Blogaround

Chandler and Joey from "Friends." "I got her machine." "Her answering machine?" "No, interestingly enough, her leaf blower picked up." Image souce.

1. Mr. Rogers and Child Liberation Theology (October 15) "When you view children as sinful or evil, you are more likely to misinterpret developmentally appropriate behavior as sinful or evil—and thus more likely to punish them for just being children." R. L. Stollar has just written a book called "The Kingdom of Children," about child liberation theology. I really want to read this!

2. China's youngest-ever crew of astronauts heads to space station (October 26) Cool!

3. Journal Club: Whitewashed (October 25) "This chapter discusses how whiteness is the default for ace representation, and how that affects the intersection between race, gender, and asexuality. In particular, the chapter focuses on how aces of color can violate or confirm stereotypes, and how it can be difficult either way."

4. Can church groups and Louisville be sued on old child sex abuse claims? Court to decide (October 24, this is an archive link because the original is paywalled) Umm, so, a victim of sexual abuse is challenging the laws about the statute of limitations in Kentucky. And, for some reason, the Southern Baptist Convention- which is not part of this case at all- has submitted a brief arguing that the statute of limitations should NOT be changed. Arguing against the victim. What on earth. Like, they are not involved in this case at all, but they just want to pop in and let everyone know they're on the side of the abusers.

5. Vikings DB Enlists Help From Senators to Acquire Visa for Wife in Philippines (October 26) Oh man, this is so real. As a US citizen married to a non-US citizen, let me tell you, this is SO REAL. We're lucky- someone advised my husband to get a 10-year US tourist visa *before* we got married, and he did that, so he's always been able to travel to the US on vacation with me. But a lot of couples run into problems with this- the US often refuses to issue someone a tourist visa if they are married to a US citizen, because the US thinks it's likely they actually intend to overstay their visa and live in the US long-term. And applying for a spousal visa (this is part of the process of getting a US green card) can take a long time. 

And yeah, asking your senators for help speeding up the process- also VERY REAL. Hope this guy is able to bring his wife to the US soon. 

6. Julie Roys and LGBTQ+ People (August 1) Julie Roys runs a blog dedicated to reporting on and calling out abuse in the church and in other Christian environments. That's great work that she's doing. Unfortunately, it seems she does not support LGBTQ people. I didn't know that- sad to hear about this.

7. Flamy Grant - What Did You Drag Me Into? [Official Video] (2022) Music video from a Christian drag queen called Flamy Grant. This is the exact content I am interested in.

8. Matthew Perry, Star of ‘Friends,’ Is Dead at 54 (October 29) and ‘An ironic, self-deprecating metrosexual’: how Matthew Perry captured the spirit of the age (October 29)

"Friends" is hugely popular in China as a way to learn American English. My husband loved it, and introduced me to it, and I also became a fan. Sad to hear this news about Matthew Perry- he was great.

9. The Hardest Puzzle Of The Year (2022) 1-hour-50-minute sudoku solve video. Simon is a genius.

10. Pence ends White House campaign after struggling to gain traction. ‘This is not my time,’ he says (October 29) Good. As an ex-evangelical, I am more creeped out by Mike Pence than by any other politician.

11. Virgin-shaming hurts everyone, including asexual people like me (October 24, via) "What I am proud of is that I didn’t have sex to appease everyone’s demands."

Also from Tyger Songbird: Purity culture made me feel trapped. Finding asexuality set me free. (October 26) "It turned out that when the church was saying 'True Love Waits,' what they really were saying was 'True Love Waits… but you better get the Ring By Spring!'" This article is SPOT-ON.

The Great Sex Rescue: Porn

"Is this a pigeon?" meme template, where it's evangelicals looking at "any amount of porn use" and asking, "Is this a porn addiction?" Source: I saw someone share this on twitter years ago, I don't have the original source, so I remade it myself here.

Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"

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[content note: this post discusses porn/masturbation/sex, but it's not explicit. also it discusses abusive ideology where men are supposed to use their wives as a substitute for porn]

So, we're now in chapter 6 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link], the chapter about porn.

I wasn't really sure what to write about this, because I don't really know that much about porn. I read fanfiction, and some of that is porn, but I don't know anything about other types of porn. So my plan for this post is to write about some of my thoughts tangent to this, but not really address whether evangelicals are right or wrong about porn. [Editor's note: yeah, Perfect Number said that, but then look how long this post is.]

Basically, I have seen 3 main schools of thought on porn:

1. Evangelical: Porn is always bad. Your entire sex life is supposed to belong to your spouse (and if you're not married, it belongs to your hypothetical future spouse), so porn is selfish, a betrayal of your spouse. People who watch porn are always getting addicted to porn. It's a huge danger that will destroy your marriage!
2. Mainstream society: It's normal to watch porn, everyone does it. But maybe we are a little bit concerned about kids thinking that porn is sex ed, and boys assuming that their girlfriends will be totally okay with performing whatever weird acts they see in porn (and pressuring them into it because those things are seen as "normal").
3. Feminist: There is debate about the ethics of porn. Are the actors being exploited? How can you really know if the actors are participating in it consensually, or if they are being coerced? Also, if you share sexy images or videos of someone without their consent, that is NOT OKAY.

(I'm sure there are other perspectives out there, but these are the 3 that I've seen.)

I guess my opinion is somewhere near the "mainstream society" view. (But obviously it's not true that "everyone" watches porn.) I don't really know enough about the feminist arguments to have an opinion there, though I suppose that is something that would be worth learning more about. (Though obviously yes, if it's not consensual that's NOT OKAY.)

But, I feel that behind each of these 3 points of view, there's this sort of background assumption that yes, we have all seen porn, we understand why it's enticing, we are familiar with what it's about... which is why a lot of the discussion about porn feels off, to me, as an asexual.

I do appreciate that "The Great Sex Rescue" asks this question: "How old were you when you first saw porn (if you have)? Did it affect how you saw sex? Did it affect how you saw yourself?" They allow for the possibility that some readers are so extremely sheltered that they've never actually had any real-life experience with porn at all. As an asexual, I appreciate that.

(And yes, "The Great Sex Rescue" definitely matches that "evangelical" view of porn I described above.)

Generally I think evangelicals' entire ideology about sex is wrong, so I lean toward the "evangelicals are totally wrong about porn and it's actually no big deal" side, but I really don't know enough about it to actually make an argument for that.

So I want to reframe this by talking about 2 different motivations for doing sexual things:

1. For yourself. For your own curiosity/ enjoyment/ satisfying your sex drive. (Apparently sex drive is a real thing, idk, I'm asexual, don't ask me.)
2. For your relationship with your partner. For your emotional and romantic intimacy with your partner. To express love to each other. To enjoy being with them.

(And sure, there are other possible motivations too, like having a baby, but let's keep it simple and just talk about these 2.)

In my opinion, both of these motivations are valid. And each person might prioritize them differently. Perhaps sometimes, you just want it to be about feeling good yourself- and that situation would correspond to using porn and masturbating. And sometimes, you want it to be about your partner, and so you have sex with your partner in a way that is loving and putting a high priority on making it a good experience for them. (Sex with a partner can be a combination of reason 1 and reason 2.)

(And in this post, I mention "using porn and masturbating" together because it seems like, from the way most people talk about them, those things go together????? But this is not intuitive to me at all.)

And I'm oversimplifying it here, but my point is, there's a time and place for both of those motivations. Or perhaps you're only interested in reason 1 and don't care about reason 2, and therefore you just masturbate and don't need a partner. Or you're not interested in anything sexual, for any of these reasons at all. Also fine! Where we run into trouble, though, is if you want to have sex that's always reason 2 and never reason 1. 

Yeah, evangelicals- including the writers of "The Great Sex Rescue"- believe that reason 1 is NOT a valid reason for doing sexual things. No. It can never be about you- that would be selfish! Masturbating is selfish and sinful because sex is supposed to be about your spouse, and you're taking that away from them (whether they exist or not) and using it for your own pleasure!

Back when I was evangelical, I believed masturbating was cheating. And watching porn was cheating. (And even if you're single, masturbating is still cheating, on your "future husband.") I don't remember if I ever heard anyone directly use the word "cheating" to talk about this, but they definitely say things like "betrayal" and "he invited hundreds of women into our bed."

