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| Book cover for "The Purity Myth" |
I'm something of an ex-purity-culture blogger, so I want to read and have opinions on all the books that criticize purity culture. So I read Jessica Valenti's 2010 book, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women.
Surprisingly, I didn't like it.
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. Scott Adams, 'Dilbert' creator and conservative commentator, dies at 68 (January 13)
2. China’s Viral New App Is a Safety Tool Called ‘Are You Dead?’ (January 13) "The app, known as Demumu abroad, functions as a daily check-in. Users input emergency contacts, then press the check-in button on the interface’s home screen each day. If a user misses two consecutive check-ins, the app alerts their contacts via email."
3. Planetary Alignment (January 9) From xkcd.
4. The lumpers, the splitters, and me (January 13) "So when somebody like Matthew Avery Sutton comes along and says 'evangelicalism is best defined as a white, patriarchal, nationalist religious movement made up of Christians who seek power to transform American culture through conservative-leaning politics' it can feel for them exactly the way it has felt for them over the past several decades when the gatekeeping goons said to them — repeatedly and regularly — 'You are a fake Christian and your story of being born again and transformed by your religious experience must be a lie and you must hate Jesus and the Bible because what it really means to be an evangelical is to be like us — to be part of a white, patriarchal, nationalist religious movement seeking power to transform American culture through conservative politics.'"
5. The Rape of Dinah and The Shame of Adults (January 10) [content note: rape and victim-blaming] "Dinah’s rape and her brothers’ reactivity show us the shame of adults: that adults will, time after time, do nothing but negotiate and cover up the rape of their children by powerful people."
6. This country taxes menstrual pads as luxury goods. She's aiming to end the tax (January 15) "The link to child marriage contributes to the secrecy around periods and makes it an extremely isolating experience."
7. Sesame Street: ABC-DEF-GHI Song Love this classic Sesame Street song.
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Links related to the antichrist:
1. In Defense of Pretexts (January 9) "What I came to is this: For my entire adult life, I've watched American leaders justify war and atrocity with lies about democracy and freedom and self-defense."
2. Chaos continues (January 12) "Businesses are locking their doors even while open to keep employees and customers safe. As I type this, I’m standing guard at the locked door of our neighborhood burrito joint while I wait formy takeout order, so the employees can focus on their jobs. The place is packed with neighbors supporting this small business."
Also about Minnesota: Minnesota federal prosecutors resign after DOJ push to investigate Renee Good's widow (January 13) "The investigation allegedly centers around any possible ties to activist groups [Becca Good] may have. That, of course, is protected First Amendment activity."
A Common Occurrence (January 14) "I’m sharing this so you’re aware that the ICE abuses we’re seeing since Renee Good’s killing is – aren’t new."
The Fascists are Lying about ICE Murdering an Innocent Woman (January 14) "Fuck Michael Shermer and the rest of his rightwing pro-murder pro-fascism sniveling grifters, who spread this lie even as we see ICE now enabled to literally go door to door, breaking into people’s homes, and dragging them away with zero accountability."
3. US aircraft that attacked suspected drug boat reportedly disguised as civilian plane (January 13) "'Fundamentally, the debate about ‘war crimes’ is a distraction – the whole operation is illegal, and the conduct of an extrajudicial execution by means of a plane with civilian markings is in fact reminiscent of a death squad operation,' Bhuta said."
4. Hundreds of nonconsensual AI images being created by Grok on X, data shows (January 8) [content note: contains descriptions of sexually explicit images (does not contain the images themselves)]
Elon Musk's X faces bans and investigations over nonconsensual bikini images (January 12)
5. For Immigrants, Citizenship Now (January 13) "We have effectively created a class of criminalized residents who do not have full rights and protection under law. Immigration enforcement is a small fascist state within our polity."
