Please Pretend You're Straight Until College- A Texan Mom Blogger's Solution to Gay Bullying.

Where to start? Gawker's ingenious in many ways because it often turns its readership onto the blatant stupid that gets published in other parts of the bloggosphere.  I offer this link in a catastrophically sad case in point. TexasSparkle is mad as H-E double toothpicks about gay teen suicides...and she's got the following advice: Stay in the closet, because kids can be mean and it'd be easier to just not talk about it. Because, obviously you can't know who you're attracted to because you're just a kid.

 The above blogger misses the point by a country mile at best, when she decides that the answer to bullying is not say....the bullying and the social punishment that comes with the stigmas associated with being gay... and instead about kids who don't know anything being deciding to label themselves "gay" prematurely. Which is just stupidity personified. (Especially if one knows anything about "fag shaming"- one doesn't have to be out to be shamed or bullied for "unmasculine" behavior)

"Just Words" - Catwoman and Arkham City's "Bitchin" Problem

Comicsalliance has quickly become one of my favorite places to go for alternative takes on comic book news. It not only has some gorgeous art by indie artists, and clever re-interpretations of some of the more mindbogglingly dense comic book continuities.

 Lately, a writer (Laura Hudson, whom Ive developed a lot of respect for) has been raising the occasional question about gender/sexism and  the comic book industry. Valid questions about whether the depiction of female characters in popular culture as written by, drawn by, and consumed (presumably) men can come off as objects instead of characters...and proceeds to shed light on a lot of evidence why this might be.

An earlier commentary on Catwoman, who is often described as a woman who is "sex positive" and a "femme fatale"(I reference it here), debuted in a new DC comic where she spent numerous pages walking around in a bra being oggled by the p.o.v of the reader before we even see her face. Compartmentalization  and framed by her "t&a" before we get to finding out who we're talking about. Thats just one of the more popularized points of evidence indicating recent sexism in comics that've come out of the dialog.

Fast forward to October 20th, where CA posted an article referencing popular game blog Kotaku's noting that playing the new Batman game as Catwoman involved a whole new "game mechanic". And while it might not be as overt as some as the other above references, it speaks to some glaring problems with the way we deal with "slut shaming" and casual reinforcement of the status quo.

Superhero Sausage Fests- Gender Bias and the Comic Book Media

Comics A.M. | Should feminists give up on superhero comics? | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment:

'via Blog this'

It appears that the burning question in all of mainstream comicdom has (thankfully) become "are comic books sexist?". Granted asking this question is incredibly valid, as all male dominated and male geared industries need to honestly evaluate such questions...but I wonder if this self-consciousness is a bit late in the day.

 One doesn't have to do much digging to find evidence of how women are depicted in comics, especially in the 90s  (otherwise known as the dark age of comic books). This was the age of the super heroine "bad girl", oversexed, little in the way of characterization, even less in the way of clothing. Believe me when I tell you the costumes get more and more stripperific.  Use cases in point like Witchblade, Lady Death, Psylocke and well...you can see the point. Why would a woman or girl find exhibit A heroic in the slightest? Many a new reader looking at superhero comics assumes that all women have the most common superpower.

Proving It.- Talking Race and all the other Isms

A casual glance around the interweb over the past few days has evidinced a staggering ammount of oblivious privlidge regarding race, gender, sexual orientation and all the lovely ways people who happen to have the outsider status (or "less desirable" status) are told these statuses REALLY matter in that society is structured to treat you differently based on it. Except when it makes the dominant culture feel or look bad... then the onus of responsibilty for all them "differences"? They're all a fabrication of reality you'll have to provide evidence for.

Southerneese- Mean "Girls", and Other Political Class Acts

Nikki Haley Gets Busted on Lavish Vaca, Calls the Reporter a 'Little Girl' | Crooks and Liars:

'via Blog this'

This. This is classic southern dismissiveness at its finest. Not only did Haley manage to get in a "Bless Her Heart"- Southerneese for "You poor, pitiful diluted individual- you're so far beneath me I have to squint to see." in the soundbyte, she then goes on to dismiss the character and professionalism of the young but likely accurate journalist instead of refuting the allegations. Meh. The hubris is staggering. Welcome to dixie, ya'll.

Disposable Boys: Masculinity Culture, Homophobia and Infanticide

While some of us have been trying in vain to ignore the Casey Anthony case (and the Nancy Grace-like histrionics and fundamentalism that seems inextricably interwoven with it) the world has gone on spinning.

It ought to be a relief people aren't seriously tried in Grace et al's court of public opinion, because this version of justice seems based on gut reactions, and sentimental plays to emotion; things that ought to never replace empirical proof and credible testimony. We'll just forgo such complicated things as facts provided our biased opinions "tell us" how to feel. I'm just glad the case is over so America can collectively put its attention to the other cases of infanticide that occur. Or, America's Next Top Model, depending...

