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13 May 2008
Public Displays of Affection? Not in Tennessee, please.
Bullying is a massive problem in the schools (not to mention the workplace, the streets and the blogosphere), so it is rather shocking that one Memphis, Tennessee high school principal is in the business of outing kids she hears may be gay. In fact, the ACLU is bringing legal action in this bizarre case in which the principal of the school publicly posted the names of all the kids she had heard were in romantic relationships. One couple involved two young men who were just exploring a connection and who were very anxious to keep it private.
Daphne Beasley, the principal, must have copied her methodology from the Bush/Cheney school of investigation. How did she gather her info? By asking around among the teachers and students. Like the government, Beasley found no weapons of mass destruction, but she did feel free to post for all to see info she gathered from colleagues and kids. In a bow to strict science, she just took their word for it.
Her research technique, though, makes no less sense than her dodgy purpose: she wanted to keep an eye on the student lovebirds to ensure that there were no public displays of affection in her school. Everyone knows how insidious and dangerous public displays of affection are. Probably second only to terrorism.
Although no one ever observed the boys in any show of affection, the principal outed one boy, Nicholas, to his shocked mother. The mother of the other lad, Andrew, was scandalized by the principal’s behavior. “African American people face enough obstacles to succeeding in this world and I want my son to have every opportunity he’s worked so hard for. Our schools should be helping our children do well, not tearing them down for something like this.”
It is no less disgusting that the straight students’ names were posted or that their affections were deemed such a threat to public order. The consequences for the gay kids, however, have already been dire. According to the ACLU, Nicholas, despite excellent qualifications, was turned down for a school trip to New Orleans to contribute to the rebuilding effort because “some faculty were afraid he might ‘embarrass the school’ or engage in ‘inappropriate behavior.’”
Principal Beasley not only spewed her homophobic “opinions” about the boys, but forbade them to even walk or study together. And this was not an isolated problem. Just this week, the decision in Brisbane, Australia of an Anglican Church school to ban same-sex couples from attending the prom has raised concerns there about bullying. One source reported that, “The Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, Susan Booth, said sexuality discrimination was unlawful, and that applied to private and public schools…”
Such discrimination and vilification can be lethal. According to the American Psychological Association, suicide among young people has been rising dramatically, particularly among kids of color – themselves often the object of bullying and disdain. Says the APA, “Suicide is now the third leading cause of death for people aged 15-24... [and] suicide is the number one cause of death for gay teens.”
As I looked into this, I read on WebMD that, “A study on teen bullying shows that lesbian and gay teens are three times more likely than heterosexual teens to report being bullied.”
And Mental Health America quantifies this sad reality when they point out that, “gay/ lesbian/ bisexual/ transgender (GLBT) teens additionally have to deal with harassment, threats, and violence directed at them on a daily basis. They hear anti-gay slurs such as ‘homo’, ‘faggot’ and ‘sissy’ about 26 times a day or once every 14 minutes.”
That is a shitload of abuse and those are some freaky stats. It’s time that educators knew the consequences of their prejudices and personal sexual repression. It’s time that kids were able to show affection – and I’m not talking about a quickie in the science lab – without the scorn of judgmental adults and bullying peers.
Q. How many puritanical educators does it take to change a light bulb?
A. None. They clearly want everyone to remain in the dark.
08 May 2008
Young@Heart: Rock & Roll Will Never Die
Few can belt out the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive” with more immediacy than a choir whose average age is 81. And, as the LA Times says, “It's safe to say that the Ramones' ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ has never had a more heartfelt rendition.”
The film “Young@Heart” is like nothing you have ever seen before. It is a documentary about a chorus of elders based in Northampton, Massachusetts, that performs music ranging from James Brown to Sonic Youth. Founded in 1982 by Bob Cilman – chorus leader and Executive Director of the Northampton Arts Council, they perform musical theater both here and abroad.
Stephen Walker, a British documentary film maker (“Days that Shook the World”) who saw their musical theater show in England gained a commission from the UK’s innovative Channel 4 to follow them through a seven-week period of rehearsing new material in preparation for a big performance.
We watch as Bob Cilman (pictured here), their beloved tough-love leader, takes them by degrees from introducing the new material to cheerleading their performance. Learning the lyrics is often a bit of a challenge (“Oh yes we can, I know we can can, yes we can can, why can't we? If we wanna, yes we can can.”), but so is getting out of bed for rehearsal when you’ve got multiple health problems.
The documentary traces their progress as artists and as individuals, slipping into their homes to meet their spouses and to unearth stories of their lives. Not a few of the elders themselves prefer opera and classical music, but they trust Cilman to identify the material that best suits their act.
While most of their material is from recent decades – not show tunes or big band classics – these performers matured musically in the WWII days when the lyric was the motor of the tune. So when they perform Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia,” for example, we pick up every word, making their cover of the song more nuanced than the original.
Eileen Hall’s (pictured here) rap-like interpretation of the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” is a strong reminder of the enduring sexuality and longing that is part of the human condition, no matter what the age.
“Young@Heart” has had its share of suitors. Walker was not the only director who wanted to film a documentary about them - but he was the only one who had already lined up funding. And when the documentary won the Audience Award for Best International Film at the 2007 LA Film Festival, “There was a bit of a bidding war in LA about who was going to be able to distribute it in the States and Fox won out,” Cilman recounts. Fox?!
“Fox Searchlight,” Cilman corrects me. “They’re the people who brought you ‘Juno’ and ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and ‘Napoleon Dynamite.’ They’ve brought a lot of films to us about parts of America that we usually don’t get to see.”
And that is just one of the reasons why this film is a remarkable product: we rarely see images of really old people not only having a fantastic time, but finishing a steep learning curve in time to boogie onstage to standing ovations.
Here is the official trailer for the film - the article continues after that.
In the run-up to the big performance, Young@Heart is booked to do an outdoor show at a nearby prison. Just as they get in their tour bus, they find out that one of their beloved members has died. But since the show must go on, they keep it together for a group of guys who greet them at first with a condescending wink and nod. We watch as this crowd is converted. There are tears. There’s elation. And in the end, one of the prisoners grabs one of the performers and says into the camera with a fearsome sincerity, “This is the best concert I’ve ever seen.” Many movie-goers agree.
