Monthly Archives: January 2006

Thursday Short Poem: Duhamel’s “Buying Stock”

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As we get ready for another bout of sex education with the youth at All Saints, this Denise Duhamel poem seems marvelously appropriate. I might get around to reading it the teens this year.

Buying Stock

"…The use of condoms offers substantial protection, but does not
guarantee total protection and that while
there is no evidence that deep kissing has resulted in
transfer of the virus, no one can say that such transmission
would be absolutely impossible."

–The Surgeon General, 1987

I know you won’t mind if I ask you to put this on.
It’s for your protection as well as mine–Wait.
Wait.  Here, before we rush into anything
I’ve bought a condom for each one of your fingers. And here–
just a minute–Open up.
I’ll help you put this one on, over your tongue.
I was thinking:
If we leave these two rolled, you can wear them
as patches over your eyes. Partners have been known to cry,
shed tears, bodily fluids, at all this trust, at even the thought
of this closeness.

That oughta get the kiddies talkin’.

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Ten Views Meme

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I’ve come across what has to be my favorite internet "meme" ever: list Ten Views I Hold Without Evidence. 

1.  That a passionate evangelical faith in Jesus, the sort that sees Him as Savior of the world and of each of us as individuals, is easily reconcilable with the principal of universal salvation.

2.  That wearing Paul Frank gear head-to-toe is quite acceptable teaching attire for an almost forty year-old college professor.  (Secret goal: to have Paul Frank make and market a line of "Matilde the chinchilla" themed clothes, ala what he has done for "Julius the monkey.")

3.  That the Democrats will reclaim majorities in both the House and Senate this fall.

4.  That one could buy all of one’s meals at 7-11 for a month and nonetheless remain svelte and cheerful.  (Actually, I think I did accomplish this more than once when I was single.)

5.  That the Cal Golden Bears will win the college football  National Championship next year after an undefeated 13-0 season.

6.  That the Motley Crue reunion tour, was, on the whole, a good idea and a noble contribution to Western culture.

7.  That Matilde the chinchilla has a secret double life traveling the world as an angel of mercy while her guardians sleep.

8.  That a consistent-life ethic that opposes all forms of violence from abortion to capital punishment to war to factory farming is consistent with liberal feminism, consistent with the needs of a growing global population, and realistically achievable within our lifetime.

9.  That the ratings and comments on "Ratemyprofessors" are actually mostly written by my colleagues and other non-students.

10. That working out twelve to eighteen hours a week has nothing to do with vanity, and that schedule will be easily possible to maintain after my wife and I have children (while I meet all of my household responsibilities with enthusiasm and pleasure).

Bonus view held without evidence:  That one can honestly, enthusiastically and without shame embrace the principles of Christian simplicity and humility and do so in a Hugo Boss shirt, Diesel jeans and David Yurman jewelry.

I tag everybody.

Addendum:  I suppose I’d especially like to tag those out there who work in the academy.  After all, the Enlightened tradition suggests that holding views without evidence is a fairly significant intellectual failing.  And knowingly and cheerfully embracing irreconcilable views is anathema.  So I’d like to know I’m not the only over-educated bundle of contradictions out there!

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“Not a zero-sum game”: a follow-up on harassment

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In my post below on the AAUW report about sexual harassment, I made it clear that I’m troubled by those who claim that men and women are , statistically, equally likely to suffer the consequences of such behavior.  I’ve gotten three e-mails in the past 24 hours from three different men, all writing with a sense of anger and anguish, each detailing to one degree or another his own story of being victimized sexually.  Two of the three report being seriously harassed by a woman while at university; one incident sounds closer to assault and battery than harassment.

The AAUW report makes clear what most folks who work around issues of rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence already know: women are much more likely to suffer the serious physical and emotional consequences of these crimes, even when in the overall population we see that both men and women self-report being victimized.  But speaking as a man who likes and loves men (pace, my MRA friends who still insist I am filled with self-loathing), I am absolutely clear that individual men can be very deeply hurt by sexual harassment and gender-based violence.  The fact that they are statistical exceptions to the general rule ought not to invalidate their very real suffering.

