Purple and red angelonia, and other purty plants at the South Carolina Farmer's market. (from my Flickr page)I am one of those lifelong weirdo-hippies that enjoys talking to strangers, and so the article titled Happinomics in Adbusters totally vindicates me. I do think I am happier when I exchange pleasantries with other people, and I enjoy the warm fuzzy feeling of connection/communion that results from it...it's not (only) because I am a nosyparker! Random social exchanges are good for our well-being! And now I have this hotshot happiness-researcher to back me up in my random babbling in restrooms and checkout lines. Alright!
I have long noticed that friendly chit-chat increases the possibility of sales in a retail environment, just as familiar, fast-paced music does.
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I am about to get banned, at long last, from FEMINIST CRITICS, the argumentative blog dedicated to criticizing feminism. I am already on the "watch list"--even though one guy who throws around the word "skanks" (and authoritatively announced that the Southern USA is a "shithole") is on no such watch list. I guess it depends on who you know and who you blow, as the expression goes.
In any event, the version of women's lives propagated at FC is a sharp contrast to the version offered at No Longer Quivering, a blog started by ex-Quiverfull women that I have been visiting regularly. On FEMINIST CRITICS, feminism is presented as a blight, blunting the happiness of our society, making people (read: men) totally miserable and altering the course of natural desire, blah blah blah. On NLQ, I see what our world would be WITHOUT feminism, and I feel like getting down on my knees before Almighty God and giving thanks for being born into a world that has finally been given the possibility of WOMEN'S FULL HUMANITY. Hallelujah and praise GOD for FEMINISM!
Graphic grabbed from Cyborg Mommy.The guys at FEMINIST CRITICS (along with their trusty anti-feminist female mascot/hench(wo)man, TyphonBlue), would be totally at home in the Quiverfull movement... in fact, I don't understand why these anti-feminist malcontents aren't jumping on the bandwagon to find them a proper Quiverfull wife who will shut up and not argue.
Then, of course, it dawns on me: they'd have to support all those kids! LOL--obedience comes at a high price, dudes.
Meanwhile, TyphonBlue continues her complaint that her husband has been greatly harmed by the loss of his Bodily Integrity (FC lingo = circumcision) and resultant male sex-Godhood, or she'd be in the secular-Quiverfull movement for sure. [Caution: second link contains ableist language, the term "crippled sexuality"--which is horrendously gross, but I linked it to make a point. And TyphonBlue wonders why hubby has issues? I certainly don't.]
And you know, that's the thing...Quiverfull is a religious movement. IS there a secular equivalent? Absolutely.
The constant, worshipful fetishizing of the large family (Jon & Kate Plus 8, Nadia Suleman) is everywhere in our culture. It's been going on since the Osmonds, the Jacksons, The Brady Bunch and The King Family. And in these enlightened times (cough) you don't need religion to be radically natalist. In fact, I found the Quiverfull blog when one of their readers linked my Surfwise review to their message board, offering the wise observation that it sounded the same as the Quiverfull life, only no surfing.
The Quiverfull women are awesome in their self-analysis and truth-telling, one speaking openly about what it was like when her husband no longer desired her. (And what happens to these wives then? Are they simply supposed to ACCEPT loveless marriages? Apparently.) These women ain't a bit shy regarding the use of that much-maligned word PATRIARCHY; in fact, they are very clear about the usage. Unlike some of us, they don't throw the word around in a meaningless mish-mash of theory, they are quite specific: a patriarchal household is one in which the husband/father rules. After all, patriarchy is literally defined as "rule of the fathers"--and that is the life they have escaped from, the life they are warning us about. They know what patriarchy is.
PATRIARCHY is that which would exist, if feminism had not challenged it, if feminism did not continue to challenge it throughout the world.
PATRIARCHY is that state of affairs championed on FEMINIST CRITICS. And the Quiverfull women come forward to say, very plainly, NO. NO. NO.
I am now addicted to the blog, and the eye-opening spiritual witness of powerhouse-survivors Vyckie and Laura, also very descriptive and talented writers. God bless you strong womyn, and I love you. I am waiting for the special moment, here in Bob Jones University-land, to give your website-address to women who truly NEED it. I meet Quiverfull wives every day, I know it will happen eventually, so stay tuned. (((blows copious kisses)))
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And speaking of patriarchy, dig THIS! It made me somewhat dizzy, but you know how cognitive dissonance is. Lord have mercy! Kittywampus writes about Masters and Johnson, reviewing a review (we are somewhat derivative here in Blogdonia, you may have noticed) about the new biography of the duo, titled Masters of Sex.
