Continue reading "Genderqueer Mommy"...

Queer Music Friday: MondoHomo 2009

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:00:00 -0500

On May 21-25, MondoHomo 2009, "the South's queer art, spoken word, dance party, hip-hop-electro clash, politics, film, BBQ, circus arts, theater, music, burlesque, social action diversity-lovin' festival of fun queer space," will be sowing the seeds of dance-friendly revolution in Atlanta.

Mondo Homo 2009 from Andy Forbes on Vimeo.

Check out the full line-up, featuring Justin Bond (Kiki and Herb, Shortbus), a whole lotta homo-hop (Deadlee, Tori Fixx) and all manner of queer legends and upstarts (Gretchen Phillips, Dave End).

How Motherhood Earned Me a Free Sex Toy

pschilt@bilerico.com (Paige Schilt) — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:00:00 -0500

When I was pregnant with my son, I heard a comedienne talking about the aftereffects of childbirth:

"I'm peeing all the time. I'm actually peeing right now," she said.

That will never happen to me, I told myself.

I was in denial--the kind of deep, pre-delivery denial that ensures the continuation of the species. This maternal defense mechanism sustained several calming delusions. I believed that my partner and I would take a pleasant walk during the early stages of labor. I believed that I would not beg for drugs when the contractions started. And I believed that my intimate geography would not be forever reconfigured into Frankenpuss.

Continue reading "How Motherhood Earned Me a Free Sex Toy"...