More to the point, what annoys me about the Casey Anthony media circus is that in an expanded context, we could harness all this pearl clutching vigor over the injustice and apply it to the numerous cases that mirror it involving caregivers and the violent deaths of their charges. A well crafted article from the Huffington Post's Michael Rowe frames this nicely:

A nominally civilized society such as ours can only recoil in horror at any news of a child's death at the abusive hands of an adult. Infanticide is the ultimate forfeiture of our humanity, rightly seen as a perversion of the very essence of the natural order and the circle of life. The act is a declaration of such abject monstrosity that is very nearly beyond forgiveness. But it happens every day, and we guiltily avert our eyes to these stories when we read them because, on some level, we realize that the children could easily be our own and the pain is too much to bear. In 2008, in the U.S. alone, the Department of Health and Human Services reported 772,000 cases of child abuse, resulting 1,740 fatalities--a sharp rise from 1,330 in 2000.

So, problematically, this sort of horror is visited upon children more often than we're discussing here. And while we were painting our protest signs over the Anthony case, another case caught my eye.

One of the most horrific cases of infanticide I've ever seen came out of Durham, NC this week, and one would think people would be aghast collectively, as this on paper has all the earmarks of a high profile Nancy Grace-case. All the bells and whistles are present really- cult like groupthink, conspiracy to cover up the crime, coldblooded rationalization/motive for shooting a 4 year old point blank in the head. Ultimately, a gruesome crime of this nature should have the sort who were gravely preoccupied with the Anthony case holding prayer rallies...with the exception of some key variables...

Americans seem to feel much less "concerned" about boys who fail to convincingly "man up" and meet with harsh consequences, than we do about calculating mothers (especially so if the victim is non-white and working class).

Out of Durham, NC this week as per the DallasVoice, 4 year old Jaden Higganbothan was shot point blank in the head on the off off chance he might be gay:

According to information presented in court by prosecutors on Friday, July 8, Moses lived in a house in Durham with several women and their children — most of whom were fathered by Moses. But 4-year-old Jaden Higganbothan had a different father, who had left his mother, Vania Higganbothan Sisk, 25. Because Jaden’s father had left his mother and because Jaden hit one of the other children on the rear a couple of times, Moses decided the boy was gay and that they needed to get rid of him. In fact, prosecutors say, Moses had already told Sisk to get rid of Jaden at least once.

And "get rid" of Jaden they did, like so much refuse. While every bit of this case reads like the most calloused of crime fiction, one of the many disconcerting things about this case is the overarching trend at play here as it coheres with gender and (perceived) sexuality. Of parents and authority figures acting with violence towards little boys (toddlers) in the hopes they "man up", stop emoting, and by way of operant conditioning learn to stop being exactly what they are at 3 and 4 (infants) and start behaving like "men".

Many of my recent entries have touched on the cultural disconnect we have about gender and sexuality, be it our obsession with pre-adolescent gender roles and their (tenuous) connection to adult sexual orientation, or the extremes to which we go rigidly reinforce culturally specific gender socialization.

The truth here becomes harder and harder to ignore, when we enforce gender expectations to such a brutal degree before children are old enough to bare the weight, we can do irreversible psychological damage. When we over-emphasize the presumed importance of expressing particular gender behaviors, and therefore devalue any other sort of behavior (i.e- all boys must like/play sports or they're unmasculine) we create standards that can put those that don't (yet) conform at considerable risk.

The trend repeats itself, and makes national headlines decidedly less rarely than when a boy wears pink nailpolish and we contemplate how the "mother is making him or her gay". When children don't convince their parents in a credible way that they're being gender socialized apropriately, the consequences can, as seen in the recent tragedy in Durham, and a similar one that occured a year prior in NY where a man beat his girlfriend's 17 month old for not "acting manly"....whatever that means under the circumstances of infancy.

The earlier referenced Micheal Rowe article touches on this:

But there is an added and significant dimension to the tragedy. The reason given for the beating is that, even at 17 months, the toddler was perceived by his killer to be effeminate. Madhouse logic indeed, but to Pedro Jones there was a way that little boys should act and a way little girls should act.

While Jones is a tragic example of the paradigm taken to deadly lengths, society's discomfort with gender variance permeates nearly every part of the national dialogue and runs through every part of the culture.