Some quotes from this chapter of "The Great Sex Rescue", to show you what I mean about these writers believing reason 1 is NEVER an okay motivation for sex:

[In the "Every Man's Battle" books] There is no depiction of God's design for sex as an ultimate, personal knowing of each other rather than just intercourse during which she feels like a receptacle. It is just accepted that men can't experience sex the way God intended.
...
You can't defeat porn by simply having a husband transfer his lust and objectification to a "safe" source-- his wife. You defeat porn by rejecting the kingdom of darkness view of sex, that it is only about taking and using someone to meet your needs, and adopting a kingdom of heaven view of sex: that it's about a mutual, passionate knowing and sacrificial serving.

"The Great Sex Rescue" is criticizing evangelical resources like "Every Man's Battle." Let me sum up these different sides, as they relate to reason 1 and reason 2:

Evangelical resources about how men can "fight" lust and porn, like "Every Man's Battle": These resources talk about sex like it's only reason 1. Men have needs, and it would be wrong for men to use porn, and therefore the wife is REQUIRED to have sex with the husband to take care of his "needs." Instead of dealing with his reason-1 type of desire by watching porn and masturbating, he needs to deal with it by using his wife. So it's still reason 1, it's still selfish and all about him and not any awareness about "maybe you should care about if this is a good experience for your partner." Use your wife the same way you would use porn.

(It reminds me of the way that Josh Duggar reportedly had sex with Danica Dillon, a sex worker. She says he was violent and she was scared. I feel like... in evangelical/ purity ideology, men are told "you've been working so hard holding yourself back, and then when you're married you can finally stop holding back and just follow your desires and have everything you want, this is your reward from God" and there's no "you have to pay attention to how your partner feels." [And wouldn't that logic apply to both a wife and a sex worker? You paid for her, what reason could there be to put any restrictions on your behavior toward her?] It raises some scary questions about how he treated his wife.)

"The Great Sex Rescue": This chapter of "The Great Sex Rescue" criticizes evangelical resources like "Every Man's Battle" for telling wives they need to have sex to treat their husband's "addiction" and prevent him from watching porn. The writers of "The Great Sex Rescue" talk about how NOT OKAY it is that they don't seem to care at all about the wife's pleasure, and how they're making it her responsibility to keep her husband from watching porn. And telling women that sex is about being used as a substitute for porn. Rather than about, you know, love. In other words, "The Great Sex Rescue" says sex should always be with your spouse, never on your own, and when it's with your spouse, it has to be reason 2, not reason 1.

(And, can I just say, in mainstream secular society, I've encountered the idea that if a straight man prefers porn rather than having sex with an actual real woman, he is a pathetic loser. Like, dude, what the hell is wrong with you, you've got an actual wife or girlfriend, naked and consenting, and you'd rather just watch porn by yourself? And that it's normal to watch porn, everyone does it, but obviously "the real thing" is better. I don't agree with this view because I don't think we should judge people as "pathetic losers" based on their sexual preferences [and also this is tied up with the idea that being able to attract and pleasure a sexual partner is an indicator of how awesome a man is, and being a "virgin" is bad]. I don't agree with it, but I believe it's very very useful to know that this perspective exists. If you're coming from an evangelical background, where the assumption is "yeah men all have this weakness where they get addicted to porn and then they don't want to have sex with their wife, so wives have to step up their game to keep their husband interested"- no, that's not some axiomatically-true assumption about how the world works. No. Many people see it QUITE DIFFERENTLY. Many people believe that if the husband prefers porn, that's a problem with him. He is the one who is a loser, and it has nothing to do with his wife's sexual skills. Mind-blowing, if you're coming from an evangelical/purity background.)

And I would say, both "Every Man's Battle" and "The Great Sex Rescue" are too narrow. ("Every Man's Battle" is worse though!) How about, sometimes it can be reason 1, and sometimes it can be reason 2? Both partners should discuss their desires as related to reason 2, and come up with something that works for both of them. For reason 1 motivations and how you handle them, that's your own business.

Or, actually, it's not exactly true that "that's your own business." A couple should discuss with each other the question "what is our definition of cheating?" Evangelicals seem to just assume that porn and masturbation are cheating, but personally I think that's not a very realistic place to draw the line.

If you have discussed it with your partner and agreed that watching porn is cheating, and then you discover that your partner is watching porn, of course that's a betrayal. Of course you would feel upset about that. But it's not because porn is inherently bad- it's because of the broken promise. The dishonesty.

I feel like it's realistic and healthy to allow people to masturbate and use porn, and that's fine and it's not cheating. That's my own opinion, feel free to draw the line in a different place. If a porn habit starts to cause problems in your relationship with your partner, well, you have to stop and think about what your priorities are, and what kind of relationship you and your partner agreed you want to have, and then make changes that will help you reach those goals.

What I think is completely unreasonable, though, is that evangelicals have drawn the line such that ANY sexual activity AT ALL that is solely for your own enjoyment is NOT OKAY. CHEATING! They say that every single sexual experience you ever have, in your whole entire life, has to be with your spouse.

(I've told this story before, but here, I'll tell it again: I read an fanfic about 2 characters in a kinky dom/sub relationship, and the dom character said to the sub character, "you are not allowed to masturbate, you are not allowed to have orgasms without me." And it was presented like a kinky power-dynamics thing, that is not the norm but some people may choose to do it because they find it exciting. And I was SHOCKED, because in purity culture I was taught that that's just what every normal marriage is supposed to be like. Like of course it's normal that no one masturbates, and all orgasms must occur in your spouse's presence. And people who aren't married shouldn't be having orgasms at all, ever. This fanfic showed me no, that's not normal, that's a kinky dom/sub thing- "normal" would be that everyone is in charge of their own body and can masturbate if they want. See, this is why I say that reading fanfic porn has been helpful for me.)

This is not reasonable, even for me, an asexual, who never had any interest in sex in and of itself, but cluelessly saw it as nothing more than a means to have romantic, loving experiences with another person. I definitely believed there was no need to do any exploring on my own, no need to have sexual experiences that were just for myself, because that would be SELFISH and BAD, and that's not what sex is SUPPOSED TO BE. It's bad if you want sex for the sex. You're supposed to want sex because you love your partner.

So... when we started having sex (before marriage!) and I was completely clueless... it didn't go well. Purity culture said that a man would appreciate how clueless I was, because that meant I was pure, and I hadn't had any sexual experiences that weren't about him, and that's the way it should be... No, it wasn't a good thing that I was clueless.

And you know, people say "when a man and woman love each other very much..." then sex happens... well it's not true. It doesn't happen naturally for me, because I am asexual af. Like, we love each other, hooray... okay but now we're supposed to do something with our genitals???? Why????? How??????

So when I read in "The Great Sex Rescue" that sex is supposed to be this beautiful mutual intimate connection, and it should never be anything else... this doesn't work for me. Because I can't get to the "beautiful mutual intimate connection" if I don't even know what the hell I'm supposed to do- the mechanics of it- and if I don't even know how my own body works.

My point is, you need to masturbate.

(Obviously you don't "need" to masturbate- some people live their lives without having sex at all, and without masturbating at all. That would be fine! What doesn't work is thinking you're going to have sex successfully with another person, if you don't have any experience masturbating.)

This is something that's really important to me, and I think this should be one of the key pieces of sex ed we teach to teenagers: First, you have to figure out the individual ("selfish") aspects of sex, for yourself. Figure out your body, your desires, your interests, your overall goals. (And perhaps you figure out that you're ace and never want to have sex at all- that is a valid answer.) And then, you can decide on whether you'd want to share those experiences with another person. Under what circumstances, and what would your motivations be, and how would you like it to happen, and what are you hoping to get out of it.

And I'm not saying you literally have to fully complete the first step before moving on to the second step. I'm not saying you have to know everything there is to know about your own desires, before you can have sex with another person for the first time. No, there can be some overlap in this process. Maybe your experiences with other people help you figure out what you want. But my point is, figuring out sex for yourself is a crucial step, a prerequisite to having a good sexual relationship with another person.

And obviously, if you are involving another person, you have to care about how they feel, and make sure you pay attention to their needs and make it a good experience for them. (Even if your motivation is reason 1, you still have to care about how your partner feels. You don't "use" your partner.) But you'll be able to do that much better if you're coming from a place of confidently knowing what you want and how your body works, rather that just having no idea what the **** is going on.