I viewed the film in the company of about a dozen of my senior fitness students – all in the same age range as the performers. While I was repeatedly brought to tears during the film, my companions were a bit more controlled. Doreen, 83, felt the scene showing the young prisoners’ reactions was “a really authentic moment.” Livia, 80, “loved it because it was terribly encouraging.” Celia, 75, echoed my own reaction when she called it bittersweet.
Death is an ever-present actor in this cast, but it does not hold a leading role. Flirtation, rock and roll, devotion to art and musical friendships are front and center. Suspicions that this is somehow a gimmick, something cute and sweet, and that old people are unlikely to be sexy, sassy entertainers has meant that, despite uniformly laudatory reviews, attendance hasn’t been as strong as Fox hoped.
This is a unique community arts activity that profits from the passion of its participants as they produce kick-ass entertainment. The members are so talented, professional and optimistic that one is forced to wonder: where are the showcases for elders in other communities?
Old age beckons all of us – and the lucky ones will reach it. Will we have such vehicles to express ourselves? Young@Heart survives through local, state and national arts funding – as well as the fees from its European tours. With the price of this administration’s wars, the size of the national debt and the impoverishment of America, will there still, when we get old, be opportunities for elders to rock and roll?
Fred, 81, and suffering from congestive heart failure, returns to the choir after resigning for health reasons. Once he is helped to his chair on stage to perform Coldplay’s “Fix It,” the concert-goers and the movie audience alike are mesmerized and moved by the power and perfection of his voice. As Fred says – tubes up his nose and oxygen supply in hand, “You don’t get out of this world alive.”
Below is a clip of Fred's performance - for those who can't immediately run out to see Young@Heart.
This film review first appeared on AlterNet.org, in the "Movie Mix" section.
05 May 2008
Sex and the Single Hand: Stroke Your Way to Health
There’s been wide coverage of a study showing that man-masturbation prevents prostate cancer. But before you take your hotdog in hand (if you happen to be of the schlong persuasion), let’s expand the conversation and declare:
HOT SEX IS GOOD FOR HUMANS.
HEART
There, I’ve said it. But looking around, I’m certainly not the only one saying it. In fact, the bigwigs at Forbes Magazine – premiere reading for the wealthy and their admirers – devoted pages and pages to the benefits of sex. Among other treats, they relate that in a 2001 study at Queen’s University (Belfast), higher rates of bonking produced half the risk of heart attack and stroke.
A parallel German study at the University of Tubingen reinforced the belief that the quantity of sex directly impacted on both blood pressure and heart strength in the 51 men they followed. Quantity seems to bring a particular glow to men, whereas some researchers, such as Dr. Gina Ogden, find that for women it’s all about quality.
WEIGHT
Women and men alike enjoy assuming that active ardor leads to a slender silhouette – and they’re not half wrong, as long as you do plenty of it. There’s wide agreement that you can burn at least 150 calories in an average session (of course “average” is here an elastic concept), which is equal to a game of squash or a quarter-of-an-hour on the treadmill. Strangely enough, that same Forbes article insists that:
“British researchers have determined that the equivalent of six Big Macs can be worked off by having sex three times a week for a year.”
The Brits have got to get their cuisine together.
You don’t need an expensive study to tell you that a good workout is a good workout. In fact you even know that the opposite is true: if you’ve neglected your humping, when you return to your passions you’ll find your muscles – from your thighs to your jaw – complaining the next day.
PAIN
Lots of studies indicate that the various hormones connected with arousal and excitement – so intoxicating that people are now said to become “addicted” to sex – are fabulous pain relievers. Migraines? Arthritis? Why, just get laid. Dr. Beverly Whipple from Rutgers University says that even whiplash can be relieved by the oxytocin surge – leading to the release of morphine-like endorphins – that people often experience during serious groping.
SNIFFLES
A study from Pennsylvania’s Wilkes University, “claims that individuals who have sex once or twice a week show 30% higher levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin A, which is known to boost the immune system.” In short, no more sniffles and sneezes for those who are busy wearing out the sheets. Or the kitchen tabletop. Or the back seat of a Studebaker.
PROSTATE HEALTH
Okay, I’ve teased you long enough. Here’s the news about how stroking the rod seems to reduce men’s prostate cancer. In Australia, 1,000 men with prostate cancer and 1,250 without were questioned about their masturbatory practices and according to the BBC,
“They found those who had ejaculated the most between the ages of 20 and 50 were the least likely to develop the cancer… Men who ejaculated more than five times a week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer later in life.”
Screwing isn’t as efficacious as the one-hand cuddle because of the diseases one can pick up (raising the statistical vulnerability to cancer). Apparently, cumming helps rinse away any little nasties that are nestling into the balls, according to this “prostatic stagnation hypothesis.”
CASTRATING THE TRUCKS
So if we’re already on the subject of testicles – yet again – did you hear that in Florida’s Senate, the lawmakers are voting to outlaw those scrotal accessories the boys like to hang from the back bumpers of their vehicles? Reuters tells us that, “Motorists would be fined $60 for displaying the novelty items, which are known by brand names like "Truck Nutz" and resemble the south end of a bull moving north.”
As I oppose censorship, I’m going to leave the legislators on their own, trusting that they will come up with something creative enough to fit in with other peculiar Florida laws (click here for more if these aren’t enough), including these:
• Having sexual relations with a porcupine is illegal.
• It is considered an offense to shower naked.
• Women may be fined for falling asleep under a hair dryer, as can the salon owner.
• You may not fart in a public place after 6 P.M. on Thursdays.
• A special law prohibits unmarried women from parachuting on Sunday.
So to circle back from these diversions, masturbation is so good for you that you should probably stop surfing right now and begin paying more attention to your health regimen.
01 May 2008
Much Ado About Spanish Politicians: Oh, They’re Women
My favorite place in Spain is a ceramics housewares shop in Castelldefels, south of Barcelona, where every item – from pitcher to lamp – is in the shape of a sex organ or act. It could be accused of being rather adolescent if everything weren’t so completely practical. To this day I’m using the salt shaker I purchased that might otherwise be a perfect butt plug. One wonders if the Spaniards were inspired during their colonial excesses by the pre-Incas whose astoundingly x-rated artifacts, like the one pictured, sit in a private museum in Lima, Peru.
