A New Philosophy

Public Displays of Affection

Anewphilosophy — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:35:14 GMT

I just read this note on Makes Me Think:

“Today, when I looked around a busy restaurant at people eating their lunch, the only people I saw smiling were children.”

I used to think that my tendency to hug people spontaneously, or to entwine my arm with another person’s while walking, or to burst into tears at the sight of a particularly adorable Pixar film, meant that I felt things more intensely than other people. But over the past few years, I’ve come to the realization that I simply SHOW more emotion than everyone else; while other people might outgrow impulsive displays of emotion, I never did, and probably never will.

Last night, at Adam’s matriculation ceremony, I came running into the church, breathless and harried. I’d left work early to get back on time, but I’d still had to run most of the way home, and I barely arrived in time. As I walked up the aisle, I heard Adam’s wolf whistle— the way he often greets me, his reminder that he thinks I’m the most beautiful girl in the world, that I'm movie-star radiant in his eyes. We smiled brightly at one another, and I waved excitedly at him before moving to my seat in the “family and friends” section. After the ceremony was over, I rushed up to give him a big kiss, wrapping my arms around him and leaning against his tall frame. Then he put his arm around me and we walked out.

Later, at the after party on the roof of the biggest apartment building, I was speaking to some other juniors, who asked me, “So, how’d it feel to be greeted with a whistle as you walked into church?”

“Oh, that?” I replied, “I’m used to it.”

“Ooooh, I see,” someone called out laughingly. “You’re just so used to getting catcalls, huh?”

“No, no,” I giggled, shaking my head. “I’m just used to having Adam do that. We’re very affectionate with one another.”

Over the course of the evening, both Adam and I got multiple questions and comments about our PDA, and it dawned upon me that I rarely see other couples holding hands like we do, or kissing openly, or talking animatedly with one another. And while some people might think that makes us immature, or silly, or embarrassing, I just think it makes us enthusiastic.

And really, isn’t love one of the best grounds for enthusiasm? How can you NOT get fired up about being passionately in love?

One Year

Anewphilosophy — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:16:47 GMT

Today is our first wedding anniversary!

The day went beautifully— we got up, had coffee and waffles, went to church, and then ate MORE food, since several people at church had urged us to try out a brunch place down the street. Then we went to Central Park, where I got my anniversary gift from Adam— an hour-long ride in a rowboat through the park! And then we came home and snuggled, and Adam made blackened Mahi Mahi, and I ate too many Oreos, and it was just a wonderful day.

What's funny is that, at church today, the Old Testament reading was, like, incredibly appropriate. I mean, it was as though it had been tailor made just for me:

A capable wife who can find?
   She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
   and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm,
   all the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax,
   and works with willing hands.
She is like the ships of the merchant,
   she brings her food from far away.
She rises while it is still night
   and provides food for her household
   and tasks for her servant-girls.
She considers a field and buys it;
   with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength,
   and makes her arms strong.
She perceives that her merchandise is profitable.
   Her lamp does not go out at night.
She puts her hands to the distaff,
   and her hands hold the spindle.
She opens her hand to the poor,
   and reaches out her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid for her household when it snows,
   for all her household are clothed in crimson.
She makes herself coverings;
   her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known in the city gates,
   taking his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them;
   she supplies the merchant with sashes.
Strength and dignity are her clothing,
   and she laughs at the time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom,
   and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
   and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her happy;
   her husband too, and he praises her:
‘Many women have done excellently,
   but you surpass them all.’
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
   but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,
   and let her works praise her in the city gates.¹¹¹²¹³¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹²⁰²¹²²²³²⁴²⁵²⁶²⁷²⁸²⁹³⁰³¹

(Proverbs 31: 10-31)

The woman in this passage reminds me of what I'd like to be: smart, hardworking, able to take care of everyone I love single-handedly, using only my brains and my hands and my cunning. And the phrase "give her a share in the fruit of her hands" feels so...feminist, doesn't it? It's not often that you come across images of strong, empowered women in the Bible, but here's a woman who reaps the benefits of her own enterprising spirit, who is praised, not for being beautiful or submissive, but for being clever and independent.

As I look back upon our first year of marriage, what strikes me initially is this: the biggest lesson I've learned in these past twelve months has been that marriage has no formula. People like to pretend as though things happen inevitably, as though there's some pattern that all couples follow without choice, because that's just what married couples do. But here's the truth: being married doesn't mean that you both magically turn into perfectly mature, well-adjusted adults with Pottery Barn furniture and 401(k)s. In fact, having been married for exactly 365 days, I can dutifully report that my furniture is still old and ratty and mismatched and secondhand, and I don't even know what a 401(k) IS, let alone have one. Being married also doesn't mean your relationship is either instantly perfect or instantly doomed; being married is actually a series of very comfortable days, occasionally punctuated by a moment that is either very blissful or very painful.

I've come to the conclusion that there are no perfect marriages. When I was little, I looked around and saw that my friends' parents were all either divorced or eager to yell at one another, and, as I listened to stories of mommies throwing things or daddies storming out of the house and not returning for days, I figured that my parents were the only people who had the perfect marriage. And that was scary— because what if, when I grew up and met someone I loved and wanted to marry, I wasn't special, like my parents, but just ordinary, like everyone else's parents? If my parents had the only happy marriage in the whole world, where did that leave me, when I got married myself?

Since then, I've learned that my parents' marriage ISN'T perfect. As my mom explained once, it's not that they don't get angry with one another— it's that they're both very quiet, modest, restrained people, so that instead of yelling at one another like other couples do, they just give one another steely glares and avoid each other for a few days. Sometimes my mom does things that annoy my dad (disappearing in the middle of the store, or rushing him when he's trying to think up a solution to a problem, or criticizing his attempts at handyman construction around the house) and sometimes my dad does things that annoy my mom (working really late, or forgetting to do things that he promised to do, or not telling her about a meeting or dinner that he must attend until right before he's about to leave).

But I think that it's the imperfections that make it all worthwhile, don't you? I mean, my major answer to the infamous "why does God allow evil in the world?" question is always simple: without evil, there is no good. Without pain, there's no relief. Without suffering, you can't have joy. If we don't know what "bad" feels like, how can we know when things are good?

Because Adam and I occasionally fight, because we're occasionally mad at each other— that's how we know this is working. Because, see, even when I'm angry, even when I'm furious, even when I'm muttering mean stuff under my breath as I storm away— I still love him. No matter how much or how little I like him at any particular moment, I always love him. Always. Every second.

Like the woman in Proverbs, I laugh at the time to come.

The Knot...Of Fate

Anewphilosophy — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:41:42 GMT

Okay, guys, here's the coincidence of the month:

When I was planning my wedding, I spent a lot of time making fun of The Knot, the internet's premier gathering place for self-absorbed idiots who have somehow tricked unsuspecting partners into marrying them. Since then, I've also spent some time mocking The Knot's sister sites, The Nest (for already married self-absorbed idiots) and The Bump (for self-absorbed idiots who feel as though they ought to spread their self-absorbed idiot genes around by reproducing), sometimes to the point where I forget that I'm the self-absorbed idiot who actually surfs these sites in order to mock them on my blog.

Anyways, I've dedicated a lot of time to making fun of these sites, and my dear readers have, for the most part, gamely encouraged me in my mockery.

So on my first day of work, I get to the office building, and I enter the lobby, and I press the elevator button, and the elevator takes FOREVER to get there. I try to take the stairs, but the stairs are locked, so I have to wait for the elevator. So to pass the time, I start looking at the board on the wall, which lists the companies and firms that occupy the building by floor. Second floor, International Culinary Institute. Fourth floor, Women Making Movies. Fifth floor, a bunch of law offices.

And the sixth floor? "The Knot" is written in large plastic letters, and "The Nest" and "The Bump" are written in smaller white letters below.

That's right, folks. I've spent the last year or so making fun of these people, and now I get to stand next to them awkwardly in the elevator in the morning.

The moral of this story is: karma is a bitch.

No Right Number: Reflections On Family Size and Choice

Anewphilosophy — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:54:38 GMT

I very much enjoyed this cartoon, mostly because it's true. Why is it that we trust women— sometimes even teenaged girls— to take on the exalted and serious job of parenting, but we can't trust people in their 20s to know that they wouldn't ever be good at that job?

