I’m Worried

After class this past Friday I happened to catch the last half of the The View (my mother PVRs it regularly).

I enjoy The View from time to time.  It’s entertaining more than enlightening, but still a fine way to pass an hour or so.  Things are said that I disagree with (and find stupid), but most political discussions are usually enthralling in these paranoid and hysterical times of clashing ideologies and wild conspiracy theories.

Last week, that woman who (I think) is famous for having a fight with her friend and marrying some sleazy camera whore-turned born again Christian, was co-hosting.  Her name is Heidi Montag, and she said something that I could hardly laugh at I was so appalled.  She, along with fellow (but permanent) co-host Sherri Shepherd reacted positively to a stunningly ignorant political ad made by Christian media darling Kirk Cameron decrying the atheist takeover of post-secondary education.  Cameron claimed that non-religious professors were brainwashing students to abandon faith and embrace, well, godlessness.

Shepherd praised him for telling the public that God is, indeed, being cast out of schools.  Montag agreed that Cameron was speaking truth to power and reminding the public that there’s discrimination brewing against faithful folks.  Shepherd said she was horrified to learn that a friend was told by a college professor that she couldn’t use the bible in a research paper.

I’ll bet you dollars to fucking donuts that that friend wanted to use it for a science or history class.  If that’s the case, then the bible should not have been used as supporting evidence.  The bible should never be used to prop up an academic argument unrelated to theology.  The bible could be helpful in the analytical discussion of historical literature, particularly medieval material, but it would not enhance a discussion of politics or history or science.  Just as one could not reference King Lear in a physics paper, the gospel of Matthew is not relevant to a discussion about biology.

Montag said that creationism should be taught alongside evolution.  Others, shockingly, nodded their heads in agreement (not Whoopi or Joy Behar or Barbara Walters).  Walters responded by saying that the debate has been going on for a long time.  Whoopi Goldberg said that science is science and creationism is religion, and religious studies can be pursued on any college or university campus.  No one said, outright, that Cameron, Shepherd, and Montag were talking nonsense.

Creationism is the Christian belief that God waved his hand and created one man, one woman, the planet, and the animals in seven days.  It has no basis in fact, it’s not scientifically sound, and it doesn’t resonate with billions of other people who subscribe to different theories (some of which are actually upheld by facts).  It does not belong in a secular class.  Keeping it out of a post-secondary science curriculum is not discrimination.  It’s not a scandal or a thumbed nose at intellectuals desperately seeking balance in their studies.  It’s a way to preserve logic.

There seems to be reluctance to tell ridiculous people “no!”

All of those fringy conspiracy theorists who blog about Obama’s communist/fascist/muslim/Kenyan background? They’re mocked on Comedy Central and HBO, but not in the mainstream media, and certainly not by the politicians they seek to discredit and, quite possibly, endanger.  We’re told that they’re just angry and misinformed, that they represent just the tiniest minority of the GOP base.

However, conservative websites that are politically active and influential are posting or linking to far-right websites with articles “confirming” the right’s greatest fears about Obama.  Concerned Women for America frequently links to WorldNetDaily, a site that calls upon “experts” to show “new” evidence that Obama is, indeed, an African rebel usurping the now-denigrated White House throne.

CWFA also links to “respected” websites that prove, somehow, that the health care reforms are secret ploys to destroy the elderly and disabled and cripple America’s economy so the czars can rise and recreate the glorious Mother Russia of the Stalin years.  They also have an unflattering picture of a scowling Obama that’s accompanied by rolling text that reminds viewers that he kills babies (and probably eats them in the same hut where he practices Islam-inspired witchcraft).

A conservative website recently removed an inflammatory article that said that a military coup to remove Obama might not be so bad.

How long has this been going on?

Some say that this is a consequence of lingering racism.  It probably is, but I think it’s about more than that.

