Sad Sex Robots

Note: This can be a touchy subject. The very last thing I want to do is bring any shame to it. This is not about drawing conclusions or saying what is right and wrong. These are thoughts and questions based off of my personal experience, which is mine to own. Yours can be entirely different and yours to own. My reason for sharing this is because it doesn’t really get talked about and if it does, it’s polarizing. But processing through this is a part of my life and I wish I could do that more with people instead of pretending like we don’t all have some level of relationship or experience with it. So please know that is where I’m coming from. My hope is it results in more questions and conversations over a drink rather than Facebook rants and upset messages. My hope is that it simply causes people to pause for a moment and think. That is all.

 

I spent an hour reading about how sex robots are a thing. AI robots with ‘warming intimate areas’ and the ability to hold a conversation, express desire, and learn about you. Researchers predict that between 2030-2050, sex robots will be normative. There will be sex robot brothels to replace human prostitutes (anyone who finds this intriguing should watch Ex-Machina). I also saw articles that referenced the impending mainstream of virtual reality porn. And another article that mentioned web cam sites that allow users to upload a photo of someone they find attractive (friend, co-worker, celebrity, anyone) so it can use facial-recognition software to pull up similar looking sex-models from their database. This beautiful, humanity-restoring material inspired me to visit some porn sites. It had been almost three years since I’d done that. The same thing that always happened, happened: my ears and cheeks got hot, my heartbeat went funny, and after clicking out I felt sad.

It used to make me sad because I was with someone who couldn’t get enough of these women forever scrolling across the screen, arranged and dominated in window boxes. They were perfect because they were quite literally: unending. Instant, always desiring, never asking, and completely uncomplicated. I was sad because I didn’t know what my response was supposed to be and it confused my perception of what was real and what wasn’t. Is this supposed to be seen as pretend entertainment or an instruction guide? If one is aroused by demeaning, aggressive, exploitative sex, does that mean they want that for their own sexual relationship? If not, what is the value in watching it? If your partner closes their eyes during sex, are they picturing all these other women and does that prevent connection and intimacy? Is this what makes it difficult to stay hard or last long enough and is that the only thing that is going to get people’s attention? If they’re spending hours with them instead of you, does that count as cheating? I used to pray that he’d just ‘actually’ sleep with someone else so that I’d at least be able to make sense of the pain I felt from the constant, quiet competition. It used to make me sad because I had an overwhelming suspicion that I had been having sex with someone for years and yet we had never really touched each other.

But this time I wasn’t seeing it as someone looking to spice up their sex life or trying to understand their significant other. I was seeing it for the first time as someone who has been sexually assaulted. Now it made me sad because I know what it is like when someone picks you out and decides that your body is for consuming. I know what it is like to be arranged, dominated, and rendered completely uncomplicated. I am a part of a system that agrees sex is something that men do to women or watch women do to each other. I understand there is a level of consent in pornography, making it different from sexual assault. But I would argue that both are dehumanizing. There are so many men who would never EVER dream of abusing, harassing, or assaulting a woman. Men who consider themselves feminists. Men who stand up for women, respect, value, and praise women. But I think what they really mean by women is women they know. Because when it comes the women they watch in porn, is that respect null and void? Are they valuing those women for who they are or what they will do? Are those women being stood up for or laid down for? It seems like the only “right” viewers care about is the right to consume someone else’s body as a means to an end without it being abuse or assault. Because we all hope and assume that these people are getting paid well and enjoying their job. But there is also plenty of evidence that the porn industry is rampant with physical abuse, sexual trauma, drugs, and mental health disorders. Documentaries, research, and the personal accounts of ex-porn actors all indicate that there is a lot more to the conversation than is being widely discussed.

Our world compartmentalises porn. It puts porn in this box and says this couldn’t possibly contribute to 1 in 3 women being sexually assaulted, 4.5 million people being trapped in forced sex work, rising rates of impotence and ED, half of marriages ending, and generally being the most addicted, depressed, obese, in-debt adult cohort in all of history. It couldn’t possibly contribute to that because everyone does it. It’s normal. It’s fine. This is just acting. No harm, no foul. But let’s look at these statistics from PornHub’s 2015 annual review. Keep in mind this is just one porn site.