I mean, my aunt said she never wanted kids, and guess what? She's in her fifties and she DOESN'T HAVE KIDS. She's happily married and loves her job and has a FABULOUS house (mostly because, without the children, she and her husband get to spend their hard-earned cash on cool stuff instead of diapers and college tuition) and she's perfectly content. I look at her, and then I look at a certain high school acquaintance on Facebook (who only ever talks about her baby, and who never seems to sleep, eat real food, have time with her husband, or enjoy any non-baby aspect of her life whatsoever) and I wonder: how and why did we decide that everyone MUST have a baby?

Now, I'm not anti-baby, by any means. As most of you know, I'm looking forward to having a baby in my thirties— I know that, for me, it'll be a rewarding experience, although I really really really want to keep it down to one. (For all those who want to tell me, yet again, that they planned on having just one and then had more and therefore I will do the same thing: uh, I'm not you, and I'm a pretty determined person, and I usually don't have any trouble making my life the way I want it to be [within reason, at least], so I wouldn't worry, because if I say I just want one, then I JUST. WANT. ONE.)

But I know plenty of people who don't want kids EVER, and I don't quite understand why there's such a stigma attached to such a choice. In fact, I think it's pretty brave and mature of them to admit that, to tell you the truth. These folks have figured out that they wouldn't make very good parents, or that they don't WANT to be parents (and I'm pretty sure that an unwilling parent isn't exactly the most nurturing type of parent), and they're at peace with that in themselves. So when did we decide that babies were everyone's business?

Perhaps society is so obsessed with babies, not only because it's part of our biological drive, but also because they make such heartwarming stories. Who doesn't like reading about babies? I mean, one of my favorite pieces on PNN this month was Jessica Lee's post, "The Pregnant Pause," about her best friend coming to visit and then finding out she (the best friend, that is) is pregnant. Jessica's writing is superb, and the whole arc of the story— taking a pregnancy test just to be sure that a night of drinking would be okay, then discovering the test was positive, then having such joy, such expectation, such sisterly affection bring them together to look towards the future— just makes you feel warm all over. Everyone likes to hear good news, but when that news involves something momentous in the lives of those we hold dear— "We're engaged!" or "We bought a house!" or "I got into college!" or, yes, "I'm pregnant!"— it's especially beautiful. Even reading about strangers' pregnancies can make people happy, as we can see from all the tabloid news over celebrity babies and pregnancies.

The problem is when we become so interested to having those happy feelings that we begin to apply our expectations and experiences universally. We like babies, we like knowing that other people are having babies, so we assume that babies are always a good thing to have, even when common sense tells us otherwise.

I think I've said this before, but I believe the whole Octomom debacle tells us some serious things about who we are as a society. I've written before about the disturbing things Octomom reveals about the ways in which we think about embryos and unborn babies, but today, I want to talk about what I think she tells us about babymania and baby pressure. Because, y'know, we didn't ALWAYS hate Octomom. In the beginning, we LIKED her. When we thought she was some random chick who wanted to have all these babies, a lot of people liked her— some even rooted for her. And what was it that made us turn sour against her?

Money.

We hated Octomom because she was poor, not because she had fourteen children. We hated her because she was taking taxpayers' money, not because she was contributing to overpopulation. It was her economic class that disturbed us, not her original intentions, and even I was certainly not above criticizing her decision on the basis of financial instability.

I was reading about "baby addiction" today, and I happened to come across this small blurb at Jezebel. The blurb in and of itself isn't that interesting, but the comments reveal a lot, to my mind. Over and over, women excoriate Octomom for being unable to afford all her children— yet they insist that Angelina Jolie is different, because she has MONEY. The comments were disturbing in that they blithely assumed that a rich mom was not only better able to provide food and clothes for her kids, but that a rich mom could pay someone ELSE to watch the babies:

"Angelina Jolie is in a financial position to provide a good home to the kids. Even when she's busy working, she can afford to have someone there to play with them, and she also has Brad."

Oh, okay— we're yelling at unemployed Octomom for being unable to have enough time with all her children, but Angelina Jolie, who is clearly a busy woman and spends a lot of her time on sets, doing TV interviews, doing charity work, etc., can pay someone to watch her children, so that's somehow fine. Apparently, being raised by a nanny is all right, but being raised by a poor mom who can't afford a nanny? BLASPHEMY.

Now, I'm not justifying Octomom's behavior, and I'm certainly not saying that Angelina Jolie is a bad person— for one thing, she adopted a lot of those kids, and I think that's waaaaay more responsible. I think adopting kids and giving them a home is truly noble. But I do just want to point out how much of our baby obsession is class-driven: we scream about the poor black woman who has five kids on welfare, but we get misty-eyed over the crazy cult of the 18-and-counting Duggars. Think about it: are there a whole lot of TLC shows devoted to black parents who have large families? Or Latino parents? Apparently, overpopulation is only awesome when it's white middle-class people who are doing it.

In comparing Angelina Jolie to Octomom, I wish we would focus more on the adoption factor (after all, she's not actually giving birth to all these kids— I think she's the biological mom of three of them, but the rest were adopted, and that's great of her to give them a home) and less on the fact that one is rich and one is poor. Sure, Octomom is going to have a lot more trouble paying for food and clothes and educational stuff for her kids, but I think both moms could potentially struggle to find time to be with each of their kids individually, and that doesn't have a thing to do with social class.

Which leads me back to my original question: why are we, as a society, so happy to pressure people into having babies, and then so disgusted when people buckle under that pressure too willingly? What is it with this double standard: women who have no babies are shriveled up, pathetic harpies, and women who have lots of babies are trashy or desperate or mentally ill?

One commenter on the Jezebel article hit the nail on the head here:

"Now that Tabloids have mastered the 'Too Skinny to live!/SOMEONE needs to lose weight!' Catch 22, they're finally moving on scientifically establish just HOW MUCH women should want babies. Enough to make them worthwhile, but not enough to look desperate, of course."

She's right, I think. According to popular culture, no babies is criminal, one baby is selfish, two babies is nice, three babies is better, eight babies lands you a cable show, and twelve babies is sick. Not only should women apparently not have the choice to skip childbearing, but they should ALSO not have the choice to give birth to seven children if they feel that need. Either way, the uterus is treated as public property, and should be used only to fulfill everyone else's ideals about perfect families. Either way, women aren't given the choice.

One of the many reasons why I'm such a big proponant of abortion rights is because I think your body is such a personal topic that its uses and limitations and desires can and should be exclusively the domain of each woman individually. The fact that I believe that abortion is acceptable in most cases does not give me the right to insist that people who get pregnant accidentally, some of whom I think would make bad mothers, should have abortions, just as people who think abortion is immoral don't get to force me to carry a child I don't want. I personally dislike the idea of giving birth to large numbers of children, mostly because I think it's gross, but also because I think it's socially and environmentally irresponsible. But that's MY BELIEF, and the only way I can express that is through controlling my own body, through using my body to not procreate, or to give birth once and then never again. I can't use anyone else's body to do that; I can't tell anyone else how many children to have. And I shouldn't be able to do that, because, well, what if they could use my body to enact what they see as its true purpose? What if some insane Duggar-esque fundamentalists got to choose what I did with my womb? Then I'd have thirteen kids, all of whom would be unwanted at this point, and then none of us would be happy— not the kids, and not myself, either.

When society tells women how to dress, what to eat, what the shape of their thighs should look like, how many kids they should have— this all signals that we don't believe women are capable of deciding these things themselves. Nadia Suleman is a sad woman, and she's not to be exalted for give birth to kids she can't manage; but at the same time, deciding on a set number of children that women should be allowed to have could raise some serious questions. If you can prevent a woman from having a baby she wants, can you also force a woman to have a baby she doesn't want? I don't even want to contemplate that possibility.

