Blogaround

Scientific diagram showing a black fetus. (from link #2)

1. Prayer and healing: A medical and scientific perspective on randomized controlled trials (2009) Wow this is AMAZING. It's a scientific paper which summarizes the results of several studies of prayer's effectiveness to treat medical problems. And at the end, it asks a whole bunch of VERY GOOD questions that nobody ever asks in church, but would be real questions that matter, if it is true that prayer "works."

If I had to pick a favorite, I would say: "As atheists, in general, form a minority in most populations, in any randomized controlled trial of intercessory prayer, there is likely to be a number of persons (friends, relatives and the patients themselves) praying for members of both experimental and control groups, unknown to the researchers. If prayer works, this unmeasured source of healing could diminish intergroup differences in outcomes."

2. The creator of the viral Black fetus image will have his illustrations published in a book (posted January 13) "A 2014 study by researchers at the University of Wollongong in Australia examined gender bias in anatomy textbooks and found that of more than 6,000 images with an identifiable sex published between 2008 and 2013 in 17 textbooks, the vast majority were White and just over a third were female."

3. The United States could lose all flights to China ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics (posted January 14) Yep.

4. Consummation Laws and You (posted 2021) "You don’t have to live in fear of the Marriage Police stopping you on the street to make sure you had sex at least one (1) time." This is an asexual blogger writing in response to asexuals making the claim that marriage consummation laws are harmful to asexuals. Basically, no, it is NOT true that consummation laws mean the legal system will say an asexual's marriage is invalid, please stop worrying about this.

5. The Case of the Heternormative Healthcare (posted 2020) "But even after they’ve added notes about queerness to my chart, they don’t ask questions: No one asks if I use protection or mentions gloves or dental dams or asks if I engage primarily in oral, finger-fucking, strap-ons, or other sex toys." 

Wow, man... I am straight and asexual and I have had similar experiences with gynecologists. Before I figured out I was asexual, there were several doctors I asked for help- I told them "sex is painful" and they didn't ask me for any more information. (Except one, who asked "is the pain on the outside or deep inside?" which assumes I am familiar enough with my own genitals to know specifically where the pain is, which, I was not, I was a very pure girl who followed the rules and made sure never to investigate my own genitals...)

I guess doctors are too squeamish to talk about sex? Like, it turns out I had vaginismus, I had it pretty bad, and no doctor ever noticed? 

Really glad I found the asexual community though, which encouraged me to know myself, know my own desires, know my own body, be honest with myself about what I want or don't want, and set my own goals about what kind of sex life I want (if any). That wherever I am now is fine, that it is fine and normal to be confused about sex, it is fine if sex "doesn't work." IDing as asexual helped me with my sex problems far more than any gynecologist ever did.

6. S.H.E [ Super Star ] Official MV (posted 2011) Okay not sure if any of my readers will be interested this, since it's at this weird intersection of "ex-evangelical" and "Chinese as a second language"- but every time I hear this Chinese pop song, it makes me think of worship. I've said before that I'll never worship again, but if I was going to worship a god, maybe I would use this song to do it.

7. Da Vinci Code: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (Web Exclusive) (posted January 10) [NSFW language] "I just genuinely think that it is very weird that in 2003, this stupid, stupid book took the planet by storm, and I just think that enough time has passed that we can talk about it now."