On October 11, 2009 I went to Washington DC for the National Equality March Rally with David b and Brian G from TheOccasionalFag.com.
equalityacrossamerica.org
Soundtrack
Fragile Day by A Northern Chorus
This Is Modern Love by Bloc Party
Part of the PodsafeMusicNetwork.com
Blowin’ In The Wind by Jay Brannan
Lady Gaga
Cynthia Nixon
Judy Shepard
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The Government must keep the status-quo in order to retain key seats in Parliament.
This is one of the underlying factors in the heads of Government, regarding its stance on the debate. Again I evidence the idea that 60% of the population in support of gay marriage, with figures even higher in the youth of the nation. This continued stance is an insult to the ideals of democracy as the Australian public. The country is not ruled through communism, nor through any aspect of fascism, yet it would appear that elements are applicable in this case. The fact is, that this Australian Government is deaf to the pleas of the majority of the population, which directly contravenes the right of the tax paying population to be heard by their leaders. We do not live in a fascist country, but in regards to this issue, it appears that there is a sense of democratic dictatorship in the air. This merely evidences the idea that the Government must keep a somewhat conservative stance in order to retain funding from sponsors and large business. Yet whilst the country is based on the notions of capitalism, let it not rule in the political spectrum.
Those arguments aside, returning to the notion of discrimination and homophobia, the destruction of the model of the nuclear family is essential in the stamping out of discrimination. Society should not cater to the idea of a mother, father and 2.3 children as the set model for family. Through this incremental desensitisation to homosexuals in society, can there finally a deeper level of humanity evident within our society. The first step is basic human rights, the second civil unions, the third, marriage, the fourth, adoption (an issue I will delve into later). But the Australian Government must realise that it is ignoring the ideals evident within the majority of society. As the people of the nation where a “fair go,” is core to our collective psyche, will not stand to be ignored.
"Kelsie’s heart was racing, head was racing with the feeling coursing through her body."
“Now arch your back towards the ceiling as you exhale. Relax the neck, letting your head drift downwards.”
Cat pose, Kelsie thought. Her hands and knees pressed gently into her purple yoga mat as she dutifully raised her head towards the ceiling with her next breath, rotating her hips and bending her graceful belly towards the floor. Cow pose.
Greg the yoga instructor walked barefoot among the 12 mats in the small studio, now warm with the exertions of his students. “Now let’s push back into child’s pose and rest.” Kelsie could see his shoulder-length dark hair come to touch his shoulders and loose tank-top shirt as he bent forward to help a student settle into the resting pose. After almost a year of his beginner’s level classes, Kelsie didn’t need to look up to locate him in the dimly lit studio. She could place him by the soft pad of his feet on the wood floor, or the slow exhale of a student whom he had helped fall deeper into a pose. “Now, when you feel ready, slowly roll your body up to a seated position. Hands together in front of your chest.”
Kelsie, now seated like the rest of the class to face Greg, pressed her palms together between her breasts, as if to pray. “Namaste,” said Greg. The class responded in kind.
The students began their usual sleepy slow chatter after class as they left in ones and twos. Kelsie lingered behind, taking more than necessary time to roll up her mat. As the second-to-last student walked out of the studio door, Greg collected the remaining straps and foam blocks. “How did you enjoy today’s class, Kelsie?” he asked, bending to pick up a block.
“It was wonderful, Greg. Very relaxing.” She swung her mat bag over her shoulder neatly. Her long brown hair was swept back into a similarly neat pony-tail. Her pale gold yoga tank matched her beige stretch yoga pants and made her deeply green eyes more dramatic. Though her features and grace conspired to beauty, Kelsie’s modesty and quiet demeanor caused most men to balk and seek easier prey. In her 28 years there had been one or two serious lovers, but their earnestness had faded. “But Greg,” but how do I say this? “I’ve been coming to your class for a while, and I feel I have…progressed…”
“You feel as though you aren’t being challenged?” Greg stood up, finishing her thought.
She checked his face for signs that he had taken offence. There were none in that shy smile. He had replaced his thick-rimmed, squarish eyeglasses and pulled his hair back into a short pony-tail. He really is quite attractive. “I guess that’s it. I don’t want to change classes or anything.” Her plump lips pressed together slightly. I just know there’s something more I’m missing.
“I think I know what you mean,” said Greg. “I can see it in your body. You need something more than my class can give you.” He slipped his muscled arm around her shoulder as they walked out together. “I went through the same stage before I decided to become a certified instructor.” Kelsie helpfully turned out the studio lights, and Greg locked the door behind them. It was nearing dusk as they walked to their parked cars. Kelsie had parked her Mazda next to his Jeep. “Why don’t you give me your email? I think I know someone that can help you.”
She rummaged in the center console of her car for pen and paper. “See you next week,” Greg said when she had given him the slip of paper. He held her hand briefly with both of his before walking around to the driver’s side of his 4×4.
“See you,” Kelsie replied.
On the drive home, Kelsie felt a strange excitement. For what? she wondered. He probably has a girlfriend, and I’ll probably have to leave his class to find what I’m looking for. But what am I looking for? At home she showered, ate a quick Lean Cuisine, checked the news and went to bed.
After a tiresome meeting at work the next afternoon, Kelsie checked her email. She had forgotten that Greg was going to contact her, until she saw the message in her inbox. It was from YogaGreg32:
“Kelsie,
I spent last night thinking about what you said regarding your progress in my class. I took the liberty of setting up a private instruction session with one of my colleagues. Her name is Keiley Raam. She specializes in challenging the body and spirit, and would be happy to guide you. She is in town this Friday, is 6pm at the studio OK?
Kelsie, I hope you will meet with her. I think she can help you. I’ll leave the studio key under the mat.
-Greg”
Kelsie felt a flutter of excitement that Greg had responded to her so quickly. She fantasized briefly that he had stayed up all night, thinking about Kelsie in various yoga positions, her auburn hair flowing down her shoulders. She snapped to herself again. You’re at work! she chided. Save silly thoughts for home. She wrote him a quick reply saying she would be there, Friday at 6pm. A specialist in challenging the body and spirit? The days until then could not come quick enough to sate her curiosity.
After work that Friday, she went home to shower before heading over to the studio, something she had never previously done. Why do I want to shower? she thought. I’m just going to get all sweaty again. She chose for this session a loose-fitting white t-shirt, and the same comfortable beige yoga pants. They fit snugly on her buttocks as she pulled them on. She felt clean. Wonder what this Keiley has in store?
When she arrived at the studio just before six, she could see a dim light through the sheer curtained window whose source was not the usual studio ceiling lights. I guess Keiley wanted to set up before I got here she thought. She walked through the unlocked door of the studio.
The source of the light was eight or nine glowing candles, whose flames illuminated the sultry green smoke from a small incense burner. Keiley Raam was seated on the bare wood floor of the clean studio, eyes closed, hands pressed together between medium breasts. Her eyes opened slowly at the sound of Kelsie entering the room.
“Oh, hi,” Kelsie said nervously. “I’m Kelsie. You must be Keiley. Should I just put my mat down anywhere? Thanks for doing this,” she didn’t know what this was, but it seemed the polite thing to say.