Dana Goldstein's review on The American Prospect:
She said what?!
The truth of the Masters-Johnson partnership, however, was far more sordid. By Johnson’s own account, and that of friends and colleagues, Masters hired the divorced mother of two under the implicit understanding that she would become his sexual partner — for the purposes of research, Masters claimed. “Sex for Virginia Johnson would become part of her job,” Maier writes matter-of-factly. And indeed, Johnson told Maier herself in an interview, “No — I was not comfortable with it, particularly. I didn’t want him at all, and had no interest in him.” Johnson engaged in sex with Masters, she claimed decades later, because as a single-mother, “I had a job and I wanted it.”
Is this Virginia Johnson we are talking about?!
Well, damn, who knew.
Kittywampus writes:
As I said over on her blog, all you can say is WOW.
Of course, when Masters hired Johnson in 1957, Catharine MacKinnon was still in grade school. No one had dreamed up a name for sexual harassment, though it occurred commonly, and women certainly knew it was wrong when they experienced it. And yes, sexual harassment is the right word for what Masters imposed on Johnson. She very clearly states that she had no interest in him. She was living a hardscrabble life as a single mother, and her other options appeared worse.
This is the couple whose work overturned the oppressive Freudian conceit of the vaginal orgasm as essential to mature femininity. They proved that clitoral and vaginal orgasms didn’t differ, physiologically. How ironic that this liberatory insight flowed from a partnership that began as sexual exploitation.
I am really quite stunned.
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At left: Close-up of red and purple angelonia. (I love them!)I'm always glad to hear that there are more feminists in South Carolina (this rates another strong hallelujah! from me)... and Moody Springs is Rachel's relatively new blog. She writes about Ellen DeGeneres' new 'funny' commercial in which Ellen announces 'ironically' (and watch out for that free-floating irony, folks!), "Inner beauty is important, but not nearly as important as outer beauty.":
Rachel, may your new blog live long and prosper, girlfriend! Welcome to wacky Blogdonia.
It's funny, I guess. Or...supposed to be. See, because she is a comedienne, and she makes jokes. And she uses verbal irony here...everyone knows that inner beauty actually is more important than outer beauty, but it doesn't hurt to enhance one's outer beauty. But instead of saying that, she says the opposite of what we all know to be true....
Or do we?
Actually, what she is saying is very "true." Outer beauty is more important than inner beauty. Or rather, that one must do everything she* can to hide her outer ugliness. Or in other words, her wrinkles; the fact she is old...or the fact that she didn't die young and is still alive. Oh, the situational irony is just as rich as the verbal irony...the fact that you have the vitality in you to live long, and that you have been blessed for many years with the good luck to not have been involved in some circumstance that resulted in your death, makes you ugly. So if you use this makeup, it will lie flat over those wrinkles. Hide them. Your potent life force that led you to be wrinkled will be your secret.
And BTW: YES!--as several have asked, I did coin the word Blogdonia, with considerable help from Groucho Marx. Unfortuntely, the graphic in that link, featuring the mercurial Rufus T. Firefly, has now evaporated into the cyber-ether. (My advice to new bloggers regarding images is: always copy and download your own, because other people's stuff comes and goes like summer sitcoms, and frequently does not even last out the week.)
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More stuff you should check out:
Politico on Obama's persistent gay problem.
Angry Black Bitch is hilarious on the subject of Senator John Ensign, violating the sanctity of man-woman opposite marriage.
The New Agenda's Urban Girls: The Have-Nots of Sports
Mr Daisy has deserted me on this sultry, sauna-like day, to go to HeroesCon in Charlotte. I assigned him Dead Air photography duties, so let's hope he returns with some proper Superhero photos to celebrate the Solstice!
And now, signing off to sizzle...
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Estimated Prophet - Grateful Dead (jump to 1:31; they diddle with chords for a whole minute and a half!)
Like an angel
Standing in a shaft of light
Rising up to paradise
I know I'm gonna shine