Blogaround

1. The shredder of history and the oldest song in the world (May 2) "To reach the present day, it must be the case that no person or thing destroyed the document—not just in its own time, but also in every year, every decade, every century that followed."

2. This post is about the pruning process I associate with trying to manage the risk of escalation in a conflict. (May 8) "If I'm concerned about escalation in a tense conversation online, sometimes I'll go back over my message draft and try to prune down the number of provocations."

3. Daddy’s Little Interpreter (May 10) Video about a girl in China who helps her deaf father by acting as a sign language interpreter at his nail salon.

And this article, also from Sixth Tone: A Tale of Two Giants: How India’s and China’s Demographics Differ (May 9) "Additionally, India has a much younger population than China. While the median age in China in 2023 is around 39, India’s is just above 28."

Also from Sixth Tone: US Returns Two Stolen Relics Worth $3.5 Million to China (May 11) "According to the district attorney’s office, thieves used saws to cut the antiquities from a tomb in China in the 1990s then smuggled them out of the country. They were then loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for more than two decades by private collector Shelby White, with one of the two never exhibited, 'never cleaned and … caked with dirt.'"

4. LinkedIn to cut 716 jobs and shut its China app amid ‘challenging’ economic climate (May 9) 

5. Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless, analysis shows (January 18, via) "The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be 'phantom credits' and do not represent genuine carbon reductions."

6. The Meltdown of a Gay Bank (March 31, via) "Curtis said there was a big new funding round to toast — but first there were team-building exercises, and they quickly got uncomfortable. For a 'speed-dating' session, managers handed out white labels and instructed employees to fill in their identity, which led to workers wearing stickers that read 'formerly homeless' and 'sexual assault survivor.'"

7. Brief interludes with hideous men (part 1) (May 11) [content note: John Piper] "A man like that is not going to see her as a stranger in need of simple assistance but as a bit player in his own personal dirty joke, or porno, or horror movie, or treatise on divinely ordained gender roles — or even some combination of all of those."

8. Deliver Us (Opening Song) | The Prince of Egypt | TUNE. I've been listening to the soundtrack from "The Prince of Egypt", as one does.

And here's the same song in Mandarin Chinese.

9. Girlhood, Purity and Religious Trauma: A Taylor Swift Study (May 2) 42-minute video which analyzes Taylor's Swift's song "Would've, Could've, Should've", which is (apparently) about her relationship with John Mayer when she was 19 and he was 32.

The Great Sex Rescue: "Sex Should Be..."

Book cover for "The Great Sex Rescue." 

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

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So like I said, I'm going to be reading The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link] and blogging through it. Here's a review of chapter 1.

The book opens with a discussion of the phrase "Sex is a gift from God" because this is a thing that evangelical Christians are always saying. The writers of this book are writing to women who were told that "sex is a gift from God" but when they got married and had sex, it didn't feel like a "gift from God." Maybe because they're required to have sex they don't want. Or because they do enjoy sex, but they feel like they're not supposed to.

The book asks the question, "What if our evangelical 'treatments' for sex issues make things worse?"

I mean, yes, they do! I am totally in agreement so far.

And then there's this:

We want to rescue couples from teachings that have wrecked sex and put you back on the road to great sex-- because that's what you should be having!

Uh... yeah as an asexual, I have alarm bells going off when I read things like that. "should be having"??? No, I don't think everyone "should" be having sex. How about you only have sex if you want to, not because you "should"?

So to some extent, reading chapter 1 I'm like "wow this is great, people need to read this" and to some extent I'm like "this does not work for asexuals." Here is my read on how this book is framed: It's about the mismatch between the abstract ideals about sex that evangelicals are always talking about- sex is a gift from God, etc- and the actual reality that straight-married Christian women are experiencing. A lot of straight-married Christian women are having problems in their sex lives, and they get advice from the church like "you need to have sex with your husband whenever he wants" which just makes things worse. The book is about calling out those harmful teachings and taking a stand against them, so that the ideals about "sex is a gift from God" will actually be achievable for straight-married Christian women.

It doesn't leave any room for aces, though. ("ace" means asexual / asexual spectrum.) Or anyone else who isn't heterosexual. Those ideals about "sex is a gift from God" are not inclusive of everyone. 

So, I mean, I think this book will have parts that are useful for me. But right here in chapter 1, the book is telling me it's not really for me.

And, wait, let me back up and talk about myself a little. I'm a straight asexual woman, married to a man. I'm a Christian, grew up evangelical and totally bought into all the purity stuff- but I'm ex-evangelical now. And I do have sex... In the asexual community, people use the term "sex-favorable" for aces who do want to have sex. So, I'm sex-favorable, but I don't really use that label very much because I feel like the label "asexual" is enough- I relate to a lot of things that other aces talk about, regardless of whether they are sex-favorable/sex-indifferent/sex-repulsed. But for the purposes of reviewing this book, I guess my being sex-favorable is an important factor in the perspective I'm coming from.

Anyway what I'm trying to say here is, I do have sex, but still, as an asexual I feel like the way this book talks about sex doesn't match my feelings/experiences.

Okay moving along, we have a section about the definition of sex. Okay, yeah this is a really good point! People talk about sex like it's defined as 'penis-in-vagina [PIV] until the man has an orgasm', but actually, sex can be a lot of other things besides that.

And I love this part:

Let's do a thought experiment. Insert that definition of sex into the Bible verse about sex that we found to be the most quoted, and it's easy to see how sexual advice can go so far off-kilter:

Do not deprive each other [of a husband penetrating his wife until he climaxes] except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. (1 Cor. 7:5)

(If you're not familiar with 1 Corinthians 7- this is the main passage that's used to tell women "you need to have sex with your husband whenever he wants it." That's not an exact quote from the bible, but this is: "The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife." Also this: "But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion." Anyway, 1 Corinthians 7 is the reason why my headcanon says the apostle Paul was a really problematic asexual. Read the whole chapter and you'll see what I mean.)

The point that Gregoire and the other writers are making here in this "thought experiment" is this: If we define sex as just PIV, and then claim that the bible says "do not deprive each other" of it, well that makes no sense. It's so one-sided- what on earth would it mean to not deprive each other of the man getting an orgasm? And it's so focused on just the physical climax- the book says "then we may start to think that what God really cares about most is that husbands ejaculate frequently enough." Wow, yes, good point, that is really ridiculous! It would make much more sense to define sex more broadly, and as something that has equality between men and women.

(I mean, I want to say "equality between all genders" but Gregoire and the other writers seem to think everyone is a cis man or a cis woman, so... yeah this is the best we can expect from this book...)

Okay so right when I'm starting to say yes I agree that sex shouldn't be defined solely as PIV, then we get this:

Each of you were created for sex that is about so much more than one-sided pleasure.

Uh. *gestures asexually*

Also, as far as I know, Gregoire and the other writers believe sex is only for monogamous hetero marriage (please correct me if I'm wrong, I would love to be wrong about this!), so, I'm having a hard time understanding why they say "each of you"...

Great sex is the fulfillment of a longing for intimacy, for connection, to be completely and utterly bare in every way before each other.

??? Yeah Christians are always saying that, but that's not how it is for me.