Anyway, let's get back to some of the things that this chapter of "The Great Sex Rescue" says. 

So, this chapter talks about some physical problems caused by porn use- for example, a man being unable to get an erection when having sex with his wife. Like he's not able to just have sex with her- the only way he can get it to work is by watching porn. Like I said, I don't know very much about porn, so I can't comment on how likely this scenario is- but I feel like the reason it's a problem is because the husband's approach to sex is not meeting the wife's needs. She wants sex to be a certain way, but he's not able to do that because porn has gotten him into the habit of doing sex a different way. The problem is the mismatch, not the porn itself.

Because, imagine this: Suppose there is a couple where 1 partner is asexual and the other partner is not, so they decide that what works for them is that they will never have sex with each other, and they can individually use porn or masturbate if they want. Or, maybe they decide they will have an open relationship, or some sort of arrangement like that. Yeah, most people wouldn't be okay with that. *I* wouldn't be okay with that. (I really want to emphasize this: If you are not okay with having an open relationship, then be confident and don't let anyone talk you into it. Know yourself. Just because it's a valid relationship structure for some people doesn't mean you have to be willing to try it yourself. No. If you're not okay with it, then stand firm and absolutely refuse.) But for some people, depending on their feelings about sex and the role they want it to play in their lives, this works for them. And if it works for them, that's great. 

And... yeah I've said this in previous posts... "The Great Sex Rescue" feels to me (as a queer person) like it's presenting a view of sex which is very narrow, and saying this is the only correct way to view sex. Sex *has* to be in a monogamous hetero marriage, and it *has* to be about intimacy and connection with your partner. It feels extremely narrow- but at the same time, I recognize that my solution- both partners know themselves and know what they want and confidently advocate for that- is just not realistic for women from a conservative Christian background. 

See, if you're evangelical, which of these comes across as a stronger argument?

1. "The Great Sex Rescue" says a husband not being able to get an erection because he used porn too much is a problem because he is required to make sex a pleasurable and intimate experience for his wife, because that is what sex was DECREED BY GOD to be.
2. Me, Perfect Number, saying "if the husband isn't able to have sex with his wife, that's not a problem in and of itself, it's only a problem if having emotionally-intimate sex with him is really important to her, and yes, if it's really important to her than she absolutely should stand up for herself and say 'this is not working for me' and they should take it very seriously and come up with a plan that works for both of them."

I understand that for women with a conservative Christian background, who have been told their entire life that it's selfish and sinful to want things... they can't ask for what they want, they can only argue "we have to do this because it's the correct way that God designed."

It's sad, it's really sad, is what it is. And I hope that people coming out of that kind of background can eventually get to a place where they believe that their emotions matter, their desires matter, in and of themselves and not because of whether or not they're following God's rules or something. And maybe to get there, they have to go through a phase where they come up with biblical arguments about "actually if you really interpret the bible correctly, it says you should do these things"... but eventually I hope people get to a place where it doesn't matter what the bible says, or what God says. 

You matter, because you're a person, and that's enough by itself. That's enough, by itself, to say that you deserve to have people care about how you feel and what you want, and you shouldn't be forced into things you don't want.

Anyway, here's another thought I just had: I think I've figured out what the actual problem with porn is, that evangelicals are always mislabeling as "a porn addiction." The actual problem is, for some people, porn exploits some of their natural psychological quirks and causes them to develop bad habits, which then mess up other areas of their life. (For example, a man who wants to have a healthy sexual relationship with his wife, but his experiences with porn cause him to have certain assumptions and behaviors during sex which make it not possible to have the kind of positive experience they both want to have.)

This is similar to how people can get stuck wasting so much time on social media sites, because of the "infinite scroll." The design of the social media feed exploits human psychology, to cause people to develop the bad habit of spending way too much time on there.

Or, another example, perhaps fast food restaurants are very convenient, and that causes people to develop the bad habit of eating too much fast food.

These are things that, because of human nature, will inevitably happen to a certain percentage of people. Not everyone- there are plenty of people who just use social media a normal amount and don't want to waste hours and hours on it every day.

So, overall my view on porn is, you should be a mature adult, and recognize if it's causing problems for you, and then take action to change your habits. I want to say, the existence of porn is not a problem in and of itself, and using porn is not a problem in and of itself, but it can become a problem for some people. And instead of scaremongering like evangelicals do, claiming everything is "a porn addiction", how about we be mature adults who can honestly evaluate our own lives and identify our bad habits and do the work to change those habits.

(And perhaps this is an argument for why teenagers shouldn't have access to porn- because they actually aren't capable of doing the "mature adult" thing and being aware of whether it's having harmful effects on their lives.)

At the same time, though, maybe I shouldn't put all the responsibility on the individual, who needs to "be a mature adult." If something is designed to exploit human nature in a way that causes people to develop bad habits, shouldn't some of the blame be on the thing itself (and/or the companies making money off it)? (Wait do people make money off of producing porn? I guess? Maybe I'm too ace to talk about this.)

So... hmm. If it is the case that porn commonly does cause people to develop bad habits/ unhealthy ideas about sex, then we should do something to address that. And not just say porn is always bad and it will destroy your life, etc, like I always heard in purity culture. (Fun fact, I tried watching porn, and my overall feeling was just complete bafflement that *this* is what Christians had been warning me about all these years, that it's so DANGEROUS and it's going to ensnare me and RUIN MY LIFE... I'm like... so... it's people having sex for no reason? I don't get it?? Why would I want to watch that??? This is what y'all've been scared of, all this time????) I don't think it's possible to ban it- so instead, we should teach people how to have a healthy attitude towards it, how to recognize if it's causing harmful effects in their lives, how to get rid of bad habits, etc.

But like I said, I'm asexual so I can't speak to questions like "How likely is porn to cause problems for people who use it? How hard is it to quit?" etc. So I really have no idea about the practical aspects of this. Probably I'm wrong about some of the things I've said in this post.

But here's the main point I want to make: "The Great Sex Rescue" says sex has to always be about having a mutual loving relationship with your spouse, and it's wrong for sex to ever be something you just do by yourself, for yourself. I very much disagree with that. I think your sex life and your sexuality belong to you- not your spouse, not anyone else- and you have to figure out yourself first, and after you've built that foundation, then you can decide whether you want to involve another person. Even in marriage, your sex life is for you first, and then you choose to share it with your spouse. (And also you should discuss how you define "cheating" and then don't break that promise.)

"The Great Sex Rescue" criticizes books like "Every Man's Battle" for telling men to use their wives as an alternative to using porn- and yes, I agree with "The Great Sex Rescue" here. Having sex with a person is a completely different thing than using porn. You can't expect that you can easily substitute one for the other. (And that's really cruel to the wife... Christians basically telling wives that the only way a husband will enjoy sex with her is if the wife makes it a similar experience to what he gets from porn- rather than having sex because they both want to and they love each other and he wants her to genuinely enjoy it.)

My opinion is, there's a time and a place for both. It depends on your motivations and what you're hoping to get out of it. You have to figure that out for yourself. But "The Great Sex Rescue" says no, there's not a time and a place for both- sex ALWAYS has to be about loving your partner. This feels so incredibly narrow to me.

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I wish I had a link to an article about the problems with the way evangelicals view porn (thinking *everything* is "a porn addiction")- there must be some ex-evangelical/ ex-purity-culture person/ queer Christian who has written about that. I do have a few links to some short threads on twitter which point out this problem though: this one from @emilyjoypoetry and this one from @emilykmay.

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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"

Related:

My Husband Is Not The Entire Focus Of My Sex Life 

I Wanna Preach the Good News of Masturbation 

A Post About Masturbation

"Is it Okay for Christians to Use Sex Toys?" (An Exercise in Missing the Point)

Blogaround

1. Study that found husbands prone to leave sick wives was flawed, researchers say (2015) and Authors’ Explanation of the Retraction (2015) There was a study, which I'd heard about many times on twitter and various places, that found that it's MUCH more likely that married couples divorce if the wife has major health problems, than if the husband has major health problems. Popular wisdom on the internet took this to mean that men abandon their wife if the wife gets sick, society doesn't expect men to keep their marriage vows, patriarchy is the worst, etc.

Well I'm just finding out now (even though it happened in 2015) that the study had an error in analyzing their data, and actually those results weren't correct. I'm not sure if there have been other studies since then with better data, or what the current academic consensus on this is. But it's important to not keep repeating this claim, now that we know the study was flawed.