And all of this rings truer and truer still in the few widely publicized cases involving sexual orientation and youth culture. Look at the Lawrence King trial, and some of the (appalling) "gay panic" justifications that stemmed from it. Look at Tracy Morgan's profoundly ignorant rant. We live in a society that passively condones violence against boys when they seem like they could be "gay". Then we wring our hands (some of us) and feel just awful about bullying gay kids after they've jumped off a bridge, or have been shot twice execution style in the head, or 17 month old boys have been beaten to death for "acting girly". Education and consistent dialogues on how damaging these fabricated standards we've pushed on children regarding gender are of extreme importance to countering the barbarism and ignorance that bring about the senseless loss of life associated with the above cases. Its imperative we get beyond such colossal stupidity as a culture given that the consequences are so unthinkably tragic. And while its good to see people collectively feeling anything resembling human emotions these days...it would be nice to see rational thought and compassion prevail over the regressive bible thumping of our archaic pasts.

Now hear this: Music to shake your fist to:

Gender Bombs: Sissy Boys and Security Threats

Box Turtle Bulletin » What Are Little Boys Made Of?

Above is some of the most impressive blog journalism I've ever seen related to a given piece.

Anderson Cooper has of late been making the rounds with a story, which by all accounts is a gripping, soul searing testament of how completely the idea of gender and its slightly murkier links to perceived sexual orientation can belabor and ruin the already arduous process that is coming of age. The Cooper story was broken initially by Box Turtle Bulletin, and in tandem both prove to be some amazing, damning evidence against homosexual "deprogramming" touted among the Christian Conservative set.

Every semester to date, when discussing the gender and sexuality chapters of Intro to Sociology, the topic without question veers to the very dicey topic of gender expression. "My four year old nephew likes the color pink...should I be worried?" "I once saw my son playing with his sister's doll, does that mean anything?" It feels as though every month or so we have a histrionic "gay panic" about some parent somewhere "making their 5 year old gay" by "allowing" their child to paint their toenails pink or play dress up, or wear a costume for Halloween.

What follows is usually a fairly profound unpacking of our societal misconceptions about gender and how it relates (or does not) to sexual orientation, and more importantly how socially constructed a given cultures ideas of masculinity and femininity are.

We live in a culture, post cold war conformity, that is still suffering from the hangovers of rigid gender expectation. All boys should like color X (or else something MAY be wrong with them), all girls should like the color Y (or something might be wrong with them). That something, post-McCarthyism was always the idea that gender non-conformity of any sort, the slightest "deviation" meant that your son might be a "sissy boy", much the way homosexuality was linked to such extreme deviance during the period that it was considered a national security risk to have any real or presumed homosexuals employed in a federal capacity. Being gay or even considered gay was so subversive that it was considered a danger to the very American way of life. Those ideas were popularized roughly a generation ago during a time of extreme social conformity, so it should come as no surprise that the original gay panic defense still has lingering implications as many years later.

What is problematic about this misconception is that one's sexuality, even when we're in our most formative years, learning the very socialized aspects of gender expectation- girls have long hair, wear dresses, pet kitties and play with dollies. Boys are "snakes and snails and puppy dogs tails", yadda yadda yadda. And what that fails to indicate, or even adequately express is the idea that sexuality and attraction are phenomena that exist outside of our gender identity/socialization.

As per the experiment referenced in both the Anderson Cooper and Box Turtle Bulletin links, there are several boys who conform to "appropriate" gender roles and still have same sex attractions, plenty of rugged military personnel that just so happen to like dudes. Sexuality does not perfectly dovetail with gender role behavior. If anything, what is evidenced by the extremely horrific results of the "sissy boy experiment" the infamous "ex-gay" reparative therapy guru George Reukers is that when we attach such caustic controls and expectations (i.e- conflating sexual orientation to gender behavior of a five year old) more damage can be done than good. Its utterly heartwrenching, the sort of hurt and trauma this experiment has caused the family the articles and expose touch on. And utterly criminal how people like the junk psychologist/therapist interviewed therein are allowed to further the falsehood that same sex attractions are something that can or should be essentially reprogrammed at God(tm)'s say so. The damage this does to the psyches of young people, living in fear of rejection and shunning based on whether or not their presentation of a given role is "convincing" (and not necessarily on their actual sexualities) is exponential in magnitude.

EDIT: Having just found this rather succinct meme from the APA on NARTH and the Focus on the Family fundies that perpetuate the ex-gay myth, I think the defense can rest safely enough.

The Lavender Scare Staggers On.

AMERICAblog Gay: ACLU: Obama DOJ equates gay servicemembers with drug addicts, alcoholics and those who are threat to nat’l security

Well, there's no positive way to spin this particular story, so I'll dispense with the pretense. The Obama administration is continuing a practice that flagrantly reinforces the idea that gay servicesmembers < straight servicemembers. So much so, that the DOD is furthering the oldest in the Cold War Era political assertions about homosexuality.

The gay as the national security risk.

