Godless whores: 13 donations and $664.78

“Good” Christians: 1 donation and $20

I think we have a winner folks. Though I am more than happy (and still desperate enough) to keep this going if the Christians think that time will change things.

Go read this

I think this choice quote

the capacity of women across cultures to dissolve relationships that aren’t working has been much underestimated

.

perfectly illustrates my point in this post.

I think the nuclear family is a very recent concept, a couple hundred years, give or take. And it’s not working out so well. People are rational creatures at heart, and divorce exists and is as popular as it is because it is helpful. That more women are choosing motherhood without marriage is because it is in their best interest to do so.

I could get all anthropological and start babbling about how all recent human evolution is lamarkian in nature and that the greatest of human leaps have been ones of cooperation like language and menopause rather than ones of competition like war, but everytime I get all philosophical it gets quiet around here.

So I’ll just leave you with this. People are rational creatures. They will act in their own best interest, even when society at large says their actions are wrong. Women will seek to control their own fertility despite frothing mouthed protesters, gays and lesbians will push to be treated as equals despite frothing mouthed protesters, immigrants will cross dangerous borders looking for work despite frothing mouthed minutemen. Eventually, society will change it’s view because those who act in their own best interest are the ones that carry society into the future.

into the “I think abortion adoption (shit I’ve been typing the word abortion so much lately with the troll infestation that I goofed. Fuckles)is a necessary evil” category

Forcing a woman into adoption is just as evil as forcing a woman into motherhood or forcing a woman into having an abortion.

It’s not really a choice when you’re not given another option, is it?

to the party lines in the healthcare debate:

Republicans: Let them eat cake if they are healthy and can afford cake in the private market.

Democrats: We were going to have cake, but now it looks like bread and water for everyone. Well not everyone, some people will still have cake. But those who never had cake will be required to buy bread and water at cake prices.

ETA:

Single payer advocate: Screw cake AND bread and water- we can’t live on that. We want our meat and veggies!

Go read this post on anthropomorphizing and gender.

Are you back yet?

So I’ve been thinking long and hard about why it is that dude-bros need to turn sex and reproduction into a battle where they win by sticking it in. What could have sparked the original idea, what was making early dude-bros feel so rotten that they turned sex into a contest between the sexes? And why are those same dude-bros sooooo upset now that modern science has given women greater ability to control reproduction.

An ex of mine used to say that he was 100 percent positive that the people who are screamingly anti-abortion are that way because if abortion had been an option for their mothers, they never would have been born. I think he was close-ish. But once you’ve been born you no longer have to worry about how you got here, it’s impractical. I think it’s more that they can’t stand the idea someone else, someone female, is in charge of deciding if their dna gets passed on. And honestly, if someone said “God says you should submit to me, cook my dinners, wash my socks, give me blow jobs and have my babies” what reasonable woman with any kind of other option would agree? Sure, maybe a woman might have a much regretted one-night stand, or even a brief fling. Even I dated a Republican once. But you don’t go having babies with those people if you can avoid it.

And I think it’s really telling that those same manly-men forced birthers never go after the men who get women pregnant. I have never, in the thousand and thousands of hours that I have argued this point, seen one single forced birther say that anything should be done about the male half of the pregnancy equation. Not one single suggestion (outside of the occasional “he should marry her and claim his shiny pussy prize!” which is just MORE punishment for the woman with a life of domestic slavery).

And that’s because they think the dudes who get women knocked up against their will are the winners. They have a problem hating on dudes who do the thing they want to do.

Of course, this is not all dudes. Even the Kid’s deadbeat, domestically violent, crazy stalker of a dad was pro-choice and *seemed* decent enough in the beginning that I had his kid, though one of the first things I asked myself when the stick turned blue is “can you do this parenting thing by yourself, cause you’re probably going to?”.

But as time and evolution marches on, and women gain ground in financial independence and body autonomy and science means that not every sex act equals child birth and not every child birth means a serious risk of death, and parenting alone no longer means social pariah status, those old school dude bros have fewer and fewer options for procreating. They either have to change their ways to bemore competetive, or fight tooth and nail to keep women desperate enough to choose them.

They have to look at sex as a war. Sad thing is though, no one wants to have a baby with their enemy. So their whole game plan for passing on their dna actually works to their own disadvantage.

But evolution marches on, and dudes with dna that makes them more adaptable, changeable, affable to women’s needs will be more likely to have their genes passed on. And dudes without that ability will find their lines dying out.