2. Samsung caught faking zoom photos of the Moon (March 13, via) "The test of Samsung’s phones conducted by Reddit user u/ibreakphotos was ingenious in its simplicity. They created an intentionally blurry photo of the Moon, displayed it on a computer screen, and then photographed this image using a Samsung S23 Ultra. As you can see below, the first image on the screen showed no detail at all, but the resulting picture showed a crisp and clear 'photograph' of the Moon. The S23 Ultra added details that simply weren’t present before. There was no upscaling of blurry pixels and no retrieval of seemingly lost data. There was just a new Moon — a fake one."

3. Infinite Fractal Mazes (October 21) "Fractal mazes contain infinite paths, but the only solutions permitted are finite. Some people find that disappointing. What’s the point of all that extra maze if we don’t get to traverse it?" Oh this is so cool.

4. The Infamous 1981 Lee Atwater Interview School for Government at Liberty University (October 20) "By choosing to name their school for government after Helms, Liberty University is endorsing all of that — admitting, and even flat-out bragging, that everything they’re packaging as 'today’s conservative movement' and 'traditional values' is just a euphemism for saying 'N—-r, n—-r, n—-r.' They may as well have simply named it The Infamous 1981 Lee Atwater Interview School for Government and carved that entire quote in granite on the side of a campus building."

Also from the Slacktivist: Get sick, get fired (October 24) "And she reminded my wife, repeatedly, that the salon was 'a privately owned business,' which she said exempted her from the kind of labor laws governing large, publicly traded companies. And which also, apparently, exempted her from common decency and basic humanity."

5. A Missionary Died at 26 on a Doomed Quest. A New Documentary Confronts What Led Him There (October 5) There's a new documentary called "The Mission," which is about John Chau, the missionary who was killed in 2018 when he tried to bring the "gospel" to the Sentinelese, one of the few uncontacted people groups on earth. 

I'm interested in watching this... I've written about Chau a bunch of times here on the blog, because of how his story so completely matches the "ideal" actions that American evangelicals believe missionaries (and, really, all Christians) should take. And also I relate to him a lot... believing in something so much that it becomes so big and overtakes your whole life- well, that's kind of why I moved to China.

My posts about Chau:
This Is Exactly the Martyr Fairy Tale We Aspired To (2018)
Evangelicals Agree With What Chau Did (And It Makes Me Angry): Here Are The Receipts (2018)
Because of an Idea (2019)

6. Did Legalizing Abortion Reduce Crime 20 Years Later? (October 24) "So there are a lot of issues with the abortion-crime hypothesis, but one I rarely see brought up is the fact that there’s a very good chance that Levitt based this entire idea on an initial premise that is simply not true: that legalizing abortion drastically alters the number of abortions women get. Levitt calls this 'true virtually by definition.' It is not."

7. Feel free to not click on this one- I'm sharing it specifically because it's bad: Andy Stanley’s ‘Unconditional’ Contradiction (October 4) It's an article from Christianity Today, about the "Unconditional" conference, hosted by pastor Andy Stanley. The good Christians at Christianity Today are unhappy that Andy Stanley's conference wasn't as anti-gay as it could have been. Stanley's position seems to be, [and I'm paraphrasing this, it's not a quote from anywhere] "marriage must be 1 man and 1 woman, but still there are things we can learn from gay Christians- even gay Christians in same-sex relationships- so we should listen to them." Well, Christianity Today is here to tell you that's not good enough. I'm posting this link here so y'all can see what Christianity Today is all about. 

But hey, here's one cool tidbit from CT's article: "The most controversial conference speakers were Justin Lee and Brian Nietzel, whom Stanley described as 'two married gay men' who are also 'Christ-followers today.'" Wow, I hadn't heard Justin Lee got married- good for him! I read his book, "Torn," way back in 2012, and it definitely had a major influence on my journey along the "hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner" to "ally" to "queer" pipeline. Anyway, very cool to hear he's married now, very happy for him. (I don't know who Brian Nietzel is, but I suppose I'm happy for him too.)

Are our friends at Christianity Today happy for Justin Lee? LOL. Of course not! They know no details about his marriage, besides gender, and that's enough for them to conclude it's BAD and WRONG and nobody should invite him to speak at any conferences. This is what Christianity Today is about. Like, why can't you just be happy for people? Why do you have to make sure you're judging them enough? 

Why do you follow a god who requires you to judge people in order to maintain your Christian cred?

And this is why, in my opinion, it's pointless to even try to "pass" as a good evangelical in order to work for change from the inside. Any little deviation from "God's design for gender"/ "God created everyone to occupy the exact same place on the Kinsey scale" [uh this is also my paraphrase] and the good evangelicals are ready to cancel you. Andy Stanley isn't even saying it's okay to be in a same-sex relationship- he's just saying that his church welcomes people who are, and believes they have things to say which are worth listening to. If he wants to keep his status as a real Christian in evangelicals' eyes, he needs to backtrack on that and throw queer people under the bus. It wouldn't be the first time that a straight cis Christian made a statement about accepting queer people, and then got such nasty pushback that they immediately reversed their position, like "oh no, no of course I didn't mean that, of course I believe what the bible says, marriage is 1 man and 1 woman."

The cool thing about not being evangelical is you can stop playing those games. You can just simply accept your queer friends, just be a normal person with them, rather than constantly trying to judge them in a "loving" way, constantly walking that fine line between "hate the sin" and "love the sinner." You don't have to do any of that. Come into the big queer world. Love people like Jesus did. Be free. 

I got covid (don't worry, I'm better now)

Stock photo of a woman taking her temperature because she has a fever. Image source.

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak 

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Hi readers, I guess I should post an update about covid and living in China, because, I got covid this summer. Actually it happened while I was on vacation in the US. Kind of the worst, being sick on vacation. Me, my husband, and son all got it. (And none of us had had covid before.) I had a fever and a really bad headache for a few days.

Maybe we got infected on the flight from China to the US, because the longest leg was 12 hours and we didn't wear masks. Who knows.

One really weird thing was, when I went to urgent care in the US, the receptionist wasn't wearing a mask, and I told her I had covid, and she still didn't put on a mask, and the nurse wasn't wearing a mask either.

Anyway, I don't recommend getting covid, also I don't recommend getting covid on vacation. 

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In other news: China is no longer "requiring" covid tests when entering the country. Here's an article from ABC News about it: China won't require COVID-19 tests for incoming travelers in a milestone in its reopening (August 28). I frown disapprovingly at this article, because of how it talks about "A U.S. federally funded study this month found the rapid dismantling of the 'zero COVID' policy may have led to nearly 2 million excess deaths in the following two months" ... 2 million excess deaths compared to... compared to the Before Times, or compared to if China had just let everyone have covid starting in 2020 like all the other countries did? And also it mentions China's "sluggish economic recovery" as if all the other countries have been doing any better. I don't like the bias in this article, but anyway, I want to share a link about how covid tests are no longer "required" when entering the country, so here it is.

But I put "requiring" in scare quotes because, like, this policy (as it existed as of August 2023) was such a joke. Before April 29, 2023, the policy was not a joke; China was requiring PCR tests (also known as nucleic acid tests), where you had to go to a real testing place (and pay over a hundred dollars, that's how much it cost me at Walgreens) and get a real report, and you had to time it so it was some number of hours before the takeoff time of the leg of your flight that entered mainland China, and the airline employees checked the reports very carefully before letting you on the plane, etc etc etc. This policy changed back in April- it is no longer in effect as of April 29, 2023 (here's a link to South China Morning Post, and here's where I mentioned this on my blog).

So back in April, they changed to a new policy, which is: you're supposed to do a self-test, and then when you enter China there's an app with a customs form to fill out, and one of the questions is "was your self-test positive or negative" and that's it. You just check the "negative" box, nobody asks for any proof, nobody cares, probably most travelers didn't even do a self-test, whatever.

So now they announce they're no longer requiring covid tests for people entering China, like, my dude, you stopped requiring them back in April, and since then everybody's been going through this charade where we pretend we did a self-test but nobody cares if we actually did. The only change now is the customs app no longer asks the question.

I actually know someone who tested positive in the US during the summer, flew back to China anyway, checked the "negative" box on the customs app, and when he landed in Shanghai he was randomly selected to be covid-tested, lol. A few days later, someone from the airport called him and said he had tested positive. But, they didn't tell him he should, like, do anything. Like, you tested positive, but I guess no one cares. So. Yeah. The policy was a joke. 