Yes, baring ourselves physically is necessary for sex (though sometimes socks can help on those cold nights), but that's not the only kind of baring that real sex involves. It's also a baring of our souls, a deep hunger for connection, a longing to be completely consumed by the other-- while also bringing intense pleasure to both of you.

Yeah, if that's what sex is for you, good for you. Very cool for you. But this is not relatable for me at all.

(Also, I'd be interested in hearing an aromantic perspective on this. I suspect these ideas are not inclusive of aros, but in a different way than they're not inclusive of my experiences as an asexual.)

And then they have a list of what "sex should be":

Here's what we propose, based on our survey results and biblical principles, that a healthy sex life should look like:

Sex should be personal: Its is a chance to enter into each other's very being to truly become one; it is a knowing of each other that leads to deep intimacy.

Sex should be pleasurable: Sex was designed to feel good-- really good-- for both people.

Sex should be pure: Both partners can expect the other to take responsibility to keep themselves free of sexual sin.

Sex should be prioritized: Both partners in the relationship desire sex, even if at different levels, and both partners understand that sex is a vital part of a healthy marriage.

Sex should be pressure-free: Sex is a gift freely given; it's not about getting what you want through manipulation, coercion, or threat.

Sex should put the other first: Sex is about considering your spouse's wants and needs before you consider your own.

Sex should be passionate: Sex was designed to allow us to enter into a state of joyful abandon, to completely surrender ourselves to the other in an ecstasy of trust and love.

Okay, I have lots of thoughts on this.

Let's start with the part where I agree: "Sex should be pressure-free." Yes! Very important! And this is something that Christian women NEED to hear, because there is so much Christian marriage advice about how wives have to have sex with their husbands, otherwise they will ruin their husband's self-esteem and then he will go cheat on her because you know how men are. It's very NOT COOL how this kind of teaching pressures married women into sex they don't want, and doesn't allow them to even ask the question "what do I want?"

Okay, and then the parts where I completely disagree: "Sex should be prioritized"? Uh did they put this on the list just to exclude the asexuals, or what? "Sex should be pure"- okay I don't know how they're defining "sexual sin" but I have spent a lot of time getting out of purity culture, and I do NOT want anything in my life to be "pure", I don't wanna touch that word with a 10-foot pole. "Sex should put the other first"- not exactly sure how they're defining this either, but as an ex-evangelical I have spent a lot of time learning the importance of putting myself first. And I believe that in sex, you should treat both people's needs as equal. 

And then the ones that kind of don't feel right to me, but it's hard to explain why: "Sex should be personal", "Sex should be pleasurable", "Sex should be passionate." I read these and my first reaction is "that's not how it is for me," but, wait, am I saying that when I have sex with my husband, it's not personal/pleasurable/passionate? No... it is those things, it definitely is... But I think what I'm reacting to is the idea that sex is uniquely personal/pleasurable/passionate. Like it's THE MOST personal you can ever get with someone, it's THE MOST pleasurable thing you can ever do, it's THE MOST passionate you can ever feel. Yeah, that is what's definitely not true for me.

Going to the grocery store can be personal/pleasurable/passionate, if you're going with the right person. My husband and I have fun together all the time. We work really well together. And sex is somewhere in there too, but it's not like... uniquely important.

Or, let me say it this way: If a woman is having sex that doesn't feel good physically, and she thinks "well this is just the way it is, women don't enjoy sex, this is fine and normal" then it could be really useful to her to hear the message "sex should be pleasurable." Not to throw more guilt on her for how she's failing to do sex "correctly" but to make her realize, "omg, something's wrong, what I'm experiencing is not normal and I need to find out why."

If you're having sex that's not personal/pleasurable/passionate, and you wish it was, and everybody- your husband, pastors, etc- is telling you that you're wrong for wanting something different, telling you that you're selfish and sinful, well this book is here to tell you that it matters what you want. You deserve to have people care about that. If your husband's getting what he wants out of sex, and you're not, that's not okay, and you deserve better.

That's the message I want people to hear- and this book does say that. But it's right next to sentences like "Each of you were created for sex that is about so much more than one-sided pleasure"- which, I mean, as an asexual I read this and it feels so narrow. "created for sex"??? Um no thanks.

So when I hear things like "sex should be pleasurable" or "passionate" or "personal", it really depends what the situation is, and the purpose of making that statement. Like, what is it a reaction to? If it's about sending the message "sex is the best thing ever, and here's why" then I don't agree with that. If it's "are you unhappy with your sex life because what you actually want is something personal/pleasurable/passionate, and that's not what you're getting in your marriage? Well guess what, you deserve better" then yes I agree with that. Yes, that is absolutely a message that people need to hear.

Near the end of chapter 1, the writers talk about the ways they researched for this book:

• survey of 20,000 women (seems like they specifically targeted married Christian women)
• academic research about evangelicalism and sexuality
• focus groups
• reading bestselling Christian marriage books

I gotta say, I love the idea of reading the bestselling Christian marriage books and then doing surveys of women who buy into those teachings, and evaluating whether those teachings make things better or worse in reality.

All right, so that's chapter 1 of the book. Basically, this book agrees with the Christian teaching that "sex is a gift from God" that everyone is "designed" to have (specifically in a monogamous hetero marriage, I'm assuming, though this chapter doesn't say that directly). The purpose of the book is to argue against other common Christian teachings which frame sex as something that a wife is required to do for her husband, because those harmful teachings are keeping women from having great sex the way that God "designed" it. As an asexual, I'm really interested in what they have to say about the "women are required to have sex with their husbands" teaching, because that is very harmful to asexuals. But the alternative the book presents- all the things they say sex "should" be- those don't match how I feel.

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

Related:

Conservative Christians Teach That Wives Are REQUIRED To Have Sex Even When They Don't Want To. Here Are The Receipts. 

Here's an article about evangelical women and sex

Blogaround

1. Some thoughts on the concept of good faith and bad faith (and why that distinction is useful to have) (May 4) "What I mean to designate as 'bad faith' isn't just any and all rudeness; it's specifically the kind of rudeness I think of as 'not even trying' -- as in, not actually, earnestly treating conflict resolution as the goal."

2. How I Figured Out I’m Asexual + A Christian Ace Experience (May 1) "When you’re taught that you should avoid being interested in those things, being ace isn’t remarkable – you’re 'just being good.'  (Until you grow up and now it’s a huge problem because men are supposed to struggle with lust, and women are expected to please their husbands, so now all the expectations have done a 180 and you’re in hot water.)  So people aren’t as likely to realize something’s up for a while."

3. It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible (February 17, via) From the Onion, a news satire website.

4. Feds: Hospitals that denied emergency abortion broke the law (May 2) Maybe this is good news... at least somewhere in our messed-up legal system, there's a law that can stand up and say it's not okay to deny life-saving medical care. But... the whole situation is just so awful, does it really help anything to go from "doctors are too scared to do their jobs because they might get arrested" to "doctors are too scared to do their jobs, maybe we can also make them scared of getting in trouble for not doing their jobs"? 

5. Woman at center of Till killing has died (April 27) "For many, 'it’s going to be a wound, because justice was never done,' he said."

