Sperm Stealing and Urban Legends

Every now and then, the old trope that women are all secretly planning on impregnating themselves with the contents of used condoms rears its ugly head. I’m always amazed when it does, because it seems like one of the most mind numbingly stupid things to actually believe in, and one has to wonder how many recorded instances there really are, and yet people get whipped up into a frenzy over it. Including people I know, which I find almost more disturbing.

I’m sure you’ve heard the story. Guy says he doesn’t want kids, girl says “oh, of course,” and agrees to use a condom, but sneaks into the bathroom to snag the condom after use so that she can use the contents to impregnate herself.

I think that this urban legend boils down to a couple of interesting issues. The first is that there appear to be a lot of problems with trust and birth control in relationships. I’ve had friends tell me that their boyfriends “insist on pulling out” even when they already use birth control (despite the fact that pulling out is totally ineffective), or that their boyfriends snoop through their birth control pills or insist on watching them take the pills. Personally, I would be having absolutely none of that nonsense; anyone that crazed and controlling is clearly bad news, and definitely needs to be dumped. If you can’t trust your partner to make decisions with you about an issue as important as birth control, you should definitely not be dating that person.

It’s one thing to want to use two methods, like hormonal birth control and barrier protection, after discussing the issue together as a couple. It’s another to embark on a crazed, paranoid, condom-washing binge.

The second is this widespread fear in the male community that one is somehow going to end up “trapped” with a baby. That women are all really just out to get impregnated so that they can force men to marry them or give them money or perform some other vague and unspecified task. If women aren’t stealing sperm from condoms, they are lying and saying they’re on the pill when they aren’t, because clearly they have no respect for clearly stated opinions and beliefs like “I don’t want children.”

To me, it sounds like men are complaining that they don’t have enough power over their lives, or that they can be forced into situations which they aren’t happy with. Which is kind of funny, since men seem to be leading the movement to give women absolutely no power over their own bodies.

The fact of the matter is that when you have sex, you do run the risk of becoming pregnant, although you can take steps to reduce the odds. And you should definitely be discussing the issue and your feelings about it with people before you have sex with them. If you don’t want children and your partner does, that’s something you should think about, because it will become a problem if a pregnancy occurs. The solution to trust issues is not sneaking around and doing creepy things, or standing over your partner while he or she follows a birth control regimen.

If you don’t trust someone, I’d say that’s a pretty solid reason to not have sex with them.

28 February, 2009 – 10:37 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, gender, health, Sexuality, social justice |

Fort Bragg, We Need to Talk

I need to rant about local politics for a moment. I realize that this will be intensely boring to readers who are not local, but I’ve been mulling all of this over for some time, and recent events have really instigated a great deal of rumination.

So here’s the thing: I really dislike this attitude that tourism needs to be promoted at all costs, and that tourists are more valuable than locals. I see this attitude from the “promotions committee,” and I see it from a lot of business owners, and it really irritates me.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that I think that tourism is an inherently unsustainable industry to rely on. I understand that it is tempting, in a lot of ways, and I respect the fact that most people do not share my views on tourism. But it would be nice to see some attempts at diversification.

According to a local business owner I spoke with recently, the City makes any kind of attempt at diversification really hard by making it extremely challenging to open a new business. The process is byzantine, there are tons of permits and steps that have to be taken, and there’s no real incentive for entrepreneurial people. This has got to stop. We need to streamline the process. We need to clean up the city code. We need to give locals, as in people who live here, a reason to want to start businesses and contribute to their community.

You see, the thing is, we live here. We pay taxes here, and we work here, and we are important. Pretending that we don’t matter, that we have no value, this is not the way to get things done in Fort Bragg. Chasing after the almighty tourist dollar at the cost of local goodwill is a bad move. We need to have local pride. Local property owners should have an incentive to keep their places up, to keep the town looking nice, to spend money locally. Local residents should want to buy locally, should want to be engaged in local issues, should be able to afford to live here.

And you know what? We don’t have that. Many members of the promotions committee are downright rude to locals on a regular basis (even in their own businesses!), and they ride roughshod over legitimate local concerns in a race for the tourists. I find this disrespectful, and ultimately unproductive. They need the support of locals, because without us, Fort Bragg is nothing. There’s no town to visit if the locals are surly, uncooperative, and furious at being treated like garbage. I don’t see why people don’t understand this.