I guess it's nice that they're changing it, but it shouldn't be reported as news, because it doesn't actually matter.

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Next, let's talk about masking habits here in Shanghai. Well, it seems like most people aren't at all worried about covid any more, and mostly aren't wearing masks. When I was on the Shanghai subway recently, I estimated maybe 20% of people were wearing masks. 

I wear a mask on the subway, and in most indoor public spaces like malls, but also I eat at restaurants a lot, no mask. I feel like, I don't want to get covid again, but the probability of getting it from any single place I go is so low, it feels like it's not worth the trouble of inconveniencing myself. Wearing a mask on the subway isn't an inconvenience for me, so I do that, but if I was going to like, avoid eating at restaurants, blah that would be too much trouble.

But also, we have no way of knowing when the probability of getting covid is high or low.

So, probably the best strategy is to get as many vaccines as we can. Which, on that note, China hasn't rolled out a new booster recently, and it really seems like they should.

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And one more piece of news: Notice on Walk-in Without Appointment Visa Application Service (October 19) "To further facilitate foreign nationals’ travel to China, the Chinese Embassy and Consulates-General in the U.S. will provide walk-in visa application services starting from October 23, 2023."

When the quarantine policy ended (January 8, 2023- I wrote about it here) and then visa services for non-Chinese citizens resumed (March 15, 2023- I wrote about it here), Chinese consulates in other countries had to deal with TONS of people suddenly applying for Chinese visas. (Most were probably non-Chinese citizens who have relatives in China, whom they hadn't been able to visit for 3 years.) There were so many applications, that the consulates could not allow people to just walk in and apply, you had to try to reserve an appointment or something (I don't know the details on this). 

Well it sounds like they've worked through that backlog and now there are a reasonable number of visa applicants every day, so they're back to doing walk-in applications. Very cool. China is a good place to visit, now that zero-covid is over! (Oh, actually, scratch that, plane tickets are still absurdly expensive. Maybe wait til next year.)

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That's all~ Maybe I won't have to do any more covid updates, because things in China are pretty much the same as the rest of the world, at this point.

Reasons

A bunch of signs that say "yes" or "no". Image source.

This post is part of the October 2023 Carnival of Aces. The topic for this month is "Asexuality, Sex, Erotic Contact, and Physical Intimacy."

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One of the things I like the most about the asexual community is that we see "not having sex" as a sort of default. People can choose to have sex if they want to, nothing wrong with that, but it's the sort of thing where we wonder what the reasons would be, for choosing that. We can (and do) endlessly discuss those reasons. But you don't need reasons to not have sex, that's just normal, right?

Personally, I do have sex with my husband, but it definitely feels to me like a decision. It's not like "well I do that because of course I do"- no, I really thought about it and made a choice. And I can definitely understand that people would choose to make a different choice if their circumstances or preferences were different. This is all very intuitive to me. I find it so weird when non-asexual people are confused about why someone would not want to ever have sex. Like, why is this confusing? (It's not confusing. Sex is what's confusing.) I really don't feel comfortable with that the assumption that "of course everyone wants to have sex"- even though I do have sex. I had to think through this and figure out what I wanted, and it's alienating to me when people talk about sex like it's so obvious, like it's unimaginable that this would be an actual decision.

Anyway, I've written up a list here of various categories of reasons one might choose to have sex. For most of these categories, they include a whole range of things, from healthy to problematic to so coercive it's nonconsensual. In many cases, I can't exactly draw a line to divide the "good" reasons from the "bad" reasons, or the consensual from the nonconsensual. Sometimes it's hard to even figure that out for yourself.

Here they are:

1. Curiosity/ trying new things

A positive interpretation of this one is that you are curious and freely choosing to try sex. A negative/coercive interpretation could be if you feel like you're not allowed to say you don't like sex if you haven't tried it.

2. You want society to see you a certain way

For example, society says if you have sex a certain amount, then you are desirable/fun/wild. And society thinks it's bad to be a "virgin." (I personally think society should get over itself.) 

Or the church tells you that a "real man" wants sex all the time, and a "good wife" has to fulfill her "wifely duty" of having sex frequently enough to meet her husband's "needs."

3. You want your partner to see you a certain way

Maybe you like it when your partner desires you and thinks you are sexy. 

Or, toward the more problematic end of the spectrum, maybe you constantly fear you aren't good enough, and you need to have sex in order to make it worth their while to be in a relationship with you. 

Or you've heard lots of warnings about how wives have to have sex with their husbands enough, or else the husband will cheat because all men are like that, and you're terrified your husband will cheat on you. (Fact check: Most men are not like that! If you meet a man who is like that, you need to NOT MARRY HIM.)

(Maybe we could even categorize sex work under this reason? You want your partner to see that you held up your end of the deal so they need to pay you.)

4. You want to see yourself a certain way

Maybe having sex makes you feel like you are sexy/powerful/fun. Maybe it's a way to prove that you are "normal." Maybe you like the feeling of being desired.

(I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide which of these reasons are healthy and which are problematic.)

5. Indicates something about the relationship

For example, you see sex as meaningful because it symbolizes a certain level of love/ intimacy/ commitment. 

Or, it means you're over your ex if you have sex with someone else, or you're comparing your current partner to your ex and you feel you need to do more sexual things with your current partner, in order to prove something about ... something? 

Or, you've internalized the idea that in a long term relationship you're "supposed" to have sex, and if you're married you have to have sex some number of times per week (or else people will have concerns about your marriage being unhealthy), on the wedding night you have to "lose your virginity", etc, various relationship structures/milestones where you're supposed to have sex because that's what people think that relationship type "means."

(And that sounds kinda problematic, like "we're having sex because that's what we're supposed to do, and I never thought about if I actually want to or not"- but it doesn't have to be interpreted that way. This category can include more positive perspectives, such as: maybe you do genuinely feel that it makes sense to have sex because you have a certain type of relationship / level of commitment. Here's an analogy- imagine someone who is very excited to wear a wedding ring after they get married. Yeah, it's because they've internalized the cultural ideas about how the ring symbolizes their love and commitment- but there's nothing inherently harmful with that belief in and of itself. Just because you've "internalized cultural ideas" doesn't make it automatically a bad thing. I think symbols are great, actually. It only becomes harmful if you're forcing people to do things they don't want to because you think everyone has to believe in the same symbolism as you.)

Also under this category, maybe you expect sex to magically fix your relationship problems. 

(Maybe sex work should be categorized here actually? If you have made a financial arrangement where one person is explicitly paying the other for sex, then the structure of the "relationship" requires you to either have sex, or forfeit the money.)

6. You like seeing your partner enjoying it

Maybe it makes you happy when your partner is happy. Or, a more problematic spin on this one would be, you feel like you're obligated to do it to make your partner happy.

7. Emotional/ romantic intimacy with your partner

I've heard lots of people say that one of the main reasons they want to have sex is for "intimacy." And that sex in marriage is very important because you need it in order to have emotional intimacy. (? Yeah I can't explain that one but apparently that is how it works for a lot of people.) I have even heard the idea that some people have a natural desire to express their love to their partner though sex (which was really surprising to me, but yeah I guess it's a real thing).

Or, to put a problematic spin on this, maybe it's the only way you can get your partner to pay attention to you at all.

8. Physically it feels good

Maybe you choose to have sex because physically it feels good. (And I would strongly advise, if it hurts then don't do it! I wish I had known that, I wish I had known to stop immediately if it hurts- instead I had internalized a lot of Christian marriage advice about "men need it, so the wife has to do it even if it hurts, come on it doesn't take very much time, surely you can endure pain for a few minutes for the sake of your marriage, life is full of annoying tasks we have to do even if we don't like them, that's just the way it is" ugh gross.)

9. To have a baby

This would require that one of you has eggs and the other one has sperm.

10. Sexual attraction

I'm very vague on the details of this one...?

11. Sex drive

Yeah I am not the right person to ask about this one either.

(For the last few items on the list, I haven't put many details, but I expect that these categories also span the whole range from "healthy" to "problematic" to "nonconsensual.")

