The Magic of (Friend) Love

Illustration by yumi sakugawa
Philia (pron.: /ˈfɪljə/ or /ˈfɪliə/) is one of the four ancient Greek words for love

So as Valentines day is coming up, we thought that we would celebrate Friend-Love! Especially since Dorothy is the friend-love of my life, my better half some would say. Aww, that's so sweet!

So we've all had those moments when you meet someone new, and within a few times of meeting you start to look forward to seeing the again, to sharing and laughing with them. To learning all their shameful secrets and having private jokes. Yet it isn't in a romantic sense. These people are those who you don't really have a romantic attachment to, yet you could in a sense say that you 'love' them. And their doesn't need to be that 'moment' for you to say it as there in romantic relationships, it's a kind of trusting and understanding love. Just knowing that this person won't judge you when you have eight pizza boxes under your bed or that you listen to Celine Dion on repeat and act out scenes from The Titanic with your cat. Perhaps this is where the 'Bros before Hoes' thing comes in, you can perhaps find another person that you fancy, but it's harder to find someone that you enjoy the company of purely. 



Classic Bromance.

I would say at the 'first level' of friendship is the  in the moment friendships', the people that you tend to bump into all the time at the pub and go on wees together. Love a good team wee. However, these friends may also part—in this case if they no longer enjoy the shared activity, or can no longer participate in it together. Such as when you both get a control over your respective bladders/ gain the confidence to wee solo (a harrowing task for any young lady).

The next level Friendships 'of the good' are ones where both friends enjoy each other's characters. As long as both friends keep similar characters, the relationship will endure since the motive behind it is care for the friend. This is the highest level of philia, and in modern English might be called true friendship. Unlike in romantic relationships the passion ending often causes the end of relationships, yet to end a friendships the actual character of a person must be altered. Perhaps this is why the only reason I've every stopped being friend with a person is if 'they have changed'. I do find that sometimes you grow together as friends though, changing together actually has the opposite effect and makes your friendships stronger because you can endure and evolve. Some friends I don't have to be in contact with constantly to know that nothing has changed between us as friends, I regard this as an enduring friendship. 

Lewis describes Friendship as, "the least biological, organic, instinctive, gregarious and necessary of our Loves" - our species does not need Friendship in order to reproduce. He uses this point to explain that Friendship is exceedingly profound because it is freely chosen. In other words you should be honoured to be my friend (or anyone else's for that matter)!

Lewis explains that true friendships,  is almost a lost art. He expresses a strong distaste for the way that modern society ignores friendship. But perhaps this has changed, arguably 'The Hangover' is all about friendship, and less about the romantic love that causes the hilarity, and so is 'Bridesmaids', although both films centre around a wedding the story is a 'Bromance'. Lewis goes on to say, "to the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it". Can I just say that I would definitely go all Thelma and Louise for a good friend in a way I never would for someone I fancied, romantic love is the fodder of drama but friendship is the makings of comedy. 

Perhaps this is why the whole 'Friend-zone' thing exists. People seem to think sometimes that friendships is nothing worthy, when in fact it really really is. Friendship is the bread to life's butter, without friendship life is kind of a purposeless slippery substance, no one to share all those excellent moments with; the treacle sponge to life's custard, something that gives substance to what could be potentially an excellent desert. What I am trying to say with my confusing use of metaphor is that the friend-zone is actually a rather excellent zone, friendships endure and are the makings of something almost entirely selfless.

Dorothy and Daphne

Love and Lust: A View By Daphne

I don't brag to have had multiple sexual experiences but I have recently had a slight epiphany on the positive aspects of having sex with someone that you ACTUALLY like. Really like. It has just started to make me think that some of those drunken fumbley experienced I described as excellent were really just uncomfortable. I mean there were some pros. 

