Normalcy and Ignorance

I just wanted to put in a few words on something I heard while I was on vacation recently.
A lesbian friend of mine asked if a woman at a shop was a lesbian as well. Her answer was something like this:
"Oh, I'm just sort of normal. The everyday girl."
I cringed when I heard this.
Normal..?
The correct term would have been heterosexual. Straight works too. But "normal"?
This implies that heterosexuality is the norm. This implication is wrong.
Heteronormativity is mostly related to ignorance. I'm sure the woman at the shop was just ignorant, and didn't mean any harm, but unfortunately such ignorance is always harmful. Any LGBT person who encounters a subtle situation like this is very likely to internalize that heterosexuality is "normal", and that they are themselves abnormal.
Sexuality isn't a subject of normativity. You cannot apply normalcy to one sexuality over another.
It's unfortunate how many people don't even consider this in passing while interacting with other individuals. Would it that they would, society would become a little bit easier to tolerate.

Beauty and the Beast

     Apparently I'm "metro-sexual", a term used to describe a man who observes closely the way in which he dresses, first given to me by a previous girlfriend of mine. I have no problem with this. I mean, I've never been one for labels, but I have no qualms with the concept. I buy myself nice clothes, when I can afford it, and I look pretty damn good.

     However, it isn't just clothes that I pay close attention to: I work hard to stay healthy, and I don't just mean working out, staying fit, and of course working out my brain. I mean my skin. Healthy skin is important to general health. I mean, it is the largest organ in the human machine. Part of maintaining a healthy veneer is washing regularly, with the appropriate soaps and what have you, though I'll grant you that not everyone needs to be so meticulous in their soap purchases. Some people have strong skin that doesn't need too much care. To those people, I am jealous.

     Here in lies the reason for starting this new blog: the purchase of a soap that will be almost medicinal to my skin. The problem? It's this:

     Men do not have a wide selection, or any selection at all, of soaps which are actually good for their skin. I observed in my local Shop Rite that men had a selection of soaps designed to attract a woman (I won't even get into the homophobia there...) with strong scents. It's the most basic soap with a very complicated scent designed to get men laid by women. Nice.

     Except that the women's soap area had exactly what I was looking for. I got a bottle of soap with various  clays and minerals designed to detox the skin. The bottle was beige and pink, with little purple flowers. I seemed to be the only person at the store to think nothing of this purchase. But why is that..? Why shouldn't a man buy soap that's good for his skin?

     Well, the answer is that there is no reason not to get something like that. We (Americans, at least) live in such a sexist society, and I don't just mean the obvious areas that the feminists are fighting so bravely to dismantle. I mean that there is sexism in the market as well, which affects women and men. This further internalizes the ideas that men must bathe only for sexual appeal, and that women must be healthy and radiant for similar reasons. Women are beautiful. Men are handsome. But how do I explain knowing many handsome women and droves of beautiful men..? She is the beauty and He is the beast. Or is He? Where do we begin to question these social "norms"? 

     Answer: wherever you see them. For me, it's in the shop. It's walking down the street. In America, sadly, social inequality is rampant. It is in this blog that I'll share my personal experiences with these realizations and I'll continue to do it, probably irregularly, so long as my passion on the subject exists.