Back On!

I'm back in-country, and I hope to be around this fall to cover the elections and beyond!

Unequal Relationships

What I keep hearing from certain parts of our society is that Islam is evil and Muhammad was an evil pedophile because he married a nine-year-old. I don't know enough about the Qur'an and the traditional literature to know the details, but I can do research and ask the experts, and they say that's just another western misrepresentation.

But even if she were nine, does that really make him and his religion evil, or just more open-minded? The Journal of Homosexuality has produced many thorough studies on intergenerational / adult-child relationships, most notably in this issue, although there are occasionally individual articles on it. (If they don't get national acclaim, it's because of our repressive society's biases and ignorant fears, not because they have no value.) They show that, if people can overcome their biases and defy the stigma, there can be meaningful and productive adult-child relationships. In fact, it can be a source of comfort to be with someone more experienced, so you can avoid the anxiety of "not knowing what to do."

Yes, there are definitely abuses. Just like there are in all types of relationships. But because one in four (or more) straight women are sexually abused, does that mean we should ban straight relationships? Plus, since we have defined all adult-child relationships as abusive, even relationships that continue into the younger partner's adulthood are stigmatized and deemed illegal, abusive, and rape. Until we realize that not all intergenerational sex is abusive, there can be no progress towards tolerance and acceptance.

People will say that the power imbalance is the issue. Good luck finding something without a power imbalance. Even in same-age, same-sex relationships, the only things without a built-in power imbalance, there's almost always one person more powerful than the other. If it's the person who brings home the higher income, or the person with a stronger or more manipulative personality, or the "butch" partner in relationships that work that way, or the one with a more secure life apart from the relationship, or anything else, someone is going to hold more power. You can't get away from it.

So? Abuse should be, and is, illegal. But don't call things evil and abusive just because they're outside your comfort zone and they are demographically similar to abusive relationships.

Conservatives can't see sense!

Pat Sajak is at it again. He's built a career on moving his arm up and down, so maybe he can be forgiven for thinking all other social movers are as idiotic as he is.

One of his friends asked him, "Well, don’t you think that people who live in large urban areas, who travel and read and speak other languages are better able to make informed choices?" Sajak's only response is that it's mean to say things like that. He couldn't argue with it, because it's an obvious truth. At least it is about bigger issues. I'm not sure I'd be able to make more informed choices about something like the best direction to park the trailer home in, although I probably would be able to make more informed choices about redneck things like brands of denture glue because I know how to research and find information and analyze it, and if all else fails I'm not afraid to ask people, so at least my choices would be as informed. I would probably be able to make more informed choices about just about everything, in fact. It took me so long to figure out something that wouldn't count. Everything I could think of, ham radios, tractor brands, hayseed strains, I could probably make better choices about, if I did the research, because I have a more open mind and I don't have the baggage of "but it's always been done that way!"

I spent a LONG time doing web research on this, just to see if anyone had critiqued the claim that the more educated and informed you are, the more likely you are to realize that liberal opinions are right. Lots of wingnut sites will repeat the claim and say, "look! that shows Dems are dumb and mean and out of touch!" but no one seemed able to come up with a counterargument or even a list of things that liberals are less-informed on. I'll admit that it's not a good political strategy, unless it shames some people into actually going and learning something, but it's plainly true.

First person?

Reading the post below, I think first person may not be the best choice. I hoped to have a central figure who wasn't described as either male or female, because I don't think it would have as much appeal with two women, and there you get the problem of "she looked at her hands" and other obscure pronoun references. But I didn't want to do your basic heteronormative romance novel. If you're stopping by, tell me what you think: man, woman, or first-person undefined protagonist?

The Meeting

The first time I saw her was on the Underground. I was on the District line on my way back from Knightsbridge. I was reading the Time Out I had picked up on the way in, annoyed by the loud chattering of the sixth-form girls standing in the area where the cars join. Then she caught my eye.

She was just as talkative as any of her friends, but there was a vivacity about her that set her apart from them. Some of her friends were still in uniform, but she had changed into slim low-cut jeans and a creamy knit top with a low scoop neckline. Neither dowdy and out-of-date nor pitifully put-on, like most of London's teenage girls, she looked easy and as if she had just come from Calais or a Paris couturier. Her heavy gold hoop earrings swung about when she gestured, and that motion may have been what first drew my attention. It could also have been her hair, so black it was nearly blue, mostly gathered at the nape of her neck but with several segments let loose. Or her flawless skin, a rich brown with rosy undertones, lacking the sallowness of many of her sun-shy fellows.

I found myself letting my eyes wander down her form. Tracing her collarbone, admiring the soft breasts just large enough to make a clear shadow in their cleft, lingering on her slim waist, noticing how her figure stayed straight with almost no increase around her hips. The seat of her jeans hugged her closely, and they could indeed have been boy's, as trim as she was. She left at Whitechapel, and I realized three things: I was very warm all over. I had missed my stop. And I had to meet her.

(To be continued...)

We don't exist for men's benefit, please!

Another show that seems to have as its purpose the titillation of men by means of attractive and feminine/"desirable" lesbians. Boys? We come in all varieties, and a large number of us are not feminine, and, guess what? we're not interested in you. So give up.

The next move by the straight-police

I'm sure everyone's seen this by now, but the Times has an article out about how they're yet again saying that the same-sex lifestyle is evil and dangerous and needs to be remolded into 1950's unnatural monogamy.

I've been told it's just my woman-loving bias, that man-on-man sex is physically harmful and (which I do know) spreads disease much faster than woman-on-woman sex. But even if it's true that it's physically harmful, I don't think that gives the straightness-enforcers the right to say that their freely-chosen relationships are wrong, just because they don't fit into the straight idea of a healthy relationship. If they find it fulfilling, they should be able to do it. Everyone knows about health risks of smoking, driving cars, and any kind of sex. So let them do what they want without trying to make them act like you want them to!

On the other hand, this guy disagrees, saying (like the Times) that the behavior is bad and must be changed.

(In other news, this is a pretty site. I want a pretty site.)

Kurds Gone Wild

NBC just ran a segment with several pro-war mercenary contractors saying the US is hiring bloodthirsty thuggish Kurds. Kurds who think firing into a passenger car is a good way to clear a traffic jam and who think smashing children under a truck is a fun way to pass an afternoon, apparently.

This can be taken in two ways.

First, because the people telling the story think it's a great thing that we're in this racist war, it's quite possible that they're making the whole thing up. Why? Well, it's pretty obvious. These evil non-Americans are portrayed as bloodthirsty monsters, so everyone will agree that they are a subhuman race and nobody needs to feel bad about killing them. That's what our media does all the time anyway. Lots of stories about "terrorists" and Palestinian freedom fighters, but always about how they're hurting sweet innocent people and nothing about their motivations and how not-innocent the "victims" are.

On the off chance that the stories are true, well, what do you expect? We're trying to force our "enlightened" morality on another country, and they decide to stick with their own tried and true cultural practices, so we must paint them as evil just because their ways of dealing with things are different from our perfect American methods. What's next, will we get angry because their jailers don't go in for sex abuse?