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Tony Perkins fears the crossing of light sabers

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“Give yourself to the Dark Side…yes,
your thoughts betray you.”

From Opposing Views:

On his daily radio broadcast, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins attacked the video game ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’ for allowing same-sex relationships: “In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists!” Stephen Reid of Bioware, the game maker, recently announced that players could have “same gender romances with companion characters” as part of “a post-launch feature.”

Nothing in this story is shocking. It’s not shocking that SW:TOR is allowing for romantic relationships between your character and same-sex NPCs (non-player characters) because this is Bioware. The same or similar options were available in Mass Effect 2 and 3 and Dragon Age 1 and 2, so if they didn’t have it in SW:TOR it would be a surprise.

Similarly, there’s nothing shocking about Tony Perkins predicting that homosexuality will be the End of All Things, though he might want to know that in this game (as in the films), the empire are…well, the bad guys. So in a world of ruthless bounty hunters and a rigidly controlling organization intent on dominating the universe, the ultimate threat is a group of people who want to live in same-sex relationships, and those who support their right to do so.

Hmm, that must be how people like Perkins perceive the real world every day. 

Not rape

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A trigger warning is a notice posted at the top of an article that indicates that the subject matter may be disturbing, especially because it may describe abuse, molestation, and/or rape and people who have been victims of such may not want to read or to read with caution, in a place where they won’t have to worry about their emotions betraying them.

The Not Rape Epidemic is an article for which trigger warnings might as well have been invented. I don’t normally feel as though I need them, but it strikes me as a piece for which pretty much every woman might need one, and not a few men. That makes it important, because it doesn’t disturb for kicks but to discuss something painful yet common, and all too real: a pervasive, passively-accepted environment of sexual harassment that might not be rape (hence the title), but certainly marches right up to it and shakes hands.

I dislike the term “rape culture,” because I think it connotes a culture in which rape is openly accepted and rampant, which brings to mind Somalia. That’s a rape culture, if anything is. But I understand the desire to have a word for both the physical and cultural environment which lends credence to victim-blaming, sexual threats as a particular means of punishing women for disliked behavior or speech, and disdain for or dismissal of anyone who broaches the subject of such as a need for concern. Someone who threatens to rape someone on the internet because of what she had to say may not be a rapist, but they are (obviously) part of “the problem.” And the problem has many names. I’m going to stick with “sexism,” because it’s simple and encompasses a lot of things.

Anyway, go read the piece. If you’re feeling stable, and are in a place where it’s okay not to be if such a need arises. It aroused a lot of uncomfortable memories for me, and might for you as well. The comments are full of people sharing theirs.

How not to get raped: Always victim-blaming?

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Zerlina Maxwell, writing for Ebony magazine, thinks so. In the bluntly titled “Stop Telling Women How Not To Get Raped,” she says:

New rule for 2012: No more ad campaigns and public service announcements targeted at women to teach them how to avoid rape.  It’s not effective, it’s offensive, and it’s also a lie. Telling women that they can behave in a certain way to avoid rape creates a false sense of security and it isn’t the most effective way to lower the horrible statistics which show that 1 in 5 women will become victims of a completed or attempted rape in their lifetime.  The numbers for African American women are even higher at nearly 1 in 4. We need anti-rape campaigns that target young men and boys.  Campaigns that teach them from a young age how to respect women, and ultimately themselves, and to never ever be rapists.  In addition, we should implore our men and boys to call out their friends, relatives, and classmates for inappropriate behavior and create systems of accountability amongst them. There are a number of men who do not understand what constitutes a “rape”, which is a consequence of the “stranger in the alley” falsehood presented in movies and popular culture.  You don’t need a mask and a gun to sexually violate a woman. The truth is that rape can happen with a woman you are dating whom you’ve had sex with previously, in a monogamous relationship, and even in marriage.  If one party withdraws consent at any time then it’s rape.  Consent can be withdrawn by the words “no “or “stop” and in many states, a woman doesn’t have to say no at all.  Consumption of alcohol can prevent a woman from being able to legally offer consent. Therefore, it is important for men and women alike to be very clear about their intentions and prioritize consent over the excitement of getting some. Our community, much like society-at-large, needs a paradigm shift as it relates to our sexual assault prevention efforts.  For so long all of our energy has been directed at women, teaching them to be more “ladylike” and to not be “promiscuous” to not drink too much or to not wear a skirt. Newsflash: men don’t decide to become rapists because they spot a woman dressed like a video vixen or because a girl has been sexually assertive. How about we teach young men when a woman says stop, they stop? How about we teach young men that when a woman has too much to drink that they should not have sex with her, if for no other reason but to protect themselves from being accused of a crime? How about we teach young men that when they see their friends doing something inappropriate to intervene or to stop being friends?  The culture that allows men to violate women will continue to flourish so long as there is no great social consequence for men who do so. And while many men punished for sexual assaults each year, countless others are able to commit rape and other crimes against women because we so often blame the victim instead of the guilty party.