If only we could manage to think about these things wisely. If only we could take a 24-year-old at her word when she says she wants to look into some, uh, more permanent birth control. If only we could feel sorrow and not anger when we see a woman who has bitten off more than she can chew in terms of family obligations. If only we could assume that couples who have no children are either happy that way or having their own very private, very personal, very painful experiences with attempted pregnancies, and just keep our mouths shut about when and why future babymaking could occur, or not occur. If only the way a woman feels about her womb and her progeny were actually personal matters, instead of something that strangers should discuss endlessly on message boards. Wouldn't that be nice?

And I'm as guilty of it as everyone else. When I'm stuck in line at the grocery store behind a clueless young mom whose six kids are knocking over shelves, removing the caps on chapstick tubes, gnawing on unpurchased candy bars, and spilling their sippy cups of juice down my pant leg, I get pissed. I get judgmental. I think, "Who let this chick have these children?" But really, that's not an appropriate question, because no one should have "let" her do anything— it should be her choice. She should be a better parent, of course, and she should be more responsible for her children. But I can't tell her not to have kids, because I wouldn't want her to tell ME that I SHOULD have kids.

Instead of railing at women who have seemingly unmanageable numbers of kids, let's focus on giving them the tools they need to know when and where and how to have a baby: parenting classes, accessible birth control, economic and social choices, and a real perspective on the financial and environmental impact of bringing children into the world. Education should be our goal, not eliminating choice entirely.

Because guess what? I love my no-babies-yet choice, and I wouldn’t want anyone to take that choice away from me. Ever.

The Name Game

Anewphilosophy — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:40:09 GMT

When I got married, the last name deal wasn't even an issue. I kept my last name, and Adam didn't care, because, well, it's a pretty stupid thing to care about. In fact, most of the women in my family keep their last names when they marry— it's cheaper, for one thing, and for another, it's actually LESS complicated, contrary to popular belief. Instead of filling out a new Social Security form, and calling the DMV, and submitting all the state paperwork, and changing my Facebook page, and sending in post office forms, I just did...nothing. Easy peasy!

But apparently, some people have strong feelings about this issue, as one can see in this article from Elle. The article itself is pretty mild— the author explains why she kept her last name and then discusses a small study that found that 70% of Americans believe a woman should change her last name when she marries— but the comments are the disturbing part.

Here's a sampling of the horrible stuff that was written at the bottom of the page:

--"fiancé once told me late into our relationship that she was keeping her maiden name. She wanted to honor her parents for raising her. It turned out not to be a problem because I broke up with her over that. I felt she was dishonoring me. A real man doesn't capitulate."

--"Not taking his name is an insult to him."

--"Marriage is a traditional bond between men and women, yet it never ceases to amaze me how many women seem to think that changing the tradition demonstrates feminism or empowerment, vice corrupting the tradition...What we do publicly demonstrates our conformity and compliance for the good of the whole, what we do privately away from the public domain is our independence, and to confuse the two is demonstrated adolescence. You got married to demonstrate your bond with another human being, which is togetherness, why spoil with your attempt to assert your independence? It shows poor self esteem, whether actual or perceived." [The ironic note here is that this comment was signed "The Thinker."]

--"Why is this even an issue? Here is a message to all you liberal, ultra-feminist, man-hating women: SHUT THE F*** UP! Stop bitching and moaning over everything! Just shut the f*** up and get in the kitchen! It's like, all of you women out there are obviously BORED out of your pathetic minds and sit there with your K.D Lang poster on the wall and are just thinking of things to bitch about! Shut up! And to the pathetic writer of the article, your husband is not a real man and I would place money that you two will be divorced in less than five years. No man will put up with that and certainly not forfeit their name to take their wife's. All you "men" out there that have or are doing it, GROW A PAIR AND USE THEM. All that bullsh** about "my identity" and marrying "later in my life and knowing who I am" are just excuses for: I'm a liberal bitch who hates men but am too afraid of coming out of the closet. You women are what is wrong with America today. You are the woman that cause men out there to laugh at us. Good job! You made an ass out of yourself again!"

--I think it's ashame that young people don't keep traditions going. They have no respect anymore. Women want to be to much like men now a days. Why bother to get married, just live with each other. You women leave nothing for men anymore. By the way, I am a women.

--"I'm taking his name. I think you should either take your husband's name or hyphenate. You're joining two lives and should act as such. By keeping your own name, its like denying you are married. Its a lie. I'll be proud when I can be called, legally and forever, Mrs. Heskett."

That's right— there are at least six people currently alive today who are complete and utter idiots. (Though I'm convinced that this last commenter is actually a fifteen-year-old girl. "Julie and Davey Heskett 4 Eva!!!!111")

The vitriol here is interesting, especially as some of it comes from other women. What exactly is so threatening about a woman who keeps her name? And what is it about that choice that makes people doubt her feelings for her husband?

What is perhaps most perturbing about the comments is that so many of them claim that a woman who keeps her name doesn't really love her husband, or at least isn't really committed to him. This is most boldly phrased by the commenter who spoke directly to the author of the piece, saying, "I would place money that you two will be divorced in less than five years." That makes me laugh, obviously, but it also makes me wonder how large her circle of acquaintances can be. It can't be all that wide-ranging if she doesn't know any happily married couples with different last names. I, on the other hand, know many happily married couples— some of whom have the same name, and some of whom have different names, and some of whom have hyphenated names. (In fact, the only people I've ever known to get divorced were people who both had the man's last name, although I would certainly never draw conclusions about that, mostly because I'm far to young to know how my friends' marriages will turn out in the long run.)

Hilariously enough, I think the comments really illustrate exactly what the article is talking about: people view the name change as a tradition that is essential to a happy marriage, even though such a small thing can't possible matter in the grand scheme of things. And in my opinion, people are afraid to buck the tradition precisely because they DON'T understand what goes into a successful marriage; when you're desperate to keep the institute of marriage from falling apart but you can't even understand what the root of the current divorce statistics could possibly be, you have no choice but to fall back on superstition. People are scared of divorce, but they also don't understand why it happens, or why good marriages work out. Fascinating, considering how poorly the "glue" of name-changing seems to work; you'd think that people would eventually figure out that the name doesn't matter as much as the attitude.

The sad part of all this is that it's just pointless. Whether or not you change your name will have no impact on the happiness of your marriage; what's more important is whether you and your fiancé are on the same page about it. If you're both happy with you changing your name, that's great. If you're both fine with you keeping your name, awesome. If one you wants to keep his/her last name, and the other one feels it would be "disrespectful" or "unfair," then you might be working on different levels and with different value systems, in which case you'd better figure out whether or not you can work through that.

My husband really doesn't give two shits about it, to tell you the truth. Whether or not my last name matches his has nothing to do with his manhood, and if you think it does, then Adam doesn't really want to know you, thanks very much. See, things like this are great litmus tests for potential acquaintances: if you care very much that I kept my last name, then Adam and I are not interested in inviting you over for our Super Bowl party or having drinks with you at a bar, because you are a complete twit. And really, we don't care if you have the same last name as your spouse, either. I've met a lot of couples here at the seminary so far, and of the couples who are married (and many can't be married because they're gay and this country's marriage laws suck), some have different names and some have the same name. And I don't really notice at all, because, uh, why would I care about that crap? How is it any of my business, or any of my concern?

I actually kept my last name because of tradition— no one in my family has changed their last name for quite awhile. But really, it doesn't matter, because something like that has no bearing on your relationship with your spouse. NO BEARING. And if you think it does, then you're already in trouble, because marriage is about communication and trust and dedication and mutual respect, not about names or who is "dominant" or even (gasp!) tradition.

Sometimes I think: who are these people, and who allowed them access to the internet?

A Strange Perspective On Marriage

Anewphilosophy — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:10:39 GMT

I was surprised to find a copy of Christianity Today sitting in the office of our Episcopal Church today. I like Christian publications as much as the next seminarian's wife, but I was under the impression that Christianity Today was of a more, um, evangelical persuasion than my church. (Oh, I don't know why...maybe because it says "A magazine of evangelical conviction" on the cover.)

As I gazed uncertainly upon the magazine, the cover story caught my eye: "The Case For Early Marriage." "Ah," I thought, "This should be interesting and relevant to me. After all, I myself married early, and have often found myself defending the decision to confused friends and other twenty-somethings. Perhaps this story will be wise and uplifting."

Well...no.

