What I’m Reading, June 4, 2014

Insomnia Cured Here [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)], via FlickrThe NRA’s Frankenstein monster, Mano Singham, Freethought Blogs, June 3, 2014

The Frankenstein story is a morality tale that gets played over and over again in political life. A group (a government or political party or other organization) covertly supports and encourages extremists in order to achieve their own goals, thinking that they can control their surrogates and rein them in after they have served their purpose, only to find that the group has grown beyond its control and is determined to continue on its own path and in order to do us, turns against its own creator.

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Things are so bad that the extremists are spawning even more extreme groups. The recent spat between the NRA and the group known as Open Carry Texas is a case in point. The NRA has been promoting the idea that people have the right of completely unbridled ownership of guns and to carry them anywhere at any time. The OCT took them at their word and its members went into a Chili’s fast food restaurant toting large semi-automatic weapons, freaking out the regular customers and this resulted in them being asked to not bring their guns into the store again.

This episode resulted in such bad publicity that the NRA, of all groups, has issued a sharply worded admonishment to the OCT telling them to cut it out. But OCT has turned on the NRA, accusing them of betraying the rights of gun owners.

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It’s Not About Sex at All

[NOTE: I’m going to be trying to clear out old drafts of posts that I’ve never quite finished over the past year or so, but also share thoughts on the events in California this past weekend and our culture of misogyny. The following is a comment I made on a Facebook post linking to this story.]

There’s a scene in Leaving Las Vegas that’s burned in my brain, because it so perfectly encapsulates the very fine line between male desire, sexual entitlement, and violence in our culture. (Trigger and spoiler warnings.) Continue reading

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What I’m Reading, May 26, 2014

Why the ’90s are literally disappearing from history, Andrew Leonard, Salon, May 17, 2014

So what do we keep, and what do we let go? Much is made in Silicon Valley today of the notion that access is replacing ownership. We don’t need to own cars in the age of ride-sharing. The “cloud” will take care of all our computing needs. We don’t even have to employ full-time workers, we just grab them from TaskRabbit. We rent, we share, we outsource — this is the millennial way. Owning is just so feudal.

Much of this is rhetorical bullshit aimed at justifying $10 billion market valuations for the likes of Airbnb and Uber. But there is grist to it that can’t be dismissed.

Men and Feminism, The Belle Jar, May 19, 2014

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What I’m Reading, May 22, 2014

Unattributed [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsThomas Edison and the Cult of Sleep Deprivation, Olga Khazan, The Atlantic, May 14, 2014

For some, sleep loss is a badge of honor, a sign that they don’t require the eight-hour biological reset that the rest of us softies do. Others feel that keeping up with peers requires sacrifice at the personal level—and at least in the short-term, sleep is an invisible sacrifice.

The problem has accelerated with our hyper-connected lives, but it isn’t new. Purposeful sleep deprivation originates from the lives and adages of some of America’s early business tycoons.

The Secret History Of The Word ‘Cracker’, Gene Demby, NPR, July 1, 2013 Continue reading

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What I’m Reading, May 21, 2014

By Flickr user Romeo Reidl from Budapest, Hungary (Respect sexworkers statue) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsInvisible Sex Workers, Charlotte Shane, Jacobin, May 14, 2014

Journalists, policy-makers, and self-appointed experts repeatedly say that the Internet facilitated an explosion of activity for sex sellers of all stripes, yet that activity was somehow entirely covert. Similarly, the “end demand” crowd, who would like to see the sex trade eradicated but catch flack for explicitly supporting policies that criminalize those selling it, assert that sex work proliferates because of an endless male appetite for bought sex.

But very few sex workers use the “Dark Net,” and even that private corner of the web is now subject to busts. So some connecting of the dots is long overdue. If sex workers are so hard to find, how do clients responsible for making the sex industry the “fastest growing and second largest criminal industry in the world” find them? How do the cops who continue to arrest them?