6. Ron DeSantis Wants Very Own Chinese Exclusion Act (May 4) "The Florida state House yesterday passed a bill aimed at preventing the Chinese Communist Party from buying land in Florida, but goes well beyond that by forbidding anyone who's 'domiciled' in China from owning any real estate in Florida, unless they're a US citizen or permanent resident." Wow not cool.

And another link also from Wonkette: Please, Everyone, Calm Your Faces About Shoplifting (May 4) "These companies have actively decided that any increase in shoplifting that comes from these measures is less expensive to them than it is to hire the amount of workers they would need to have on the floor to prevent it."

7. Tagging AI art (May 7) "Why would you ever use unmoderated tags if you had any alternative?"

8. Does Having a Savings Account Mean I Don’t Trust God? (April 24) Yeah, this is something I always think about... It strikes me as interesting that apparently, the thinking is that if you give away your money rather than saving it, then when you're in need, God will provide, so you'll be fine. Maybe I thought like that long ago, when I was more naive, but now my thinking- or rather, the argument that always exists in the back of my mind- is that I should give money to people having emergencies now, and if I have a financial emergency in the future, well, I'll be in the same boat as a lot of other people, and why should I think I deserve better than them? (ie, I don't assume "God will provide.")

Anyway, for me it's just a theoretical thing that I always think about. In actual reality, the best solution I can come up with is to set a yearly goal for how much to give to charity (and it should be a percentage of my income), and then give that much and quit worrying about it.

9. Why - Michael Card [content note: Jesus' death] I am a fan of Michael Card, a Christian singer from the 1980's. 

10. On Steven Crowder, abuse and the evangelical definition of ‘respect’ (May 3) [content note: abuse] "How, then, could Crowder accuse his wife of being disrespectful? Likely because he was defining respect the way far too many in the conservative evangelical community do."

Boundaries With Dentists

A dentist working on a child's mouth. Image source.

So recently I went to a dentist for teeth-cleaning and x-rays. It was a Chinese dentist office, the one my husband goes to. (We live in Shanghai, China.) Now, normally I don't go to Chinese hospitals; I go to international hospitals, international dentist offices, etc. (More on that in this post: On Immigration and Double Standards.) But anyway, this time I went to this Chinese dentist office.

So, while the dentist cleans your teeth, the dentist assistant holds that suction tube thing to suck the water out of your mouth. And, I don't know, seemed like this assistant wasn't doing a very good job, because I kept having water in my mouth and I had to either interrupt them and sit up and spit, or swallow it (and I'm laying there thinking "we're in China, don't drink the water").

(I asked my husband about it, and he said he had never had that problem at this dentist. So, I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm autistic. Or maybe it's because something about my posture or reactions wasn't compatible with the methods they use. Who knows.)

And there were a few other things they did, that made me feel like they weren't being careful enough... And at one point it got so bad that I actually put my hand over my mouth. Like a safeword. I said I had to take a minute before I would be ready to continue, and I asked the dentist how much longer the teeth-cleaning was going to take.

You know, speaking of safewords: There have been many times where I was at a dentist appointment, and the dentist says, "If you want me to stop at any time, just put your hand up." The safeword of dentistry. I always assumed this was because you shouldn't try to talk while they're sticking things in your mouth, because it will screw things up. I never really thought of it as ... like... my consent matters, and I have the right to stop if I feel uncomfortable. I only ever used the safeword when I had... like... a reason that other people would think was "good enough" like for example I just need to shift my posture in this chair real quick before we start, or something.

So anyway, here's what I want to say. So I'm at this dentist, and I had to put my hand over my mouth to make them stop because it was that bad, and I'm thinking about what to do. And, now I know about boundaries and consent- I used to not know about those things, but now I do. And I knew, I can choose to say no, get up, and walk out of here, and no one will stop me. As long as I pay the money for the appointment, they can't do anything to me. I can get up and walk out of here, and no one will force me to sit in this chair and endure whatever they're doing to my teeth.

Like knowing that it was a real choice. Knowing about consent.

In the past, I didn't know about boundaries and consent, and therefore I believed that I had to convince them- to get them to "let" me say no. I had to present a logical argument about why it's unreasonable that they expect me to just sit there and take it while they do things to my body. And if I can't make a good enough case, if I can't persuade them, I'm trapped. Because of that, I would get angry, and I would argue... But now I know that I don't have to persuade anyone. I can just say no, and get up and leave, and they can't do anything to me. Therefore I don't have to get mad at anyone, I don't have to accuse them of being unreasonable, none of that.

And it was because of that, knowing I had that freedom, that I was able to let them continue doing stuff to my teeth. And so we continued and were able to finish.

My husband and son were also there, and I wasn't sure if they were in the room when this happened, or if they were wandering around in the hallway. I worried... what if my son sees me covering my mouth and not letting the dentist do stuff? Am I setting a bad example for him? 

But then I thought, don't I want him to know that if he feels overwhelmed by something, he's allowed to take a break for a minute to calm down?

And so we get into the question of how to teach consent to kids. In particular, in a medical context.

I've seen people on the internet saying, "I told my kid 'your body belongs to you' and then the next day she wanted to wear her Halloween costume to preschool" as if that was an unexpected, unintended result, and I'm just like, what? So, you said to the kid "your body belongs to you" but you didn't really mean that, what you really meant was "don't let anyone sexually abuse you" and you believe it's a misinterpretation to think it meant "my body belongs to me, therefore I can wear my Halloween costume whenever I want." 

HOWWWW, I ask you, HOW is it a misinterpretation to think that "my body belongs to me" means "I can dress up as a dinosaur whenever I want"? Where is the error in logic? Ah, see, the error in logic is that adults all know that "your body belongs to you" is simply a euphemism intended for preventing sexual abuse, that's all it means. It has nothing to do with one's body actually belonging to oneself in non-sexual ways.

Like, what on earth?

How is a kid supposed to know "your body belongs to you" doesn't actually mean "your body belongs to you", it only means "don't let anyone sexually abuse you"???

People typically talk about consent like it's all about sexual things, but I don't see it that way. Consent should be about everything.

And we can't teach consent to kids the same way we teach adults, because children literally do not have the right to consent about things that happen to their body. Specifically, I sometimes override my son's consent if it's a health/safety issue. For example, holding him still while he gets a vaccine.

I don't want to physically force him- that's the last resort. I always talk to him first and explain why we have to do this or that medical procedure, why it will benefit him. I offer rewards that he can look forward to after it's finished. I give him choices like "do you want to sit on this chair or that chair when you get the vaccine?"

All of those things make him feel better, and make the experience better for all of us, but all of those things are still nonconsensual. If this wasn't about a child- if this was a situation with 2 adults, and Person A is saying they have to do things to Person B's body, and Person B doesn't want to, so Person A offers all sorts of ways to help Person B feel better about it, to convince them, and then acts like Person B is the one being unreasonable because look how kind Person A is being, offering so many options Person B can choose from as they submit to the thing they don't want to do. This is coercion. It's nonconsensual.

But the absolute truth of it is, children really don't/can't have the right to own their own bodies. There are things that are necessary, for the child's health and safety, that the child would never consent to. You do have to use nonconsensual methods.

