Boss of the Day

The Boss of today comes from... of all places... Mississippi! But seriously, how can you not love this guy? I'll let TYT explain

Unfortunately I tend to agree with Cenk and Ben, this guy is probably going to get fired. I hope he makes an ever-loving stink out of it, bringing the legality of this ridiculous Mississippi law into question.

Turns Out, I Was Too Easy On That Awful Book

Remember the book reviews I used to do? Well, when I fell into the trap of reading that god-awful book Fifty Shades of Grey, I reviewed that too, and it was certainly not a very favorable one.

However, after reading a far more thorough review on The Pervocracy, I realized I was being far, far too nice, mostly in my hesitation of speaking for the BDSM community, of which I am not a part and was fairly ignorant about.

OK gushing time: I looove The Pervocracy. It opened my eyes to a community which I now find incredibly fascinating, although not something that I am personally interested in partaking in. She SLAMMED this book, and reading her chapter-by-chapter evisceration of the novel had me in stitches. She is so much funnier than I could ever be, and I only wish I could have read the book with her commentary in my ear, it would have made the whole experience far more enjoyable. 

If you have some time to kill read through her take on the chapters, it's awesome. 

Book Review: Fifty Shades of Grey

This is something that I had heard referenced over and over again on tv and the internet, "this that or the other is like fifty shades of grey", and I actually had to look it up to find out what the Hell it was. Kind of like with Ayn Rand I was the very last to the party, and by the time I had found out what everyone was talking about it had already had a huge success. I see it costs next to nothing on amazon, so I figured why not? Lets tack it onto the list and see what its like. All I can say is.... shmieh.

Here's the thing with sexy novels, you have to actually like the characters. While the female character is alright, albeit extremely judgmental, slut-shame-y and sex-negative (though through my irritation I could forgive it seeing as she's extremely inexperienced), the male character turned me off from the start.

I need to preface this by saying that I have no involvement in the BDSM community and know little about it, it's just really not my scene. Despite this, I still feel like it was really poorly represented in this novel. I feel like for a healthy Dom/Sub relationship, it starts from a place of mutual respect. This guy is a fucking condescending prick. Saying that if one of "his" made the mistake of getting sick on their first time being drunk he'd beat them so badly they couldn't sit for a week? Yea, fuck yourself asshole. 

While I'm not personally into BDSM, I get the allure of the Dom/Sub relationship in the bedroom. The relinquishing of control can be hot in the right context. However, this book is representing the 24/7 Dom/Sub relationship as if it were the norm for the community, when it is a very small extreme. It's one thing to take control in the bedroom, tie up your partner etc, it's entirely another to say that any straying from this extreme set of rules, like snacking between meals or making a mistake, will result in a beating. Sometimes I can be into the whole game, and other times I feel sick and unsexy and I want to curl up on the couch with a pint of ice cream and watch bad tv, and for that I have to be scared I'm going to get beat up?! It brings what is a normal, healthy aspect of sexuality to something bordering dangerously on the makeup of an abusive relationship. What's worse, the psyche of the male character is set up like he's "like this" because he was abused, and is continuing the cycle of abuse by becoming a Dominant and not being able to change. This isn't to say that you can't have a fucked up character in your novel, but I feel like they're unfairly shitting all over the entire BDSM community with the way they marry his fucked-up-ness with his Dominant sexuality. Please feel free to call me out on my utter naivete if you're in the BDSM community and feel that this criticism is unfair.

I kept reading sex scene after sex scene, realizing that I was getting very close to the end and the story wasn't developing in the slightest. There were plenty of excuses to go back to yet another sex scene, but nothing was actually happening. When I reached the end I saw that somehow they had managed to turn this masturbatory aid into a trilogy, no wonder the story wasn't going anywhere.

Will I read the other two? I really don't know if they're worth my time. The thing is I didn't like the male character for the majority of the book, so the sex scenes really didn't do it for me. Without those, this book is worth nothing. I have no idea if the characters will actually develop in the other two books, but unless someone convinces me that they get better I doubt I'll get around to reading them.

Says It All

Thank you Why Evolution Is True for this little gem:

Catholic Church, This Time You Made Me LOL

I have mentioned the Catholic Church at its worst in this blog, but sometimes you just have to laugh. OK, so the implications of this video made by Catholic nuns in the US are pretty horrendous, but the Children of Mary Order have made a video that perfectly embodies that classic Italian saying: da ridere per non piangere

For those of you who have not read (or do not remember), that means "to laugh, so as not to cry".

If you don't think you can hadle 14 minutes of pure stupid, have the shorter version with the apt mocking from TYT

Seriously now, this is just ridiculous. You're honestly perpetuating the stereotype that in order to be religious you must be monumentally stupid - not doing yourselves any favors there

I'm Back To Eviscerate

Well I’m back, my computer is fixed (for the time being) and I’m ready to dig right back in with another wrong, wrong I’m-not-sure-if-you’re-trolling-but-let’s-address-this-anyway person clogging up the comments section of my video of Penn and Teller on the Boy Scouts who identifies himself as LordSignur.