Pros

• Doesn't matter if you haven't shaved/underwear doesn't match/have made questionable hair or fashion choices. Likelihood is you will never, ever see this individual again and if you do you will both do your damnedest to pretend that you have never met.
• You can try out any 'new moves' you have been developing mentally, without giving a crap if they aren't enjoying the whole 'wait a minute, nearly there' aspect of the situation. 
• The (usually) alcohol fuelled magic of the night makes you forget any uncomfortable moments, accidental falling off the bed, kept your socks on or that moment when you couldn't undo your bra and took it off like a jumper.
• You can be incredibly selfish, selfish like you have never been before. Just blame it on the alcohol...

Cons

• You feel a bit awkward cuddling a stranger and leaving at four in the morning makes you feel a little bit grotty (taxi drivers most definitely judge you too).
• Speaking of taxi-driver-judgement, the walk of shame is just too uncomfortable to bear and nine times out of ten you will bump into your grandma's best mate or an old school teacher, you can practically feel their burning disappointment. 
• Raiding a stranger's kitchen is slightly inappropriate but sometimes all you want is a cuppa and some paracetamol and what a surprise Mr Charming from last night is gone, replaced by Mr Lies In Bed Until You Leave. 
• If you do miraculously stay in contact with this individual and it develops into anything, they can always use the circumstances of your get together against you, oh and accuse you of being 'that sort of girl'. The fun having kind? 

Then there is having sex with someone you like, someone that doesn't make you feel like a piece of toast that landed butter side down that they blew the crumbs off and ate anyway. It is pretty nice really. As someone who has had body confidence issues and whatnot it is surprisingly lovely. 

Pros

• You are already comfortable with this person, you want to know more about this person and you are sharing something rather excellent that can only really get better from here on out. 
• Totally okay to cuddle away to your hearts content and you want to say nice things to each other  and actually talk about things you like. 
• I may have mentioned that not having shaved or mismatching underwear or bad fashion choices don't matter in a one night stand set up. Well I am here to inform you ladies, if you don't already know of course, that it doesn't matter with someone you like either; yes they might make fun of you for it but at the end of the day this person really likes you and it is only teasing, they don't care as long as it is you. 
• You don't have to pull any 'special moves' because just being yourself is enough.
• Awkward or uncomfortable moments are rare and funny later on so you don't even have to worry about that really.

Basically, if the person in question really likes you then not much actually matters as long as you are both happy in bed. I'm sure there are lots of cons and plenty of pros to casual sex, because I championed it for long enough, women being in control of their own sexuality. But for someone that has only recently really experienced how intimate sex can be with someone you care about, definitely think I am going to stick with this for a while. 

Really Great Things: One Billion Rising

On Febuary the 14th, instead of feeling sorry for yourself, like I most probably will be, how about getting involved with this, there are 'Risings' going on all over the world, and both men and women are welcome, although it tackles issues dealt with by women:

ABOUT ONE BILLION RISING

ONE IN THREE WOMEN ON THE PLANET WILL BE RAPED OR BEATEN IN HER LIFETIME.

ONE BILLION WOMEN VIOLATED IS AN ATROCITY

ONE BILLION WOMEN DANCING IS A REVOLUTION

On V-Day’s 15th Anniversary, 14 February 2013, we are inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders.

What does ONE BILLION look like? On 14 February 2013, it will look like a REVOLUTION.

ONE BILLION RISING IS:

A global strike
An invitation to dance
A call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends
An act of solidarity, demonstrating to women the commonality of their struggles and their power in numbers
A refusal to accept violence against women and girls as a given
A new time and a new way of being

READ: EVE’S LATEST HUFFPOST PIECE: “DEAR MR. AKIN, I WANT YOU TO IMAGINE…”

August 20, 2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/todd-akin-rape_b_1812930.html

Dear Todd Akin,

I am writing to you tonight about rape. It is 2 AM and I am unable to sleep here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am in Bukavu at the City of Joy to serve and support and work with hundreds, thousands of women who have been raped and violated and tortured from this ceaseless war for minerals fought on their bodies.

I am in Congo but I could be writing this from anywhere in the United States, South Africa, Britain, Egypt, India, Philippines, most college campuses in America. I could be writing from any city or town or village where over half a billion women on the planet are raped in their lifetime.