I can't really agree with this without seeing an actual policy with more details- automatic citizenship? for who exactly? wouldn't there have to be some kind of criteria, like how long they've lived in the US? What about people from countries that don't allow dual citizenship, so they would have to renounce their other citizenship in order to get US citizenship, and they might not want to do that- there should be a way to have them legally protected anyway. It sounds too big and pie-in-the-sky to actually be a real policy- but, what if we think about it this way instead: What if the path to get US citizenship was a lot easier? What if it was less about bureaucracy and proving that you're "good enough," and more about a principle that people who live in the US and want to be US citizens should have a reasonable pathway to do so. Yeah, I support that.
6. Hillary Clinton May Finally Get Lock-Her-Upped For Refusing Stupid Subpoena From Dipsh*t James Comer (January 15) "You should definitely give the full Clinton letter a read, because it lays out not just why the Clintons won’t go along with Comer’s attempt to shift attention away from Trump and the DOJ’s foot-dragging, but also why this government’s corruption must be resisted wherever possible, from the streets to closed-door hearing rooms."
7. A federal judge dismisses the DOJ's effort to get voter data from California (January 15) "In 2017, one Republican secretary of state famously said the Trump administration could 'go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.'"
8. Behind the front lines of the legal battle against Trump's National Guard deployments (January 15) "Earlier this month, President Trump pulled hundreds of National Guard troops from California, Oregon and Illinois after the Supreme Court ruled against the administration in the Illinois case."
9. UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration’s demand for ‘lists of Jews’ (January 13, via) WTF
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. How to Make a Great Government Website (2024, via) "First is the required interview. Most of the time it’s a phone call. Often they’ll call from a blocked number. They’ll send you a notice of when your interview is scheduled for, but this notice will sometimes arrive after the actual date of the interview."
2. Beauty and the Beast - How bad was A.I.D.S.? (October 10, via) 56-minute video. It's a queer reading of "Beauty and the Beast," as is overlaps with what was going on with the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s.
3. AI Slop Is Destroying The Internet (October 7) 12-minute video from Kurzgesagt.
4. This post about Copilot in Excel getting a simple sum wrong. Apparently it's because the prompt didn't actually include any info about what cells the data was in. The AI doesn't give an error message or anything, so there's no way the user would have known that.
I haven't ever used Copilot in Excel so maybe I'm missing some key thing, but, uh... my reaction is, excel formulas update when you change the data, but if I'm using an AI for something that matters, I would need to carefully check the output. Having a human pay attention to the output every time it changes seems incompatible with having things update automatically (which is one of Excel's biggest strengths).
Doesn't seem great if every formula in every cell of your excel sheet has a mind of its own and you can't rely on them being right.
5. U.S. measles cases continue to climb, with outbreaks across the country (October 12) "Before widespread vaccination, pretty much everyone got measles in childhood. And 400-500 people in the U.S. used to die from it each year."
6. Hamas releases 20 remaining living Israeli hostages after two years in Gaza (October 13, via) "Parents were reunited with sons and children with fathers as those held were handed over to the Red Cross before finally rejoining their families with the help of the Israeli army."
7. Taylor Swift - The Fate of Ophelia (Official Music Video) (October 6) I like this song~
8. Michigan Republican pushing pornography ban linked to porn site, records show (October 7, via) So it was discovered that Schriver, a politician who's been trying to ban porn, used to have an account on a site with sex webcams and the like.
I'm posting this because people are calling it out as obvious hypocrisy, but I think it's a little more complicated than that. In conservative Christian culture, porn is seen as this evil bad thing that all men are naturally drawn to. If they don't have good enough self-control and/or restrictions on their computer, all men would go and make an account on a porn site. A lot of talk about how so many men are "struggling" with porn use, "addicted" to porn, how it's such a bad thing but they're all tangled up in it because it's so tempting.
It makes perfect sense to me that a lot of these conservative lawmakers supporting "porn bans" are men who have been part of this "struggling with porn" subculture- partly interested in it and partly repressing themselves and feeling so much shame- they try to make laws to ban it as a way to fight against their own "porn addiction"- as a way to show God that even though they keep failing in their resolution to not use porn, on some level they really are trying to fight it.
