As we are sitting here, waiting for everyone to sit in their places, excitement is unbelievable. The theater is almost full and you can almost hear all the heartbeats.
And then at 6:12 exactly, total silence. Everyone is watching the book's teaser.
At the end when they say "wisil l bareed... wa akhiran" Everyone claps , nadz on stage, again more clapping that wouldn't allow Nadine to start talking.
One thing is obvious, Nadine can hardly speak.
Why they wrote this book? Because there are programs like "a7mar bl khat l 3areed", because people look at
If you look at elections you will find is stupid, filled with old men that dont look like us! (applause)
Why we want to launch this book? To change the elections, to change the political cast so that they look at us.
The revolution...
The revolution has started through us.
We want to gather all the gay individuals so they become a political force.

And now a word from the Heinrich Boel... What's interesting is that, according to heinrich boell, this is one of the biggest project funded by heinrich boell so far. As a women's rights' project.

And now, to great applause Nadine presents Lina, who has accepted to read the stories in English.
And now... Bareed mista3jil!

Well! Existence and existential questions!

I am a woman, and if we exclude the monks and the people who lock themselves in, somewhere, I go out, just like every other human. I go out for fun for work or just for a walk, and I’ve been thinking lately, would I ever get out of my house just for once in this country without turning into a sex object. I mean really, when they see a woman on the street, is it another human walking or just boobs and ass?
And you don’t even have to be hot or pretty or fit or have the stereotypical model’s looks, you don’t have to be wearing a skirt or a sexy top, you just have to be casual, going out to get some grocery and suddenly woops you see your head suddenly turning into a big sign with “I am a sex object” written on it.
I want to go into a cab and feel safe, not being paranoid about every word that cab driver says, worried that eventually it will end up into a blunt flirtation, and then you’d have to be mean and get out of that cab before you reach where you’re going.
I want to simply walk in the street, people take walks, right! Or stand on the road obviously waiting for a cab and not having 10 cars a second stopping with what they think is sexy look on there face to tell you “ pop in” and As If.
I don’t know who gave that impression that everywoman who doesn’t have a car or a ride and would like to go somewhere, automatically turns into a sex worker or just someone who pops into cars they don’t know.
The most recent very ironic car that stopped was a man with a little baby in his lap, assuming it’s his son; stopped and asked me if I want a ride to Beirut. And it wasn’t innocent. Innocent  my ass. Trust me, I’d really love to believe in a utopia where people ask to give you a ride just because they are nice, but it’s not the case. The case is, every time I step outside my house, I am a sex object.
And if you want to express yourself, what do you do? Give them a finger. Why not, it’s not ladylike? Ladylike, look at that word, ladies don’t give fingers to people, ladies are polite to the ones who are not, ladies don’t laugh out loud in public they just smile, ladies get raped and get silent about it, ladies are virgins who get married at the age of 18 and practice only the traditional sex position that will do the job for creating a baby, and then ladies sit at home clean and raise their kids.
Therefore a lady is a sexually frustrated person who is obviously banned from laughing and snoring out of laughter, who obviously gets abused everyday and is always silent about it because it’s ladylike.

Who wants to be a lady anyway.

And of course the meeting starts with delay, it was supposed to start @ 6:00 and now it’s already 6:26 and EG and Elf are arguing about questioning and arguing about questioning…

And now everyone is choosing their nicknames:

So the attendees are: Elf, Tiny, Pazuzu, EarthGodess (EG), Eagle

EG: what I thought we could do today is that…. tomorrow we are going to be talking a lot about feminism and we’re going to nwasse3 afakna l lesbianiyye and talk to straightiyye, we’re going to be more public and open=> we’re creating the Censored, we already have a website: www.Censored.com. So we’re going to spend the night brainstomring about the Censored… Imagine we have the money, the volunteers, an office, and everything. What will our l Censored(in arabic) be like?

Elf: That’s its name in Arabic

EG: see Elf can’t stop herself from making question

EG is talking about BAZ (banatakhirzaman.org)…

Elf Q2: How active is BAZ

EG: well it did quite a few things but now we want to go and register something that is the Censored for many reasons, including the fact that BAZ’ name is not very practical but the Censored is self-explanatory. Now we will imagine that we have the Censored, what will we seriously do? Halla2 ana ftakaret inno we’re going to take the objectives of BAZ and imagine what projects can we do in order to achieve these goals (Elf asks another question ;)).