That is your hopeful thought of the day.

Best. Line. Ever. In. A. TV. Show!

It seems that we (ok not we- but troll d’jour) need(s) a 101 post on hate.

Like I said about misogyny before– if it was just your simple, garden variety of hate, like some people have for brussel sprouts or like I have for walking barefoot on grass, then it would be easy to deal with.

But misogyny, racism, homophobia, ableism, etc. are not simple forms of hate. With simple hate- you avoid the things you hate. I wear flip flops in the park, for example. But with whatever flavor of bigotry (and isn’t it interesting how people generally aren’t just one flavor of bigot) it’s not just a matter of avoiding things that that they hate. Troll d’jour, for example, keeps coming to this blog and commenting. Bigotry is hatred coupled with a need to control or demean, or prejudice plus power- which is the sociologists’ definition. (People who use dictionary definitions of different flavors of bigotry are almost always using that very narrow, inaccurate definition to somehow prove that they aren’t whatever definition they are using).

I hate walking barefoot in the grass. But I don’t hate grass. I don’t feel the need to rip up all the grass in the world or limit the ability of grass to grow unrestricted. I don’t hate all grass for making me feel uncomfortable or icky. I don’t make jokes at the expense of grass, talking about how it lazily it lies there waiting for someone to come water it. It’s not slutty grass cause it will let just anybody walk all over it, it wasn’t asking to be mowed by letting itself get all tall. I don’t hate people who like walking barefoot in the grass. I don’t tell grass to go back where it came from.

If I did any of those things, I’d be looked at pretty funny. But bigots do those things all the time, and they think their hatred isn’t even hatred. It’s common sense or just how things are or even a command from god. They don’t understand that doing things like trying to control women’s bodies by outlawing medical procedures or forcing them to change their names upon marriage is just as ridiculous as if I went and said that grass can only be grown in 2 foot square patches (so that I can always step over the patch) away from the public view. If i said it was unnatural for two different kinds of grass to cross breed I’d be as bigoted as people who say it’s unnatural for two people of the same sex to marry.

But bigotry is hate plus a need to control or demean.

If you think there is ever any situation where a woman forfeits control of her own body, whether it’s during pregnancy, or because she wore her skirt too short or had a drink at a bar and was raped, or if she marries and has to get a new name, then you are a misogynist. If you’ve ever seriously used the word feminazi- you’re a misogynist.

If you have ever used the words “lame” or “retarded” as an insult or whined about ADA requirements, (or any number of other things, my abelist repertoire is sadly lacking)you’re an abelist.

If you think that gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry, or raise children or if you’ve ever called a transgendered person a “he/she” or an “it” or if you think that gay sex is a sin, you’re a homophobe.

If you use the term “illegal immigrant” and honestly think that a person’s mere existence on one side of a border is a crime, you’re a racist. If you think that racial stereotypes exist for a reason, you’re a racist. If you think there is such a thing as reverse racism, you’re a racist.

If you want to control or demean people based on an intrinsic trait that they cannot control, then you are a bigot. It doesn’t matter if you THINK that your intentions are not to control or demean or to hate. Bigotry does not require intention.

And truthfully, I couldn’t care less if you hate me. I do get seriously pissed off when you try to control me or insult me because of that hate. If all the haters did was cut themselves off from the things they hate, then bigotry would be like walking barefoot in grass.

So read this

Are you back?

I never married. I never will. I could have gotten married a couple of times, but I’m totally a candidate for runaway bride status.

So my name has always been my name. And it always will be (unless I meet a dashing Cary grant type whose last name happens to be Bennett. Then I *might* consider changing my name just so I could be Lizzie Bennett. Same is true if the dude’s last name is Darcy.)

But the Kid has his dad’s last name. 14 years and $40k in unpaid child support later, and I regret that decision. But wevs. It’s the Kid’s name now.

But I have never been Mrs. Kid’slastname. And i live in an urban, progressive, West Coast city. There are lots of unmarried people with kids or divorced/remarried people with kids. Enough that no one should automatically assume that kids and parents share the same name. I know only a couple of kids that have the same last names as their moms, and at least 2 of those kids have moms with hyphenated names.