No serious feminist whom I know believes that women are entirely incapable of sexually harassing or sexually assaulting men.  I have never subscribed to the "all women are innocent angels, victimized by brutish louts" school of gender relations, and frankly, I don’t know many folks in the feminist movement who do.  Indeed, it is often the most conservative enemies of feminism who insist on claiming that women are naturally passive, submissive, and disinclined towards sex.  In an odd but obvious way, here’s where feminists and men’s rights advocates can stand together: we both agree that women have the capacity to be sexually aggressive, as well as violent and cruel.

But where feminists and MRAs part company is over the issue of equivalence.  The MRA contention is that our institutional policies on sexual harassment and other similar crimes ought to be gender neutral, even in the face of statistical evidence.  According to the MRAs and their allies, the fact that some men are raped (occasionally even by women) means that we must devote an equal amount of time and energy and money to protecting men from women.  We must ensure that an equal number of slots in shelters exist for men, no matter how small the percentage of men is who actually seek out such protection.  And, ignoring the general rules about differences in physical stature, MRAs insist that we acknowledge that men are as easily and as frequently injured by women as women are by men.

It is true that there are some folks out there who still have trouble imagining that a man can ever be sexually assaulted by a woman.  They focus obsessively on biomechanics, arguing that an erection and ejaculation are proof of consent. Feminists already know that that’s a silly argument; we know of numerous female victims of sexual abuse who report being brought to orgasm by their abusers.  Physical enjoyment can coexist with profound emotional shame, and the pleasure of the victim does not disprove rape or abuse.  Feminists know this better than most folks, which is one reason why few feminists and pro-feminists actually argue that men are never, ever, sexually violated by women.

But the anecdotes of a small number of men, as serious as they are, are not evidence of a widespread pattern.  Women are still far more likely to be raped and assaulted than are men, and both sexes are far more likely to be abused by men than they are by women.   Though we teach self-defense courses to women, and offer sexual harassment prevention seminars in the corporate world, we still do too little to teach young boys and girls how not to become harassers themselves.  Our popular culture still signals the acceptability of sexual assault against women, and all too often, our institutions (including schools and colleges) still offer a safe haven to harassers (the vast majority of whom are, as the AAUW study reaffirms, men).

Reaching out to the survivors of rape, harassment, and other forms of sexual violence is not a "zero-sum game."  I know of no one in the feminist world who thinks it ought to be!  The vast majority of us are eager to expand campus resources for both men and women.  Few if any of us have an ideological commitment to the old canard that women are always "sugar and spice" and blameless victims.  As real advocates for full equality for women, we are not oblivious to the possibility that some women do, on occasion, harass and harm men.  But we will not let ourselves be sidetracked by anecdotal evidence of exceptions to the general rule, a rule that makes clear that even now, women are far more likely to suffer serious harm from sexual harassment than are men. 

Let me be very clear: every feminist I’ve ever met or whose work I’ve read believes that sexual harassment is wrong, regardless of who is perpetrating it.  We all acknowledge that men can be victims, though we point out that men are much more likely to be victimized by other men than by women.  We do acknowledge that women are not incapable of harming men sexually.  But we’re adamant that in our current climate, even on campuses where women constitute a clear majority of the student body, women are far more likely to suffer the most serious and most painful consequences of the soul-scarring crime of sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment on campus: CNN misreads the study

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A major new study of sexual harassment on college and university campuses has been released today.  Here’s how CNN reports it:

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. college students are affected by sexual harassment — ranging from offensive jokes and gestures to touching and grabbing, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Men are more likely to harass than women, but women and men are equally likely to be harassed on U.S. campuses, according to a report by the American Association of University Women.

Researchers found that 62 percent of college students experienced sexual harassment, and 32 percent of college students said they were victims of physical harassment.