Now I don’t usually comment much on my own videos, even though I do read the vast majority of the comments that are left on them. Usually I only get involved if someone is asking me a direct question, but once in a while a comment is so glaringly wrong and I have just enough time to butt in, I will say something. This was one such case, in talking about the Boy Scout’s officially unofficial policy of excluding gay men from working there or gay scouts from participating.

they aren't born with anything.

sexuality is decided by your environment and the decision you make. There is actually a gene that make you more likely to have sex with anybody but it doesn't make you gay.

Would you look at that! The old being gay is a choice argument! Oh how annoying you be, and how very very wrong. I responded in kind.

you dont choose who you are sexually attracted to. you may choose to actually sleep with them, but the basis of the sexual attraction remains innate and perfectly natural. Can you suddenly decide to be sexually aroused by the sight of a naked man? Dont know about you, but I cant decide to be aroused by anything that doesnt arouse me, because its not a choice

He gets insistent, and intelligible English becomes harder and harder to come by

It isn't completely conscious. but you do choose who you sleep with.

About the attraction, again, if you had experience where you come up with the idea that men a beautiful then you might be gay.

You even have gay that pretend to be straight now and get aroused by women. Are they lying?

the simple idea that there is a good way is stupid.

And you do choose everything, consciously or not. You don't realize it, that's all

What?! I gave it one last shot

If they are sexually aroused by women they are probably “bi”. Sexuality and gender are not as binary as you think they are. And the idea that you "choose" everything is ridiculous. Do you "choose" to be depressed or anxious? Do you "choose" to be schizophrenic? Do you "choose" what you dream and who you dream of? Christians love to say that people "choose" to be attracted to the same sex because it lets them off the hook for hating people for being born that way, but it doesnt make it true

 And now, for the very last comment, that prompted to make me turn this exchange into a post, since there is no way that 500 characters could ever be enough to address this sheer amount of wrong

first : I AM NOT CHRISTIAN, I AM AN ATHEIST.

You choose everything even if you don't know about it. It come from unconscious part of you but still it's you. Sexuality isn't binary. Because you do whatever you want. the fact that you don't know yourself enough to see it doesn't change that it is.

schizophrenia is caused by genetic issue. this have nothing to compare to love.

Depression is a choice you made Saying that "it's someone else fault" is the best way to never overcome it.

Wooow, OK, where do I start?

So I’m not going to shit on the guy for obviously not being a native English speaker, but that does not give him the right to make up definitions of words. Let’s start with this very fuzzy idea of what choosing something actually entails. To the dictionary!

Oxford English dictionary:

Choose: To take by preference out of all that are available; to select; to take as that which one prefers, or in accordance with one's free will and preference.

Merriam-Webster:

Choose: to select freely and after consideration <choose a career> b : to decide on especially by vote : elect <chose her as captain>

2a : to have a preference for <choose one car over another> b : decide <chose to go by train>

By definition, you can’t unconsciously choose something. There can be things that unconsciously influence your choice, like the color of two people’s shirt can influence which one you choose to think is more trustworthy without you realizing it, but you are still making a conscious choice, a selection, between two people which is influenced by a variety of variables.

If you define a choice as anything your body does whether you have conscious control over it or not then you choose to be blond, because you know your body is the one making the pigment, even if you don’t realize it, so hair color is a choice.

The second word this guy seems to want to redefine is sexuality, Sexuality is not defined as “the people that I choose to sleep with”. There are many definitions, but let’s stick to the ones that are relevant to humans. Back to the dicitionary!

Oxford English Dictionary:

Sexuality: Sexual nature, instinct, or feelings; the possession or expression of these

                   A person's sexual identity in relation to the gender to which he or she is typically attracted; the fact of being heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual; sexual orientation.

A person who someone is attracted to, who they are aroused by, is not a conscious decision. Ask any teenage boy how many erections they consciously decided to have in the middle of class, and how much anyone not having sex would love to be able to say “tonight I’m going to have a wet dream! Woop!” Arousal is not something that we can choose, it is a physiological response that we can sometimes try to influence (oh crap it’s happening… think of dead kittens…. Think of grandma in her underwear; or, alternatively; oh crap this isn’t working… think of that awesome porn I watched last night… Jessica Alba taking her bra off… Licking honey off of that blond dude from Sex and the City’s abs… mmm…) but effectively have very little control over.

Then we get into where LordSingur actually does draw the line between a choice and not a choice, and this is where it gets unbelievably ridiculous. Let me refresh your memory

schizophrenia is caused by genetic issue. this have nothing to compare to love.

Depression is a choice you made Saying that "it's someone else fault" is the best way to never overcome it.