I also don’t understand the resistance to diversification, and the inability to think in the long term. With all due respect, our elected officials are extremely shortsighted, and this is going to cost us in the end. We are in the process of making huge decisions about critical issues, and there’s no way to make everyone happy, I know that, but we must think in the long term. Not just the temporary revenue potentials, but what’s going to happen in 10, 15, 20, 50 years. And that includes branching out from tourism, while still keeping the town a pleasant place to visit for tourists.

You know what tourists would love? A park on the mill site, not ugly, cheaply made housing. A downtown with a nightlife (that includes mixed live/work, because, guess what, the locals have a right to participate in the workings of their own town). Retail establishments without snotty, rude clerks. A really good local theater putting on quality productions. A local museum that is actually open. Good art galleries. Things to do which are interesting and fun. Even I can see this, and I’m not on the promotions committee.

The thing about small towns is that a few squeaky wheels get the grease, and it’s really hard to make legitimate concerns heard and respected over their caterwauling. So you can either give into that, and let a few people dictate how things are going to be, or you can stand up, speak up, and fight for your town. I know that there are a lot of people, like me, who feel powerless about what is going on here, but the thing is, we aren’t powerless. City Council meetings are open to the public (second and fourth Mondays, 6pm, Town Hall), and they like to hear from members of the public. If you ever try writing City Council, you get a response within a day, sometimes from multiple council members. We (and I include myself in this because I have really been slacking here) need to take the initiative and get ourselves heard.

Some things I would like to see:

1. Local small business owners banding together to lobby for a streamlining of the processes involved in opening/running a business. They best understand the issues here, and can speak most persuasively on the need to diversify our economy. Small business and entrepreneur models are sorely needed, and there’s so much red tape that this is basically impossible. I think that they could work with the City to formulate better policy.

2. Serious work on civic beautification. That means making it easy for people who own downtown businesses to repaint and do other necessary maintenance. It means encouraging people to keep up their homes and gardens. Heck, sponsor an inter-neighborhood contest to see which neighborhood can beautify itself the most. Clean up the alleys. Get locals proud to live here, and proud to share their town with others.

3. More respect for locals and local issues, which goes hand in hand with people who are currently remaining silent speaking up. That means that we need to show up at City Council meetings, or write in to Council members about local issues, to show that we do care about what’s going on, we do have productive ideas, and we are not going to let a handful of people make all of our decisions for us.

4. Diversification. We need it. Let’s talk about how it can happen.

5. A cleanup of the City Code. It’s a tangled mess. I think we should scrap it and start out all over again, personally, but at the very least, it needs some serious pruning. In addition, we need to actually start enforcing it; currently, enforcement only occurs when complaints are lodged. Not. Ok.

I’ve been mulling a City Council run for a few years now, and several people have told me that I should run. Honestly, I’m not sure that I am the most ideal candidate for City Council, for a lot of reasons, but I do think that we need some fresh, and yes, young voices on City Council. If no one wants to step up, maybe I’ll go for it, because Fort Bragg needs change, and change is not accomplished without shaking some things up a bit. In the last “election,” there were no opponents, so the council members with terms which were ending were automatically reappointed. Are we really this apathetic, people?

27 February, 2009 – 10:46 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, Fort Bragg, politics |

Lapping Laplanders

Who says the age of polar exploration is over?

Sweet Pete, the Daily Mail never ceases to amaze me.

Curiosity flooded the aquarium!

We’re a red state now, baby!

HAH! The hipsters are facing the hard facts of the current economy: goodbye, gentrification!

This is really shitty: Leona Helmsley’s estate was challenged in court, and her bequest to dogs is being dismantled. I’m not a big dog fan, but I am a huge animal welfare fan, and it pisses me off that bequests for animal welfare causes routinely get challenged and overridden.

Why is there no male birth control?

27 February, 2009 – 10:09 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, interesting |

I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

Bonus evening content! Aren’t you excited.

Anyway, I watched an interview with Joss Whedon this morning, and he said something in it which really struck me, and I have been puzzling over it all day. I think it was just poorly phrased, but it came across as really peculiar:

I am absolutely a feminist, I was raised by a feminist, more than one in fact, and yeah, and if you find people who find that term necessary to use, both creepy and incomprehensible.

So…I’ve actually been working on a post about whether or not Joss Whedon is a feminist, and then he up and preempted my carefully thought out discussion with this very bizarre line. I think that what he was trying to say was that we shouldn’t live in a world where feminists have to exist: that we should have reached a state of equality which makes lobbying for women’s rights unnecessary.