None of which has all that much to do with the fact that Spain has re-elected their Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero after his government initiated a series of progressive changes in its first term, including legal gay marriage, a simpler divorce process, election procedures that push for more women candidates and legislative pressures to increase gender economic equity.
Now he has created a new Ministry of Equality and appointed as Minister a 31 year-old woman, Bibiana Aido. (She is the youngest person to head a Spanish Ministry.) This in a country that was controlled by the rightwing dictator Francisco Franco from 1939 until 1975.
But the Zapatero action that most shakes up the Spanish conservatives is his appointment of a 37 year-old woman, Carme Chacon – previously his 
Housing Minister – as Defense Minister. She’s the first woman in the role – but that’s not the whole story. She’s quite visibly pregnant, as you can see in this photo of Chacon in her white maternity top reviewing the Spanish troops.
The right-wing is hyperventilating. For an example, look at the petulant if not fevered response of the conservative daily El Mundo to Chacon’s appointment:
"All signs are that Zapatero is using the armed forces as a guinea pig for a provocative experiment. Time will tell if this is major progress or nonsense."
Did I mention that of all the stories, the one getting the greatest international play is that the majority – oh no! not the majority! – of the ministers (i.e. cabinet members) are women. Nine women, eight men, not counting Zapatero.
It’s depressing that this is a global news story, when it should be a mundane, everyday phenomenon (especially since Zapatero's first Cabinet was 50/50). After all, the composition of the Spanish cabinet more or less reflects the gender make-up of the population.
But perhaps all the attention is having some international impact. According to the London Observer on April 23, even the Italian boor Berlusconi…
"has been forced to take note. During his re-election campaign, he promised to shower women with Cabinet jobs, somewhat ruining the effect by claiming that right- wing women were 'more beautiful' than those on the left."
Sigh.
27 April 2008
Let’s Take a Knife to Mommy
The failures of our feminist vision seem to be right up in our faces of late – from these wretched wars and occupations to the mortifying bouffant hairdo’s that network newswomen seem expected to wear. Recently I’ve had reason to regret how little impact we’ve had on the lives of girls – or at least on their concept of “femininity.” I was disappointed when, at a wonderful bat mitzvah party, I realized that all the dozens of 12 and 13 year-old guests – the girls, that is – were teetering on high heels. Kudos to the parent-hosts who supplied them all with thick sockettes so they could and did kick off the torture devices. (Heels-hating isn’t just my own personal piss-off; check out what the Mayo Clinic has to say about them.)
Now it seems that we have a plastic surgeon publishing (self-publishing, I believe) a children’s book entitled “My Beautiful Mommy” in which a little girl accompanies her mom to an appointment with a cartoonishly hunky plastic surgeon (does he do work on himself for a discount?). There they all patronize the daughter, explaining that slicing up nose cartilage and suturing tummy skin is all part of an adult woman’s beauty regime.
The good Dr. keeps lollipops around as he explains to the kid what is going to happen to her mommy. He covers her procedure, her recuperation and most of all her need to improve herself. The child worries whether mommy will be different afterwards. "Not just different, my dear -- prettier!" Well, that’s worth risking one’s life for. Not.
The author, Dr. Michael Salzhauer has had absolutely unprecedented media attention – and the book isn’t even out yet (whereas most self-published authors are given the shaft by media and booksellers alike.) Fear not, though: apparently if you pre-order, it will be shipped out in time for Mother’s Day. So much for our feminist dream that people would be admired irrespective of their biology, for their principles, their achievements, their values, their relationships, their art… but not in proportion to the tightness of their belly.
Instead, there’s been a lot of retreat in American society. In order to bolster self-worth, to comply with cultural norms and to shine at job interviews, women feel they need to subject themselves to elective surgery. As the economy tanks, there’s been a spate of articles proposing that “Plastic surgery is the next must-have career tool” – based in part on a book purporting that good-lookers pull in the big bucks. Surgery: the new little black business suit.
I checked out various studies and no matter what the source, a sizeable chunk of women are dissatisfied with the skin they’re in. According to a report on NOW’s foundation site, “In 2001, over 8.5 million people had cosmetic procedures in the United States. Of these, 88% were women.”
Hmmm, what could be motoring all this slicing and dicing? Cosmeticsurgery.com, which with no sign of irony puts their info into a “fun facts” list, boasts that in just 2003 Americans spent $9.4 billion on plastic surgery (about equal to what we pay for a month of the Iraq war). In my day, for special events like birthdays, my family went out to McDonalds together. Now it’s surgery: this site claims that 44% of patients were mothers and daughters having surgery together and 38% were couples. This is a whole new concept of families spending quality time – side-by-side on gurneys. Once mothers gave their girls a charm bracelet: now it’s an intravenous drip.
The combination of marketing and sexism works. One UCLA study shows over 70% of women so dissatisfied with their bodies that they would consider the risks of operations. (I found the parallel figure of 40% for men surprisingly high.)
Even if it weren’t such a lucrative field and even if Dr. Michael Salzhauer were free of any self-interest, one would still find the whole idea of this book troubling on multiple levels. But the sound of ka-ching! rings loudly through this literature, which educates a whole new generation of girls – potential customers – to associate “beauty” and carving.
And it’s not just the plastic surgeons who want to sexualize and commercialize girls. I’ve just read about a new book I must get ahold of called "The Lolita Effect." In it University of Iowa Professor Gigi Durham says she is criticizing “how the media present girls' sexuality in a way that's tied to their profit motives. The body ideals presented in the media are virtually impossible to attain, but girls don't always realize that, and they'll buy an awful lot of products to try to achieve those bodies.” The review in Newswise.com observes:
At Abercrombie & Fitch, little girls were sold thong underwear tagged with the phrases "eye candy" and "wink wink." In Britain, preschoolers could learn to strip with their very own Peekaboo Pole-Dancing Kits -- complete with kiddie garter belts and play money. And 'tween readers of the magazine Seventeen discovered "405 ways to look hot" like Paris Hilton.
'Seventies feminists tried to build a movement and a consciousness that would endure through the generations, but the forces of profit are so strong that they require each generation to build its own defenses. Luckily there are a lot of feminist girls and young women who have stepped up – but that, as a friend say, is a whole other story.