Here’s where I agree: a lot of men and boys do not know what rape is, if they think it’s all about strangers in back alleys leaping on unsuspecting women. They do not know what rape is, if they think it can’t happen within a marriage or established relationship. They do not know what rape is, if they think it has to involve violence. Or if they think that it’s not rape if the word “No” or “Stop” hasn’t been spoken aloud. They need to learn. They need to be told by women, and also other men so that it doesn’t seem like women are the only people who are of an accord about preventing rape from happening.

Here’s where I disagree: teaching men not to rape and women how to avoid being raped are not mutually exclusive, and the fact that most rape is of the acquaintance variety does not mean that suggestions about how to protect oneself are absolutely useless and/or only amount to suggesting that a woman is responsible for her own rape if she doesn’t employ them. I think we can recognize that there is no fail-safe way to prevent oneself from being raped while simultaneously living a free, un-sheltered adult life, but also that it’s a good idea for somebody to know when and where you’re going on a date. That it might not be the best idea to bring a date home or go to his home, if you don’t know each other very well. That if you’re out drinking, it’s probably a good idea to keep an eye on your drink at all times and make sure you have a safe way of getting home.  A person can recognize value in these precautions without any transference of blame whatsoever.

So yes, let’s absolutely hold rapists accountable and tell men and boys (and women and girls!) what rape is in addition to how wrong it is. But I don’t think that equates to a moratorium on making suggestions for women on how to be safe. Victim-blaming is absolutely a problem and it needs to stop, but I’m not convinced that refusing to encourage caution is the way to do it.

The internet is a sad place, take 2,001

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Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon writes about what she calls “Slut-shaming 2.0,” web sites that exist for the sole purpose of identifying and shaming (mostly) women for their sexual behavior:

The content is submitted by scorned exes, former friends and total strangers. A typical post calls out a woman, using her full name and at least one photo, for either having too much sex or for being unattractive. A recent post headlined, “[Redacted] Should Think About Her Decisions In Life,” featured a semi-nude photo of the woman in question, along with this user-submitted gem:

This B*tch right here is [redacted], of Reno. She has been with 7 different guys in the past 2 week and I could not tell you what her total number is. She constantly brags about how drunk she gets a parties and how she sleeps with all these hot guys.

It goes on, but you get the idea.
Some posts name and shame women for allegedly being escorts – or, in the site’s charming vernacular, “porta potties.” Usually, Nik Richie, who runs the site, weighs in with a one-liner pointing out a highly specific physical imperfection — like, “muscular back thighs,” “sperm eyebrows” or “wrinkles in her wrists.” He has zero tolerance for knobby knees, round cheeks or – the horror! — thighs that touch.

She concludes “These are the new slut-shamers of the Internet. What’s most remarkable is that they manage to be both prudish and NSFW, all at once.”

I suppose it’s remarkable, if the hypocrisy of American prudishness is remarkable. But that hypocrisy is the very thing that makes slut-shaming possible in the first place. It’s kind of like being surprised that the girl who has sex in the first part of a horror film is also the first one to die.

Slut-shaming 101

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…as explained quite eloquently by a thirteen-year-old girl. My friend Nick shared this with me, and I’m sharing it with you:

Slut-shaming takes away feminist cred (duh)

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I’m in love with this post by Amanda Marcotte: Smart Girls Wear Short Skirts, Too, or “Why Lisa Belkin is wrong to condemn college girls for dressing sexy.” In it, Marcotte agrees wholeheartedly with some of the concerns Belkin voices in a New York Times article titled “After Class, Skimpy Equality.” Specifically, about the social environment in college: campus rape, the apparently real perception of some students that female students have too much power because they can legally refuse sex (!), and disappointment in some really disturbing behavior by fraternity members that has been in the news lately. But that’s where the agreement ends. “I have one strong desire that carries through life,” Marcotte begins her post, “which is that I never become one of those women who self-identifies as a feminist while conflating the problem of inequality with the non-problem of young women being sexual. Should I ever start assuming that young women who have sex are being had, or if I start hyperventilating about young women wearing miniskirts, I hope I at least have the good sense to give up the writing thing and go into real estate.”