This article pretty much encompasses everything that is wrong with the way many Christians view marriage and sexuality today. The piece begins deceptively well, as the author mocks the modern Christian obsession with abstinence, and explains the unreasonable expectations inherent in that obsession:

"The problem is that not all abstainers end up happy or go on to the great sex lives they were promised. Nor do all indulgers become miserable or marital train wrecks. More simply, however, I have found that few evangelicals accomplish what their pastors and parents wanted them to."

But then the article gets bogged down in terrible gender stereotypes and, at times, blatant sexism. For example, did you know that women are marrying older men because men their own age just don’t make enough money? “…earnings for 25- to 34-year-old men have fallen by 20 percent since 1971, even after accounting for inflation. No wonder young women marry men who are on average at least two years older than they.” Funny-- I didn’t realize we were all gold-diggers. Then there’s this: “If she decides to marry, one in three women has no choice but to marry down in terms of Christian maturity. Many of the hopeful ones wait, watching their late 20s and early 30s arrive with no husband. When the persistent longing turns to deep disappointment, some decide that they didn't really want to marry after all.“ Oh, yeah, I forgot-- marriage is the ultimate goal of every woman EVER, and those who never marry are pathetic. Riiiiight. And I won’t even comment on this offensive and obviously political statement: “Our Creator clearly intended for male and female to be knit together in covenantal relationship.” As soon as I read that, I ceased to view this piece as a serious work in any sense.

Interestingly, the online version of the piece provides a hyperlink to the author’s previous editorial in the Washington Post-- a grave mistake, I think, considering that a side-by-side comparison of the two pieces reveals that entire paragraphs of one were simply copied and pasted into the other. Way to write something new and original, dude.

(As a side note, the original editorial went even heavier on the gender double standards, opening with this: “If men weren't pulling women along with them on this upward swing [towards later marriage], I wouldn't be complaining.” So guys can marry late, but women need to get their butts up to the altar ASAP, eh?)

But the article’s greatest fault lies in its inability to produce any scientific or statistical information whatsoever. I keep telling people: anecdotal information is great for giving EXAMPLES to support information, but it cannot be the source of the supporting information itself. If your data can be collectively filed under “I know this one guy…”, then it will not hold up as an argument. And the author of this piece provides no actual information to prove that younger marriages work better.

In his discussion of his opponents’ objections to young marriage (none of which is sufficiently knocked down during the course of the author’s examination, I might add), Mr. Regnerus admits that early marriage is the number one predictor of divorce, but then tries to counter this weighty info with the classic “it could be worse” tactic:

“First, what is deemed "early marriage" by researchers is commonly misunderstood. The most competent evaluations of early marriage and divorce note that the association between early age-at-marriage and divorce occurs largely among those who marry as teenagers (before age 20). Although probably all of us know successful examples of such marriages, I still don't think teen marriage is wise. But the data suggest that marriages that commence in the early 20s are not as risky—especially for women—as conventional wisdom claims.”

Actually, that’s not the whole story, buster. Unless the CDC is lying to me, getting married after 25 still gives you a better chance of staying married than getting married any time before that. Sure, teen marriages are more likely to break up than ones cemented in a couple’s early twenties-- but that data in no way suggests that it’s better to marry in your twenties than in your thirties. In fact, if anything, it suggests the opposite.

Also, Regnerus admits that evangelicals do marry slightly earlier than the general population. Well, evangelicals are also more likely to divorce than any other faith group, including agnostics and atheists. Is this a so-called “case” for early marriage?

The saddest part of this whole piece is that its one decent point is obscured and minimized by all this other vapid blather. In discussing modern wedding customs, Regnerus makes a plea for simpler, less showy weddings:

“Marriage becomes equated with beautiful, successful people. Weddings become expensive displays of personal and family status… Such is the pressure cooker of modern weddings. None of this is good. Marriage is too important and too serious to be treated as yet another game to play, with winners and losers. It's a covenant of mutual submission and sacrificial love, not a contest of prestige, social norms, and saving face. A trend toward more modest weddings would be a great start.”

Yes, yes, yes. Too bad the author couldn’t have made this message the central one, instead of putting even more pressure on couples to marry before they’re ready.

My young marriage will survive, not because I was young when I married, but because I married for the right reasons and at the right time in my life. The simple truth is this: there is no right time to be married, because people aren’t all the same. For some, young marriages are a great idea; for many, they’re not. Younger couples shouldn’t get married young because they think it’s the “proper” time to marry, just as they shouldn’t marry because of abstinence pledges or family pressures or anything other than what’s inside their heads and their hearts. Young people can and should marry, but only if and when they are willing to acknowledge that getting married young has the potential to make it harder to preserve your relationship. Younger couples will often be more likely to grow in different directions, and often will be more likely to develop different ideas about the nature of their ideal family or living situation or job long after they tie the knot. If marriage is entered with these challenges in mind, it can work, no matter what the age of the couple may be.

But to increase the pressures on these young people-- pressures that start with sex and abstinence and continue with spiritual doubt or exploration-- to include marital pressure is, I think, not only a mistake, but a disservice to both the individual couples and to marriage as an institution. Mr. Regnerus means well, I’m sure, but in the end, he’s just one more example of why some evangelicals often seem too eager to preserve the murkier aspects of our past (sexual repression, forced gender roles, social and racial inequalities) than to embrace the better angels of our modern, multifaceted natures.

Free Range Kids

Anewphilosophy — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 04:27:54 GMT

I've been reading quite a bit about the small backlash against helicopter parenting that has stealthily made itself known in the past few years. They call it Free Range Parenting, and it's a lot more akin to the way I grew up than to the way I've seen a number of kids being treated lately.

When I was seven years old, I walked to public school (two blocks away, through an urban neighborhood) by myself. At nine, I walked down to the pizza shop three blocks away with my best friend Allie and had a slice of cheese pizza. I played outside by myself (or with friends) all summer, and if the yard felt too small, I was allowed to run around the block as well, provided I took a friend or a sister and provided I told my mom where I'd be. When I got to high school, I was allowed to go anywhere I pleased with friends, so long as I let my parents know where I'd be, how long I'd be there, and how I could be reached. "Curfew" wasn't a fixed time— each situation was considered separately, and my parents and I would always be able to work out a sensible time for me to come home. (For example, school night hangouts had to end by nine, many weekend parties could last until eleven, and my first real date with my first real boyfriend— at age 16— justified being out until midnight.) When I turned seventeen and got my scholarship to UWC, I moved out and did things on my own— chose my own classes, fought my own battles, made my own decisions about almost everything.

But clearly, this has not been the experience of very many other people. It is apparent that kids today are expected to do everything within reach of mom and dad, no matter how old they are, no matter how relatively mature they might be. Parents won't let their kids play in the yard alone anymore; they won't send them down to the corner store; sometimes they won't even let them choose their own college classes.

I like what Phillip Pullman, the fabulous author of The Golden Compass, said about the ways in which we hover over and shield our children: that it teaches kids "‘that the world is a dark and nasty place where everybody wants to murder and rape them... It assumes that the default position of one human being to another is predatory rather than kindness."

There’s a distinct difference between nurturing and smothering, between concern and hysteria, between caution and obsession. And while I certainly wouldn't want to insist that parents swing to the other extreme and start neglecting their kids (and I've seen plenty of neglected kids— a few of my sisters' friends seem to fit the bill), I also think that overly-zealous moms and dads might want to cool their heels a bit. After all, most crimes against children are committed by family members or friends, not random people on the street.

On the other hand, I wonder how I'll feel about this when I actually have a child. Will I be paranoid? Will I be strong enough to let go when I need to let go? I'm the sort of person who agonizes over decisions like these— would I be able to firmly decide when I can trust my child? And really, these things are so subjective. At what age it would be appropriate to leave my child home alone? What age it would be appropriate to allow them to walk to school alone? What age they can be trusted to babysit other children? There's no blueprint here— it all depends on the individual situation, on the individual child.

Geez, I'm glad I have another 9 years to sort this out. :)

Yummy?

Anewphilosophy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:17:22 GMT

Um, did you know that some women, following the birth of their child, actually EAT THE PLACENTA?