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I'd like to point out that, for many of these reasons (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, maybe 7?), they're not even about the sex part of sex. Instead, they're about the cultural ideas surrounding what sex "means." If society had arbitrarily picked some completely different activity and assigned those meanings to it, then many of these reasons would apply 100% to that activity, I wouldn't need to edit them at all. Only a few of the reasons have any relation to the fact that sex means doing stuff with each other's genitals.

So for the reasons that are "not even about the sex part of sex," there's not necessarily any difference between aces and allosexuals (ie, between people on the asexual spectrum, and people who are not). An ace person could choose to have sex for those reasons (or feel pressured to have sex for those reasons), just the same as an allosexual person might. 

(Or, in reality there are differences, but they're along these lines: Maybe because of influence from the ace community, the asexual person would know that they're not "required" to have sex, so they feel less pressured by other people's expectations. Or, alternatively, maybe because the asexual person doesn't have any intuitive understanding of wanting to have sex because of sexual attraction, they might believe that everyone is doing it because of peer pressure, and be more likely to be pressured into it themselves. So, the differences are more about the context that they are coming from, rather than a simple connection between biological desires and choices.)

And for the remaining reasons, which do depend on the fact that sex is about genitals, each of them might apply to some aces and not others.

So, there's my list of possible reasons to have sex. Within each category, the specific circumstances could be healthy or unhealthy. I didn't categorize them in relation to consent, or which ones are good or bad, because I feel that there's a continuous range and it's hard to say where it crosses over into being unhealthy, and then where it crosses over into being nonconsensual. That's something you have to figure out for yourself, by analyzing your feelings, and it may take a very long time to figure it out. (If your partner is explicitly threatening you or something, that would make it nonconsensual, but there are also many cases where a person might feel threatened or pressured by the reality of their circumstances, or cultural ideas they've internalized, and it's hard to label that as consensual or nonconsensual. Only the person who's experiencing those feelings themself can really make that call.)

I very much believe that having sex is a choice, not something that everyone should just be doing automatically (??? what a bizarre idea), and I appreciate that the ace community treats it that way. Like sex is an unusual concept, and you're free to choose it if you want, but there's much discussion to be had about why on earth people would choose that.

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Related:

The Gap Between Fantasy and Reality 

Bucket List (a post about being a sex-favorable asexual) 

6 Ways Purity Culture Did NOT Teach Me About Consent

And this post from Siggy: 20 narratives of aces who like sex

Blogaround

1. I feel like I should say something about what's going on in Palestine? I don't know what to say though, it's just horrifying, and posting on the internet "I stand with Palestine" doesn't actually help anything... I just wish people would stop bombing people.

2. Idaho hospital closes its maternity ward, citing the state’s ‘political climate’ (March 22)

3. The Trouble With Circular Reasoning Is.... (!) (October 15) 1-hour-21-minute sudoku solve video.

4. China joins Apostille Convention - no legalization for public documents (March 14) Well this will (hopefully) decrease the amount of bureaucracy that immigrants in China (like me) have to deal with. See, the way it is now, if you're applying for a visa or something in China, you have to bring a bunch of documents, and if the documents were issued in other countries, they need to be "legalized" by some Chinese authority to prove they are real. I'm not sure exactly what documents this change will apply to- off the top of my head, I'm thinking about things like diplomas and marriage licenses. (But also, don't get too excited- I would be 0% surprised if China invents some new bureaucracy steps to replace the old ones.) The change goes into effect on November 7, 2023. 

5. Sex and the end of the world (October 16) "The future they’re being told they’re never going to have was already a life of futility and meaninglessness. So when they’re told that future won’t be there for them, they’re not going to think about all the things they’re never going to get to learn or to teach, to create, to build, to share, to discover, or to enjoy. They’re not going to think about how they’ll never get to break every chain, or to let justice roll down like waters. The main thing they’ll think about missing out on will be the main thing they’ve heard about in youth group from day one: sex."

Damn. Preach.

6. Ending Junk Fees, the Most Annoying Thing in American Commerce (October 15, via) "We’ve all experienced these in one form or another. You go to a hotel, and instead of being given the price quoted to you online, they add a $25 'amenity' fee, or 'resort' fee, or something like that." Wow, reading this article, I'm like... astonished at the idea that the government could really stop businesses from charging hidden fees. Like, I always thought that's just the way it is, and as a consumer you need to know that the price it says isn't really the price it is, and be prepared for that. But, man, no, it DOESN'T have to be that way.

I remember the first time I came to China, buying things at a mall or restaurant, and the price that it said on the price tag was the price it ACTUALLY WAS, and that BLEW MY MIND. No extra is charged for tax or tip- that's all already included in the price on the price tag. And now that I think about it, even for bigger things in China (hotel rooms, etc), the price that it says is, quite often, LITERALLY the price that IT IS, even though I've always been prepared to pay more because that's what I expect as an American.

7. Solving Fractal Mazes (October 18) "With all that explanation, I hope you’re half as excited about fractal mazes as I am." Yesssss.

8. Making It So: A Memoir [affiliate link] I just found out that Patrick Stewart has published a memoir. Oh I am so excited about this!

9. Trump Gets the Corporate Death Penalty (And It's Getting Worse) (October 7) 22-minute video from Legal Eagle, explaining what's going on with the orange antichrist's businesses in the state of New York. Basically the court ruled that he loses all of his business licenses in New York. Wow. As one of the comments says, "You know it's bad when the lawyers stop saying allegedly."

10. Biden urges striking auto workers to ‘stick with it’ in picket line visit unparalleled in history (September 27) "The fact of the matter is that you guys, the UAW, you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 ... you made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot. And the companies were in trouble. Now they’re doing incredibly well and guess what? You should be doing incredibly well."

11. Once Upon a Studio | Official Trailer | Disney+ (September 22) There's a new short film to celebrate Disney's 100th anniversary, and it's SO GOOD. It's cartoon characters from almost all of their movies, coming together to take a photo. The link I'm posting here is just a short trailer- I didn't find the entire video available on youtube. (I watched it on bilibili, a Chinese video site.)

On Marriage as an Immigrant in China

A world map, with a heart in the US connected to a heart in Europe. Image source.

I'm a US citizen; my husband is a Chinese citizen. We got married in China, we live in China, and we have a son who was born in China. A few days ago I wrote a post called Why Marriage as a Private Contract is a Bad Idea, which included the idea that people don't think about the fact that marriage is an actual legal arrangement which comes with certain rights/obligations/restrictions- they just think in romantic terms like "we want to spend the rest of our lives together, so, we get married." This post will be about how that relates to my situation as an immigrant who got married in China.

When we got married, the legal process of it worked thusly: I had to go to the US consulate in Shanghai and get a document that states I wasn't already married. (If I had been married before, I would have had to bring proof of divorce or death, when I went to get this document from the US consulate.) I just had to swear that I'm not already married, and the US consulate didn't do anything to check if it's true or not, they just believed me and wrote up a paper that says so.

Then we had to go to my husband's hometown, because his hukou is from there. What is a hukou, you ask? Ah. Well. The hukou system is very important in China, so let me explain it. A hukou is a document that all Chinese citizens should have, that states what city in China you are officially a resident of. In the city where your hukou is, you enjoy some rights that non-locals don't have- things related to access to public services like schools, health care, buying property, etc. Some hukous are better than others- for example, a Beijing or Shanghai hukou is seen as really valuable to have, whereas a hukou for some little city in the middle of nowhere, like, who cares.

It's not that each individual has a hukou- it's the household that has the hukou, and all the family members' names are on it. So for many people (such as my husband) their hukou has their parents' names on it, and their name. And the actual physical document is in the parents' possession, in their hometown. Lots of people in Shanghai are in this situation- they live in Shanghai, but their hukou is a hukou from their hometown rather than a Shanghai hukou, and they don't actually have it physically, their parents have it in a different city.

In China, lots of people move from small cities to big cities to find jobs. But just because you move to another city, and live there for a long time, doesn't mean you can change your hukou to that city. Each city has requirements about what you have to do to get a hukou (for example, how many years you have to work and pay taxes, how high your salary has to be, what level of education you should have, etc). I know people who, after living in Shanghai for a long time, were able to get a Shanghai hukou, and remove their name from their parents' hukou.

Anyway. So. When Chinese people get married, it has to be in one spouse's hukou city. They can't just get married anywhere. So, we went back to Hendrix's hometown, brought all our documents, and got our marriage licenses there. (We later held the wedding in the US- in China, getting legally married is a completely separate event from the wedding.)