Thats right. Tired, ill informed 1940s ideology about sexual orientation is still being used to make policy decisions. What we have here is servicemembers discharged under DADT suing for equal separation pay as their "counterparts" and the DOD insisting that the motivations for such discharges stand and ought to be valid. (As far as my legalese can intuit. Your mileage may vary)

AmericaBlog's John Aravosis and ACLU staff attorneys interpet it thusly:

The government’s decision to contest these claims is baffling. These honorably discharged veterans were forced out of the military under the unconstitutional and discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, which is in the process of being repealed. All that these veterans are asking for is to receive the same separation pay that any other honorably discharged veteran would have received.It is outrageous to equate these service members with those who were discharged for threats to national security and drug abuse. The government’s treatment of these veterans is shameful and adds insult to injury.”

So here we have the DOD who is in some cases (with its interests in the gradually repealed DADT) backtracking and defending bits of policy established in the Armed Forces interestes in perpetuating the same "security test" lunacy that led to the witchhunts that fired scores of government employees on the off off posibility they were homosexuals. The Lavender Scare-Its a topic I found fascinatingly galling back in grad school considering the timeframe it took to even begin discussing gay rights equality on the public level...but this approach is altogether staggering in its regressiveness.

EDIT: A follow up report by John Aravosis on the topic.

The Case of the Vanishing Secretary of State

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/hillary-clinton-der-tzitung-removed-situation-room_n_859254.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl2|sec1_lnk3|61653

It says an incredible lot about where certain sub-sets of society are regarding gender and equality that they'd go to such great lengths to distort and misrepresent a photo just to validate their misogynistic worldview.

A Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper removed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and another woman from the now-iconic photo of the Obama national security team watching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden from the White House Situation Room.

The original photo, taken as the raid was occurring, famously shows Clinton in the center of the room, with her hand over her mouth. But the newspaper Der Tzitung, described by the Jewish Week as "ultra-Orthodox," has a policy of never printing photos of women in its pages because it thinks they could be sexually suggestive. Thus, Clinton and counterterrorism director Audrey Tomason, who was seen standing at the back of the room, were removed from the picture.

The blogger Failed Messiah was the first to notice the Photoshopping.

Are some groups so challenged by the idea of women in key power positions in the West that they have to go to such great lengths to not offend their delicate sensibilities? It indicates some problematic variations in where some of us stand regarding women and power.

And in a nod in the opposite direction, the actual displaying of powerful women kicking ass, we get some Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the killer track "Zero"

In Which We Actually Have to Discuss "Reality Television"...

I would have liked to go my entire adult life without having to stoop to discuss "reality" television in any real seriousness. Class this morning focused on gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and ...almost the moment I started breaking down the variations in sexual orientation a woman raised her hand and made a long commentary about the "Real World".

I was more than a little aware of the story. It's been pretty well covered by gay-friendly entertainment blogs. (Heck, if we're to be honest, I used to have a subscription to the site he was on when I was in college...yes, I've seen the person in question naked in real time) If ever a story showcased both the casual affirmation of Kinsey 3's and 4's behaviorally, and the rigidity of the operationalization of sexual identity its this one.

Here's how sexual identity and societal expectations regarding both gender and sexuality can differ drastically. Dustin Zito is young, and apparently identifies as straight. At some point in his recent past, he did some modeling for FratMen- a site that cherry picks young, brawny "All-American*" college aged men to leer and pose suggestively and exude virility and hyper-masculinity (otherwise known as pseudo-"heterosexuality") while at the same time winking and posing for the objectifying gay male gaze at a rather expensive membership charge.

(*read-ambiguously European/"White"-a definite conversation for another post) Essentially, to pander to the archetypal fratboy motif.

This eventually morphed into a webcam centric website where scores of the guys would move to a building and basically fulfill vaugely homo erotic fantasies for the viewership- the lionshare of whom were likely male and identify as gay-which proved to be very marketable despite its softcore tease approach and the coyness with which all of its "actors" presented their sexualities. The professed sexual identities of the participants ranged from the staunchly heterosexual whilst playing around with a more mailable "boys will be boys" wink and flex. And its much this way with the sexual identities of "gay for pay" sex workers; many of whom identify as heterosexual in their personal lives whilst being behaviorally "gay" in their semi-professional one. Its a particularly old story when it comes to profitability and porn, but it speaks a great deal to the variation that exists within ranges of sexual behavior and the operational definitions that we so imperfectly use to define them. This all dovetails nicely with the now timeless Kinsey research, as most people tend to fall in the central limit of the bell curve distribution regarding their sexual reality and merely conform to the social expectations about the sexual identity they've adopted beyond that. In other words, what people do when it comes to sexual experiences and attractions and what people SAY they do, vary wildly. This is rooted in stigma and the archly homophobic social controls that sanction even the merest indication of same sex attraction, but the effects provide a profound and troubling distortion in cultural behavior and identity.