9. The Supreme Court’s First Blockbuster Case This Term Looks Pretty Fake (October 6, via) "And I think, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with bringing a test case. If someone’s rights are really at stake and they haven’t faced punishment yet—but they fear that they will—it’s legitimate for that person to sue. But what ADF does is really finesse the facts, often to the point of fiction, to justify creating a test case that the Supreme Court can use to change the law."
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Links related to the antichrist:
1. No Kings is on Saturday, October 18. Go out and protest if you can.
2. Chicago and the Horrors of Carte Blanche (October 4) "Authorities seized people first, without probable cause, treating merely living in the same complex as suspected undocumented migrants as a crime."
Also from Jay Kuo: The Hunger Games (October 3) "After all, why should the Democrats agree to keep the government open for another seven weeks to negotiate a “budget” if the White House can later refuse to honor it? What’s to stop the OMB from doing exactly the same thing with New York City transit funds and blue state energy projects even after a budget is passed and signed into law?"
3. Van Nuys car wash owner files $50M claim over injuries sustained during immigration raid (September 26) "Shouhed says he was terrified as he tried to explain to the agents that his employees were authorized to be on the job, yet he says they took at least five of his employees away in handcuffs. He says he screamed that he is a United States citizen and had proof in his wallet, but he says they did not listen."
4. 'I'm done being afraid': How the shutdown has led federal workers to speak out (October 10) "They say the best organizer is a bad boss, and we all have the same bad boss."
5. ‘Bring her back’: Delaware abuse victim rescued from ICE deportation (October 13, via) "Before agents rummaged through her home, Isabela demanded they show her an arrest warrant. They refused and broke down her door anyway, injuring her son with the doorknob as they barged in."
6. “I Don’t Want to Be Here Anymore”: They Tried to Self-Deport, Then Got Stranded in Trump’s America (October 10, via) "ProPublica spoke with more than a dozen Venezuelans who said they wanted to take the U.S. government’s offer of a safe and easy return. They signed up months ago on the CBP Home app and were given departure dates. But after those dates came and went, these immigrants said they feel betrayed by what the president told them."
7. MIT Rejects Trump’s Bid to Institute Trans Bathroom, Athletics Ban (October 11)
8. Multiple airports refuse to play Kristi Noem video that blames Democrats for government shutdown (October 13)
9. This frog protester in Portland, from this link: Everyone Is Pointing Out This 1 Reason Why The Anti-ICE Inflatable Frogs In Portland May Be The Best Protesters (October 14)
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| Book cover for "Girls & Sex" by Peggy Orenstein |
[content note: discussion of porn, discussion of oral sex]
Here's my review of the book Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape by Peggy Orenstein. Overall, I enjoyed it, and I feel like it helped me understand some things about the way people talk about sex.
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Overview
This book is about the culture ("hookup culture") surrounding high school and college girls, in regards to sexual relationships. It's about what's expected, what's seen as normal, what they want, how they feel about it, what kinds of expectations they are facing from boys, how girls' knowledge of feminism doesn't necessarily stop their behavior from being dictated by these societal pressures, etc.
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Links not related to the antichrist:
1. Help Chris and (her dog) Chloe Save Their Home - I don't know this person, but I've seen her in the Slacktivist comment section before, and I hope she is able to raise the money she needs.
2. Canon (August 1) From xkcd.
3. Phistomefel's New Sudoku! (August 3) 1-hour-11-minute sudoku solve video.
4. NSFW and defensibility (August 5) "Just sayin’, there’s a certain irony in LGBTQ games leading the charge."
5. In Gaza, mounting evidence of famine and widespread starvation (July 29, via) "'This is not a warning, this is a call to action. This is unlike anything we have seen in this century,' he told journalists in Geneva."