In 2004, anti-Bush sentiment was on the rise and conservative supporters were getting their backs up about criticism of their president.  He was protecting them from another terrorist attack.  He was taking WMDs away from Saddam, and even if they weren’t there, well, they were giving oppressed people a chance at American prosperity.  He was a good, God-fearing man with the best interests of good ol’ America in his heart.  He was narrowing contraceptive rights, pushing back progress on sexual education and stopping the gay marriage movement in its tracks.  He was feeding antibiotics into a bloodstream poisoned by Clinton-era liberalism.

Ah, those liberals.

In Europe, liberal often means right of center.  In Canada (my neck of the woods), liberal means center.  In the U.S., liberal (to some) means criminal and depraved.

Perhaps some traditional types see America as an untouched, slender young white woman.  She’s blonde and fair and delicate.  She goes to church with her parents, babysits the neighbour’s children, pets dogs, helps her mama cook and sew, reads the bible with her pa, wears a pink ribbon in her hair and never, ever thinks about boys.  One day, while she’s gathering flowers in a meadow, a hulking, snarling, drooling liberal wolfman emerges from the forest in torn jeans and fucks the ever living shit out of her.  He fills her pristine body with lecherous semen.  He makes her want to destroy free enterprise and poke fetuses in the eye with paperclips.  In a few short years, she’ll covered in tattoos and spending way too much money on tofu and sex clubs.

Perhaps some of the vitriol aimed at Obama has to do with his supposed liberalism, not only his race.  He’s the embodiment of that feral monster threatening to destroy a noble land from the inside.  He’s going to turn people away from their values, and he’ll laugh and dance while churches burn and capitalism falls (nevermind that Christ probably never envisioned Wall Street when he praised the Golden Rule).

When will someone – someone powerful – say that this president is not out to get the working class? When will he or she say that this outrage is nonsense, this childlike impudence abhorrent, and this online flame-fanning unacceptable? When will people admit that sometimes one “side” is wrong and should be shunned by silence until they’re willing to play nicely?

I like compromise, and I like fairness.  Letting these people trample debate by giving credence to their cause is counterproductive.  Don’t take away their right to express themselves, but counter their arguments with stern assertions that their ranting and raving is illogical.

This is worrisome period in time.  Not as bad as others before it, but bad enough that something needs to be said about honesty, integrity, and worthwhile debate.  No more shrieking about police states and white men concentration camps.  Seriously.

Obnoxious Opinions

I once made a rude and unfair remark about hating young people with opinions.  I made it after I heard two high school students talk about the “message” in a Hedley song (there was no message, the song was an annoying top 40 hit that no one will remember five years from now).  

I made it again after I offered to buy the friend of a friend’s younger brother a hot chocolate from Starbucks, and he said it was stupid to buy coffee that you “had to take out a second mortgage for.”  One should not criticize a kind offering from a near stranger.  It was a nice gesture on the part of a [relatively] mentally astute young woman, not a creepy enticement from a pantsless man in a 1989 Oldsmobile. 

After browsing a few pro-family (and pro-family always means anti-sex but pro-gun, go figure) websites, I hate at least 60 percent of people with opinions.  

To the “no kissing before marriage” crowd:  You must be joking.  Kissing – the mere touching of mouths – is now considered (by some, not all) to be an impure practice that compromises a couple’s Christian integrity before the bounds of holy matrimony make it okay to have vigorous, unprotected anal sex in the honeymoon suite at the Holiday Inn?  Tell me it’s not true (it is)!  

Kissing, some people on the Focus on the Family blog argue, is a prelude to sex.  A wet tongued temptress forcing you to tear off your pants and consummate your unholy union, leading to the inevitable disappointment of God, Jesus and your mother.  

Here’s the thing – an act becomes most tempting when it’s naughty.  No one feels a rebellious rush when studying for a test or volunteering at a food bank.  Why?  Because those are things you’re supposed to do, things that society encourages (and for good reason).  When people – particularly people in positions of authority, parents included – start condemning acts and warning of grave consequences, curiosity is peaked and overindulgence ensues.  This is why the cool kids drink too much and smoke too often and drive really, really fast.  It’s cliche behavior, but it’s still a little badass.  All girls still say they want a man who’s “a little bit of a bad boy,” don’t they?

