Rape Culture

How is it I find myself contemplating rape culture? It started with this shirt. You may be familiar with this shirt. Perhaps you have one like it, or maybe your dad does.

 

I have always found the protective father stereotype to be trite. So, I find this shirt to be not funny, and kinda pointless. I would normally have treated the shirt with indifference, except I may have had a passing thought that the wearer of said shirt is probably the type of manly-man who is more of a thug (the two being often interchanged). Now that I have been exposed to much dialog on rape culture I would say this shirt means much, much more. I am off on a tangent here, but then rape culture is all about tangents.

What is rape culture? Here is a good definition from this blog: http://bellejarblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/is-this-rape-culture/

Rape culture is the normalization and trivialization of rape and sexual assault. It’s a culture in which sexual violence is made to be both invisible and inevitable. It’s a culture that teaches us that male sexual violence is both normal and desirable. It also teaches us that men are not able to control their actions when they are aroused.

Rape is very specific. Rape culture is very broad. Rape culture is boys talking about how they cajole and coerce girls into having sex, even for boys who actually stutter and stammer around girls. Rape culture is saying "that is just the way things are" when boys are being so called boys. Rape culture is saying "what did she think was gonna happen" when a woman chooses to dress and behave a certain way.

Whoever created or wears this shirt, whomever created the list, is not condoning rape culture, but they are symptoms of rape culture. This shirt is one of many signals that rape culture exists, and that we should be working to stamp it out, just as we wish to stamp out bigotry, racism and sexism (rape culture being a tangent of sexism).

I am father to both a son and a daughter. Here are the rules for dating my daughter. They are also the rules for dating my son, and the rules for my daughter when dating, and the rules for my son when dating. So, here are the rules for dating. In fact, here are the rules for life.

1. Accept NO without resentment or anger, knowing the other is being strong.
2. Hear YES with confidence, knowing the other is freely choosing.
3. Say NO without fear, knowing the other will not hold it against you.
4. Say YES with ease, knowing the other is not forcing you.

If you and who you are with can follow those four rules, well, then that is a good start.

 

 

 

 

Abortion

You want to talk about abortion? Let preface this dialog with a comment. Politicians like to talk about abortion because it is a distraction topic, in the sense that it keeps them from having to talk about where the money is going. Politicians prefer to talk about social and cultural issues rather than talk about how the government is being run. You want to talk about abortion?

On the one side you have a human being growing inside a woman, and when that human being is killed then it’s rights have been violated. This make sense to me. On the other side you have a woman who controls her own body and can decide whether or not she wants a human being growing inside of her, and when you force a woman to do so then her rights have been violated. This make sense to me. And therein lies the controversy. There is no objective argument for one side over the other. Where do the rights of one end and other begin?

If you approach this purely from the point of view of the state then a human being gains their rights at birth. Prior to birth you do not have a social security number, you are not considered a dependent, you are not a citizen. If you approach it from a, let’s call it, a conservative point of view then a human being comes into existence at conception, and so is afforded rights at conception. From a biological point of view when the fetus is able to live outside the womb then it becomes a distinct living organism. But where do the rights of one end and other begin?

A woman is not pregnant. At this point no one questions whether or not she controls her own body. This is the default, beginning position: a woman controls her body.

A woman becomes pregnant. At what point does she no longer control her body? At what point can she be forced to remain pregnant?

The answer lies somewhere in the middle, which is basically what the Roe v. Wade decision says.

Here is the rub. There is no objective answer to this question. It is a matter of opinion. The only recourse is to allow individuals to decide for themselves. Of course, this is seen as a defeat by those who oppose abortion because it allows abortions. To them I say, move on. To them I say, promote sex education so woman can better control when they get pregnant.

Here is my opinion:

When a woman learns she is pregnant she should have the opportunity to decide if she wants to remain pregnant. This is her right to control her own body, the same right she had before she became pregnant. How long does a woman need to make this decision? Who is to say? A line as already been drawn; a woman has several months to decide. If a woman decides she does not want to remain pregnant then she should be able to pursue the procedure without impediments or interference from the state or any third parties.

