Tae Phoenix

Consumer technology geeker-outer. "Seamlessly integrated" with social networky goodness. Unapologetic spoiler of a small, emotionally needy cat. Bullied kid for whom it got better. Frequent singer. Occasional dancer, actress, photographer, psychologist, public speaker and circus performer. Man-loving feminist. Member of the landed gentry. Innovator, Latina, Jew, human. I product manage for Bobsled by T-Mobile (@letsbobsled) but do not speak for them.

Posts Written by Tae
By Tae Phoenix • 11 years ago

Steubenville, Consent, and the Great American Wiggins Over Teen Sex

Our culture has a rape problem in part because we haven’t taken the time as a society to discuss consent, particularly with impressionable young people. Talking to young people – particularly young men – about not raping includes telling them to seek an enthusiastic and cogent “yes” to sex rather than simply proceed with sex in the absence of a “no.”

But to talk to teenagers about that enthusiastic and cogent “yes” means that we would have to talk to them about desire. We would have to acknowledge that it’s possible for young people – and particularly young women – to want to have sex, to be mentally and emotionally capable of offering an enthusiastic and cogent “yes” to sex, to have agency in their own sexual experiences. Which would run afoul of the Great American Wiggins About Teen Sex.

When you have a culture that insists on telling teens that their desires for touch, sex and romantic companionship are unworthy of fulfillment and refuses to even acknowledge that these desires exist – unless you’re dismissing them as “raging hormones” and nothing more, you end up not having those crucial conversations about consent.

We have to acknowledge that, in addition to rape culture, our great fear of leveling with teens about sex is a huge part of our rape problem, especially when it occurs in high school and college populations.
By Tae Phoenix • 11 years ago

On Steubenville and teaching young men not to rape

With the horrific response to Zerlina Maxwell’s (who is amazing) recent appearance on FOX News and CNN’s appalling hand-wringing  over the fate of the Steubenville rapists (call on them to apologize here), I’ve had just about my fill of the mainstream take on rape. But rising above the burnout-inducing articles rehashing every aspect of this case and the nastiness that continues to be directed at Zerlina from the darkest corners of the Internet, there came this incredible post from Mia McKenzie at Black Girl Dangerous:

What happened to this girl is horrible. Her life has been affected in serious ways by the unbelievably terrible actions of these boys. And CNN should not be talking as if her pain, ...

With the horrific response to Zerlina Maxwell’s (who is amazing) recent appearance on FOX News and CNN’s appalling hand-wringing  over the fate of the Steubenville rapists (call on them to apologize here), I’ve had ...
By Tae Phoenix • 11 years ago

Kasandra Michelle Perkins, the name we need to be saying, along with the words “domestic violence”

When a Kansas City Chiefs linebacker killed his girlfriend over the weekend, the press was very quick to jump on the story. They talked about his dramatic suicide, about his record, about the Chiefs and their losing season. A Facebook group for Chiefs fans wrote: “While we are mired in a bad season with bad play and bad management, there are 52 guys on the field that just lost a friend.”

Even the standard “prayers with the family” postings on Twitter were focused on the team, its fans, and Belcher’s family. Mentions of domestic violence were far and few between.

And when people were talking about domestic violence, it came up in the context of “prove ...

When a Kansas City Chiefs linebacker killed his girlfriend over the weekend, the press was very quick to jump on the story. They talked about his dramatic suicide, about his record, about the Chiefs and ...
By Tae Phoenix • 11 years ago

In case you need scripture to justify a lifesaving abortion

By now, we’ve all heard the horrific story of Savita Halappanavar. She was a thirty-one year old woman from India who was visiting Ireland with her husband when she miscarried her pregnancy. Even though her fetus was not viable, even though abortion is legal in Ireland to save the life of the mother, and even though she was in grave danger, the hospital denied her an abortion on religious grounds. Savita spent days in agony and died of septicaemia on October 28, 2012.

I’m no religious scholar. I’m not even religious. But there’s something to be said for a secular person taking the time to understand what scripture actually says – especially when that scripture is being used to justify appalling, medieval medical ...

By now, we’ve all heard the horrific story of Savita Halappanavar. She was a thirty-one year old woman from India who was visiting Ireland with her husband when she miscarried her pregnancy. Even though her fetus ...
By Tae Phoenix • 11 years ago

Domestic Violence Awareness: Emotional Abuse is a Real Thing

October is domestic violence awareness month, so I want to talk about a little-recognized form of DV: emotional abuse.

I have experience with this, and I’m afraid to talk about it. Emotional abuse is not widely recognized as DV and I fear I’ll be accused of crying wolf because I got my feelings hurt. I’m going to tell my story anyway because I want people to know that DV doesn’t have to be physical to be real. 

October is domestic violence awareness month, so I want to talk about a little-recognized form of DV: emotional abuse.

I have experience with this, and I’m afraid to talk about it. Emotional abuse is not widely recognized ...
By Tae Phoenix • 11 years ago

Cultural appropriation and Halloween

Halloween (my personal favorite holiday because you get to play dress up) is coming and I’m all excited. Of course, Halloween is an opportunity for costume manufacturers to appropriate other people’s cultures and sell them as cheap stereotypes for fun and profit – which I’ve always condemned roundly as being lame. But this Halloween, I’m wondering exactly where that cultural appropriation line is and if my potential costume might be crossing it.

My sweetie and I want to dress up as Malcolm Reynolds and Inara Serra from Joss Whedon’s brilliant Firefly series. Most of the series’ costumes were inspired by the neo-Victorian steampunk trend, but Inara’s regal, intricate costumes were closer to the saris worn by ...

Halloween (my personal favorite holiday because you get to play dress up) is coming and I’m all excited. Of course, Halloween is an opportunity for costume manufacturers to appropriate other people’s cultures and ...
By Tae Phoenix • 11 years ago

Secretary Clinton’s Spot-On Remarks About Religious Offense and Violent Response

The New York Times had a great article today that contextualized the current wave of anti-US violence in parts of the Middle East:

In a context where insults to religion are crimes and the state has tightly controlled almost all media, many in Egypt, like other Arab countries, sometimes find it hard to understand that the American government feels limited by its free speech rules from silencing even the most noxious religious bigot.

It got me thinking about the right words to help translate those free speech rules – and the condemnation of violence – across cultural contexts. And then I read Hillary Clinton’s words on the subject and thought, “damn, our Secretary of State really gets it!” She said exactly ...

The New York Times had a great article today that contextualized the current wave of anti-US violence in parts of the Middle East:

In a context where insults to religion are crimes and the state has tightly controlled ...
By Tae Phoenix • 11 years ago

Personal and political: Breaking the cycle of abuse

Breaking all of our cycles of abuse is the very definition of “the personal is political.”

Abuse is an unconscious pattern, not an intentionally chosen plan. Obviously, there are exceptions. But from what I’ve seen and read, it seems like most of the people who get involved in abusive dynamics – as perpetrators, victims, or both – were abused or observed abuse at some impressionable point in their past.* Abuse is simply the way things have always been done – and that’s hard to question.

In the public sphere, abusive policies and cultural biases sustain themselves just as cyclically. Racism is a personal and institutional tendency to re-create the abuses of the past rather than changing the way things have always been ...

Breaking all of our cycles of abuse is the very definition of “the personal is political.”

Abuse is an unconscious pattern, not an intentionally chosen plan. Obviously, there are exceptions. But from what I’ve seen and read, it ...

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