P.S. Hate as I do to bring any further attention to “My Beautiful Mommy”, if you want to see some of the pages from this sorry excuse for a children’s book, check out this slideshow from Newsweek.com.
24 April 2008
Ooooo. Naked Women over 50? No Way.
The blogosphere – ok, the women’s blogosphere, myself included – is a bit annoyed by a recent act of FCC censorship for “implying nudity.” And who are the filthy perverted sex fiends the FCC has saved us from? It’s a cosmetics company. Yes, they have stopped Dove soap from airing a cool ad for their new Pro-age (as opposed to the usual Anti-aging) line of skin products for older women.
Featuring a half dozen luscious women over 50 is a lovely nod to the new parameters of what is beautiful and sexy. These fabulous women appear to be having a great, relaxed time during their nude shoots. Close-ups on age-spots and wrinkles are combined with long-shots of bodies of varied sizes and hues, posed so that the discreet placement of arms and thighs hides breasts and crotches. There’s no ridiculous posy-ness, no artificial come-hither crap – just some fine women de-robed and delightful.
It is such an unusual and buoyant “take” on how to market to boomers, that I’ve read some blog commenters who say they are buying the products just to support Dove.
Here’s the ad.
I hate being trite, but I simply have to wonder about these FCC freaks. Rape? No problem showing it – in fact there’s a Law & Order stream devoted to rape. Shootings? Beheadings? Fist fights? Smacking women around? Bombings? People buried in vats of live worms while being shot up by Uzi-wielding kids? They rock!
Don’t even get me started with questions of why women’s nipples are so hysterically banned (the FCC fined CBS $550,000 for Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” and rules were tightened) while men’s nips are exposed everywhere. Or why there are uncounted ads and TV shows using the “implied” nudity of young skin, while these over-50s are considered obscene.
Hey FCC. Is it really just about flesh? Or are your fixations on youthful femininity all shook up by these older women’s succulent ease in the buff?
15 April 2008
Waking Up to Finance’s Big Balls
The older I get, the earlier I wake up, no matter what time I retire. This injustice is mitigated by the chance to watch early-morning BBC America news – generally a more intelligent and informative way to ease into the day’s realities than Good Morning Idiots, Today Lite or CNN Fluff.
However, as I staggered out of bed this morning, I was impolitely beat about the head with more scrotum discussion than I would have wished. It seems that a Cambridge University researcher, Dr. John Coates, has performed the important societal service of demonstrating that “Financial traders make more money when their testosterone levels are high, perhaps because the so-called male hormone makes them more confident and focused.”
In the mid-80s I did my literature Masters thesis on the history of the science of gender and I quoted a pioneering feminist scientist who inverted the paradigm and asked: Does testosterone make the man or does the man make the testosterone? Dr Coates apparently hasn’t read her work, yet.
As the newscaster interviewed Coates, I kept waiting for the obvious unasked question: What about women traders? (Not that we don’t have testosterone in our endocrinal systems.) However, the BBC was more interested in knowing whether or not this study was going to lead to doping by traders for increased testosterone. (No, Coates insisted, a man’s endocrinal system is like a Swiss watch – i.e. too complex to control.) None of the journalists have even bothered to ask what causes the hormone to be high some mornings (big profits!) and low on others (oops, losses).
Sigh, again.
The original Reuter’s article, which is listed in their “science” section, accepts this research unquestioningly – so much for science journalism – and is most interested in how it will impact the markets. At least the Guardian files it under “business.” To see a clip from the BBC News, click here. To change the world, keep in mind that life and capitalism (they are separate things) are as complex as, well, a Swiss watch.
13 April 2008
The Mosley Family Scandals and the London East End
These powerful and celebrity men – they do love their scandals. Lately, the focus of all British tabloid excitement is on the wealthy Max Mosley, president of FIA – the influential International Motoring Federation. So why are people around the world demanding his resignation from the premiere motor racing job? Because he was caught on film acting out some kinky Nazi sex fantasies with five women sex workers.
I wouldn’t blame you for assuming that I’m going to talk about the injustice of a man being demonized for doing nothing illegal, for his consensual - if commercial - sexual activities. You might anticipate my criticism of the wretched press coverage that uses words like “sick” and “pathetic” to describe SM; but no, that’s not the main point I want to make here.
The thing that is creepy about this whole matter is that Max Mosley is the fourth son of the vile Oswald Mosley, the most prominent of all British fascist historical figures and the founder of the British Union of Fascists. How nasty was Max’s father? On the slightly sleazy side, according to Wikipedia, “he had an extended affair with his [first] wife's younger sister, as well as their stepmother.” But much more importantly, when in 1936 he married his second wife, Max’s mother, he held his wedding at the Berlin home of Minister for Nazi Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, with Hitler present as an honored guest.
Okay, no one is responsible for their parents’ politics. But as a young man, Max was very involved with fascist and rightwing organizations and he’s still pissed off that, in his opinion, his last name has prevented him from having a successful career in politics.
I could show you clips of his romp with the five sex workers, including how he dressed some of them up in striped pajamas reminiscent of those worn by concentration camp prisoners, but if you’re interested, you can search for yourself.
Instead, I want to talk about the massive East End demonstration in 1936 that stopped his father Oswald Mosley and his feared blackshirt “troops” from marching through a largely Jewish immigrant neighborhood.
When I was first living in London in the early 90s, I got a temporary position running a day center for Jewish elders in one part of the East End. Many of the elder women had gnarled, crooked hands from a lifetime of working in a match factory. More than 50 years later, these elders were still bickering daily about who played the more active if not prominent role in the historic demonstration to keep Mosley from strutting through the East End spewing his vulgarity.
Although they condemned Mosley’s provocative march, the demonstration was not supported by mainstream Jewish organizations or even the Communist Party which purposely called its own anti-fascist demonstration in another part of town that day.
But many poor Jews, Irish dockers, and rank and file communists and socialists fought the police who tried to clear the way for the blackshirts. Under the cry “They Shall Not Pass,” the Cable Street community kept both the cops and Mosley at bay. The fascists did not pass. A magnificent mural (I’ve given you several details here) commemorates this proud victory and the demonstrators who are alive are still being honored.