Intrigued by the assertion that men and women are equally likely to be harassed, I went to the AAUW website.  After fiddling around a bit, I downloaded the PDF file of the whole report.  You can get it from them, or you can get it from me here: Download DTLFinal.pdf

CNN’s report makes the assertion that men and women are equally likely to be victimized, but the report itself (as summarized in the press release here) makes it clear that sexual harassment on campus inordinately burdens women:

Sexual harassment is affecting both male and female students. More than half of college students who’ve experienced harassment—both male and female—say they were upset by their experience. Yet the impact of sexual harassment is markedly differently for young women. Female students are more likely than their male peers to have negative behavioral and emotional responses to sexual harassment. Female students are more likely to take measures to avoid their harasser (48% versus 26%), to stay away from particular buildings or places on campus (27% versus 11%), to find it hard to study or pay attention in class (16% versus 8%), to have trouble sleeping (16% versus 6%) and to find someone to protect them (16% versus 4%).

The negative emotional responses are equally striking… female students who are harassed are more likely than male students to feel embarrassed, angry, less confident, and afraid.  Nearly one-fifth of female college students who are harassed say they feel disappointed with their college experience- compared to eleven percent of male students.

Notably, our research also shows differences in the experiences and responses of lesbian, gay and bisexual students, who are not only more likely than heterosexual students to be harassed (71% versus 63%), but are also more likely to be embarrassed, angry, afraid and disappointed in their college experience as a result.

CNN mentions none of this.

I’m very concerned by the tone of the CNN report, and worried that other media outlets will simply broadcast a message of false equivalency: "both men and women are harassed."  But will they also report that the overwhelming majority of harassers (of both men and women) are men?  Will they report that women perceive the harassment as more serious and threatening, and are more likely to endure significant consequences that affect their education and their emotional health?  CNN doesn’t explore that (or offer a link to the actual report), and most of the folks who read the online news sources are unlikely to follow up.

One of the most destructive tactics of men’s rights advocates has been to take certain issues that primarily concern the victimization of women (rape, domestic violence, divorce law, sexual harassment) and claim that men are — at the least — equally likely to be hurt by  these.  They will now gleefully point to stats that suggest that men and women are equally likely to be harassed on campus, without bothering to discuss the severity of the harassment or the long-term consequences for the victim.   The AAUW study makes it clear that no legitimate argument for equivalency can be made when we take into account the actual impact sexual harassment has on the day-to-day lives of its victims.   The question is, will the press get it right and report the full results of the study, which make abundantly clear that the vast majority of those who suffer the most severe consequences of campus sexual harassment are women.

A note about student interest in abortion

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It looks like the University of Florida is backing away from its poorly-worded policy that appeared to mandate sex between registered domestic partners.

I don’t have time for a long post, but did want to mention that in eleven years of teaching my Women in American Society class, I’ve noticed quite a fluctuation in student attitudes towards abortion and reproductive rights.  Every semester, I always ask my class to divide into groups, and come up with a list of what they agree are the three most pressing issues facing the contemporary feminist movement.  (We do this after the lecture on the Seneca Falls Convention  of 1848, where it’s clear that the three most pressing issues are the vote, the right to property, and the right to education.)

In the mid-1990s, ensuring abortion rights always came out on top as the number one priority.  My students seemed more uniformly liberal on such issues a decade or so ago.  But around the turn of the millennium, I began to notice two phenomena: first of all, the number of pro-life young women who still wanted to be called feminists was growing; second, the sense of urgency about protecting access to abortion seemed to be waning.  This was odd, of course — regardless of one’s politics, one would assume that that sense of urgency ought to have been increasing as we transitioned from the Clinton to the Bush administrations!  But I can remember a couple of semesters in 2001 and 2002 where my students wouldn’t even mention "choice" issues on their top three agenda items.  In those years, working to overcome media stereotypes about women and beauty always seemed to top the list, with equal pay just behind.  I began to wonder if abortion was something that my students thought of as irrelevant, an issue more important to their mothers’ generation than their own.  The conservative side of me was heartened by that apparent trend; the liberal side of me was worried.