I share this desire. However concerned feminists may legitimately be about the image of women in society, when it turns into slut-shaming it veers sharply toward the Dark Side. I know this is not a completely black and white issue, but condemning individual women for how they dress and behave sexually (with consenting adults), suggesting that they are somehow bad people and/or that they deserve to be sexually attacked or harassed is the antithesis of feminism. No ifs, ands, or buts about that. Marcotte continues:

Even more distressingly, Belkin conflates the problem of campus rape with the fact that young women like to look sexy, saying that the young women who wore sexy Halloween costumes to a Duke fraternity party “had mothers who attended more than one Take Back the Night March in their college days,” as if being opposed to campus rape and being willing to wear sexy clothes are in opposition to each other.  But as the organizers of Slutwalk know, that’s absolutely false.  In fact, you can and should argue that men can look at a woman wearing sexy clothes and think, “She wants to look sexy,” and not, “She’s asking to be violently assaulted.”  To Belkin, the fact that women dance in their underwear at parties is part of the same pattern that caused a fraternity to circulate an email explaining that women aren’t actually people, as if women could get their people status back by putting more clothes on.  But I think that men are perfectly capable of being turned on by a woman dancing in her underwear while never forgetting that said woman has a family that loves her, a mind of her own, and ambitions that are equal to his.  We don’t allow men’s sexuality to dehumanize them in our eyes.  If a young man spends his weekends partying and flirting with women, and spends his time in the classroom pulling down As, we don’t see that as a contradiction. The belief that female sexual expression is uniquely dehumanizing is a double standard, no matter how much you dress it up in feminist language.  Instead of condemning young women for the length of their skirts, why not use that energy for condemning anyone who would think that a woman is lesser-than because she wears a miniskirt?  

Emphasis mine. I think the thing most commonly misunderstood about Slutwalk is that it is essentially a freedom of expression movement. The point was that women should be able to dress and behave as they wish (both means of expression) without being attacked, even if that includes dressing and behaving in ways that some would label as “slutty.” Whether or not you think the word “slut” can be reclaimed, or whether you think there’s a reason to try, is really beside the issue. I vacillate on that, myself, but it doesn’t affect the essential point that the epithet “slut” says nothing about a woman’s worth or her right to express herself, sexually or otherwise, in public or private however she chooses if it brings harm to no one. “Slut” was the epithet of choice a Haredi man recently hurled at a young female soldier who chose to sit at the front of the bus in Jerusalem. It was, at its very essence, a word used to degrade a woman for not behaving as though she is inferior.

Sexual attractiveness, performance, and reproduction are functions of women. Reducing women to those functions is what misogynists do, and a collection of functions is not a person. Certainly not in comparison to someone who is capable of all of those but also of things like creativity, invention, logical analysis, will, bravery, authority, athleticism, wit, and eloquence– traits that are generally admired but whose existence is sometimes denied or ignored in females altogether. Objectification is the act of setting aside those things in order to appreciate appearance or behavior alone, and I don’t think it’s fundamentally a bad thing. Indeed, I think that people who claim to never objectify others are either lying or lacking in self-awareness. But there’s a difference between appreciating those aspects about someone and treating her as though that’s all she is, or that that’s all women in general are good for. Partial people. Inferiors. It’s no accident that an insult with a typically sexual connotation would be used for any woman who acts as though she is worth more than that short list of functions. As Marcotte says, we don’t treat men that way no matter how “slutty” they are. To close, she says

 Asking something of men seems to be the big taboo in our culture, even sometimes among feminists. In contrast, scolding women about what they wear is easy, even if it’s a red herring.