And, my son is preschool age- he needs to have limitations on what choices he's allowed to make. He's not developmentally ready for the level of responsibility needed when you're just allowed to do whatever you want. Limitations are healthy for him at this age. It's good for him to be able to make some of his own choices- like what clothes he wants to wear- but there are other things where he just has to do it, he doesn't get a choice- like going to school. And as a child grows, gradually the range of choices they can handle also grows.

I think the important thing here is to put very obvious restrictions on what circumstances people can override the child's consent. Here are some I've thought of:

1. Only the parents can override the child's consent. To some extent, maybe other guardians (relative, teacher, babysitter) can too, when the parents are not present, but only in a "doing their best to act according to what the parents would have wanted" sort of way. Definitely DO NOT teach the child that all adults have the right to override their consent.
2. When you make the child do something they don't want, the child has a right to know the reason why. The child can always ask questions about what's going on, and you have to explain it to them.
3. This is a temporary situation. When the child becomes an adult, there will be NO MORE overriding their consent. Make sure the child very clearly understands this. And give them more freedom as they grow up, so that they're ready to handle that when they become an adult.

My thinking now is I need to teach him these 3 points, and make sure he understands them. And someday I'll teach him to be very suspicious of someone who's acting like they're offering him a choice but they're really not ("do you want to sit on this chair or that chair when you get the vaccine?").

He's just preschool-age, so I don't really know what I'm doing yet. I'm just thinking about myself as a child and how I never had any concept that my body belongs to me... instead all the adults said I was "good" and "brave" when I submitted to things I didn't want, and they acted like I was causing trouble when I wasn't able to force myself to endure whatever medical things I was supposed to.

And... like I said, the thing that gave me the confidence to let the dentist keep going was knowing that I had the freedom to just get up and walk out of there. My son doesn't have that- so he is stuck in the "I need to convince them that I have a 'good enough reason' to say no" territory. 

Yeah... being required to perform your discomfort in a way that will read as "real" to other people. This is hard to explain, but I'm autistic and I think other autistic people know what I'm talking about. Being in a sensory environment that you just CANNOT tolerate, but in order to be "allowed" to leave, you need to strategize about how to perform your emotions so that other people will believe you really are in pain. For example, you need to drop several hints that you're not feeling good, so that people can't counter with "but we've been here this whole time, and you've been fine! How can you suddenly have a problem?" I'm so glad that as an adult, I don't have to do that any more. I can just know my own needs, politely tell other people what my needs are, and if there are any practical issues that arise from my needing to leave, try to handle them in a responsible way. (Though, actually, as an adult there still could be situations where you're not free to make your own choices, for example, at your job- so sometimes you do need to do this dance to convince your boss that you have a "good enough reason" to refuse to do something.)

So, this is not ideal, but it has to be like this because he's a child. The best I can do is give him that freedom in situations where it's reasonable to do so, and also take it very seriously when he is telling me the reasons he doesn't want to do something. To really listen and understand those reasons, because I am judging if his reasons are "good enough" and that is a very serious responsibility.

That's the best I can do, I guess.

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Related:

I Don't Want My Baby To Be "Brave"

Doctors (part 3 of Autism & Teaching Kids to Protect Themselves)

Tickling, Consent, and The Way It Works 

6 Ways Purity Culture Did NOT Teach Me About Consent 

On Gynecologists and Angry Turtles

Blogaround

1. Spam bloggers get (April 27) "Some of the e-mails try to sound personal, but it’s really obvious that they are bot operations."

2. BMW Hits a Rocky Road, Apologizes for Ice Cream ‘Discrimination’ (April 21) I posted a link related to this in a previous blogaround, but I just found out that Sixth Tone also wrote about it, and Sixth Tone is definitely a better source for Chinese news.

I have one criticism of this article, though- it keeps using the word "foreigners" when what it actually means is "white people." And honestly this happens all the damn time in China and it annoys me SO MUCH. Chinese people never call me a white person (白人), they call me a foreigner (外国人) ALL THE TIME. Because I'm white! Like if that's the reason- and it affects every interaction I have with Chinese people- why can't we just say it? But anyway, nothing I can do about that, so I try not to get mad about it.

Chinese internet users are mad because BMW gave ice cream to "foreigners" right after they told Chinese people that there was no ice cream available- do you think that would have happened if these "foreigners" were, say, Indian? Korean? African American? Chinese American? (Actually, ethnic Chinese aren't generally seen as "foreigners", regardless of their actual citizenship...) If a non-white "foreigner" had showed up, would they have gotten the ice cream? I would say it's much less likely. No, this is about whiteness, so let's call it whiteness. (For more on that, see: Well I have to blog about this "don't touch foreigners" nonsense because I'm white in China.)

Another article also from Sixth Tone: A Female Comedian Gets Praised and Slut-Shamed for STI Set (April 14) About how difficult it is to get the HPV vaccine in China.

A third article from Sixth Tone: Illegal Gym Construction Leaves 240 Families Homeless in Harbin (May 4) "More than 240 families living in a 31-story building in China’s northeastern city of Harbin were evacuated Sunday after a tenant demolished most of the load-bearing walls on the third floor."

3. Cryptocurrencies II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (April 24) "The throughline in all three companies I've talked about tonight is them confidently presenting a veneer of expertise, even as beneath the surface, they were a complete shit show."

4. Gusteau’s BIG Secret Revealed | Ratatouille Pixar Film Theory (April 27) "When you're watching 'Ratatouille', has it ever bothered you that, if not for the unbelievable discovery that Remy can control Linguini with his hair, then the plot could never happen?"

5. The Light Bulb Sudoku (2021) 42-minute sudoku solve video. This is really cool- similar logic to a sudoku with A LOT of thermos and thinking about how many degrees of freedom each one has.

6. Texas Senate passes bill requiring public school classrooms to display Ten Commandments (April 22) Ugh, tell me you've never read the bible without telling me you've never read the bible. This is such a bad idea. It's like, some politicians want to pressure people into being more Christian or something, so they try to brainstorm things that seem like good symbols of being Christian, and hey the 10 Commandments sounds like it would fit that description. It's not about actually caring what the 10 Commandments are and following them... I would warn these politicians to pay particular attention to the 3rd commandment (depending on how you number them), "you shall not misuse the name of the Lord." Yeah, using God as an excuse to make laws restricting other people's rights- that's what "misusing the name of the Lord" means.

Just some thoughts about masks

N95 masks. Image source.

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

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Hi everyone, it's been a while since my previous update on the covid situation in Shanghai. Basically, I went to the US for a month, and when I came back, nobody in China seems to care about covid any more??? In this whole time I've been back in China, I've only heard of 1 friend-of-a-friend who got covid. I'm sure over 90% of the people in Shanghai got covid in December 2022/ January 2023, so for now there is herd immunity and you get the impression that covid doesn't exist any more. (Me, my husband, and son have not had covid- we hunkered down at home in December/January when society was falling apart because everyone was infected...)

And now, here in Shanghai, I see people wearing masks noticeably less than usual. On the subway, used to be 100% of people were wearing masks, now it's maybe 90%. We went out to a place with a lot of people recently- indoors- and maybe 50% of people were wearing masks. These aren't exact numbers, just my guesses, so don't take them literally, but my point is, there is a very obvious difference in masking behavior, compared to the zero-covid-policy period.

