Favorite Daughter Peels Off Virgin Label
My college-loving book and culture nut daughter blogs, too. Writes rings around me already, to be honest, and certainly around the unhoned writer and thinker I was at her age!
She gave me permission to crosspost her latest work here. It's true I thought Liza, Lorraine, moiv and CaLiberal (who I keep wanting to call Callie!) would especially like it, but also I want her POV accessible here at Culture Kitchen, because I hope it will speak to a larger progressive audience in the too-often-unheard voice of young feminism, from the direct line of fire in the culture wars.
RUMINATIONS ON OLIVE OIL
Standing in line at a fancy grocery store, I spotted a display among many :
EXTRA EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL! It proclaimed.
Excuse me? I thought. Extra extra? Isn’t that a little unnecessary?
That is to say, I never really understood the concept of Extra Virgin Olive Oil to begin with. Is it made from olives that aren’t allowed to touch other olives? Are they modestly shielded from life’s elements by tarps?
And Extra Extra Virgin Olives - what on earth does that entail?
Or does the “virgin†refer to the oil itself? Has it never been mixed with another oil, commingling and developing new, brassy flavors? I certainly hope not, one takes for granted when one buys olive oil that it is, in fact, olive oil, and not some other hybrid. But then it seems that they shouldn’t have to bellow about its virginity so explicitly.
Having all these thoughts in the line at the store, I suddenly reached a breaking point. I wanted to tap the older woman in front of me on the shoulder and ask her my question, maybe she’d know the answer. But no, that wasn’t enough. I wanted stand up in a shopping cart, I wanted to address the store at large, I wanted to shout it to the heavens: “Isn’t just being a virgin enough for you people anymore?â€
It’s not just olive oil - women, too, now, are expected to come with a label that reads Extra Extra Virgin.
Much of society appears to have decided - rather abruptly, if you ask me - that it is not enough to wait for a person, time, and place that connote “right†and “safe†before you have sex for the first time. To make the whole process more efficient and less painful, the decision-making process has been streamlined - good news! You’re no longer required to make those pesky decisions; we’ve done it for you.
Person: Husband/Wife.
Place: Hotel Room.
Time: Honeymoon.
I could say a lot of things about the abstinence program. I could say that repression, sexual or otherwise, isn’t healthy. (See this movie to learn how it leads to broken families, insanity, and arguably the Great Depression.)
I could say that it makes people ashamed of what’s perfectly natural, and thus leads to self-loathing.
But I think I’m going to focus mainly on how creepy it is.
Let me give you some background: I’m kind of a Daddy’s girl. My father is arguably the most awesome guy on the face of the planet. When I was a little kid he took me to the park; taught me how to swim; taught me how to ride a bike and then took me bike riding; took me out to get frozen yogurt; gave me rides on his shoulders; played catch with me (although his less-than-perfect-aim has been well documented: he once accidentally hit me in the stomach with a baseball, knocking the wind out of me; and once accidentally hit my brother in the eye with a tennis ball, resulting in a quick trip to the eye doctor)(both my brother and I are fine, by the way).
He can fix anything, and if he runs into something he can’t fix, he knows somebody who can. In work, he’s always been like our personal family Superman, bringing down bad guys and championing what’s right. And even though he’s always threatened to scare my boyfriends with elaborately frightening scenarios I think he once saw in the movies, now that I actually have a boyfriend hanging around, my dad kind of likes him (they talk about computer stuff).
So, as you can probably tell, I love my dad. And my dad loves me. But I don’t talk to my dad about sex. It’s not that I’m having sex and hiding it from him (or having any at all, actually, hidden or otherwise); or that I’m worried that if I mention it he’ll become a crazy man and scream at me to “protect my flower,†or something. It isn’t anything like that. It’s just……….ewww.
Why would I talk to him about that? When we watch TV and a sexy scene comes on, one of us will almost invariably leave the room due to embarrassment and awkwardness. From what I understand, most father-daughter relationships work this way: As long as I’m okay, he doesn’t want to think about, much less hear about, my having a sex life; and for my part, I don’t want to think about, much less hear about, him having a sex life. As Dave Barry once put it: “Most of us have trouble believing our parents ever had sex, even when they conceived us. Deep down inside, we believe that our mothers got pregnant because of fallout from atomic testing during the Truman administration.â€
So, with this dynamic, you can see that I am not the type of person to put on a fluffy pink ball gown, elaborately braid my hair and adorn it with a tiara, take my father to a dance, and promise him, in front of everyone, that I am absolutely, 100%, definitely going to remain a virgin until I marry whatever random guy I wind up marrying.
But apparently some people do this.
In a chandelier-lit ballroom overlooking the Rocky Mountains one recent evening, some hundred couples feast on herb-crusted chicken and julienned vegetables. The men look dapper in tuxedos; their dates are resplendent in floor-length gowns, long white gloves and tiaras framing twirly, ornate updos. Seated at a table with four couples, I watch as the gray-haired man next to me reaches into his breast pocket, pulls out a small satin box and flips it open to check out a gold ring he’s about to place on the finger of the woman sitting to his right. Her eyes well up with tears as she is overcome by emotion. The man’s date? His 25-year-old daughter. Welcome to Colorado Springs’ Seventh Annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball, held at the five-star Broadmoor Hotel. The event’s purpose is, in part, to celebrate dad-daughter bonding, but the main agenda is for fathers to vow to protect the girls’ chastity until they marry and for the daughters to promise to stay pure. Pastor Randy Wilson, host of the event and cofounder of the ball, strides to the front of the room, takes the microphone and asks the men, “Are you ready to war for your daughters’ purity?â€
You can read the full article here but I’m going to pretty much rip it all apart for you right now.