How To Stop Gazans From Dying of Starvation Right Now (July 30) "The solution is tragically simple. First, open all viable land crossings—not for hours and not with caveats, but at scale, with fast screening and consistency, to flood Gaza with aid immediately. We know that in the ceasefire months of January and February this year, the flow of humanitarian and commercial goods made a difference immediately. Second, ensure unimpeded access for humanitarian organizations to reach children and their families—from Rafah to northern Gaza. Third, the political track still matters. A ceasefire remains vital. Without an end to hostilities, no humanitarian corridor can function safely, Palestinian civilians cannot be reached at scale and the hostages will not return home."
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Links related to the antichrist:
1. Adapting to Decline (August 4) "In other words, the fired BLS head will be replaced by someone who will cook the books for Trump."
2. Corporation for Public Broadcasting to close after US funding cut (August 1)
3. Confederate statue toppled during Black Lives Matter protests will be reinstalled (August 5) "'The decision to honor Albert Pike by reinstalling the Pike statue is as odd and indefensible as it is morally objectionable,' Norton said. 'He resigned in disgrace after committing a war crime and dishonoring even his own Confederate military service. Even those who want Confederate statues to remain standing would have to justify awarding Pike any honor, considering his history.'"
4. Their husbands were deported to Laos. Now they’re picking up the pieces together (August 5) "Cassie, who is Laotian-American, said her husband was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. 'They left when he was one, so he pretty much knows nothing of it,' Cassie said. 'So he’s never stepped foot in Laos until now.'"
Hi all, I'm on vacation, but here are some links
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Links not related to the antichrist:
1. Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (2021) "First, the good news: there are hundreds of studies on whether X causes Y. The bad news? We need to throw most of them out."
2. John MacArthur, dead fundamentalist (July 22)
3. OZZY OSBOURNE - "Crazy Train" (Official Video) I seem to remember I used to play this song in Guitar Hero. (Posting this because, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and icon of British heavy metal, dies aged 76 (July 22))
4. The NSFW game purge (July 24) "If a conservative group can apply pressure to remove certain NSFW games, what’s to stop them from removing, say, LGBT content? I am here to tell you that it has already happened."
Also from Siggy: Journal Club: Demography of Asexuality and Aromanticism (July 24) "We’re happy to see that this article is far more willing than most scholarly articles to cite gray literature, including blog posts, tumblr posts, livestreams, and YouTube videos."
5. His name is Mohammad Al-Motawaq. He is 18 months old. And he is starving in Gaza (July 27)
6. Get ready, Brazil. The 'good mosquitoes' are coming (July 26) "Remarkably, this bacteria and the virus that causes dengue are unable to coexist inside the mosquito that transmits this disease."
7. Freakier Friday | Official Trailer | In Theaters August 8 (June 7) !!!! A "Freaky Friday" sequel that has Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan again! Very excited about this!
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Links related to the antichrist:
1. The Gloves Are Off | "I Absolutely Love That Colbert Got Fired" | Trump & Epstein's Wonderful Secret (July 22)
And from npr: This was the week that comedy pushed back (July 27)
2. From Joy To Justice (July 22) "Before I dive in, a special thanks to all of the lawyers, journalists, activists, Congress members and ordinary citizens who did not let this story go and never relented, applying constant pressure upon our government to undo its original illegal renditions. Whatever post-hoc reason the government gives today for its actions, we all know that the 252 men sent to CECOT would still be there were it not for the hard work of so many."
And from npr: 'Hell on Earth': Venezuelans deported to El Salvador mega-prison tell of brutal abuse (July 27)
And: Ex-marine convicted of killing three people released to US in prisoner swap (July 23) What! So is he just free in the US or what? I haven't found any reporting on whether they're just letting him go free or what's going on.
3. We Need to Talk About Pedocon Theory (July 22) I had some opinions about this article, maybe I will try to blog about it if I have time. I want to say, in Christian "sexual purity" ideology, I have *definitely* come across the idea that the ideal case would be girls who are around 15 years old, right at the point where they've started having their period and are therefore able to get pregnant, getting married to adult men who are well-established financially. It's a pretty fringe idea, and I haven't met anyone in real life who was seriously advocating this, but I have seen the idea floated and it's totally consistent with the logic of purity culture, which says that the MOST IMPORTANT THING about sex and marriage is that you need to not have sex outside of marriage (oh and also, the husband has to be the leader). Other concerns, like actually treating each other right, are nice to have, but the main thing is DON'T HAVE SEX till that ring is on your finger.