I often think about how counter-productive it is, from the perspective of a straight male who wants women to display their bodies and be available for sex, to punish them for doing so via shame, intimidation, and even outright attack. In reality, “modesty” is often a euphemism for plain old fear. Fear of being judged, by men and women alike. Fear of being treated as though allowing people to see your parts should remove any expectation of being seen as more than the sum of them. Fear of being penalized for acting in ways that no man would be penalized for. Women sometimes show themselves off and act sexually open out of perceived necessity or insecurity, yes….but they also do it when they feel safe. Why would anyone not want women to feel safe? Especially someone who thinks of him/herself as a feminist? And if you want them to feel safe, why not go after the ones shaming and attacking them, rather than the women themselves?

Obama “daughter tests” young women out of sexual privacy and responsibility

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A few months ago I wrote about Freakonomics author Steven Levitt’s “daughter test” for legality. Levitt didn’t invent the test; he just articulated it: “If I wouldn’t want my daughter to do it, I wouldn’t mind the government passing a law against it.” The inanity and offensiveness of this standard should be plain on its face, but I carefully unpacked it anyway because this rule is applied consciously or unconsciously in the thinking of many otherwise thoughtful, non-authoritarian people. People who just want things to turn out best for their daughters.

Such, I have to assume, was in the mind of President Obama when he used his own daughters as justification for overruling a recent FDA decision to allow the sale of emergency contraception pill Plan B over the counter to women of all ages:

President Barack Obama is defending his administration’s decision to stop plans to allow the Plan B morning-after pill to move onto drugstore shelves next to condoms. Obama says as a father of two daughters, the government should “apply some common sense” to rules when it comes to over-the-counter medication. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled scientists at the Food and Drug Administration, saying young girls shouldn’t be able to buy the pill on their own. Obama says Sebelius was concerned a 10- or 11-year-old could get the medication, which could have an adverse effect. Obama says “most parents would probably feel the same way.” For now, Plan B will stay behind pharmacy counters, available without a prescription only to those 17 and older who can prove their age.

So the FDA lacked “common sense” when they decided that there is no good reason to prohibit Plan B to women younger than that? Should we assume that none of them have daughters? I doubt it. More likely they refused to allow paternalism to affect their conclusions in light of the evidence that there is no legitimate health concern which could justify restricting the drug:

Emergency contraception is already available over the counter to women over 17; in response to a request from the drug’s manufacturer, the FDA researched safety and efficacy of OTC access for women under 17 and found that there is no reason not to lift the age limit. Studies found no adverse health effects with non-prescription use and that younger women were able to understand how to use the product, including, crucially, that it does not protect against sexually transmitted infections.

Here’s how you take Plan B: as soon as possible after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure, take one pill. A second pill is not necessary. Do not take it more than 72 hours (three days) after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure. That’s it. If a ten or eleven year old girl cannot grasp these instructions, we’re in trouble.

And of all people who might need an emergency contraceptive most in the world, ten or eleven year girls who might be pregnant seem like the best candidates! But really, they are not the ones most likely to lose out on the opportunity to have this pill when they need it. That honor will more likely go to older girls who are sexually active but not yet 17. As Katha Politt writes in The Nation,

Barack Obama says that as the father of two daughters, he wants the government to “apply common sense” to rules about over the counter medications. Well, I too have a daughter, and so many many pro-choice women. Who died and made Barack Obama daddy in charge of teenage girls? Would he really rather that Sasha and Malia get pregnant rather than buy Plan B One-Step at CVS? And excuse me, Mr. President, thanks to your HHS, acquiring Plan B is prescription-only not just for 11-year-olds but for the 30 percent of teenage girls between 15 and 17 who are sexually active, and is a cumbersome process for all women, who have to ask a pharmacist for it and, as many news stories have reported, be subjected to fundamentalist harangues and objections. Apparently, it’s okay with you if Michelle is treated like a sixth-grader. I’m trying to think if there are any laws or regulations affecting only men in which unfounded fears about middle-school boys deny all men normal adult privileges. Needless to say, no one suggests that underage boys get a prescription if they want to use condoms, or that grown men have to ask the pharmacist for them and maybe get a lecture about the evils of birth control and promiscuity.
This is politics. Pure politics.

It’s hard to disagree. If Obama doesn’t want to keep Plan B out of the hands of young women because he thinks they don’t have a right to sexual privacy and the ability to make their own reproductive decisions, his administration is certainly catering to people who do.

