Prickly.

Sometimes I worry that feminism is making me too prickly. Taking offense at things rarely produces immediate wonderful change in the world--even when those things really are offensive--and it makes the thing-sayers and me into instant adversaries.

Say that someone mentions he's managing a project and starts gleefully talking about how he's going to pick his hottest female subordinate to be his personal assistant, woo woo. There's shit-all some random acquaintance can say to make him change his actions. But if I go "come on, that's not right, it's her job dude and she can't get away from you," I'm being pretty socially unpleasant. I'm being a grouchy buzzkill and I'm not really sparing that poor girl anything.

Likewise even with my personal boundaries. Which are, right now, based on an ironclad rule: you ask. If you lay a hand on me (with the slight exception of a quick tap to get my attention, but even that can get weird), you're drawing back a fucking stump unless you get my permission. Which is widely given; I love human contact, and I do understand how the asking and permission can be effected through body language or flirting rather than strictly explicitly. But if my permission isn't given through some mutually understood medium, you're getting a jerk away and cold stare at best, with shoving you away and yelling not out of the question.

(And no, this isn't an appearance or even a sexual-attraction thing. I'm happy [though not obligated!] to touch lots of non-conventionally-hot people when they ask, and no one on Earth, not even Nathan Fillion, is hot enough to not need to ask.)

By feminist and sex-positive doctrine, this is exactly correct and I have every right. But sometimes in social situations I feel like a stuck-up bitch for enforcing the rule too literally. Dude didn't mean anything by it and you bit his freakin' head off, jeez. It was just your shoulder, are you really that special, Princess?

Mostly I worry about the opinions of observers. I don't much care what Sexually Harassing Grabby Man thinks of me, but I worry that being seen biting his head off will make other people think of me as a habitual head-biter. I'm totally sweet when I'm not provoked, I swear... I just wish I had more times when I wasn't being provoked so I could prove that.