(See my posts All of the LOLs for this Sermon on "Marrying Young" and Why Marriage as a Private Contract is a Bad Idea and Roy Moore Dating Teenage Girls "For Their Purity" is 100% Logical in Purity Land)
I never thought of that as pedophilia, but wow, it totally is.
4. US-funded contraceptives for poor nations to be burned in France, sources say (July 25) "One of the sources with knowledge of the issue said that the Trump administration was acting in accordance with the Mexico City policy, an anti-abortion pact in which Trump reinstated U.S. participation in January. The pact forbids the U.S. government from contributing to or working with organisations providing funding or supplies that offer access to abortions."
5. Fearing coverage could change, some parents rush to vaccinate their kids (July 25) How will I explain RFK to my children
6. PEPFAR escaped the rescission ax. But where does it stand? (July 26) "Since its founding, PEPFAR has put more than $120 billion into combatting the virus in more than 50 countries. The result of all that money and effort, it says, is clear, citing accomplishments that are widely accepted: 26 million lives saved, a plummeting of HIV infection rates and a rebounding of life expectancy, especially in Africa."
7. Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients’ personal data, including addresses, to ICE (July 28) "Many people sign up for emergency Medicaid in their most desperate moments, said Hannah Katch, a previous adviser at CMS during the Biden administration. 'It’s unthinkable that CMS would violate the trust of Medicaid enrollees in this way,' Katch said."
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| "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:
(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:
(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.
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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?
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
"Is it Okay for Christians to Use Sex Toys?" (An Exercise in Missing the Point)
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| Screenshot from a pokemon game, perhaps Pokemon Blue, which shows a snorlax blocking the road, with the text "A sleeping pokemon blocks the way!" Image source. |
Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
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[content note: non-explicit discussion of arousal]
So here we are in the second part of chapter 4 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link], pages 66-76.
The first part of this section is about the problems caused by the "gatekeeper" idea, in purity ideology. Let me explain this "gatekeeper" thing: So, purity culture teaches that boys always want sex and can't control themselves, and girls can control themselves much better than boys can. Also, if a couple has sex before marriage, it's a sin for both of them, but realistically it's a much worse thing for the girl than for the boy. Girls' worth is tied to their "virginity" to a much greater extent than boys'. If a girl has sex before marriage, it's like, eww she's dirty, she's ruined, she can't be a "pure" godly wife any more. If a boy has sex before marriage, it's like, well, he's not supposed to do that, but, yeah boys are just like that, what are you gonna do. (And, in this ideology, asexual men don't exist. In reality, they do though!)
What all of this adds up to is, when a boy and girl are dating, the girl believes that she has the responsibility to stop them from going "too far" and the boy isn't really expected to have any responsibility at all. "The Great Sex Rescue" even points out that in Shaunti Feldhahn's book "For Young Women Only," Feldhahn literally says that boys have little ability to stop, and therefore girls need to know that it's a bad idea to even start kissing or anything. (I wrote about this here: "Boys Can't Stop".)
1. Why Christians Should Be (the Best) Landlords (January 4) This is a post discussing the idea that a Christian landlord should never evict anyone. I think this is a really interesting and complicated moral question- and this writer is correct in saying the unique thing about the landlord-tenant relationship is it's so personal.
My opinion is (and I'm not an expert on any of this, so I'm probably missing some parts...), as a landlord, you should have some amount of compassion and understanding, and give people a little extra time even though legally you're within your rights to evict them. But if we really believe landlords need to do that, then that means landlords should take that into account from the very beginning when they're deciding whether to become a landlord. Like do a calculation "odds are, once every X years, I'll have someone who stops paying the rent, and I'll be a little nice to them and let them not pay for Y months" - you need to figure out the math of how "nice" you are going to be, and determine the price you should charge for rent based on that. (And also this depends on the laws where you are- I think most places have laws that you have to wait some number of months before evicting people.) And, yikes, if people are really arguing that a landlord should "never" evict anyone, then that means the landlord needs to be okay with getting paid 0 rent, indefinitely? (I don't know if anyone is literally saying this or not- maybe I'm misrepresenting them.) If that's the case, you should just not become a landlord in the first place. That risk is too great.