In the US, on the other hand, sometimes I went to crowded places and not one single person was wearing a mask, except me, which was really shocking to me. The situation in China is not like that at all.

So... on the question of what's my long-term strategy for when to wear a mask... I'm aware that I'm not doing it in a way that actually makes logical sense, and I wonder if it's even possible to do it in a way that makes logical sense. Basically, I think the places where I'm most likely to get covid are: 

• at work
• from my husband or son because we live together
• from friends, because we often go out to dinner or big events together, where no one wears a mask

These are the 3 areas of highest risk, and yet, it's not really even a possibility in my mind that I'm going to wear masks in these situations. For example, at work, on any given day, I interact closely with maybe 5-10 people, so any given day is extremely low-risk, but if I keep doing that for, say, 1 year without wearing masks, I'll likely get covid... So it seems like wearing a mask is only really useful if I do it extremely long-term, and ugh, that just seems like way more trouble than it's worth. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for a whole year, to prevent (possibly?) 1 covid infection. So I don't wear a mask at work.

Last December, I wore an N95 at work. Because I saw the writing on the wall, the zero-covid policy was ending, and I knew that very soon, covid would be EVERYWHERE. See, if there's a known reason why a certain time period is more high-risk, then I would totally wear a mask. But if it's just like... just do this indefinitely, forever... I don't really want to do that.

And at home, with my husband and son, we're not gonna wear masks at home, that's just impractical, no one does that unless there's a known reason why one family member is suspected of being infected, or something. Honestly, my son being in school every day, unmasked, with 30 kids who cough on each other is probably my biggest risk, and there's not really anything I can do about that. (So, then, logically, why should I bother wearing a mask in other settings?)

And when I go out with friends, it's a fun, relaxing atmosphere and nobody wants to wear a mask. But, last December, there were a few times I went out with friends and I wore an N95 the entire time, for the reasons mentioned above. Did not eat or drink or anything. And I did not get covid, and everyone else did. So. Yeah, if I have a reason to think there's more risk, then I'd wear a mask, but if not, well, nobody wants to bother with masks.

So basically the way it shakes out right now is I wear a mask if I'm going to some public place full of strangers. Like going to a mall, taking my son to a kids' play area, etc. (But, also, we do eat in restaurants, so, we take our masks off for that.)

Basically, my habits right now are like, if I feel safe with these people, then I don't wear a mask. And if it's a bunch of strangers, then I do. But, obviously this is totally illogical, because there's no correlation between whether I have a friendly relationship with someone, and whether they have covid.

Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Image source.

So... it doesn't really make sense, what I'm doing, but since the covid virus is invisible, doesn't everyone need to sort of use a "proxy" to decide when to wear a mask? What I mean is, humans don't have an intuitive sense of when there's a higher risk of getting infected with covid (except perhaps if you literally see someone coughing), and so we have to base our decisions on other factors, which ideally would have some correlation with covid risk. But, I mean, how well can anyone really do that?

I always saw people on twitter talking about how you should wear masks not just for yourself, but to protect immunocompromised people. But I feel that's also hard to do in reality, because wearing a mask can be an inconvenience, and you don't actually know if it's helping anyone or not. Yes, like I said, I wear masks in crowded places with a bunch of strangers- that doesn't feel like an inconvenience to me- so I guess maybe I'm helping immunocompromised people there? Maybe? Who knows? Except if it's a restaurant- I don't wear a mask at a restaurant. Or sometimes I wear a mask while ordering food, but then take it off to eat, so... then... what was the point of wearing it at all? Like I said, I don't have an approach that's actually logical.

And also I feel kind of silly writing about this, because everywhere else besides China, you had to figure all this out for yourselves 3 years ago. But in China, for these 3 years, there hasn't really been any real risk of getting covid. So we wore masks because that was the rule- but we didn't wear masks at the office, or at restaurants, because that was impractical and anyway there was no real risk of getting covid so it didn't matter. (With a few exceptions, during those short periods of time when there existed a handful of known covid cases somewhere in Shanghai, and so everyone was paranoid. During those times, I saw people at the office wearing masks, and also many people avoided restaurants.) It's such a weird new thing, now that zero-covid has ended, everyone has to make their own decision about this.

And another weird thing, is that people in China are saying "the pandemic is over" (“疫情结束了”) when actually it's the zero-covid policy that's over, which means that now we actually can get covid, whereas during "the pandemic" we didn't really have any significant chance of getting covid. Honestly, Chinese people's experience of "the pandemic" was mostly about all the rules and restrictions that the government put on us. Remember when we had to get covid-tested every 2 days, for months and months? (Basically all the way from March 2022 to December 2022 in Shanghai... other cities had slightly different policies.) Remember when we had to scan a QR code every time we entered a public place, for contact-tracing purposes? Remember when anyone and everyone could ask you about your travel history and/or take your temperature, as if it was their business? Remember when every now and then, someone at work would say "oh so-and-so is working from home for the next 2 weeks because her apartment complex is in lockdown" and that was a normal thing? Remember when schools and employers would make announcements like "if you travel during the holiday, you can't come to school/work for the first 5 days after you come back to Shanghai", so then nobody with school-age kids could really take vacations anywhere?

Remember 1 year ago today, when Shanghai had already been in lockdown for an entire month, and there was no end in sight?

Here in China, it was never about "what's my actual risk of getting covid?" It was about living our lives according to all these tedious rules, and under threat of getting quarantined just because you happened to be at some place where some covid-positive person happened to be.

So when people say "the pandemic is over" (“疫情结束了”), it's because we no longer have to live by all those rules. We're done with all that. 

So... yeah... about masks, that's what I'm doing now, and I recognize that it doesn't exactly make sense, and I'll likely get covid sometime in the next year. If I knew that, say, the next month was going to be a big covid wave, I would wear an N95 and wait it out (oof, would I pull my kid out of school though? ugh that would be exhausting trying to find alternative childcare...). But instead, it's just, for the whole foreseeable future, there is a low risk, but it will happen eventually, unless I wear masks ALL THE TIME, which would be way too much trouble.

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Links:

Barrett's YouTube channel:

Chinese National Guard on the Streets of Shanghai (May 1) This is a video from a white guy in China, about how unbelievably crowded Nanjing pedestrian street (in Shanghai) is this week, because of the Labor Day holiday. Now that zero-covid is over, a lot more people are traveling during the holiday breaks. Trying to make up for those 3 years of not traveling.

In this video, you can see police and military people doing crowd control, allowing people to cross the street only at specific times, with barriers set up so that everyone is going in the same direction, etc. I am sure this is because of the risk of a stampede when there's a crowd this big.

Highly recommend the video. Especially the part where the line of military people march in formation to stand along the side of the pedestrian street crossing. The police/military people seem to be very organized and doing a good job.

South China Morning Post:

Coronavirus: China will no longer require PCR tests for travellers to the country (April 25) This is HUGE, you guys. Effective April 29, China no longer requires a PCR test for travelers entering the country. Apparently a self-test is required instead, but probably no one is going to enforce that. (How could they enforce it, anyway? If you have to show a photo of your rapid antigen test, well, how will they know it's really yours? Maybe you just got a photo from someone else.)