• 87,849,731,608 videos viewed (that’s 12 videos viewed per person on earth)
• 4,392,486,580 hours of porn watched (that’s 2.5x longer than homo sapiens have been on earth)
• Americans account for 41% of overall traffic
• The most common search terms were “teen” and “stepmom”

You can’t have statistics like this for anything and not have it creating an enormous impact, even if its subconciously. Even if it hasn’t been like this long enough to have conducted comprehensive, in-depth research. That is a lot of people watching a lot of material that propels the message that the female body is an object and that sexiness is a woman’s currency. It propels it at a pace and in forms we have little control over. Technology moves faster than we do. Today the average age of exposure to pornography is 8. And we aren’t just dealing with Playboys stashed under mattresses anymore. I’ve worked with 14 year old guys who showed me Snapchat videos of them receiving head. I’ve worked with girls who feel it is completely normal to send nude pictures of themselves to guys at school because they expect it. The line between liberation/empowerment and objectification is very blurry depending on who you’re asking. There are generations yet to enter adulthood that have learned most of what they know about sexuality and human interaction from the internet and social media, which is fascinating. And kind of terrifying. I just wonder if and how this is affecting our ability to be in relationship, to have empathy, to build intimacy, and to humanize?

A lot of what I’ve experienced has made my state of being feel out of control. It violated a part of who I am and I continually find myself trying to restore that. I don’t want to be angry and cynical. I don’t want to be incapable of trust. I don’t want to feel ashamed of what happened. So I’m trying to grasp how normal, nice guys end up in a mindset where they feel that sexually assaulting someone is okay. I’m trying to understand why we find it so easy to be disgusted by the degredation and objectification of women when we look up at our wives, sisters, friends, daughters, and mothers but when we look down at our laptops or phones we don’t think twice about participating in a system that helps sustain it?

I have this scenario that plays out in my head where I look at the guy who raped me and I say, “Hi! My name is Taylor and my favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip. In high school I was voted ‘Most Likely to Make Your Day’ by my classmates. I have a bunion on my right foot that I’m all self conscious about because it makes me feel like an 80 year old. I come up with terrible analogies. I can remember every movie line and I’ll make you the best mojito of your life. Look, I’m like a really sweet, angel, butterfly type person and if you would just stop to know me you’d never do this so please, please, please don’t do this.”

I want to believe something like this would work. Unfortunately, I know deep down that pleading for people to understand the gravity of what they’re doing has never been a winning strategy. But now all I can think about are the women that just flew across my screen in ‘Freckled Latina Deepthroat’ and ’19 year-old getting gang banged’. I hope that whoever is watching realizes just how very, very real these women are. And I hope that instead of getting off this time, they’ll just wonder what her favorite ice cream flavor is.

Love,

Taylor

Small Hours

I’m watching a play. There are two 20-something aged girls in pyjamas, curled up in over-sized armchairs facing the audience. Over the next 45 minutes I listen to their conversations. The ones that happen in the small hours of the morning, when best friends talk about everything and nothing simultaneously. I know these hours and friends well. Immediately memories start playing out in my mind. One friend inebriatedly crying about the effects of global warming on ocean animals after we built a fort and had too much whisky. Squeezing the hand of another on a rooftop right before we graduated college, afraid of letting go and growing up. Having the worst flu of my life and deciding the obvious antidote was to cuddle up on the couch together and spend the entire day watching the Godfather series for the first time.

The stage lights end and begin scenes intermittently. I soon recognize that I’m witnessing a shuffling of memories—various conversations during those hours that become the breeding grounds for future nostalgia. The girls, still enveloped in their armchairs, begin to turn from the audience towards each other and their discussion reveals that this is actually a play-within-a-play. The earlier conversations are perhaps entirely false. One girl tries to remember while the other gets upset for parts being erroneously represented. One is really here, the other is not. This relationship now grievously exists in one-sided memory.

“The worst part is that I’m not even me anymore. I’m just how you remember me.”