All I know is this, if people have no intention of having sex at a certain point in time, a kiss won’t turn them into rabid nymphomaniacs, unless they’re overwhelmed and enticed by the dastardly immorality of their scandalous actions.  

As far as other young opinions go, I recall being encouraged to “think critically” in my elementary school days by having light ethical questions posed to me and other classmates.  The favourite question, other than “why was the Holocaust bad?”, was “is it right to keep animals in captivity?”  

That’s a stupid fucking question for several reasons.  One, all kids will say it’s bad because they’ll feel that’s the right answer. Second, it’s unfair because all children love zoos, and need not be guilted into relinquishing the joy that comes from an activity not involving sneaking their mom’s cigarettes.  Thirdly, animals in captivity (this includes domesticated pets, by the by) don’t know any different, so they don’t care.  If they’re well fed and cared for, they’re as content as they can be.  

Furthermore, anyone who watches the Discovery Channel knows that while zoo animals may not be free, they’re safe from predators and starvation and habitat destruction and poachers.  You can’t draw some unreasonable parallel between zoos and fascist governments who trade freedom for safety either, because that’s not an appropriate analogy.  Animals have only one “civil” right, and that’s the right to humane treatment from humans.  They don’t vote or protest or write strongly worded letters to politicians.  They sleep, eat, shit and play, and adequately run zoos allow them to do so in peace.  Also, zoos bring people joy, and there isn’t enough joy in the world as it is.  

Zoos, really, are the least of the animal kingdom’s problems.  If I was a tiger or polar bear or shark or lemur, I’d want to live in captivity.  I’d get used to the stares and shrieks and greasy fingerprints on the walls of my spacious enclosure, and I’d likely never yearn for a short and brutal life somewhere in Africa.  

So, the point of this post (I think), is to stop asking kids about the ethical nature of zoos.  It breeds obnoxious opinions that make me angry.

It Appears that the Devil is Talking out of Your Ass Again

I understand that it’s unwise – unacceptable, even – to make giant blanket statements about complicated social issues.  In life, there are few absolutes.  In the end, it’s all about context, theory and rhetoric.  If you can argue a point well enough, you’ll get supporters in your corner.  Someone else will get other supporters in theirs.  Then you can argue forever, which will make your life more interesting (if not exhausting).

 However, there are some arguments that cannot (and should not) ever hold H20.

 Such as the argument that God – yes, God – wants you spank the ever-living shit out of your wayward, irrational, child-like wife. 

Behold:

www.christiandomesticdiscipline.com

A site dedicated to affirming that it’s perfectly all right – desirable even – to institute an authoritative, dogmatic hierarchy in your household and allot one person (the old male person) the right to physically assault those who, like, give him dirty looks and refuse to smile when he farts at the dinner table. 

This “lifestyle” is for two types of people.

1) Kinky people

2) Abusive people

There’s no in between, make no mistake of that.  If you long to slap the naked ass of a grown woman for hours at a time, you’re either a run-of-the-mill S&M enthusiast or an asshole. 

If you’re a woman who loves the feel of a hard hand against your ass for hours on end, you’re a run-of-the-mill S&M enthusiast or a passive victim of domestic violence. 

If a woman feels that bad moods are manifestations of demonic possessions (or ungodliness) and decides that she needs the beasts expelled through a little over-the-knee “tough love”, she’s a kinky girl into submission.

Spanking is a common sexual practise (I wouldn’t even call it much of a fetish anymore).  People, generally fearful of finding themselves in humiliating and demoralizing situations (like corporal punishment), sometimes cope with their discomfort by eroticizing it.  If you like what’s being done to you, you haven’t relinquished your autonomy.  You’ve requested seemingly inhumane treatment, and therefore it’s titillating rather than mortifying.  Women are not the only people who do this, men do it too (that’s why there’s such a thing as a dominatrix). 