So it pisses me off to nooooooo end when people call me Mrs. Kid’slastname. Especially school people, who are sitting there with my name right in front of them, either in an email or on a form. Kid had a counselor last year who flat out refused to get my name right, and was so pissed off when I got mad about it that he called me Ms. Notexactlyyourlastnamebutcloseenough after that.

It is disrespect to refuse to knowledge someone’s proper name, whether it’s a woman with a different name from her kids or a person with a hard to pronounce (foreign) name or a person transitioning from one gender to another. A name is important. Things don’t exist to us until we name them and refusing to use someone’s name is a way of wiping out their existence.

The Kid is a dork, a video game playing, fantasy book reading, dungeons and dragons dork.

I am fine with this. I was a popular, non-dorky teenager. It benefited me very little in the real world (except that home was so bad- I figured the universe was giving me a break by making school and friends easier).

But it does mean I get to have a lot of uncomfortable discussions about how video games perpetuate racism and sexism in the real world.

Example #1:

Kid flops into a chair and sighs.

Me: What up dude?

Kid: I just died in my game. I have to go back and start ALL OVER.

Me: Sorry monkey.

Kid: Next time though, I’m going to play as a girl. Girls have it easier in the game.

Me: Oh really. How do girls have it easier?

Kid: Well there is this guy that steals your car, and you have to pay him a lot of money if you want it back. But if you’re a girl, you can uhm, uh, have sex with him and get your car back.

Me: You do realize that is not having sex right. You realize that is rape. He’s forcing her to have sex with him.

Kid: Yes. (slinks off).

Me: you know we are going to have to finish this discussion at some point.

Kid: Yes.

Example 2:

Kid: So in this game, this guy gets a rash on his little tribal

Me: You mean his junior member?

Kid: Yeah, but he calls it his little tribal

(conversation goes on about all the many euphemism for penis)

Kid: so the guy goes to the doctor in the game. And the doctor performs some painful test and then tells the guy that he needs to use this cream to clear it up. But the guy, Nanuk, doesn’t trust the doctor because the doctor hurt him, so he decided to use a witch doctor’s cure instead and covers his little tribal in oil and lights it on fire.

Me: Oh dude, that’s horrible.

Kid: I know

Me: and it’s also racist.

Kid: Oh no- in the game there are no races, just tribes.

Me: Something can be not racist inside the game, but it is racist outside the game. Remember that thing about the girl and the car thief?

Kid: Yes.

Me: You know that same thing happened to me in real life. It didn’t feel like “Oh bonus! I get my shit back and all I have to do is fuck this asshole”.

Kid: what happened?

Me: Well we were in the middle of moving. I gave all my money to this guy with a truck to move our stuff for us. He got everything we owned into the truck, then backed me into a corner and said to either give him more money or fuck him.

Kid: What did you do?

Me: Well I used you as an excuse. I told him I couldn’t with you there, and for him just to wait until later. Fortunately I knew where his mom lived, and when i told her that he had all my stuff, she got mad and laid into him. If it hadn’t been for her, you wouldn’t have any of your baby pictures.

I don’t want to ban you from playing video games. I don’t think that would help.
But I do want you to see this stuff. I want you to understand what happens in real life when you treat someone as dumb for being tribal or treat rape as sex. I want you to recognize it when you see it.

Kid: I get it. What’s inside the game isn’t what’s outside the game.

Me: Well that’s a start.

When the Kid was little and having a tantrum or doing something to cause problems, I would stop him ans ask “Is what you’re doing helping or hurting?”

I find myself wishing I could sit large parts of the population down at the moment and ask them the same thing.

For example- do you really think death threats are helpful? (Jezebel link disclaimer)

And with so many horrible things happening in the world, is spending time worrying about the state of the presidential ween more helpful than spending time worrying about rising unemployment?

In the middle of all this, a woman who was kidnapped 18 years ago (just a few miles from my home at the time) is finally free from the wankstain who kept her as a rape slave. Yay! In the mean time 9 women are missing in North Carolina and no one gives a damn and I post about a missing girl and the only comments are either crickets chirping or racist drivel. Is that helping or hurting?

And people are bringing guns to town hall meetings and wishing the president harm. Is that helping or hurting?

The Kid got the concept at 4 years old. The people in the stories above are grown ups who would rather cause harm and (as Wonder put it so well, once upon a time) “stand there in their wrongness and be wrong” than do something useful or helpful or good or kind or thoughtful.

It makes me sad and angry and embarrassed to be part of this planet, all at once.