Unless you decided to become a landlord as, like, a charity project. Instead of as a way to make money. Honestly this is not a good idea. I can easily imagine someone going into this very naive, like "I'm going to be a landlord who charges less rent, so I actually lose money, in order to help people" and then you discover that your renters are complex imperfect people, not the simplistic "people in need" stereotype that you had in your mind, and you begin to get mad at your renters for not acting grateful enough, or whatever. Or, maybe what I'm saying is, it's likely that someone who decides to become a landlord not for money but to "help the world" has some subconscious assumptions about how they want the recipients of their "charity" to act. They think they're okay with losing money and getting nothing in return, but actually they're not- they expect to get an "I really made a difference in someone's life" feeling in return.
And, I think some people are unhappy about the idea that landlords feel they need to make money. This baffles me... Well, actually, I think it's because there are people whose financial status is "I need to have enough money to survive" and people whose financial status is "I already have enough money, I want to make it into more money." It's very easy for people in the "need to survive" group to view the "I want to make more money" desire as completely invalid. I feel like... yeah the difficult thing is we are weighing "I want to survive" against "I want more money." You should rule in favor of the "survive" side- but then you have to know that the "make money" group will factor that in when they do the math on how to invest their money.
2. Why Is a Christian Book Trying to Coerce Wives into Sending Nude Photos? (January 6) Wow, yes, this is a very important post. I have heard ex-purity-culture women saying they were given "marriage advice" to do a boudoir photo shoot so their husband could have the photos, and that would prevent him from watching porn. (I personally never heard this advice myself when I believed in "purity," but yeah, it fits.) I'm really glad to see Sheila Wray Gregoire writing about this- and telling married women that *you* being uncomfortable with doing some sex thing is a GOOD ENOUGH REASON to say no- even if it's not "a sin."
Also, she treats the possibility of divorcing- and then being in the horrible situation where your ex still has your photos- as a REAL THING. Normally, Christian marriage advice treats divorce like some faraway threat that would never really happen if you follow the rules correctly. I've NEVER seen Christian marriage advice along the lines of "maybe DON'T make yourself vulnerable to each other in this way, because it could turn really bad if you divorce." The Christian marriage advice I always heard was, finally you can stop holding back, finally you can fully give yourself to your partner, be completely vulnerable in every way, you accept and love each other unconditionally, there's nothing to fear now, because you're committed for life.
And the way she "fixes" the story by changing it to "he realized he was replacing porn with his wife and decided to go to therapy"- that just totally blew my mind. The Christian marriage advice I've always heard was, basically, yes, men should replace porn with their wives (though they didn't say it in these words exactly). They said that was good and normal in marriage. They said men are like that.
Also this bit at the end: "I’ve been focusing on the coercive aspect of that passage, but there are so many other weird bits. Is it good for a man to be sexually aroused all day at work? How does that affect his colleagues? His work performance? How would you feel knowing a colleague was in a state of semi-arousal all day?" GOOD POINT. I, too, have read Christian marriage books which talked about how cool it is for a husband to be aroused at work all day, looking forward to coming home to his wife, and now I'm like... this seems more like a fanfiction trope rather than something that's actually a good idea in reality.
I really want to read Gregoire's book The Great Sex Rescue and write a review of it. :)
Also from the same blog: 2 Kinds of Marital Rape that Evangelicalism (Inadvertently) Enables (November 14) [content note: rape] Oh wow, this is a very good post. It connects real personal stories of women who have been raped by their husbands, with the Christian marriage teachings that say this is how normal marriages work. The comment section is full of women in this exact situation.