Keiley rose serenely to her feet, and Kelsie got the full visual impact of stunning exotic beauty. Keiley was taller, of slim build, and in the dim light Kelsie could see her jet black hair and supple bronze skin. She was wearing a simple flowing sheer dress, which seemed to simultaneously draw the candlelight to itself while emanating a subtle glow. She’s beautiful Kelsie thought. She felt the moment of hesitation a moth feels before giving in completely to the irresistible brightness of a flickering candle flame.
“It’s so nice to meet you.” Keiley came near to Kelsie and hugged her in greeting, hugged her as a dear friend. Kelsie felt the mounds of her breasts through the sheer of her dress. Her scent was the sweet and tang of the incense, multiplied. “Greg told me about your situation. Please, place your mat there in the middle of the floor.” Kelsie removed her mat and unfurled it. The studio would have felt quite empty, were it not for the comfortable glow of candles, and the present warmth of Keiley. “He told me that your body and spirit are ready for the kind of instruction I provide.”
Kelsie sat down in half-lotus on her mat. Her voice was softer than she had expected when she replied, “Well, I don’t know…exactly what…Greg said you provide private sessions and were in town. He said you would be happy to guide me in my yoga practice.” Keiley sat down in full lotus across from Kelsie. She leaned forward from the hips towards Kelsie, grasped her hands gently.
“Are you open to experiencing new heights of satisfaction?” Keiley whispered.
Kelsie felt the tingling warmth from Keiley’s touch. She thought of Greg’s shy smile, of how it felt for him to lay his hands on her when he helped her discover the depths of a pose, felt the trust that had built between them over the course of a year. “Yes,” she whispered in answer.
“Let’s begin. Lie down on your back,” Keiley said. “Close your eyes. Let your arms and legs relax towards the floor. Allow your breath to become deep and even. Inhale, filling the lungs with breath, and exhale, relaxing the whole body from head to toe.”
Kelsie enjoyed the calm whisper of Keiley’s voice. She enjoyed the deep, regular breathing she was experiencing with Keiley’s instruction. This is wonderful she thought.
“Let’s move into a Sun Salutation now.” Kelsie followed Keiley’s voice as it circled slowly around her, regular as her breathing. The incense wafted in the wake of Keiley’s pale dress as she touched Keiley, adjusting her poses. A soft touch here, gentle pressure there. Kelsey flowed through each pose as fluid as candle wax. “Now come to a standing position, with eyes closed.”
Kelsie felt the presence of Keiley, very close. She kept her eyes closed when she felt Keiley’s finger tips on the thin stripe of exposed flesh between her t-shirt and her yoga pants. Her breath quickened as she felt those fingers slide under the edge of the t-shirt and begin to rise. Her arms rose as Keiley lifted Kelsie’s shirt up and over her head, exposing her bare breasts and pink, rosy nipples.
Kelsie continued to breath deeply with eyes flutteringly closed as Keiley undressed her. She loosened, then finally undid her pony-tail, still moist from the shower. Her damp hair settled around her bare, slowly rising and falling shoulders. Keiley removed her yoga pants, and finally, her panties.
“Continue your rhythmic breathing, deeply inhaling, exhaling completely.” The soft sound of a sheer dress dropping to the floor behind her.
At the shushing sound of silk on silk, Kelsie felt an internal quake. It was as if her spirit had walked out of her body, circled once round the two still, electric forms in the studio, and, having absorbed the essence of sweat and smoke and light, returned to her body. One mental shiver, and she knew that this was what she had been seeking. The practice of yoga made intimate by a physical-spiritual connection. She committed herself to the teaching she would receive. This is my enlightenment.
Keiley led her body through the same sequence of poses as before, the Sun Salutation, Kelsie willingly following the instruction delivered to her by that gentle voice, that soft touch.
“Now exhale, raising your hips to the sky. Deepen your breath in downward dog pose.” Kelsie carefully thrust her buttocks up so that her body made a triangle with the ground. “Feel the warmth of your body travel along your straight back, culminating in your root chakra.” Keiley bent to touch the back of Kelsie’s neck, running her fingers along her back to the base of her spine. Then Keiley moved behind Kelsie, stood behind her and grasped her hips. Kelsie felt her hips and buttocks pulled hard against Keiley’s naked stomach. She tried to focus on her breathing, but she could feel herself open up inside. She could feel her pink wetness rubbing on Keiley. Kelsie let out a moan of pleasure and Keiley continued to draw her hips back with one hand. She slowly licked the first and second finger of the other and, drawing them up Kelsie’s thigh towards her buttocks, slipped her index finger into Kelsie. It went in easy thought Kelsie. She let out soft moans as Keiley worked the finger gently, rubbing and stroking. Kelsie’s body glistened with sweat and quivered as Keiley’s second finger swept neatly into her pussy. “Ohh,” she gasped. Keiley continued to work her fingers in the wetness, reaching her other hand around to find Kelsie’s clit. It feels so good thought Kelsie as the area from her anus to her clit pulsed with heat. She moaned freely, rocking with Keiley, against Keiley’s hands, her hands working, stroking, fingering.
Keiley slowly removed her fingers from Kelsie. Kelsie felt her gently touch the cups of her knees, and she instinctively knew that she should bend down to all fours.
“Good. Now arch your back towards the ceiling, as you exhale. Relax the neck, letting your head drift downwards.”
Cat pose. Kelsie’s heart was racing, head was racing with the feeling coursing through her body. With her eyes closed, she could sense that Kelsie had moved to stand at the head of her mat.
“Now roll your belly towards the floor, arch your head back, and open your mouth.”
Kelsie’s nipples were as hard as her clit as she opened her eyes.
Keiley was standing in front of Kelsie, holding open her labia to expose her blue-pink clit. “Open your mouth,” she whispered.
Kelsie did as she was told. The blue-pink was wet and hot in her mouth. She ran her tongue luxuriously over the lips of her instructor’s pussy. She seemed to know where her instructor wanted the tongue; now on the tip of the clit, flicking; now plunged deep into the wet. Keiley rolled her head back, fingers caressing her own nipples, brown like olive pits. Kelsie lapped obediently while her body pulsed with urgent heat.
Kelsie felt herself brought onto her back, knees bent just slightly, legs gently open. Keiley lithely straddled Kelsie now, her body close, grinding her lightly haired muff on Kelsie’s clit. Grinding and grinding, she rotated her hips so that her own clit was exposed and rubbing now on Kelsie’s. She would lift the pressure briefly, then sink back down to make their clits touch. Oh my god Kelsie thought. I’m going to cum! Kelsie arched her back, breasts spilling outward into Keiley’s open hands as their clits rubbed wetly, Kelsie’s own shivering with orgasm. She came and came and came. From the top of her head, to her cherry-hard nipples, from her pointed toes to her swollen pink cunt she came.
After a few moments Keiley lifted her dark form from Kelsie and gently helped her rest her arms and legs on the mat. Several minutes passed before Kelsie’s breathing became slow and deep. Eventually she rolled her body to a seated position. She knew what to do. Pressing her palms together between her breasts, like a prayer, she said, “Namaste.” Keiley repeated the incantation, kissed Kelsie gently on the lips, dressed and left the studio.
