Spark of Wisdom: It’s hard to have a night off

This piece originally appeared at Womanist Musings where Renee has very generously allowed my random musings to appear on her excellent blog

Beloved and I have lots of random scheduling, especially through the week. I work long hours, have a blog, read vast arrays of blogs, new sites and random things that amuse me.  I also leave my deadlines to the VEEEERYYYYY last minute then inter myself at work until I’m sure he needs a photograph of me to remember what I look like.

Beloved doesn’t work long hours, but he does work… random hours. And his endless enthusiasms do eat up his time (and my tolerance).  When he has a new whim it does tend to eat many hours of his time. Of course, I do try to spend time with his hobby du jour, but after a couple of hours even I run out of sarcastic commentary.

So we have 2 rules – we always eat together in an evening, and Fridays and Saturdays are ours, together. And on Saturday that means coiling on the sofa with some nice bottles and whatever our Skyplus has been told to record over the week (we record far more than we ever watch and are steadily falling behind).

This is us time, comfort time. When all the badness of the world is reduced to whether or not my glass is full and whether, if I poke him in enough places, Beloved can be convinced to fill it up.

And yet, while I snuggle up happily to watch Waking the Dead or Silent Witness (cheesey crime dramas? Yes I likes them), Top Gear (Richard Hammond. Enough said), Lie to Me (Tim Roth. Don’t look at me like that, you know you would too) and so many other wonderful shrines of cheesey goodness, ready for a nice lazy evening…

Except for the last few weeks now we’ve been brought to a screeching halt and fallen back on cheesey DVDs we’ve watched a dozen times. Which means we’re getting ever further behind on our recordings.

Because in the last few weeks we’ve had – depictions of anti-gay hate crime, depictions of religious gay youths using “aversion therapy” to hurt themselves when they have “impure” thoughts, a young man killed by the manager of his gay lover for fear that his sexuality would ruin their career, and people driving across a renowned conservative southern state of the US with “manlove forever“ written across the side of the car to see how angry the locals get. More than a few cringe worthy stereotypes than I could shake a stick at – oh and a B&B called, oh-so-funny -  “The Happy Faggot”

This does not make for a happy evening of cheesey TV consumption. In fact, it leaves Sparky very grumpy and sad and hurt and angry and generally uncomfortable. I hesitate to use the word “triggered” because I’m not sure how extreme a reaction needs to be to be considered a trigger, but it does not leave me in a happy fun place with booze and Beloved poking.

And that’s pretty damn sad. It’s pretty damn sad that there is so much anti-gay badness in society that I can’t relax in front of the television without worrying that I’m about to be dragged down bad-memory-lane or left cringing and uncomfortable. It’s sad that I’ve reached a point where I can’t sit down on our happy, fluffy Saturday nights and just watch television without checking the synopsis first to make sure nothing we’re watching is going to hurt me.

Of course, the alternative to that tends to be a night of straight viewing, with nary a gay in sight. I can look forward to a full night of comfortably not having the media stomp all over my sore spots, dredge up the bad memories or make me upset and frightened – but only because it reduces the world to the grand Straight World of Hetlandia

Is there a solution to this? I mean, I can see the argument now, “he complains when there are gays on TV then moans when there aren’t!” aren’t I an awkward little thing? And yes, covering over all the negative aspects of homophobia in depictions of gay people would be deeply problematic as well. See, I’m even more awkward? But the problem with depictions of homophobia is that they’re essential for straight people – so straight people can learn and come close to understanding. We don’t need to be taught these lessons, we’ve already learned them, often painfully. We don’t need depictions of gay pain and gay loss and gay sadness and gay angst and anti-gay cruelty. They’re essential portrayals and they benefit us – but they’re not for us.

I’d like to be able to just turn on the television and relax. I’d like to not have to approach the media with caution and fear. I’d like to lay back and enjoy my evening without being hurt. I’d like to spend a night NOT being faced by homophobia.

And that’s ultimately it. I want to spend one night, one comfortable, us night where I don’t have to deal with this. Just one night when I can just be without having to worry about it, without having all my sore spots poked. And I’d quite like to have that without having to erase my existance or burrow through all of TV-land for niche programming

It doesn’t seem a lot to ask, it shouldn’t be this hard.

Voting this Thursday, casting my eye on the parties

Looking at the parties

Election looms and I’m faced with a choice of where to put my little cross this Thursday linked with the looming dread of what the country will become from next week. So I cast my eyes on the three choices (yes, I know, I know, there are more than three parties in the UK but even the Lib Dems have next to know chance of power so I’m not going to spend an undue amount of time casting my eyes on the Greens of Respect or the Monster Raving Looney Party).

I think the first temptation to avoid is to resist the constant American comparisons that seem so damn pervasive these days – especially with the ludicrous debates and general Americanising of the election that has gone on this way round (people are following around the prospective PM’s wives. Who the hell cares about their WIVES for crying out loud?!) There is little comparison between our system and our parties and the Americans. The fact that their Democrats would, at best, be classed as a “centre-right” party (and considerably more right than centre) by our standards means there are few direct comparisons.

Tories
Let’s start with the party I am not voting for. There are many reasons why I am not willing to give the Tories time of day. While the most obvious one is their constant, historic and present homophobia that is an utter deal breaker for me, it is far from the only reason why I wouldn’t touch them with a 10 foot pole. Except maybe to hit them with it.

The Tories are very anti-EU, I’m very pro-EU. I think the days of Britain being an influential force in the world on its own are rapidly coming to a close, I think our country would do well to get over its empire assumptions and move into the future acknowledging that things are going to change and that our nation, on its own, isn’t all so special and powerful in the grand scheme of things – or won’t be at least. Ultimately, coalitions, unions and super-states are going to be the name of the game and we need to see that. At the moment our choices are ties with Europe – or ties with the US.

