Blogaround

From link #1, AI-generated image of "studio photo of a playful black cat wearing a turtle costume". "It has also taken the libery of adding a pumpkin to the costume, I see."

1. AI imagines my cat in costumes (October 28) 

2. Rhett sings himself ‘Overboard’ and out of his faith (October 22) It's a country music album about leaving Christianity and becoming non-religious. This is so good.

3. The Ethics of Looking And The “Harmless” Peeping Tom (March 22) [content note: rape culture] It's about how SO MANY MOVIES have men spying on women who are taking their clothes off, and this is presented like it's no big deal and that's just how men are. Yeah, this trope is really NOT COOL, and it's good that Pop Culture Detective made a video to point out how messed-up this is.

4. What we know about the attack on Paul Pelosi (November 1)

5. Gunman kills 2 at a St. Louis high school, officials say (October 24)

6. John Oliver Roasts the U.K.'s "Very Weird" 10 Days of Mourning for Queen Elizabeth (September 20)

7. Atop a Lonely Sichuan Mountain, Grit, Hope, and Survival (October 30) I've posted links about this before- this is about Gan Yu, a power station worker who was stuck on a mountain alone after an earthquake, for 17 days, before he was rescued. This article gives a lot of details about what happened.

8. Do You Believe in Halloween Jesus? (October 31) "I was taught that Jesus was fully human and fully divine—a doctrine that has confounded and confused the greatest philosophical and theological minds for the past two millennia—but in reality, it was divine Jesus who got all the play."

9. WI State Senate candidate Jessica Katzenmeyer: ‘We could be headed to a dark reality’ (November 1) "I am openly transgender. There’s never been a transgender representative here elected to the state legislature in Wisconsin. I would truly be honored to be the first."

10. Why doesn’t the IRS care when churches endorse candidates from the pulpit? (October 31) 

11. What does it mean to be ‘open-minded’ about sex? (November 1) Wow, I am very impressed by this article- this might possibly be the first time I've ever seen an article about sex, written for a mainstream audience (ie not specifically for an asexual audience) which is genuinely inclusive of asexuals. Usually I see articles that are like, describing sex or giving advice about sex in a way that makes no sense to me as an asexual, and then somewhere near the end there's a little disclaimer about "oh also some people are asexual"- like if you know you're asexual, then the writer is saying you shouldn't take their advice, but everyone else should! This is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

But this article, "What does it mean to be ‘open-minded’ about sex?" talks about how the concept of "being open-minded" can be used to pressure people into sexual things they don't want to do. This is certainly a concern for asexuals, but hey, even if you're not asexual, there must be some sexual things you don't want to do, and it's NOT COOL if people are pressuring you to do them in order to be "open-minded" or "sex positive." The article mentions the word "asexual" just 1 time- but it's not as a disclaimer, like "none of this applies to you if you're asexual"; no, instead it's an example of a reason why someone might not want to try all the sex things. Just one example of many. There are many many valid reasons to not want to try all the sex things. ("I don't want to" is a good enough reason all by itself!)

Yes, this is how you should write about sex.