And, when I was in the US and needed to get a PCR test to come back to China, oh my goodness it was so expensive. It was something like $120 per person. (Whereas in China, it's something like 80 rmb, which is about $10.) The pharmacy actually called me when I made the appointment and asked if I really want to get tested- "Do you know it's $120?" lolsob

So wow, this is a big deal, not requiring testing. Saves us a lot of money and stress (trying to carefully time the test so you have the results before your flight, but also so the test sampling time is within 48 hours before the departure time of the leg of your flight specifically entering mainland China, ugh this was so complicated). Plane tickets are still RIDICULOUS though. They're about double the price they were in The Before Times.

SHINE:

China approves 1st domestic mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 (March 22) This is good news, though I don't know what the timeline is for doing an actual vaccine rollout with a Chinese mRNA vaccine.

Masks no longer mandatory, but recommended, on Shanghai Metro (March 31)

Effective immediately, China resumes inbound group tours (March 31)

CNBC:

Biden will end Covid vaccine mandates for federal workers and international travelers on May 11 (May 1) The current policy says that people entering the US must be vaccinated for covid (this does not apply to US citizens though), but that policy is ending.

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Related:

Zero-Covid is Over (December 11, 2022)
I Guess I Shouldn't Be Surprised How Fast Omicron is Spreading in China (December 17, 2022) 
Does Anyone in China NOT Have Covid? (December 24, 2022)

May 2023 Carnival of Aces Call for Submissions: Changing Labels

Label makers. Image source.

Hi everyone, I am hosting the Carnival of Aces this month. 

A Carnival of Aces is a monthly blogging carnival centered on the asexual spectrum (asexuals, gray-As, demisexuals, etc.).  Anyone can participate, but responses should deal with asexuality or the asexual spectrum, and they should relate to the month’s theme (which is announced each month by the host).  Responses should postdate the call for submissions.  Alternate forms of media besides blogs are also welcome as long as they deal with the prompt.  If you’re not sure whether your piece is okay, submit it anyway and we’ll figure it out.

For this month, the topic is "Changing Labels." 

It's about what identity labels we use to describe ourselves. Queer labels, ace-related labels, gender identity labels, or other labels. The reasons why people choose certain labels and then maybe later change them.

Some possible topics to write about:

• If you used some label but then changed to a different one- why? Or if you used some label (for example, bi) and then later added another label (for example, bi and asexual), what did that process look like?
• Is there a label you used before, but don't use now? Is it because you believe it doesn't apply to you, or because you feel it's not necessary to have a label for that? (Or some other reason?)
• Perhaps you haven't changed the label you use, but the way you understand it now is different than when you first started using it. (For example, you feel more confident about it than you did initially, you define it differently, you emphasize different aspects of it, etc.) In what ways do you feel differently about it now?
• Do you use different labels in different situations? (This may depend on who you're coming out to, how much time you want to spend explaining yourself, the specific reason why you're coming out to them, etc...)
• How can the ace community support people during their process of figuring out their identity (and possibly changing labels, choosing to ID as ace temporarily, etc)?

The August 2022 carnival had a similar topic- "Labels and Microlabels"- you can read those posts for ideas too.

To submit your post: Leave a comment on this post, or email me at perfectnumber628 at gmail.com. (If I don't reply, send it again, because it might have gone to spam.)

Happy blogging everyone~

Asexually Reading "The Great Sex Rescue"

An asexual flag and a rainbow flag. Image source.

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

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Hi readers! So, I bought the book The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link] by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky, and I'm going to be writing a blog series reviewing it from an asexual perspective.

This book is about the harmful marriage advice that's commonly found in churches and Christian books. Things like "it's the wife's job to have sex with her husband even if she doesn't want to, even if it's painful, because men need it." (That's not a quote from anywhere, that's just my paraphrase, but yes there are plenty of Christian marriage books that say that.) Gregoire and her co-authors take a stand against this harmful teaching, and present their own advice on how married women can have sex that feels good.

The reason I am so interested in reading this book is that this is an ace issue. ("Ace" means asexual and other related identities under the asexual umbrella.) The teaching that "a wife is required to have sex with her husband" is especially harmful to ace women. 

And, honestly, it scares me how perfectly ace women fit into the narrative that conservative Christians teach about sex. They teach "don't have sex before marriage- best-case scenario, you have no sexual experience at all, not even sexual thoughts" and asexuals are like "okay, great, no problem." And then when you're married, now the rules change to "you have to have sex with your husband regularly- yeah women don't really like it, but that's what you have to do when you're married." It scares me, you guys, it scares me, thinking about the ace women out there who don't know they're ace- they just know that they can't have sex before marriage, and then when they're married they have to have sex, even though women don't like sex. Conservative Christians teach that this is the way it is. This is what marriage is. This is how sex is supposed to go, for women.

How can ace women in that ideology figure out that life doesn't have to be that way? That they deserve better?

For me personally, it took a long time to figure out I was asexual, specifically because of this "women don't really like sex" teaching. I kept going around in circles, reading definitions of asexuality online, thinking "yes this sounds like me, because I don't think I have sexual attraction", and then telling myself "no, that's normal, that's just how women are, it's not like a whole special identity that needs a label. Women don't like sex." (Fact check: it turns out most women actually do like sex.)

Anyway, yeah, I'm concerned about straight ace women who grew up with this kind of ideology. (Well not just straight ace women, but ace women who are partnered with men, though they may not actually be straight. And not just women, but also trans and nonbinary people who are viewed as women in that ideology.) Honestly, this concern is what first pushed me to come out to people as asexual. When I figured out I was asexual, I was like, "well, I don't really *need* to come out. Like, no one needs to know, except my partner, that's all." But I just... Who will find the straight ace women and tell them about asexuality? I need to talk about it more, I need to tell people.

Let's say there's an ace woman, with a conservative Christian background, who doesn't know she's ace. And she marries an abusive man who tells her "you have to have sex with me whenever I want, if you're in pain that's not a good enough reason to withhold sex" and then when she forces herself to have sex with him, he complains that she doesn't seem to be enjoying it, and that's ruining his mood. So then she forces herself to pretend she likes it. (Also, if she kissed another guy 10 years ago, before meeting her husband, her husband will make sure she feels guilty about that forever.) This is what she expected marriage to be like, based on the Christian marriage advice she's heard. She believes the way her husband treats her is normal. She doesn't know it's abuse. She doesn't know this is marital rape.

Or, maybe there's an ace woman who gets lucky and marries a man who is a decent human being, even though the church's dating advice didn't include anything about how to tell if your partner is a decent human being rather than an abuser. (Purity ideology says if you're not having sex before marriage, that means your relationship is healthy.) By some stroke of luck, she ends up marrying a decent human being anyway. But her husband doesn't fully understand the ideology that she was taught and that she deeply internalized. 

