I’ve never been particularly involved in politics. Really, the most involved I’ve ever been is participating in the 2004 Iowa (Democratic) Caucus, and that was as much a whim as anything else. So paying attention to the candidates in the current cycle and seeing all of that mess is a bit of a new thing for me. I wanted to talk a bit about what it’s meant for me to be an uninformed voter, and why having the opportunity for everybody to learn about the candidates is an important part of democracy.
Archive for March, 2008
A Christian Sex Site – The Ugly
Sorry for the long break in posts; I took a short trip to NYC and as soon as I got home I was knocked out by a cold for a few days. I’m feeling a bit better now, so hopefully I’ll be able to post a bit more often.
In the final part of the three-part series I’ve been doing about this site (parts one and two), today I’m going to address the parts of this site that are truly ugly. Some of them are not particularly the fault of the site’s authors, except insofar as they don’t really question the ugliness of the cultural norms that they’re repeating. Others are just disturbing.
A Christian Sex Site – The Bad
In my previous post, I looked at The Marriage Bed and pointed out some of the parts that can be helpful to many people, regardless of whether or not they believe in the basic tenets of conservative Christianity and/or biblical literalism. Today I want to take a more critical look at this site and see what parts of it are potentially harmful or incomplete.
A Christian Sex Site – The Good
I ran across The Marriage Bed the other day. It’s a pretty interesting site, and worth taking a look at if you can get past and/or accept its assumptions about marriage and interpretation of the Bible. They attempt to offer “a safe place for married Christians to discuss sex”, and also offer some articles target to young/unmarried people about waiting until marriage for sex.
I should say to start with that I don’t agree with several of their claims about how marriage and sex should be, and I definitely don’t read the Bible as literally as they do. I also think that some of the ideas that result can be harmful; I’ll discuss those in a later post. Nonetheless, I think that even without accepting those assumptions there is a fair deal to be gained from any discussion of sexuality that treats its audience as responsible, thinking adults. This one does just that, showing a refreshing amount of critical thought from a group whose loudest voices are too busy shouting “NO!” to listen to any objections. Here’s a few of the insights that I think many people could find helpful.
A PSA from your body
Peggynature has created this awesome video as part of a school project. Go check it out – I’ve watched it three times already and I can’t stop smiling 
When I grow up I wanna…
I was browsing the internets today for a completely unrelated topic when I came across a user’s page at 43things.com. In among the other, relatively normal goals was this:
Now if you’re familiar with the layout of 43things, after each goal, there’s usually a number representing the number of people who want to do that goal. The number after “become anorexic”?
Quick Hit: Heelarious
From a link at Fashion Incubator: Heelarious – Her First High Heels!
These just disturb me so much. They have everything wrong with them. Why should babies wear heels? So they will encourage pedophiles (after all, what are high heels about if not sex)? So they can start malforming their foot bones as early as possible? I can’t think of any good reason to do this. Although I should give the creators some credit – assuming that the shoes are made of a soft/stretchy fabric, they probably won’t do any damage to a little girl’s feet. But these are being promoted as “her first high heels”. Who is making her second and third high heels, and what does it do to a girl’s body development if she’s got her own high heels to wear starting as soon as she can walk?
Unfortunately, I would not be surprised if this becomes a big trend. So cute! So heel-arious! You get to make that pun every time someone comments on them! I just hope that people who put these on their children get a good kick in the eye with a baby high heel the first time they’re trying to change their baby’s diaper.
That would be heel-arious.
Headless Fatty Spotting: College event flier
I was walking through the student union the other day when I saw a poster advertising some event on campus involving the Nintendo Wii. The tagline was something to the effect of “get your boyfriend off the couch”. While I could write a whole other post about how that’s a fascinating example of sexism used intentionally as a form of rhetoric to catch the attention of both genders, that wasn’t what struck me about this particular poster. What struck me was the picture.