If you’re creeped out already, allow me to make you even more so:
Randy Wilson’s 19-year-old, Khrystian, is typical: She works at her church, spends most weekends at home with her family and has never danced with a male other than her father or brother. Emily Smith, an 18-year-old I meet, says that even kissing is out for her. “I made a promise to myself when I was younger,†she says, “to save my first kiss for my wedding day.â€
It’s just as I always feared! With even kissing left socially unacceptable, I am – along with, I think, almost all of you – the slut my morally upright peers have always warned me against becoming! Is there no hope? Repent! REPENT! Surely God can un-ring a bell!
Maybe you don’t think this is creepy yet. Okay, you think, this is a little on the bizarre side, but surely it’s just a means of fathers bonding with college-age daughters, a means of the daughters placating them, gently cooing of COURSE I’m a virgin, Daddy……
But, oh, the worst is yet to come.
The majority of the girls here are, as purity ball guidelines suggest, “just old enough…[to] have begun menstruating….†But a couple dozen fathers have also brought girls under 10. “This evening is more about spending time with her than her purity at this point,†says one seven-year-old’s dad, a trifle sheepishly. The event is seemingly innocent—not once do I hear “sex†or “virgin†cross anyone’s lips. Still, every one of the girls here, even the four-year-old, will sign that purity covenant.
Yeah. That’s right. Four. Years. Old. You want to talk about indoctrination?
I actually feel so much better. I thought these girls were going to parties and talking about sex with their dads, which would have been, in my view, gross. But now I realize: they aren’t talking about sex. At all. They’re throwing around the word “purity†without explaining one iota of connotation behind it.
When I ask Hannah Smith, 15, what purity means to her, she answers, “I actually don’t know.†Her older sister Emily jumps in: “Purity, it means…I don’t know how to explain it. It is important to us that we promise to ourselves and to our fathers and to God that we promise to stay pure until…. It is hard to explain.â€
Looks to me like these girls don’t know what the authority figures around them expect them to do – or not do – to remain “pureâ€. I’m eerily reminded of the 1950s, in which the majority of girls knew next to nothing about sex, or even menstruation, because people figured, I don’t know, if they didn’t mention it, the kids wouldn’t find out about it.
Good thing we’re not asking the girls at these purity balls to sign contacts based on this premise they can’t comprehend!
Thousands of girls have taken purity vows at these events over the past nine years. While the abstinence movement itself is fairly mainstream—about 10 percent of teen boys and 16 percent of girls in the United States have signed virginity pledges at churches, rallies or programs sponsored by groups such as True Love Waits—purity balls represent its more extreme edge. The young women who sign covenants at these parties tend to be devout, homeschooled and sheltered from popular culture.
Oh. I see. Well, still, it’s really cute that these fathers are so sentimental about protecting their little girls from the Big Bad Wolves out there in the woods ( Princes wait there in the world, it's true/Princes, yes, but wolves and humans, too/Stay at home/I am home). Right?
The older girls at the Broadmoor tonight are themselves curvaceous and sexy in backless dresses and artful makeup; next to their fathers, some look disconcertingly like wives. In fact, in the parlance of the purity ball folks, one-on-one time with dad is a “date,†and the only sanctioned one a girl can have until she is “courted†by a man. The roles are clear: Dad is the only man in a girl’s life until her husband arrives, a lifestyle straight out of biblical times. “In patriarchy, a father owns a girl’s sexuality,†notes psychologist and feminist author Carol Gilligan, Ph.D. “And like any other property, he guards it, protects it, even loves it.â€
Creepy enough for you? Because I have more.
Following dessert—chocolate cake or fruit coulis for the adults, ice cream sundaes for the girls—couples file into the adjacent ballroom. Seven ballerinas, including Christy Parcha, appear in white gowns with tulle skirts, carrying on their shoulders a large, rustic wooden cross that they lift up and rest on a stand. Lisa Wilson cries as she presents each of their three ceremonial dances, one of which is called “I’ll Always Be Your Baby.†Afterward, Randy Wilson and a fellow pastor, Steve Holt, stand at the cross with heavy rapiers raised and announce that they are prepared to “bear swords and war for the hearts of our daughters.†The blades create an inverted “V†under which girls and fathers kneel and lay white roses that symbolize purity. Soon there is a heap of cream-colored buds wilting beneath the outstretched arms of the cross.
Let’s, for a moment, ignore the enormity of the ickyness, shall we? Let’s focus on one detail: the inverted V.
For starters, it is the first letter in the word “vaginaâ€, which I bet they never told you on Sesame Street.
And, because I am a well-established sinner, I have read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (aka Leonardo, Dan, and the Formulaic Religious Thriller That Has Been Read By Every Non-Catholic On The Face Of The Earth).
