12 posts tagged “alternet”

With all the recent outings of politicians engaged in extramarital sex, my favorite liberal news site, Alternet, has been doing a flurry of articles relating to this subject.   In a recent article, Relax: Adultery Is Not That Big Of a Deal by Samara O'Shea, she explores the idea:

A recent article on Alternet, For Many, Marriage is Sexless, Boring, and Oppressive:Time to Rethink the Institution? by Amanda Marcotte, asks the question:

Religious insistence on monogamy was soon added, as it gave the force of law to a practical idea in societies where religious leaders were the law. "God said it" leaves no room for debate.

People did not marry primarily for love until around the 18th century. It was strictly a practical arrangement, a vehicle for joining powerful families for the rich, along with inheritance reasons, and to have a socially sanctioned partner to have children with and work together for survival for the poor. Love, if it happened, was icing on the cake, not the reason to get married in the first place.

People lived shorter lives then, so "until death do us part", did not include decades of the "empty-nest syndrome". Most people were lucky to live long enough to see the youngest child to adulthood. Life itself was harder and more survival oriented, thus people did not worry overmuch about love or personal fulfillment then.

Still, infidelity occurred all throughout history for both sexes, despite sanctions against it, as it's very difficult to overcome basic human nature. It's always been a big scandal for women, but not so much for men until the 19th century or so. The feminist movement no doubt influenced the increasing disapproval of male infidelity, rather than freeing women to male norms.

Today, we marry for love, life isn't strictly about survival, DNA tests prove paternity, overpopulation discourages large families, we live longer lives, women can support themselves, and the abolishment of legal distictions between marital and nonmarital children have removed much of the valid reasons for legal marriage and monogamy. Thus, marriage as it's currently understood has become maladaptive for modern needs. It's no wonder we're seeing what we're seeing.

In light of this, marriage needs to be redefined if it is to survive in a workable form(s) and adjusted to reflect the realities of modern life and human nature. One of the first steps would be to cease mandating monogamy.

Recently reading an Alternet article, Super Prude Prosecutors Charge Teens With Pornography and Worse For Sexy Text Messages by JoAnn Wypijewski, I learned that 3 teen boys and 3 teen girls from Greensburg Salem High School in Pennsylvania were charged with child pornography.

The articles stated that, "the girls, ages 14 and 15, are charged with taking pictures of themselves, nude or seminude; the boys, 15, 16 and 17, with receiving them."

In other words, no pedophile adults were involved in any way in this "crime", nor were the teens forced or duped into creating and sending these photos.  They were just teens being teens, exploring their sexuality as adolescents have done for generations.

The images were found when the students' cell phones had been confiscated by school officials, currently a common practice for unauthorized use of cell phones on school grounds during school hours.

What was not standard practice was the fact that these students' phones were not merely locked in a drawer, untouched, until they were returned to the students or their parents.   School officials snooped into the private files of the phones in question where they discovered the private images, not meant for public consumption.  The students involved were not suspected of any crimes, but merely for breaking the school rule about cell phone use by students.

The article also stated:

No one knows how many kids are poised for long sentences, life sentences (a possibility under federal law), plea deals that cast them in the pariah-land of sex offenders. Prosecutors have gone after teens in at least Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

My response to this article follows below:

Conservatives Looking for Government to Solve Their Problems

Conservatives are always hooting and hollering about the evils of "big government" and constantly extol the virtues of handling matters as much as possible in the private sector.

By criminalizing all types of adolescent sexual exploration and activity in the manner outlined in this article; behavior that has traditionally been handled solely by the parents of the teens involved, conservatives are looking to the government to play a role that should rightly remain that of a parent.

Hypocrisy, much?

The potential to stamp out normal teenage sexuality with such draconian laws is very low, even if a large percentage of our society considered this a worthy goal. (I don't).

However, the potential for ruining the future adult lives of normal teenagers is very high, and extremely inadvisable.

Let's leave a parent's role to parents and not expect the government to parent our children in regards to sexual expression among consenting parties.

Let us not return to 17th century Puritan sexual ethics. It's a bad fit for the 21st century.

On a recent Alternet article concerning women's roles in marriage, I could not help but respond to a commenter who is apparently clueless as why he has no success with women.  His comment, then my reply follow below:

His comment (all grammatical mistakes are his):

This view is doomed

I am a highly educated man who thought all this stuff....equality, keeping a maiden name, 50/50 housekeeping-chores...was the proper thing for the 'progressive' male.