So Max Mosley, I leave you to your memories of your daddy, to your sexual excitement over Nazi iconography and to your stalled motor ambitions. As for me, I’ll stick with my memories of the seniors in the Center I ran, with those twisted fingers and that pride at stopping a true terrorist.
10 April 2008
Sexual Intercourse: Let’s all be Brief and Average
The Associated Press, under the headline “Sex Takes 3 to 13 Minutes,” has given the world a sneak-peek at the science of quickies. A study to be published next month in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, based on a survey of sex therapists, concluded that the “optimal amount of time for sexual intercourse was 3 to 13 minutes.”
I scratched my head on that one, until I read that “the time does not include foreplay.” And then the bulb went on. Well, two bulbs went on. First, why are they using those tired, narrow definitions of “sex” and “foreplay” – as if they were separate activities? And second, what if “intercourse” isn’t in your sexual vocabulary, although you’re having fabulous erotic experiences? Or if your idea of intercourse involves neither a penis nor a vagina?
What’s sex?
This conflation of “sex” and “sexual intercourse” is as outdated an idea as the prohibition on wearing white shoes after Labor Day or the belief that birth control causes promiscuity. Let’s get real.
Penetration is one of many sexual activities. Others are oral sex, nipple pinching, butt squeezing, clit rubbing, ball tickling, breast binding, toe sucking and, did I say clit rubbing? The actions that constitute “sex” – undistinguished from “foreplay” – are as varied as the people who do them.
If a couple has kissed and touched and teased and stroked and sucked until both of them are totally satiated – but they haven’t screwed – is that not sex? If someone has a fetish – say they are wild about stockings – and they get off humping the silk-encased thigh of their partner – is that not sex?
What’s intercourse?
Intercourse isn’t right for everyone and isn’t required for reaching an ecstatic orgasm. Sometimes you want penetration and luckily there are a number of possible spots to penetrate with a number of body parts – from fingers to tongue to penis – and non-body parts – from dildos to ben-wa balls to fruit.
But the AP report on this study seems to be all about heterosexual penile/vaginal intercourse and even that is very limited and limiting. Not only do people feel varied levels of enthusiasm about such sexual intercourse at various times of their lives (or months), some people cannot perform that particular activity at all. There are plenty of reasons for this, including the thinning of the vaginal walls with age, medications that prevent strong erections, a personal safer sex guideline or simply no inclination for copulation.
Don’t gay and lesbian people have sex? Do their activities fit this definition of “sexual intercourse”? And the woman who drizzles lubricant in her cleavage and then presses her breasts together as her male lover pumps, is that intercourse? Does anal sex constitute intercourse? What about fisting?
The article’s general thrust is that you shouldn’t feel bad about having such short-lived sex, since it appears to be the norm. In fact, the piece includes a promise that this study will “ease the minds” of those worried about the stopwatch. In support of low expectations, Marianne Brandon, a clinical psychologist, is quoted as saying, "There are so many myths in our culture of what other people are doing sexually. Most people's sex lives are not as exciting as other people think they are."
Perhaps if the sex therapists encouraged the broadest exploration of pleasure, we wouldn’t have to resort to measuring such a narrow notion of sex. Separating “foreplay” from “sex” is as logical as separating tea from water. It’s in the mix that we find the thrill and satisfaction.
05 April 2008
Zurich: Chocolate, chocolate everywhere, but not a dollop of cellulite to see
ZURICH
I’ve come to Zurich – my first visit – for a smashing international party. It is a 120-year celebration: Jaya, a marble sculptor of prodigious talent who mainly lives in Italy has her 50th birthday. Her partner Madeleine, an accomplished acupuncturist and lifelong Zurich resident, is turning 60. And to round out the 120 figure, they’ve been together for 10 years.
Jaya picks me up from the airport, wearing a colorful hat we both suspect I brought her from Peru. She has shaved the sides of her head so that her new silver/grey Mohawk will augment her party couture.
These first hours are the only time we will have alone, so our first stop is at the grounds of FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), not because I’ve developed a sudden soccer jones, but because it perches atop a hill from which Jaya believes I can best view Zurich.
The Alps are off to the left, the River Limmat is below, flowing into – or is it out of? – Lake Zurich. I’ve always thought rivers are just the right body of water to define cities, perhaps because I was brought up among the three rivers of Pittsburgh, and then lived in London where the Thames rules and greater Boston where the Charles draws a crucial social line.
Next, we stop off at the ornate and grand mansion that now serves as an orphanage and where Jaya, in exchange for some fine sculptures, maintains her Swiss studio. At my request – why delay retail gratification? – we drive over to the big charity shop Jaya used to frequent, only to discover it has become an upscale vintage shop, which means that it has priced out its natural clientele, myself amongst them.
With a population of 380,000, Zurich is not massive, but it is the cultural and commercial heart of Switzerland. It has an almost generic European feel to it and local interior design is very minimalist a la Finland or Denmark. Zurich often appears on lists of the world’s cities with the “best quality of life,” and certainly the homes we visited were incredibly tasteful and the neighborhoods clean, handsome and respectable. The Swiss apparently take cleanliness to the sublime: even the garbage trucks and the cement mixer I saw were sparkling and pristine.
The Swiss cleverly combine technology and design. We pass a cylindrical glass phone booth with an automatic sliding door and the capacity not only for phonecalls but also for sending a fax, email or SMS. Strange electronic muzak plays within this tubular cocoon, which to my mind is counter-indicated in a phone booth, but I don’t want to seem culturally inflexible.
Here’s some other cool things I saw or learned:
You buy your garbage bags from the Zurich municipality, so since you’re paying by the bag, you pack them as full as possible and recycle as much as possible.
Parking on the narrow residential streets is staggered – a few spots on the left side followed by a few spots on the right – so that drivers have to weave along the roads, themselves peppered with “sleeping police” humps, at a slow pace.
In Madeleine’s flat, the huge windows (the Swiss love their sunshine when they can get it) are multi-functional. When the handle is down, the window is locked. When it is horizontal, the window opens out. When the handle points up, the window tilts open from the top.