The “chalice†or V, historically, symbolizes womanhood. Guess why. Because it looks like – and literally symbolized for many ancient cultures – a womb.
But what does the chalice becomes when you turn it upside down (or “invert†it), boys and girls? It becomes the “blade†symbol. Which is a traditionally male symbol. And you don’t have to study Freud to deduce why that little triangle represents men.
So. You have your archetypically naive virgins. Each has a father and a white rose, which they are placing beneath a gigantic penis formed by swords. The analysis does itself – subservience to the macho, my daughter!
Here’s the money shot: In the language of the flowers, white roses mean “love that is pure or innocent.†Ah, but these flowers, the reporter notes, are “wilting beneath the arms of the cross.†A dried white rose means “death preferable to loss of innocence.â€
Yes. Yes indeed. We are, in fact, moving – pardon my French – ass backward into the 1950s. Back into the era of disinformation. Even farther, if you like. To crusades, to chastity belts.
Although I think my mom has said it recently, this Inherit the Wind quote never gets old:
“Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!â€
Didn’t the fifties teach us anything? Didn’t we learn that failing to educate teenagers about sex is a very, very bad idea? Didn’t we learn that failing to explain safe sex can ruin multiple lives? Exhibit A: The Girls Who Went Away.
Girls who weren’t given information about sex. Girls who wound up having it anyway, one way or another – and, of course, it was unsafe, because it was nearly impossible to procure contraceptives, even if you were married. When the girls (inevitably) got pregnant, they were sent away to homes and forced to give up their children for adoption. Boom, lifelong scarring for mother, child, and everyone in their orbit.
Nice, abstinence program. Your fault.
But back to the olive oil. I stood standing there, looking at it in its extra-extra-virginity for a long time.
And I found myself bereft. Isn’t just being a virgin enough anymore?
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Yep, you can
Submitted by NanceConfer on 24 March 2007 - 7:31pm.
go put away your keyboard now, JJ. 
Well done, FD. Well done!
This is the sort of info I squint at because it IS just too icky for me to look at head on. That these people have no more awareness of themselves than to go through these bizarre rituals with a straight face. . . very odd.
Here was my bit of good news today. I made it back to the Planned Parenthood office to follow up on volunteering. Turns out they don't need volunteers. I'm taking that as good news anyway. That they have enough paid staff.
So now what mischief should I be getting up to? FD's got feminism covered. . .
Nance
She Loved This Nance
Submitted by JJ Ross on 25 March 2007 - 12:31am.
and it meant a lot to her that you said so. This is her debut in a way, of what's most important to HER, and thank god not under crossed swords vying to control her.
Virginity, or lack thereof, is saved one
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 24 March 2007 - 11:29pm.
young female at a time. I say female, because men have to learn having babies is a sex-linked occupation. If they announce "we are pregnant" they're delusional. It's not to deny fathers an important part in their children's lives. It's just to be real about biology.
I read a headline which related that universities are going to provide cheaper sex education. What's that? Price of the pill reduced? Glad to have a college student to enlighten me.
I have written before that young women, and particularly young women from strict religious backgrounds, need mentors. Perhaps a well instructed teacher, a coach, a curious neighbor. Where families live by a code that makes it impossible to even mention sex, it is not likely that a girl has a chance to ask questions. If she tries, she'll be sidetracked into a curiosity turned to guilt for even thinking "that way." By the time the 50's came, most of us grown women were seething radicals. We had lived through the "repression" excuses and the undying love routine but still had no way of getting real information. History of Margaret Sanger and the Comstock Law, yes. Physiology and sexuality, no.
When my little neighbor girl, a sophomore in high school, told me that her girlfriend threw down a condom in front of her plate in the cafeteria and told her to use it, I laughed and wanted to know what she did with it. She said she was very embarrassed. I said I would have handed it back to her girlfriend and told her I didn't have a place to put it. She was more practical. She handed it to a sophomore boy at the table and he said he would give it to his older brother who could use it. (It came through a webpage where they gave samples.) There are no children who can't find out what sex is if they can get to a computer. They learn proper anatomical names. But who is to teach sexuality? JenLo? MTV? Eventually, my friend came to me and said she wanted to talk to me about sex. We talked. She thanked me and said she knew I would tell her and "they" wouldn't. This was hard for me because her mother is in a nursing home and had asked me to help with her Christian upbringing. I had from the start told the woman I was not a fundamentalist but I would do the best I could. I tell this long story, because there is a legal/ethical component to being a mentor. Never would I try to pre-empt the parents' rights to raise their daughter. It takes close contact with a child before puberty to make this work. I ask a question. Do pediatricians have doctor assistants? Are there really any school counselors who have good training?
Living here in East Tennessee, I feel there will be many generations before the Enlightenment strikes. But AFDC has a vested interest. With few abortions and adoptions, it's breaking the state coffers. A couple of years ago the legislature increased the cost of a marriage license, reducing it considerably if the couple brings in a certificate that they had marriage counseling, which usually turns out to be by the minister who will marry them. The unwed mother part is still not addressed.
Relationships
Submitted by JJ Ross on 25 March 2007 - 12:26am.
and connections are what make or break ideas for me, and both sex and pregnancy are so overwhelmingly, obviously to me about infinitely complex relationships, that I marvel at how they ever can be treated anywhere as "pure" or "sinful" or "biology" much less "matters of law."