Or maybe he was suggesting that labeling people is “creepy,” and that everyone should be a feminist? Or that all people with feminist ideals do not necessarily fit under a single banner, and that therefore it’s kind of offensive to talk about “feminists” in blanket terms? He might be thinking of the often pejorative associations with the word, and the fact that many people are reluctant to identify as feminists because of the baggage that goes with the phrase.

Maybe he’s saying that he is so obviously a feminist that it shouldn’t have to be said? Which is kind of like the stupid, patronizing “colorblind” approach to racism that a lot of well-meaning white liberals have, that by pretending that differences don’t exist, we will magically achieve equality.

Joss has repeatedly identified himself as a feminist, in numerous venues, so he’s obviously not afraid of the word. And many people seem to think that he is a feminist, on the basis of his shows, although this is something that I  might quibble with (in another post, however). But is it so “incomprehensible” to describe someone as a “feminist” when he obviously advances the cause of equality, at least tries to write balanced female characters (who of course all conform to conventional beauty ideals and are mostly white), and, more importantly, when he calls himself a feminist on numerous occasions?

No matter how you slice it, it’s a problematic quote. I’m curious to know what he really meant.

26 February, 2009 – 5:00 pm | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, Joss Whedon, social justice, Social Justice and Joss Whedon |

Depressing

This may be one of the most depressing articles I have ever read, because it’s like all of my nightmares come to  life. And, the peculiar thing is that the article is written in a rather congratulatory, smug, happy way, as though the things which are being described are not horrible and abjectly depressing.

The short version of the article, for those not inclined to read it (although it is brief) is that the story is about housing prices in Cornwall, England, which are apparently “great deals” if you know where to look. The interesting undertone to the story, and why I’m linking to it, is the discussion of the fact that the local community is basically disappearing. As many as 80% of the homes in some parishes (!) are owned by people from out of the country, and the region turns into a “ghost town” in the winter.

What’s weird about this is not that it’s abnormal, because it’s not, but that the New York Times is writing about this like it is a good thing.

Here’s a great quote:

For the county, the second-home owners have been a blessing. With a 13.2 percent unemployment rate, property prices are out of most people’s reach. In North Cornwall, for instance, which includes the popular resorts of St. Ives, Padstow and Newquay, the average salary is 23,000 pounds ($32,900) but the average house price is 258,476 pounds ($370,000).

Because, yeah, having people come into your community and buy second homes and drive the property prices up so high that you cannot afford them is a “blessing.” Seriously? No, SERIOUSLY? I can’t believe that the reporter wrote this with a straight face. Having an average home price over 10 times that of the average annual salary is not a good thing. At all. It’s a terrible thing for communities.

One of the people in the article says this:

“I meet very few Cornish people because there aren’t many around,” she said. “Some of our locally born neighbors have died and their houses were bought by outsiders.”

Which, I mean, is just chilling and horrible and sad. This is already starting to happen to us, and I think it’s something that is accelerating, and that is definitely not something to celebrate. I think it’s tragic when local families die out, when people sell their homes because they can’t afford to keep them or don’t want to settle in the place where they have lived for generations. And I think it’s awful when someone grows up somewhere and wants to spend his or her life there and can’t, because real estate values are out of reach, and because people from the outside have come into the community and torn it apart.

Hey, I’m not saying that outsiders should be thrust out of the community altogether. I’m just saying that there needs to be some kind of balance. One of the reasons the economy in Cornwall is suffering, I’ll bet, is that dearth of local residents. The locals there are probably primarily in the service economy, making the out of towners comfortable with their quaint local eateries and craft stores. This has already happened here, and it’s only getting worse. It may be nice for those precious second-home owners to not have to interact with the local community, but in the long run, that’s a very unhealthy state of affairs, and I personally think it’s a fucking travesty.

We are informed by the author of the article that the high incidence of tourism keeps values high (for which read: artificially inflated) because people “aren’t in a hurry to buy or sell,” since they can afford to let a house sit on the market and just use it as a vacation rental to bring in some income. By all means, keep feeding that bubble, instead of letting it pop and stabilize so that local people can buy homes in their own hometowns.

And you’re telling me this is a good thing?