Wait a minute– a right to sexual privacy? Who says teenage girls should have that? Amanda Marcotte, very convincingly:

The only reason possible that condoms don’t come up is pure sexism; Plan B provokes anxiety about female sexuality, and the stereotypical (though not actual) image of who has condoms on their person in high school is male. Fill in jokes about the condom-shaped wear on the leather wallet, etc.  But most of all, the flaw is in assuming that there’s intrinsic value to outing a girl who is having sex to her parents, with the exception of abuse. But if you think about this argument, it assumes a lot that is not proved by a long shot. So, let’s walk through the standard, non-abuse discovery of sexual activity of a 15- or 16-year-old, which are the ages when the percentages of kids having sex grows rapidly. (Contrary to hysterical assumptions, younger teenagers just aren’t doing it that much.) People who are making the parental argument are literally assuming that a tearful girl comes forward to her parents and confesses shamefacedly that she’s been having sex with her boyfriend. Yelling, crying, and recriminations ensue. She gets her Plan B, but is perhaps grounded and her parents are very disappointed in her. They may or may not have a conversation about birth control going forward, but at every point in this process, her choice to have sex is considered less than ideal. What does this solve? How does this standard American situation improve life for anyone involved?  It doesn’t. The girl is highly unlikely to give up having sex, though now she may decide to be sneakier about it. She’ll probably be defiant and feel her parents don’t understand her; she will be right to think this. She may, correctly, see them as hypocrites, because they probably had sex as teenagers (that being what teenagers do), and it worked out well for them, but now they’re going to punish her for the same. She’s going to start counting the days when she can get out of the house with these unreasonable people and have a place of her own, where she can do what she wants. Meanwhile, the parents also have a worse go of it. If they really have absorbed prudish attitudes, they may think less of their daughter, even though she hasn’t actually done anything wrong. Even if they are just typical American hypocrites who remember their own sexual debuts fondly while enacting hostility towards their daughter in the same situation, they’re going to feel weird and out of sorts. They’ll always feel that there may be something else they should be doing to stop the sexual activity. They may worry that they failed somehow. They may want to offer advice, but it’s going to be filtered through the assumption that youthful sex is bad, and so it’s probably not going to be good advice.  Kids really do need their privacy, for the same reason that adults do. Even though I’m a grown ass adult and there’s no shame or recriminations there, I don’t talk about my sex life with my mom as a general rule. Because there’s no value in it. Everyone’s just happier minding their own damn business. I personally think there’s a lot of value in letting teenagers spend their high school years gradually gaining rights and responsibilities—including sexual privacy rights and responsibilities—instead of simply dumping them into adulthood at 18 and expecting them not to get overwhelmed.

In this case, the right is a responsibility. Opponents of reproductive choice complain that it allows women to escape the consequences of their actions. If this really isn’t just code for inflicting pregnancy and childbirth as punishment, then it needs to be acknowledged that a young woman who is sexually active and either makes a mistake or experiences an accident (or both) and wants to take Plan B is being responsible. She realizes that something potentially very bad has happened and is facing the consequence of needing to do something about it. And Obama’s administration does not want her to– at least, not on her own. That may seem like “common sense” to him, but playing Father Knows Best to the entire country makes unwilling daughters of us all.

#heblowsalot

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Ah, the power of Twitter. It can help organize protests, keep people in contact in the midst of tragedy, spread news like wildfire, and allow governors to become aware of the fact that teenagers are saying mean things about them. And then take action!

Emma Sullivan is an eighteen year old student at Shawnee Mission East high school in Kansas. While making a visit to the state capitol of Topeka as part of a Youth in Government program, she made the following tweet:

“Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.” 

She didn’t actually meet him– the tweet was a joke with friends. But that wasn’t a factor to Brownback staffers, who in scanning social media for mentions of him came across the tweet and proceeded to contact Sullivan’s school. The school’s principal, Karl Krawitz, called Sullivan into his office and proceeded to berate her for nearly an hour:

“I had no idea what it was about or why I was being called into the office,” she said. “I had never been in trouble before.”
Sullivan claimed that the principal “told me he needed to do damage control and was really upset.”
“He said I was an embarrassment to the school and the school district and that I had been disrespectful,” she added.

Krawitz followed this with a demand that Sullivan write a note of apology to Brownback for the tweet, to be turned in on Monday (today). Sullivan had decided by Sunday night, with the support of her parents, that she wasn’t going to do it. This became a non-issue today, however, when the school district decided it could not demand an apology:

“The district acknowledges a student’s right to freedom of speech and expression is constitutionally protected. The district has not censored Miss Sullivan nor infringed upon her freedom of speech,” said a statement. “She is not required to write a letter of apology to the Governor. Whether and to whom any apologies are issued will be left to the individuals involved.”