But this 2006 winter intersession continues a different trend I first began to see a year ago — a renewed interest in seeing abortion as the defining  issue of the feminist movement.  The last three times I’ve asked the old question, "choice" has come back out on top.  More of my students are once again willing to define themselves as pro-choice, and — at least for now — the number of students identifying themselves as "feminists for life" seems to have retreated from its high water mark.  I know that even for my less well-informed students, coverage of the Supreme Court (and this week’s 33rd anniversary of Roe) has had an impact.  I also know that many of my pro-choice students were energized by last fall’s surprising defeat of Prop. 73, the "parental notification" initiative.

As someone who has famously complex and contradictory feelings about abortion, this all presents a challenge for me.   Though I am still, after all this time, trying to sort out my own feelings on the matter, I’m absolutely convinced that whether we like it or not, the struggle over abortion rights will remain the defining issue of our time.  Even when I try and soft-pedal the topic, a new generation of young women is reminding me that this is an issue that they regard as vital.   And though I continue to mull my own opinions, my students don’t need to hear me hash out my own beliefs.  They need a compelling narrative account of how and why we’ve arrived at this point, where the bodies of the young, the female, and the fertile — and the smaller bodies they have the potential to carry — remains the key social and cultural battleground of our time.

Mandatory sex in Gainesville

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I learned about this from Ralph Luker at Cliopatria.  According to the Gainesville Sun:

University of Florida employees have to pledge that they’re having sex with their domestic partners before qualifying for benefits under a new health care plan at the university.

The partners of homosexual and heterosexual employees are eligible for coverage under UF’s plan, which will take effect in February. The enrollment process began this month, and some employees have expressed concern about an affidavit that requires a pledge of sexual activity.

Apparently, the university wishes to ensure that when they offer benefits to domestic partners, they are offering those benefits narrowly.  One’s lover is okay, one’s roommate or one’s sister isn’t.  The university, however, doesn’t require sexual activity from heterosexual married couples.  Even those couples in what the church used to call "spiritual marriages", entirely unconsummated, can exchange benefits down in Gator-land.  But you gay and lesbian folk in domestic partnerships had darned well be getting it on if y’all expect the university to pony up for your annual dental exam!

Obviously, as Ralph suggested, the question of ensuring compliance raises all sorts of hilarious possibilities.   Will oral sex count?  How often?  Once a year? Once an academic term?  To whom must one report?  Must at least one of the participants be clad in the Orange and Blue colors of the university?

Social conservatives will probably suggest that this silliness is the inevitable by-product of legitimizing any sort of relationship other than heterosexual marriage. But I’m inclined to think that the problem lies in our enduring cultural belief that sex is needed to legitimize the most important relationships of our lives.  It’s simply not the case any longer — if it ever was — that those to whom we are most connected and on whom we must most heavily depend are either our blood relatives or our spouses with whom we are sexually intimate.   For any number of reasons, we may find ourselves in emotionally intimate and financially intertwined relationships with folks to whom we are not related by blood and with whom we have chosen not to be sexual.   

What harm does it bring to the University of Florida if, say, Professor Doe is, like my fellow blogger David Morrison, a gay man who chooses to be celibate out of fidelity to the church?  If Professor Doe and his life partner build a home together but are never genitally active out of their own commitment to Catholic teaching, is their relationship less legitimate (and less deserving of benefits) than if they were regularly helping each other to orgasm? 

I support domestic partnerships for everyone on the following rule:  All those working for the university get to pick one other person (for married persons, the presumption will be the spouse) to whom they can give their benefits.  It could be a sibling, it could be a best friend, it could be a mother, it could be the cute barista at the local Starbucks.  If it’s just one person (and their minor offspring), what does it matter whether the partnership includes a sexual component or not?  The cost to the university shouldn’t increase, and the salutary message would be that the institution recognizes that love and enduring commitment don’t hinge on blood kinship or shared genital activity.