Girlfriend Not

I don’t have a girlfriend. In fact, I have not had a girlfriend (i.e. relationship) in the eleven years since my divorce. To be truthful, I find it unlikely I will ever have a girlfriend. Let me tell you why that is.

Searching for a girlfriend is too much work. Every time you encounter a woman you are evaluating her, judging her, giving her a score. Deciding whether or not to approach, or flirt, or to ask for her number, or to ask her out. This is not something you can do just some of the time. You are working against the law of averages here, so to have any success whatsoever you have to engage in it most of the time. I am sure some men thrive on this activity. To me, however, it is a chore. It is distracting, and eventually exhausting. Ultimately, that is not who I am. It isn’t me.

Internet dating, you may suggest. That might work if most people used internet dating simply as a means of meeting people. Two problems. Sit In Judgment and False Intimacy. Everyone Sits In Judgment while internet dating. You become much more demanding, much less accepting, and generally less trusting. You are looking for what you don’t like, as opposed to what you do. When you decide to convey interest, and it is mutual, then you should meet in person. But not so for most; they prefer to exchange information, history, etc. Get to know each other online. This can generate False Intimacy. You think you know a person, but you really don’t. All you have is information, not knowledge. During this time you fill in the blanks with your imagination, which is almost always busted when you eventually do meet in person. Internet dating? No thanks.

Inertia. Some people are perpetual daters. When one relationship ends they quickly move into the next one. It is really just one long relationship. You do the same things, behave the same way, your needs and wants are the same, and your eventual issues are the same. You just trade out partners over time. When I first divorced I purposely avoided any thoughts of dating. I am used to being on my own. Inertia now keeps me out of a relationship.

Not because I can. I am not going to go out with someone just because I can. There has to be something extra there. I am not talking love at first sight (which I don’t discount, either). I am looking for something a little extra that separates her from other women I find attractive. And I have to feel this something extra, as opposed to it simply being a woman’s apparent interest in me (which is always good but by itself cannot sustain). Have I felt this something extra? Yes, I have, but to no avail.

I live my life. I do the activities I want to do. If in doing so I meet someone, get to know her, and we hit it off, then fantastic. If not, then fantastic.

 

 

Conduct Unbecoming

I am quite certain my application to become a member of the University Conduct Board will be rejected.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please provide a response that is one paragraph long to each of the following prompts and attach your typed responses to your application:

What makes you interested in serving on the University Conduct Board?

Dirty laundry. Like my own little reality show. Well, not my show. Because it wouldn't be about me. I would get an opportunity to learn about the crazy-ass shit students do. The more salacious the better!! Then when I go out drinking I can use the cases as talking points, of course not revealing any student personal information, unless related to some (even local) celebrity. Nothing brings us together more than someone else's dirty laundry.

 

Describe the role you believe the University Conduct Board plays in the University Community.

The Conduct Board helps make school administrators feel all warm and fuzzy about how much they care about student welfare and personal growth, so they can convey an image other than greedy money-grubbing (as if there were any other kind). It also serves as proof in the pudding the university means serious business when it comes to putting someone on double-secret probation.

 

Explain your comfort level suspending or expelling a student.

If a student is truly warped or evil or cruel or hateful, then yeah, I would totally suspend or expel their ass. That would mean the laundry was especially dirty, and since suspension and especially expulsion are difficult to hide (even though it is part of a student's protected record), pretty much everyone will know! Can I drop the hammer? Yes I can.

 

Describe the previous experience you have that will assist you in serving on the University Conduct Board.