Which brings me to my next dislike – the Tories are the closest party to the US and the party most likely to push for greater ties and greater emulation of the US. Thing is, the US doesn’t tend to have allies and partners – they have vassals. And their foreign policy? Not generally something I want to emulate.

Add in the fact that while Labour has screwed up mightily on many issues, these have inevitably been issues where the Tories would have done much the same thing. The Iraq war, roll back of human rights to fight “terror” privatising everything that can’t stand still long enough, tuition fees, etc etc – these are TORY policies. In fact, for every screw up labour has made, I believe the Tories would have done the same thing – but worse, more often and more extreme. The economy? Does ANYONE seriously believe the Tories will address banker bonuses, unregulated markets and the debt culture? Really?

And of course, I don’t like Cameron. The man is slimey, false and a complete spin doctor. He is classic say one thing do another, he’s all about appearance, smoke and mirrors pretty speeches, no substance. He has his smile while behind him his party sharpen knives and go on business as usual. I trust him as far as I could throw the houses of parliament. He’s a quintessential second hand car salesman

Labour:
Labour has been in power for over a decade now. And they have screwed a lot up, it has to be said. Part of me says that after over a decade in power, any party is going to have its share of screw ups, and its certainly true. But that doesn’t excuse things. The economy is screwed up – and yes so is the world economy and lumping it all on Brown is extreme – but the World economy is in shit because of the policies of countries doing exactly the same thing we’ve been doing since year dot. And worst thing is we don’t seem to be making any appreciable effort to change that. While they introduced the Human Rights act (which was wonderful) they then worked hard to ignore it. The war in Iraq and the torture scandals are appalling. If anything would hold me back from voting Labour it would be this – simply because I cannot cannot cannot condone these abuses. There are deal breakers, issues that cannot simply be ignored.

On Europe they’re a little more reserved than I’d care for – and on the US they’re still more subservient than I am happy with. It’s not as bad as Blair, but it’s still far from great.

On gay rights I have to tip my hat to Labour. They ended section 28, equalised the age of consent, introduced hate crime laws, introduced domestic partnerships, introduced laws against discrimination against GBLT people. They fought for gay adoption and gay fertility treatment, attacked hate speech and bigotry. They’ve done a lot. Their record isn’t perfect – far from it – and they seem to have stalled. And they’ve had some damned awful appointments to key posts and they’re still wibbling around in fear of religious groups and religious hate. There’s a lot further to go – but they’ve done a lot for us.

I have to say it, I kinda like Brown. This may make me the only person in the entire country who does, but I do. He’s boring, he’s dull, he’s utterly lacking in charisma. I like that in a politician. I like that he can’t rely on smiles and slime and smarm to get through. I like that he’s solid and not naturally deceptive. That’s not to say I believe him or think he’s honest, no – it’s to say that he isn’t any GOOD at being dishonest. He has an air of stolid… competence. It’s not flashy, it’s not fast, it’s not shiny and it’s not impressive. He’s no racehorse, he’s a stolid, boring, dull work horse. And in this age of recovery, it’s probably what we need.

The Lib Dems
If one thing would make me vote the Lib Dems it’s the fact that if they get enough power and influence we may finally address our ridiculously broken electoral system. It’s a sad fact that even if the Lib Dems were first in the polls and the polls were followed to a letter in the ballot box, that the Lib Dems would STILL have the least seats. It’s annoying to the hilt that all this debate and consideration about parties means sweet bugger all to me because I live in a Tory safe-seat and my vote is going to be meaningless. It hacks me off no end that collectedly the number of Labour and Lib Dem voters combined in this constituency would overwhelm the Tories but because of the first past the post system all those votes will be discounted. It annoys me that, no matter what i think, my vote this year will, like every other year, be cast based on who is most likely to oust the thrice bedamned Tories, NOT based on which party I actually support.

If voting for the Lib Dems will break this ridiculous system then they have my vote.

As to the rest – well the Lib Dem record on stances on GBLT rights is impressive. Their stance on the environment was and is ahead of its time. they’re sensible about Europe, sceptical about the US. They’re the only party that wasn’t gung ho about Iraq and they have reservations about human rights abuses that aren’t just token objections. In fact, their record on many, if not most, issues is pretty good.

The problem is that having a splendiferous record like this isn’t HARD if you don’t ever expect to have to come across. The Lib Dems have been out of power for a century. They can afford to promise the earth on the sure and certain knowledge that they won’t have to deliver on that promise. I think a Lib Dem victory, if it happened, would be a wonderful thing – and a crippling disappointment when reality hit the grandiose liberal promises. In this era of recovery, of trying to pull the economy back together, is an untried government and a party so unused to power the way to go?

I also like Nick Clegg. But that worries me too – because I like him because he is charismatic, he is likeable and he kicked arse at the loathsome debates. I don’t trust charismatic leaders and I’m leery that I am being influenced by this. I have seen a charismatic politician I liked – his name was Tony Blair. Charisma is not to be trusted.

And for me, my vote? By principle and promises I’d vote Lib Dems. By practicality and cautious thinking, I’d choose Labour. However, ultimately I have to vote tactically. And for that it will be the Lib Dems because I want the vote system to change. And because they may win this safe seat. There isn’t, realistically, going to be a swing to Labour here, so tactically I vote Lib Dems as the only ones who could topple my Tory MP.

Lesser of two evils, I choose you… and I dearly hope you win so I don’t have to vote this way in the future.