Brave Holiday

Every year I get an enviable amount of time off from work for the summer. Every year I do very little with this time. I relax, I spend time with my family and friends, be domestic, eat and drink to my hearts content. All very worthy ways to spend your time, however this year I decided I was going to challenge myself a bit more and dedicate my holiday to being a little more brave. I wholeheartedly acknowledge that none of these acts are quite on a scale with bear wrestling but y’know, baby steps.

 

Challenge 1- Go Sleeveless 

This simple sentence strikes fear into the hearts of women everywhere. The very idea that your upper arms could be visible by other humans would cause many to break out in a cold sweat. This summer I decided that I was not going to be held back by a part of my own body. I won’t lie I was spurred on by the fact that I had recently had a tattoo session on my upper arm and wearing sleeves would just have been plain uncomfortable. So I braved it, I stepped out of my car sans jacket and guess what happened- nothing. I wish I had a marvellous story about how I inspired some people to do something wonderful or I prompted a reaction of some sort from somebody but no. I had a lovely lunch with my mother, chatted to a few people, some we knew and some we didn’t. This simple act made me question what the hell I was so afraid of all along? So I implore you all to embrace your niggly areas and show them off with pride because I promise you, everybody else is far too concerned with hiding their own niggles to even take yours into consideration.

 

Challenge 2- Be Creative

For quite a while my blog hasn’t been inspiring me quite the way it used to. I consistently felt pressure to write something and at the same time I felt guilty because I knew people were taking the time to read it and I wasn’t honouring that time.  So I took a long hard look at my blog. I wrote down all of the reasons I felt it wasn’t working, what was working and how I could progress. After much soul searching, planning and pondering I finally decided that my real calling would be to write a Sex and Body Positive Blog. I will always love fashion and makeup but there are plenty of bloggers out there who do it so very well. It was silly to put myself under pressure to be like others when I had my own unique insights to share. That and I know I will always be positive about talking about sex and sexuality as well as body positivism so there is no fear of me running out of things to talk about. As well as being more creative I decided that it was time to invest in my own creativity. If I wanted others to believe in me, it was time I started believing in my own abilities so I invested in my own domain name. This was a brave new step for me but I felt so much better having made that investment in myself and now I have a website I am absolutely proud to call my own.  Rebelle-ution is still only a baby but it too will grow in time and I can’t wait to see what it will grow into. To celebrate my brand new website I also bought myself a brand new laptop. I have spent the last 3 years working off of a tiny netbook which has tested my patience every step of the way. I will always have a fondness for the little purple machine but now I have a bigger, faster, stronger purple device to assist me with my writing. Consequently, I also swear much less when writing.

 

Challenge 3- Wearing Something Different

I am the undisputed queen of black clothing. I wear black to everything. It’s not because I am trying to hide away, I have purple hair, I’m not going to hide anywhere. I just find that black is practical, stylish and can easily transition from casual to formal. I also noticed that I have stopped looking for colours when shopping. So when it came to a family event I decided it was time to branch out and find something that wasn’t black. Alas, I was on a budget so this stretched the challenge a little further. However I did find a pretty tea dress, in my size and was not black. Ok, it was a purple shade of grey with pink love hearts, it was hardly a rainbow bright dress but it wasn’t black and I loved it. It was also nice to be able to differentiate myself in a photograph and actually see my body instead of a sea of black layering.

Challenge 4- Be Selfless 

All too often people, myself included, put themselves out there because they crave recognition. This holiday, I undertook a number of tasks to help others just to be helpful to them without any gain to myself. I won’t discuss these acts because that would be completely counter productive. However I will tell you about helping the dog to overcome her fear of water. Our Labrador Lilly is absolutely terrified of water. When she was a puppy my sisters genius of an ex-boyfriend thought it would be a great idea to throw her into a lake to teach her how to swim. It didn’t, it did teach her that water is scary and is to be avoided. Since then she has been absolutely terrified of all forms of water, heavy rain, being washed, even her water bowl being filled. So instead of having the poor creature a nervous wreck around water I decided it was time to take her swimming. Obviously this took place over a number of visits to the water and involved me going into the water with the dog but I am happy to say that she is much less scared of the water now. Just this morning when we went to the river she trotted into the water of her own accord and when we went walking in the river she even wagged her tail a few times. I realize this isn’t a huge deal for most of you and many of you will have proof that I am a mental case but I couldn’t be prouder of my furry niece.

Challenge 5- Putting Myself out There

The biggest thing I did this summer was to put my money where my mouth is and put myself out there. The first thing I did was to contact an Adult Toy and Lingerie Company I admire and I told them all the reasons that I wanted to work for them. They agreed we would be a good fit and now I am a sex educator for Canoodle.ie. There are a number of other organisations I have also been in contact with to discuss collaborative partnerships and I can’t go into details yet but so far it is looking like we will be working together on projects in the future. An artist I admire put out a call looking for full figured folks to pose for paintings. So I put my name forward and then wrote a post explaining my motivations for doing so. I received a huge amount of positive responses from people across the world who shared their stories of bravery and inspiration. I was truly overwhelmed by the number of people who were influenced by one piece of writing. For me it just showed how, if you take a leap of faith and put yourself out there, that people can react in the most amazing unexpected ways.

