What Fun It's Carnival Again

Roughly two weeks ago, I had an unpleasant experience in the Twitterverse and blogged about it here.  If you are interested, please read the post titled Not All Masks Are For Carnival.  Now, the person who angered me has felt the need to respond with a post on their blog and comments on mine.  Mark also felt that it was appropriate to include a link to their site in his comments without asking me first.  I removed it not because I felt Mark does not have the right to respond but, because I feel that inserting a link without my permission was, in a word, rude.  The author seems to be very hung up on the subject of who is right.  Really,  how very White Male System.  Just what I wanted on my blog about my experiences.

If you are unfamiliar with the phrase, I urge you to read the book Women's Reality by Anne Wilson Schaef.  The author explains the mentality of White Male System thinking far more eloquently than I could.  The book is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in feminism and I have, over the course of my life, passed out more copies than I care to remember.  Surprised that a woman who does what I do for a living is a feminist?  It is a problem I wrestle with each and every time I work and part of what I am working out in my blog.  It is also the reason I am so brutal with some of the callers.  If their fantasies involve more ugly stereotypes than I can stomach at that moment, I tend to let them know it.  With both barrels.

What is boils down to is that I really don't care if Mark feels that he is right.  I feel that I am right.  In my world view, both of us have valid perceptions of the experience we shared.  I suspect that in Mark's world view, that is not possible so he has set out to prove that he is right.  Okay, go for it.  Refrain from putting links on my blog.  I did not do so to yours.  In fact, I did not make any  comments on your blog.  Nor do I plan to.  The elderly gentlemen who inquired whether I not I charged Mark for the conversation in his comment made it clear to me that I have no desire to.  I deal with enough of that attitude when I am working, thank you.  Another man passing judgement about something he knows nothing about and thinking that he is cute.  Ah, no.  There are many words for that bit of bullshit, 'cute' is not what comes to mind.  I think that the author of that comment exactly the same as the callers I speak to and I've already shared my feelings about them.

I also found another comment by Bee C rather telling about the attitudes of the people involved.  Both Mark and this person feel that a transcript of the conversation was necessary.  I admit, the first version of Not All Masks Are For Carnival contained just that.  However, after consulting with friends and sleeping on it, I decided that to do so was childish and unnecessary.  I felt then as I feel now; my perception of the experience is valid because it is mine.  As I stated in my reply to Bee C, writing an unasked for critique and posting it in a public forum does require you to read the fucking material.  In the case of a blog, at least solid sampling of the material since most people will not have the time to read the entire thing.  I am also not asking the Internet community at large to pass judgement on that experience which is why I chose not to include a transcript or list Masquerade Crew by name.  I was blogging about my experiences, not inviting debate concerning the validity of my perceptions.  The fact that Bee C chose to interpret my posting that way is ...interesting, to say the least.

I chose to write about my experiences as a PSO to help me process them and to share with others some of the amazingly stupid stereotypes I have smacked myself into because of it.  I am not just talking about the callers.  Conscientious people ask questions before passing judgement on what I do and what I write about.

And then there is the rest of the world.