First off, I am a parent of two teenage children. So that pretty much gets me in right there. Additionally, I have a wealth of experience regarding university conduct. There was that one time I discharged a fire extinguisher in someone's dorm room. Or the many times we had toilet paper roll fights in the hallway that sometimes escalated into bottle-rockets. Or the time we had a "punch-a-thon" party on our floor. Or the time I was abducted at 3AM, blindfolded, ankles/wrists tied with duct tape, and taken out to the Swine Center and left in a pile of pig shit (mostly unwarranted). Or the time my room was searched for a BB or pellet gun (totally unwarranted). Then there was the time we reserved a university vehicle for a valid use but drove it all weekend, parking on the sidewalk just outside the dorm. Or the few times I filled an album cover (remember those? Like giant cardboard envelopes) with shaving cream and slipped the open end under a door and stomped on it so as to spray the room. Or maybe jamming a stack of pennies between a door and the door-jam so the resulting friction makes it very difficult to turn the door knob, effectively locking someone in their room. Maybe that one time it was below freezing and we dumped several 50 gallon trashcans full of water onto the quad and removed the front panel from the water fountain and used it as a sleigh, pulling each other around by a rope of neckties. Or the times I yelled obscenities out of the window, directed towards the lowly residents of adjacent dorms. Finally, there were the many times I played my stereo at high volume. Yeah, I have a bit of experience regarding university conduct.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My First Lockdown

The alert text said active shooter, lock down initiated. I locked down. I stood in the corner of my office. I heard a pop from outside. Is that a gunshot? Is it related to nearby construction activities? Did they get locked down, too? I am on the third floor. Can I look out the window? Can I peak around the edge? I can hear the door to the stairwell closing. Then a second time. Is someone entering the floor, or leaving? Why aren’t they staying put? Why aren’t they friggin’ locking down?!

In my building I am responsible for clearing the floor for emergency drills, and when it is not a drill. As such I have a radio/walkie on my desk. I use it for drills, and we also use them for ceremonies (for which I am required to volunteer). This morning a voice called out on the radio, saying something like this: “Attention. Attention. This is not a drill. This is not a drill. We will probably be going into lockdown. Please tune to the emergency channel for updates.” The volume was loud enough so several people on my floor could hear, and they were all soon standing at my door.

Probably? He said probably. I took the radio and went down a floor to the building manager and he decided to forgo the probably and just announce on the building intercom to go into lockdown.

Probably? He said probably. This radio message came across at about 8:55. The official lockdown was announced at 9:06. Two building occupants (whom I spoke with) entered the building around 8:45 and in front of the building saw an officer armed with a rifle. The lockdown text said “active shooter” last seen at 8:18. This timing does not work for me. Seems like a belated decision. Turns out the guy didn’t have a gun at all, and was never even close to the location referenced in the lockdown alert. Do we count this as “fog of war?”

Lockdown. What to do? You are supposed to get behind a locked door and make it look like no one is home. I turned off the lights. I locked my computer. Because, you know, if I am locking down then so is my computer.  I silenced my cell phone. I put the headset on the radio so I could monitor the emergency channel.

 

Where to put my body? Under the desk? Are you kidding me? I don’t want to be trapped under my desk if someone forces their way into my office. I stood in the corner, along the same wall as the door, at the opposite end. Someone forces their way in and they are getting a chair to the head, Jerry Springer style. Can’t do that from under the damn desk.

So. I was in lock down. I ended up exchanging texts with my sister to finalize lunch plans. I was IM’ing data specifications with a colleague who was working from home. I exchanged emails with my boss and co-worker regarding the co-worker’s request for time off. I stood in the corner some more and decided I was too restricted in case someone forced their way in. I rearranged the chairs and some boxes. I waited.

No real threat, but a real lockdown. Better than a drill. Am I ready for next time?

 

 

 

 

Pubic Hair: the movie

Spoilers below, of course.

 

The movie Trance, written by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge, and directed by Danny Boyle, is a crime thriller. But once you see Rosario Dawson fully naked you don’t really care because you are too busy scratching through the hair on your head wondering about the importance of the lack of hair on Rosario’s vagina.

Let me back up a bit.