Sam Brownback himself responded by blaming his staff:

A statement issued by Brownback on Monday did not reference Sullivan by name or mention the prospect of any apology letter. He did emphasize his support for “freedom of speech,” while thanking “the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum.”
“My staff overreacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize,” the governor said. “Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms.”

Meanwhile Sullivan’s Twitter following has jumped from 63 to almost 11,000 (as of now). Brownback’s is at about 3,000. And the #heblowsalot hashtag is being used constantly by Sullivan’s supporters. A representative tweet:

It’s unusual, I think, not to have heard of Brownback before considering that he was a U.S. senator from 1996 until this year, and ran for president in 2008. Still, there’s no question that awareness of him is exploding because of this…and doubtless not in a way he would prefer. Like the enormously successful campaign to re-define Rick Santorum’s last name, “heblowsalot” might become the phrase that comes to most people’s minds when considering Governor Brownback.

Now, here’s the question: would that be a good thing? Does Sam Brownback, in fact, blow?

Maybe not literally. But as those of us from Kansas–especially women– who are not right-wingers are more than aware, figuratively he most certainly does. If you want a quick idea, imagine Rick Perry and take away some reasoning ability and restraint. As Amanda Marcotte notes over at Slate,

I suppose it’s not that big a surprise that someone like Brownback, who has a strong belief that women should not be in control of their own ladyparts, would also find the notion that teenage girls have the legal right to make fun of him deeply threatening. First he comes for your abortions, then your contraception, and next any fancy electronic devices that could be used to register displeasure with dudely authority figures. The freakout over a teenage girl having a less-than-flattering opinion of him was also predictable if you look at Brownback’s long history with the C Street Family, a religious-political group that specifically promotes patriarchy and disdains the idea of women holding political power. (Though they have been known to make exceptions for the occasional woman who has economic goals in common with them.) To a large extent, Brownback has created a bubble around him that has a pleasing 19th-century cast to it, where young people and women knew their place, and men of privilege are protected from the opinions of those who are most subject to social control. No wonder a juvenile bit of tweetage caused such an oversized reaction.

This is not an exaggeration. Brownback has spent his years in office, both as senator and governor, doing everything he can to restrict reproductive freedom for women. He is also not a fan of state funding for art, having eliminated Kansas’ arts commission this year making it the only state without such an agency. He denies evolution and supports the Discovery Institute (intelligent design think tank), is relentlessly pro-war (supporting the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the suspension of habeas corpus rights under the Military Commissions Act of 2007), and is so adamantly opposed to gay marriage that in 2006 he blocked confirmation of federal judicial nominee Janet Neff because she had attended a same-sex commitment ceremony. He believes that the Constitution does not carry any guarantee of a right to privacy. His record on civil rights is rated– this will shock you– 20 percent by the ACLU. Pretty dismal. As is, no doubt, the outlook of any Kansan who cares about civil rights since Brownback assumed governorship, which I’m guessing includes Emma Sullivan.

But regardless of why Sullivan thinks Brownback blows, specifically, I think her handling of the issue has been excellent. She seems quite level-headed:

Emma Sullivan said Sunday that she thought the tweet “has turned into a good starting point to open up dialogue about this … free speech and the power of social media and the power that people my age could potentially have, that people will listen to us.”

Indeed, indeed. Although it’s unfortunate that this dialogue would not have opened up in the first place had Brownback’s staff and Sullivan’s principal (any bets on whether she’ll get an apology from him?) both not wildly overreacted to something said in that context.

This whole event could result in a bully pulpit for Ms. Sullivan, should she choose to use it. She said that she’s interested in getting involved in politics, and judging from the coverage this is getting not only on Twitter but ABC, CNN, HuffPo, and so on, this seems like a good start! I hope she takes advantage of it to go out and do something. Whatever she finds most appropriate to do in terms of combating the many ways in which Sam Brownback sucks. And blows.

“Masculine Christianity” and the Penn State scandal

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                                      . 