In the meantime, we can have fun with the Gators, and hope for more details on the enforcement provisions of the policy.

Two kinds of fasting

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I’m very tired this morning; the worst Santa Ana winds in several years kept me awake much of the night.  This morning, I had to move dozens of palm fronds just to get the driveway gate open.  And there’s talk that the mountain trails will be closed due to fire danger until we get some more rain.  What a difference from last year’s torrential downpours!

Our "Fast Relief" project at All Saints Church was successful on a number of levels.  We raised a few thousand dollars for Episcopal Relief and Development.  Of equal importance, the twenty-seven high schoolers and the three adult leaders who did the fast had a terrific experience: physically and spiritually challenging, yes, but immensely rewarding. I’ve always liked the power of a shared painful experience to bond people together.  And I suppose I’ve also liked doing these 30-hour fasts (this was my sixth year in a row participating through All Saints Pasadena) because it represents how radically different my own attitude towards food and hunger has become in recent years, especially since my conversion experience began. 

I posted last week about eating disorders, and I’ve written about food and body issues several times.  (BTW, see this fine response from Jen to that post and those who commented upon it.) So…

Growing up with a very unhealthy set of attitudes towards eating and my own flesh, I tended to experience food privately.  As an adolescent, I became a private binger, starting with (I kid you not) my regular breakfasts in junior high school of 8-12 Hydrox cookies and two big glasses of fruit punch.   They say adolescent boys daydream about sex a lot, and I’m sure I did — but even in the throes of puberty, my waking and sleeping fantasies were as often about sugar as they were about girls!

When I first began to diet and exercise compulsively in my early twenties, my "food" experiences were again private.  Like many folks with eating disorders, I became good at "pretending to eat" while actually consuming very little.  (I rarely threw up my food.  It wasn’t for lack of trying; I never have been able to make myself vomit on command, despite countless sad attempt in my youth.)  I binged alone, starved alone, exercised alone.  I didn’t talk to many folks about food because (and here’s where being a male hurts), frankly, we don’t live in a culture where young men are given sanction to complain about their bodies the way that women do. 

When I first began to take steps to get over my eating issues, I had a "food sponsor". I called this person, a woman I’d met through mutual friends, every day.  I practiced what she called "declaring your food".  I told her exactly what I’d eaten, and I also told her how much I’d exercised.  My food and workout behavior ceased to be my own private concern.  I found a group of folks with whom I was able to share my own anxieties and my progress, and I discovered (as is the way of such things) that my fears and obsessions were not all that unusual.  That was humbling, in that I had a rather grandiose perception of my own "terminal uniqueness"!  I began to experience food as a shared experience with others, realizing that how I ate did affect everyone around me.  If I binged or if I was starving myself, my close-knit community of folks with "food issues" would know — and I would be setting a poor example for those newer to recovery than myself.  (Most folks who know the language of Twelve Step will know the program I’m talking about, but I have an odd compunction about not naming the actual program.  The tradition of anonymity in Twelve Step programs is very powerful still.)

Bottom line: over the years, especially since coming to the church and to Christ, I’ve seen some huge changes in my relationship to food.  From a global perspective, my food choices (and those of other affluent First Worlders) have consequences for folks everywhere else.  From a social perspective, my food choices affect those around me — if I’m eating to soothe myself or starving to punish myself, my friends and family are going to be impacted in ways of which I am not even aware.   And from a Christian perspective, I’ve come to see that we are called to eat and fast in community.  Jesus may have fasted for forty days alone, but the Bible is filled with stories that illustrate the importance of eating in fellowship with others.  Food is not, it seems, intended to be one’s private pleasure alone.