Light-hearted, funny, sentimental conversations fade into something that is universally experienced yet rarely portrayed: the loss of self that happens when old friendships dissolve.

The small-hours-kind-of-friends are like mirrors. We love the part of ourselves they reflect back to us. When one of those friendship ends it’s as if there’s a part of yourself you can’t see anymore. Whether the ending happens suddenly or more commonly, slowly and gently over time, any attempt at revisiting is prone to error and inaccuracy. I think one of the most jarring parts of growing up that no one tells you about is how often you will experience this:

Looking back on something you thought you knew and discovering the reality you believed was something else entirely.

We talk about making vows with partners, but don’t we also make them with our friends? Not ones said out loud wearing pretty outfits in front of a smiling crowd. Silent ones in pyjamas that happen between “what’s up”s and “remember when”s. Vows that are spelled out in leftover pizza crusts and danced out on dorm room floors. Those vows made during the small hours propel us through so many big days. We assume best friends are forever kinds of things. We assume these friendships will fill us in the ways they always did. That this friend will know how to love us the way we need through all of life’s ups and downs. We assume that we’re honest with ourselves and with one another. We assume that we’ll always put forth effort in equal measure. But vows made between friends are just as subject to change as vows made between partners. It feels to me that most of us are taught to regard these changes with an air of nonchalance and progressive acceptance. This seems increasingly evident to me as I journey through a phase of life that is incredibly transitional for everyone my age.

It’s natural. Life happens. They’ll understand. People change. Things get busy. I’m sure we could just pick up where we left off. 

I get that. I’ve parted ways from friends both abruptly with mutual acknowledgement and in a slow, silent fade out. I’ve cried after hearing about a friend’s engagement because of the changes that I knew would inevitably follow. I’ve quietly seethed over a friend’s job placement knowing it would take them far away from me. I’ve stayed up all night anxious about how things “felt weird” when we hung out last. I’ve experienced the sink in your chest the instant you realize they don’t care as much as you do anymore.

This play made me realize that everything I just described is a reaction of fear. These “normal” transitions in a friendship doesn’t just mean the change or loss of this person who has a specific and important part to play in your story. It’s kind of like a change and loss of self. If you love who you are around someone, if you’re attached to what they bring out in you or how they know and understand you, and then that connection shifts in a big or small way…it’s startling. Hard. Uncomfortable. It’s shitty, okay? It’s just shitty. And I wish friends acknowledged the silent vows more often. I wish friends talked about the transitions when they happen.

I don’t have a tidy conclusion or a specific point to make. Mostly I just saw a play and it brought my feelings to life in one of those beautifully messy ‘ME TOO’ ways that art tends to do.

Here’s to the magic of the small hours.

I wouldn’t take any of them back, no matter the outcome. Maybe that’s the point.

Shout out to my C venues team mate Anna Jeary for her brilliant writing and Fourth Wall Theatre for showcasing Small Hours at the Edinbrugh Festival Fringe. 

Love,

Taylor

50

My Faja, Thomas James Vander Well, turns 50 today.

Cheers to the man who wears many hats (literally and metaphorically). I am mind blowingly fortunate that he’s my father. I seriously think about that…a lot. Like every week at least, because I get a cute little post card from him at that frequency. I am always in awe of his creativity, love, wisdom, and how much fun he has with life. He has, and always will be, my favorite man.

Here’s a little throwback post:

https://love-taylor.com/2014/06/13/when-dad-meets-daughter/

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Love,

Taylor

Real

This is a thank you letter to the people who refuse to hold back their emotions in public. They might make some people uncomfortable, but I am not one of those people. I freaking love them for it because they aren’t trying to hide, cover, or not feel. Its refreshing when people give in and react to the moment, even if someone or everyone might see.