I'm not talking about women in some other country somewhere. I'm talking about average American women. Eating their placentas. Huh. And there was even a column in Time magazine recently on this very subject!

I'm...nonplussed. It sounds interesting and useful, and it also makes me want to vomit into my hat. It's like I keep vacillating between, "Fascinating!" and "BLECH."

Would you eat a placenta? How about if you thought it could help stave off postpartum depression and aid in breastfeeding?

I don't yet know whether or not I would. I guess I'll just file that information away in the back of my brain somewhere...

The Only Child

Anewphilosophy — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:54:32 GMT

When people discover that our family plan only includes one child, they're often somewhat indignant. "What if he or she is LONELY?!" they wail— as though a child is like a lapdog, limited only to its own house, to its own small family. Apparently, no one else can conceive of playgroups and library trips and park excursions and, y'know, SCHOOL.

I thought I was the only one who felt like having a single child might not be the end of the world...until today. Because it turns out that my grandma was an only child, and she LOVED it.

I knew she was her parents' only kid, but I didn't know how she felt about it until this evening. But apparently she adored it— getting all that attention from her parents and her aunts and uncles, never having screaming matches in the house with jealous siblings, never feeling like she had to compete for attention or for time with her parents. And she didn't end up a spoiled brat or anything, so clearly it's possible to raise a single child without spoiling it entirely.

I asked her, point blank, if she thought having one child was a good idea. And she said, unequivocally, "YES."

The more I think about it, the more I love it: only going through the Terrible Twos once, only having to deal with high school drama one time, never having to keep those tiny baby clothes boxed up in the attic for "the next one." I love the idea of having a child, of raising a child, and then of BEING DONE WITH CHILDREN. I mean, I'd never want to be done with MY child, I'd just like to have the baby part over with, since the interesting part of having a kid, to me, would be the part where he/she has an actual personality.

That was always the main thing about having kids that made me pause— I wasn't into the idea that the cycle would keep starting over and over, so that the parts I hated (and everyone I've ever met who has kids says that there are always SOME periods in childcare that are difficult) would become something to dread each time I had a kid. With only one, though, I'll be unprepared for everything, so I won't be actively dreading it— I'll be curious. And then, if I hit a particularly horrible part of childrearing (and I'm sure the Toddler Years are horrible) I won't ever have to do it again. It sounds DIVINE, doesn't it?

Plus, it's nice to think that Adam and I would get to reproduce without even replacing ourselves, so to speak, after we die. It's not as good as skipping kids altogether would be, in terms of environmental responsibility, but it's not bad.

I'm so glad my grandma approves of this plan. She's a cool lady, and I like to think that she's given the thumbs-up to my life plans.

Reality TV and Our Values

Anewphilosophy — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:26:32 GMT

Usually I’m not a reality TV fan (well, with the obvious exception of America’s Next Top Model), but this season, two new reality shows have really grabbed my attention: “Hitched or Ditched” on the CW, and “Sixteen and Pregnant” on MTV. Reality shows are rarely all that “real,” but when viewed in tandem, these two shows reveal a lot about American ideas on marriage, babies, and the relationship between the two.

“Hitched or Ditched” takes couples who have been dating for a long time (or who have been judged “ready” for marriage by the friend or family member who nominated them for the program) and offers to provide their dream wedding, free of charge. The catch? They have to hold the wedding in one week— and they have to spend the week reflecting upon the strength of their relationship before making their final decision at the altar.

What first struck me was how invasive this seemed; I certainly wouldn’t have wanted millions of people watching me get married on TV. But then my second thought was that really, the whole thing blended together rather seamlessly— perhaps a result of the way modern weddings have become more about performance and entertainment and spectacle than about an intimate bonding moment between two people that cements their newly created family unit within their respective communities.

For example, the season finale this year involved a couple, El Lana (whose name just makes the think “The Lana” every time I see it written out) and Torrino (whose name just makes me think of the film “Gran Torino” whenever I see it written out), who are working through issues with their families. El Lana is white and Torrino is black, and Torrino’s mom doesn’t want them together at all. To top things off, this all takes place during that horrible ice storm in Kentucky awhile back, and El Lana is from Kentucky, so her family might not even be able to attend.

“I don’t know if I want to say ‘I do’ if no one’s there to see me,” sobbed El Lana on camera.

And I thought: really? Because as important as it was for me to have my family and friends with me on my wedding day, and as important as it was to have my mom and dad there when I got married— I don’t think a wedding is any less of a wedding if you’re getting married without people there to see you. I’ve seen this thread of discussion pop up a lot recently, especially on The Nest boards, where women frequently express their desire to hold a “vow renewal ceremony” only a few months after they’ve married because they didn’t have their “dream” wedding the first time around.

As many of you know, family is super important to me; if my parents couldn’t be there on my wedding day, I’d be crushed. But I wouldn’t need them to be there, I wouldn’t need them to see me, to get married. Weddings shouldn’t be about who’s there to see you look pretty— they’re supposed to be about who you see up at the altar.

I thought about this as El Lana sat in the bridal shop, waiting to look at wedding dresses. She revealed to her wedding planner and her assembled friends that she’d once bought a white dress that she’d hoped to wear at her wedding— and it was a thirteen-dollar party dress.

“We think you should have something more…special than that,” crooned the wedding planner, holding out an armful of overpriced gowns for El Lana to model.

Oh, I’m sorry— nothing affordable can be “special,” apparently. Only spending brings happiness, according to this woman’s logic.

Watching “Hitched or Ditched” has helped me to understand some of why people have such difficulty keeping their marriages healthy: because they make it all about them as individuals. The need to feel “special” on your day, the need to be in the spotlight, the idea that your match is made in heaven, that your marriage will be perfect, all point to expectations that can’t possibly be attained. When El Lana hears about the ice storm, she wonders aloud: “Is that God telling us that it’s not supposed to happen?” Geez— how heavy would that be, to wonder if God himself is weighing in on your love? How can a marriage with that amount of pressure weighing it down ever have a chance?

I was also interested to see people’s weighty views of marriage in “Sixteen and Pregnant,” a more documentary-style show that follows teen mothers (and often fathers) through pregnancy, job searches, school struggles, and parental issues. Often, the teens (and even their parents) display a reverence for (and a fear of) marriage that they certain don’t seem to reserve for pregnancy.

Take this week’s episode, for example. Ebony and her boyfriend Josh have plans to go into the Air Force and to get married after they graduate from high school, but Ebony’s pregnancy forces them to change their plans dramatically. They discover that the Air Force won’t let both of them enlist if they have a child together; Ebony misses so much school that she can’t graduate; her “fiancé,” a man-child who has missed more than 200 classes this semester, can’t seem to get his act together.

The confusing part was when the two kids were snuggling together and Josh confessed that he was rethinking his marriage proposal entirely. Apparently, creating an entirely new human being who is completely dependent upon you is LESS of a commitment than sharing your house and health benefits with someone you love. Even though half of American marriages end in divorce. Huh.

“We’re already seventeen and having a kid,” Josh said in a high, childish voice. “That’s a big step right there. I’m not trying to be seventeen and married.”

Interesting.

In a previous episode, pregnant teen Amber is dating the older (but less mature) Gary, who is friends with Amber’s older brother. Amber’s parents disapprove of Gary, and feel like he’s not worthy of their daughter. When Amber becomes pregnant, they seem to feel that their single biggest blessing in the whole ordeal is that “at least they’re not married.”

Really? Guys, your daughter just had a baby with him. They’re going to have to see each other constantly, whether they like it or not, because now they have a kid. Even if they break up, this baby will still be there, a reminder that they were once together. They’ve done something that— at least at this stage of the pregnancy— is impossible to undo. And you’re worried that they might get married?

I’m starting to think that maybe reality TV does show us something about reality, albeit not always the reality of everyday lives or everyday people. In some ways, reality TV can tell us about the things we wish weren’t realities— the dissonant and sometimes repressive values we can’t seem to shake, the less noble and less admirable yearnings we hold onto quietly, the dark, secret dreams we keep pent up inside us until we decide to share them on national TV.

