**Insight** Living

It's hard living in a world- America, Utah- that you know is not made for you. It's hard to live consciously and realized that, for better or for worse, you are not the target of advertisement or the audience the media is trying to reach. Even cartoons and fictional characters are- even if they appear to represent you- half-hearted, tokenizing attempts by oppressors to both fool the ignorant oppressed into thinking they are valued and give fellow oppressors novelty in the "diversity" portrayed.

Perhaps the worst thing is the silence: being the one to suffer micro aggressions and undo grievances constantly and feeling you are the only one who cares- the only one who notices. The silence that surrounds the oppression is the way your oppressors tell you you are either insane or "oversensitive". And if you dare to speak up, if don't stifle your honesty for once- something that you do so often to offer a watered-down version of reality that is more acceptable to your oppressors but a half-truth at best- you are unfailingly dismissed or misunderstood.

I am oppressed by many things, but one that is flashed in my face gaudily is a recurring heterosexist nightmare of public displays of affection. Certainly, before even being able to vent my frustration I feel obligated to address the question "what are public displays of affection for?" I can't say I am either for or against them because as I have observed they are- at best- behaviors that are unaware of or brave in the face of the public eye in order to perform something kind for ones partner, and -at worst- an active act of exhibitionist micro aggression that makes the PDAers feel false superiority by flaunting themselves in front of others. I know I have contempt for half of the spectrum, but the other half? Admirable innocence.

However, even the innocent can be an oppressive force when the PDAers in question are a perceived heterosexual couple. The oppression is done by showing those who wish to do contrary- same sex acts of public affection- what behavior is widely socially acceptable and what they cannot have. Certainly, we are fortunate now to live in an age where same sex displays of public affection does not guarantee lynching and vigilante execution, but it is still far from welcome. The non-violent public punishments or, perhaps worse, the expectation and fear of public punishment (violent or otherwise) is enough to intimidate anyone from displaying any sort of same sex public affection.

It's hard to live in a world that not only was not made for you, but was made for others at your expense.

It is hard for me to not have violent flashes of rage whenever I see a heterosexual display of public affection. For hand-holders, I envision the lovers hands being severed quickly by some invisible force leaving bloody stumps and two disembodied hands clasped loosely in a pool of blood on the ground. This image is quickly retracted though understanding that the fantasy in my head represents a moral loss. I'm destroying the master's house with the master's tools. I'm oppressing the oppressors by the same tools in which I am oppressed.

Mentally, I'm left in a vacuum and in that vacuum my true feelings come to light: sorrow. I've decided that instead images of violent retribution and a world burned to the ground and rebuilt in my image (a rebuilt world which would undoubtedly come to shift oppression from myself onto others) when I see this form of heterosexist oppression I will merely say to myself "gee, I wish *I* could such-and-such in public with my partner like you do."

It's sincere, but still has a satisfying undertone of bitterness.

That more or less solves that problem, but what of the hundreds of others?

One finds that one must either live in a more unconscious, non-thinking way or find some other consolation. Perhaps either finding faith in God, truth, and a just afterlife, or for atheism and the release of death from a horrible world into oblivion. Perhaps mere wishing to live in a small, mythical, beautiful town in the future where everyone knows oppression first hand. Or Perhaps just knowing that regardless of the existence of God, Heaven, Hell, or Truth, and regardless of whether or not one will be able to taste the fruits of ones labor, one can forge a more accepting future for those who are to walk the same path.