Let’s forget what the hell love has to do with anything at this point in time, but WHOA the stench of condescension with that last part. Depression is caused by shifting blame? And that is your expert medical opinion yes?

So the only thing here that is not a choice in his mind is schizophrenia, because it is “caused by a genetic issue”. Well, I have news for you, it’s not as simple as that. There is certainly a genetic component to schizophrenia, a friend of mine wrote an entire thesis on it, but it is definitely not as simple as whether or not you have “the schizophrenia gene”, and there are a variety of other factors that influence it. One fascinating hypothesis circulating at the moment is about the possible contribution of Toxoplasmagondii infection to the incidence of schizophrenia, but that’s a story for a later date.

Interestingly enough, depression also has a studied genetic component as well, would you look at that! Looks like depression is actually very similar to schizophrenia in that regard, unless our friend would like to redefine the word “depression” too while we’re at it.

In summary, the only thing that LordSingur seems to acknowledge is not a choice is something that is caused by genetics, or at least has a genetic component to it. Therefore, even by his own, wrong definition of the word choice, homosexuality is a choice because it is not genetic, correct?

Oh dear

Oh please

Make it stop

So much research

So many papers

What am I going to do??!!

Of course the genetics behind sexuality is still complex and needs to be explored, and there is no one “gay gene” that will “make you gay” if you have it. However, the fact that sexuality does have a significant genetic component to it is a virtual certainty.

One final note, I don’t give a shit what religion you ascribe to, or lack thereof. If you’re wrong you’re wrong, and not believing in an omniscient deity does not automatically make you right about anything else, nor does it eliminate the possibility that you have your own motives for wanting to believe in nonsense.

Sexual Predators: A Double Standard

Yesterday I read an excellent post on Blue Collar Atheist about sexual harassment, and after watching this video this morning on TheYoungTurks channel I felt it I needed to look at my own views, my own possible double standard when it comes to sexual advances towards a teenage boy on the part of a young, attractive woman. 

I am in no way going to deny that there is indeed a double standard in public opinion with regards to this issue. If a 24 year old man made sexual advances towards a 15 year old girl no one would be discussing whether or not that man is a sexual predator. On the other hand, when people look at this attractive, young, blonde woman hitting on a young, virile 15 year old boy, it doesn’t seem to be the same. As Cenk put it, if it had happened to him at that age “best day of my life!”

I’m not going to discount all that, but I want to counter it with a hypothetical of my own. When I was 15 or 16, I was among the girls that were “old for their ages”. Unfortunately for me, I was also overweight and not considered all that attractive. If I was in a tanning salon and a 24 year old, smoking hot Will Smith-type came up to me topless and tried to kiss me, trust me Cenk, best day of my fucking life.

I suppose the source of the double standard lies in the fact that, as a society we assume that there are far more teenage boys than teenage girls that would welcome such advances. This stems partially from the “horny boy” stereotype and partially with our societal prejudices against women or girls who are sexually active and enjoy it. The “sluts” of this world are dismissed as the oddballs, not “proper”, not what girls or young women are “supposed to be”, whereas the horny teenage boy is exactly what we all expect. Neither of these stereotypes are fair, you don’t have to be a “slut” if you enjoy sex (or would die and go to heaven if a hot guy wanted to kiss you), and not all boys at that age are ready to have sex. They shouldn’t be ridiculed for not being ready or not appreciating the advances (as Hank Fox alluded to in his post) any more than a teenage girl should be ostracized for being ready to have sex. Sexual harassment and unwanted sexual advances should be and are already illegal for completely different reasons: if the boy in this case was uncomfortable with her advances and did not want to have anything to do with her, she is undoubtedly a sexual predator. If, on the other hand he was considering it to be the “best day of his life” up until the point that his mom walked in the question thus becomes: what should the age of consent be? If there really is a double standard, should the age of consent be different for boys and girls?

I definitely do not think that there should be any difference, but I find it difficult to pin down an age. Teenagers are so variable in their physical, mental and emotional development that this question is incredibly difficult to answer. I have known 15 year olds that may as well have been 20, and others that may as well have been 10 and very easily manipulated. Then again I have also known legal adults that were easily manipulated, so where do we draw the line?

I definitely think that there should be a different age of consent when it comes to someone in a position of power over the minor, like a counsellor or babysitter etc. If the two people are completely unrelated, on the other hand, I feel like somewhere between 15 or 16 is fair enough. Once again, if there is a 15 year old that is not ready to be sexually active and resists the advances that is illegal for entirely different reasons, just as it is illegal to sexually harass an adult. For those that are ready to have some kind of relationship at that age, however, I say leave them be.

It would be nice to have some science back up my shot in the dark, if anyone knows of any studies conducted on cognitive development in this regard please let me know.

Book Review: Trafficked

I know what you're thinking, I'm reading way too many books, and perhaps blogging a little too much about them. Bear with me though, because you may have noticed that the books I have been reading lately have either raised interesting ethical questions for discussion or brought up some extremely interesting, relevant history, making them more than book reviews. This book, by Sophie Hayes, is one of them.