The difference between starving myself in isolation and fasting in community is enormous. The former was an entirely self-centered activity, as I sought to make my body fit a particular and elusive standard that, if ever achieved, I believed would bring me an enduring sense of peace and joy.  When I fast as I did this weekend, with "my kids" and fellow volunteers, I fast to raise money.  I fast to express solidarity with those hundreds of millions around the world for whom genuine hunger is not a choice but a daily reality.  I fast to draw closer to God, as my hunger gives me a heightened sense of dependence and vulnerability.  If I’m feeling hungry and a bit weak, but am still needed to entertain and inspire teenagers, then I’m going to have to rely more than usual upon Him!  And I fast to have a shared experience with people whom I love, knowing that communal discomfort has the power to bind us together.

I’m grateful that my experiences with food have changed so radically since my adolescence.  I no longer have Hydrox and fruit punch for breakfast.  I no longer get "high" on solitary self-deprivation. I do still choose to go without food for a day or two from time to time.  But now, that choice is exercised publicly, in community, and it is done in solidarity with those who suffer far more than I.  It has damn all to do with staying thin and fit, and everything to do with building the Kingdom.  That’s an amazing blessing.

Matilde Mission Announcement

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After much work and waiting, we are finally ready to send out our first mailing for the Matilde Mission: Pet Homes for Ranch Chinchillas.  The charity, which we started nearly a year ago to raise funds to rescue chinnies that would otherwise be pelted, is ready to start some heavy-duty fundraising.

We do have a website, but do not yet have credit card capability.  So folks, if you’re interested in being on our mailing list (and possibly making a donation, however large or small), please email me with your snail mail address.   And if you can’t wait, you can mail a check to

The Matilde Mission Inc.
P.O. Box 94521
Pasadena, CA 91109

Friends and family, fear not.  We probably already have your address.

We are an IRS-recognized 501(c)3 charity, so any donation you make is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Matilde thanks you.

Fast Relief and an autobiographical Friday 10

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Not much time for posting today. I’ve got separate lunch and afternoon coffee dates today with two young men whom I am privileged to mentor, and then it’s off to church to participate in this year’s "Fast Relief" to raise funds for Episcopal Relief and Development. "Fast Relief" is the All Saints answer to World Vision’s successful "30-Hour Famine Program".

Frankly, I’d be just as happy to continue to raise money for World Vision.  But the folks who know better than I thought that our efforts ought to be going directly towards a specifically Anglican relief agency.  I understand that sentiment, but I am also saddened by it.  I confess that I prefer multidenominational relief agencies to the ones that are created by very specific churches.  What does it say about the body of Christ that the Presbyterians, the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the Baptists, and so forth all need to have their own unique organizations for helping the poor and needy?  I like World Vision precisely because of its inclusiveness of folks from both evangelical and mainline backgrounds in its work, and though I honor the fine efforts of Episcopal Relief and Development, I’m not at all sure that denominationally-specific agencies are doing much to create ecumenical unity and understanding.

But I’ll be fasting for thirty hours alongside my kids, and doing so with resolve, prayer, humor, and enthusiasm!

And here are the Friday random ten on our Itunes.  Read and shudder.  I think I’m headed for a new level of "uncoolness."

1. "Hallelujah", Ryan Adams
2. "Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now", Jefferson Airplane (or Starship, or whatever)
3.  "Caught Up", Usher
4.  "Make Me Lose Control", Eric Carmen
5. "I’m Gonna Be an Engineer", Jane Sapp and Pete Seeger
6. "The Road Goes on Forever", Robert Earl Keen
7. "You’re Crazy", Guns n’ Roses
8.  "Time will Reveal", DeBarge and Stevie Wonder
9. "A Dios le Pido", Juanes
10. "Two More Bottles of Wine", Emmylou Harris

Bonus Track: "His Grace is Sufficient", Jennifer Knapp.

Based on titles alone, it’s not a bad soundtrack for my life.  Way to go, Party Shuffle!  (I suppose if it were truly autobiographical, I would arrange the songs differently.  If you’re interested, it would be 8,5,3,4,10,7, Bonus Track,9,1,2,6.  That took me a fun five minutes to figure out!  Off to meet Richard for Thai food, and to start my fast thereafter…)