rants.

I'm not always a nice girl.

I'm what you might call... opinionated. Some might even call it argumentative, but I'm too much of an angel for that (ha).  I'd thought of having a blog, but there are probably not to many people interested in reading about the day to day goings on in my life (well, at least the stuff that's tame enough that I'd post it publicly *wink*), and I'm not inspired to write thoughtful, insightful witty banter often enough to make a blog-that's-not-a-diary worthwhile.  But now and then I get inspired enough or pissed off enough to add something to the rants here, or someone else does the job so well that I feel the need to post their work here.  Enjoy!

 

Purity Balls
by Mark Morford

Note from Webmistress Rebecca: This article was featured on Friday, May 12, 2006, as part of Mark Morford's regular Notes & Errata column in the San Francisco Gate.  It is a masterful (and funny!) piece of writing and does a beautiful job of covering this topic, so I felt compelled to include it here.

Christian Virgins Are Overrated
Think sex and drugs destroy America? Try naive chastity.
Oh, and "Purity Balls"

There are these things. These unholy events called "Purity Balls" and you should probably fall to your knees right this minute and thank a merciful and lubricious and happily polyamorous God that you do not know what they are and that you have access right this minute to vast quantities of wine to deflect their nasty karmic arrows because, you know, oh my God. But hey, free country.

Purity Balls. No, not some sort of newfangled spherical chastity device to be inserted using vacuum tubes and pulleys, but rather fancy creepy dress-up rituals taking place in towns like Colorado Springs and Tucson and Zoloft Jesusville, in which Christian dads rent a bad tux while their daughters, mostly teenagers but many as young as 6 or 7, get all dolled up in gowns from JCPenny and they all drive out to the airport Marriott and prepare to, well, lose their minds.

It begins. At some point the daughter stands up, her pale arms wrapped around her daddy, and reads aloud a formal pledge that she will remain forever pure and virginal and sex-free until she is handed over, by her dad (who is actually called the "high priest" of the home), like some sort of sad hymenic gift, to her husband, who will receive her like the sanitized and overprotected and libidinously inept servant she so very much is. Praise!

Would that I were making this up.

The dad -- er, high priest -- in turn, stands up and reads his pledge, one stating that he will work to protect his daughter's virginal purity that he has so carefully and wickedly drilled into her since birth, since she was knee-high to a disturbing dogma, that he will protect her chastity and oversee it and help enforce its boundaries, which might or might not involve great amounts of rage and confusion and secret stashes of cheap scotch, although his pledge claims it's with honor and integrity and lots of bewildering Godspeak. Which, in many households, is essentially the same thing.

It's true. Purity Balls are happening, right now. And yes, you have heard this all before. Particularly from the conservative Right, especially from America's rigid and pale fundamentalist "core."

Premarital sex is evil. Female sexuality must be, as ever, contained, repressed, shoved deep down lest it tempt men to sin like gleeful pagans licking ice cream from the pierced nipples of the devil. Girls do not know how to handle their own genitalia and therefore must be taught -- by their fathers, no less -- how to dilute their sexual power in order to attract a sexually unqualified, God-fearing husband. You know, same as it ever was.

Very well. Let us now trace the path of imminent cultural destruction: Virgin girl has zero experience with the joys of her own body, with orgasm, with men, with sex toys or shower heads or good gynecological gizmongery. She then marries a man who will very likely have not the slightest clue (as he has had the same dreadful sexual miseducation as our fair virgin) as to what to do with a woman's body, who will, by most all accounts, be unable to tell an erogenous zone from an elbow, a clitoris from a belly button.

Voilà, the standard recipe for emotional, physical and spiritual catastrophe, for roughly 17 years of vague marital misery capped off by divorce and much therapy and four unhappy children and the profound and aching need located somewhere deep beneath the pelvic bone to try something, anything new and different and sexually liberating.

Let's just say it outright: The superiority of virginity myth, it is a massive, underreported disaster. It is a ridiculous and exhausting misconception that must be eradicated like a cancer. Perhaps French philosopher Voltaire said it best, nearly 300 years ago: "It is one of the great superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue." So true.