26 February, 2009 – 10:41 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in commentary, Everything, Fort Bragg, Mendocino |

Moldy Tubas

Finally! Michael Cera has gotten off his high horse and agreed to do an Arrested Development movie.

Yet another story in the growing tide of news articles about the impact of the economy on pets.

Submitted without comment.

The fate of one of the Born Into Brothels stars illustrates the fact that dealing with poverty is never simple.

Oh, my God, Michelle Obama went sleeveless! AGAIN! This is major breaking news, people.

Riddle me this: if you live in New York, why the fuck would you buy your own tap water in a bottle?

26 February, 2009 – 10:02 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, interesting |

Patronizing Pregnancy

One of the more interesting bits of news I read last week was the revelation of several studies which suggested that “pregnancy brain” was a myth, and that in fact, the cognitive function of pregnant women is not impaired. I’m sure this crushed a lot of people who like to use the idea of pregnancy brain as an excuse to be patronizing to pregnant women, and the stories I read reminded me that we have a very strange attitude towards pregnant women.

For some reason, people seem to be under the impression that once a woman is pregnant, she becomes public property. Everything about her is fair game for discussion, she has no personal boundaries, and really no identity beyond being the vessel for a child.

One complaint I hear again and again from my pregnant friends is that complete strangers walk up to them and touch their stomachs, often without even asking for permission. In any other setting, walking up to someone and grabbing a piece of their anatomy would be considered a huge social taboo, but evidently pregnant women are supposed to nod, smile, and accept it. Which I find very strange. I would *never* touch someone without permission, especially not a pregnant woman, and I’m fairly confident that if I was ever pregnant, anyone who tried that shit with me would get an elbow to the eye. On what planet is it acceptable to approach a stranger and manhandle her?

Along with the belly touching come the endless questions about when it’s due, whether it’s a boy or girl, and so forth. There’s no thought that such questions might be invasive, intrusive, or uncomfortable. Perhaps you’re planning to give the baby up for adoption, for example, and you don’t really want to discuss the baby and the situation with utter strangers. Maybe you don’t want to answer stupid questions, or maybe you’re in a hurry and you don’t really have time to stop in the middle of the produce section for a nice chat. Maybe you’re a career woman who is just trying to get on the damn train already so that you are not late for work.

The final segment of the pregnancy trifecta is the endless, unwanted, and usually patronizing advice. Everything a pregnant woman eats or drinks is scrutinized, closely, and commented on quite openly and readily. Pregnant women are constantly informed about what they should and shouldn’t be doing, again by complete strangers. Exercise more. Exercise less. Eat this. Don’t eat that. Avoid this. Make sure to do this. Have you planned ahead for ____? You are/are not planning to breastfeed?! You are/are not using a nanny? You are giving birth in a hospital? You’re giving birth at home?! Yes, indeed, everything about a woman’s pregnancy, birth experience, and child rearing plans is open to commentary.  In some cases, the government is even telling pregnant women what to do.

I can’t help but wonder if the infantalization of pregnant women is just a subversion of a former age, when women were universally assumed to be lesser objects who needed to be told what to do by wiser, more responsible men. People can’t get away with bossing women about in general, so they take it out on pregnant women, disguising their interference as well meaning and having the audacity to express hurt feelings if a pregnant woman recoils from the touch of a stranger, or says that she doesn’t really feel comfortable asking a question, or would prefer to consult her obstetrician/midwife about medical issues. It’s the same kind of patronizing attitude applied to fat people, as though we are totally unable to navigate the world, and we have no understanding of our condition and how we got that way.

Will there ever come a time when we stop treating pregnant women like objects and start thinking about them as actual people?

25 February, 2009 – 10:20 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, social justice |

Rotund Cherries

Amnesty International has an interesting new report out on the munitions used in the ongoing Gaza/Israel conflict.

Hey, guess what? Spending money on family planning saves money in the long term!

Stephenie Meyer, force behind 28 million books sold, says she’s “just an amateur.”

Krugman makes a case for nationalization of the banking industry, or at least parts of it.

The suicide rate among returning Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans is skyrocketing.

In a bit of news which I am sure will shock all of you, a recently released study suggests that living in a chaotic household can contribute to obesity (as in a clinical definition of obesity, noty OMG FAT!).

We have the worst consumer confidence rating since 1967, when we first started tracking that sort of thing. But don’t worry, I’m sure the economy will get better any second now! Here, let’s throw some more money at banking executives and the wealthy.