From “Survivor” and “Big Brother,” we’ve learned that we’re all voyeurs, that we all really do care what’s happening in our neighbors’ bedrooms. “America’s Got Talent” and “American Idol” proved to us that while we love to worship success, we also love to laugh at failure. “The Biggest Loser” and “America’s Next Top Model” showed us that while we like to talk the talk about beauty coming from within, we still cling to strange ideas about what makes a person beautiful, or even worthwhile.

With “Hitched or Ditched” and “Sixteen and Pregnant,” we see how we really feel about babies and marriage and growing up. And sometimes, it’s not something we want to see.

On Partnership and Priorities

Anewphilosophy — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:11:36 GMT

I’m confused and annoyed by this article, “On Marriage: Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off,” in which the author seems convinced that a happy marriage is impossible.

The problem, of course, is that the author is presupposing that the conditions under which she maintained her marriage are unavoidable; they are not, however, and they really explain a lot about the dissolution of her relationship.

See, her marriage broke up because she took on an extramarital affair; when she disclosed the affair and went with her husband to counseling, she began to lament the “work” that goes into a relationship. She then listed all the chores she deals with everyday, including picking the kids up from school, sorting mail, waiting for the cable guy, and feeding the dog. She ends that paragraph with this forlorn conclusion:

“Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance.”

My issue here is that she seems to feel that the institution of marriage is responsible for her inability to take on this new “project.” I posit, however, that this failure results from the way in which she has prioritized her life.

“I’m busy” seems like everyone’s greatest defense these days. Life is fast-paced and everyone knows it, so not having the time for something as fundamental as your relationships with other people is a pretty much a given now. But I wonder how many people realize that putting money and hobbies and responsibilities before these relationships is a CHOICE, and has little to do with the strength of the marriage (or friendship) itself.

Put more bluntly: if this chick is more willing to include “wait for the cable guy” than “fix my relationship with my husband” on her to-do list, why is she blaming the institution of marriage for her divorce? Why isn’t she scratching “wait for the cable guy” off of her list first?

The problem is that people think you can have it all: money, power, love, stability, freedom. You can’t have everything you’ve ever wanted, folks. That’s pretty much the big lesson of growing up: that you have to pick which things are important to you, and then you have to prioritize them. This is what’s important to me: my family, my friends, learning, discovering. Here are the things that I would like to have, but which are much less important: fame, wealth, beauty, popularity. Therefore, I put that first list ahead of the second one; in a showdown between family and money, say, family will win. I will always turn down that high-paying job because it requires too much travel or because it would keep me away from my family. And this is what makes me happy: knowing that the things that are important to me will always come first. There's nothing wrong with having priorities that are different— say, money over family— but then you don't get to be surprised when your marriage doesn't work out, just like I don't get to be surprised when I'm dirt poor. If marriage comes after other things, then you'll be more successful in those other things than in marriage.

If the author had gone for a genuine defense of polyamory, I might have bought it. I believe that, for some people, polyamory can be a healthy way to build relationships. It’s not for me, but then again, neither is online dating or bungee jumping— just because it’s not my thing doesn’t mean I disapprove of it. But the author isn’t really arguing that she should feel free to love more than one person. She even dismisses the possibility of sexually open marriages, saying that they’re just too “icky” to most people. Really, she just thinks she should be free to have sex with someone else while her husband provides shelter and stability, all the while not really pursuing love with anyone:

“If high-revving women are sexually frustrated, let them have some sort of French arrangement where they have two men, the postfeminist model dad building shelves, cooking bouillabaisse, and ignoring them in the home, and the occasional fun-loving boyfriend the kids never see. Alternately, if both spouses find life already rather exhausting, never mind chasing around for sex. Long-married husbands and wives should pleasantly agree to be friends, to set the bedroom aglow at night by the mute opening of separate laptops and just be done with it. More than anything, aside from providing insulation from the world at large, that kind of arrangement could be the perfect way to be left alone.”

Maybe she’s being sarcastic, and I just don’t get it. Maybe she’s being trendy and clever, and I don’t understand.

But that sounds like an awfully lonely way to live.

Perhaps it’s her closing paragraph that most acutely demonstrates why I think she’s wrong:

“In any case, here’s my final piece of advice: avoid marriage — or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love.”

There we have it: love. Love is part of a marriage, to be sure— but it is ONLY ONE PART. You also need affection, kindness, patience, compatibility, compassion, and trust.

Even ignoring the elitist, yuppie suppositions and attitudes that ran throughout the piece (for example, she maintains a sort of subtle distaste for men who cook and clean, especially with her description of how a friend discussed her husband’s pursuits: ““Ian has his Cook’s Illustrated…And his — his men’s online fennel club”), most of this article was a real crock. Maybe the part about how today’s couples are strangely drawn to the 1950s model of a marriage was kind of interesting, but the rest was pretty self-absorbed and silly.

Marriage certainly isn’t for everyone— but it’s not useless to EVERYONE. I mean, to be honest with you, I don’t know a whole lot of divorced people. Well, I have one uncle who got divorced, but that’s it. Everyone else in my family and my circle of friends is happily married or happily unmarried— no divorce needed. We have happy, healthy marriages in my family, and it doesn’t seem like any of us are “staying for the kids” (in fact, some of us don’t even have kids— a thought that never seems to occur to this article’s author). How does she explain us? Her assumptions only seem to work in her world, not in mine; they only work with her set of values, not the values I share with my family.

I don’t think divorce is some sort of horrible thing, to be honest with you. People grow apart, and lives diverge, and sometimes personalities change. I think the freedom to seek divorce when you want it is a great thing, and I don’t disapprove of people who divorce— divorce is just as much of a right as marriage.

But I think this woman is championing divorce for the wrong reasons, and is condemning marriage for the wrong reasons. And that makes me sad.

Experiencing Planned Parenthood

Anewphilosophy — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:22:23 GMT

I’ve always been a big fan of Planned Parenthood in theory, but before today, I’d never needed any of their services. Now, though, I can thoroughly recommend them as an excellent and affordable health center!

I’m on the Pill. I’d rather have an IUD (which is specifically recommended for monogamous women who don’t want to have babies for a long time but who might want to have them eventually), but they’re too expensive up front, and I’m sure our piss-poor, fly-by-night insurance wouldn’t chip in for it. So I take the Pill every day, and I’ve been on it since my sophomore year in college.

Well, before I left college last year, I had my annual exam (Pap smear, breast exam— gals, you know the drill) and got a prescription for a year’s worth of Pills. See, back then, I was on my parents’ insurance, which meant that getting my packs from the pharmacy only cost TWO DOLLARS (and apparently, since then, the price for generics has fallen to NOTHING. Zip. Zero. Be jealous of college professors, my friends. :P)

When we got married, Adam's insurance paid for some of the cost of my birth control, bringing it to a respectable $10 per month. But when Adam lost his job and we signed up to purchase crappy insurance that basically is only useful in emergencies, my Pill price went waaaay up— to almost $30 per pack. Boo.

I figured that Planned Parenthood might gimme a break, so I got online and signed up for an appointment. That’s right— you can make an appointment at a Planned Parenthood clinic near you OVER THE INTERNET. No need to talk to a human being— just fill out the form, and you’ll get an email in your inbox confirming the location, time, and date of your appointment.

As a bonus, Planned Parenthood asks you how you’d like them to identify themselves if they need to call you on the phone (to confirm or change the appointment, to give you test results, etc). You can choose “Planned Parenthood” (I picked that one— what do I have to hide?), “the doctor’s office,” “Cory” (??), or “other”— and if you pick that latter option, you can fill in the blank with any name or title you want. This way, if you’re in a position where you don’t want roommates or family members to know your business, you can keep things on the DL.

I expected a big, hospital-esque place, but the Youngstown Planned Parenthood building is just a cosy remodeled house. No protesters, no clinical wallpaper— just a nice house, with a parking lot and a waiting room. I had to wait quite awhile to get my appointment, but that was okay— I needed to fill out some paperwork anyways.

The nurses and the doctor were so so so nice. I explained what I needed, and they told me (with the air of someone breaking tragic news to a close friend) that they didn’t carry my current brand, but that they could write me a prescription if I wanted to get it at the pharmacy. “How much for the brand you DO have on hand?” I asked. “Oh, we’ll give you three packs of this low-dose, monocyclic kind (which should be just like your current brand) for $36,” the nurse said.