Read the NYTimes Book section
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 25 March 2007 - 2:14pm.
I saved the review and also first chapter of a book called "Sweet Chastity" which details virginity. I'm sure you will want to peruse it. And I need to actually read both before I can join the thread again.
Oh my!
Submitted by JJ Ross on 25 March 2007 - 3:34pm.
Racy stuff indeed, even where it's cultural and not necessarily political -- Favorite Daughter is poring (or pouring, as in olive oil?) over it right now.
Virginia, the first English settlement in North America, was named for Queen Elizabeth I’s most celebrated attribute (which makes me wonder whether the state’s tourism officials want to reconsider whether Virginia really is for lovers).
. . . Blank gives the history of the so-called “virgin cure,†the belief that men could be cured of sexually transmitted diseases by having sex with a virgin. . . In 18th-century London, one in every five capital rape cases involved children under the age of 10, and the rapists commonly cited the virgin-cure myth in their defense. . . . it persists in southern Africa and is a major contributor to the escalating AIDS crisis.
The thrust of Blank’s book seems to be that for many eons, in patriarchal societies, women needed to prove they were virgins so that their deflowerers could be assured of paternity and thus take care of the offspring — and that, gee, that was kind of miserable and sexist. Under the Roman Empire, fathers had the right to kill their daughters if they had sex before marriage (or outside of it later), and the right to kill the offending male as well.
. . .In an era marked by a “chaotic maelstrom of virginities,†Blank’s book is a useful, if sometimes clumsy, antidote to our confusion.
Just who's copping the maidenhead?
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 25 March 2007 - 4:39pm.
Expression comes from my husband's way of showing beenthere/donethat in all sorts of events. I never thought to ask him whether he knew where the expression came from. Usually he was saying it after he perceived someone thought he was naive.
When I read about killing unfaithful daughters and wives, I thought of Afghanistan. One of the reasons this country went into Afghanistan was to set women free. (Seemed, to me,like a neoconservative argument for female votes.) I don't know whether some women really thought this was a plus for feminism, but I doubt it, considering how American woman (among others)are used to lures when it comes to talk of sex.
There is no doubt the Rovian regime is sensitive to male superiority. If they can dictate where condoms are forbidden in foreign aid, why would they not want to be sensitive to the unconceived children of the world? "W is for Women" in 04 worked when Laura (first a lady and secondly a First Lady on the campaign trail) played the helpmate to a T. In one of the debates, she had a heavy schedule before that evening. Of course, her transportation was of the best, but still it's hard to make quick changes when one is supposed to look her best.
'Sposed to. I hear the phrase often. Shoes and purses should match. Wear solid colors if you're heavy. Have a child every two years (this from older women who breastfed and had automatic contraception). So I don't need to go on. Everyone knows not to rant and rave. But just one more teeny little observation. As a guest of a fairly middle of the road Baptist Church I ran into the question of original sin. I braced myself and expected everything but the restatement of how we've been stuck with the "curse" ever since. But no. This preacher, whose wife is educated as a public school teacher, saw the light. He told us that the bite of the apple was also wrong for Adam although Eve did it. Because, he should have observed her needs and explained to her that God wouldn't like it.
And then we went out for ice cream.
One of the reasons this
Submitted by NanceConfer on 26 March 2007 - 12:49pm.
One of the reasons this country went into Afghanistan was to set women free.
***
Yep, this always cracks me up when it comes out of some white male Republican's mouth.
Nance
FANGIRL MOMENT!!!!!!!!!
Submitted by liza on 26 March 2007 - 8:26pm.
Why would I talk to him about that? When we watch TV and a sexy scene comes on, one of us will almost invariably leave the room due to embarrassment and awkwardness. From what I understand, most father-daughter relationships work this way: As long as I’m okay, he doesn’t want to think about, much less hear about, my having a sex life; and for my part, I don’t want to think about, much less hear about, him having a sex life. As Dave Barry once put it: “Most of us have trouble believing our parents ever had sex, even when they conceived us. Deep down inside, we believe that our mothers got pregnant because of fallout from atomic testing during the Truman administration.â€
I am half way reading this and I can't stop laughing! Oh. my. blog. The funniness. It hurts!
Should I mention
Submitted by JJ Ross on 26 March 2007 - 9:25pm.
that olive oil (probably Virgin olive oil at that) actually figured into a biologically predestined, um, ENCOUNTER, that I had as an unmarried college student athlete, too long ago to have remembered until now?
Not just fathers can't talk
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 26 March 2007 - 10:18pm.
I see two defined topics in this cheerful little blogdom. For starters, we know what we are on right now. How many men have made a contribution? I wonder if they think about virginity as a cultural, sociological, political question. Maybe they would be embarrassed, like waiting for the wife in a beauty parlor. But, think about how many hours are spent discussing Roe V Wade!
Or religion is a unisex topic. But not much on the Garden of Eden. Or the fix Father Abraham found himself in. Perhaps there are some topics worth discussing under the heading of politics and human values. At least I would give them credit for being as disgusted with the Colorado Springs caper as we are.
I Must Be Dense
Submitted by JJ Ross on 26 March 2007 - 11:32pm.