These teachings are VERY REAL. I VERY MUCH believed that as a wife, I have a "duty" to have sex with my husband, because he "needs" it. I remember hearing a lot of Christian marriage advice about why this reason or that reason are not good enough reasons to say no to your husband. (This is rape culture.)
Luckily, my husband is not a Christian.
3. Not Dead Yet [UPDATE: Meachen Responds] (January 6) I heard some people on Twitter mention something about "an author faked her own death"- well here's the story.
4. Cycles of extremism: NGOs suspend services after Taliban bans female staff (December 26) "In a series of moves surprising no one, the Taliban government in Afghanistan this past week banned women from universities, and also locked girls out of primary school (essentially ending education to female persons across the board), before also banning women from work in any local non-government organizations (NGOs)."
5. Youth-led climate change lawsuits are increasing across the country (April 2022) "In Montana, youth claim that state lawmakers have consistently prioritized fossil fuel infrastructure and profits to the detriment of their future. They argue that the state's actions have violated their constitutional right to a healthy and safe environment."
6. The Desire for Twins Is Putting China’s Mothers in Danger (January 9) [content note: pregnancy loss]
1. Was Jesus Homeless? Yes, No, and Kind Of (December 2) "When I worked as a housing case manager, part of my job was to determine if clients were literally homeless, according to the HUD definition."
Also from the same blog: “I Think I Might Not Die Now” (December 22) "I am blessed to work for an organization that believes in Housing First. What that means is, once a person’s housing is taken care of, suddenly their medical needs and expenses go down."
2. Can the Star of Bethlehem be scientifically verified? (November 28) Part 1 of a blog series critiquing the video "The Star of Bethlehem," a documentary providing a scientific explanation for the star from the Christmas story in the bible. I actually have seen this video before (a long time ago, when I was evangelical). Perhaps some Christians would, after seeing the video, sum it up as "they found the star." [I just rolled my eyes so hard.] I now view it more like "here's a fan theory about what the star could have been." It's just somebody's idea, and there's nowhere near enough "evidence" to be making claims that this really is what the star actually was. (Honestly, for any date in history, you could probably look at the constellations and make up a story about how it totally means something.) Fun to make fan theories though!
Part 2: The Star of Bethlehem, a real event?
Part 3: Critique of ‘The Star of Bethlehem’ video
Part 4: Jupiter, Venus, Regulus, and Revelation: the fireworks of a real Star of Bethlehem?
Part 5: How did the Star of Bethlehem move like Tinker Bell?
3. A Few Math Problems for Mothers (July 13) "Felix had an accident during nap time and doesn’t have a spare pair of pants at school. If Felix’s father is listed as the primary point of contact on all documents, how many times does the school call his mother?"
4. Star Wars Christmas Parodies - "Padme Did You Know" and "I'm Dreaming of a New Death Star" (2015) This is AMAZING.
5. One Of The Most Astonishing Sudokus Ever (December 15) 1-hour-37-minute sudoku solve video. I love it.
6. Mary and Jesus in the Eyes of Chinese Painters (December 24) "He reinterpreted Da Vinci’s famous 'Last Supper' in traditional Chinese style, featuring a table, stools, tableware, windows, lanterns, and clothing unique to China."
7. Noncon Porn Taught Me About Rape (2016) "When I was a young fan, I remember reading a bunch of posts that said something like this: 'When you write fanfic, warn for rape if you’re treating the subject seriously as something that traumatizes the victim. Warn for noncon if it’s treated as sexy or if the victim starts consenting part of the way through. Warn for dubcon if the characters’ ability to give consent is dubious– for instance, fuck-or-die, sex pollen, one character being another character’s boss, emotional coercion, or sex where one character is extremely drunk. Of course, in the real world, all of those are rape!'"
Also from the same blog: The Thrill of the Chaste, or Why Dawn Eden Should Not Have Casual Sex (2015) I love this, because it takes an argument like "you shouldn't have casual sex because xyz" and changes it to "if you are the sort of person that would have xyz result if you had casual sex, then you shouldn't have casual sex." It's about knowing yourself. Know what you want or don't want. Not about making rules about "this is how EVERYBODY feels."