Cut to now, while the Real World, the "reality" show that started it all, indelicately stumbles its way through this incredibly complex social issue. It doesn't help that, Zito, perhaps as uncomfortable with his understanding of his own sexual identity, internalizes and displays when confronted about the prospect of having an openly gay roommate on camera open and abject homophobia. Those of us who were both familiar with the "character" Zito was during his time with Fratpad and the "role" he's taken on while on the Real World were somewhat expectant of a "bisexual horror show". The anxiety and societal discomfort brought to bare on men who express the merest deviation from the presumption of masculinity can be searing in its intensity, but for a man who identifies as straight to admit to having had sexual contact with other men- for money- and then to present himself as heterosexual in our society a difficult pill to swallow.

In my experience, both sides of the Kinsey curve seem to reject the notion that bisexuals exist in earnest, or more aptly that people transition from attraction and relationships both of a sexual and an interpersonal nature from one gender to the other. So much so, that our culture tends to force the duality of adult sexuality as though its inherently inflexible. The lines in the sand are so fixed and associated so rigidly so early that we clutch our pearls when boys aged 5 paint their toenails pink. A lot of this is, as I've alluded to in other posts on the subject, rooted in the cold war propaganda wars that reinforced such hyper-conformity. The result on the individual is the sort of ineternalized self loathing, externalized homophobia and general purpose repression and denial so oddly showcased here. Zito confessed before others "outted" him that he was uncomfortable around gay people and alluded to them being predatory.

The result on the other "castmembers" seems to be outright and blatant homophobia. The girl he was seeing feels "betrayed" and questions whether she should be tested. The rest of the cast seems oddly insistant that his omissions are more damaging and egregious than they are. If we removed the specter of homosexual sex from this senario, would Zito suffer any stigma for incidental sex on camera for money? Likely not enough for people to feel "betrayed" by his not telling them sooner.

More amusingly, I don't find much difference in the "whoring" any of he and his fellow cast mates are doing on the Real World: Las Vegas compared to what he was doing..."showcasing" himself in underwear in a different house in LA. Both cases involve opportunistic, attention seekers looking for their next big break. And while the Real World cast seemed scandalized about the prospect of male/male sex, the next week's preview was all about two hawt girls making out. Ahhh, the mind boggles.

On a less bizarro-land note: Ra Ra Riot's newest album "the Orchard" is to die for. That is all.

The "Problem" With Pink.

inspired by: Joe. My. God.: J. Crew Ad Draws Wingnut Fire

I can't count the ways this is an overreaction. But perhaps its a worthwhile exercise in gender to try:

Much the way a 5 year old playing "Daphne dress up" on Halloween is no indication of a person's sexuality later on, painting a boy's toenails is not an automatic correlation with "the Gay". These are children. Gender roles, while powerful, are the first lessons many in a society learn...and every child experiments with the concepts as they are socialized into them. Many play, house and engage in role taking, emulate what they presume their parents roles to be etc. The "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" biological deterministic explanation for behavior is so grossly overestimated that its incredibly difficult for most people to tell where "Nature" begins and where social expectations/prescription ends. Hair length, apropriate style and length of clothing, norms associated with one gender or the other... socially perscribed and variable cross-culturally. If gender roles and behavior were fixed and inflexible (and if they were purely biological hardwiring) they'd be constant over human history. Our ideas on gender and gender identity vary from culture to culture and are incredibly subjective. Nail polish and the liking of a particular color has little bearing on a person's identity until society makes it so. The rabid associations being made in the media, and in the rest of society about boys and masculinity does a great to shape (and punish) "deviant" behavior and perpetuate homophobia. The vigor with which many seem to react to gender deviance underscores how pervasive adhering to gender roles are in our dear patriarchy. Boys doing anything remotely percieved as feminine is considered a loss of power. And given how much emphasis we attach to masculinity in our culture, its almost incomprehensible that any boy would want to "give up" his power...so it becomes something that is done to him, or something his mother is responsible for in some Oedipal assumption...our society clings so strongly to gender typing that it finds this MINOR deviation at the age of five enough of a white knuckle panic attack that it launches a quick and decisive counterattack. On a 5 year old... clearly everyone's lost their minds.

This sort of histrionic terror of "feminization of boys" is rooted in Cold War Lavender scare propaganda and the people (over)reacting to this? Sad hangovers from this rigid socialization. Gender roles are very much just that. Which means they're negotiable and culturally defined. Not every boy has to play with guns and despise pink to identify as masculine. Its safe to come out of those bomb shelters and unclench already. There really are bigger problems in the world than a boy with pink nailpolish. What with the still record high unemployment rates, and this budget everyone seems quite content to feud over, you'd think we could find more important things to concern ourselves with collectively. Funny thing, those priorities.

UPDATE: Given the extreme importance of...everybody chiming in on how a mother raises her 5 year old. The View, and the perpetually clever Jon Stewart add their 22 cents.