-- Colorado Springs caper?
I do get the reference to religion as a unisex topic but I wonder if there is any such construct? Seems to me it was exalting the feminine as in the Goddess, and then subjugating and quashing the feminine with patriarchy and killing "wild time" a la "A Sideways Look at Time" by Jay Griffiths, but was religion ever unisex?
Yeah, indeed it is icky to
Submitted by hazmatix on 28 March 2007 - 1:24am.
Yeah, indeed it is icky to the core--indoctrination of any kind is that--if you come to it with the premise that men are icky, as distinguished from what many girls and women are taught are 'normal' maternal behaviors. Any body heard this expressin lately in regards to mothers going on outings with kids? " we have a play date..." A date? A kid?
That is yucky...but goes uncontested even as some of you women out there hear it, or say it.
I mean, if I never hear another girl tell me about how her mother managed to somehow "just be there" when she was masturbating in the tub at 5 years old, or how her mother was a 'nurse, so I din't mind showing her my vagina' from age 0 to 30 or so?? Or how the girls from overseas ask me "what is it with American women? Every movie you watch has mothers kissing and sleeping with their daughters..."
Then there's things like the Vagina Monologues which overtly condones women having oral sex with girls....I mean, is there ever a time where we stop bashing men, and just for once analyze female behavior?
Creepy is a two way street. Sure, I love the 'liberated sluts' of the world, but one thing I have learned is that the girls who are freakiest in the head, are also freaky in the bed--lot's of fun, until I lislen to their stories, and more often than not, their stories are chock full of maternal incest, or invasive motherhood that fails to daw adult boundaries with children--a type of American motherhood that is criminalized if males act in similar ways. Women are the primary sexual indoctrinators,they are just more crafty about it-- just ask your own head, and your own experience. The main difference is that women at large, employing the feminist mantra of the eighties " we must own the sex supply" as if it is property--and definitely as if it is a commodity.So, women did do that, and Do that, in so many ways that it is impossible to begin to enumerate them all.
At least the guys here are not actively pimping or molesting their daughters as many mothers do, though if you infer mal-intent on men at large ( I am referencing the old street adage " no girl ever hit the street [whoring] before she was put there by her mother".
If power imbalance exists, or ideology and indoctrination, it certainly can be found in the current rhetoric of feminists commodifying/fantasizing about their childrens, and particularly their daughters sexuality.Ever heard the phrase "mommies little man"?
I have almost universally found that any woman who I was ever with had been invaded physically, or intimately, by her mother,in the disguise of parenting, or 'nurturing' and thus I ask the same as you do, but from another perspective "what's virginity anyways?", and then: why do YOU continue to draw the line with a penis' edge?
Dude...
Submitted by Michael Bouldin on 1 April 2007 - 12:07pm.
...I don't know what's more disturbing: that you actually think like this, or that you feel comfortable enough with this brain-rot to make it public. Here's a small hint: step away from the made-for-straight-guys girl-on-girl porn, slowly, take a couple of deep breaths, and take a walk in the park.
Then, find yourself a therapist to beat the crap out of you.
After that, try getting laid. This would obviously be a new experience for you. No, plastic playmates don't count.
Rinse, repeat.
Then maybe one day you'll be able to, you know, not confuse motherhood with a porn video. Good luck with that.
I'm the dense dunce
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 28 March 2007 - 1:39am.
Blame the allergies of spring. Religion, as discussed in church or family, is a lot about God and very little about people having a sexual component. Until of course it comes time to be married. Women's lib considered it revolutionary to curtail the one-way "obey" phrase, and perhaps even a bit revengeful to come up with the double wedding band notion. It didn't seem to occur to them that rings could be curtailed, which would seem more to the point. So, in general, a step forward was made when more couples began writing their own vows.
I like to think of Congresspersons who seem secure in personhood without being primarily male or female. My choices would include Diane Feinstein, because she demonstrates she knows her job and delivers her message as though she knows it's a natural place for her to be. And maybe Pat Leahy on the male side. He gives out some strong opinions while looking like he would listen to others. That's just a couple of Senators. If you watch C-Span, which is my habit, it is interesting to see who is posturing. Two of my favorite posturers are Jon Cornyn (the judge) and Tom Coburn (I'm the doctor and I know what's good for you). And Chuck Shumer can get to me, to pick a Democrat.
This is probably boring already, so I'll stay out of the House. Except maybe we should talk about Madame Speaker, bless her heart.
LOL - bless her heart is right
Submitted by JJ Ross on 28 March 2007 - 1:58am.
I know EXACTLY the tone of voice your fingers said this in . . . she just seems inept to me, and though the media and the opposition can be brutal, she DID want the job and all the shots that come with it I suppose. Jon Stewart and Dennis Miller were ragging on her tonight, something about that infernal blinking. (Although at the State of the Union it was more like chewing cud or something.)
Bless her heart.
Welcome to a day-old member
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 28 March 2007 - 1:07pm.
This is a different kind of slant. I didn't see it when I last posted.
Apropos of nothing, except I'm just letting everyone know that at the midnight hour, even a short post takes time. Touch typing was my fallback tool to a stake all these years, but my 85-year-old fingers slow me down at bedtime.
Well, well;-) The girls sure
Submitted by hazmatix on 29 March 2007 - 5:50am.