This is the true story of what happened to her when she decided to trust a man that she thought was her friend. This is not just a tragic story of what happened to a young woman that I feel necessary to bear witness to, as hard as it might be. It is that too, of course, but it is much more. 

Sophie Hayes is a young, educated, middle class white English girl. While her relationship with her father can be described as mutual apathy at best, there are no indications that she should not live a normal, middle class British life. She had a good job, her own apartment, a future waiting for her. Then, she decided to take a trip to Italy to visit a person she considered her best friend for four years. 

Sophie Hayes was forced into prostitution by a criminal psycopath on the streets of an undisclosed (though Northern, from clues in the book) city in Italy. Her story made me go through an emotional rollercoaster that I did not expect. I wanted to jump into the pages before her first terrifying night and beat the living daylights out of the disgusting animal that trafficked her. I wanted to smack the policemen that treated her like shit upside the head for being so painfully ignorant. I wanted to stop alongside the roads that are known to be full of prostitutes, stop at each one and ask "are you OK? Do you want to be here? Do you need someone to help you get home?" though knowing full well that, regardless of whether or not those girls are there voluntarily or not, the answer would be a resounding No. Admiration for her courage in writing her story, not just for mentioning the terrible parts, but for being able to capture the times in which she loved him and felt safe with him, which I think are emotions that are even harder and take more courage to revisit. I had a nightmare that I was driving along the road and I saw a friend of mine in her same position, and trying to convince her to get in the fucking car so that I could save her. During the whole thing I found myself coming back to one central thought that might be paradoxical at first: this is why I think prostitution needs to be legalized. 

Before jumping down my throat hear me out. In Italy, as it is in Spain and most other European countries where it is not outright legal, prostitution is decriminalized. This means that you cannot be arrested for either being a prostitute or for seeking out a prostitute to sleep with. This was done in an effort to focus time and resources towards the real criminals, forget police officers posing as hookers or johns to arrest someone just trying to earn a living or looking for a blowjob, but rather go after the pimps and the traffickers. 

While I can partially agree with this strategy, in that I don't see the egregious criminal offence in deciding to be paid for a handjob (especially since it magically does not become an egregious criminal offence if there is a camera present and the video is destined for the internet), there are some evident problems in this decriminalization. What seems to be the situation is that, far from bringing focused attention down on the traffickers, prostitution becomes largely ignored. Policemen will occasionally make a few prostitutes clear out if people start to complain, they may ask to see their papers to see if they are in the country legally, but they have no recourse to arrest them and thus question them. Sure, once in a while you'll hear about a few pimps going to jail, but usually because they were involved in a much larger crime ring that also (and primarily) involved bringing people into the country illegally, that the people they brought were sex slaves and not textile slaves is often coincidental. If your society is OK with not criminalizing prostitution, why the hell wouldn't you take the leap and make it outright legal?

Making it legal and regulating it severely undercuts traffickers. You have houses where there is security if needed, it is a taxed business (also making it a much needed source of revenue), you can mandate regular medical checks just like in the porn industry, which not only helps assure the prostitute is free of STDs but secondarily is an excellent way of spotting systematic abuse that is commonplace amongst traffickers. You have a license, which means that no illegal immigrants would be allowed to work there, them being the women that are most likely the ones brought over against their will. After that, criminalize prostitution that is conducted outside the regulated standards. 


It is time to stop not only demonizing women who choose the sex trade, but also the johns that seek their services. As it is also alluded to in the book, most of them are nice enough guys, most men have no interest in sleeping with a prostitute who is being forced against her will. Sophie Hayes had to invent an elaborate back story because many people were genuinely curious to know why she was doing what she did, no judgement, no sadism. If you are a john, wouldn't you rather go to a clean house, where you know the prostitute does not have STDs, where you know everything is legal and above board, rather than troll the streets for a frightened girl that most likely is forced against her will, could be sick and/or have a dangerous pimp lurking around? There will always be a handful of sadists that would prefer that scenario, and I have no problem with their asses being hauled off to prison for participating in an illegal sex trade.


The last point to consider is that criminals are opportunists. If you legalize prostitution and make it reasonable and accessible to customers you are providing a serious source of competition for the traffickers. They have less clients buzzing around, would have to dramatically lower prices in order to provide some kind of incentive, have police scrutiny intensify, in many cases they could easily decide that sex trafficking is no longer profitable enough and switch to another form of criminal activity. I think we need to start considering these things right alongside increasing awareness that this is a significant problem, as well as expand the resources available for victims that have managed to or are trying to escape. 


It is a story I suggest everyone reads, because it is so important to acknowledge the often ignored problem, and really begin discussing what we can do about it.

Tough Questions: Would You Be OK With Your Child In Porn?