ELF: blabbering about the name of the type of work we will do (she is very hyper we dont know why)

EG: (is reading all of BAZ’ objectives) now that I read them I notice that it’s been so long i haven’t check them, I guess we need to change a few things

ELF: well we can achieve them but in a few years not now

EG: No we can

Tiny: well these are our objectives, ma daroure inno halla2 ra7 na3milon killon

ELF: like long term projects

EG: so ana killon badde ishtighil 3layon bas where to start. For ex, (EG is quoting michel hayek along with Tiny) I was thinking inno 7aram yi2ta3o l intikhebet w ma na3mel shi. Barke… Censored#2 (this one is very long but I’m sorry security reasons farado 7alon)

ELF: Why is that?

EG: Censored#2

Elf: we are going to make a lot of weight

EG: eh bas shou ra7 nistafeed?

Elf: Well you said shou ra7 na3mel? we are going to raise awareness

EG: but is it worth it?

Tiny: everyone is saying that it’s an Censored #2 mafsaliyye

EG: bas inno fi ktir ishya btitwazza3 lesh mish ni7na?

Pazuzu: la2anno we dont threaten anyone

EG: do you think we need a permission

Pazuzu and a few others: yes, probably

EG: ok we will ask our lawyer.

Pazuzu: bas iza badna nnazzel 7ada badna ykoun 7ada kharj

.

.

.

EG: halla2 fi shaghle min tneyn Censored#2

Censored#2

EG: fa ma ba3ref bis2al l mou7ame?

Elf: Definitely

EG: it will be fun

Elf: did the kafa stand teach us anything?

EG: well not much, inno nobody likes us, la l abc wala kafa wala marathon, why doesnt nyone like us? (then she answers herself) because we are bold and obnoxious and the location, w the location wasnt so good, inno right next to gasper and gambini, where all the emos hang out. (long discussion about emos) so that’s my idea, so what else.

Elf:we can have a viral campaign, via emails, and online stuff to get to people, it could be fun and it could serve our purpose, for the election or anything else

EG: so what do you think, inno is it worth it? inno it will be a bit liek a survey.

Pazuzu: bas it’s going to be very good, fa do we have the time

EG: well for this volunteers’ thing, we have 4 months to do this

Everyone is worried about the time limit

EG: but everyone would love that, it’s our cause!

Moving to women’s day:

Elf: should every women should have a theme? what do other countries do?

EG: a frnd of mine came and told me that a boss once gave all his female employees gifts.

Elf: we can do a live blogging, it’s awareness, we can talk about everything, a special day where we would talk about all the facts and figures

EG: we dont have facts and figures

Elf: kafa

EG: no

ELf: the government? ANYTHING, UN?! inno we get it and then we can advocate for Kafa law, and put all the notions out there. Let’s invade martyrs’ square and get all the people, who are interested, put a board and

Tiny: that’s the idea we had, to make a Censored #3 in the Censored#3

Elf: you can go to the Censored #3 and make a session, we will do a panel about women issues

Censored Censored Censored#3Executive boring talk between the elf, the eg and the tiny…

Emotional, mental physical health of women:

Elf: we can talk to health centers

EG: but i think we are ok on that level, non? All regions already have moustawsafet. But I was thinking of organic food, sports and stuff like that

Tiny: for me it was always about opening space for women to talk, online spaces, and discussion meetings

Elf: is it important to have primary, secondary and tertiary audience? inno how do we reach out to rural areas?

EG: let’s get back to our objective: spreading feminism. Inno suppose a new feminist comes in how do we “screen” her, inno how to welcome her? Inno if you are new what would you want to find?

Elf: a meeting, some follow up, not necessarily a one-on-one but follow-up.

Pazuzu: but why would you say what if we dont have a center? I think it;s essential to have that center

Tiny: well we should go out to people and reaching out to them in their own places

Pazuzu: but what about the time when we cant do that. inno ni7na bi Meem, do we still do the outreach visits to the south? no because sometimes you just need to be there with people informal…ly

EG: does anyone have chocolate?

And that is how we started the break

Date: January 2nd 2009

Location: the House

Good evening everyone and welcome to the first live blogging of our Annual retreat. I have been thinking of doing this for a while now and it is happening now and here is how it will take place. The 2 days biannual retreat is taking place, starting on Saturday the third of January 2009. On Friday (which is today) we are having a preretreat where we talk about feminist thingies in Meem. I will be putting updates quite often as discussion takes place, for reasons of personal security the girls will be presented according to their nicknames, we will be compiling the outcome later on (once the retreat is over).

And remember that this retreat gathers the most active (because they came 24h after new year’s eve, come on give them some credit for that) and most influential (because they are deciding about Lebanon’s Queer future)members of Meem. So there will be a lot of things that will sound unusual or too far fetched but… well that’s how we like it.

So shall we start?

Since we missed the collaborative writing session in the House the other day I felt like I should be compensating about that. So let’s talk about Movements, since the next issue of Bekhsoos will be: Bekhsoos l Movement. Hm, I guess I should not speak of what a movement is or what it is not, I’m sure others will talk to you about it, and they know what they are talking about, unlike me.