Which is another way of asking, Don't we have it exactly backward? Shouldn't one's overall happiness -- physical, marital or otherwise -- be directly equated with exceptional amounts of sexual training and education and awareness? Is such positively libidinous education not a recipe for health and well-being and long-term marital satisfaction? You already know the answer.

Look, the plague of sexual incompetence plagues our land like a plague. It infects our schools, our popular culture, our presidential administration. The right endorses wanton sexual stupidity (and all ensuing miseries, drug addictions, divorces, stresses, gun fetishes, online porn obsessions) through failed abstinence programs, STD misinformation, refusal to support quality birth control and the relentless repetition of lies about sin and depravity and a shocking ignorance of the transformative spiritual power of sex. Purity Balls? Nothing but a sad celebration of that exact ignorance.

No wonder over half of all teens who take any sort of virginity pledge end up breaking the ridiculous vow within a year (says a new Harvard study), and fully 88 percent end up having sex before marriage anyway. What's more, such silly pledges only result in more oral and anal sex among teens who try, vainly, to adhere. They also marry younger, have fewer sexual partners (read: less skill) and yet have exactly the same rate of STDs as kids who are smart enough to avoid such pointless pledges in the first place.

Would that we had a new agenda, a sexually informed education system that truly empowered teens, that taught open-minded respect for bodies and flesh, pleasure and joy and physical/spiritual awareness. Sure, include STDs and appropriate birth-control information, but not as a deterrent, not as some sort of nasty weapon of fear. Rather, arm your virgin daughters and inept sons with slick and giddy reverence for the joys of the flesh, for its potential to transform and ease tension and make you realize all is not so wrong and sinful and hateful with the world.

Would we not be utterly transformed? Would we not finally be free of the sneering, churlish mentality that somehow thinks virgins are dumb, immaculate prizes to be won? Let's just say it: There is no sacredness in the virgin. There is only the fear, were she to be educated and empowered and really let loose, of what she could become.

 

Abstinence-only education does disservice to students
by Emily Batchelder

Note from Webmistress Rebecca: This article was featured on Sept 10, 2004 as an editorial in the University of North Carolina Daily Tarheel Newspaper.  It is an issue I have long felt very strongly about, and Ms. Batchelder covered it more thoroughly and eloquently than I ever could have.  I have included her editorial in its entirety because I think it is something that EVERYONE should read.  The original article (and a photo of the author) can be found here.

Across the country, children and teens are returning to our nation's public schools. They will be regaled with lessons in history, economics, foreign languages and math. They will be instructed in every possible subject to prepare them for the future.

Only one topic will be largely and intentionally avoided - a topic that, although it undoubtedly will play a major role in their adult lives, is arguably more important to young students at this stage than at any other. The topic I'm referring to is sex, which is a life or death subject - perhaps now more than ever.

As I mentioned last week, there are approximately one million teenage pregnancies in this country per year, and more than 3 million teenagers contract sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. These rates almost double those of other industrialized nations, and they signal an approaching - if not already present - epidemic.

The bottom line is that comprehensive sex education saves lives. Without it, children and teens run the risk of missing out on crucial information about pregnancy, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases. But currently, almost 25 percent of our nation's public school systems conform to the dangerous guidelines of abstinence-only curricula.

During this year's State of the Union address, President Bush promised to double federal funding of abstinence-based programs, which censor medically accurate information and strictly prohibit any discussion of contraception beyond failure rates. While I agree that the concept of abstinence until marriage should remain a viable part of the curriculum, it certainly should not be the only part.

The reality is that kids have sex. We are fortunate to be living in a time where the potential exists to arm the youth of America with all the tools and information necessary to protect themselves and to make informed decisions regarding their sexuality.

Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, perhaps best summed up the merits of a comprehensive sexual education curriculum in a 2002 speech at the Yale Political Union.