For most (I hope) of these spank-happy couples, their means of keeping the peace is probably more about obtaining sexual thrills – and there’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself.  What’s wrong is the pitiful, misogynistic posturing.

“God wants female subjugation, and the only way to achieve it is by instituting blatantly (but not admittedly) erotic punishments for derelict wives/girlfriends.”

I haven’t read the bible from cover to cover, but I doubt God, Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John or Jesus every said any such thing. 

Religion is notoriously good that shaming its followers for having sexual desires, especially desires that stray off the rigid and narrow path of “normal.”  Though S&M (lighter aspects, of course) has become more and more popular, it’s still a fringe movement, practised in different ways by different people.  It’s not something everyone – particularly those closely associated with Christian denominations – would readily admit to dabbling in.  So how does a devout follower of a pure deity come to terms with his or her taste for painful foreplay? 

By cloaking their fetish in theological rhetoric.  They justify their kink by claiming it’s not inherently sexual, but innately spiritual.  Spanking is the best way a man and a woman can maintain the “natural” power imbalance in their marriage.  However, those intent on dominating their spouse would probably choose physical and emotional coercion over a relatively well-known sex act.  

Another argument could be that, in a case where one or both partners is not getting hard/wet at the prospect of a thorough “punishment”, the dominant partner is instituting a troublesome power imbalance sustained by genuinely painful “corrective procedures” that provide the abuser with a false sense of comfort.  If the punitive measures are approved by Christian domestic discipline enthusiasts, then they can’t be manifestations of one partner’s very real desire to threaten, frighten, and abuse the other.  So for people afraid to risk the legal/moral/philosophical/spiritual repercussions of routinely assaulting their spouse, they have some wiggle room with “consensual” anti-egalitarian power dynamics. 

Either way, there’s no pure motive for needing or wanting a defined and continuous sub/Dom relationship within a 21st century marriage.  You’re either kinky (which is cool), or you feel entitled to abusing your partner/feel you deserve abuse (not so cool, I don’t think). 

Perhaps this “lifestyle” has provided a safe haven for good Christian girls to act out desires they’ve had since adolescence without fear of social reprisal. I’ll bet a lot of them like to accidentally spray their husband with the garden hose when he’s on his way to work, and immediately blame Satan and claim they can feel him coiling up inside their pulsating nether regions when all they wanted to do was tend to their beautiful, feminine rose garden under the warm morning sunshine.  I’m sure they enjoy the warm morning sunshine beating against their bedroom windows while they promise to be “good girls” while rubbing against their godly man’s thigh. 

Their godly man no doubt likes his wife’s naked ass, or he just likes giving someone bruises.   

I hate to make a blanket statement, but there probably isn’t much in between. 

In case you think I might be mistaken, and that a desire to be closer to God is what compels couples to commit to spanking-filled marriage, check out this website:

http://lovingdd.blogspot.com

Once you sift through the user comments about the benefits of “forced” nudity, genital slaps and nipple pinches, you’ll see where I’m coming from.

OMG!PENIS!

While I work, I scour the internet for the purpose of mental stimulation.  Actually, that’s a lie – I use it to fuck around on Facebook.  Well, most of the time that’s what I use it for.  Sometimes, (like I did today) I use it as an educational tool.  A tool to educate myself on interesting matters.

One of my favourite websites belongs to James Dobson’s conservative think-tank Focus on the Family.  Dobson said, a year or so ago, that fathers exposing themselves to their sons prevents homosexuality.  Upon hearing that luscious pearl of wisdom, I became fascinated with the good “doctor” and his ministry. 

In fact, you can find it (and him) right here:

http://www.family.org/

Once I arrived at my destination, I began looking for the latest tidbits on morality (sexual morality, to be exact).  I decided to forego the gay-bashing articles and instead settled on a little “why sex is bad for you” fare.