This is University of Nebraska Assistant Coach Ron Brown praying on behalf of his football team and that of Penn State prior to their game on November 12th, in the wake of the latter university’s scandal regarding former head coach Joe Paterno. Which you already know about if you haven’t been living under a rock for the past week and a half, so you don’t need any commentary on it from me. But Brown thought that God needed a comment on the matter, specifically regarding manhood and young boys:

There are a lot of little boys around the country, today, who are watching this game. And they’re trying to figure out what the definition of manhood is all about. Father, this is it right here. I pray that this game will be a training ground of what manhood looks like. And we will compete with fierce intensity. With the honor, and the gifts, and the talents that you’ve given us. And may we be reminded, Lord, as it says in John 1:14, that Jesus is full of grace and truth. May the truth be known!

Indeed– may the truth be known. And the truth is that a coach from a public university found it appropriate to use a scandal involving child molestation as an opportunity to teach little boys what manhood is, via a football and declarations about Jesus. I saw this, and thought “I can’t be the only person believes this to be very, very wrong.” And I’m not– it’s just that it’s hard to articulate all of the things wrong about it.

Hemant Mehta decided to re-write Brown’s statements to be something that is, in Mehta’s eyes, more useful:

Here’s what Ron Brown could’ve said to the teams — and the crowd of over 100,000 — that would’ve made a real difference — instead of the worthless tripe that came out instead:  

We’ve been through a lot this past week, but it’s nothing compared to what Jerry Sandusky’s victims have been through. We can never let something like this happen again.

 If any of you ever sees abuse taking place — on the field, off the field, after you graduate — it doesn’t matter who the abuser is, go to the police immediately.

If you’re ever the victim of such abuse, please tell someone you trust what happened. It doesn’t matter what you think about the person who did it to you, and no one will ever think less of you for turning them in.

If you had nothing to do with the situation but you still want to help, well, we need more people like you. Please encourage your fans, friends, and family members to make a donation to a child abuse prevention organization.

That will do more for these children that our god ever can. 

That would’ve taken real courage to say, so I’m not surprised we didn’t hear anything even remotely resembling that before the game.  

I suppose it would have taken real courage to say, but only because of the last line– and that line should be left out. Everything else is not particularly courageous, but it is certainly important. It’s what people need to hear and know, valuable information. It doesn’t exactly take the place of what Brown said, though, because it’s not ceremonial. It doesn’t address the communal mood, the event that is about to take place. It’s a comment that should be made in addition to something else, and here’s the important thing…that “something else” should not be a prayer. This is something overlooked in Sean O’Neil’s essay concerning what he calls “muscular Christianity”:

John Sandusky is an older man who used his prestige and power to abuse boys. Perhaps, then, Brown’s prayer about a redemptive display of masculinity merely reinforces a truism: that decent men would never abuse anyone. Since lines were transgressed in obviously horrific ways perhaps the boundaries of decency need to be reinforced in just as obvious a fashion. This still raises other questions, though: Who gets to re-draw these borders at such a sensitive time of (national) crisis? Also, what will young boys learn about gender from the dominant religious portrayals of manhood in muscular Christianity? Muscular Christianity refers to the wedding of traditional conceptions of masculinity—such as bravery, chivalry, and athleticism—with evangelical Christian emphases on personal conversion and biblical devotion. Tim Tebow is perhaps the quintessential muscular Christian, combining religious and athletic vigor on the most visible athletic platform in the country: the National Football League. Muscular Christianity is also developed in more pedestrian venues, on college campuses among groups such as the Fellowship for Christian Athletes. Evangelicals espousing some form of muscular Christianity (not a term that most would use) tend to interpret the Bible conservatively—especially with regards to sexual norms. Gay sex among consenting adults, for example, is usually labeled sinful in such evangelical contexts. There are few if any progressive religious voices in these settings. . .  If the only religious voices heard on the fields are the most conservative on issues of human sexuality, there may be few opportunities for athletes to combine vigorous athleticism, strong religious commitment, and fidelity to LGBT identities in the same breath.

Hoo boy. If you know me, you know what will be the sticking points here: 1) “traditional conceptions of masculinity” and 2) “religious voices heard on the fields.” Bin them both, please.