She said: "Sexuality education is education for life, and it's actually a lifelong process, which encompasses sexual development, reproductive health, interpersonal relationships, affection, intimacy, body image and gender roles. It runs the gamut from teaching values and communication, to reproduction, decision skills, dating, abstinence, human sexual response, contraception, pregnancy options, sexually transmitted infections - or STIs - and gender roles, and a long list in between. It's a lot more than 'Just say no.'"

Let's be honest with ourselves. No matter how conservative or liberal you might be, you should understand that a comprehensive sex-education program in public schools will undoubtedly be the only sex education some students ever come across. In a world bombarded by sexual images, stereotypes and blatant untruths, there needs to be an outlet that can be counted on to provide students with accurate, honest and unbiased information. It is time for public schools to become proactive and to assume this great responsibility.

It would be wonderful to live in a world where the pressures of adolescence had nothing to do with unwanted teen pregnancies and the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS. It would be even better if families could reliably address those pressures in the privacy and security of their own homes. But the reality is something very different.

Abstinence-only education is wishful thinking at best. At the very worst, it can be a death sentence levied by adults so completely out of touch with current sexual trends that they actually believe what they are doing is in the best interest of the youth of America. By denying young people information about their sexuality, we not only hinder their development but also place their lives in danger.

Fay Wattleton, former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said, "Just saying 'no' prevents teenage pregnancy the way 'Have a nice day' cures chronic depression."

Let's stop saying "no" and start saying "yes." Yes to unrestricted access to accurate information. Yes to a safe and secure place to discuss pertinent and deeply personal issues. Knowledge is power. Give our children and teenagers the facts and the courage to make decisions that are right for them.

Ask them to say no, but don't say no to them when they ask.

 

Female Genital Mutilation

OK, so this isn't a rant so much as it is an exploration of the socialization of the tradition of female genital mutilation.  It's a subject I feel passionately about, and I wrote this paper about female genital mutilation in 1997.

 

Kids at the movies

I have a big beef with people who bring their infants to movie theaters - especially R-rated or adult-interest types of movies in which no small child would take even a passing interest.  It seems like at practically every movie I go to see, just before show time a couple saunters in with a baby in a carrier or a toddler-aged child or children.  We all know that child is not going to stay still and silent through the entire movie.  Instead the family is going to ruin the movie we paid good money to see by making us listen to a restless child. We understand that getting a babysitter can make going out to the movies expensive - but hell, if you're going to choose to have children and can't afford to have someone look after the kids while you get a little "grown-up time" together, then rent a movie!  Wait for the movie to come out on video - don't ruin it for everyone else in the theater!

 

Cell phones at the movies

While we're on the topic of movies... I've also got a bone to pick with people who answer their cell phone in the movie theater.  We all know we should turn off our cell phones when we're in a movie theater.  I know it can be easy to forget to turn off your phone's sound, so I can forgive the phone ringing - once.  That's the point at which you should press a button so it stops ringing/goes to voicemail, and either ignore it or go outside and call the person back.  You should not answer the damned thing and start talking to the caller in the middle of the theater and movie!!  And come on now, we all have a vibrate-only mode on our cell phones.  If you turn off the ringing it's not like you have no way of knowing that someone is trying to reach you.  Just put it on vibrate and put the damned thing in your pocket.  If someone calls and you need to answer it, go outside and call them back!  It's infuriating (and inexcusable) when the same fucking person receives (and answers) multiple calls during the same damned movie.

 

Men at the movies - "I'm no homo!"

OK so I started thinking about the movies and went off on a movie tear.  Deal with it.  This rant is about guys who go to the movies with other guys but can't stand to sit directly next to them because they're afraid other people will think they're gay (just because they're sitting next to another man).  Dudes, get the fuck over it.  The general public does not assume any two adult men seen together in public without the company of women are gay.  And even if they did, who the hell cares?  But what's worse is when guys go to the movie together, sit apart, and still talk to each other throughout the movie!  We recently went to a movie where this happened.  One of the guys was seated 2 seats down from us, the other was seated in front of us.  Anytime anything happened during the movie, the guy in front would laugh loudly (it wasn't a comedy, by the way), turn around, and comment loudly to his buddy about the scene.  I felt like screaming at them "LISTEN!  If you're going to talk to each other, at least SIT TOGETHER.  If you can't stand to be seen sitting together, then shut the fuck up!