Don’t even ask me how this topic happened to pop into my head, it is a (fun? defective?) part of my personality to run with a topic in my head and not let it go until I follow it to its logical conclusion, and is one of the main reasons that I started this blog. It happens when there is an apparent conflict in my head, and as soon as I spot one it needs to be resolved.

The premise is this: I am one of those feminists that believes women should not be demonized because they want to take naked pictures or go into porn. Some women are exhibitionists by nature, they love it and their thoughts and opinions should not be judged differently because of it, any more than you should judge a woman stupid just because she’s blonde or a black man uneducated because of his accent. Yes it is true that there is some very misogynistic, violent and disgusting porn out there done by actresses that are drugged or have serious emotional problems, but that is an entirely different issue and certainly does not represent the entire sex industry. You can fight exploitative porn without thinking that porn itself is harmful or misogynistic in itself, and I am one of those people. When I hear stories of women getting fired because they did porn once or enjoy burlesque dancing

it sickens me.

This position being firmly held in my mind, I realized that the contradiction came up when I realized that if a close family member like my mother or my daughter came to me and told me that they were thinking of doing porn, I would have a problem with it. Well why is that? If I truly believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with doing porn, why would I not want someone I care about to do it? I should support them, not try to convince them not to, unless there is still a part of me that is actually not OK with the sex industry. So, where does the problem lie?

I suppose that it comes from the idea that I would rather my daughter, my best friend or whatever would have more opportunities at her disposal. I would want my daughter to be educated, have a job in which her mind is valued, not her body. I would never want my daughter to have to “resort” to porn, or stripping, because she feels there are no other options. I don’t want my loved ones to be objectified, but most importantly I would not want them to have such low self-esteem that they would want to be considered an object, or less important. I would never want them to feel that they don’t deserve better, or (as would be the case for a daughter) to fall into something they don’t really want to do and have to suffer the consequences of those choices later in life.

However, really thinking about it, I realized that when you think of such a situation you automatically assume that those would be the reasons your daughter/mother/best friend would go into the sex industry, and there I am making a huge mistake which is not fair to many. If my daughter really loved the sex industry, if it is something that inspires her and truly makes her happy, I think I would support her. If she goes into it empowered, proud of herself and with no less self-esteem than she would going into any other job, I would be fine with her choice and defend it to anyone who dares tell her she can’t do it. I’m sure I would never actually be able to watch it, that goes a little too far for me, and of course I will have to have a daughter to put this theory to the test, but I hope to be a better person than to ever deny my child the right to choose her own path in life.

What are your thoughts on the subject, on porn itself? What would you think if you’re family wanted to get into porn?

Looks Like I'll Have To Flex My Creative Writing Muscle...

I used to love creative writing. In high school I had two talents, two loves in my life: Biology and English. It ended up being a toss up between the two, but Biology won out and it is what I pursued in the end. However, that does not mean that I am not writing a couple of books in my spare time, nor that I have foresaken my mistress that is English Lit (You know I love you baby. No really, I do. But I just can't get a divorce right now, you know? Bio pays my bills, how else can I support my fancy underwear addiction? Come on, you know I love you. See you Saturday?). So when I saw this call for creative writing pieces featuring tentacle erotica posted on Pharyngula, one that will be for a good cause no less, I'm thinking I'm just going to have to submit a juicy story of my own. The problem is going to be sorting through the ideas! Do I go full-blown romanticy erotica, scary and sensual, or firmly tongue-in-cheek parody of silly erotica novels? Hm.... might have to submit more than one in the end.... damn my tight schedule! Damn youu!! Well, once/if I have submitted my attempts and they are promptly rejected I'll be sure to post them here as well. You all can tell me what you think of them!

And if any of you want to join in, the proceeds go to Oceana. Deadline is June 30th so get writing!

Thoughts On: Bad Sex Advice

Well we haven't talked about sex in a long time have we? Time for a little Pervocracy style post I wanted to share with you all.

As you might have gathered, I can be quite candid when speaking to people, especially my friends. What you might not know is that I have always been more of a guy-friend type of girl, and all of my close female friends are just as guy-ly candid and blush-free as I am. It is because of this that I tend to talk to my male friends about sex, and it has come to my attention that a lot of them have received some terrible sex advice. Worse, this horrendous advice passed by unnoticed of its terrible qualities why? Because it was given to them by women.

This is why I feel that there needs to be a bit of a public service announcement in this regard. There are two things that you really need to know when it comes to the advice you receive, especially advice from women:

1. There is no "what women want". Guess what, women actually have their own personalities. Shocking right? They're different. If you want relationship advice from a female friend, make sure you are asking a female friend that has the same type of personality as the girl you are looking to go out with. If not disregard it, or at least take into consideration that it may not be accurate or apply to all women.