 

Ok so my holiday didn’t result in a whirlwind romance and I certainly didn’t get a tan but I did get something that will last so much longer. I will be returning from my break a whole lot braver. Like I said these steps weren’t astounding but like teaching Lilly to swim they took a little but of time and a little bit of bravery and one day we will look back at this whole process and wonder what we were so afraid of in the first place. So please fe-liners go, do, be brave! Challenge yourself! No matter how small you perceive that effort to be you’re still more free than those  too frightened to try. I wanna see you be brave.

 

 

 

 

The 10 lessons I learned from Caitlin Moran

As I sat in Vicar Street theatre surrounded by a sea of women and a smattering of men, butterflies danced the tango in my stomach. From the moment I first read How to be a Woman I adored Caitlin Moran. She was everything I wanted to be: a cool, quirky, kick-ass feminist with amazing hair. When she took to the stage my eyes filled with tears – what can I say, I am a little ball of emotion. During her time on stage she spoke openly about a range of subjects, from her abortion to masturbating over Benedict Cumberbatch. The most memorable part of the show (apart from getting to meet her in person, hug her and have her compliment my hair, tattoos and makeup – I had to elbow that in there somehow) was when she instructed us all to stand on a chair and shout “I am a feminist”. If you’ve never done it before, you must it’s very liberating! It’s funny, a few years ago I would have struggled to identify as a feminist and yet here I was standing on a chair shouting it for the world to hear, all because of Caitlin Moran. Over my years of avidly reading her articles, interviews and books I realise that the importance of identifying as a feminist isn’t the only lesson she has taught me. So here I present to you some of the lessons I have learned from Caitlin Moran.
 

1. Sexism isn’t as obvious as it used to be.

Modern sexism is quite cunning and so people can get away with it because you’re not quite sure if they are being sexist, being stupid or if you just don’t have a sense of humour. Caitlin puts it brilliantly: instead of thinking about it as sexism think about it in terms of politeness. Instead of calling people out for being sexist twonks let them know you found that comment quite rude. The bottom line is someone will argue that they were not being sexist or that you were being “oversensitive” but it’s hard to argue against bad manners. So let’s all work on being a little nicer and much more polite to each other.

2. Our cultural mindset has become so warped we spend far too much time and money worrying about body hair.

I remember teaching a sex ed program to a group of teenage boys and part of the program involved showing them pictures of some STDs. All of the boys freaked out and recoiled in horror  at one particular picture. Not because of the symptom of the infection but because they had never seen a vagina with hair on it and they had no idea what they were looking at! I’m not saying hair removal is evil, instead just think about your motivations for it. Do you do it because it makes you feel better or because you feel like it’s expected?

3. You can enjoy porn and still be a feminist.

Caitlin speaks openly about watching amateur porn and enjoying it. Porn isn’t bad, but the industry right now is sexist and gives unrealistic expectations in relationships, the role of women and what they should look like.

4. Your period is not a dirty shameful secret.

Growing up, I lived in a household where everything was open for discussion. However, my friends were forced to hide all elements of their bodily functions from male members of the family. I’m not sure why they never struck me as being of a nervous disposition. I’m not saying I’m gonna go full on “free flow” embracing my period but I’m certainly not going to whisper about it in hushed tones for fear of upsetting the men folk with non-sex related vagina talk. Or worse still because that is not how ladies should behave.

5. The perfect shape is “human shaped”.

Are you human shaped? Congratulations you have the perfect shape. Fat is not the worst thing you can be and anything that means you feel pressured to torture and deprive your body is bollocks.

6. If the boys don’t have to do it then some sexist bullshit is afoot.

Has the government laws that dictate what happens with a mans testicles? Do men fear walking alone at night? Is there an assumption that a man will change his surname when he gets married? You get the picture.

7. Be proud of your roots.

Caitlin speaks openly about coming from a working class family and how she will always identify as working class. When people become educated and/or successful they are adopted by the middle class. Which by default means that there will be no aspirational figures or voices for the working class. I was always secretly ashamed of being from a lower class family because those were the messages I received externally. There was no pride to be gained from being from a separated single parent family. However, now thanks to Caitlin I embrace my past and happily declare that I am working class and will never be anything else.

8. Children are your choice.

You are no better or worse than anyone else because you choose to have them or not. You have an inherent worth already, you do not need to have a child to become a complete woman. If you do choose to have a baby it is just that, your choice, go for it if it is what you want – I hear it’s incredibly fulfilling. But you are not a child hating monster if you do not want one of your own.

9. Abortion is also your choice.

If you think that you won’t be able to love a child the way they should be loved, and if you can’t give them the physical, social, financial and emotional support they need then you can choose not to have the baby. Or if you are just not ready or whatever reason you have then you do not have to have a baby. And you don’t have to feel guilty about it, either.

10. Being a feminist does not translate to being a man-hater.

We don’t want to overthrow the men and rule the world, we just want our share. We don’t want them to go away, we just want to work alongside them with the same opportunities and benefits. Is that too much to ask?

I  hope you enjoyed this post and that it has  inspired you to read Caitlin Moran’s books. If/ when you do, I would love to hear all about it!