Thirty-six bucks. Three months on my old stuff would’ve been $80.

Part of the reason I got it so cheap was that they allowed me to apply for financial aid AND use my crap-tastic insurance! The aid covered half the cost of the birth control, and the insurance company MIGHT pay for at least part of the clinic visit. Maybe. We shall see.

And don’t forget— Planned Parenthood does provide services for BOTH sexes. Several guys came into the clinic during the course of my visit. And you don’t even need an appointment if you want some emergency contraception or if you need a pregnancy test; walk-ins are welcome in those cases. Adam says that when I was being seen, two different people came in to get some Plan B.

All in all, it was a pleasant visit, and it felt nice not to be treated like a dirty whore for wanting to prevent my husband and I from having unwanted rugrats. There were all sorts of people there— moms with their little kids, boyfriends looking for info for their girlfriends, teenagers, office workers, even other nurses. Everyone was treated kindly and respectfully, and no one was turned away.

Gals, if you need private girl stuff, consider Planned Parenthood! :D

Brides and Sex: A Tale Of Two Madonnas

Anewphilosophy — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:42:11 GMT

I'm deeply disturbed by this article I just read, "MySpace Generation Brides Go For Sexy, Not Virginal." And it's not just the incredibly upsetting comments at the bottom of the page (from the sexist pig who thinks men are smarter than women, from the prissy snot who says she's a "Christian" and wouldn't be "filthy" enough to have sex before marriage, because it would bring "shame on [her] family")— it's just the judgmental tone of the article overall.

Presenting the facts is one thing; setting the facts up as a comparison that puts women in an unfair position is another. Like this sentence: "More vamp than virgin, [brides are] having bachelorette parties that are as raunchy as their fiancés' sendoffs." Here, the insinuated problem is not that the raunchiness is occurring, but that it is occurring EQUALLY— that brides are daring to expect the same experience as their fiances. Or how about this quote from Stephanie Coontz, some social historian who decided to write one of those pop-history books that publishers so love to issue: "I worry that [sexualization] can take over. The message you're sending about your appearance can override other conversations you should be having about your future." The unspoken assumption in this sentence is that sexuality sends a NEGATIVE message about one's appearance, never a positive one.

Did I miss something? Did we somehow warp ourselves back into the 1890s? Why the hell would anyone care if a bride wants to look sexy?

I didn't want a particularly vampy look at my wedding, but that's just not my style. I DID wear a strapless dress, though, with a lace-up bodice. Does that make me, the minister's wife, a whore?

The strange thing about this article is how it seems to draw some sort of parallel between the sexualization of children and the sexualization of brides. It's almost as if the article conflates the two states, and presents this image of child brides standing at the altar in corsets and fishnets.

I understand the line of thinking they're presenting— that the sexualized behavior that children learn in adolescence can manifest itself in adulthood— but I don't agree that this way of analyzing the subject draws a reasonable conclusion. This line of thinking assumes a pre-existing condition that hasn't existed since the 1800s, at least: that there is no time gap between childhood and marriage. It's as though they expect women to move directly from girlhood to wifedom without any mitigating non-married adult life in between. Obviously, people haven't done marriage that way for a good long time— why can't we acknowledge that brides are grown-up women, not Disney characters or Barbies, and that they have every right to be in control of their sexuality?

Bizarrely enough, the article even acknowledges that the gap between childhood and marriage exists, saying that women are getting married later and later (as though this were a bad thing!), usually around 28 or so. But somehow it still attempts to make this connection between teen sexiness and grown-up sexiness: "In American society now, you see little girls being sexed up...You can't disconnect that from the way the wedding industry is going. We have 13-year-olds getting makeovers and having oral sex." (A quote from another pop sociologist— geez, they just let anyone major in sociology these days, don't they?)

Wait...you don't get to justify your logic by using the word "can't." This woman is pretty much just saying that you "can't" ignore the connection between teen sex and sexy weddings because teens have sex and women get married in sexy dresses. That's not the way an argument works, my dear. That's like if I said: "Obviously, eating mangos can give you a heart attack. You can't ignore the connection; people eat mangos, and people have heart attacks. It's simple."

Y'know, I hate to tell you, but my generation— the generation I assume they're discussing— ISN'T THE MYSPACE GENERATION TO BEGIN WITH. Didn't the author do any research? The "MySpace generation" is my fifteen-year-old sister's generation, and they're not getting married yet; my generation was ALREADY GROWN UP when MySpace and Facebook came around. Guys, that's like calling forty-year-olds the "Pruis generation" just because they happened to be alive when Pruises were invented. That doesn't even make sense.

Furthermore, the article grossly exaggerates the degree to which exhibitionism contributes to bridal sexualization. The author, while mentioning in passing that boudoir photos are usually only taken as a gift to the groom, seems to deliberately mislead the audience into imagining that such personal pictures would be displayed at the ceremony or posted in public forums. Boudoir photos (a recent movement that I found confusing in my bridal days, but which seemed to genuinely empower some women) are almost always intended to be given privately to the husband-to-be after the ceremony, almost as a dual bridal gift— the wife has fun shooting the pictures, and the husband enjoys looking at them. It's not my cup of tea, but if other people want to do these things privately, who's to tell them they're wrong? It's not like they're forcing family and friends to stare at their thong-clad behinds. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that the real exhibitionism comes with virginity rings and purity balls and all the other silly ways women have come up with to broadcast the fact that they enjoy commodifying their virginity.

It's this weird fusion of the feminine and the childish that bothers me. So does the article's way of repeatedly contrasting sexualized brides with Disney princesses. The piece never actually explains why its author seems to imagine that grown women would WANT to look like princesses when they get married. We're not nine years old, are we? So why would we want to look like Prom queens instead of healthy, happy, sexual women?

This fusion also bothers me because it intimates that one cannot be opposed to teen sex without also being opposed to grown women having sex. Let's go over this concept again, shall we: there are some things that are good (or at least acceptable) for adults and bad for children. Drinking, for example. Having babies. Owning homes.

It's like cosmetics— grown women use them, but kids shouldn't. I don't think kids should wear makeup— not even teenagers— because I think you need time during your teen years to become comfortable with how you look. If you've been wearing makeup constantly since you were twelve, you won't have any idea what you truly look like— or how you truly feel about your natural, naked self— when you're, say, eighteen. I had a friend in high school who once told me, when we were both sixteen, that she couldn't fathom the idea of walking out the door without makeup. "I feel so ugly without this stuff on my face," she said. "I don't want people to see what I really look like." She was a smart, straight-A student who is now studying law at UPenn, so it's not like she was a shallow creature. She just hadn't learned, at age sixteen, to like herself for herself. I've lost touch with her, so I don't know if she ever found out how to do that.

That's what I think sex is like— having it too young means that you prevent yourself from learning important things about who you are. In order to learn the right lessons about your sexuality, you first have to reach that state of comfort in your identity, even if you don't fully understand that identity. And while I've never met a teen who didn't think they were perfectly comfortable with themselves and who didn't assume that they could handle anything the world could throw at them, I've also never met a teen who was right about those assumptions.

But just because it's not a good idea to do it before you graduate from high school doesn't mean it's not a good idea at all. That's just silly, folks. I mean, my sister is fifteen, and I don't think she should be having sex at her age. But if, when she graduates from high school and she's at least eighteen years old and she's begun college, she comes to me and says, "Should I have sex with my boyfriend?" I wouldn't necessarily say no. I'd probably say, "You should think about it, and you should make the best decision you can. I can't tell you what to do, because you're an adult now, and you have to make these choices yourself." And then I'd offer to take her to get some birth control, and I'd tell her everything I know about the pill and condoms and STDs and abstinence and the emotions and consequences associated with sex. Teen sex and grownup sex are different, and I think, in our hysteria over the supposed "culture wars," we're forgetting that.

Furthermore, why aren't we MORE disturbed by women who want to live the "Disney princess" fantasy instead of exploring their sexuality in a healthy way? I'm more disgusted by that phenomenon, because that really IS trying to conflate childhood innocence with virginal purity in adulthood. And even then, why does it have to be a choice between these two extremes? On such an important and meaningful day, why does a bride have to choose between the Madonna and the Madonna? Why are there only two paths— Cinderella or Roxanne? What's wrong with being sexy AND proud— moral AND empowered?