Okay, so that's the legal aspect of getting married in China. Also, we have to be a man and woman because China doesn't allow same-sex marriage. (Same-sex couples would have to go to a different country to get married, I'm not sure on the details of this, sounds complicated.) Beyond that, I didn't think about the legal aspects at all.

Later, we started the process of applying for a US green card for my husband (but now we're not sure about the timeline for moving to the US, so we're currently not really moving forward with it). That's a very significant legal benefit that comes from marriage- if you're married to a US citizen, there's a straightforward, reasonable process to get a US green card, and eventually US citizenship. If you're not, well... it might not even be possible.

In China, my status as a legal immigrant is dependent on my job, not my marriage. If you're in China on a marriage visa, you're not legally allowed to work, so that's why I don't have a marriage visa. But it is nice to know that if I lose my job, and I can't find a new job before my residence permit expires, I can do the paperwork to change to a marriage visa, rather than being forced to leave China. (A "residence permit" is basically the same thing as a visa but if it's long-term they call it a residence permit instead of a visa. Also, I know that "marriage visa" isn't the correct technical term here, but I am trying not to get this blog post too bogged down in the minutiae of Chinese bureaucracy.)

There are things that are much more inconvenient for me than for a Chinese citizen, and even some things that I can't do at all, so I just ask my husband to do them for me, which works out well. For example, when buying imported products online, it's often a requirement to have a Chinese ID card, and the seller needs to use your ID card number for some customs bureaucracy stuff. If you don't have a Chinese ID card, you could either ask a Chinese citizen to buy the thing for you, or you can message the seller and explain that you don't have an ID card, and ask if they have a workaround. (Sometimes the seller will use their own ID card for it.)

Also, my husband has a bank account with a better interest rate than mine. I tried to open one, but it required a Chinese ID card. So, we keep a lot of our savings in this account, which only he has access to. But I am the organized one who tells him when to put money in, and when to spend money from that account. And I also have my own bank account with my own savings. (In China there aren't joint bank accounts.)

So, that's an overview of the ways that the legal aspects of marriage- where he is a citizen and I am an immigrant- have affected our lives. ("Hey babe I'm sending you a link for some deodorant that needs a Chinese ID card to buy, can you buy it for me?" - that's mostly what immigrant marriage is.)

Sometimes I read news articles about women who immigrated to the US and married American men, and how a woman in that situation can be very vulnerable. If her husband abuses her, she may feel like she's not able to divorce him, because it would affect her immigration status.

I don't have anything like that in my marriage, but I wonder if it's always true that a marriage between an immigrant and a citizen will have a power dynamic which could potentially turn bad. The root of it is, citizens always have more rights than immigrants. And an immigrant married to a citizen has more rights than an immigrant not married to a citizen. So, it is necessarily true that the immigrant will have more legal rights if they stay in the marriage than if they don't. 

(Thinking about how people usually view this kind of marriage in very romantic terms, like "wow our love is so strong, it crosses the boundaries of culture, race, nations, and language, how beautiful" without thinking at all about the practicalities of it.)

Honestly, though, it's probably impossible to have a relationship that doesn't have any kind of "power dynamic" at all. (And maybe "power dynamic" isn't even the right word here- is it only a "power dynamic" if it's likely to turn harmful?) The two partners are two different people, each with their own unique resources, which the other partner can have access to if they stay in the relationship. Is that a "power dynamic"?

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Okay, but things are different if you have kids.

When I was pregnant a few years ago, I joined a few social media groups for international women in China who are partnered with Chinese men. And that's where I first heard about the massive amount of bureaucracy you have to wade through if you have a child who has 1 Chinese citizen parent and 1 foreign parent. See, China doesn't recognize dual citizenship, and yet, according to Chinese law, our son is a Chinese citizen because his dad is a Chinese citizen, and according to US law, our son is a US citizen because I am, so, uh... he does *have* two citizenships, but China doesn't *recognize* it, what on earth does that mean? 

Well, the short version is, it means more paperwork for me. (And it means that China calls it "nationality conflict" [国籍冲突] instead of "dual citizenship." ... So basically dual citizenship, except with extra bureaucracy because they're pretending it's not dual citizenship.)

There were a whole bunch of bureaucracy-related decisions we had to make, after our son was born. On his birth certificate, do we put his Chinese name or English name? Do we get him a US passport? Do we get him a Chinese passport? Do we get him both passports? (Note that apparently it's illegal to get him both passports- but some parents do that.) Do we put him on the Chinese parent's hukou?

(There's nothing *wrong* with having a child in this situation- plenty of people do. The government employees never treat us like we've done something wrong, they just often don't know how to handle it because my son doesn't fit nicely into any of their categories.)

Okay, so I had to think through all of those options and figure out what would be best for our family. I'm really glad there are social media groups with other moms in this situation, because most people in China have no idea about any of this. I had no idea it would be so complicated.

But, when thinking through all these bureaucracy things for my son, it wasn't just about "how much of a pain is it to apply for a pro-forma visa vs a Chinese travel document?" I was also advised by the other moms to think very seriously about what it would mean for my child custody rights if we divorced.

Basically, the issue is, China considers the child to be a Chinese citizen- not recognizing dual citizenship. If you divorce in China, the Chinese court will give custody to the Chinese side of the family, and the foreign parent doesn't have rights. This is what I've heard- I don't know the exact details. If you're in that situation, talk to a lawyer, don't take this blog post as legal advice.

I've heard a lot of bad stories, in these social media groups for international moms married to Chinese men. Women posting things like "I want to divorce my husband, but I know that I would not be able to get custody of my child" [often followed by "and he never actually does any of the work of being a father- he'll just send the kid back to his hometown to live with her grandparents"]. Or "my husband says he will divorce me when our child is over 2 years old, because if the child is under 2, the court is more likely to award custody to the mother." Just really scary stuff. I've heard stories of women who divorced their husbands, and then the woman went back to her own country without her kids- oh god, don't do that, don't leave China without your kids if you're on bad terms with your husband- you might never get those kids back. I even heard about a woman who made plans with her husband that she would move to another country first, and then later he would come and bring their kids, but instead he suddenly cut off contact with her after she had left China. Oh god. 

I've heard that, if the husband runs off with the children without your consent, Chinese courts will not hold that against him, and actually will award custody to him because the children already live with him and it would be difficult for the children to suddenly have to move- whereas, if you take the children and get the hell out of China, and then your custody battle is in a court in the US/Canada/Europe/etc, it's likely the court will say you kidnapped the children and that will look very bad for you.

Power dynamics.

If you really want to protect your rights as the non-Chinese parent, to the fullest extent that you can, here's what you need to do:

• When the baby is born, put an English name on the birth certificate. This way, it will be impossible to add the child to the Chinese family hukou. Only people whose names are Chinese characters can be added to the hukou.
• DO NOT allow the Chinese side of the family to put your child on the hukou. (If you did the previous step correctly, then you don't need to worry about this.) I have heard of cases where the Chinese side of the family put the child on the hukou without the mom's consent- yikes. (But honestly this is because for Chinese people, it's simply unimaginable to not have a hukou- they likely never even thought that *not* putting the child on the hukou was an option.)
• Renounce your child's Chinese citizenship. (If your child is on the hukou, there is an extra step you have to do first: remove the child from the hukou. The hukou is likely in the grandparents' possession, so now you have to talk to them and convince them to remove the child from the hukou- yeah, good luck with that. This is why the previous step is important.) Renouncing the child's Chinese citizenship requires a bunch of paperwork and consent from both parents- so you have to do this when things are going well in your marriage, not when you're about to divorce.
• Good job! If the child is not a Chinese citizen, then in the event of a divorce, it's likely the the Chinese court will award custody to the foreign parent.
• If you've failed to do the above steps, and you want to divorce, you should move out of China, together with your husband and child, and after you've established your life in a different country, then file for divorce. You'll likely have a better time there than in a Chinese court.

Before my son was born, I talked to a bunch of moms about this, and got advice like "do NOT put your baby on the hukou" and "before I got pregnant, I made my husband agree that we will renounce the baby's Chinese citizenship as soon as possible" and less intense ones like "yeah we put our baby on the hukou, *shrug*". There are women who are extremely serious about advising other women to protect their rights, and also women who are aware that these risks exist but are confident they won't get divorced, so they don't worry too much about it.