 

The privilege of drinking

Alcohol can be a very dangerous thing. Look at all of the people who die every year from drunk driving accidents. When someone drives drunk (assuming they're caught, that is), we revoke their driving privileges. Well, what about their drinking privileges? I think that people should be required to obtain (and maintain) drinking licenses to be allowed to drink alcohol legally. That way, if someone is reckless with their drinking behavior, for instance, if they drive intoxicated, or if they frequently get into bar fights... their drinking privileges can be revoked.

 

Licensed Parenting

Why is it that in our society today, you need a license to drive, you need a license to own a dog, but any idiot is allowed to have a child, no questions asked? People, we need to thin the herd a bit. Stupid people shouldn't breed. There are some people (well, a LOT of them) who are just not fit to raise children. Yet they raise them in droves. There are others who can make it through... but are going to raise children who will be little more than a drain on society. Before you are allowed to bear and raise children, you should be required to obtain a parenting license... go through parenting classes, be sure this is something you're really ready for. Once you're a parent, if you are doing a poor job, your parenting license can be suspended or revoked.

 

Welfare

Ok, so the welfare system in the U.S. sucks. Once people get on it, it is very difficult to get off of it, and as far as food provisions go, there is no system of checks or balances. When someone is given food stamps, they can go to the grocery store and buy any food item in the store aside from hot prepared foods from the deli (fully prepared cold foods are OK though). In theory this is good because it doesn't restrict the individual's diet in a negative way. But at the same time, there are no restrictions on the type of food you can buy! I worked in a grocery store for several years in high school... and on a daily basis I had food stamp customers (FSCs) and cash customers (CCs). I made a lot of observations while working there. The first was that FSCs never used coupons, while many CCs went to great lengths to save a few dollars off of their grocery bill by clipping coupons. Second was the differences in types of food bought by FSCs and CCs. CCs (like my own family) would not only scrimp and save with coupons, but would buy store brands whenever possible and avoid, for instance, expensive cuts of meat in favor of the cheap ones to save money. The CCs also tended, when shopping for a family, to try to purchase healthy foods with which to feed the family [lower on the junk food, artificial stuff, fatty foods, etc]. The FSCs, on the other hand, paid little attention to the store brand, always getting the best of everything, and the expensive cuts of meat, and tons of artificial drinks and sugary foods, and lots of junk food as well. If an average FSC and an average CC would come to the store to buy a couple of week's worth of groceries for the same sized family... the CC would make their money go a lot further. For about the same bulk of food, the CC would spend perhaps $100 and leave with healthy meals in mind for the family, and the FSC would spend more like $150, and would have a lot of junk food and expensive cuts of meat and that sort of thing.

Now I'm certainly not making value judgements here. I'm not saying that people on welfare are bad. I'm saying the welfare system is bad. And people also take advantage of it. And I also realize that I'm making a LOT of generalizations here. Keep in mind that that's what they are... and I know they don't apply to every FSC or CC. Anyways... the point of this little rant is that I think that before someone is given welfare, they should have to attend a smart shopping class... something that would teach them how to shop frugally and how to construct healthy meals for their families. There should also be more restrictions placed on what foods can be bought with food stamps. Why should I struggle and clip coupons and buy ramen noodles and the cheapest cuts of meat when an FSC is far poorer than me, but is eating much better? The welfare population would certainly be much better off if they were taught how to make their food dollars go further. Like I said, I don't think people on welfare are bad. A lot of the stuff I bitched about above is most likely a result of simply not knowing how to make your money go far. I think that a life skills class that taught smart shopping skills would be a really good idea. And I know a lot of welfare recipients would balk at the idea... probably mostly those who are trying to take advantage of the system - my answer to them would be if you want to take handouts from the government, the least you can expect to do is something like this. If you don't like it, you don't have to take the money.