Gay Marriage

I'm rather a little bit tired of this debate, but it seems that whenever we talk about politics, my dad and I lock horns (Lok horns even, ha ha ha) on this issue. For my moot team interview, I had to arrange my nebulous thoughts into something coherent and lawyerly, and this is what I said:

-We should allow gay marriage
- Because it is wonderful for that minority of society
- We do lots of things for many minorities and gay people should not be excluded
- Underlined by the obvious fact that what's good for a minority often translates into
- PUBLIC GOOD.

The only argument of my forbear that actually made sense

-We should not allow gay marriage
- because we have no idea how vast the societal impact could be (consider polygamy v monogamy)
- Since we have no idea, and it could be bad, best to not do anything drastic until the US has served as a petri dish for the rest of us. (God bless America.)

I have read in Microtrends (that horrendous and nefariously reductionist book by that Mark Penn) that since there are significantly more gay men than lesbian women, the outlook for the next five decades might be that there will be an upswing in single, older women who were never married. Spinsters! I wonder what kind of revolution will be on the horizon of our age. If there exists a theory that an excess of young, single men encourage war, what would an excess of single women do? (The teenager in me says "something aaaaaawesome!")



In other news, I got a job. A law firm internship. At Lovells . The interview was a bit interesting, especially the part where me and the person from HR began talking about crime / detective novels. Criminal law has proven to be rather a hilarious subject, and philosophically challenging. Has anyone read Malcolm Pryce? Aberystwyth crime series?

Indulge Me

What is the line between kindness and indulgence in the realm of sexual practices? I read Dan Savage and Mistress Matisse's Columns and Blogs and I find myself pondering the above question quite often. Dan Savage is mostly against bestiality, but very against it when you're tearing up a girl dog. He's generally against publicly flaunting certain kinks, if that means that you're forcing coworkers, family or friends to participate in your kink (omg, I have le not so secret diapers on and I... I... I... could be found out! *gasp* *hard-on*) . And I do see why, it's simply rude. I recently read an article about an British male taking a willing female sex slave and having her trail around on a chain in public. It's kind of like being a nudist outside of a nudist colony - just, well, uncouth.

It is mean and small-minded to denigrate homosexuality of course, but at one time, the prevailing thought was that homosexual people were simply indulging themselves in something unnecessary and amoral. Right now, we have established, in general, that involving outsiders in you and your lover's personal kink is asking for too much indulgence on the part of unwilling bystanders. But sometimes, and I WILL be beheaded for saying this, I'm sure, I vaguely understand when a certain people rant on about people wanting to marry their lamps and their pet gerbils next, in the context of arguing about gay rights. What that camp might be trying to say is "Perhaps we shouldn't forget that line between absolute indulgence and humanity. " There should be a line, we shouldn't indulge ourselves or other human beings in raping animals (actually, I just had the strange image of a lamp fighting off the sexual advances of a male like a Regency era lady... don't you think some lampshades look a bit like a frilly dress? "No, Lord Beckett, I must return to the bedside table, this tryst will ruin me!"), and... {insert here other examples of unindulgable sexual practices that that I can't think of right now}. But I'm annoyingly confused as to what exactly is unnecessary to indulge, in myself and others, and what should be given acceptance and/or dignity in the open.

And, to all the raving, foaming-at-the-mouth liberals that I've met over the years, I don't think I'm ashamed of asking either. There should be some hard and fast rules - it would , and is, remiss of the liberal camp NOT to think up something catchy like "what would Jesus do?"

Chivalry for Women

A couple of weeks ago Dan Savage's column mentioned that All Men Do It. In my vision of a perfect world where men and women are true equals, women who started bawling and/or raving about discovering her boyfriend's porn stash behind the crapper would be denigrated and labelled Too Stupid To Live by older, wiser women. (This is not to say that your dear author is old, or wise - just opinionated.) As feminists, it's about time we got over the "Porn is Bad for Women" mentality that most likely springs from the insecurity about our bodies that, past teenage years, ougt to slowly fade away just like pizza face (Sorry, people who have post-adolescent cystic acne.) If women expect men to understand and tolerate the quirks of female biology, the least we can do is return the favor.

PMS for example: if we require men to cease patronizing us about it every time we get into a little snit about something, we need to step forward and accept that men can't help loving visual stimulation. Why make your honey ashamed of something that gives him so much pleasure? I believe a fig leaf can be taken from the books of swingers and polyamorists in this regard: the majority of women whose partners enjoy porn should learn to feel compersion.



Respect is a variable and personal concept, and lest I step into any pats of poo down that path, I won't go down there attempting to define it. (Wikipedia can weather the poo on my behalf.) But I do stand by respecting male biology if the vice versa were also true. If my honey doesn't think less of me when I grumble and bitch before and during my period, then I can't think less of him when I catch him hunched over a copy of Double Stuffed. I think chivalry exists for women too, and this is one way I think that women can be chivalrous. Not making guys pay for all the dates is chivalrous as well, IMO, but that's whole 'nother kettle of cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates.

Is pornography disrespectful? And how is it different from boob oggling in real life? Chivalry for women: does it exist?