In retrospect, after a vicious divorce ( equality is quickly forgotten when so called 'feminists' demand alimony ), i have to say that I will never remarry a girl who is not submissive, takes my name,and understands men and women are not equal.

My first wife became a ballbuster with her ideology of 'equality'. Men ( I was ) are easially badgered and nagged into acquiescenece . The wife become a surrogate 'mother'. And we all know no one fucks their Mother....sex is the first to go.

Femininity is a virtue....and it is base on difference and submission.

The Man has to 'feel like a man'...sorry, but that's the truth of human nature. Intellectual rationalizations don't work here. Sorry 'bout that.

My reply:

Your View Denotes Low Self Esteem

True self esteem, i.e. "feeling like a man" to use your words, comes from within and does not depend on a woman agreeing to take a one-down role and pretending to be submissive. It doesn't depend on the actions of others in any way.

If you can only feel like a man when a woman agrees to pretend to be lesser than you and to take a child's role, then you have no real self esteem at all, but you're merely playing a game.

Hopefully you will never marry a "girl", as pedophilia is frowned upon in our society. I'm guessing you won't be worrying about marriage any time soon, however.

"Femininity" is largely a social construct, unlike femaleness, in that it differs from culture to culture and across history. The same is true for masculinity and maleness.

My self esteem and manhood is entirely independent from how others around me behave, and thus, is far less fragile than yours, apparently built on the house of cards that are gender stereotypes.

Alternet has once again kindly provided me with some blogging fodder.  Author Suzie Orbach, in the article We Are in the Midst of a Cultural Explosion Tied to 'Improving' the Body, stated that:

A new rhetoric of detox, weight training, brushing, irrigation and cleansing has arisen, and along with it the idea that the body can be perfected.

My response to this article follows below:

Physical Fitness vs. Mental Fitness

Everywhere we go these days, the media bombards us with admonishments to improve our physical fitness. There are rants against the overweight, being couch potatoes, and so on, that take the tone of moral indignity not unlike that of a fundamentalist preacher railing against sinners going to hell. If you are fat, sedentary, or otherwise not going for the burn, you are a Bad Person, regardless of whatever other good you may be doing in life.

Oddly enough, however, there is no similar hue and cry about the declining level of mental fitness in our country; at least, not anywhere near the level of hand-wringing that goes on about physical fitness.

You can't go through a supermarket checkout line without seeing tabloids and magazines ragging on the physically unfit on a weekly basis. But you never see headlines about the dumbing down of our schools, the decline of science education during the Bush years, the decline of reading for pleasure, and so on.

While eating right and regular moderate exercise are both good things worth pursuing, they are not moral issues and they are most certainly not more important than maintaining one's mental fitness. The brain, like the body, also is a "use it or lose it" kind of a deal.

After eight years of a dimwitted president and a decline in education, it's time that mental fitness was put back on the front burner again. While people can get by with a moderate level of physical fitness -- not everyone needs to train to the level of a triathlete -- there's no such thing as too much mental fitness.

On Alternet, I read an article Will You Have Roommates For The Rest Of Your Life? by Nan Mooney, where the author addresses the issue:

Thought you'd leave your roommates behind after your career got going? Think again. Social mobility ain't what it used to be

The author covers the phenomenon of rising rents and rising prices coupled with lower paying jobs that creates a situation where more and more adults must live with roommates much further into their adulthood than in years past.

One reader made a critical comment, where he coupled one's maturity level with what field they majored in and their marital status:

Missing information 

One critical piece of information is missing from this article: What was Ms Duyn's major in college? Did she get a marketable degree like electrical or biomedical engineering? Or is she just one more Art History major, surprised that no one wants to pay you for that knowledge? Since she has lived an entire decade working odd jobs and unable to secure her own living space, I assume she went for the Art History degree.

...At age 33, she's "ready to be an adult now". Too late.

to which, he smugly added:

As for having roommates, I've had one my entire adult life. Normally, I call her "wife" rather than "roommate". We met at 18 in college, married at 21, and have been happy "roommates" for 30 years. We've lived in some interesting places, but there was never an extra roommate involved, just the two of us and our kids.