Dear woman quietly bawling on the tube in London,

I hear you sniffling and letting out those tiny, gaspy sobs. I keep glancing up from my book to see a constant stream of tears coming down your face. Oh shit. You just read a text on your phone and it made you cry harder. I’ve been there before, sister. Did you just get dumped? Did someone die? Did you get in a fight with your best friend? I wish I knew why you were so sad. When I get off at my stop, I’ll drop a travel pack of kleenax on the empty seat next to you as a token of my appreciation for the honest visual display of your current emotional state…and because crying that hard gives you a runny nose and it’s the worst when you’re leaking from every orifice on your face. Thank you for reminding me it’s okay when you can’t hold back tears. Just let those rivers flow.

 

Dear couple fighting in aisle 13 at Home Depot,

I’ve always been told that home improvement projects are the true test of a relationship. That seems to be a very real thing in this moment for the two of you. You apparently have very different opinions about which project is more important to finish first, but there has to be a compromise, right? Also, I feel like this argument isn’t actually about a project timeline. It sounds to me like this lady thinks you’re over estimating your DIY skills and wants you to just hire someone so you can focus on your relationship rather than drywall for awhile, dude. But she should probably just come out and say that to you. Oops. We just made eye contact and you guys got a lot quieter. But you don’t need to. Honestly. Don’t mind me. I’m just over here mentally cheering you on while I eavesdrop and make what appears to be a very difficult decision about paint primer. Thank you for showing me that I should probably never try to renovate a house with my significant other.

 

Dear girl telling off guy in the park,

There are people all around you: eating their sandwiches, power walking with their coworkers, biking to class, playing frisbee, reading on benches, etc. And then there you are just yelling at this guy. You look really strong. I imagine you feel strong. It sounds like you’ve wanted to say this for a long time. Maybe it’s been building in you. Way to go for telling him how it is and walking away. You didn’t turn around, but he watched you until you reached the street. Thank you for being loud and fierce. I felt empowered just observing you and I don’t even know you.

Dear couple breaking up at Smokey Row,

Here are your lattes. Oh. Oh no. This is awkward. You guys are totally breaking up right now, aren’t you? Wow. Did one of you plan to do this here? Because you’d think that initiating a break up in a cafe would come across as a terrible idea. Are you breaking up on a date? This is ridiculous. I feel so bad for whoever is getting dumped right now. I mean, you’d at least expect a to-go order so that this conversation can happen in the car…But alas. Here you are. Both staring intensely at your cups. I’m going to bring you a couple of free cookies and just set them on the table. It feels like the right thing to do since you brought me into this now. Thank you for being reallll real.

Love,

Taylor

 

Strength & Weakness

Has anyone else ever become painfully aware that their greatest strength is also their most maddening weakness?

Someone recently commented on how much I give of myself to other people…and they said it (probably unintentionally) in a way that made me self-conscious about it.

In a way that implied, “Tay, you’re just a little bit crazy and it’s making me kind of uncomfortable.”

And for days after this, I internally mulled over whether this defining character feature of mine was, in fact, crazy…even just a little bit.

And I’ll admit it. There is a crazy element.

It’s crazy to try and be what someone else wants or needs. But I do this a lot. I put other people first. I meet them where they’re at. I think of them first. I try to make their day. I ask them questions. I over analyze all my words and actions so that I’m not being too much of this, but enough of that. I will be patient and understanding to a fault. I will listen well and ponder your thoughts in my heart. If you hurt me I might tell you, but you probably won’t feel any repercussions because I would rather love without reservation. And all of this honestly comes pretty effortlessly. Because this is me. This is how I am good at being. This is where I’m strong. And for the most part, it works. I have a beautiful existence full of amazing relationships and opportunities that make my life full.

I know how to use this strength and leverage it for the good of others. If I get asked to do something that will make you feel better and I can, it’s honestly great for us both. But here’s where the crazy becomes uncomfortable…I don’t like asking for anything and I don’t like having needs of my own. This doesn’t exactly work, because it isn’t realllllly human.

I’m 9 months in to my year of being fierce and still learning what that looks like, but I think this is part of it. I’m already fiercely loving and giving. That isn’t something I need to grow deeper in. This is where fierce becomes about expanding, adding, balancing. It’s about flexing those muscles I’m adverse to using. It’s hard to accept those challenges for myself. The challenge of being confrontational, self-focused in a way that makes my skin crawl, and bravely blunt.