(Please note that there are some other benefits to renouncing the child's Chinese citizenship. It's not just about the foreign parent not wanting the Chinese parent to screw them over in a child custody battle. Remember how I said that China doesn't "recognize" dual citizenship, so it makes things more complicated? A lot of bureaucracy stuff for the child is much simpler if the child is a fully foreign citizen, rather than being "both." For example, registering for school.)

I didn't know how to think about it. I had never considered marriage in those terms- like, how to make sure your spouse doesn't have the legal right to screw you over. Honestly, I don't want to think about marriage in that way. I don't want to think about *my* marriage in that way. 

And, society tells us that we're not supposed to think about those things, because that means you don't have confidence in your marriage, and it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy and you'll end up divorcing. But the immigrant women in these social media groups, they know how it really works. They know there are very real risks of losing your children, if you don't consider these things and you end up getting divorced. I was told "you can't be naive and romantic about this."

I eventually came to this conclusion: I want to make the choices that are best for my son, rather than doing things that are sub-optimal for him, in the interest of protecting my own rights. He lives in China, so it will be more convenient for him if his legal name is in Chinese characters, rather than English. And we didn't want to renounce his Chinese citizenship- we want to let him make his own decision about that when he's old enough. I want to follow the law in China, so we didn't get him a Chinese passport, only a US passport. To enter and exit China, instead of a visa, he can use a document called an "entry exit permit" or "travel document", this is basically a passport issued to Chinese citizens who can't have a Chinese passport for whatever reason. (This is the workaround that the Chinese government invented because you're not supposed to have a Chinese passport and foreign passport.) We did not put him on my husband's hukou, because there's no benefit to it- it's not a Shanghai hukou, so it doesn't do anything for us, living in Shanghai.

Anyway, that's what we're doing. Uh so, I guess I didn't really take the advice to protect my own rights for child custody... I just really don't know what to do with that advice. It's very... game theory... like *not* choosing the option that's better for everyone overall, because it would put me as an individual in a position where other people could take advantage of me if they wanted.

I don't want game theory in my marriage. But am I too naive and romantic? I can say "marriage shouldn't be like that", but in reality it sometimes is like that, so, if you do end up in that situation, don't you want to be in a position where your rights are protected? Divorce IS real. Seems like a bad idea for me to just pretend that it's not. It's real, and it can be very bad. Especially for immigrants.

Long ago, when we were engaged, I remember reading a blog post where the writer said, "I wouldn't marry someone that I wouldn't divorce." Okay, that's worded confusingly, let me explain: What they meant was, you should marry someone that you trust will still treat you fairly, even if you divorce. Not someone who's going to fight dirty. I understand the point they're making, but also, I don't really know what to do with this advice either...? Nobody thinks they're going to get divorced, so does it even make sense to plan for that?

But in everything else you do, it's wise to have a backup plan in case it doesn't work. Is marriage different? Well, I think it is... because it's about love... uh right?

And here's another thing: International marriages require more trust than a marriage between 2 citizens who live in their own country. I don't know if it would really be practical, to think "the law doesn't protect my rights, so I need to set additional boundaries in order to never be in a situation where I'm vulnerable and my spouse could take advantage." In practice, it needs to be the opposite- it needs more trust, not less.

People in an international marriage frequently find themselves in situations where they have to depend on their spouse for help with navigating the language or culture. Suppose you're traveling together in Spouse A's country, and Spouse B has no idea how things work, so Spouse B has to trust Spouse A to basically handle all the decisions. And then of course, sometimes it works the other way, you're in Spouse B's country and Spouse A needs to listen to Spouse B's expertise on how to do things. This is super normal in an international marriage. You have to depend on each other like that.

(Is that a power dynamic?)

And there have been several times that I traveled to the US with my son, and my husband didn't come with us. This is also incredibly normal for immigrant families. Taking a trip to the other side of the world is a big deal- plane tickets are very expensive, and you have to take 2 weeks off work (2 weeks is a good amount, if it's less than 2 weeks it's not really worth it, you won't even be done with jet lag and your vacation will already be over). So, it's often the case that one parent isn't able to come on the trip, or feels it wouldn't be worth the cost. Again, SUPER normal for immigrant families. 

I frequently see people posting in social media groups "I'm traveling to another country with my kids, and my husband isn't coming, do I need to have him sign something to give me permission?" Yes, many countries require some kind of signed document from the other parent. And there are always people in the social media groups ready to help- "yes, here's a template you can fill in and have him sign." This is super normal. 

And if your marriage is good and you trust each other, then no big deal. I guess I would say, maybe don't let your spouse take the kids and go to the other side of the world, if there are warning signs that maybe they're planning to not come back? But normally, of course you trust each other, so it's not an issue.

There was even one time I was traveling to the US with my son, without my husband, and I had to get some paperwork for my son from the Chinese consulate in the US, and it took longer than expected. It took so long that I had to cancel my return flight because the Chinese consulate hadn't mailed me my stuff yet. (Bureaucracy!) I cancelled our return flights (from the US to China), waited a few more days till I got the documents in the mail, and then bought tickets for the flight back to China.

And all of that is no big deal. Yeah my husband missed us, and wished we could come back sooner, but, it was fine, it was only a few days. But I guess if you feel you should never be in a situation where your spouse can screw you over, it would be different... you realize, I *cancelled* our return flight. If you didn't trust your spouse, would you insist that instead of cancelling, they rebook for a different day immediately, despite not knowing exactly when the required documents would come in the mail? But, plane tickets are expensive- is it practical to live that way?

My point is, in an international marriage, it's very common that sometimes one spouse takes the kids and goes on vacation to the other side of the world. (Is that a power dynamic?) You see what I mean, an international marriage requires more trust- it's not going to work with less.

The way marriage should be is, you treat each other right because you love each other and want to have a good relationship- not because the law forces you to. But, when people divorce, they no longer have an incentive to treat each other right, so they do need to be forced by the law. And in an international marriage, well, you should be aware that the laws regarding divorce are different in different countries. And as an immigrant, you're at a disadvantage compared to a citizen. There are many stories of very ugly things that happen, when international couples divorce.

But, what do you even do with that information? Should you really make decisions proactively to protect your own rights in the case of divorce, even if those decisions aren't what's best for your child/ your marriage/ your family? I'm sure that the women who lost custody of their children in a Chinese court wish they had made those decisions, instead of trusting their partner. Is it unwise for me to live like I'll never be at risk for that, so I don't have to worry about it?

I don't want my marriage to be like that- I want to be a team, a family. But of course that's what everyone thinks when they get married- nobody expects they're going to divorce, but the reality is that some couples do divorce. (And maybe, when a marriage is breaking down, there is a transition point, where you no longer prioritize the marriage, but you prioritize your own rights, at your spouse's expense.) I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this information.

The overly-romantic view of international marriage is "our love is so beautiful, it transcends the boundaries of culture, race, language, and nationality" but the reality is more complicated than that. If you divorce, the immigrant spouse is likely to be in a situation where they don't have the same legal rights as the citizen spouse (in particular, in China, a foreign parent is very unlikely to be awarded custody if the children are Chinese citizens). A divorce can be ugly and painful in ways that wouldn't happen in a divorce between 2 citizens. At the same time, the practical reality of being from 2 completely different cultures will frequently require the 2 spouses to trust and depend on each other in ways that citizen couples don't have to. And it's very common that one spouse will take the children and travel to their home country, without the other spouse being present- which is totally fine, unless your spouse happens to be the kind of person who is going to take the children to the other side of the world and then disappear, in which case, what would you even do???

I guess marriage is a lot of things- it's love that reaches across cultures; it's trusting and supporting each other in practical ways every day; it's a legal arrangement where the exact details of what rights you have may or may not matter, depending on whether your spouse is a decent human being. How to reconcile all of this? That's a big question.

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Related:

Why Marriage as a Private Contract is a Bad Idea

On "Unjust Marriage" 

Paperwork for My Immigrant Baby

Shanghai is a good place for immigrants. (And I have feelings about it.)

If your relationship isn't seen as "Marriage", not sure what green card options you have 

US Immigration and the Definition of Marriage 

This "Do Not Intermarry With Them" Stuff Hits Different Now

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I love this song because it's called "International Love." We played this song at our wedding. Please ignore all the other lyrics except the part that says "international love."