As is often the case, this comment set me off, rather than the article, which made a lot of good points about our economy, without blaming the victims.

My reply:

Another Form of Slavery 

You chastise the author for not getting a "marketable" degree.

I don't know about you, but getting a degree in a field you have absolutely no interest in and spending the rest of your life working in that field, simply because it is "marketable", sounds an awful lot like a form to slavery to me. In a time of rampant mandatory overtime in many companies, the idea of spending the majority of one's waking hours for the next 40+ years or so in a job you hate sounds like a pretty miserable proposition to me.

It's quite similar to something many people do now; stay with miserable jobs they hate just because the benefits are good. And as more and more companies scale back benefits offered, particularly health insurance, this is a phenomenon that can't help but become more prevalent in the increasingly fewer companies offering good benefits.

Given the choice of spending my best years locked into a job I despise just for the money or having a job I love, but needing roommates, I'd pick the roommates.

The original commenter also did not address how "unmarketable" such currently "marketable" careers would quickly become if everyone now in college immediately changed their majors to such fields. He also did not consider what would happen to this country  if no one was willing any longer to become a teacher, nurse, or other relatively low paying career.  Nor did it ever enter his mind that a good education, regardless of major, might just be a worthy endeavor on its own, completely apart from its potential to generate money.

Your thoughts?

Once again, Alternet has kindly providing me with blogging material.  In the article, How to Make an Open Relationship Work by Greta Christina, the author asserts:

It's surprisingly simple: think carefully about what you're afraid of -- then talk about it with your partner.

My comment follows below:

I've Always Been Non-Monogamous

I've never been in a monogamous relationship that I've later decided to make non-monogamous. All my relationships have been non-monogamous from the start.

I would hazard a guess that my way of doing things is easier and makes for far fewer potentially hurt feelings and misunderstandings, as I'm not changing the rules in the middle of the game. I make it quite clear at the beginning of each new relationship that no matter how I may come to feel for them, that monogamy will never be a part of our relationship. If they feel they can't handle that, they have the chance to walk away then, before hurt feelings develop.

Usually, at any given time, I'll have one "primary" relationship,with several other friends with benefits, plus a one-nighter now and then. My current primary and I operate on a "don't ask, don't tell" system. She knows I have other lovers, but she doesn't want to know the details, nor does she wish to be included in my extracurricular sexual activities. We don't live together, so this makes it easier. She doesn't want to meet any of them, nor does she want me bringing them to her apartment. These are the only rules.

As far as the jealousy issue goes, many people act as if it's an uncontrollable thing; that people shouldn't even try to control it and that it's a normal and expected reaction to non-monogamy.

I don't buy that. I think jealousy is comparable to anger -- everyone feels anger over certain things, but unlike jealousy, most people feet that it can and should be controlled. There are anger management classes; I think it would be a good idea to have jealousy management classes as well.

On Alternet recently, I browsed through an article, Mormon Homophobia: Up Close and Personal by Sheldon Rampton. Once again, I found myself responding to a comment that had veered off the point of the original article.

The original comment:

Individual Mormons changing is what changes the church

My sister follows Mormon doctrine to the extent that she bore 7 healthy children and is now, at age 74, grandmother to more than 20. She is the matriarch of this very large family. She is "Mrs. Mormon."

BUT she did not vote for the "Gay Marriage Ban" when it came up in Utah elections. As she expressed it, The problem in Utah is not gay marriage -- it's polygamy.

My response:

The Problem is Forced Marriage of Underage Girls, Not Polygamy, Per Se

Or should I say polygyny, because such Mormons only allow men to have more than one spouse and not the other way around as well.

It's not non-monogamous marriage that is even the problem among such Mormons. It's patriarchal, fundamentalists religion that compels underage girls to marry old men that's the problem.

It would still be as big of a problem if it was just ONE young girl being forced to marry just ONE old man.

So, the problem isn't monogamy vs non-monogamy, per se.

Indeed, the existence of polyamory, which is when both men and women may have multiple spouses, and is engaged in only by fully consenting adults shows that this is so.

Let's focus on the real root of the problem: fundamentalist patriarchal religion.

Your thoughts?

While reading an article on Alternet, 9 Ways to Halt the Right Wing Culture Wars and Bring Sanity to Sexual Policy by David Rosen, I came upon a reactionary comment to the article that focused on prostitution, which wasn't even the main point of the article.  This caused me to respond more to the comment than the article itself.  Below follows the original comment, plus my response.