Kelsie did not show up at Greg’s regularly scheduled yoga session that week. Instead, 30 minutes after the last student had left his beginner’s class, Greg looked up from his private yoga practice to see a woman enter the studio. It was Kelsie. Greg brushed a lock of dark hair behind his ear and smiled knowingly as he asked, “did you enjoy your private session?”
When no one was waiting for me in Schroon Lake, I panicked and then remembered I was supposed to call. There wasn’t a public phone in sight. The village center was at most two blocks long. One side of the New York Route 9 had no shops at all and the other side only a few. There was a café, an ice cream shop with a window for walk up service, a t-shirt shop, the bus ticket window, and a hardware store. The other side had the church, a small town hall, a miniscule post office, and a lodge of some sort. A block to the right was a drive-in sub shop. I dragged everything across the street, and using a borrowed phone from the ice cream shop called the retreat. I told the woman who I was and where I was. I told her the woman in charge was supposed to pick me up, and she said someone would be there shortly. I got an ice cream cone and dragged everything back to the spot in front of the church. It offered a great view both to the right and left, even down to the lake and was well out of the way of pedestrians. After about fifteen minutes, a dark blue Dodge sedan came into town from the north and slowed down across from me. It unloaded three teenagers who went into the ice cream shop and pulled away. I opened my guitar case and bean to play. After playing every song I knew, I checked my watch and saw I’d been waiting an hour. I called the retreat again and was told the woman in charge was still not in. I asked that someone, anyone, come pick me up as soon as they could and was assured someone would. I went back to my spot across the street and waited. Every car’s appearance lifted my hopes, but each time they drove past. The teenagers who’d been dropped off earlier walked down to the lake. I looked at my watch again and was startled to see I’d been waiting over two hours. I didn’t want to make waves, but was considering getting on the next bus and heading back to New Haven. I was very annoyed. Before I did, I thought I should call one more time. I was told someone would be right there. The letter in Ms sounded very professional. There would be group sessions, foot massage, reflexology, counseling, and recreational opportunities. I hoped there might be other lesbians I could talk to. I’d left my husband, come out to my family, friends, and co-workers, but had never had sex with another woman. What if I was really bad at being a lesbian? I’d already flunked heterosexuality. I’d waited for over three hours and was on a first name basis with the town policeman who periodically drove to the lake on his short circle patrol. I also knew the woman at the bus ticket window, the people in the café and ice cream shop. Maybe one of them would take me in for the night. Then I heard a car. Actually, I felt the vibrations before I heard the sound. Looking up, I saw a large brown station wagon, covered in dirt, its windows smeared with dirty streaks. I was aghast. I was waiting for a professional woman, someone who might wear jeans, but would certainly wear a knit pullover, someone with clean socks and a professional manner, and a clean car. This driver could not be the psychologist I had written. Its muffler throbbing loudly, the car pulled over at the sub shop and a small woman in jeans, a denim shirt and an extraordinary amount of hair got out. Whew. Then car came unerringly towards me then went past. Before I could sigh again, it made a U-turn and pulled up next to me. This was the car. The driver’s left hand rested on the steering wheel, holding a cigarette. Her right arm casually lay across the back of the front bench seat, an open beer car in her right hand. If possible, she had more hair than the other woman. Even with her sitting, I could tell she was tall. Her breasts were visible under the blue denim shirt she wore open to her navel. I focused on her eyes. I was considering running away when she asked if I was going to the women’s retreat. With no time to fashion a lie, I heard myself say, “Yes, I am.” She told me her name and patted the front seat. Clouds of dust rose, momentarily hiding her face. “Throw your stuff in the back and sit up front with us.” I wondered how easy it would be to get out if I got in the car. What if part of women’s liberation is that women get to be serial killers and advertise for their victims in MS? I opened the back door and noted the rear window of the station wagon was gone. The woman said, “Yeah, it sucks all the dirt in the county in here.” My pack and guitar case stored, I closed the door and opened the front door. There were seven inches of dirt on the front seat. At least seven inches. She patted the seat again and more dust arose. “C’mon.” I looked at my new gold brushed velour jeans, then at the dust on the seat. I knew that by sitting and sliding I would grind dirt into my new pants that would never come out. This wasn’t New Haven dirt. This was country dirt, and it was laughing at my pants. I got in the car carefully, lifting my butt as I moved. Perhaps the pants could be saved. She drove to the sub shop where the small woman was waiting. “Scoot over,” she said as she opened the door. Lift the butt. Move. Lift the butt. Move. Perhaps I could still save my new pants. “Here, baby,” the woman said. Reaching across me, she handed one of two Italian subs to the driver. Hmm. There was a real possibility these two women were lesbians. Not like any lesbians I had ever seen or thought of or imagined, but lesbians none the less. The small woman introduced herself in a husky voice. Where the driver was tall and ample, she was small and wiry. Her blue jeans were as tight as the other’s, but her denim shirt was only open to her breasts. Her sandwich in one hand, the driver juggled a cigarette and a beer in the other. “Hold this a minute, will ya?” She handed me the beer as she unwrapped the sub. With one end of the sub exposed, she reached for the beer can. A tomato, completely encased in olive oil, squirted out, slid down my new tan canvas jacket and settled on my pants. The woman to my right reached to grab it, inadvertently grinding tomato and oil farther into the fabric. Unfortunately, she was still juggling the beer can and cigarette, and the end result was a flurry of ashes, a tiny cinder, and a generous splash of beer all landing on my pants. Fortunately, the beer put out the cinder before it made more than a small hole in the material. It was over. I couldn’t save my clothes now. As we drove along the beautiful upstate New York roads, the women told me there were six other women at the retreat. When the car turned onto a dirt road I understood the full extent of problem with the rear window. Conversation became difficult, if not impossible as I coughed and choked on the dust. The driver stopped the car at a small bridge. On the right side of the road, she pointed out a small waterfall. The lake above the falls, she explained, was where they went swimming. It was a lovely spot, and I was glad I’d brought my camera. Suddenly a voice hailed us. At the top of the falls, a woman stuck her head out of the water and waved. Someone from the retreat, I learned. I smiled, and we all waved. Then the woman stood up. She was totally naked. She wore absolutely nothing. It was impossible to only look at her eyes. My mind was totally blank. There were no previous experiences to which I could relate this one. Southern girls just didn’t see other girls without their clothes. I don’t know why, but they didn’t. It was probably a good thing. I was aware of a buzzing in my head, as well as the car starting up again. And I knew my mouth, which had dropped open when the woman stood up, was still open. The two women in the car assumed I was the same person they’d picked in town, but they were wrong. The New Haven me, with my proper job at Yale, my religious family, and twenty-seven years of assumptions about life, was gone. The new me didn’t know anything about anything. Everything was up in the air. Not everyone looked as I did or thought as I did or behaved as I did. I no longer stood on solid ground, able to see where I’d come from and where I was going. I stood on the rolling deck of a ship at sea in the middle of giant swells, trying to keep my balance, feeling seasick, unsure of what was coming, aware of the danger of being swept away, but unwilling to miss the trip.
Adam Lambert’s performance on last night’s American Music Awards may have been a lot of things, but inappropriate isn’t one of them.