Well, well;-) The girls sure can dish it, but they won't eat what they cooked up over the last thirty years of feminist projections of deviant intent on males. Ugliness? You created a generation that revels in ugliness, and glowing horror stories of men--that isn't ugly? Sure, the guys with the virginity cult described are creepy--but not discussing the other side of it--women who create those men, and women who encourage such lively dialogues with their daughters about vaginas? Equally creepy.
I mean, isn't it true that those who see it first usually are it? Yes, my post is a valid response to an article that posits that men are secret perverts, enshrining their daughters vaginas. Obviously icky. Duh. No brainer. But then too, there is that other side of the coin, and I described it--no, I am not the first to do that, but I encourage dialogue about that, because otherwise, the male bashing is seen as humorous, and justifies filling the prisons with them. But just mention a need to explore the issue of sexual abuse( infered in the story) but this time with in exploring womens abuses which go largely undocumented because it is SO NORMALIZED, and talk of it is actively censored, as in the case of misedjj.
Hmmm, doesn't take a genius to see that young women who adopt such views of men got those views somewhere. So is it a" personal problem?" as one of the posters remarked --that same poster who is so thrilled to post such an anti father, anti male screed about christian men and posit that father daughter bonding, in its albeit strange form as presented in the piece( but are their any forms of male bonding that pass muster for you? I mean, male opinions that DON'T require the female front lines aproval?)
"Ten thousand new uses for Olive Oil, written by a non virgin--or whatever that piece that you are all posting is called-- in the usual diffusing way that women do when the topic of icky female behavior comes up, "it sounds like apersonal problem".
Isn't that what men are alleged to say about women who claim they were raped? I mean, that "personal problem" slam is like, so diffusing, so dismissive of the post that Msedjj found censorable.
Let me guess, the Vagina Monologues, talk about clitorati, orgasms, and gay literature for teenagers and stories of pagan rituals are good for girls, but information refuting the anti male sentiment, and the implication that men are some how MORE creepy than creepy women is censorable? Did I get that right?
Sounds like a bunch--no, a pack, of hyenic personal problems to me, but my comments remain, at leasst for now, at Nance Confer's blog--thank you for your courage, Nance, you surprised me, and I admire that you are not a censor.
Troll Alert
Submitted by JJ Ross on 29 March 2007 - 10:35am.
Sanguine parents aren't gonna get all hyped up over a tantrum, too bad troll.
I'm still here
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 29 March 2007 - 4:34pm.
Despite the intrusion. I'm sure over the next 50 years numerous books will be written about Nancy, the phenom. She deserves the kudos, but I have a feeling she realizes better than she lets on that it's not such a phenomenon. Think Golda! And Indira! And of course the iron lady, herself. Margaret Thatcher went from the store to a book on economics which only the 20th Century could promote and she ended up doing more good than her predecessor.
Nancy, however, came by her interest in politics at her father's knee. Some of the San Francisco crowd get impatient with her moderation. But she has the history of post World WarII political events in her memory.
Maybe you could write one of those books, JJ. Start collecting good quotes and major dustups.
It's Not the Moderation :)
Submitted by JJ Ross on 29 March 2007 - 9:03pm.
Well, not for me -- did you ever see the movie Pretty Woman? Julia Roberts is a simple, uneducated young woman but she quickly figures out that what's wrong with Richard Gere's important, lucrative and prominent life is that he "doesn't make anything, or build anything" but just takes what other people are pouring their hearts into, wrests it from them by hook or crook after telling them all sorts of lies and using all kinds of "legal" maneuvers, and then barters it, breaks it up into pieces and otherwise exploits it for the next deal.
That's how I feel about politicians as a "profession" these days, and why I can't get behind any of them as individuals including women, no matter what "agenda" or party supposedly is their "business." Is it any wonder we the people don't think much of Congress, no matter which faces are running the place in the name of what agenda? Their whole job and how they measure success is in how much of the other guy's work they can block, discredit, tear up or tear down, reverse, or tie up in committee -- and they even use language that reflects this purpose, whips and busters and laying things on the table, what's constructive or productive about any of that?
Oprah says when people show you who they are, believe them. I am not as smart as the streetwalker Julia Roberts played; it took me decades to see, but finally I do believe them. I'm afraid I have so little respect left for our failing, floundering political culture and ways of work, that Nancy will have to take her share of the blame if she's been at it for the last half-century and still really thinks this is good business for America. 
Julia Roberts & Lyle Lovett
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 30 March 2007 - 12:04am.
I love his music, offbeat as it is. The press really did a number on them. Hard to know about people's private lives. And another odd (unmarried) couple was Debra Winger and Nebraska Governor Kerrey. I read she regretted that she made "An Officer and a Gentleman" and I thought it was great. Kerrey ended up on the 9/11 Commission and is the head of the New School in NYC, one of my favorite institutions. And there's Linda Ronstad and, at that time, California Governor.
About all this has to do with serious thinking is that politicians are getting to be more like entertainers. Think of Bill Clinton and his sax. Mike Huckabee has a whole band and a political platform mostly dealing with overcoming obesity.