The kitchen sink stopper is a 6” tall pipe. It plugs the water but if for some reason you flood the sink, the top of the pipe is a safety drain.
The restaurants and cafes are thick with cigarette smoke.
The buses don’t pull out of any particular stop until the minute written in the schedule. The last time I saw this kind of precise behavior, I was in Vienna.
The Swiss appear uniformly skinny and tall. I am mildly paranoid the first couple of days from seeing the same woman – short grey hair, stylish metal eyeglasses, slender and tall – over and over, but Jaya assures me that it’s just a Swiss type. My dear cousin Sandy, the uber-talented collage portrait painter who moved to Mendocino after 20 years in Italy, arrives in Zurich a few hours after me and we feel throughout our stay like two rolly-polly Jews looking in vain for some fellow subcutaneous fat. Chocolate, chocolate everywhere, but not a dollop of cellulite to see.
As for the chocolate, the conditoria are ubiquitous but the prices are such that one must ruminate before selecting a single truffle and then nibble it for $5.00 worth of time. The dollar is about equal to a Swiss franc which makes the calculations a no-brainer and the costs prohibitive.
THE DEMOGRAPHICS
Lots of famous people have spent at least a sliver of their lives living in Zurich: Richard Wagner, Vladimir Lenin, James Joyce (who is buried there) and Tina Turner, among them.
Over ¾ of the population speak Swiss German as their first language (friends from Berlin struggled to understand it; those from Stuttgart had no problem). Albanian and Italian are each spoken by about 5% of the people. Having just come from diverse London, Zurich looks to me very much like a monoculture. While 30% of those living in Zurich are not citizens, the majority of those (22%) are neighbors from Germany, supplemented by immigrants from Albania, Kosovo and Italy, according to Wikipedia.
On our first walk around the old city, Sandy and I go to the kebab restaurant Jaya recommends. The guy who works there speaks about as much English as we speak Swiss German.
“Americans?”
“California,” Sandy answers, and he nods.
“Massachusetts,” I say, and he looks unsure.
He points to himself. “From Turkey. But Kurd.”
Then he smiles, giving an enthusiastic thumb’s up with his hand. “Obama?”
We smile back, yes.
He then gives a harsh thumb’s down, frowning. “Bush.”
This is the nutshell version of the same basic conversation I’ve had in England, in Wales and here in Zurich, around the dining room table.
I ask people about the role of neutral Switzerland during WWII, especially in light of the banking scandal: Holocaust survivors and their heirs demanded back money deposited by Jews murdered during the war. They accused the Swiss banks of hoarding these funds and of putting insurmountable bureaucratic barriers in the way of legitimate claims. (Did they really ask for death certificates – from the ovens?) A settlement was finally agreed to in 1998.
A Berliner tells me that the Swiss Jews (about 25,000 before the war) were protected by the government. A Swiss friend adds that they turned German Jews away at the border, knowingly sending them back to likely death. Up to 25,000 civilian refugees were turned away.
To understand the deeply conservative nature of Switzerland, you only need to know that women didn’t win the right to vote and run for federal office until 1971. That’s right, 1971. (In the UK, 1928; US, 1920; New Zealand, 1893; Pitcairn Islands, 1838.) And fully a third of the Swiss men voting on that issue opposed women’s enfranchisement. At the time, the BBC noted that Swiss women “continue to face discrimination under Swiss law. At home, men retain control of their wives' property and capital, and the husband has the right to decide where he and his wife will reside.” Apparently in one Swiss province, women gained the local vote only in 1989.
KUNSTHAUS
As the party is the focus of all life, Sandy and I don’t tour as much as we otherwise would, but we do hustle over to the Kunsthaus, Zurich’s modern art museum, where we feast on three shows, photos from which decorate this blog.
The permanent collection of the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901-1956) is an incredible treat. His shadow-like figures, stretched long and reedy, are an iconic and unique part of the Surrealist Movement, and echo the live silhouettes I see all over town.
“Europop” is the first Pop Art exhibition I’ve ever really enjoyed. It dispels the Warhol myth that Pop Art was invented in the States. In fact, back in the 1950s European artists were playing with Pop in a visual language both more political and more varied than the Americans who followed. The work of Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) is a revelation. My first day here, I saw her wonderfully luscious “Travellers Angel” (see the image here) hovering over the main railway station in Zurich, so it was an especial treat to get up close to her work in this exhibit.
I’ve saved the best for last. The photographic exhibition of Edward Steichen (1879-1973) includes about 300 of the best of his fashion and celebrity work for Vanity Fair and Vogue. Working in black and white, he pushed fashion photography past its commercial identity and into a higher aesthetic. Besides haunting shots of movie stars (including Marlene, Gretta and Gloria - on left with veil) and the super-models of the day, we veiw his portraits of significant social figures – from Charlie Chaplin to H. L. Mencken to Steichen’s brother-in-law the poet Carl Sandberg. With his elegant staging, Steichen managed to turn gorgeous popular images into a moving historical record.
THE PARTY
Jaya’s family is coming from California, Hawaii and Switzerland and many of her friends are arriving from the States, Italy and Germany. Madeleine’s crew are mostly from Switzerland. Will the outsized personalities on Jaya’s side overwhelm the more sedate Swiss contingent on Madeleine’s side?
Madeleine’s apartment is a study in expanse, elegance and the judicious and effective use of intense colors. She wisely parks me in the back room, where there is a desk for my computer and a good deal of floor space for my three suitcases (blush), and within minutes I have inflicted my usual chaos on an otherwise calm environment. Sandy sleeps in the living room, which works because she is an early riser and awake before she can be disturbed.
The downstairs neighbor, a particularly agreeable and gracious friend, is housing two more out-of-town guests – Berliners living half the year in Italy, who also dine and hang out with us in Madeleine’s apartment.
It’s like a flashback to the feminist communes of the 60s and 70s some of us lived in – group meals, taking turns in the bathroom and sharing everything from my wireless connection via the neighbor’s system to the inimitable Swiss braided bread. Okay, so there are a few hard feelings over whomever that was that ate the big piece of lemon cake. Because we know it will only last five days, we can really get into this recreation of revolutionary days. It can’t be easy having a houseful of comrades invade your calm apartment and sit around your dining room table unraveling life’s truths, but Madeleine is unruffled. It’s a constant flow of people, all artists and braniacs, and of conversation, often political. Just like the old days.