He believes that honest communication is important, so he tells her what kind of sexual things he's interested in. His intended message is "we are equals, so let's both say what we want, and then we can figure out which things we both like and/or are willing to try." But she hears it as "these are my requirements that you must do for me. You agreed to this in the marriage vows." And so she tries to live up to that, with the Christian teaching about "men's needs" hanging over her all the time... how men will cheat if you don't have sex with them enough... Even though her husband isn't like that, and he never did anything to coerce her, the ideology that she internalized forces her to do things she doesn't want.

And then, during sex, her husband believes it's important that he makes her feel good, so he uses his fingers on her genitals. And she has no idea what is going on- as far as she knew, sex is penis-in-vagina (PIV) and she didn't know there was a part involving fingers. But, she reasons, apparently this is what he likes. She was taught that during sex, men become overwhelmed by their desire, and can't control themselves... so... for some reason her husband's sexual urges must be driving him to poke her genitals with his fingers...? She has no idea that the reason he's doing it is specifically to do something that will feel good for her- she had never heard of a man having that kind of motivation. And it doesn't feel good, the way he's doing it- but she doesn't know that there are different ways to use fingers there, and one needs to try it out on oneself to find which way works best, because everyone is different... She doesn't know that's a piece of information that is useful to have, when attempting to have sex.

All she can do is politely tolerate it, because, of course, the church taught her that she can't say anything negative about her husband's sexual techniques- as a wife she needs to make sure the entire experience is perfect for him. Can't do anything that might ruin his self-confidence.

Even though he is trying to treat her an an equal, and wants to make her feel good during sex, she can't grasp that. She has never heard of a man approaching sex in that way. She was expecting the abuser, the rapist, who says "you have to have sex with me, because in marriage, your body belongs to your spouse", and so that's the lens she views her husband through.

I don't think I'm going too far when I say, if you are an ace woman who grows up in this patriarchal "wives need to have sex with their husbands" ideology, and you've never heard of asexuality, and you marry a heterosexual man, you WILL end up in one of the 2 scenarios I described above. Either he's a rapist, and you believe that's completely normal and don't recognize it as rape, or he's a good person but you can't comprehend that, and so you still force yourself to have sex you don't want.

This is an ace issue.

Yes, it's certainly also an issue for heterosexual women- and Gregoire's intended audience is heterosexual women. Though, honestly, this is SO MUCH an ace issue that I speculate that a disproportionate amount of her followers are actually asexual (or, they could benefit from identifying as asexual, if they knew that was a thing).

(And lesbian/bisexual women are also harmed by patriarchal Christian "purity" teaching.)

So, anyway, here's my impression of Gregoire, based on what I've seen on her blog and twitter:

First, the good stuff: She challenges common conservative/evangelical/complementarian teachings about sex and marriage in ways that I have NEVER seen before. Really engaging with these harmful ideas directly, on their own turf, and there's something I love about that. Typically the feminist response is more like "well, it's just totally out of the question to put all these extra requirements on women- we want to make a world with gender equality and that ain't it." And yes, generally that's a good response. But for people who have deeply internalized the harmful ideology, it can be extremely helpful to see someone intricately examining the logic of those harmful teachings and pointing out specific places where they are wrong.

Also, Gregoire talks about things like marital rape and abuse like they are real things. And yes, of course these are real things- but typically in Christian marriage books they are treated as some kind of rare exception, that's so rare and extreme that we don't need to address it, and people in that situation will know that their situation is so extreme and different, so they will understand that our advice doesn't apply to them. I've seen Christian marriage books saying things like "Wives have to submit to their husbands" and then somewhere there's a little disclaimer "this isn't about people who are in an abusive situation- if you're in a truly abusive situation, get help." But they don't say anything about how to recognize abuse. And their teaching gives cover to abusers. And they include anecdotes in their books which literally describe abuse and rape, but they don't identify them as abuse/rape, they present these anecdotes like these things are normal in marriage. Gregoire has written a lot of blog posts criticizing those kinds of Christian marriage books.

All right, but here's the big criticism I have about Gregoire's writing: She never acknowledges that queer people exist. This is so incredibly BIZARRE to me, because her whole thing is about how conservative Christian marriage teachings are harmful... It should be obvious to everyone that these teachings are harmful to queer people, in unique ways, and that this is a very important issue. But she never mentions it. It's like she believes everyone is heterosexual. Like, what on earth? 

It's so weird to me, because in a lot of ways her writing is extremely real and practical. Like, she points out the very real problems that are created by this abstract "wives have to have sex with their husbands" ideology. Honestly, it is shocking to me (in a good way) seeing someone inside evangelicalism being that real about this. But, that makes it even more outrageous that she never mentions queer people. She says rape culture is real, she says marital rape is real, she says vaginismus is real and women with a "purity" background are at higher risk for it, but she never says gay people are real? She never makes a statement one way or the other on the question of whether being gay is a real thing?????? She never says there are lesbian and bi women who get married to men when they're way too young and haven't even had a chance to realize they're queer? WHAT?

And as for asexuality, well, yeah a lot of people don't know about it, so maybe it's understandable that she didn't mention it directly, but in her blog posts which present her views on what sex is supposed to be, it's very much along the lines of "sex is a beautiful gift from God and here is how God wants you to do it" [my paraphrase, not an exact quote] like very explicitly not ace-inclusive.

So I think I'm going to like this book, "The Great Sex Rescue." I think there are going to be a lot of places where my mind is BLOWN because the book points out some flaw in the logic of purity culture, and it's something that I never thought of before. Those parts of the book will be very helpful for aces who had that kind of conservative/"purity" background. 

But I think at the end of the day, the alternative view that Gregoire presents will not be inclusive of asexuals, or any queer people, for that matter. I have a suspicion- from reading her blog- that she wants to argue against the message "sex is a beautiful gift from God, only for heterosexual monogamous marriage, and it's something the wife does for the husband" and replace it with "sex is a beautiful gift from God, only for heterosexual monogamous marriage, and it's something that the husband and wife should enjoy equally."

Anyway, maybe I shouldn't speculate too much about what the book says, since I haven't read it yet. Come along with me on this journey and we will find out what it says together.

Oh, and 1 more thing:

Here is the #1 question I am curious about: Does this book say "you have to masturbate"?

Because, I mean, and I cannot emphasize this enough, for my own "sex rescue", masturbation was ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. Like, DO NOT attempt to have sex with a partner if you've never masturbated before. It's a bad idea.

I really have a hard time believing that anybody's sex life can be "rescued" if they've never masturbated before, and they believe they must not masturbate. Like how are you going to figure out what feels good? Just hope that your partner will hit upon it by random chance? BAD IDEA.

So, I'm very interested to see whether this book emphasizes this very important point, does not mention it as all, or says you shouldn't masturbate. Very interested.

Also, is this book going to say you shouldn't have sex before marriage? If so, I'll have to say "this is still purity culture" like I had to do for "Boundaries in Dating."

So those are my thoughts and expectations for this book. My plan is to blog through it with posts every 2 weeks (approximately). I'm looking forward to reading Gregoire's views on what's wrong with a lot of Christian teaching on marriage and sex. I'm looking forward to reading her findings about the specific sexual problems that tend to affect women who come from a "purity culture" background. But also, I'm asexual, and I will have some things to say about that.

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

Related:

Conservative Christians Teach That Wives Are REQUIRED To Have Sex Even When They Don't Want To. Here Are The Receipts. 