Case in point: My male cousin was once told, at a young impressionable age by an older female cousin of his, that when women say no it means try harder, because if a woman goes out with you she totally wants to bed you but she has to be coy to save face, so keep being insistent. I hope I don't sound too antifeminist myself when I respond BITCH YOU CRAZY?! Luckily, my cousin is not the aggressive type so he never actually took this terrible advice, particularly lucky because he is a minority living in the US and is in to white girls (that could have gone terribly terribly wrong).

2. Do not think you know a woman's vagina better than she does. I cannot stress this enough.

In the same vein as before, you have to understand that every woman's vagina is different. Some are more sensitive, others less so, and women are just in to different things, so something that makes one woman scream with pleasure could seriously hurt another. If you propose something and that woman says no that will hurt me I don't like it, don't think you know better than she does. You might suggest she try it if she hasn't before, talk her through it, but if she says no then drop it.

Case in point: I once had a guy that was in to using his teeth, and when bragging about his cunnilingus prowess (isn't that the most disgusting yet oddly hilarious word you've ever heard? cunnilingus I mean, not prowess) he mentioned a part of his routine involved teeth. I said FUCK NO. No teeth. Not happening. I am particularly sensitive down there. I once plucked a hair and I got those up-the-nose tears that you get as an automatic reaction to getting punched in the nose. So he, being the arrogant I-am-a-master prick that he was, completely disregarded what I said and when he got all up in my business he took out the teeth and scratched. Let's just say he deserved a much harder kick in the face than the one he got out of pure unexpected shock. Point being: I have a vagina. You don't. Even if you do have one, or your advice came from someone that does, you still don't have my vagina, so if I tell you I don't like something or that it hurts I mean it.

I have always been an advocate of critical thinking and not taking anything you hear at face value. I think that men need to know that this also goes for sex advice, even advice that comes from a woman. Sure there are some things that are more widely appreciated by the female sex, and sure advice from a woman has a higher chance of being accurate as you know she's not pretending to have expertise to save face, however this does not mean that everything that women have to say about women is golden. Otherwise it would be too easy, am-I-rite?!

It's All About Multitasking

I've been talking about some quasi-feminist issues quite a lot recently, but I want to address just one more before I move on to some other things. I admit, this is going to be a short little rant, I was planning a much more complicated post but I am up to my ass in work at the moment so I have very little time to do this right now. I promise I will be more attentive very soon.

I wanted to talk about people who get outraged at men who undress women with their eyes, and men responding by saying "well don't dress so provocatively then!" I have some very mixed feelings about the whole discussion that I wanted to put out there.

First of all guys, be honest, if a woman is attractive it really doesn't matter what she's wearing, if she's not reeking from a week without showering and doesn't have dried egg and blood on her raggedy grey sweatshirt, you're going to undress her in your mind anyway. You're a red-blooded male and your mind just goes there. However when you're called on it you get extremely defensive, saying it's not you're fault that hussy has the nerve to wear a push-up bra, and anyway why do you feminazis want castrated men coasting through the halls anyway!!! Here's the thing, women think about sex too. A lot.

Relating to the fact that I am particularly busy these days, I was in my fifth meeting/seminar of the day with two more still to go, so of course my mind started to wander. The man talking was, lets face it, kinda cute, and I began undressing him in my mind. Oh how horribly sexist of me! While he was going on about scientific research I was pondering the various things I might do to him on that lovely desk. Pure fantasy of course, I'm happily in love with a perfectly wonderful man and would never dream of approaching this guy in real life. Even if I was single it still would never happen, he's not actually my type at all, but when you're mind wanders it just goes there. It says "I'm bored, I want to think about sex. Hmm he'll do for my mind fantasy!" For shame for shame for shame.

So now that the secret's out it looks even worse for us. Well fuck it if you do it too then WHY THE HELL are you busting our balls for doing the same to you women?!! See, SEE you're the sexist ones! You want unequal treatment I knew it!!! I'll tell you what the difference is, my darlings. The inherent difference is in the ability to multitask. Why do you think us women are able to keep it on the down-low?

When I'm fantasizing about the lovely man who happens to be giving the talk at the time, I can still listen to what he is saying. I'm not blankly staring at him with an obvious dog-face of arousal. I don't blankly fixate on his ass or crotch the way you guys go for the boobs. I still follow what he's talking about, take notes, while all the time wondering if he's a boxers or briefs man. Most importantly, his appearance doesn't influence my perception of him as a scientist or a professional. I don't think that his deserving of my taking him seriously is inveresly correlated with his attractiveness. The two things are completely seperate, and therein you fellas need to take a lesson.

Learn to oggle a woman minus the oggling part. Respect her as much as she is deserving of respect, no more because she wears glasses or no less because she has blond hair and nice boobs. Learn to still hear what she's saying and evaluate her worth as a professional regardless of what she may look like naked, and no one will give a shit what goes on in your head. Don't think that (most rational) women are going to try to become the thought police, it's just that we so often have to deal with our work being judged based on our appearance that we might come off as being prudes, but we're not. Just separate the two and you'll never get called on it again, because no one will ever know what's going on in your head if it doesn't show on your face.

