Gender Roles

The other day, I was in the car with my little brother. Now when I say "little" I actually mean "younger." We were joking around and I forgot the actual context of the conversation, but I yelled out "That's what she said!" And proceeded to laugh at my own extremely clever joke. My brother froze, turned to me in amazement and said "You can't be perverted.... you're a girl!"

Where the hell did he get that whack idea from? Certainly not from me, or my mother. My mother raised me with the knowledge that I could do anything, gender roles be damned. The only person I can think of to blame is... my father. hahaha. Unfortunately, I have many foot-in-mouth moments with my dad because I'm shall we say exuberant when it comes to perversion and sexual innuendo. Most of the time I have my mother and brother laughing hysterically, but my dad looks at me out of the corner of his eye with an expression tantamount to "whose daughter is this?!"

Meh. It can't be helped I suppose. I talk to my mom about everything: relationship problems, the occult, religion, death, school, the long line of broken hearts trailing behind me, fellatio, you name it.  And one time I mentioned to my dad that I was dating a new guy... and he stared at me in horror asking what had happened to my last boyfriend who I hadn't talked to in months! Way to pay attention, dad.

It's just odd to me that now that I'm an adult, I'm expected to be more of a lady. Yet when I was growing up my dad was proud that I was the only girl that could hit a home run my Junior year of high school in a simple P.E. class, or that I could bench press as much as the scrawniest guys, or that I loved horror/action/science fiction movies and was a nerd at heart that just happened to be blessed with above average social skills and excellent hygiene.

Even my uncle, who is a 5th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, told me that I was a very charismatic, sweet young lady and that I needed to protect myself. He was surprised when I was able to copy his num-chuck routine having witnessed it only once. And that I already knew basic self-defense. It's not like it's hard... I hit below the belt. Problem solved.

But I suppose the main issue here is that now that my brother is twice my size at 6'3" and around 250 pounds, that the males in my family have figured: she's smaller, therefore younger, more naive, more vulnerable. How quickly they forget how many verbal fights I would get into with my brother's tormentors and elementary/middle school bullies. It never escalated to physical fights because I would just demolish the damn bully's already fragile ego. I knew every dirty word in the book at a young age, not because I was trashy, but because I was forced to defend myself from two boys in my 4th grade class that were threatened by my mental superiority. After them, no one messed with me ever again; I learned to strike before I was struck and my mouth had a mind of its own. Sharp as a whip and twice as painful. There must have been a handful of bullies my poor brother had to deal with. He was always small for his age while he was growing up. Meanwhile I was the 2nd tallest girl in my entire grade, and 7th tallest person, period.

Luckily, my brother the jolly green giant now defends me against the fiercest opponent I've ever known: my mother. LOL she's the only person in the world that intimidates me, and I guess it's just as well. She scares the crap out of broseph too, but we've figured out how to calm her down from her wrathful tirades.... for the most part. Together my brother and I are an unstoppable force.

I guess.... let him think what he wants. I'll be as perverted as I please and people will just have to deal with it. Or I can be sneaky about it and get my sex-talk quota filled while passing it under the radar thanks to my family's poor listening skills.