But I digress. The party is being held in a converted military barracks, which the decorating committee transforms into a festive venue. There is to be a sit-down dinner for nearly 90 guests from several continents.
On the appointed Saturday night, our posse gets on the bus at our local square, joined with happy gaity by another household of local women who are putting up out-of-town friends. At the next stop, Jaya’s sister and her partner, musicians from Hawaii, climb in followed quickly by Jaya’s Californian brother and his partner. The closer we get to our stop, the more jovial the bus-ride becomes, and when we burst into the hall, we are each given a differently colored dot to put on our clothing, which we find out later identifies the country in which the relevant birthday girl met the guest. So like Cousin Sandy and Neil Barab, a dear sculptor friend from Italy, I am wearing the color for Italy.
The antipasti is a riot of grilled peppers, eggplant and fresh salmon, champagne is circulated continuously (although I later realize that not a single guest suffered obnoxious inebriation or perpetrated a public drama) and Madeleine and Jaya take the microphone to welcome each and every one of us by name, always including a mention of where we’ve met. Dinner – either veal and potatoes or veggie lasagna – is served and then I get up to give the first of two speeches. I’m speaking about Jaya and later Madeleine’s best friend is speaking about her.
Madeleine’s daughter stands – tall and slender, no surprise there – next to me and translates every sentence or two into Swiss German. It is hard to be funny or moving or to sound very smart when there are breaks every two sentences, so it has taken me months to figure out this speech.
I start out by wondering why Jaya picked me – a newish friend of only 16 years duration, concluding that she probably wanted to keep the evening from being too high class. I have quotes from Jaya’s mother and three siblings and I’ve run the whole thing past Sandy several times. Jaya warns me not to tone the content down just because the families are present, but of course I have skipped all of the most salacious and provocative anecdotes, leaving me with plenty of good material on the theme of ascending and descending mountains in various states of control.
After dessert, Madeleine’s best chum Anna does a different kind of speech, reviewing the history of the feminist movement in Switzerland and placing Madeleine right in the center of the action. I learn a great deal about her and when I later confide that we’ve had very parallel experiences, she looks at me as if I’m three eggs short of an omelet and says, “But of course, we’re the exact same age.” Duh.
Anna also talks, in wonderful poetic language, about what it is like for Madeleine and Jaya to conduct their great love across the Alps. The mountain metaphor is inescapable for these two, both of whom live on different edges of the Alps.
Dessert is a sin, but there’s dancing to make up for it. I teach a quick Meringue lesson and to my surprise all the Swiss join the internationals to wave their hips at each other. Through disco and pop, I dance way, way past the capacity of my feet and find a gratifying range of dance partners who combine sensitive following with outrageous pulchritude.
At last it is time to clean up and drive home the mass of flowers and gifts. It is past 4:00am when we finally climb into bed, so why a noisy group of people is eating breakfast next morning at 8:00am is beyond me. I have a devastatingly exhausted day, falling asleep wherever I’m put – including a smokey corner of the overpriced Bohemia café.
Sandy drags me to the Botanical Gardens and I do what we used to call “the Stelazine Shuffle” all the long way. A pasta dinner with my peeps revives me and then everyone packs for their respective departures the next morning. Jaya and Madeline are going to a mountain spa with Jaya’s family; Sandy is taking the train to Italy with a bunch of other party guests for a few days before returning to Mendocino; and I’m headed home to Boston.
Despite reassurances to the contrary from all my Swiss friends, my cabbie (like most of the people we’ve attempted to get directions from) speaks not a word of English. So we have a relatively quiet and pleasant ride up and down the foothills to the airport. Three weeks is a very long time to be away, although I suspect that little will have changed. Tax day is closer; deadlines are looming; some friends are having terrifying health problems; Boston is cold and wet; and the primary campaign, like the war, goes on and on and on. Worst of all, I face the fact that this Swiss “tall and slender” thing is not contagious.
31 March 2008
What Else I Learned While Visiting London: Part Two
Don’t you just hate it when a stereotype proves to be accurate? Just go to London, where the weather will suck, where the prices are ridiculous and where you will spend your vacation in gridlock.
On this trip, I’ve been suffering a non-stop kaleidoscope of hail, snow, sleet and rain, in a rapid, unpredictable succession of squalls and outbursts. The sun only seems to make its rare bait & switch appearances in order to entice you out of doors only to dump its precipitation on you.
London isn’t just expensive when one is translating from pathetic dollars to robust pounds (2 to 1). It’s downright pretentious how much things cost here, in any currency. In fact, prices in pounds echo the same numerical amount as prices in dollars in the States. So if a greeting card there is $2.25, here it is £2.25. Skip the global economy – London’s expensive in and of itself in any context.
The transportation system is mired in gridlock. Despite all the changes the ‘re-elected” Mayor Ken Livingstone made (he was once the radical, daring head of the Greater London Council from 1981-86 when it was abolished) – charging congestion fees for cars entering the center of the city, making the buses cheap and more frequent, raising the price of the Tube (wanna ride? Get a trust fund), using double buses attached by accordion connections instead of double-deckers (supposedly it’s about replacing old stock with more accessible buses) – despite all that, it’s impossible to get around. The buses are in a gridlock, only now there’re more of them not going anywhere.
Liz
Here’s one anecdote. I’m on my way to meet the lovely Liz Woodcraft – barrister, award-winning author and celebrated wit. Although she texts me that she is held up in court, I set out to the National Portrait Gallery, one of my favorite free destinations in London, right above Trafalgar Square.
I miss my bus because of the dithering of a Post Office clerk when I pop in for a stamp, but shortly after getting drenched by an unexpected shower-burst, another arrives. I sit in my favorite seat – upstairs in the front – and we crawl at an imbecilic pace through road works and traffic jams. It is useless to stress out so I become immersed in my book of Lillian Hellman essays.
“Out,” a deep voice growls. “End.”
It’s the conductor and I’m startled when I look up to see that I’m the last one left on the bus. “But this bus goes to Trafalgar Square,” I protest, looking out at unfamiliar turf.
“Not today. I was told to stop short.”
“But where am I?”