The Feminist Version of American History You Never Hear About In School, Maureen Shaw, PolicyMic, May 13, 2014 Continue reading

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There’s More to Marriage than Lust

Chris Sevier, whom you might remember as the guy who sued Apple for not stopping him from looking at porn, is really mad about the prospect of two dudes getting married. So mad, in fact, that he has decided to once again embarrass himself on the national stage in protest:

In Florida, James Domer Brenner and his partner are currently suing the state to recognize their marriage, which was legally performed in Canada. Florida does not currently allow same-sex marriage or recognize marriages performed legally elsewhere, so this is likely to be a pretty important case.

However, one man is really not happy about it. His name is Chris Savier, “a former Judge Advocate and combat veteran” who is really just a treasure. In order to protest the case before it even starts, he filed a motion to intervene in this case and demand the right to marry his “porn-filled Apple computer.” In the 24-page long document, Savier insists that if gay people “have the right to marry their object of sexual desire, even if they lack corresponding sexual parts, then I should have the right to marry my preferred sexual object.”

So instead of “girlfriend,” “fiancée,” or “wife,” should I be saying “preferred sexual object”? I don’t see that going over well. At all.

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What I’m Reading, May 16, 2014

Youth (1893) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsHow the Purity Myth Perpetuates Rape Culture, Miri, Brute Reason, May 13, 2014

The purity myth, as Jessica Valenti calls it in her book of the same name, includes several interlocking beliefs about women and sexuality that are enforced by many religions and ideologies and continue to inform many Americans’ views of sex–even those who consider themselves liberal or even progressive.

Some components of the purity myth include:

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Not ALL Men!!!!!!111!!!!!1!!!!!!!

The “Not All Men” meme may be the greatest thing on the internet in months, and that’s saying a lot (relatively speaking, of course).

not-all-men

The universe holds immutable truths: matter cannot be created or destroyed, an object in motion will stay at motion unless acted on by an outside force, and any time a woman points out sexist bullshit, some hero’s opinion will gallantly ride in on a fedora, chiming in “Not All Men!”

Now, thanks to the internet’s collective sillybrain, Not All Men! has gone from an irritating trope to a funny, giddy skewering of point-missing folks whose knee jerk reaction as part of a privileged group is to defend themselves against implications that they, as members of the complained-about privileged group, might be complicit in the status quo. It’s defensive bullshit that doesn’t really do anything but prove the bearer of Not All Men is more concerned with saving face for themselves than, you know, actually acknowledging the concern that another person is expressing.

I guess the meme has been around for a while, but I’m old and unhip. I still think lolcats are funny.

Seriously, though, dudes: if someone says something about “men,” and it describes something that you don’t personally do, try to imagine how your listeners might receive your abrupt assurances that not all men (i.e. not you) are like/do that. If it’s really such a concern that people know you’re not like that, then show, don’t tell.

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What I’m Reading, May 8, 2014

By Ralph Chaplin [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsRepublicans are Trying to Mix the Ideologies of Jesus Christ with an Atheist and That Doesn’t Make Any Sense, Allen Clifton, Forward Progressives, April 14, 2014

It’s amazing to me how few conservatives know who Ayn Rand is. Especially considering that she’s quite possibly the most influential person behind most of the Republican party’s economic ideologies.

She was a person who spoke out against social programs, believed that people should only worry about themselves, opposed big government and worshiped at the “glory” that is unregulated capitalism. In other words, she’s the epitome of what most Republicans support economically.

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There’s just one problem – Ayn Rand was an atheist. Not that there’s any problem at all with being an atheist (more power to you) but there is a big problem with a political party that builds its social platform on “Christian” values while basing its economic ideology on that of someone who didn’t believe in God.

How Piketty’s Bombshell Book Blows Up Libertarian Fantasies, Lynn Parramore, Moyers & Company, April 30, 2014 Continue reading

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Do Men Really Think About Sex Every Seven Seconds?

No, they do not.

Well, maybe some men do, but here’s the thing: how do you think researchers could possibly come up with an actual figure for this? Here’s a possible scnario:

Researcher: Okay, please sit here for the next hour and press this button every time you think about sex. But please don’t think about sex any more than you might normally think about it, just because I keep talking about it. When we are done here, there will be cake.
Subject: [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button] [presses button]…..
Professor: Damn, guys are horny.
Undergrad assistant: Maybe he just really likes cake.
Professor: You’re fired.

I’m sure it went exactly like that.

(h/t Louren)

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