In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Tag: Science (Or Not)

Women refuses to give raped daughter EC, brags about it on internet.

Ah, the kindness of pro-lifers: [trigger warning]

My Dark-Haired Daughter, who suffers from bipolar disorder and limited cognitive abilities, went missing last Monday. For more than 48 hours, we had no idea where she was. Without all the gruesome details, after she was found, it came to light that she’d been brutally and repeatedly sexually assaulted. She’d been taken to the local women’s shelter, where (at least in our area) they do the exams in such cases.

Sorry, we’re all from the same planet.

People are from earth, regardless of gender:

Finally, when talking about evolved differences in behavior between males and females one cannot make statements like “when it comes to personality men and women belong to two different species” without noting the biological reality that we are, indeed, the same species. There are no consistent brain differences between the sexes [iii], there is incredible overlap in our physiological function [iv], we engage in sexual activity in more or less the same patterns [v], and we overlap extensively in most other behavior as well. There are some interesting re-occurring differences, particularly in patterns of aggression and certain physiological correlates of reproduction, muscle density, and body size. However, anthropological datasets show enormous complexity in how and why men and women behave the ways that they do [vi]. Studies in human biology and anthropology regularly demonstrate a dynamic flexibility and complex biocultural context for all human behavior, and this is especially true for gender.

Fetal Cells and Pregnancy

Well here are some fun facts: Pregnant women’s bodies are basically swimming with the cells of their fetuses. And even when they give birth, some cells remain. By the end of the first trimester of pregnancy, cells from the fetus account for one in every 50,000 cells in the woman’s body. Further along in the pregnancy, it increases to one in 1,000. Six percent of the DNA in her blood plasma also comes from the fetus. Which is interesting given some standard pro-life arguments like this:

Common Sense Time.

So Congressional GOP members want to extend Mississippi’s asinine personhood amendment to the whole country. Caperton wrote about the Mississippi bill, and detailed many of the ridiculous ways it will interfere with basic rights — one of the goals of the bill is to outlaw many forms of birth control, and it will undoubtedly be used to criminally prosecute women who miscarry. Jessica Valenti also wrote a must-read article for the Washington Post.

Oh but it gets better! In a very good Mother Jones article about the bill, Nick Baumann (whose coverage of this has been excellent) explains:

Sixty-three House Republicans, or over a quarter of the GOP conference, are cosponsors of HR 212, Rep. Paul Broun’s (R-Ga.) “Sanctity of Human Life Act,” which includes language that directly parallels that of the Mississippi personhood amendment. That bill declares that “the life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent…at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.”

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Doctor, there’s a face on my tumor.

At least it’s not an image of the Virgin Mary:

The image of the man’s face, seemingly in some distress, was sent to Urology, the International Society of Urology’s official journal, and was published in the journal’s September volume.

G. Gregory Roberts and Naji J. Touma, from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, had conducted the ultrasound to examine an unusual mass in the testicle of a 45-year-old patient.

Naturally, their reaction was to seriously consider whether this was a sign from the gods:

“A brief debate ensued on whether the image could have been a sign from a deity (perhaps ‘Min,’ the Egyptian god of male virility); however, the consensus deemed it a mere coincidental occurrence rather than a divine proclamation.”

The testicle was removed and the mass was discovered to be harmless.

SCIENCE!

Posted in Uncategorized

Dirty Girl Ministries

photo of a hairless cat

The title of the ministry — and the tagline “Dirty Girls Come Clean” — makes it sound like this could be a pretty fun church. Sadly no!

The No Stones recovery group is part of an organization called Dirty Girls Ministries that Renaud launched in 2009 after suffering from her own self-described pornography addiction. She says she wanted to help other women recover from their X-rated fixations by connecting with them online and holding meetings at her local church. But her use of the terms porn and addiction may be misleading. The growing group of 100-plus members who participate in the forums say that they masturbate or view porn—which they define as including erotica and romance novels—twice a week or less. For most of us, that would hardly be considered excessive. But to Renaud, it indicates an epidemic of addiction, one that can be treated by helping women stay “clean” of masturbation.

Masturbating twice a week or less? That is a problem. Lots of women clearly need more free time to spend alone with themselves.

While many of the women she counsels report turning to pornography as a form of escape—from traumas like sexual abuse, infidelity, and even prostitution—Renaud compares their masturbation to alcoholism, saying that “like drugs and alcohol, so many things that feel good in a short amount of time can end up hurting you.”

Sure, if you’re the masturbating equivalent to an alcoholic, maybe you have a problem? Like, if your masturbation schedule is getting in the way of work and socializing? Or you become a physical danger to yourself and others because of overgrown forearms, or rage at anyone who gets between you and your Hitachi? Or if you masturbate so much that you can’t walk? Or you find yourself masturbating while driving, to potentially disastrous and deadly consequences? If that is the case, definitely get help, no joke. But I suspect that for most people, masturbation is like moderate alcohol consumption, or perhaps eating a nice cheese: Feels good, can actually be good for you, is healthy in moderation, relieves stress, can be immensely pleasurable, and generally makes you a happier and more pleasant person. And masturbation is not like alcohol or cheese insofar as even doing it a whole lot probably won’t hurt anyone or clog your arteries or damage your liver. It’ll just be fun and pleasurable, and you’ll sleep better too.

But wait, I used the word “pleasure,” and that’s the problem:

Renaud’s advocacy is labeled antipornography, but it aims to treat all masturbation, whether it involves porn or not. When you peel back the layers, the core of her crusade is against sexual thought—even within marriage—unless those thoughts are about your husband while you are engaging in intercourse with him.

Sounds like a quick route to never having an orgasm. And I wonder what she would do with David Jay, an asexual man who doesn’t experience sexual attraction and doesn’t feel drawn to have sex, but still masturbates because touching himself feels good. Is he allowed to masturbate, assuming he isn’t having sexual thoughts?

Dirty Girls member Amy Christine Proctor, a self-described addict and a flight attendant from Colorado, started masturbating while she was visiting chat rooms on AOL. Unmarried and a virgin at 30, Proctor has struggled with her sexual identity since puberty, believing her same-sex thoughts are a sin. Last year, she says, she was masturbating almost daily, sometimes twice a day. To rehabilitate herself, she became an active member of Dirty Girls Ministries and started driving two hours to attend a 12-step program for sex addicts called Heart to Heart.

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