If A Wife Is Required To Have Sex, That's Not "Intimacy" 

My Husband Is Not The Entire Focus Of My Sex Life 

Here's an article about evangelical women and sex

"Boys Can't Stop"

Blogaround

1. This xkcd comic about credit card rewards. Because this is exactly how I think...

2. Chinese eagerly await return of panda from US zoo (April 11) "But in recent times, Memphis Zoo has been grilled by Chinese netizens over accusations that Ya Ya and Le Le had been mistreated during their stay."

3. World Book Day: A Bookstore for the Blind (April 23) "China is home to 17 million visually impaired people, who often face barriers entering the workforce and even colleges due to a lack of braille exam papers. China only has one braille press, and there were 959 braille libraries nationwide as of 2017, but many people aren’t aware of them."

Also from Sixth Tone: Holiday Hustle: In China, Most Resent Trading Weekends for Time Off (April 25) "Since 1999, the government has created longer vacations by swapping working days with weekends preceding and following the holiday." Yeah, we get 1 day off for May 1 (Labor Day), but they moved the weekends around to make it 5 days in a row.

One criticism I have for Sixth Tone's article- it says "China’s public holiday system, which allows employees to trade weekends for longer holidays" which makes it sound like we have a choice. Lol, no, we don't have a choice. This is the work schedule set by the government. Sunday, April 23 and Saturday, May 6 are work days. If you don't want to work on those weekend days, you have to use your own vacation days for that.

4. Community Memory and the Search for Unassailable Abuse (April 23) "This pressure to turn our worst and most painful experiences into argument fodder is part of what I aimed to highlight in The Glossary & The Gristmill — a post about how our own community is contributing, in part, to why it feels like certain stories can’t be told. When community dynamics dictate that argument fodder is the top priority, that creates inhibitions against sharing our stories."

5. Preston Sprinkle’s strange interview with Sheila Gregoire and Rebecca Lindenbach (April 13) "In one of the creepiest moments of the podcast, Sprinkle told of an experience he had at a local coffee shop." 

Also, Preston Sprinkle hasn't heard of Brio magazine. It was a magazine for teen girls, published by Focus on the Family, which promoted a lot of "purity" teaching. I read it all the time in high school. To be fair, though, Sprinkle's work is more along the lines of "how to pretend to be an ally to LGBTQ people", rather than "here are the reasons women and girls in the church have internalized sexual shame."

6. Mattel unveils a Barbie with Down syndrome (April 25) "'Our goal is to enable all children to see themselves in Barbie, while also encouraging children to play with dolls who do not look like themselves. Doll play outside of a child's own lived experience can teach understanding and build a greater sense of empathy, leading to a more accepting world,' McKnight said."

7. Ex-officer who fatally shot Breonna Taylor hired as a deputy (April 25)

8. The kingdom of heaven is like: Lizzo brings drag queens on stage at her Knoxville show to protest law (April 23)

9. Dragon catches on fire during Disneyland’s ‘Fantasmic’ show (April 23) Wow!

10. Tucker Carlson departs Fox News, pushed out by Rupert Murdoch (April 24)

11. Ranking the Pain of Stinging Insects, From ‘Spicy’ to ‘Shockingly Electric’ (April 24, via) [content note: article has a few images of bugs] This is about Justin Schmidt, a scientist who went around getting stung by various insects (over 1000 times) so he could compare them all objectively. 

Blogaround

1. Oklahoma sheriff, commissioner, accused of discussing killing a reporter and returning to Black hangings (April 16) [content note: violent racist language] WTF.

(That link and several others in this post I got via the Slacktivist's Postcards from the class & culture wars (4.17.23))

2. A Good Friday funeral in Texas. Baby Halo's parents had few choices in post-Roe Texas (April 6) [content note: child death/ pregnancy loss] "'Where is the state of Texas to provide the safety net for her, after forcing her to give birth to a child that didn't survive and never would?' she asks."

3. Doctors Warned Her Pregnancy Could Kill Her. Then Tennessee Outlawed Abortion. (March 14) [content note: explicit medical details about pregnancy complications] "ProPublica spoke with 20 Tennessee medical providers about life under the ban, on condition of anonymity because they feared professional and personal repercussions; some said that they had witnessed a new trepidation in their ranks. 'I’ve seen colleagues delay or sit on assessing the clinical data longer when they know the diagnosis is probably ectopic,' one said, referring to pregnancies that implant outside the uterine cavity, which are always life-threatening. 'People were like, 'I don’t want to be involved because I don’t want to go to prison,'' said another. 'It’s crazy — even assessing the patient or having a role in their care makes people scared.'"

4. City leases property to 'Safe Ground Sacramento' for a self-governing 'safe parking shelter' (March 31, via) "The cost of the lease is $0, and its length is 120 days, renewable in increments of 120 days until all the residents obtain permanent housing." An agreement between the city of Sacramento and a group advocating for the rights of homeless people.

5. Recovery of Black teen allegedly shot by White homeowner after ringing wrong doorbell is a miracle, attorney says (April 19) "A Black teenager who authorities say was shot in the head by an 84-year-old White homeowner after going to the wrong Kansas City address received a positive prognosis but still faces a long road to recovery, according to his attorneys."

6. Parler shuts down as new owner says conservative platform needs big revamp (April 15) "'No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more,' the acquisition announcement said, promising a revamp."

7. BMW’s Mini apologizes after meltdown over ice cream at Shanghai auto show (April 21) So, there was a car expo in Shanghai this week, and apparently the BMW booth was handing out ice cream, and there's a video of the BMW employees telling Chinese people that all the ice cream is gone, and then a white guy shows up and they give him ice cream. (The news articles say "foreign" or "western" or 外国人 but let's just call it what it is, whiteness.)

Umm. Okay. I'm white, I live in Shanghai, and the first thing I wanna say about this is it rings true. In this kind of business-event context, Chinese people definitely do give preferential treatment to white people. I've experienced that.

BMW issued an apology and said that actually the reason the white guy got ice cream is he's a BMW employee. Who knows if that's true. I don't think the Chinese internet masses are buying it.

8. UMC clergy reportedly face complaint, church trial after marrying nonbinary couple (April 19) When people get married, the correct response is "congratulations!" Rejoice with those who rejoice. But the church is butting in and making it into a problem instead.

9. This whole twitter thread about why abortion care is very important for people who are struggling with infertility and trying to have a baby. It's common for people to have miscarriages when they're having these problems, and they need to have access to health care that can handle miscarriage in a reasonable way, instead of "pro-life" health care which doesn't connect to reality.

I liberalized two college age girls last night.

Two students were told by their teacher to shadow a support group. I run an infertility support group.

They mostly observed with a few questions. They were visibly floored when I told them how abortion care was critical to us.

— Angel of the Ozarks (@AngelSSMO) April 21, 2023

10. Religious Authorities Are Not God (March 10) "In more cynical terms, I remember feeling suspicious that the ministry organization was trying to frame something as a call from God on Grace’s life that was really just their own best attempt at having enough staff at all the different schools."

11. P!nk - F**kin' Perfect (Lyric Video) I know I've posted this several times before, but I'm ex-evangelical so I need to post this song a lot.