• TOEMAGEDDON 2011- This Little Piggy Went to HELLLLLL
• The View on "Pink Polish"

Pilot Speed- Melt Into Walls

The Cloture: DADT, Social Conservatism and Civil Rights

Joe. My. God.: DADT Cloture Passes Senate 63-33!!!

This is pretty remarkable news, and I admit I was somewhat cynical that- given all the posturing and heel dragging of the likes of McCain and the naysay set- that the vote to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would come to pass anytime soon. I was hopeful, as institutional discrimination is a disgusting affront to what we're all supposed to hold dear as American citizens...but admittedly there seems to be the typical reaction of social conservatives to find less than clever rationalizations for maintaining a very biased status quo. Ever fueling the social closure hypothesis. I find myself wondering now, if in our recent histories, segregationists felt similarly in the face of imminent (and ethical) striking down of Jim Crow. Did the Jesse Helms shrug and retire to his library to brood? Did political lobbying groups threaten those in office that endorsed or propagated these social changes the way the Family Research Council has? Vow revenge and shake their fists in a disturbingly undignified fashion, claiming that Senators should and will be “held accountable”. I’ve never heard language from the Left that even approaches this sort of paternalistic condescension.

My question becomes, “Did segregationists vow revenge and go out of their way to punish those responsible for what they considered the ‘end of the world’?” Likely, but I haven’t pierced that proverbial veil enough to say outright. I find the language and tactics of these far right groups increasingly erratic and problematically aggressive, and their ability to project any pretense of civility towards the groups they actively seek to disenfranchise (i.e- the gay minority in this instance) rapidly evaporating. The “love the sinner, hate the sin” meme is greatly disingenuous as a lot of the rhetoric about homosexuality being a “perverse pathology that ought to be criminalized ” etc that doesn’t pass many, if any litmus tests of ethical consistency. The very reason several of these groups go from being covertly bigoted (which is still concerning, but a person’s belief system even when based on consistent falsehood and fabrication is still their own) to groups on the SPLC’s hate list is because they willfully push forward these fabrications and demonizing rhetoric as though it were true for the whole group. Evangelical Bryan Fisher seems convinced (based on flimsy logic, to put it nicely) that all gay men are pedophiles, in fact, he seems obsessed with the notion and publishes information to this effect constantly.(RightWing Watch has an amusing write up involving Fischer,here ) Anything to advance the glaring misconception that gay people, like black people, like Jews and agnostics are somehow less than and deserve nothing short of differential treatment for not adhering to the expected behavior set of the dominant group.

In the case of DADT it means that it is not only rational as far as the religious conservative is concerned, as gay men are mentally ill perverts who are likely to molest their fellows while they sleep, to hunt down otherwise functional and effective personnel for what they might do in their personal lives, rummage through their things and fire them for whom they happen to love or like, it’s a duty of any God fearing Christian to purge the sinners from their midst. This, in a time when the American military is involved in two wars and military retention is low. It reminds me of an excellent book I read about the McCarthy era called the Lavender Scare, which examined one of the most effective expulsions of gay (or perceived to be gay) employees from State and Federal employment in the nation’s capital and more importantly the socio-cultural mindsets behind them. Much of the ideology that advanced the firing of thousands of possibly gay employees exists part and parcel in DADT. A lot of this comes from the outdated concept that a.) ones sexual orientation, provided it is not heterosexual is something that should at all costs remain hidden, and therefore such an intense secret would be a “national security risk” if enemies discovered it. b.) the myth that being gay is a “lifestyle choice” that gay persons seek to spread to others. The American Psychological Association in its infancy bares some responsibility for furthering the social concept that homosexuality = mental illness, but has since been consistent in debunking this. Much like eugenics, and other pseudo-scientific attempts to justify bigotry in the early 1900s, the lion share of these ideas just do not hold up against scientific research. That said, its almost unthinkable for any fair minded American to put forth their own prejudices and expect them to dictate governmental policy (With the exception of anti-immigration law and, Islamaphobia…on second thought…I take that back.). My personal distaste for persons who wear too much perfume is a personal bias, should I win election and ban perfume in public places, it becomes institutional discrimination. We’ve established that much of the animus towards gay soldiers is based on irrational fears generated by the Cold War era and perpetuated over and over by social conservatives and those who have not given the issue any rigorous empirical consideration. No one is suggesting that one has to alter one’s belief system to serve in the military, but to suggest that one must be thrown out of service for belonging to any particular status in their private lives is the antithesis of American ideology. Fairness dictates that we do not institutionally enshrine bigotry in any form into law and it is with incredible, profound pleasure that I see our society coming to a point where this fairness is becoming more universally applicable. This is another step in the moving, noble journey towards human decency on the whole and I for one am quite pleased to be witnessing history unfold before us.

