♥ ¢¢ ♥ ♥

Feminist society would dissatisfy many women

I am told that this article is not a parody, though nothing about the contents helps me to believe that this can possibly be true.

If feminism prevailed, the world would be drastically different and women wouldn't like the final result.

The day men and women have the same level of power is the also the day when chivalry dies. Many women enjoy visiting bars and having men buy them drinks in exchange for a casual conversation. It seems that after all the work women put into getting ready for a night out, they won't compromise their ability to get free alcohol for the sake of self-independence.

Other women appreciate a man paying for dinner or movie tickets. But in a world where men and women see each other as equals, a man might not open his wallet and show a level of gallantry toward an intriguing woman.

Many of life's common courtesies would disappear if men and women were the same. Women would have to protect themselves and a lot of women would find themselves walking home alone instead of being escorted home by a man. A man's reflex to open a door for a woman would be replaced with the thought of her being comfortable enough to open the door for herself.

If both sexes were equal, love would become awkward as well. Marriage, or even deciding who should propose or pay for the ring, would be a different experience. The days of a husband pulling out his wife's chair would be over because men wouldn't want to risk hearing a reminder about how women can do things for themselves.

..it goes on like this.

Update: I am going to marry Calamity Jake

The thing I love/hate about the sex addiction questionaire is that it is emblematic of the all-encompassing logic of addiction recovery systems (I nearly typo'd that as "addition systems" which would have ruled). If you want [[thing which is bad for you, we think]] you probably have a problem. If you deny having a problem, you definitely have a problem! It's like when you get a copy of the DSM and look through all the symptoms of mental illnesses and discover that you suffer from fifty diseases.

The thing that interests me about the questionaire is that it raises very troubling questions about our society's general relationship with love and sex. I think about Temptation Island and Anais Nin and Romance novels and Romantic Commedies and my friends and myself (12/40) and can't help but wonder. Is all of that addictive behaviour? Are we all displaying and celebrating signs of addiction? This is sort of the obverse of my first observation. Instead of "this turns everyone into addicts" what if it just reveals that everyone is an addict?

The thing that puzzles me about Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous is that, as I understand it, Alcoholics Anonymous includes as an important component the concept of sobriety. They count the number of days since their last drink and generally have a policy of 100% no more drinking at all as the goal. This is fine. French Paradox aside, you probably don't need wine to lead a long and healthy life. What is the SLAA equivalent to sobriety?

On their website they just say "Sobriety. Our willingness to stop acting out in our own personal bottom-line addictive behavior on a daily basis."

"My name it Tim, I'm a sex and love addict and it has been 15 days since my last fuck?"
"...since my last orgasm?"
"...since my last crush?"
"...since my last kiss?"
"...since my last hug?"

The prize for "least likely to replace Miss Cleo" goes to ... PEI.

It may be the law of the land across Canada, but same-sex couples still can't get married in Prince Edward Island.

The problem, it seems, is language.

"We were consulting about whether or not we could just scratch out the words husband and wife, bride and groom, and maybe just put spouse and spouse," the province's attorney general, Mildred Dover, told CBC News.

"We're not even sure what words you'd use."

...

"We didn't prepare beforehand because, if we had prepared and changed all the wording, then people would say 'Why did you do that when it hadn't passed?'"

Dear PEI,

I love you dearly. I enjoy your golf courses and potatoes and glass bottles. Some of the best summers of my life happened on your land. I learned to climb buildings and drink in parking lots with you, PEI. I learned to be nervous about police cars and pick-up trucks. So understand that I say with all the love and respect that my heart can contain when I say:

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Gay marriage is not a surprise. Even if it hadn't been passed, you could have given some THOUGHT to the new wording. Maybe had a few ideas, brainstorming sessions, maybe a couple of potential changes just, you know, in the bank. IN CASE. Just-in-case consulting, you could have called it.

Other provinces have gay marriage. Maybe you could have checked with them. "Hey Nova Scotia," you might have said, "What did you put down for 'Wife' when two dudes are doing it?" It wouldn't have been PLAGIARISM, it would have been PLANNING.

Seriously.

Hey, we have a Senate!
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/07/19/samesex050719.html
Senate passes same-sex legislation
The bill will become law when it receives royal assent on Wednesday.

And so we lose the race to Spain and come in 4th. Good try though, Canada. Good try.