Mr. Akin, your words have kept me awake.

As a rape survivor, I am reeling from your recent statement where you said you misspoke when you said that women do not get pregnant from legitimate rape, and that you were speaking "off the cuff."

Clarification. You didn't make some glib throwaway remark. You made a very specific ignorant statement clearly indicating you have no awareness of what it means to be raped. And not a casual statement, but one made with the intention of legislating the experience of women who have been raped. Perhaps more terrifying it was a window into the psyche of the GOP.

You used the expression "legitimate" rape as if to imply there were such a thing as "illegitimate" rape. Let me try to explain to you what that does to the minds, hearts and souls of the millions of women on this planet who experience rape. It is a form of re-rape. The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority. It delegitimizes and undermines and belittles the horror, invasion, desecration they experienced. It makes them feel as alone and powerless as they did at the moment of rape.

When you, Paul Ryan and 225 of your fellow co-sponsors play with words around rape suggesting only "forcible" rape be treated seriously as if all rapes weren't forcible, it brings back a flood of memories of the way the rapists played with us in the act of being raped -- intimidating us, threatening us,muting us. Your playing with words like "forcible" and "legitimate" is playing with our souls which have been shattered by unwanted penises shoving into us, ripping our flesh, our vaginas, our consciousness, our confidence, our pride, our futures.

Now you want to say that you misspoke when you said that a legitimate rape couldn't get us pregnant. Did you honestly believe that rape sperm is different than love sperm, that some mysterious religious process occurs and rape sperm self-destructs due to its evilcontent? Or, were you implying that women and their bodies are somehow responsible for rejecting legitimate rape sperm, once again putting the onus on us? It would seem you were saying that getting pregnant after a rape would indicate it was not a "legitimate" rape.

Here's what I want you to do. I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are on your bed or up against a wall or locked in a small suffocating space. Imagine being tied up there and imagine some aggressive, indifferent, insane stranger friend or relative ripping off your clothes and entering your body -- the most personal, sacredprivate part of your body -- and violently, hatefully forcing themself into you so that you are ripped apart. Then imagine that stranger's sperm shooting into you and filling you and you can't get it out. It is growing something in you. Imagine you have no idea what that life will even consist of, spiritually made in hate, not knowing the mental or health background of the rapist.

Then imagine a person comes along, a person who has never had that experience of rape, and that person tells you, you have no choice but to keep that product of rape growing in you against your will and when it is born it has the face of your rapist, the face of the person who has essentially destroyed your being and you will have to look at the face every day of your life and you will be judged harshly if you cannot love that face.

I don't know if you can imagine any of this (leadership actually requires this kind of compassion), but if you are willing to go to the depth of this darkness, you will quickly understand there is NO ONE WHO CAN MAKE THAT CHOICE to have or not have the baby, but the person carrying that baby herself.

I have spent much time with mothers who have given birth to children who are the product of rape. I have watched how tortured they are wrestling with their hate and anger, trying not to project that onto their child.

I am asking you and the GOP to get out of my body, out of my vagina, my womb, to get out of all of our bodies. These are not your decisions to make. These are not your words to define.

Why don't you spend your time ending rape rather than redefining it? Spend your energy going after those perpetrators who so easily destroy women rather than parsing out manipulative language that minimizes their destruction.

And by the way you've just given millions of women a very good reason to make sure you never get elected again, and an insanely good reason to rise.

#ReasonToRise

Eve Ensler
Bukavu, Congo

Follow Eve Ensler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eveensler

“IF YOU WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THERE THAT NIGHT, NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU.”

September 11, 2012

That's what Arizona trial Judge Jacqueline Hatch told a woman who had been sexually assaulted in an Arizona bar. 

Police officer Robb Gary Evans was convicted of sexual abuse. The felony carries a two and half year maximum prison sentence but Judge Hatch instead reduced the sentence to probation and 100 hours of community service before transferring responsibility to the victim of the crime.

Another reason to RISE - for a justice system that works to protect victims and not criminals.

To find out more go to: http://onebillionrising.org/