Word to the wise ;)

Sex, Sexuality and Why Are Homophobes So Obsessed With It?

I started thinking about this when I was watching the coverage of the Republican debates, but had forgotten about this until something else made it come back to my mind.

While it is always amusing to watch bigots squirm under direct questioning regarding their bigotry, Rick Santorum actually brought up something that I have heard repeated a few times from homophobes when discussing, for example, whether or not it is appropriate to expose children to the idea of same sex couples.

What?? How is allowing gay men and women to die from their country adding a provision to include sexual activity in the military?? What the HELL does sex have to do with someone's sexual identity? Of course the people that someone will choose to have sex with will be influenced by their sexual identity, and the two words share three letters, but what exactly does Rick Santorum think? If we allow gay men into the military there will be rampant ass-fucking orgies in the showers every night?

It is this incredibly ridiculous notion that talking about gay rights automatically means talking about gay sex. It is because of this that many homophobes freak at the idea of children finding out about gay couples. They're too young to understand!! Understand what exactly? This is just another example of sexualizing our children. When you tell your 6 year old "Uncle John and Aunt Sarah are getting married, do you want to be a flower girl?" she doesnt think "that means that John and Sarah are going to hump like bunnies on their wedding night!" It's absurd. Telling you child that sometimes, two men or two women will get married too, will result in the response "oh... OK!" not "But where do they put their pee-pees then Daddy?" If your child doesn't even know where babies come from, how is clueing them in on the existence of same-sex couples in any way exposing them to gay sex?

Is it because homophobes think of gay sex everytime they see two men or two women together? Is it just with gays, or do they imagine the dirty between-the-sheets details of every single couple they see on the street? Are they really that repressed? Of course some of them are closeted homosexuals, there has been plenty of evidence to that, but Im not going to pretend that they all are. Maybe the combination of an overly sexual person and a lifetime of religiously inspired sexual repression and shame is the perfect storm which results in hateful and bigoted people.

What is your theory on the subject?

Are We Sexualizing Our Children?

This is a tough one. On the one hand, I want to scream at how ridiculously prudish society is becoming. On the other, there are some cases which scream an undeniable yes. So where exactly do you draw the line?

Now I live in a country where these extremes are not so well defined as of yet, so I bring my mentality to the table here. I remember when I worked for a summer in a girls camp in the US, a "lovely" place with 8 showers, 2 of them outdoors, to be shared between about 100 kids and staff. Because of this, two of the little girls came up with a brilliant idea, let's shower together to save time. Well, the staff leader freaked. That's inapprppriate!! It doesnt matter whether or not they had bathing suits on!! You CANNOT allow it!! One thing I did agree with was that yea, it didn't matter whether or not they had bathing suits on. However, what I thought was inappropriate was shaming two 9-yr old girls as if they were doing something wrong. To me, this was an extreme case of the prudes, to the point that it might even hurt the kids their warped ideas where meant to protect. If anything, the overly-prudish behaviour seems to me to be sexualizing them more, because you're projecting sexual ideas onto children when they are nothing of the sort.  Once again, this comes from the mentality of a European, where 2-4yr old kids regularly run around the beach naked, where 4-9yr old girls only wear the bottom half of bathing suits, and brothers and sisters or even friends have baths together until they decide they're too embarassed to do so themselves. It's normal, they're kids, no one thinks twice about it.

The line became much finer to define when I watched the following two videos:

When I saw the first one, I didn't care, and yet the second one made me sick. I got to wondering, why is that?

OK so I had to make a few assumptions about the first video. Ana is obviously very biased in her opinion of the pole dancing classes, so she gave very little concrete information about what it entailed. Basically the information you get is that these girls were taking pole dancing classes, some pictures were posted on facebook, outrage ensued.

Disclaimer: I don't want to hear anyone drudging out the old "what about the perverts" argument. It's a dead horse, lay off it. First of all, the day we modify our behavior to satisfy a bunch of crazy freaks is the day the crazy freaks win. Secondly, perverts will get aroused by any picture of a kid, be it in a bathing suit at the beach, at a gymnastics class doing the splits or in a burka. There's no point thinking about what a perv is going to think when choosing your pictures.

Putting that aside, I had made a few assumptions based on A. the picture they showed of the instructor of the class and B. what I know about pole dancing classes from personal experience (obviously if any of my assumptions turn out not to be true, the following argument does not apply). Firstly, based on the extremely innocent picture of the instructor, the outfits that I presume the girls were wearing were not sexy or skimpy, they were at worst the classic gymnast costume. Secondly, from my own experience in dabbling in pole dancing in Ireland, I assumed they were not being taught stripper moves either.