American Apparel

Sexual Harassment Lawsuits

I'm really not sure what to think.

Even under the murkiest of he-said, she-said circumstances, Mr. Charney's management style runs counter to American cultural and business norms and has left him vulnerable to the kind of claims he faces now, workplace experts and some of Mr. Charney's supporters said.

For instance, he takes many of the suggestive pictures and body-part close-ups of women, some of them also employees, that decorate his stores.

And in an article in Jane magazine last summer, Mr. Charney was described as engaging in oral sex with a female employee and masturbating in front of the writer several times with the writer's acquiescence.

Mr. Charney, in a telephone interview, said that citing the article, as well as referring to his nudity in ads and his provocative photo displays in stores are "not journalism but sensationalism" when used in the context of the lawsuits. He said that he has the right to be his company's model and to pose nude, which he said is a "salute" to contemporary adult and sexual freedom.

He said his ads are regarded as trend-setting and appreciated by American Apparel's young customers. Mr. Charney added that "any sexual activities described in the Jane article were, A, consensual; B, enjoyable for both parties; and C, occurred in a private setting and therefore are not relevant to the sexual harassment charges."

Finally, he said, he does not believe consensual relationships between adults should be restrained in the workplace.

The women suing Mr. Charney and American Apparel are not alleging that he pressured them for sex. What they say in their lawsuits is that they faced a "wholly intolerable" and "intimidating" work atmosphere that subjected them to "egregious" sexual comments and behavior.

More later, after sleep and thinking. Notes to self: sex-negative culture, freedom from harassment == good, different standards for different workplaces?, zero tolerance rules, where to draw lines, can pornstars sue for harassment?, have they ever?

Also Another article:
Others say it's not surprising that more women haven't spoken out. "When you see the women that work there, you see they all have the same look," says apparel industry veteran Tony Augustine, 58, who left a senior sales job at American Apparel last November after a year and a half. "They're pretty, but they lack direction, and along comes their guru. He puts them in jobs, and they don't have to work very hard and they are getting paid more than they would anywhere else."

WHAT? This is the pro-women team? He basically just said "no one speak up because they are all dipsticks" (with apologies to Belinda).

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EL09Aa01.html
Six months after Hitler seized power in 1933, several leading Berlin rabbis wrote to him pledging loyalty to Germany. The rabbis argued that they, the orthodox, shared the Nazis' moral values, as opposed to decadent Bolshevism and libertinism, as opposed to the left-wing Jews who made up much of the avant garde. The rabbis promised Hitler that they would do their best to persuade Jews around the world to end a boycott on German products. In retrospect that seems like a terrible mistake. Still, one would like to know whether these rabbis, given complete foresight, still would have preferred Hitler to, say, Barbra Streisand.

...

Weimar Republic Berlin became the world's frontier town for sexual experimentation, to the evident disgust of the orthodox rabbis in 1933. But that has occurred in all democracies. Where in the modern world has democracy flourished without the sexual emancipation of women, the liberty to experiment with alternative lifestyles, to depict sexual intercourse in the plastic arts, and so forth? Permissiveness is in the nature of modern democracy. As the authors of the American constitution clearly understood, minorities have the power to forestall the intent of the majority for democracy to succeed. Otherwise a passing majority could crush minorities and intimidate opposition. To the chagrin of social conservatives, this principle applies not only to economic and regional minorities, but to sexual minorities as well.

Special shout-out to lifeofasimple: I found this article while looking up images of the Gestapo.

So I guess gays can still get married now? Exciting!

Do you know an MP named Mark Holland? I'd never heard of him before today but according to this story he may be the reason that the bill got voted on in this session of the house and not postponed until the fall. See what he did was put together a petition of back bench MPs - both for and against the legislation - asking Martin to hold the vote NOW instead of LATER.

"The impact of the petition, I don't think should be underestimated. That firmed up [the PM's mind]. They did get some names of opponents on that petition and that sort of indicated that even the ones who support it have surrendered and they just need to get it past them, they need closure to go in their own ridings and they can go and say, 'Look, I fought the good fight. It's over and we have to move on,' " said the source in an interview, who pointed out that the petition was circulated to the backbenches and kept totally away from the ministers.

The petition was circulated on the weekend of June 18-19.