Bare in mind that the Cloture vote passing means that no more debate on the topic need be heard and that the actual vote can go forward. Our political system works in, at times, confounding ways, but the future of DADT should be decided by the end of the day. Hope springs eternal.

EDIT: As of today, the policy Dont Ask Don't Tell, which compells the military to discharge military personnel it discovers is gay is no longer the rule of law. You've just witnessed civil rights history folks. This was the doing of several brave and tireless activists and soldiers themselves (Lt. Dan Choi for example has worked fiercely and outspokenly with this end in mind and deserves credit for his determination), honorable politicians and the changing winds of American cultural reality. Its also important to note that President Obama and the political climate at present has a lot to do with this victory (as few GOP Senators voted in favor of the repeal and fewer still can discuss gay persons without the loaded rhetoric we've discussed above). This is a profound moment in which we break with antiquated notions of difference and condemnation and start acting as though egalitarian ideals actually mean more than the lipservice so often given. Its a good day for liberty.

Graeme Taylor: This is the Face of Modern Day Heroism.

Graeme Taylor: Role Model, Hero and Everyday Teen - Tonic

I do not begrudge the modern teen in any way, shape, or form. Not only do they have to endure the universal angst and tribulation of puberty in a world that seems to be on perpetual fastforward, but they have to do so while facebooking, updating their twitter pages and operating in an increasingly image conscious, self-obsessed environments. My niece, bless her, stays wired to either her DS, the Television, one of our borrowed laptops, or honing her infuriating Hannah Montana inspired sense of sarcasm-despite the fact that she has no idea what it is... (seriously, you should see her, everything is punctuated by an eyeroll.) Given how much press has been given to how self absorbed and antagonistic we’re being told the modern American tween is, I’m finding myself increasingly astounded by the poise, polish and remarkable self awareness of this little guy. He came upon the quasi-public radar thusly:

On Oct. 20, National Bullying Day, economics teacher Jay McDowell of Michigan's Howell High School was wearing a purple shirt to show his support. He noticed a student wearing a Confederate flag belt buckle and asked him to remove it. The student probed McDowell about what the difference was between a Confederate flag and the rainbow flag, the unity symbol for the gay community. McDowell tried to explain the difference, to which the student responded, "I don't accept gays. It's against my religion," according to On Top magazine.

McDowell suspended the student for one day. The school board, in turn, suspended McDowell (without pay) for violating the student's First Amendment rights and for wearing a "controversial" purple shirt. When school officials had a board meeting to discuss the issue, Taylor, from neighboring Ann Arbor, went to speak up on behalf of the teacher.

I had the privilege of watching Young Mr. Taylor speak (via the power of the interwebs) at this school board meeting on behalf of this teacher and will without hesitation say that the demeanor and eloquence of this youngster is, after years of public speaking by way of a pseudo-occupational hazard, far surpassed anything I could compare to at his age. The post has since been removed (Copyright infringement allegedly, I’m dubious however) but the content was what was so amazing. I’m actually quite curious about the outcome, the cause of young Graeme’s speech. It would be a loss if more contentious, well intentioned teachers are jettisoned (especially given how awful the need for teachers are in this economy) merely because they opt to try to do something “controversial” like confronting the growing social issue of bullying in schools. Just as Young Mr. Taylor felt it was right to speak on behalf of those of us keen to do the right thing in the face of conventional “propriety”, I believe its entirely necessary to do the same for the both of them. So rarely in life do we have people willing to step outside of themselves and their personal gain on behalf of others. Rarer still is the 14 year old that pries him or herself from his iPhone long enough to speak on behalf of someone they felt was doing the ethical and just thing. (For him to so aptly invoked Martin Luther King Jr and make a sweeping plea for any and all to denounce homophobic bullying? Above and beyond the call of brilliance) In this boy I see the courage and cleverness so many closet cases and apathetic self servers lack in spades. I see the future, and perhaps all of that poppycock about “it getting better” seems grounded in reality after all… perhaps there’s hope for the world yet.

Update: Young Mssr Graeme was on Ellen today and was awarded a scholarship for his ethicality and courage. Here's to positive reinforcement, feeling a little better about the universe now.

Malbec-America (heavy hearted, beautifully delivered)

Perkins "Explains" Gay Teen Suicides : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/11/perkins_explains_gay_teen_suic.php

"These young people who identify as gay or lesbian, we know from the
social science that they have a higher propensity to depression or suicide
because of that internal conflict," he says.

Homosexuality is
"abnormal," he says, and kids know it, which leads them to despair.

Its such a convenient, utterly despicable argument that it almost is beneath my dignity to discuss outright. Except that Perkins and his ilk have been working overtime the past several weeks to counter the idea that LGBT young adults and teenagers are in any way deserving of human decency for their so called “lifestyle choice”.