Several weeks ago I shared a table and drinks with four married women, who I first met that evening. They were clearly on a rampage to stir it up, however safely, with a bachelor. The very first topic of conversation was manscapping, which from there was an easy segue into each woman’s pubic hair maintenance routine. Bare down there is definitely in, but who wasn’t aware of this? Brazilian waxes have been mainstream for over a decade. Point being it is no rare thing to find that a woman’s thing is completely hairless.

Back to the movie.

The lead character finds hairless vaginas to be da bomb. It is his fetish. If something so commonplace can be a fetish. I mean this is 2013, not 1973. Certainly you may prefer no pubic hair, but to gape in astonished awe at a freshly shorn hoo-haa stirs only incredulity in the viewer. Incredulity towards the screenwriters. Who the hell are these guys? Raised by nuns in a secluded boys orphanage who leave the nest only to discover the wondrous world of smooth lady parts?

The lead character is into renaissance art. You know, where the nudes were usually plumb, angelic, and a tad too young looking, especially since none of them ever have any pubic hair. Then along comes Francisco Goya, who around 1800 or so paints in the faintest of landing strips. Voila, says the lead character, the birth of modern art. This was considered scandalous at the time, to include pubic hair in a female nude painting. Goya apparently paid for it during the Spanish Inquisition. Ironic, considering that actresses today sometimes wear fake pubic hair (called a merkin) in certain movies so as not to offend delicate modern audiences.

The woman in the lead character’s life, Rosario Dawson, knows of his … fetish. I guess we can call it a fetish, and not just a preference. Here is how the scene goes down, so to speak. Rosario says she knows what he likes, and she disappears down the hall into her bathroom. You can hear the hair trimmers humming away. So I guess she went back there with a 1970’s bush because I honestly thought she was going all Sinead O’Conner. Sounded like she was removing hair from the heads of a newly recruited army platoon. Rosario catwalk struts out of the bathroom (I’m too sexy for this hair, too sexy for this hair, it is gone from down there) and the camera pans up her body, past her smooth love triangle, which is triangle no more. The lead character gasps in astonishment.

I am thinking two things. One, what kind of electric trimmer removes hair completely and so effectively without any apparent burns or irritation? I need one of those to shave my face. Two, the makers of this movie are like Austin Powers, or something. Time travelled from a past forested with pubic hair to the smooth operators of today. Yeah, baby.

French Kiss This

There is an article on The Gloss, written by Amanda Chatel, about how French men are the best lovers. I follow Amanda Chatel on Twitter so I know she has been in Paris standing on French streets with French shower water on her body and nothing else under her raincoat while she French kisses her French lover. I have never had sex with a Frenchman, nor a Frenchwoman for that matter. In fact I am an American male who has had sex only with American females, so what can I possibly know about comparative sexual enjoyment across international lines?

Like that is going to stop me from talking about it. We are not products of our culture. Culture is a product of its inhabitants. Let’s correlate culture to lovemaking style.

There is a stereotype for French culture, and how do stereotypes comes into existence? Because they are mostly true, mostly. I have been to Paris so I know the French like to use open spaces. Wide sidewalks and avenues, expansive parks and green spaces. I also believe the unofficial French motto is “every person for themselves.” Best seen at the Arc de Triomphe were 12 avenues converge with no traffic control whatsoever. The only way you make it through there is by taking the initiative and being aggressive. Also exemplified by how the French stand in line. Generally they don’t; it is often a mass of people jockeying for position.

The French are about sitting around and enjoying wine or coffee. The French are about long meals with personal interaction. French movies are meandering and slow, with lingering shots and plotlines involved with relating and connecting.

Isn’t all of the above the description of a great lover? Take the initiative and be aggressive. Use open bodily spaces. Take it slow and enjoy. Linger. Relate and connect to your partner’s body, not just her naughty bits.

America. Ah, America. Fast food. Usually doing something else while eating. In a hurry to accomplish tasks. Achieve goals. Win. Destination orientated. Image conscious. Overly concerned with what others are doing. And America movies? Fast paced. Loud. Blunt. Big on the action and little on the plot. America is about the individual, concerned with meeting their own needs.

Which sounds like better sex to you??