Why? Let’s start with the former. I hate to point out the obvious, but “LGBT identities” often do not conform to “traditional concepts of masculinity.” Nor is there any reason why they should, considering that “traditionally masculine” people are often outright phobic or hateful of those who are non-traditional. Just as much or more than being brave, chivalrous (ugh) or athletic, traditional masculinity entails being straight. And so far as I can tell, there is nothing about being non-straight, non-traditionally masculine, that inhibits one’s athleticism. So maybe when it comes to football or any other sport, it would be better to call a spade a spade and emphasize that. Those attributes of character that are desirable to have also– bravery, stalwartness, reliability, foresight, cunning, and so on– are by no means exclusive to the masculine. Especially not the traditional kind.

(I will also mention, though I hope it’s not necessary, the significance of focusing on how to tell/show young boys what it means to be a (traditional) man in the wake of scandal surrounding child rape. Just as with the scandals within the Catholic Church, there are plenty– perhaps Asst. Coach Brown is one of them– who interpret such an act as part and parcel of homosexuality. As something that gays just do, or that just gays do. This bigoted belief has no place on the football field or anywhere else.

Let it be emphasized: a decent person would not abuse anyone. Indecent people come in all sorts of gender and sexual configurations.)

As for religious voices on that field…why do we need those? Even disregarding the question of whether it constitutes a church/state violation to have a coach for a public university’s football team to deliver a prayer before a game, O’Neil’s grievance above illustrates precisely the problem with having a religious invocation in the first place– it creates a debate about whether it’s the right religion. Whose beliefs should prevail. Because for everyone who doesn’t worship Jesus and/or doesn’t appreciate the treatment of Jesus in the prayer given, the ritual becomes a period of discomfort rather than bolstering. And for many of those to whom the words about Jesus ring pure and true, any other religious message will seem either diluted or outright blasphemous. By all means, don’t prevent the players from practicing their faith as they see fit. But leading everyone in a massive group prayer such as this seems designed to be unnecessarily divisive and yet squelch any minority views.

I can’t help but wonder how many of those players kneeling around Assistant Coach Ron Brown feel resentful, silly, or confused. How many wish that a message acknowledging the situation but encouraging them to play a good game could be delivered without being wrapped in platitudes about what it means to be a real man and a real believer. How many of that group would never breathe a word about such sentiments, for fear that they would be ridiculed, hated, maybe even attacked by others.

How sad that is. And how completely unnecessary.

“Normal” is overrated

“Normal” is overrated published on No Comments on “Normal” is overrated

“We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that’s all.” — Andrew, The Breakfast Club

The Pervocracy has a great post on the end of “normal” relationships in general, but I particularly liked the part about gender norms:

you don’t have to be non-heterosexual to question what gender means to your relationship.  If “which one of y’all does the dishes?” is a stupid question to ask a gay couple, it ought to be an equally stupid assumption to make about a straight one.  The fact that assigned gender roles are available for a straight couple doesn’t mean they ought to take them on without question. What kind of relationship you have is your choice, and one choice isn’t better than another.  What’s important is that you make a choice.  That even if you’re you’re monogamous, vanilla, and heterosexual–you’re doing it because it’s what you want and because you and your partner have agreed to it, not because that’s what people do.  What’s important isn’t what path you take, but that you know there are paths. Paths?  Fuck, there’s an entire open world out there once you get past “man buys dinner, woman agrees to missionary PIV until he ejaculates.  (Or rather, a world including “man buys dinner, woman agrees to missionary PIV until he ejaculates,” because, hey, if that’s your thing.)  There’s a million goddamn ways to love, a billion things  “partner” or “lover” or “fuckbuddy” or “spouse” can mean to you, and you get to decide. How fucking cool is that?

Very. The emphasis in this post is on what it calls “consciousamory”– the idea that no orientation or lifestyle is necessarily superior or more evolved, but what matters is that people are aware that there are options and feel free to choose from among them. There’s a problem when consenting adults don’t feel that, when pressure from the outside or from one partner only determines the nature of their relationship rather than it being based on an agreement between them.

People write in to Savage Love all of the time asking whether the particular conditions of their relationship or the things that turn them on are normal, and every time the answer is the same: who gives a damn about “normal”?  If you like it, and your partner(s) like it, then it’s right for you. If you’re aware of the possibilities, have a preference, and all involved parties want it, that’s what’s important.  That means that your relationship, whatever it might be, is freely chosen.

Pervocracy goes on to point out that if everyone is aware that they don’t have to be normal, people who engage in polyamory or any other non-standard relationship style are no longer abnormal. They’re just different….in a perfectly normal way.