Pole dancing classes started becoming popular because it was realized that pole dancing is AMAZING exercise which works out every single part of your body. Also, it's freaking hard. If any guy decided to look in on the pole dancing class that I went to in order to get off would have been sorely disappointed to find a group of sweaty red-faced ladies in leggings and baggy shirts trying to keep up with the instructor and not fall flat on their faces. They would have gotten much more gratification from watching a belly-dancing class. But of course as soon as people hear "pole" they think "stripper", so when it got out that mothers would ever let their daughters participate in pole-dancing classes made both the hosts and the comments section go bezerk. However, if my assumptions are true, i say pfft PRUDES! leave them alone!! Just because the pole is vertical rather than horizontal doesn't make their gymnastics any more or less sexy. GET OVER IT.

Then I saw the second video, and I thought I'd be sick. A woman dressing up her 3yr old as a fucking hooker?! Disgusting. Outrageous. Immoral. That poor child. But what made me react so differently to these two different situations? Where do I draw the line in my own subconscious, for me to have such a visceral reaction to one but nothing to the other?

It comes down to what we project onto our children. When a woman intentionally sexualizes her child, that's disgusting. Kids will be kids, and we forget that they have a completely different mentality before puberty. Sex does not factor into the life of a 7yr old, and yet it's hard for us to get it out of our heads. So as long as kids will be kids, let them be. If by age 6 they're still not embarassed to take a bath with their brother or sister, let them. If they want to put on a dance for you in their bathing suit at the beach, there's nothing wrong with that. However, when adults take their own sexualized thoughts and stick them onto their kids, whether it's to dress them up like a prostitute or to chide them for swimming naked with a friend, to me that is disgusting in equal measure. If a 3-yr old gets into her mother's makeup and slathers lipstick on her face it's cute, laugh and take a picture. If a mother puts red lipstick on her fake-tanned 3yr old in order to turn more heads at a beauty pageant, it turns my stomach. That's where I personally draw the line.

Where do you?

Tough Questions: The Legality of Incest

This personal debate with myself started with a Young Turks clip on youtube a while back about Switzerland thinking about legalizing incest. Of course, when I first saw the title, my gut reaction was crazy fucking Swiss. Now I must admit I had the slightest biased against the Swiss government, simply with the issue I have on them portraying such a forward progressive attitude when in reality a lot of the government's policies are really backward, like their ridiculously xenophobic immigration policy and the fact that their women didn't have the right to vote until 1971. So initially, to me this seemed to fall into this category.


But then I watched the video. First of all, the law in no way condoned the rape of children or any such off-balance power dynamic. Pedophilia is outlawed in many different ways so that was not even the question. The question was whether or not someone should go to jail because of a fully consensual relationship between adult family members, like a brother and a sister.

Now I'm an only child, but still the idea of a brother and a sister going at it grosses me out. But still, does something that grosses me out have to be illegal? People that pee on each other gross me the fuck out too, but I'm not going to tell them that they should spend up to four years in jail because of it!

So why is it really illegal in the first place, in a country like the US?

There seem to be two prevailing arguments that people will automatically blurt out when confronted with such a seemingly odd and yet very simple question.


Excuse #1: It goes against people's Christian values

OK so apart from the obvious fact that Christians have absolutely no right to condemn incest considering that the Bible is riddled with it (see this video for a hilarious spoof on this), countries like the US and other European countries are supposed to have separation of church and state, so there should not be any laws made based on a religious belief or feeling. So in that case, this law would have no merit.


Excuse #2: The family members might have children, and those children would have a much higher chance of being born with malformations and genetic diseases.

Yes that is true. But here's my big problem with that argument: there is no other case in which it is illegal to have children based on such a risk. Let's go with an extreme example first. There is a drug on the market called Accutane, a very good drug for people with severe and disfiguring acne. The only problem is that, if taken while pregnant, this drug will lead to extremely severe birth defects, in which the child will be born with head, nervous system and heart defects, many times resulting in death. Of course female patients are warned of these enormous risks and told to use birth control while taking it. HOWEVER, if a woman gets pregnant, continues to take the drug and gives birth to the baby, causing it immense pain and suffering, there is no law to stop her. She will not spend one day in jail. So how can you say that there can be a law against a practice that might cause the birth of a child with congenital defects, when there is no law against a practice that will almost definitely produce a child with congenital defects? The argument simply does not hold water.

So the real question becomes this: legalize (or at least decriminalize) incest, or introduce more laws against practices that could lead to the birth of children with severe congential disorders?

At this point I have to point out the potential disaster of option 2. Yes incest can lead to birth defects, but you know what else can? Alcohol. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is the number 1 cause of mental retardation in the States, and yet it is not illegal for a pregnant woman to have a drink. Well why stop there? Older women have a significantly higher chance of having a baby with Down's Syndrome, are we going to have an age limit on getting pregnant? It all gets a little too much for my taste. I say educate women on the risks involved, offer safe and legal abortion if it doesn't go to plan, and let adults make up their own adult minds. Pro choice all the way!

Well this was my logical train of thought. If you have any conflicting ones, or any other point to add or consider, do let me know!