Korbel is trying to force the outing of some anonymous critics: sounds petty, but the case could be a landmark for freedom of speech activists on the Internet.

25 February, 2009 – 10:06 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, interesting |

Acting Gay

On my recent trip to the city, I passed a car with a bumpersticker which said “I don’t care if you’re straight, as long as you act gay in public,” and it got me thinking about the ongoing debate over Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). A lot of people are calling for a repeal of DADT, and all sorts of people are weighing in on the issue. So far, things look promising; I think it’s highly likely that we are going to see a repeal, and I think that’s fantastic.

For those of you living under a rock, the short story of DADT is that it’s supposed to be a way to allow gays and lesbians to serve in the military without offending the delicate sensibilities of their fellow soldiers. Basically, as long as you don’t mention the fact that you are gay, or “act gay,” you can serve in the armed forces.

The policy was promoted by Clinton, who cannily realized that although you can make a campaign promise to let gays and lesbians serve in the military, it’s not as simple as that. Under the policy, people are not supposed to ask each other about their sexual orientation, and gays and lesbians aren’t supposed to disclose the details of their sexual orientation. (Don’t ask, don’t tell, geddit?)

The thing is, it’s stupid. For a number of reasons, all of which are very sound.

Numerous gays and lesbians have been expulsed from the military, even after following the policy to the letter. Some have appealed, arguing that the grounds for their separation were shaky, at best. A lesbian member of the National Guard was separated because she went to a store with her partner, someone else saw them, and that person decided to report it. No one asked her, she didn’t tell, she was just going about her business in the civilian world, and that was enough to merit separation.

The gays and lesbians I know in the service have told me that DADT isn’t as simple as not asking and not telling. It’s about totally hiding your life, because you are completely vulnerable at any time. Some have even gone as far as to pretend to be straight in order to fly under the radar, after seeing what happens when sexual orientations are revealed. A constant cloud of anxiety hangs over the heads of gays and lesbians in the service, and that emotional strain takes an inevitable toll.

The argument against allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military is that they will somehow be distracting, or prone to inappropriate behaviour, or a drag on the moral fiber of the military. These same arguments were used to keep women out of the military very successfully, and we now see women performing at a very high, honorable, and valorous level all over the place. (Despite the ban on women serving in “combat positions,” the nature of war has changed such that many women do end up in combat, but they often are not eligible for military decorations because they weren’t supposed to  be there, but that’s a rant for another day.)

The military needs warm bodies.  It also needs smart people with integrity and the drive to get the job done. Sexual orientation doesn’t really seem to be relevant in this situation, and yet it’s become a serious bone of contention. Evidently, just being gay is enough to make you an unfit soldier. I think many people can agree that there’s a bit of a logical flaw going on there. It’s the same logical flaw which allows discrimination on all levels every day, the idea that people who differ from the expected norm are somehow suspect.

And the idea that the military, which is supposed to embody integrity, would have a policy in place which encourages people to lie about their lives…this seems questionable, at best.

Over 12,000 people have been discharged from the military due to their sexual orientation, and in many of those cases, the soldiers involved complied with DADT. They were outed by other people, or separated on the basis of activities which occurred off base and out of uniform. That’s 12,000 people who might have been able to do a great service for their country. Arabic translators, good marksmen and women, fantastic leaders.

We have an all-volunteer military force, at least currently, which means that everyone who wants to join makes a conscious choice to be there, and really wants to be a part of the armed services. How insulting that the Pentagon should still cling to antiquated notions about sexual orientation, and thereby prevent fabulous Americans from serving.

24 February, 2009 – 10:37 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, LGBQT |

Windy Willows

According to Councilmember Dan Djerde the Economic Development Action Committee (EDAC) is looking for two more members. You can contact the Community Development Department at 961.2827 to get more info, or get in touch with Johanna Jensen or Chris Zaida.

Santa Barbara is holding some self-examination sessions to determine whether or not its LGBQT population is getting the support it needs; other cities would do well to do the same.

Miami is struggling with a sex offender colony, and other cities might want to take note, because the increasing severity of laws in re: sex offenders nationwide is going to make such colonies more common.

A contaminated blood scandal in England has finally gotten some resolution.

When in doubt, give the banks more money. When will this madness end?

How, exactly, does one “move on” after four years in Guantanamo? Let alone eight years?

24 February, 2009 – 10:08 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Everything, interesting |