Monday, September 25, 2006

Spotlight on feminism, sexuality, and other politics

Today's batch is the naughtiest, most controversial set of them all!!!

The Mating Game: A primatologist looks at the mathematical community
Outsiders often think that mathematicians are all more or less equally dorky and socially maladjusted. To outsiders, perhaps they are! But not within their own society.


Girlhood Dreams
"Women's Lib" was all about crazy stuff like burning your bra (irresponsibly immodest and a fire hazard!) and forcing boys and girls to use the same bathroom by promoting something called the E.R.A. And who could be in favor of such obviously misguided foolishness? So like all good and reasonable Mormon families of the time, we were opposed to "Women's Lib."


Virginity -- once an asset, now a liability...
Mormonism confuses the issue because it trains people not to have any sex at all before marriage -- regardless of their natural inclinations. As a consequence, among faithful Mormons, it is nearly impossible for the couple to determine whether they are sexually compatible until after they've signed on for life.


Sexuality vs. Spirituality: Which is more intimate?
Now I'm actually glad I recorded this stuff in a sense because it is so alien to my normal personality that I would hardly believe I ever felt this way if I hadn't written it down.


An Immodest Proposal: sex on the first date?
There are guys out there who think that "nice girls don't" and that "women should be virgins until marriage," etc. This method eliminates those guys right off the bat too. Also eliminates closet gay guys. Hey, my time is valuable, people! I'm not so stingy about it, but I figure why should I waste three or four perfectly good evenings just to find out that I'm incompatible with some guy if I can do it in one?


Fertility, Mortality or Sex vs. Death
Now imagine that the disease and malnutrition death risk drops to one-in-five-thousand. Suddenly the one-in-five-hundred risk of accidental death is no longer a trivial side-note. It becomes worth your while to follow the kids closely to make sure nothing happens to them, even if it means a huge expenditure of time and energy.


Don't know much about the Middle East...
One night I went out drinking and partying with two of my girlfriends, both Jewish, in the Arab quarter of New Brunswick, as we loved to do!! Those were the days!!!


Confessions of a former Nader voter, part 1
Since Bush Jr. had demonstrated himself to be (if anything) even stupider, I figured he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected. After all, I reasoned, even stupid people will say "Maybe for our leader we should choose someone who's not an idiot..."


Confessions of a former Nader voter, part 2
Between the election and the moment when Bush Jr. took office, my husband and I packed our bags and moved to France. It wasn't because of the election -- we'd been planning the move for more than a year -- but it probably looked bad. Like I was saying to my countrymen "Oops!! Sorry about that, guys. Umm... bye!"


Yes means yes
In a society where sexual expression is less stigmatized, men know that the women who want to have sex with them will feel perfectly comfortable and confident saying so. So when a guy meets up with a woman who says to him "No, I don't want to have sex with you," there is no confusion about it. The guy is less likely to doubt or try to second-guess her.


A feminist in favor of porn? Is that possible?
It's just a correlation, but this inverse correlation between porn and rape is strong enough that it's worth at least asking ourselves if maybe there's something to it. At the very least, it's compelling enough that -- if our real goal here is for women to be safer -- it warrants seriously re-analyzing the current feminist orthodoxy on the relationship between pornography and rape.


Think for yourself, starring the Internet and you!
Some will argue that the Internet is as good at spreading ignorance as it is at fighting ignorance since people can (and do) post tons of things that are false and wrong. Even wikipedia is riddled with errors. Or if it isn't I've just posted a false statement myself right here. ;^)

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