The performance of Lambert’s latest single featured about three seconds of Lambert shoving someone’s face into his crotch, as well as a passionate kiss with a band member. And this was the closing number of the night – viewers could see worse on other shows that typically take that time slot. Much ado about nothing.
No one cared when Lady GaGa wore a flesh-toned body suit – one that made it look like she was wearing a strap-on at that – and broke liquor bottles on stage when she performed. No one said a word about Rihanna’s rings of clothing that left little to the imagination or when she entered the stage bound up BDSM-style. But when a fully clothed gay man mimics a few seconds of fellatio all hell breaks loose. Lambert’s number wasn’t inappropriate, it was right in line with the other outrageous performances of the night.
Lady GaGa at the AMAs. Photo from Google Images (TheSuperficial.com).
Rhianna at the AMAs. Photo from Google Images (TheSuperficial.com).
After all the press about it, I expected to see Lambert on stage with his pants open and a partner gleefully pleasing the pop star for a vast majority of the song, so when I watched the clip for the first time, I completely missed the controversial act entirely.
And trust me if GaGa – or even Britney – had done it, no one would even bat a false eyelash.
But Lambert’s new album drops tomorrow. I’m sure his camp isn’t all that upset about the hype.
Adam Lambert performs “For Your Entertainment at the AMAs
Lady GaGa performs “Bad Romance” and “Speechless” at the AMAs
All I want to do is sleep…I had to make myself get out of bed today, and I’m sitting here wondering what the point of getting up was in the first place? The inside of my brain feel’s so bizarre today…I assume it’s because I’m taking a new antidepressant?
Today, my only wish is for death to come for me and take me away to a better place…Somewhere where I can feel loved, because today I feel completely numb…I can’t even shed a single tear today as a result, and this is a very dangerous sign for me, because I have no way of releasing what’s bound up inside me…I’m not suicidal, I would never take my own life…But at times, I feel like I need physical pain to cope with what’s going on inside of my damaged brain…I have no intentions of turning back into the dark realm of BDSM though…I will just have to keep learning how to undo what’s already been done, but without the desire of escaping my inner pain with feeling physical pain..I’ll never be dominate or submissive to anybody ever again nor will I ever want to be flogged again either…But, how do I fill that void now? Often I ask myself the question, “what am I supposed to do now?” Although the answer is always, that I just need to feel loved…But I feel that I’m hopeless where love is concerned also…Because I know the answer to my own question obviously…But sadly, there is NOT enough love in the world to save me from how I’m feeling at this very moment…I can’t even feel God’s love for me right now…All I feel is this endless void within me, filled with nothingness and emptiness…Meanwhile, I remain broken in spirit and cannot find some inner strength to pull myself back together again…So for today I think loving myself is out of the question as well…Hence, I hope for death…To come for me and erase me from this life…I feel like a cruel trick is being played on me, because one day I’m fine and feeling great and the next day I’m so sad that I’m praying for death…Honestly, I can’t control my thoughts anymore, they control me…I can’t control my moods anymore, and they control me too…I can barely manage to get out of bed to come sit here and express myself…And here (this one and only blog of mine) has become such a dark place lately…My positive thoughts used to heavily out weigh my negative thoughts…And now, not so much…I have my support system to help carry my burdens, but I won’t pick up the phone or reach out for anybody’s help…I can only come here to release everything, where I feel no effort (on my part) is required, and I feel safe…I don’t have to see anybody, I don’t have to talk to anybody and I don’t have to interact with anybody, period…I don’t want anybody to know that I’m this weak right now…I have become so pathetic to myself…I feel helpless and hopeless…If I’m not escaping through sleep, I’m awake and therefore I must to be listening to music to keep my demons at bay…That’s the only thing that help’s me when I’m feeling such loneliness and despair…Music! Although at this very moment, I’m sitting here in silence and I’m attempting to release myself from the internal enemy of depression…By expression…
All that I can do now is end with a prayer…
“Father God and Divine Spirit of Love please come and help me”
Lots of interesting information in the study released by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York about clergy sex abuse, most of it disheartening.
I know it says that there is no connection between homosexual identity and sex abuse of minors, and that is good to have the statistics to back up what we all know. Stop blaming the queers.
But the study also says this:
clergy abusers tended to be maladjusted men rather than the pathological abusers…they tended to have few victims and often committed a range of other crimes or improper behaviors, which is similar to the profile of abuse in the wider American society. “These are ordinary men,” Smith said, echoing the verdict of a 1970 study of the psychological profile of priests. (New Catholic Sex Abuse Findings: Gay Priests Are Not the Problem)
Ordinary men.
Certainly, Pope Benedict will be happy to use this idea of how modern culture corrupts, proof that his “modernity is the cause of everything bad in the world,” so that women need to stop seeking their own authority and queers need to get reverse engineered. As in the past, the Pope’s rhetoric will address declining morality among societies (that means all people, all genders) as shown through the acts of depraved men. This reminds me of how that great patriarchal architect, Sigmund Freud, developed his theory of normal human psychology by studying sexually abused young women and claiming they only fantasized about having sex with their fathers.
But I wonder if this idea of “ordinary men” says something more disturbing still. What do we teach our boys about being men, if “ordinary men” have such a sense of entitlement that they seek sexual and ego gratification even from the helpless, even at the cost of violence, because they refuse to negotiate mutual relationships?
The Church will like the notion that sexually predatory priests are just “ordinary men” — as much as Evolutionary Psychologists, I assume. The idea that men-will-be-men, that men are bred by evolution and god, apparently, to take sex wherever they can get it. Instead of this being an issue of a corrupt ideology of gender roles, it’s merely an issue of curbing excess and providing services to those entitled to something they may not deserve. The Church for one; properly-conditioned women for the other.
It’s much easier when women have reached maturity with their corrupt role message intact, so that they acquiesce to the old tale that men can’t help themselves. A woman’s self-violence and self-abuse is a blessing for an abuser. It’s what makes battered women stay in unlocked houses, what makes them accomplices to the crimes not just against themselves but against their children — from kidnappers, to sex traffickers, to genital mutilators.
But if that doesn’t get the job done, and women don’t volunteer for service, there’s always conscription into the ranks of sexual service through rape and molestation and victimization under authority of ”ordinary men.”
when you whisper in my other ear
and the ocean’s roar is all I hear,
I’m afraid you may just be enough
when your undertow destroys me
so effortlessly
I’m afraid
it’s too late to call this off
and when your silver tendrils
lock around my helm
and port and starboard
and everything in between
glitter fingers
rainbow kisses
and kelp-heavy treasure chests spilling
Wonder Wheel wishes,
I’m afraid
we may just be making history—
and knowing the moment while making it is such luxury
even if all that matters
tonight
is that
I am happy
I told you that sometimes
memories take time to rise,
so you took my hand,
led me out on the sand
and we just walked along the tide
oh it’s strange,
this art of making waves—
how conscious and divine,
to feel my cells shifting
to welcome your drifting
from the country of yours
to the island of mine
and when the horizon lights
disappear and salt spray battens
your picture windows, I’m still here—
I am the sand you’ll write your name on with your toes
and the ocean who swallows you whole.
You are the dolphin with secret teeth,
belly upturned at low tide
who flips, presenting dorsal fin. I ride. you.
