Mourning in America

.... It was the perfect way to say, “Fuck this. Now fuck me.” I encourage all your readers to fuck out the stress from this election. Yes, we should donate and volunteer and speak up and protest and vote and not give up hope, but we should also keep doing it and taking care of each other. Because love trumps hate, and fucking trumps… well, I’m not sure what fucking trumps. But it sure makes life better. Justifiably Unsettled Lass Intensely Emoting It’s important to practice good self-care in the wake of a traumatic event—the election qualifies as a traumatic event—and going by the definition of self-care at GoodTherapy.org, fucking the living shit out of someone qualifies as self-care: “Actions that an individual might take in order to reach optimal physical and mental health… Self-care [includes] activities that an individual engages in to relax or attain emotional well-being, such as meditating, journaling, or visiting a counselor.” They’re too polite over at GoodTherapy.org to include “fucking the shit out of someone” on their list of examples, JULIE, but what you did on election night—which just so happens to be the exact same thing I did on election night—certainly meets all the criteria. And if anyone out there who did the same on election night—fucked the shit out of someone—is feeling the least bit guilty, please know that millions of Americans did the exact same thing after 9/11. We used a different term to describe all that post-9/11 fucking: “terror-sex,” which New York magazine defined as “urgent, unguarded, end-of-the-world coitus inspired by that day’s sudden jolt of uncertainty and fear.” I want to thank you for writing, JULIE, and I want to second your recommendation: Sex, partnered or solo, makes life better—and people shouldn’t feel guilty about fucking someone else and/or fucking/jacking/dildo-ing themselves at this uncertain and fearful moment in our nation’s history. Yes, we must donate and volunteer and protest and vote, all while reminding ourselves daily that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. And we must commit to defending our friends, neighbors, and coworkers who are immigrants (documented or not), Muslims (American born, immigrants, or refugees), people of color, women seeking reproductive health care, trans men and women seeking safety, lesbian and gay men seeking to protect their families, and everyone and everything else Trump has threatened to harm, up to and including the planet we all live on. But we must make time for joy and pleasure and laughter and friends and food and art and music and sex. During the darkest days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when Republicans and religious conservatives controlled the federal government and were doing everything in their power to harm the sick and dying, queers organized and protested and volunteered and mourned. We also made music and theater and art. We took care of each other, and we danced and loved and fucked. Embracing joy and art and sex in the face of fear and uncertainty made us feel better—it kept us sane—and it had the added benefit of driving our enemies crazy. They couldn’t understand how we could be anything but miserable, given the challenges we faced—their greed, their indifference, their bigotry—but we created and experienced joy despite their hatred and despite this awful disease. We turned to each other—we turned to our lovers and friends and sometimes strangers—and said, “Fuck them. Now fuck me.” We didn’t eradicate HIV/AIDS, the disease that was sickening us then, but we fought it to a standstill and we may defeat it yet. The disease that now sickens our nation is different. We may never eradicate racism and sexism and hatred. But fight it we will. And don’t listen to anyone who tells you that music and dance and art and sex and joy are a distraction from the fight. They are a part of the fight. My boyfriend is undocumented. His sister married a US citizen and may receive a green card. We had hoped to someday do the same. But next year, the extreme right will control all three branches of the federal government. Deportation will surely come for my boyfriend. Additionally, we’re a gay couple, and Donald Trump has pledged to repeal marriage equality, if not ban it outright. So if we were to marry now, the timing would look suspicious. And even if we did marry, that marriage is likely to be invalidated in the coming years. Is it still worth it to try? What do I do if the government takes away the love of my life? Keep Him Home You should marry your boyfriend immediately, KHH, and do so with confidence. “There is no realistic possibility that anyone’s marriage will be invalidated,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which has taken marriage-rights cases to the US Supreme Court (and won). “The law is very strong that if a marriage is valid when entered, it cannot be invalidated by any subsequent change in the law. So people who are already married should not be concerned that their marriage can be taken away.” And Minter says the court is unlikely to overturn Obergefell, the decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the country. “The doctrine of stare decisis—which means that courts generally will respect and follow their own prior rulings—is also very strong, and the Supreme Court very rarely overturns an important constitutional ruling so soon after issuing it,” said Minter. “Even the appointment of an anti-marriage-equality justice to replace Justice Scalia would not jeopardize the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling on marriage equality, and the great majority of Americans still strongly support the freedom of same-sex couples to marry.” I’m heartsick about the election. Today I made a donation to Planned Parenthood. PP asked me if I wanted my donation to be in honor of anyone and noted they’ll send a card to that person to let them know I’ve donated in their name. Why yes, I thought, I’d like to make my donation in honor of Mike Pence, vice president-elect. Until January 20, his address is 4600 N Meridian St, Indianapolis, IN 46208. After January 20, his address will sadly be 1 Observatory Circle NW, Washington, DC 20008. If any of your readers are inclined to join me in honoring our VP-elect, they can donate at plannedparenthood.org. Generous Investment Verifying Equality In addition to donating to Planned Parenthood—which everyone should do—please donate to the American Civil Liberties Union (aclu.org). Better yet, become a card-carrying member of the ACLU today. With Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, freedom and decency need to lawyer the fuck up. On the Lovecast, Dr. Lori Brotto on asexuality: savagelovecast.com. [email protected] @fakedansavage