I guess, when it comes down to it, I'm disappointed that this article even exists. If the whole piece had been written as one of those fluffy, look-at-this-month's-fashion-trends type of things, I wouldn't have even cared. But I felt as though this piece was written with a certain agenda, under certain assumptions, and with a certain disdain for women in general. The whole time I was reading, I felt vaguely insulted.

Why is it still news when a woman is unafraid of sex?

I Call Bull

Anewphilosophy — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:58:00 GMT

I cannot even tell you how sick I am of the endless urban legend that young men today are in "crisis" because women are more empowered and more able to break out of repressive gender roles.

First off, it's a little whiny to complain that equal gender treatment seems to provide equal life success. Saying, "Men aren't as successful in comparison to women now because women are permitted more success" is like opining that when you gave away some of your vast fortune to the poor, you became a little less rich than you were before. The entire point is that this is SUPPOSED to happen; when women are able to compete for the high-paying jobs, fewer men will get the high-paying jobs, but as that's the way it should have been in the first place (that is, with an equal number of men and women getting the higher-paying jobs), my sympathy is a little less than enthusiastic.

Guys, this is bunk. And what's worse is this: by perpetuating this crap, you really ARE hurting men.

It's not just the women who suffer; don't people realize how much gender stereotyping hurts men as well? What about the boys who are taught that women are "weaker," and then find out that this isn't the case at all? What about the mothers who just don't feel the need to buy color-coded baby items— are their sons doomed to a lifetime of humiliation? What about the boys who don't WANT to play football or chew tobacco? What about the boys who just naturally like Barbies and musical theater, like my best friend in first grade did? What about the men who'd rather stay home with the kids than go off to that grueling nine-to-five?

What about my husband?

Adam is what is often known as a "man's man". He rides horses at full gallop with no shoes on, folks. He can hold me completely over his head for extended periods of time; he has rippling muscles and strong biceps; he can fix anything (cars, furniture, fishing reels, you name it) he can make anything (he's building my parents a deck from scratch right now), and he loves football, beer, and (my) boobies.

But Adam isn't content to live the stereotype. Adam also loves to cook. Adam subscribes to multiple cooking magazines, and pours over them when they arrive in our mailbox, picking our recipes and planning out menus. Adam likes being unemployed right now; he's thrilled by the idea of taking care of things back home while I go out into the boring, workaday world and bring home the bacon. Adam's vision for the future includes him raising our baby and making dinner, and me taking over the reins of financial responsibility.

Which is perfect for me, of course, because while I'm what's often known as a "girlie girl"— pink is my favorite color, I love skirts and dresses, I subscribe to Cosmo and watch Sex and the City and loooooove to eat ice cream and squeal with my girlfriends over the treachery of someone's ex-boyfriend— I'm also definitely made for being in charge. And why should those two aspects of my personality be at odds? I'm an ambitious, determined, and clever young woman, and I'd much rather be out making the dough than staying at home in a hot kitchen kneading the dough.

It all comes down to how we express our love: Adam expresses his through nurturing and tending to people (he's a great man to have nearby if you've got a stomach flu!), while I express mine through providing security and stability. And who’s to say how we express our love? Isn't the fact that we both came to these roles on our own, and we both knew deep down what we wanted, evidence enough that our current family positions are naturally occurring? Being a domestic goddess would run contrary to everything I am and everything I feel— why should I then be told that being a woman means that I'm "naturally" more inclined in the kitchen, when my own experience blatantly says otherwise?

This "men in crisis" stuff seems like bullshit to me. Men aren't in crisis. They're learning to live as equals, and a small but vocal number of them don't like it.

All I can say is: don't make me beat you guys up. :D

Common sense, folks.

Anewphilosophy — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:20:10 GMT

So I'm doing this temp job, and I'm bored at work, and I'm hanging out on these stupid, stupid message boards, right, and someone posts this whole sob story about how she doesn't know whether or not she should go through with her wedding. See, she got pregnant shortly after her fiancé slept with some other girl and got her pregnant...but wait, wait, that's actually not the reason this girl is worried. The reason she's worried is because the guy keeps writing emails and Facebook messages to this other girl, and saying things like "hey, sexy," and asking when they can meet up again.

And the girl is actually unsure as to whether or not she should marry this guy. Apparently, she thinks that there is a chance that this guy "was just writing stuff without thinking about how it sounded."

Um, you're precisely right, you ass-- he wasn't thinking about how it sounded, because it wasn't meant for you. It was meant for the OTHER mother of his children, with whom he is clearly STILL SLEEPING.

Sometimes, people are genuinely confused by love. I know that there are people who fall out of love every day without a reason, and people who end up divorced without understanding how they got there, because they really did make all the right choices and thought hard about their decisions. Love is tricky, sometimes.

But other times, THIS SHIT AIN'T HARD, YO. If you can't figure out that your babydaddy isn't gonna stop sleeping with other chicks at this point, you're just not living in the real world.

And furthermore, I can't understand why having a baby with someone is considered LESS OF A COMMITMENT than marriage. This chick seemed to think that marriage would change their relationship more than the child they had already made together had changed it. I see this all the time: people who end up having a child with their significant other, but who couldn't possibly get married to them, because that's "a big step" and "a lot of commitment."

Now, I understand and respect people who choose not to marry because they dislike the concept of marriage and don't believe in it as an institution. That's fine-- marriage isn't for everyone. I also understand and respect people who have kids and believe in marriage but who can't get married for other reasons (family, social pressure, money, etc.). Some people need extra time because of their individual circumstances. But if you believe that marriage is the right step for you in general but see it as a commitment that is more serious than having a kid...well, that's where I get confused.

Because, see, marriage isn't a situation that CREATES A WHOLE NEW LIFE. Dude-- having a baby is something you can't take back. No one enjoys divorce, but it IS possible, and if you regret getting married, you can always change your mind later on (preferably before there are kids/even more tangled emotions involved). If you have a baby and then decide that you don't want it, you're pretty much up a creek. Once that kid pops out of your vajayjay, you are stuck, missy-- unless you want to give it up for adoption, which is, of course, a wonderful thing and all, but that in itself involves serious emotions and a lifetime commitment to one particular decision.

So really, in the end, this girl on the message boards makes me extra sad, because so much of her pain and suffering could have been prevented by simple THOUGHT. Use a condom. In fact, use a condom AND birth control pills or patches or whatever. Make your philandering jerkface of a fiancé wear a condom ever time, especially when he bangs other chicks. And for that matter, when your boyfriend comes crawling back to you and whimpering after he knocks someone else up, don't say, "Oh, okay, sounds good-- let's get married." Forgiveness is important, but forgiveness isn't the same thing as permission to do it again.

As George W. Bush once said: "Fool me once, shame...shame on you. Fool me twice...you can't get fooled again."

But the problem is this: people don't really want to know how love works. They say they do, but they don't. When they ask for romantic advice, they don't want the truth, which is usually something like: "Your boyfriend is a feckless thug who will probably leave you within six months of your marriage, so make sure you take those birth control pills, honey, because you don't wanna be perpetuating his dumb-ass DNA any further."

Instead, people want comforting, vague advice-- stuff like, "Well, sometimes people change," or "Follow your heart and do what you think is right."

NO, BITCH. Follow your HEAD. Your head is pretty damn smart. Use it.

And yes, people can change-- my husband changed from a crazy young party boy into a loving, devoted house-husband. But his essential personality characteristics-- kindness, loyalty, devotion-- never changed. He was always like that. People can change their habits, but they can't change their hearts. And they certainly never will change ANYTHING if you keep rewarding their selfish behavior by pretending like it doesn't matter, like it's not an integral part of who they are. And this works the same way for the gentlemen out there-- be honest with yourselves, and don't let the ladies (or the other gentlemen, if that's how you do it) push you around. Love has nothing to do with tolerating other people's cruelty.

Love is strange, and sometimes it's not very straightforward. But other times, it's really not as tough as we make it out to be.