Who knows—in a thousand years
when you put your ear to a shell
you may still remember me the day I fell
asleep by your side
under tiny blue lights
in your moon-quilted ashram by the sea.
“From this moment forward Dawg, we speak only in Earthling English. It is imperative our mission is successful, we must be ready for anything.” Zorg pulls his black elastic hood tightly over his large green scalp, tucks his collar tight under his pointy grey chin, clicks his eye shield & protective goggles firmly into place activating ultraviolet night vision, while sparks flicker deep within its dark lenses. He dusts down his skin-tight, leather-like alien commando engagement suit, systematically initiates an array of guerrilla gadgets & multi-coloured intelligence icons while he conducts his final equipment check with the utmost precision. –
“Always remember, 717 years of evolutionary development theoretically provides us with the stealth and intellect to outwit an earthling at any hour, however do not underestimate the unpredictable tendencies and seductions of the human mind. The dangerously deluded spirit offers many distractions. Be alert my brother, remain watchful at all times.”
Dawg follows his twin brothers lead, activates goggles, pauses for 3 seconds to center his Terrestrial Chi and claps his heavily gloved 3 fingered hands together, “Lez hit it cuz! Andromeda is all ova dis piss-ant puny-ass poor excuse for a Galaxy !!” In a 3 fingered A sign he knuckle-shuffles a leathery finger across a lone infra red sensor protruding from the cockpit dashboard, synchronizes wrist-dash with UV Heat shields, and counts down…
3’
2’
1’
…and in an instant the two vanish, sucked at high pressure through the check valve airlocks beneath, hurtling them simultaneously into the pitch black vacuum of space.
So, the other day a friend of mine posted a question on her Facebook. She wanted to know if people thought gays were born that way or somehow became gay in life. Basically, it’s the old nurture versus nature question. She said the breakroom became quite intense when she posed the question. Some people feel like they were born that way; some people believe gays are born gay. Others believe that they’re nurtured to be gay. Who even knows? Only science can tell. Or maybe God.
What do I think? I think gay people are born gay. I believe it is a natural occurence. People shit themselves when it comes to the subject of homosexuality. Normally, I don’t even like to get into these types of discussions because people get so riled up that the whole thing will just come to blows. I’ll have to shank somebody just to get them to listen to my point of view. But since this is my blog and I can damn well write what I want, I’m going to go for it.
If you hate it, then click away and get lost.
Someone once said to me that he noticed that suddenly there were a lot of gays. He said it must be “something in the water,” meaning the way parents were raising their children and the oversexualisation that we see in the media. He said it seemed like being gay was the cool thing to do. I told him that there appears to be an abundance of gays because people are now more comfortable with themselves and they don’t feel like they need to hide who they really are. Since this is the new millennium and everything, some people just feel like enough is enough. Let’s let it all hang out.
In my opinion, I do not believe there are more gays now than there were, let’s say, 100 years ago. There were simply more people hiding the truth from themselves and others. If you really look back in history, there’s plenty mention of gay people. Even the Bible has tales of homosexuality. I’m not talking about the supposed commandments against homosexuality, I’m only talking about the mere mention of gayness.
There are many people that believe that homosexuality is against God’s wishes. Well, since these people believe that God created everything, then why did He create gay people? Oh, that was the work of the devil? Well, then explain to me why God would simply not just strike down all these abominations? Why let them roam the earth freely contaminating the rest of us? He let six million of the chosen people go to the exterminator, but gays are free to fornicate at will. This makes no sense to me.
Look, I am a FIRM believer in God. I believe He is the Truth, the Light and the Way to whatever eternal glories are waiting for me in the afterlife. Except for about 15 minutes when I was 17, I have always believed this, and I will never not believe this.
I now have a confession to make: I used to have a huge problem with gay people. I used to think that it was the worst thing ever. I used to believe that it was against God’s commandments. I used to believe that it was an abomination.
I know that I have a lot of gay friends, and I was comfortable being friends with them because I always knew that our eternal salvation, or damnation, is personal. When we die, we die alone. We stand before our Maker alone. All my sins, even the ones I committed with my best friend, are aired out for me and me alone to make atonement. So I would think, he’s gay, he’s going to hell, but he’s still cool though. My soul was safe because their gayness doesn’t contaminate me. I really believed that. I never told my gay friends how I felt because I always felt like they didn’t need to hear one more person telling them they were going to hell. I’m sure they would find out when they got there.
But after Shannon posed her question and I was reading some of the responses, I had this epiphany. Seriously, a light went off in my head and it was the strangest thing that I just did this huge 180. First of all, how can I assume that I know what God really wants? No, really. Who am I to say, “God doesn’t like that!” I’m not sure why ever went off on the this is not what God wants routine. A lot of people do that, assuming they know what the truth is. We’re all just floundering in this flotsam, trying to get by in life. We’ve subscribed to whatever religion, whatever thought process and we’re just hoping against hope that we even picked the right one–provided that anything is even waiting for us when we get there. And you know, that’s a story for another day.
Secondly, who would really choose to be gay? I know this does not apply to every gay man or lesbian everywhere, but we’ll take some American examples. In most states gays cannot marry whom they love. Imagine spending all of your life with the man or woman you loved and when they died, they could leave you nothing because of you happened to be the same gender as your one true love? Even in the states they are permitted to marry, they still have to battle their unsupportive friends and family. They get to listen to horrid gay jokes. Some of them have been abused, maimed, even killed because they are gay. They suffer isolation and humiliation. Fathers have turned against sons. Mothers have shunned daughters. Siblings alienate siblings. Families have been torn apart.
The cruellest punishment is rejection, and it hurts like a thousand needles in the eye when it comes from your own family. Why would someone choose this life?
And then we come to gays who cannot stomach the consequences and they take themselves to crazy heights trying to pretend they aren’t. I’ve heard of camps where they go to get the gay beat out of them. Supposedly the power of the Lord will preach the gay out, like exorcising some demon. I know a man who forced himself into marriage with a woman. He had hoped to have a child and somehow that would make him not gay. Instead, the wife found out about his natural tendencies. She divorced him and took him for every penny he had. Now he’s miserable.
Who would choose this?
I know there are some gays that do not have it this hard. They are comfortable who they are. They have supportive families. They live in pro-gay marriage states. This is not a blanket statement for everybody, but merely an outline of what some people are up against. I know a lot of young gay men who are only half-way out. They jeopardise relationships and their personal happiness because they can’t share their joy with everybody they know. One partner feels ashamed and the other just wants to be normal. With all the “regular” problems in relationships, why would you purposely add that on?
My sister said there was some priest on Oprah who said that being gay was a gift from God to show people lessons in hatred. I think that sounds pretty horrible, but I am now convinced more than ever that we are either born gay or straight. There’s nothing that the parents did to make their child gay. He or she is simply the way he or she is. Maybe you don’t realise it till you hit puberty and you start contemplating all those raging hormones, but I’ve know a few gay men who said they were quite sure they knew they were gay from a very young age.
And for all of us who are straight, did you wake up one day and decide that you wanted to be straight? I didn’t. I know that I did not make conscious decision that I would be straight. One day I was like, “Oh, that boy is cute.” I didn’t say, “I should like boys over girl,” or “Liking girls is wrong, so I’m going to like boys.” None of us made any decision that day we woke up and started noticing sex.