What I will talk about is movement in my own experience and according to what I have seen in Lebanon. So what I am about to say is blatantly personal and perhaps a bit subjective.




So let’s see, what makes a wo/man want to be part of a movement? Most of us never get into a movement, the movement is just the exteriorization of what we have inside us. You do not register to become part. But you would realize (often very early on) that there are things that are either horrible or that just can be better. Then you start asking yourself why is this idea never discussed or dealt with. Until the day you find people like you that think like you or that are repulsed by the same things that bother you. That is not really a problem; you can find something in common with virtually everyone. No really you can. A movement is so vast and general that anyone can be part of it.

But then the hard part is to how to make a movement efficient, who to ally yourself with, and what other movements to include in the first, without jeopardizing it. We are all bundles of traumas walking on the streets and trying to make some sense out of this life and to take some pleasure out of this existence. There are so many details that the actual essence is lost. What makes Pazuzu Pazuzu and what are the details that just came to modulate and influence Pazuzu. Take out of my system every insult, every harassment, every trauma, every influencial idea I have received, take out every moment of guilt, of despair and humiliation, every tear and every outbreak of anger. Then take away every Mass I attended, every Christmas dinner, every laughter with friends and every shoulder I cried on… And when you are done removing all those moment of “influence” try looking for my essence, what will be left of Pazuzu once all of these details are removed? Nothing I fear.

It’s easy to say “I… I think… I believe… I know…” But who would understand it when I say that? Only the people who know what I know, believe in what I believe in, who think like I think, inno bi2ikhtisar, who are like me.

You know what is funny? We like to believe that we defend our cause because it is right, but in fact, we defend it because we want to improve things for ourselves. Whether the cause is righteous or not, is both subjective and impossible to measure. The idea to defend a cause that does not affect you directly is very romantic, attractive and everything. The Straight-Gay Alliance(s) strive on this concept. But it doesn’t work, let’s face it. In societies made of at least 80% of straight people, the Straight and Gay alliances have but a few straight individuals. Of course, the mere presence of these few make a huge difference. But why? Because, in my subjective meaningless opinion, it is because straight people would not relate to gay people. Three years ago, I was one of two straight supporters of Helem that I knew of. Now the other straight supporter of Helem, turned out to be gay or bisexual or queer, I never had the chance to talk to him. And me? Well I am clearly an everlasting queer; until time proves me wrong.

Ok, now bear with me and re-read what I have already written… As I read it I feel that it’s totally false though it is true. You see, if I was not a queer activist I would have been a “something else” activist. This is what I always knew, deep inside, but I thought I’d be working with people dealing with AIDS or suicide survivors. I remember that 2 years ago, a close friend of mine actually told me that I will move out of my place, move somewhere closer to Beirut and work in activism. His prognostics are slowly coming true. Is this common to others? Yes to some not all.

It’s like each person is an activist differently. Non? I wonder what makes you want to be an activist or not?

Pazuzu

Fellow women, how many of you haven’t faked it at least once in her life. Yes I am talking about Orgasm. And talking about that, do you know that in Egypt they still practice circumcision on Girls. And how sexist is that?! Seriously! I never imagined that, in our times, sexism would still reach a point where a girl cannot feel her clit anymore which can be, for some cases, the peak of pleasure… Or all of them: p hihi.




And it’s not only in Egypt, Africa, Arab world, Even in Lebanon they still do that in very hardcore traditional families living in the suburbs. And it’s a pity.

I think the only thing that would make that acceptable on a mean level, and make men equal to woman this time is to remove men’s Balls. But that’s not what we wish for. All we wish for is for people to leave our Clits alone, and our bodies in general, to claim them as our own properties and admit our rights of ownership of our own selves. Sounds so funny, I mean can you imagine? We don’t own our Own bodies. So lame…..

But you know, when we will achieve that “body ownership”? I believe, it’s when you make the world know that whenever 1 woman is touched therefore you are touching everywoman. And if you touch any woman’s clit or dysfunction it, it’s like hurting a bunch of crazy feminists that value there clit, and yes we do, and yes our clit deserves it.

And you don’t want to piss a bunch of crazy feminists. Or do you!

Nadz, please don’t censor that. Thank you.

Anyway you know me as usual I always randomly get out of my subject and circumcision today is not really my subject.

So anyway I’ve been addicted to this website for quite a long time: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ and there’s one secret that touched me a lot:





It’s about a woman who is not satisfied with her marital sexual life, and to protect her husband’s feelings she is not talking with him about it.

As I said in the beginning, how many of us had once at least faked an orgasm? Or how many of us still haven’t had an orgasm with a partner? I am not talking about lesbians; I am talking about women in general here.