Prime Minister Paul Martin (LaSalle-Émard, Que.) on Thursday, June 16 after the Cabinet meeting was non-committal that Bill C-38 would be passed in the current session of Parliament. But on Monday, June 20, in an abrupt shift, he said in a radio interview in Vancouver that extending the current session is one of the available options and one that the Liberals will "look at seriously." Later on in the week, Liberals delivered on their promise and in a vote on Thursday evening, the current session of the House was extended.

So: hooray for you, Mr Holland. Well done.

Meanwhile, Stephen Harper continues to be an idiot:
“There will be a chance to revisit this in a future Parliament,” Mr. Harper said. “Our intention is to have a free vote.”

The next paragraph in the article that I'm quoting from confirms my love for the CBC.

How Mr. Harper might handle the issue is unclear since almost every provincial and territorial government has made gay marriage legal.

Furthermore, it's not clear how Harper might handle the issue given that in 2003 57% of Canadians said that same sex marriage does not threaten the institution of marriage. Moreover, in a more recent poll we learn that the people who are opposed to same-sex marriage tend to be rural people or older people. Younger Canadians and urban Canadians tend to be in favour. More polls here

Consider that Harper pretty much has the ageing rural vote tied right up and that the thing that he needs to do to win the government is to make in-roads into places like Ontario. Attention Stephen: YOU ARE PICKING THE WRONG ISSUE. PLEASE CONTINUE.

Meanwhile, Ralph Klien in Alberta is figuring out what he can do to avoid actually following these rules.

He said using the notwithstanding clause isn't an option because the definition of marriage is a federal jurisdiction, but says there may be other things they can do.

Conservative MLA Ted Morton has proposed the province withdraw from sanctioning all marriages, instead registering civil unions and leaving marriage to religious orders.

So, uh, good luck with that in Alberta. And congratulations to the border towns in BC and Saskatchewan that will no doubt soon be doing a rip-roaring business in providing lavish gay weddings that will be legally recognized in Alberta.

Also, after a quick scan of my friends' page, I have determined that my group of friends is not nearly diverse enough. Every single post is a variation on "gays allowed to get married: Hooray!"

Zombie Dogs
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-13762,00.html

Also, excellent choice of photo there, newsroom people.

Big thanks to cheshi for continuing to fill my friends page with THINGS TO FEAR.

...
I wasn't going to say anything political tonight, except that alert reader, appelle turned me on to Harper's latest comments about Gay Marriage. They are so amazing that I feel that I have no choice but to relay them to you.

Same-sex vote likely on Tuesday, Harper questions 'legitimacy' of bill
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/06/27/samesex050627.html

So, Stephen Harper has decided that the best way to attack the inevitable victory of the Gay Marriage legislation is to argue that because the Bloc MPs will also be voting in favour of it, it doesn't really count.

Harper branded Bill C-38 the product of an illegitimate union. "I think because this bill is only being passed with the support of the BQ, I think it will lack legitimacy with most Canadians. The truth is most federalist MPs will oppose this legislation," he said.

This next paragraph, which in the article immediately followed the above one, is why I love the CBC:
Barely a month ago Harper was working hand-in-hand with the BQ to defeat the Liberal budget, in a move that would have brought down the government.

I have decided that once the inevitable slippery slope is slid, and polygamy and polyandry and so on become legalized that I will take as my second political wife (after Belinda) Richard Marceau of the Bloc. I had not heard of him before tonight but that is NOT RELEVANT. We are in LOVE.

"I would say to Stephen Harper, 'Stephen take a break you need one. Forget the barbecues, you need to go home and relax.'"

I wish that more people would stop engaging with Stephen Harper rationally and that more people would laugh him out of the room.

The sadest part of this whole thing is that Peter MacKay continues his sad slow descent into political irrelevance by continuing to talk like the Mouth Of Harper. "It makes it an issue of Quebec versus Canada. Most Canadians have a skeptical view of Pequistes breaking up the country," said Conservative deputy leader Peter MacKay. ATTENTION PETER: 8 of 10 provinces have legalized Gay Marriage. Nova Scotia is one of them. You are from there. Please stop being dumb.

Wait, I would like to change my vote. The saddest part of this whole thing is the comments made by some dipstick named Ken Epp, Conservative MP (that link takes you to his contact information, by the bye).

Conservative MP Ken Epp contrasted same-sex marriage to the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the United States.