I’m not a scientist or a doctor. I’m not a priest or any other religious figure. I’m just some random person with an opinion, like any other random person.
I know there are passages in the Bible that speak against homosexuality, and I’m really trying hard not to take this blog down that route. It’s such a can of worms, but we have to remember that for awhile it wasn’t so hot to be black, or Jewish, or whatever. Marrying outside of one’s religion was an atrocity. Marrying outside of one’s race was a crime against nature. Marrying the same gender is the new abomination. I believe it is the last hurdle–at least until we can come up with something else to hate.
ORIGINAL AT: http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/14025/dont-ask-dont-give-the-gaytm-is-officially-shut-down
by: Pam Spaulding
Mon Nov 09, 2009 at 16:44:14 PM EST
We’ve talked about the fatigue of being jerked around as a constituency, now several of my fellow bloggers have had enough and I’ve signed on to the effort launched by Joe Sudbay and John Aravosis of Americablog. (FYI (Tues., 3:58 ET: Joe caught me on my cell Monday as I was leaving the cell-free zone in hospital in Brooklyn, so that’s why I didn’t get on the endorsement list until later in the day).
The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.), Bil Browning for the Bilerico Project, and soon others.
It’s really more of a “pause,” than a boycott. Boycotts sounds so final, and angry. Whereas this campaign is temporary, and is only meant to help some friends – President Obama and the Democratic party – who have lost their way. We are hopeful that via this campaign, our friends will keep their promises.
So please sign the Petition and take a Pledge to no longer donate to the DNC, Organizing for America, or the Obama campaign until the President and the Democratic party keep their promises to the gay community, our families, and our friends.
Why should hard-earned LGBT dollars go to a party fast to line up with its palms outstretched to whisper sweet nothings in our collective ears, then turn away and tell us equality will have to wait until “X” occurs first. We’re not stupid. We just want our funds to go to the people in office or running for office who will focus on passing legislation that the “fierce advocate” can sign, since he’s stated numerous times he’ll sign it if it makes it to his desk. Well, put up or shut up.
Interestingly, one would expect a response to this effort by the HRC to be negative. To the contrary, it looks like a tacit endorsement (FDL):
“Individual donors should always make their own careful assessments of how to spend limited political contributions. We all need to focus on the legislative priorities identified by AmericaBlog and with whatever tactic individuals decide to employ, the ultimate objective needs to be securing the votes we need to move our legislative agenda forward.”
David Dayen notes that “HRC hasn’t given to the DNC this year, as per the policy put in by Obama after his election that the Party cannot accept contributions from organizations structured as a C(4).” And if you read the whole post, other progressive blogs, equally dissatisfied with the powers that be straying from progressive causes, are about ready to call a boycott of donations to the DCCC and the DSCC.FAQs are below the fold.
Pam Spaulding :: Don’t Ask, Don’t Give: the gAyTM is officially shut down
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is this?
We are asking voters to pledge to withhold contributions to the Democratic National Committee, Organizing for America, and the Obama campaign until the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is passed, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) is repealed, and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is repealed -– all of which President Obama repeatedly promised to do if elected.
Why are you asking people to take this pledge?
Candidate Obama promised during the campaign to be the gay community’s “fierce advocate.” He and the Democratic party have not kept their promise.
Can you give examples of how the President and Democrats have not been fierce advocates for the civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans?
Asking a religious right activist who claims to have been “cured” of his homosexuality to headline campaign events in South Carolina. Then letting the anti-gay bigot spend half an hour, on stage, haranguing gays at the Obama event.
Refusing for months to interview with LGBT newspapers during the campaign, while his opponent did repeatedly.
Flubbing question on whether gays are immoral.
Inviting anti-gay activist Rick Warren, who helped pass Prop 8 in California, to give the invocation at the inaugural.
Inviting a gay bishop to the inaugural festivities, then not beginning the TV broadcast until the gay bishop has finished and left.
Refusing to appoint an openly gay Cabinet member.
Abolishing the LGBT outreach position at the DNC and never reinstating it.
Refusing to re-establish the White House Office of LGBT Outreach and the White House LGBT Liaison (which was a Special Assistant to the President at one point).
Continuing to discharge two gay servicemembers a day, even though he could stop it immediately by issuing a stop-loss order immediately.
Asking for a study on “whether” repealing DADT would hurt national security, rather than a study on how to repeal it, as promised.
Deleting his gay civil rights promise from the White House Web site.
Changing his commitment to “repeal” Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, to “changing DADT it in a sensible manner.”
Repeatedly defending DOMA in court, including just a few weeks ago, even though he didn’t have to.
Making jokes about marriage equality, which President Obama claims he doesn’t support, even though he once did.
Comparing gay relationships to incest and pedophilia in a Justice Department brief.
Joking about gay protesters upset about the DOMA brief.
Refusing to provide health care benefits to the partners of gay employees, and then claiming that DOMA precludes it, when it does not.
Refusing to meet with gay legal groups to discuss how toprovide such health benefits within the confines of DOMA.
Claiming that health benefits for partners of federal employees were new, then being caught in a lie.
Showing visible discomfort when asked about gay civil rights.
Suggesting he won’t get to DADT, DOMA or ENDA until his second term, if ever.
Refusing to suspend implementation of anti-gay laws, like DADT and DOMA, while suspending laws that hurt others.
White House staffers worked against amendment proposed by Rep. Alcee Hasting (D-FL) to defund Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell investigations
Saying won’t repeal DADT until wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have finished.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid had to beg President Obama to help on DADT repeal.
A White House official referring to gay civil rights advocates, marching on Washington, as part of “the Internet left fringe” whose opinions don’t matter.
Saying he won’t touch DOMA in his first term.
Refusing to release list of gay attendees at hate crimes reception.
Refusing to mention Maine or Washington state, or anything of substance, in his speech to the Human Rights Campaign dinner.
Saying gays are “naïve” for wanting the president to keep his promise.
Refusing to issue a statement specifically opposing anti-gay ballot measures in Maine and Washington state.
Attorney General Eric Holders flubs question on Maine, twice — once while in Maine.
DNC/OFA emailed supporters in Maine and Washington state, but didn’t ask them to vote against anti-gay ballot measures, then lied about it.
Senator Durbin (D-IL), a very close ally of Obama, says Senate probably won’t repeal DADT in 2010, as promised.
Senior DNC official accuses gays and lesbians of “helping Republicans” by simply asking Democrats to keep their gay civil rights promise.
Refusing to publicly endorse marriage equality for gays.
Continuing to dawdle over DADT.
Refusing to this day to interview with the gay press.
Refusing to apologize for any of these slights.
But won’t your pledge hurt Democrats?
It never hurts Democrats to keep their promises to the voters. The American people respect strong leaders who have the courage to stick to their beliefs. And it will only help Democrats in the next election to stand by their commitments to a core constituency. If Democratic voters aren’t motivated, they won’t vote. We are concerned that the President’s failure to fulfill his promises may suppress voter participation not only from gay Democrats, but from our families, friends and allies. In a very real way, this is an effort to ensure that we get-out-the-vote in 2010, 2012 and beyond.