The original comment:

Do we really want to make pornography and prostitution more acceptable? 

In a world where everyone had a fair share of resources, prostitution would not exist--it is the result of inequality and poverty. I'd much rather see a guaranteed minimum income, not decriminalization.

Sex (especially with someone you know and like) is great. But buying and selling it is sad.

My response:

Selling's Legal. Screwing is Legal. Why Isn't Selling Screwing Legal? -- George Carlin 

Why do you think it's the government's place to legislate "proper" reasons for having sex? I'm guessing that you think the only "proper" reason to have sex is to express love for one's partner and that throwing laws at people having sex for other reasons is an effective way to handle it.

This is not only staggeringly naive, but it's an improper use of government power, plus a waste of their time and resources.

People have sex for all sorts of reasons -- to procreate, to express love, because they're horny, to relieve stress, and so on. And there's nothing wrong with any of those reasons.

There's also nothing inherently wrong with seeking sex from a paid sex worker, which is done for a variety of reasons as well: those who are unable to find a free partner because of unattractiveness, disability or whatever, those out of town away from their regular partners, those who are horny but don't want to or don't have the time to invest in a more serious relationship and don't care for the bar scene, those who want to try certain sex acts but their regular partner isn't interested, and so on.

Needless to say, sex workers should also have the right to use their bodies however they wish, even for profit.

The only interest the government has in the sex acts of private citizens is to ensure that any sex act that occurs is between fully CONSENTING ADULTS. As long at those conditions are met: consenting and adult, then the government needs to butt out. No consenting adult should have to have a "proper" reason to have sex.

I chose to address one of the two main reasons why people oppose legal prostitution.  The most common reason is that opponents believe that all prostitutes are exploited and are forced to be prostitutes.  While this is undoubtedly true in many case, it's obviously not true in all cases.  Plus they ignore the fact that it's the abuse itself that is the problem, not the selling of sex per se, and that there are already laws a-plenty to address the root causes without prostitution itself having to be illegal to prosecute. 

When the existence of high-class call girls and escort services are pointed out them, where it's obvious the choice of occupation was freely made and no exploitation is occurring, most opponents will shift to the second reason for their opposition, which is the reason I address here, that I believe is the core, though often unconscious, reason for their opposition.

That is, many opponents believe that there are strictly defined "proper" reasons for engaging in sex and those having sex for what they deem "improper" reasons, should be legally prohibited from doing so, even if those involved are fully consenting adults.

Your thoughts?

An article on Alternet today, Can You Guess a Person's Politics by Their Personality? Psychologist Team Says Yes, by Maria Luisa Tucker, takes a look at how personality type relates to political affiliation:  She looked at several gauges of personality, but oddly enough, did not include the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is one of the oldest and more popular systems of personality assessment, used most widely in vocational assessments.  My response to the article follows below:

For those of you familiar with the MBTI, the sixteen personality types that stem from personality difference combinations in four key areas also show personality differences between liberals and conservatives.

The four continua are Introvert/Extrovert, Intuitive/Sensing, Thinker/Feeler, and Perceiving/Judging.

In my opinion the Intuitive/Sensing continuum and the Perceiving/Judging cotinuum most clearly show these differences, varying somewhat depending on which of the other two continua they are combined with, particularly the Thinking/Feeling continuum. Thinking/Feeling and Extrovert/Introvert, on their own, are pretty well represented on both sides of the aisle, however.

In the Intuitive/Sensing continuum, Intuitives are the introspective people who think in shades of grey. Sensing people are more concrete, take-things-at-face-value, black and white thinkers. Intuitives, then, tend more to be liberal and Sensors tend more to be conservative.

Similarly, on the Perceiving/Judging continuum, Perceivers are the laid-back types, those who do things by the seat of their pants, and tend to be on the disorganized side. Judgers are the organized, fussy listmakers, and in their extreme forms are the bean counters of the world.

Combine the two, and NP will tend to be the most liberal of the four possible combinations of the two continua, and SJ will tend to be the most conservative.

I'm an INTP, by the way.

There's a lot more to it than this, but there's no room for me to write a novel in the comment box here.

Take the Myers-Briggs Test
--
As an aside, I've read that Barack Obama is an ENFP, which correlates with my observations.