The Radical-Thinking Vegan Next Door.

I became a vegan a few months ago.

After being a vegetarian for four strong years, and claiming that I didn't think I'd go vegan - at least, not until later in life - the switch was abrupt and all-too-necessary, given my epiphany with my own personal experiences and convictions about Western - or, more specifically, American - culture. As with most things I believe strongly in, it's something I feel very fiercely passionate about, and I think it's one of the best decisions I've ever made for myself.

The thing is, we live in a pro-violence culture; a culture that encourages, even promotes, videogame violence and war and considers things like rape and "domestic" abuse natural, human behaviors; blames the victim for said behaviors occurring in their lives.

When I became a vegetarian, I felt like I was doing something incredible for myself, for humanity, for the environment, and for animals. I was no longer empowering some rich white guy to line his pockets with the death- and blood-money by viciously and unapologetically murdering defenseless, abused creatures - creatures that are born solely to be killed and eaten - held in captivity all their lives in tiny barnyards where they could barely move, enduring shot after shot of steroids and drugs, fed foods their bodies can't properly digest, standing in their own feces and never seeing the light of day, only to have their throats slit and slowly bleed out or to be boiled alive - vile, torturous deaths you wouldn't wish on your worst foe. I was no longer parttaking in the everyday consumption of death and doing so while disassociating what was on the plate in front of me from the animal it belonged to. I was no longer being one of those individuals who deemed specific species of animals worthy of a happy, healthy, loving relationship with humans (Read: Dogs, cats, and other domestic animal companions) and life lived as sentient beings, while, by action, excluding throngs of other, less-fortunate animals from this elite circle of existence.

When I began delving deeper into feminism, examining my privileges, coming to terms with my rape, and ranting constantly about rape-culture and the abundance of rape-apology that it allows in society, I came to an understanding that rape is nothing more than doing something to someone without their personal consent and enthusiasm. And, thus, the epiphany hit me like a brick to the cheek.

Suddenly, it wasn't enough to be a vegetarian. It wasn't enough to not eat animals. I was empowering the white man to steal from FEMALE bodies - from the mother animal - by force and without apology. I was empowering acts similar to everything I'd been fighting against. I was allowing for someone to steal from and exploit female bodies without the consent of those females. By these actions, I was saying, "Sure, it's okay to do this. It's okay to harm and take what doesn't belong to you and assert your power over someone weaker and without the proper tools to defend themselves."

And then, it was decided - I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't consume dairy products and eggs and honey and anything else that belongs rightfully to the animal it was taken from. I couldn't continue to empower someone to harm and exploit and literally rape non-human females anymore. I stopped immediately once I came upon these realizations, and I have no intentions of looking back.

I'm proud of my decision. Along with converting to Wicca, initially turning to vegetarianism, coming out to my mom, deciding that I wanted - nay, NEEDED - to be a writer, and exerting my life-long inner feminist, my turn to veganism is, I think, one of the absolute BEST, most necessary and sensible decisions I've ever made for myself. My spirit feels lighter than ever, and there is absolutely no more residual guilt mucking around my soul.

I believe whole-heartedly that the reason more people aren't vegans is because the white man hates thinkers. America hates thinkers. The WORLD hates thinkers. The world hates people who think the way that I do.

Maybe it hates people who think like you, too.