But now comes the crunch. Politicians don't run the government. We do. They propose what they think they will do and we take the least objectionable. It's a hard job being a citizen. As an example, when the Dems were having a hard job passing a non-binding resolution, Harry Reid asked us for our suggestions. It bothered me. This is what I wrote him:
********
Letter to Harry Reid after stalemate of February 17, 2007 (4:36pm)
Sorry you didn’t get the resolution through yet. But I have a suggestion. The Reps are creating frustration for citizens , and apparently you by the tone of your latest message. How about frustrating them? You Dems want more help for returning veterans? Less wartime graft? Less signing letters? More control over intelligence.
You are in charge of the agenda. The Dems are united. Pick out other issues which show the ineptitude of the administration. We citizens can sign all the petitions in the world, but remember we want you to stand up. I got this idea from Murtha, who realizes they can’t cut off funds, but they can determine how they’ll be used.
***********
After that, I've not been bothered with gimme and signup letters from the DSCC, just information. Well, McAllister sent one at Shumer's request, saying how she couldn't have been elected without Shumer's committee. She's new and I went easy on her, but we know Michael J Fox saved her from languishing out there in Missouri.
Granted, there are only a few of us who need to do five hours or so a day of this kind of stuff, but it is important that some do. And as for Nancy, she wrote under the DCCC request for a donation after the House passed the military spending bill--with one vote. I composed a suggestive letter for her but didn't send it. She's due if she tries that again. Asking for money every last time they write me is what galls the most. I have the power of my purse, which makes me practically a zero, and I have the power of the pen, which I will use until I'm too old.When the 2020 campaign comes (I'll be 98 if I make it) I'll decide it will be my last campaign.
Conspicuous consumption is ruining our society, and that's what I dislike about the current political milieu. Tomorrow I should be able to compose a piece for CK. Tonight I must go to bed, listen to Beethoven, and make an outline.
I LOVE the image
Submitted by JJ Ross on 30 March 2007 - 1:14am.
of you in bed listening to Beethoven and figuring this whole thing out. :)
RE: "Well, well;-) The girls
Submitted by hazmatox (not verified) on 30 March 2007 - 6:02pm.
RE: "Well, well;-) The girls sure can dish it,"
Are you guys cyberstalking me? I noticed that jj is all over the internet, accusing people of being me;-0
It is kind of cowardly of you to post this post,my response to you censoring my other post, after you deleted that post, and jj misedjj, has had her day dishing that post, etc.
Kind of cowardly, but expected behavior--give them half a debate, drum up weak kneed support,after you censor the first half of it. My post was and is a soon to be published series of essays at The Troll, with your censorial comments and actions, with pictures;-), and a response to male bashing, and strange conceptions of males that you seem to encourage.
Kind of cowardly of you to post my response to your censorship, but not the post you censored....
hazmatox/hasmatix/whatever
Submitted by NanceConfer on 1 April 2007 - 12:12am.
My post was and is a soon to be published series of essays at The Troll, with your censorial comments and actions, with pictures;-), and a response to male bashing, and strange conceptions of males that you seem to encourage.
***
Pictures of what, troll? Never mind. Just go stalk somewhere else.
Are there any moderators around today?
Nance
jj, you got hyped up enough
Submitted by hazmatox (not verified) on 30 March 2007 - 6:10pm.
jj, you got hyped up enough to censor my legitimate response to this article on your page, and then you labeled me. So, in honor of you, you are going to be my first case study in the great Troll debate on censorship, and its roots in personal unaccountability.
You pulled my post, a response to an article that is a male bashing piece. Then yopu accused me of being a troll. Then you trolled other sites and accused others of being me.THAT is creepy >:-(
All because you did not like the reframing of that same article and the replacing of father with mother, etc. That is creepy--double flag waving standard creepy.
You taught the child that wrote it what 'creepy' is, and then had the nerve to use me as an example? So: in light of that, you will become one too;-)
I will keep you posted.
The Politics of Sex
Submitted by JJ Ross on 31 March 2007 - 10:46am.
strikes me as key to understanding this whole god-as-patriarch and warrior king thing. Male dominance and protection of the defined tribe, in exchange for quite literally owning the females and controlling all their erotic charms (and reproductive processes.)
Overall, there seems to be a higher level of agonistic (nasty) behavior among common chimps, especially involving males, while bonobos prefer sexual encounters over agonistic ones. One way of thinking of this is expressed on the Columbus Zoo web site: Chimps resolve sex issues with power; bonobos resolve power issues with sex. . .
You can have a culture of general nastiness or a culture of erotic satisfaction. (I’m sure there are some who will say you can have both, but I’m pretty sure that is illegal in Minnesota. . .)
It's that dangerous EVOLUTION again, that the male chimps can't afford for their females to learn about! Males fighting each other (and insurgent females too, if need be) to control sex. Females rewarding (or punishing) their efforts socio-erotically. Males fight for the right to claim what is theirs, entitled by writ to all the power, territory and females they can dominate. What else could the purity balls be about, the anti-science and evolution, censorship and aggressive military politics, the abortion wars, marriage amendments, language and movie wars, not to mention homeschooling lots of (literally defined and delimited) little Christian kids who must stay pure in mind and body, unmarked by experience or education until delivered to another Christian tribe member for perpetuation of said tribe through willing submission to same?