"Blacks in the United States," said Epp, "never asked to be called white. They just wanted the same rights." Epp then went on to say that women in Canada sought equal rights without demanding to be called men.

Just...wow.

Government forces early Budget vote, last of the confidence motions passes, we're that much closer to gay marriage...

http://www.reuters.ca/locales/c_newsArticle.jsp;jsessionid=375%3A42bbaa73%3A3e1c9be91cd32fb?type=topNews&localeKey=en_CA&storyID=8882566

Happy Pride weekend, I guess.

I'm planning to go to the Pride parade this year. It'll be the first time and I am trying to work out how to represent polyamoury. I mean, aside from hitting on cute bi-girls.

Also, you can hear Henry Morgentaler's speech as he accepted an Honorary Degree from the University of Western Ontario (Morgantaler, for you Americans, is the Doctor who more or less spearheaded the legalization of abortion in Canada by opening an abortion clinic when it was still illegal in 1969) here.

Awesome clips of him talking are here. Check out the awesome #3 clip where he opens by complaining about the other team's contempt for human life.

"We don't call them Pro-Lifers, we call them CCPs, Crusaders for Compulsive Pregnancy."

As we come to the eve of full on gay marriage in Canada (the Conservatives are now reduced to threatening filibuster the budget in an effort to get the same-sex marriage bill postponed until September) I've been reading through the CBC's excellent indepth coverage (note to CNN: CBC Kicks your ass news-wise) of the issue. Specifically, check out this amazing timeline of gay rights in Canada.

For example, did you know that Alberta was one of the last provinces to include sexual orientation as something you couldn't discriminate against? Yet one of the first to allow gays and lesbians to adopt? Did you know that until 1978, being gay was a reason to not allow you to immigrate?

From not allowed into the country to allowed to marry within my lifetime. That's pretty fucking cool.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/06/14/newjackson-verdict050614.html

Courageous Juror speaks up: He was Probably Guilty
I can't believe that this man could sleep in the same bedroom for 365 straight days and not do something more than just watch television and eat popcorn," Raymond Hultman said in an interview on Larry King Live.

This strikes me as telling.

Poking around the Chapters with Joey, Andrea and Catherine Rose, Joey pointed out a copy of Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality. I flipped through it a bit and this excerpt caught my attention (make sure that the link gets you to page 6 of the excerpt).

Look, let's all agree with the press that Jacko is Wacko. He built a ranch and called it Neverland. His childrens got those funny outfits. His face did all them changes.

But let's also ask: why is it inconcievable that he slept with the kids without ever sleeping with them? And while we're at it, let's ask why you can't even say slept with without implying the other kind? The symantically widened (note to Joey: did I use that right?) kind?

I want to draw a link between this kind of thing and the fact that I know of a school where the policy for going on trips is that students are not allowed to share a bed. Think about this. Think about various school policies and regulations that discourage (or are even zero-tolerance towards) student-teacher, and student-student touch.

Can't you see? This sexualizes everything. Any kind of touch is sexual/violent touch. Any kind of intimacy is sexual intimacy. That's not right and frankly it's societally sick. Is this Freud's fault?

I want to believe the verdict. I want the truth to be that he's a crazy person but that he didn't do anything untoward. I want it to be true that he liked sleeping with them without ever wanting to molest them. I want harrassment policies that distinguish between sexual touch and friendly healthy touch. I want to find ways of equiping our children to deal with the world that does not require that they view every stranger with suspicion and terror.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/03/29/prostitutecommittee0329.html

Prostitution is legal in Canada, but communicating for the purpose of prostitution is not. Brothels are also illegal.

Huh. I didn't know that that was how we broke it down.

Interesting discussion about gay marriage and protest tactics to be found by clicking here. Dig down some of the threads for information about why federally defined marriage is so important and thoughts about constitutionally protected homophobia.

I am having more fun than I probably should be.

P.S. "I apologize for your misunderstanding." What the hell kind of arrogant shit is that?

P.P.S. I am getting far too much pleasure out of that fact that no one ever replies to my posts.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524823.800&print=true
THE Pentagon considered developing a host of non-lethal chemical weapons that would disrupt discipline and morale among enemy troops, newly declassified documents reveal.

Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an "aphrodisiac" chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale, the proposal says.

In other news: Kudos to the CBC for referring to the elections in Iraq as "democratic style".