This taboo and protection towards the other partner especially if it’s a man is depriving a lot of woman of their right of pleasure, and we can’t blame this woman because, in our oriental society, a girl should always pretend she’s a virgin and a guy should always pretend he’s a stud, and a girl should always pretend to orgasm so she can protect the “stud’s” self esteem because women are always the ones who should sacrifice a lot of their rights for society and all those fucked up taboos that they are raised upon and breastfed , and the world should listen and know that this is not fair, and God is famous for being fair, and humans are not, therefore this whole equation about women being beneath men and not equal to them is a fake equation. This equation is, I may add, the Father of all Evils and not the mother. It’s year 2008 god damn it, what are we waiting for 2069 to talk about our sexual desires and lives, to burn our push up bras and to protect our clits and right to orgasm once and twice and millions of times. Women need to know their rights, I cannot blame them when they are living in a box of traditions and brainwashing, that’s why whenever you meet another woman who is not orgasming or who doesn’t know she is entitled to her own body, sexual life and pleasure, please tell her that she is and that it’s ok if she’s married and had orgasmed in her life before she is 40. Tell her for us women, so she’d tell her daughters that would become another generation of women. It’s not wrong it’s not “3ayb”. The “3ayb” is when you are born with a pleasure tool and they cut it for you just so you don’t feel and the more “3ayb” is when you shut up and accept it. And if you don’t know your rights the biggest “3ayb” is when other woman know about it and not tell you or do something about it.

~Imm L Meem~

Saturday the 16th at 4.p.m.
Workshop

Hello all
It was stated in the meem calendar that we will have a workshop about film as a tool for actisvism ? However that subject being too vast for a two hours workshop, I decided to give a workshop about the image of lesbians in the history of film starting 1910?

At the end of the workshop, those who are interested in a technical one, as in introduction to camera use and history of film technics and such , can put down their names so we can put together a workshop for Activist Development and give you the tools necessary to proceed .

Hope to see you tomorrow
TaKe Care
Shant

Remember when we were kids? We only saw as far as our own backyard! We thought that life consisted of getting your parents’ affection and getting our daily allowances to buy as much candy as our little tummies would fit! Can you remember when we would just want to finish our homework in time to play hide and seek before our bedtime? we thought this was it! We thought that life was playing house with your cousin, us being the house keeper, them being the doctors? We brought up our kids, made diner for our cousin/husband after their day at work…




Shhhh, no one tell my husband© 2007 by Lauren



But then we grew up, we understood what it meant, this whole mind game trick. We were unconsciously outraged and wanted revenge! So we started to build-up ourselves! We wanted more from life, we deserved more, and we would get it… But life got harder, we were no longer playing house with our cousin/doctor, we were living it with our lover/girlfriend and life just got a little bit more complicated! We both were strong, willing, overwhelmed and feminine and yet fierce; loving and yet logical; passionately in love and yet practical…

But life doesn’t give you breaks and chances just because you need them, it challenges you and tries so hard to bring you down… Why? Maybe just to build you up, empower you, make you proud of yourself because of the things you have overcome? Or maybe just ‘because’? Searching for the reasons doesn’t really help, searching for the whys is quite useless because at the end of the day, life doesn’t really give a crap about you. It just goes on, running and running, you just have to keep up otherwise you would be left behind with your own regrets and what-ifs…


Some people chose to just stop and enjoy the moment and find themselves blissfully happy in their own existence, in their own world. Some people refuse to wait it out! They will fight until they’re drained out of their last breath! They probably don’t know why and will never find that out but they learned that it doesn’t matter why the journey started. What makes all the difference is the destination, the wheres. Others realized that neither this nor that matters, what counts to them is the journey since they’ve lost the past and are uncertain of the future they tend to chose to enjoy the present. What matters to them is the hows.

Whether it was this or that, we are all, part of the same community, walking side by side trying to find that person who will walk right beside us and hold our hand throughout this whole ordeal. Some of the luckiest do find that special someone and appreciate her to the utmost while they have her. Others do find that special someone but are too scared to hold on to her just in case she leaves them with a broken heart. To those people I feel sorry, they will never know how great it feels to be blissfully happy and unaware.

To some of the most unfortunate, they will never find that person who completes them, and they will either keep on searching still hoping, or they will simply accept that fact and find out another truth about life which is to simply love yourself and enjoy life with everything it brings along…

In all the cases, we are never really happy or really sad because life will not cause you utmost misery or utmost bliss, this feeling comes from within. It’s a personal choice that if you chose your own path, your own heaven or hell…

I didn’t make that choice yet, I’m still waiting to see as much of the facts that my mind and heart can see and accept. Until then I chose to play house with my beloved and be blissfully happy that I got to taste that feeling and live it…

I guess that makes me lucky…