“Five minutes walk up this road and you’ll be in the Square.”
Anyone who has spent time in Britain knows that “a five-minute walk” translates into American English as, “I was raised rambling across the Yorkshire moors on my way to the pub. I eat miles for breakfast.” In short, a five-minute walk could be, and turned out to be, a rushed 25-minute walk for me.
As I enter the Portrait Gallery panting, I get a call from Liz that she is on her way, nearly there. The photography show I had been longing to see since I was back in Boston turns out to cost ten bloody pounds ($20) and because of the delays, I have little time. We chose instead to check out a (free) exhibit “Brilliant Women: 18th Century Bluestockings” and then rise to the café on top of the Gallery that overlooks the roofs and cupolas of the surrounding buildings. Finally, I have my second scone – I don’t realize that it will be my last.
I swore that I would not gain weight on this trip. Remembering all those fad diets where you only eat one foodstuff: rice or spinach or potatoes, I determined to lose weight by only eating scones (with clotted cream and jam). Unfortunately they don’t seem to be as ubiquitous as in former days and I end up eating well instead.
Pragna and Raju
It’s become a precious tradition that I dine with my friends Pragna and Raju and their daughters on my London visits. Like so many people, they talk about the post-9/11 impact on their work. Pragna is one of the founders 20 years ago of Southall Black Sisters, a remarkable organization of feminists committed to the human rights of women and to supporting Asian and Afro-Caribbean women facing violence.
Raju has a law firm that is famous for confronting police brutality and working around prison issues.
Both of these activists regret the backlash since 9/11 and the attacks in London that have taken race equality issues off the political table. The special needs of ethnic and racial minorities are no longer recognized and services to those communities are being eliminated under the expectation that everyone can use the same sources. Issues of access around language and culture no longer count – although religion is increasingly privileged, they explain. This strengthens those already in power (religious leaders) in the minority communities – never a good development for women.
Instead of the usual talk about multiculturalism, Pragna says, it’s all about “cohesion.” In short, assimilation. It is “difference” which has caused all of Britain’s woes, insist the white majority, some of whom claim to have been neglected too long. Immigrants must prove that they are loyal to “British values” – whatever those are, and American concepts of patriotism, like a pledge of allegiance in schools, are being imported.
With the disbanding of the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equal Opportunities Commission (for women), minority and women’s groups are being widely de-funded. Instead the new Commission for Integration and Cohesion is throwing money at religious groups, often the most conservative elements of the community, and in the process, Pragna explains, “destroying secular spaces in Black and minority communities.”
Social issues are now being addressed from a religious perspective instead of a broader ethnic (or feminist) approach. Legal aid, once a pillar of British justice, is being heavily eroded, Raju tells me. Fewer people can qualify and less is being paid to Legal Aid lawyers, most of whom can no longer afford to take such cases.
Rayah
I also meet up with my political buddy Rayah who, after a productive academic career, has now founded an immigrant day center, following a random meeting on the street with an immigrant woman in dire straits. Rayah and I stroll in the very old Abney Cemetery before hiding from the elements in a modern Turkish restaurant where I eat a delicious mango salad.
Lynne
Every time I visit London, my “English Friend” Lynne treats me to some sumptuous repast and this year we dine on lamb. Because nearly all of my London friends are “something” – immigrants, Jews, Scots, Irish, people of color – other than the white English rose, Lynne celebrates being the exception. I met her during rehearsals for the first all-women tango performance in 1991 when, mesmerized, I watched her strip off layers of mysterious black lace and velvet undergarments only to replace them with parallel layers in white. My admiration and her delight in being admired turned out to be a solid foundation for a long-term friendship.
Lynne is thriving as a European consultant around mental health issues and policies and as one of those stylish women with quite a unique flair. In the mid 90s Lynne bought a fix-me-up house in the working class neighborhood of Finsbury Park – prices today are stratospheric like everywhere else in London – where she immersed herself in the local community. However, the legacy of 9/11 has touched Finsbury Park, too.
Things have changed, she told me, since the large local Mosque, built with Saudi Arabian royal money, began to be led by the Egyptian cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri. The imam’s message of anti-Semitism and jihad attracted all the kooks and bad guys. After al-Masri’s arrest in 2004 for stirring up racial hatred, among other nefarious past-times, the Mosque came under the control of more mainstream Muslim leaders. He was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to seven years in jail.
As a result the neighborhood has become more polarized and tense and Lynne mourns the loss of its earlier sense of delight among the varied communities that shared the area. They are “still struggling to celebrate the diversity of the human spirit,” she adds.
As I was writing the first draft of this posting, Lynne sent a comment to my previous blog, in which I reported on the earlier part of my trip – thinking that somehow I was leaving her out. Her wry objection, reflecting the highest standards of civilized English literature, is worth reprinting:
Well, you meet her at the bus stop. You escort her safely through the mean streets of Camden. You secure the best table - naturally. You wine and dine her on the finest charcoal grilled lamb chops this side of Beirut; you treat her to a side order of quail. You dazzle her with your political analysis. You tell her all the gossip: the inside stories on the candidates for Mayor of London and what's happened to the more elusive of her ex lovers. In short, you show her the kind of good time this wonderful, chaotic, maddening London of ours can sometimes, by a small miracle, deliver. And what happens? Do you feature in her travelogue? Is there a picture of you in my gorgeous hat, adorning the by-line? Eat worms Sue Katz!
Pink Jukebox
My final fun in London is a return to the Sunday lessons and tea dances that will have been running 20 years in 2009. Partner dancing in a context in which I was permitted to lead and in which I could dance with girls and boys alike had been a life-long dream. These classes were one of the biggest attractions when I was considering the move to Britain.
The Pink dance scene became my main home, my main social experience and my main source of endorphins. Becoming a strong ballroom and latin dance leader was one of my dearest goals and turned out to be a most reliable tool of seduction.
Dancing with Mary and Mike and my teacher Ralf - all incomparably graceful - only proved how rusty I am since moving to Boston where I don’t have regular partners or venues. In dance, if you don’t use it, you unfortunately lose a lot of it and it’s a good thing that anticipated hot sex and overwork on my return to the States, after my visit to Zurich, will keep my mind off my deprivation.
Next stop: Zurich.