8. So, at the beginning of December I posted Square Root's Advent Calendar, and said I would give an update on Square Root's opinions on it. Here's the update: He was very interested in the puzzle, and could do parts of it by himself. He seemed to totally ignore me when I read the bible verses to him. But hey, little kids do pick up on things, so maybe he listened even though he didn't act like it. *shrug*
1. Animation: Gender Eyeshadow (posted April 30) "God knows how many days in the Enchanted Woods (not to mention several swims in the ocean) and Elsa and Anna are still rocking their eyeshadow game."
2. Twitter thread from Rachael Denhollander about the newest situation with Josh Duggar (posted May 7)
3. Why I say “I don’t experience split attraction” not “I don’t have a romantic orientation” (posted April 17) "When I first starting pushing back against the concept of split attraction, the only way I could think of to describe my experience was to say “but to me ace and aro are conflated” but I’ve become increasingly opposed to using the word conflated (which was used on Tumblr to imply that my experience was inherently wrong) to describe myself."
4. The False Hope of a Mature Creation (posted April 5) "Did all these events happen in just the past 6000 years? There is no remotely plausible scenario which can compress all of this history into such a short time frame."
(And on the same site, this satire piece from 2017 is FANTASTIC: Answers from Genesis: Reclaiming the Biblical Authority of Joseph’s Global Famine)
1. Afterlife: How Captain Cassidy Let Go of a False Belief [archive link] (posted January 22) [and follow-up posts here [archive link] and here [archive link]] Captain Cassidy wrote a few posts about no longer believing in any kind of "afterlife", and I wonder if she's right. One of my big things is "I believe in resurrection" but what she is saying makes sense.
2. The future of the middle class depends on student loan forgiveness (posted February 25) "It’s not about my loans, or your loans, or your lack thereof. It’s not about your personal stories or anyone else’s. It’s about restoring the path from education to financial stability and wealth building — and, this time, actually maintaining it, no matter who decides to start the journey."
3. Well, yes:
Software that sends your porn viewing history to an accountability partner is just such a fucked up concept and I don’t trust that anyone who endorses it understands healthy boundaries
— ready for spring already (@mxreese1701) March 20, 2021
4. Beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary dies at 104 (posted March 26)
5. Lil Nas X - MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) (Official Video) (posted March 26) This is extremely satanic and gay. I love it. It's like I said about Katy Perry in 2015: "Make a video that's as satanic as possible, and it's okay! Nothing can separate us from the love of God."
Lil Nas X has this to say:
i spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the shit y’all preached would happen to me because i was gay. so i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.
— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) March 27, 2021
He knows EXACTLY what he's doing. PREACH.
6. Good news- here in Shanghai, starting around March 29 there's been a big push for people to get the COVID vaccine. I saw a bunch of articles on social media (WeChat) about how to register, there was a flyer posted on the 1st floor of our apartment building, somebody came door-to-door with the flyers too, and HR at work sent an email. (There is a separate system for foreign passport holders to register, because the main system requires a Chinese ID number.) I have an appointment in a few weeks for the first dose! Woo I love vaccines!
They are saying everyone who is age 18 to 75 and healthy should get vaccinated. Right now everyone in that range can go ahead and make an appointment, it's not broken down into different risk categories or anything like in the US. (People who are higher risk because they come into contact with international travelers etc have already been vaccinated.)
7. Is China Really Ready for Black Stories? (posted March 29) "Black-themed films can succeed in China — as long as their Blackness remains in the background."
8. Sentenced to death, but innocent: These are stories of justice gone wrong. (posted February 18) "Bloodsworth bore little resemblance to the suspect in the police sketch. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. He had no prior criminal record."
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| A memorial for Dr. Li Wenliang. Image source. |
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| Screenshot from 2:44:16 in the video. |
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| Screenshot from 2:52:29 in the video. This is the Shanghai float. I love it because I live in Shanghai. |