I mean, if you play an instrument with only one string, it’s going to get really irritating and redundant after awhile, right? Adding a few strings will help you get farther.

I don’t mean for this to sound definitive, but for instance…

If you are really organized, you are probably inflexible. Adapt more.

If you are giving, you are probably not receiving. Take care of yourself more.

If you are a talker, you probably talk too much. Listen more.

If you are a creative, you are probably scatterbrained. Ask more questions.

If you are insanely busy, you are probably restless. Rest more.

If you are great at encouraging, people walk over you. Confront more.

We all need to push ourselves towards balance. I’m not naive enough to think that anyone, myself included, can just start doing this and voila- a whole new person. No, no, no.

One of my favourite authors, Rachel Held Evans, said it this way:

“You tend to come out of the big moments– the wedding, the book deal, the baptism, the trip, the death, the birth– the exact same person who went in, and perhaps the strangest surprise of life is it keeps on happening to the same ol’ you.”

We have game changing life moments, conversations, and prayers. I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever come out of them a whole different person. I’m still me. But something small changes and creates that tiny ripple effect that dictates what happens next: a slow but insanely amazing refining process. I know that for me, it started with acknowledging that my greatest strength makes me weak when I am motivated out of a place of doing or being for love or acceptance from other people. When it fails, I struggle to feel adequate enough. I get hurt. My confidence wavers. I let myself down. But if I am fierce in the refining process, my strength will go farther and hit deeper because I will be motivated out of a place of fully loving and accepting who I am and taking care of what I need before I give.

My best friend said to me, “…it’s like this. If you were to decide to renovate a house on your own as a project you wanted to do…you’d still be doing it with other people in mind. You’d probably make changes and designs for who ever you thought might take up that space. That’s a beautiful, incredible thing about you. But Tay, you have to make it yours first. It has to be tailor-made, you know? The only type of person who deserves what you give is the person who comes in and helps start painting the walls with you in mind. So, be you. 100%. Do your thing. Focus on making that house however you want it first and then the right people, the ones who truly belong in your life, will come in. They’ll come in and you won’t have to change anything. They’ll just decide to stay because they’ll feel at home in your tailor-made house.”

I think he’s right. Now I have to keep on living it out.

Ooft. Well, that was draining.

Speaking of draining…I would like to drain a whole bottle of wine into my mouth.

Ugggh. Whole30. Two more weeks. I can do this.

Love,

Taylor

Untitled

I was ten. I was running through the sprinkler in my underwear. Blades of grass stuck to my skin. My body was long and lean, void of any curvature. It was whole and mine. It allowed me to do backbends and cartwheels. That is all I noticed about my body.

I was twelve. I was sitting at the kitchen table in my pajamas. My dad looked at me sympathetically and told me that I had reached an age where boys would start to see me differently. He spoke of the differences between boys and girls and hormones. “Boys are visual. Girls are emotional.” So, child, you must be careful. The world will make sure you learn not desire for the other, but the desire to be desired.

I was fourteen. I took off my jacket at lunchtime, scandalously revealing my strapless shoulders.[1] The Vice Principal swore at me. I was sent to the office a for a second outfit violation that year. Blindsided and face burning with humiliation, I hid in the bathroom stall and changed into clothes my mom had to bring me. My parents read me something out of Dr. Phil’s ‘How to Talk to Your Teen’ book. I was learning that people had opinions about my body. Now there were rules regarding my skin.

I was sixteen. I was wearing a high-collard turquoise t-shirt and a long skirt. I was teaching vacation Bible school for children in the villages of Panama. We were singing Abre mis ojos oh Cristo and throwing a giant colorful tent up in the air. Tiny ones squealed with delight and ran under. I felt a tap on my shoulder and the leader asked me to talk to her for a minute. We walked to the church entrance, where she told me that since my chest was big and my shirt was too tight, boys were staring at me. She lent me a big t-shirt to put on, lest the outline of my body cause those brothers of mine to sin.[2] You don’t want to do that, do you? I walked back to the giant colorful tent, now resembling what I was wearing. I looked over at the boys leaning out the church windows. My heart beat faster. Lying on the church’s cement floor that night, from my sleeping bag I watched my cursed chest rise and fall. I was drenched in a humid sweat, soaked with shame. On this day, a tiny bit of my innocence was sacrificed. The impact of your naturally developing curves is a dangerous thing, apparently. Hide.