Nevermind that there are in fact very real correlations between suicide rates, depression and LBGT youth, but what Perkins willfully ignores in the above is that one of the reasons driving the problematic trend is the consistent fact that he and other evangelicals and social conservatives are ardently, and bitterly reinforcing the fact that gay kids are vile, evil abominations that do not in fact deserve to live. That they’re somehow pushing “an agenda” for wanting to live an unrepressed life. Or hell, according to recent polls out of Texas, that they may be inadvertently responsible for the freaking apocalypse just by proxy of existing. Perkins blithely goes about insisting that these “lifestyle choices” are monstrous and ungodly, is allowed to press this issue in “objective” news sources from the Washington Post to NPR, and has the gall to pretend to lament the loss of life when he’s perpetuating the conditions responsible for the “despair” these gay (or perceived as such an therefore persecuted) students face. Its like saying that a given racial or ethnic minority experiences depression at a higher frequency and then ignoring the socio-environmental factors like prejudice and discrimination that in many cases are socially created and culturally reinforced in our society that causes it. Its almost an insult to one’s intelligence to present this ruse of “compassion” when shunning, scorn and victim blaming are the very aims of the organizations Perkins helms and the movement he leads.

When otherwise “normal” children feel justified in taking this embedded message out in society about homosexuality being abhorrent and justifiable to persecute against, and thus become gatekeepers of so called morality, the results can be grim as we’ve learned recently. But make no mistake, we do not learn messages about stigmas and negative statuses in a vacuum. If status Y is somehow tainted, and vile and worthy of scorn, it is in every way because of the values attached to it by the societies we inhabit. LGBT youths can’t feel “despair” about their sexual identities without Perkins’ thinly veiled code about their sin, and the bully pulpit demagoguery others backing this anti-gay rhetoric have been pressing so consistently since the Cold War Era. One can point to studies about depression and suicide amongst gay teens and see a valid correlation, but one cannot remove the idea that social factors that drive those trends have much to do with the open hostility created by Perkins himself.

Stripperiffic.

T-minus two days until costume party hijinks are to ensue...and I find myself still having persistent costume anxiety. I made the case for the angst that the lack of african-american superheroes and video game characters has caused my meager options...but after looking around the interweb and some costume shops at sexed up costumes the average woman is supposed to wear, I'm going to stop complaining.


http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/10/21/sexy-superhero-costumes-halloween/

In a world where most legitimate female superheroes are gender analogues of pre-existing male characters (which makes an interesting statement about the patriarchy in itself), and with the exception of Wonder Woman, many of the heroines of the X-Men, and the Invisible Woman (formerly the passive Invisible Girl whose power was to ...literally and metaphorically turn invisible) its only slightly annoying that so many costumes for women and girls are simply those male costumes in a mini-skirt and their tits out. Case in point: I've always been slightly amused at the sudden existence and popularity of jailbait Wolverine clone (literally) X-23. You know why X-23's so popular? Because it gives all the het-dudes who have jones for wolverine an underage, fetish gear wearing female to project that onto.

There are points where playing up sex appeal is entirely appropriate, but simply slashing parts of a costume, slapping on a skirt and high boots and glitter isn't as much about the costume as it is about the sexualization of the woman wearing it.


A lot of my friends who are women enjoy the gore of Halloween more than my male friends. Dressing up as puss oozing zombie people, sans-sexualization, is often their angle during Halloween, but when every other woman is a "sassy nun", or a "sexy bee" or... Sarah Palin, its conspicuous to be the woman in the giant furry costume, or the flesh eating zombie dripping blood. You can glance through a costume catalogue and glean a lot about gender expectations in our society. Male costumes paying homage to a particular character or person are a straight interpretation of said character whereas the female costume is not as much a feminization as it is a sexualization of the same costume.

One of the best aspects of Halloween (from someone who has always been somewhat leery of the holiday) is the irreverence, the subversion of "normal" societal expectations, and the ability-for just a night or a weekend- to turn convention on its ear. This assumption of mine seems to fail when we look at the staunch differences in presentation and expectation about gender in Halloween costumes. Whats the message when your 15 year old niece has being a "sexy bee" to look forward to, while her brother gets to actually BE a bumblebee. I'm dubious about whether or not focusing on the sexed up aspects of womanhood for even the most benign costumes is justified or even relevant. If a person wants to parade about in a corset for Halloween for the sake of it, it seems the spirit of the time...but to have the dearth of costumes aimed at women be these hypersexualized deviations of male costumes sends a very different, and not altogether encouraging message about gender differences when it comes to presentation. And as much as I like Sesame Street..."Sassy Elmo" makes me want to bang my head against the nearest wall repeatedly...


And now? Super sweet clips from my new favorite band Geographer, a lovely, lilting "Original Sin", and a poppy-yet melancholy number from Prozakk below. Dig it.