But if you don’t give money to the DNC, won’t that help elect Republicans who are even worse on gay issues, and other issues Democrats care about?
We are not calling for a boycott of donations to the DNC. We are simply calling for a pause until the party follows through on its campaign promise to repeal DADT and DOMA, and pass ENDA. The party will get the same donations it would have gotten, when the promises are kept. The Democrats could choose to make good on their promise today. And by doing so, they will only further motivate the Democratic base to again turn out for the next election, a decidedly good thing.
You have to admit, gay rights is controversial – wouldn’t it be political suicide for Democrats to push gay rights?
Democrats should not have promised to support gay civil rights rights in exchange for our votes if they never intended to keep the promise. If we’re not controversial during the campaign, when politicians are happy to accept our votes and our money, we cannot accept being labeled controversial after our candidates win. We kept our part of the bargain, we voted for Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress. It’s entirely reasonable for us to ask our elected officials to keep their part of the bargain too.
What’s more, gay rights are not controversial. Americans favor allowing openly gay men and lesbian women to serve in the military by a margin of 69% – 26%. By a margin of 57% – 37%, “A clear majority of Americans (57%) favors allowing gay and lesbian couples to enter into legal agreements with each other that would give them many of the same rights as married couples.” That can’t happen if DOMA is the law. And in fact, if these civil rights promises were controversial, they would have hurt candidate Obama at the polls. But, he proudly and loudly proclaimed his support for LGBT equality, and he won.
No matter how disappointed you are, aren’t Democrats still better than Republicans?
The Republican party is terrible on gay issues. That doesn’t excuse the Democratic party breaking specific promises to the gay community made in exchange for our votes. We didn’t break our promise at the ballot box, the Democrats shouldn’t break theirs after we helped put them into office.
President Obama has only been in office less than a year, why the rush?
In less than a year, serious damage has already been done to the President’s commitments to the gay community. The problem isn’t only that he hasn’t been quick enough to fulfill his promises, it’s that he has actually backtracked on his promises and hurt the cause of civil rights and our community, as detailed above.
But aren’t there bigger priorities than gay rights for the Democrats to deal with, like health care and the economy?
Would President Obama, the DNC and the Congress tell other minorities that their civil rights aren’t important? The suggestion is that Democrats have more important things on the table. When won’t Democrats have more important priorities than the civil rights of gays and lesbians? Will there ever be a day, a year, an administration, when the President and the Congress won’t have serious crises to deal with? Suggesting that gay Americans and their friends and families wait until the President and Congress have nothing else to do is not only insulting, it’s a recipe for never. And regardless, we trust that this President, unlike the previous, can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Who is behind this effort? John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay, two longtime political operatives in Washington, DC, and the editors of AMERICAblog.com. AMERICAblog has raised over $300,000 for Democratic candidates and progressive causes, including nearly $50,000 for then-candidate Barack Obama, supported by AMERICAblog early in the primaries.
The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.), Bil Browning for the Bilerico Project, and soon others.
You can contact us at: dncboycott@gmail.com
How can I help? Sign the pledge, tell your friends about this campaign, read the blog, and stay tuned for updates and action alerts on how you help make sure that the President, the Congress and the Democratic party keep their promises to the LGBT community, our families, our friends and our allies.
This is an excellent sweep of top progressive and LGBT bloggers and activists who have signed on right at the outset and many readers are backing this – are you ready to send the party hacks and WH foot-draggers a me$$age?
Good for them! Protest, protest, protest! Religion has ABSOLUTELY no Right to be involved in the general public’s life! Especially when, many are not of the religion which is being pushed out into the civil world.
The more one particular religion pursues discrimination and in its actions pursues the abuse of many American citizens, the less I feel sorry for them when people turn and leave thier flock or stand in protest outside their doors.
MyFOXMaine.com | Gay Marriage Supporters Protest Church
….weirdly motivated and ambitious but stuck prioritizing.
I have been going through some pretty big changes at school and at the office over the last month or so that has been a big factor in my lack of posting but before I get into that I think a little background is probably in order.
I never had a job until I graduated from High School aside from a little bit of babysitting and working for about 5 hours every two weeks at a massage parlor that was out of an old hippys home (she did make delicious and theraputic brownies though!) I always had good grades and was involved in a million after school activities (show choir, theatre, youth action council, poetry slams, etc.) and my parents gave me money so I wouldn’t have to add working onto my already overly full plate. So when I graduated I had to go out in the real world and find a job and my options were pretty limited with no experience. This first job I actually got called to interview was at a day care and I was hired on the spot. I worked there for about 3 months, loved the kids and was awesome at my job but couldn’t stand the bitches and trashy women I worked with. The day I gave my notice I got a call from an entertainment retailer asking me to come in and interview for their guest services position. I reieved that job on the spot as well, was quickly promoted to the books department and worked there for a year. It was a great college job with all people around my age and it wasnt a big deal when I opened hungover or called in sick. I was attending college while I worked there but was really uninterested and after I dropped out of school I realized I couldn’t stay making under $6 an hour for my whole life. I was lucky enough that I had a friend who had a great gig as a receptionist for a real estate company that she had to give up so she could move out of state for college. When she left she got me an interview and the rest was history.
I was hired during my interview and have been at that job for the last 4 years. I have changed positions about 5 times and have always been promoted quickly and about 3 years ago we opened up a second location in a nearby city and I was chosen to along with my position in marketing also be the only staff member out at that office. I bought my home that year and lived about 5 minutes away from our new location and was the go to girl for that office. Since everything was in my control it was all cake and I actually spent alot of time being bored out of my mind. This was when I started blogging, getting involved in networks like TheCurveNetwork and taking on any personal project I could to make my days go by faster. Recently we have decided due to the unpleasant market to close that branch office, to move our main branch into a new larger building and to get back to the basics having all staff and agents under one roof. This has opened up some great opportunities for me including getting back to just doing my position which is now Marketing Coordinator and Agent Services Specialist and is giving me a chance to do what I do best. I am loving being back in the real world and out of what I call “survivor island” and in my brand new pretty big office! It is amazing and I am feeling busy and secure and ambitious (especially now that I have a bonus incentive)!
So this all brings us to now, I am super swamped at work but loving having the days go by so much faster. I am also going to school 3 nights a week and still trying to spend as much time as possible with Nightrider and our kids. I also have gotten involved with a youth community shelter and have been asked to be the lead volunteer on their film and theatre projects. Even though it may seem like I am taking on too much I am getting to do almost everything I desire to do in life and I’m really happy about it. Unforunately the demanding nature of my schedule now has caused me to have to limit some of my other activities. I am no longer blogging as much as I would like and had to resign from webcasting on The Curve Network. While I loved webcasting for CurvyTV it just couldn’t fit into my life and I wish Drew and everyone else at The Curve Network the best of luck! As far as blogging goes I am trying to find a way to get back into it whenever I can. I am hoping to atleast post once a week if not multiple times a week. So hopefully you will keep being patient with me.
As part of my studies I have been introduced to First Monday which is one of the first peer-reviewed open access journals on the internet, about the internet. In an attempt to get to grips with quantitative (measurables) and qualitative (opinioned observation) research methods, our group has been tasked with reading October’s papers and analysing the approaches utilised.