I was eighteen. I was wearing jeans and a hoodie. It is important to note that my face and hands were the only parts of me exposed because I was on a service trip in Morocco[3], a place that forced me to constantly be aware of my femaleness. It was a place where I was chased out of a market. Where I sat in an Internet café writing e-mails while the man at the computer next to me watched porn. Where a man on the street asked if he could bring me home to his mother and fuck me. Where I listened to people have sex against the door to my hostel room. Where I was constantly “complimented” in the streets and strangers were not afraid to touch you. One day, I was sitting on a park bench reading my Bible. Two men walked up and sat on either side of me. They began speaking to me in Arabic. I did not look up or respond. I just stared at Isaiah’s verses, resting on my knees. Then I heard in broken English whispers that felt wet and hot in my ears, “Why you no talk to us? We be nice.” They played nice with their hands, which found their way to my neck, gliding down my breasts, and landing in my crotch. My legs, despite their Jell-O consistency, found the strength to stand. I apologized to the men for not wanting to talk to them as I walked away. When I came back home, the prayer ladies told me that maybe I was supposed to go back to Morocco because it was obvious the devil didn’t want me there.

I was nineteen. I was wearing a white dress. It had little cap sleeves with sequins. The air was crisp. My stomach was in knots. I was his. We made lots of promises. We lit a candle and put rings on our fingers. We danced. It was sweet and sparkling and blissful. He carried me away and unlaced the white dress. I laced up my lingerie. Nothing went the way I thought it would. Rejection. Lies. Confusion. I had a lot of exposure to a world of fantasy and I grappled to understand how they became more desirable than reality.[4] You’re supposed to be both. But you’re not supposed to be both. The messages say things like: Be a virgin when you get married, but also know exactly what you’re doing in bed and be really good at it. Be outraged by the objectification of the female body, but also see your own as the sexual object it is. Just be you, but also look and act like these women. He’ll love you for it. You are valued for your purity, but desired for your promiscuity.

I was twenty-one. I was in the bathtub wearing a layer of bubbles. I knew something was wrong and I was trying to wash it off. He came in and sat on the bathroom floor. I asked him how he was doing. He admitted to this one thing that made my nose crinkle. This was different than the other things. Every cell in my body felt wide-awake and dead at the same time. This feeling wasn’t going to wash off. Something had to change. I can try to be or look as beautiful and perfect as possible, but I am it is not enough. I can leave for one, three, or five months, but I am it is not enough. I can read all the books, do all the research, plan all the things, say all the prayers and attend all the counseling sessions, but I am it is not enough. I can want, wish and love with all of my being but I am it is not enough. Something had to change.[5] It was me. The feeling never washed off.

I am twenty-four. It is pouring rain. The humid summer kind of rain. I’m wearing a striped dress, cotton clinching to my grass-covered skin. I’m dancing. My body, which has felt burdened and hallow for months, finds in this moment a sweet release. There is pure, unadulterated joy beaming from my twirling limbs and bouncing wet waves. My body is soft and strong, no longer void of curvature. It is whole and mine. It is more than enough. It still allows me to do backbends and cartwheels, among a million other amazing things. That is all I notice about my body.

 

[1] There is nothing scandalous about my shoulders.

[2] Boys are not helpless victims when it comes to their eyes. The evidence of my breast size does not cause them to sin.

[3] I was fully clothed when I was assaulted. Sexual assault happens because the perpetrator wants it to happen, not because any woman “asks for it” with her appearance.

[4] Love it or hate it; porn is a lie. It is a performance. It is not an instruction manual. Never before in our world have we had such immediate access and extreme exposure to this kind of media and at such young ages. Science is starting to show the negative effects it is having on our brains, relationships, and society.

[5] There is nothing I can do to create or initiate change in someone else.

 

Love,

Taylor