I found a rather thorough Adobe article on the effectiveness of abstinence-only education.  The article cites various studies (partisan ones, perhaps), and concludes that safe sex is an oxymoron, and that those who believe in/practise it are destined to suffer diseased genitalia and unwanted offspring.  The article itself is worth a look, so here it is:

http://www.citizenlink.org/pdfs/fosi/abstinence/take_12.pdf

I won’t dissect it here, but will instead draw attention to a particularly memorable (and telling) line:

“My 16 year-old daughter came home visibly shaken after sitting through a film in her co-ed sex-education class; the movie had a graphic scene of a man putting on a condom! What can I do?”

What can you do, concerned mother?  Tell your daughter that a naked penis in a sex-ed movie is nothing to get shakey about. 

I’d understand being shaken after viewing a graphic documentary about the humanitarian crisis in Sierra Leone.  That film, after all, shows a mentally disabled child (probably under 10) being beaten by a group of adult male soldiers.  I’d understand being visibly shaken by news footage of, say, a large-scale terrorist attack or tragic school shooting.

Visibly shaken by the sight of a condom-convered penis?

Calm the fuck down.   

If the sight of a nude body part can traumatize someone, that person (and perhaps society at large) needs to rethink its position on nudity and sexuality in general.  There’s nothing wrong with safely and ethically familiarizing people (yes, even older teens) with nude bodies and how they work in a sexual context – especially if the purpose of the display is educational (which this clearly was).  The girl in question wasn’t forced to review objectionable pornography, she was granted the opportunity to witness a helpful demonstration on proper contraceptive use.

The article, downplaying its puritanical slant, focuses on building a “Reefer Madness” case against contraception.  Namely, they accuse it (and by “it” I mean condoms – and only condoms) of being ineffective and inherantly harmful in the way its existence subtly encourages people to have sex.  The article does not mention (in any real or helpful detail) hormonal birth control, STI testing, or typical cures for non-serious infections. 

It talks about damaging the “natural” modesty that exists between boys and girls by educating them on the sexual functionality of one another’s bodies.  To one girl (real or not) the sight of an erect penis was  somehow as frigtening as, like, the aftermath of a car-bombing…or something. 

Many moons ago (when I was seven or eight), I was unexepectedly exposed to the sight of an erect penis – a large one, no less.  Oh, and it was in a woman’s mouth. 

Like most families, mine had a collection of home videos (this isn’t going in the direction that you think it is, don’t worry).  One day, my younger brother and I decided to view one.  My mom, also craving a light-hearted stroll down our lane of memories, picked a random video and put it on.  I can’t remember how it started (probably at a birthday party or some such occassion), but I do remember it ended with disrupted tracking, static, and a blonde woman fellating a well-endowed man.

It was a shocking moment, but not one that had me cowering in a corner, shaking and sobbing.  My mom may have wanted to react in such a way (and looking back, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she did), but she held back.  The tape was ejected, and me and my brother’s brief foray into cinematic dick-suckery was never mentioned again.

My second unintentional descent into the dark world of uncovered private parts?

An accidental look at an earlier volume of The Joy of Sex.  The man in the pictures (who often had an erection) bore a startling resemblance to Jesus Christ (a fact that never really shook my fragile Catholic soul as much as you’d think it would).

In fact, rare glimpses of nudity and sexuality (all viewed in media, not real-time) served to, I think, broaden my mind and peak healthy curiosities at a younger (but not inappropriately young) age.  I didn’t have a plethora of lovers at the tender age of 14, I can tell you that much.  I was simply harder to scandalize, and therefore less inclined (perhaps due more circumstance than choice, to be fair) to seek illicit experiences before I was able to properly deal with and conceptualize them.

I wonder how the good “doctor” would respond if I told him my adventure with home videos.  He might claim I was – indirectly, of course – sexually exploited by irreponsible parents.  He’d shake his head sadly and attribute my current habits (none of which are bad, trust me) to an unstable, sex-saturated childhood.

Some people fail to realize that a little knowledge (obtained by a little experience) shapes behaviour better than dogmatic instructions on the perils of dropping one’s pants.