One study presented was Gaydar: Facebook friendships expose sexual orientation (Jernigan and Mistree 2009) especially as I had read coverage of the research and the privacy debates in the mainstream media in recent weeks.
The research utilised the quantitative techniques to profile 4080 Facebook users within the MIT Facebook network. And hypothesis testing was undertaken to establish “a method for accurately predicting the sexual orientation of Facebook users by analysing friendship associations” (Jernigan and Mistree, 2009).
Despite the success of the study (which did accurately predict Facebook user’s sexual orientation based on the information the information collated about their Facebook friends) I think it is interesting to consider some of the “problems” surrounding this methodology (many of which were identified by Jernigan and Mistree).
Equal contact status – This was part of the basis of the study (people having a predisposition to socialise with people “like” them). Although this may predominately be the case it ignores the fact that there are anomalies and not everyone behaves in this way.
Human sexuality - In Facebook users sexuality has to be defined by distinct categories (interested in men, women, both men and women or undefined). In reality sexuality is more complex than this… as the authors describe “the world can not be divided into sheep and goats” (so to speak!) Is it realistic to expect the identity chosen in Facebook to always match the “reality”. Also this means that identities such a transgender remain ignored.
“Friends” – What is a Facebook friend? Many FB users have 100s(+) of so called “friends” within their network. How representative are these connections in comparison to an individuals “sympathy group” which is the average number of people (12) whose death would leave you truly devastated. This piece of research can not get under the skin of this question.
The tools - The recruiting/profiling of each FB account was undertaken by an automated spider (Arachne). Although this helps remove human bias from the research process it also means the subtleties of human interpretation are missed. For example the study can not account for the differences that arose between lesbian and gay male FB relationships. Also the way in which the spider operated meant that it collated data over 18 days in total rather than taking a ’snapshot’ at one point in time.
Trade offs - The nature of the logistical regression model used means that there is an ongoing balancing act between “specificity , a measure of the model’s susceptibility to false positives, and sensitivity, the probability the model correctly predicts a characteristic” (Signorovitch, 2007 in Jernigan and Mistree, 2009).
Threats to validity – Jernigan and Mistree also identify various threats to the validity of the results of the study, including the selection method (the validation dataset came from profiles known to the authors to be gay males by prior knowledge) and history – National Coming Out Day was held 13 days before the research began.
Ethics – The data for this research was obtained without the knowledge of the FB users, although it was in the public domain and the individuals have been anonimised. This raises many questions regarding privacy and the ethics of collecting information in this way.
In conclusion it can be said that the study can not reveal causation but only correlation. The methodology is useful to obtain an overall picture however human identity and relationships are complex and therefore maybe can not be fully understood utilising these techniques.
Image c/o Kaptain Kobold licensed under Creative Commons.
tell me. b/c i really want to know. give me one doggone reason you think it’s easier?? b/c you…both have boobs? yeah, not so much!
news flash for ya, ladies. it’s not easier. it could quite possibly be harder. in fact, all the civil rights/legal stuff aside (like how we’re paying $200+/month more than “individual plus [opposite sex] spouse” for my cobra benefits; and, now that i’m laid off i can finally tell all of you that i was being taxed over $350 more each month for holly’s benefits than my heterosexual colleagues, who were not being taxed *at all* on their spouse’s benefits. yup, holly’s benefits were viewed as “taxable income” by the govt. since we’re not “married” under state law. you know, after the $25k wedding w/the rabbi and all. and 150 guests. but i digress)…anyway, as i was saying, all that stuff aside, i will highlight only a couple reasons being with a woman isn’t the fantasy you imagine:
1. pms
oh. you think it’s bad in a household with just *one* of you going thru pms? HA! that’s not bad!!! TRY TWO! TRY TWO WOMEN AT HOME WITH PMS. try that on for size and get back to me when you’ve changed your mind. (hm? what’s that? you already changed it? what, so soon??)
for a long time, holly was like, when it came to “that time of the month,” oh, i’m totally the “alpha female.”
what’s the alpha female, you ask? i’ll explain:
whether us ladies are aware of it or not, there’s always that girl in a group house, family, etc. whose doggone pheromones or whatever they are screw up everyone else’s cycle. that’s what holly and i call the alpha female. usually what happens is that the women, whether’s there’s two or 20, sort of…fall in line. oh but not in our household. nooo, that would be far too easy.
so holly’s been thinking she’s the alpha female. and i’m like, whatever, babe, kind of secretly believing she is simply b/c she’s stronger than me on some levels (ok many levels), as in: she can lift heavier things than i can and is a better driver and whatnot [no she’s not “butch” but those of you that know the two of us know exactly what i mean. i should mention that a certain relative of holly’s that shall remain nameless (coughcoughsharon–hm? what?) recently called me “a skirty girly girl” and even tho i kind of am i’m not that bad). but then it seemed like i was dragging her ass into my cycle. and then sometimes it seemed like i was being dragged into hers. so we basically have this constant hormonal tug’o'war going on where we’re essentially at each others’ throats two weeks each month. we sometimes get this weird phantom pms from each other, too. so basically that’s pms four times a month.
nice, right?
also (#2) we have so many shoes in our house. omG the shoes!!!! you would simply not believe all the doggone shoes. or the clothes in general (#3). or the sheer girth of bras we have accumulated thru our 8+ yrs together (#4). also jeans (#5). also everything (#6).
oh and i just thought of another! IT TAKES FOREVER TO CHOOSE A BEDSPREAD (#7). or towels (#8)! or furniture (#9)! most men don’t care about that stuff. if they do, they’re lying just to make you shuddup.
so basically, if you’re thinking of “switching teams,” how about you picture pms times two (four, even) and no closet space. and you don’t really want to come out to your parents, do you (#10)? i mean, talk about awkward! exactly.
if you’ve read this carefully and you’re still thinking about gettin jiggy w/the womenfolk, you’re probably kind of gay already in which case you have larger issues and if you want to talk i’m totally here for you.
I am all for equality. Being of a minority race or sexual persuasion should not influence how you are treated. (As long as I can stereotype you for the purposes of comedy).
So I was appalled to hear about how long it had taken for a simple bit of legislation to get through the European courts. I cannot believe that the basic right of all gay women to travel freely across europe was the subject of such a debate, with several compromises having to be made before the agreement was finally signed. And apparently Tony Blair is in the running to ensure that it’s adhered to!
That was what The Lesbian Treaty was all about, wasn’t it?
On October 11, 2009 I went to Washington DC for the National Equality March Rally with David b and Brian G from TheOccasionalFag.com.
Those arguments aside, returning to the notion of discrimination and homophobia, the destruction of the model of the nuclear family is essential in the stamping out of discrimination. Society should not cater to the idea of a mother, father and 2.3 children as the set model for family. Through this incremental desensitisation to homosexuals in society, can there finally a deeper level of humanity evident within our society. The first step is basic human rights, the second civil unions, the third, marriage, the fourth, adoption (an issue I will delve into later). But the Australian Government must realise that it is ignoring the ideals evident within the majority of society. As the people of the nation where a “fair go,” is core to our collective psyche, will not stand to be ignored.