(Rhett Butler in GWTW has a line about southern women, something like "how closely they clutch the chains that bind them!")
Immigration isssues, political parties and unions, protestors and terrorists, even in blogging -- think how territorial it is, how agonistic among the "male" types and rewarded by their tribal females:
In modern chimps, males spend considerable time and effort patrolling borders, and occasionally killing individual chimps from neighboring groups. According to Wrangham’s model of this behavior, the long term goal is to diminish the numbers of chimps in your neighboring group, so that if and when you need to expand your territory because of food stress, you can go over to the neighbor’s place, run them off and/or do them in, and at least temporarily enjoy a much expanded territory.
. . . while in the preferred female world view,online behavior like all interaction is relationship-based, and we need to feel loved and respected as independents, not walled into a "keep" by the kingdom's warriors for our own protection. And certainly not exploited BY them in exchange, as their rightful pay-off!
Maybe Margaret can (alliteratively) build better branches of bonobo-blogging to Beethoven in bed. . .
More Sex-Power Culture
Submitted by JJ Ross on 31 March 2007 - 11:11am.
From a Snook comment last month:
On NPR right now I’m listening to a female Muslim author talking with Terry Gross about her new novel, “The Bastard of Istanbul.†She’s also a professor of near-eastern studies in Arizona. All signal, no noise!
I don’t even know her name yet, never heard of her before but I’d jump into her barrel! Her accent and speaking voice are incredibly beautiful and rich, as are her thoughts. I feel enriched, better somehow just for hearing it. (The opposite of how I feel hearing the usual nyah-nyah stuff online or in the news media.)
They just finished discussing in a fair, calm, informative and even oddly respectful way, how her own Turkish language is been ruined by the radicals in power, and how authors and intellectuals are being killed there. Her new novel is written in English.
Before that, she described her two grandmothers as representing two completely different “interpretations†of Islam, one masculine and fear-based, literal and rule-oriented. Her mother’s mother was full of love and flow, modeled religion as open negotiation.
If force succumbs to power, women like this are definitely power! This charming, well-educated and intellectually gifted woman says she sees her own curiosity as more important than her courage, and her own spirituality as “Sufi-like†or inner essence, connected to every religion (not just Muslim), rather than defined or dictated by rule and law, external, spread by fighting others rather than loving them.
I HOPE I was hearing the voice of our future.
No deep thoughts at the moment
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 31 March 2007 - 4:12pm.
Last evening, Friday, I got word that one of my nieces died suddenly. She leaves two grown sons and a daughter who is a mature sophomore. When the call came, mature daughter administered CPR, as did the daddy. But she's gone and so young, in her 40's.
I'm the oldest member of our nuclear family. And we are scattered from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. Margaret, the clicker, got as much information as possible, especially about the huge snowstorm. Even I was impressed at a picture of the snow on my childhood home in Wyoming. Flu, blizzards, grieving families, long distances--they all bring reality to a life. It's especially true when I personally may be considered to have one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel.
But through it all, I know that families are important and that I was placed in one which is scattered but remains close nonetheless.
As a schoolgirl, after we finally got a radio, we used to listen to a program called "Battle of the Sexes." There was a certain jocularity about what the French are credited with celebrating in "la difference." (Sorry, I don't do French well.) Jack and Mary, Fred and Gracie, these are the couples I chuckled over in my growing years. And now you have to pay to hear reruns on satellite radio!
So, of course, there are devious political gurus and just plain deviant obfuscators who pit the two genders against each other for personal gain. I'm free as I need to be, and part of that freedom is being secure in my womanhood. And freedom allows me to know that it is pure politics to pit woman and man, old and young, and many other descriptions against each other. As the song says, "Where is the love?"
I had the beginning of my piece on how Democrats are missing the boat in the use of money when my emergency call came in. I'll get back to it. It's about how a person, and those he/she considers most significant, fit into what the Boomers called the "establishment." They were especially hard on that part of the establishment which was elected. With Nixon, who could blame them? And now many are in the political process. So I'm going to be watching what they do. And they'd better not try to pit one American against another. That is probably the most hazardous thing which could bring down the security of what is now known as our homeland.
Amen!
Submitted by JJ Ross on 31 March 2007 - 5:41pm.
Margaret writes:
And now many are in the political process. So I'm going to be watching what they do. And they'd better not try to pit one American against another. That is probably the most hazardous thing which could bring down the security of what is now known as our homeland.
Label Pitting
Submitted by JJ Ross on 2 April 2007 - 12:59pm.
Margaret's caution against "pitting" reminded me of olives again, which brought me back around to the title of this essay, where I connected it to the word "label."
Labels pit us against one another, don't they?
Well-meaning or useful though labels can be, pitting us against each other IS something they do, an effect they often create and/or magnify. And not just sex-gender labels (despite one wacko mommy-hater troll--yes, that's a label-- twisting the point into reverse sex perversion or some such.)
By the time we set to fighting one another about how to label --or NOT label -- each other, we're deep into the pit already and the sides are so smooth and steep that we're not likely to climb out absent help from the outside. Which alas, isn't likely if we were tossed in there for the sport of it by hovering baiters in the first place.
"I’ll Always Be Your Baby"
Ick Ick Ick Ick.
Just Ick.
Your daughter's very good. My compliments.