Archive for July, 2005

First Things moves closer to consistent life

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 28, 2005
in Faith, Feminism and Sexuality
. 4 Comments

Though I will be checking in to read comments and the like, this will be likely be my last post ’till Monday.  (Which is why I wanted to have two lengthy ones today).  If you’re tired of the all the "sex posts" this week, take heart:  I’ve got a different topic in mind, the death penalty. 

First Things is a highly influential, superbly edited Catholic monthly.  Under the direction of the brilliant (and often biting) Father Richard John Neuhaus, the magazine has been a major player in the "culture wars", giving intellectual and spiritual heft to those who are eager to defend the "culture of life."  But First Things has, for all its anti-abortion activism, shied away from taking a firm anti-capital punishment stance. 

The great papal encyclical of 1995, Evangelium Vitae, as well as other pronouncements by John Paul II, made it clear that the late pontiff was strongly anti-death penalty, without insisting that all Catholics accept his position.  In the words of the encyclical:

On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely…

… the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

While more and more Catholics have moved towards the late pontiff’s stance, First Things has continued to take a generally pro-death penalty editorial line.  In 2001, Avery Cardinal Dulles, writing in the magazine, said:

The person who does evil may deserve death. According to the biblical accounts, God sometimes administers the penalty himself and sometimes directs others to do so… The State has the right, in principle, to inflict capital punishment in cases where there is no doubt about the gravity of the offense and the guilt of the accused.

In 2002, the very Catholic Antonin Scalia, writing in the same journal, defended the right of Catholics to continue to take a pro-death penalty position.  Referring to Evangelium Vitae, Scalia wrote:

So I have given this new position (in Evangelium Vitae) thoughtful and careful consideration—and I disagree. That is not to say I favor the death penalty (I am judicially and judiciously neutral on that point); it is only to say that I do not find the death penalty immoral.

But in this month’s issue, we have this magnificent essay by Joseph Bottum, a fine poet and editor of First Things.  Entitled "Christians and the Death Penalty", it’s a powerful piece built around two stories: that of Connecticut serial killer Michael Ross, put to death in May for murdering several girls in the 1980s, and the biblical tale of Cain and Abel.  Bottum writes about the ancient, pre-Christian notion that "blood requires blood", and the common assumption that a murder requires that the murderer’s blood be shed.

While Bottum brings a healthy dose of political theory to his anti-death penalty case, he is at his most compelling when he cites the story of Cain.  Cain is the first murderer in the human story, and yet he pointedly does not receive the death penalty.  God not only does not kill Cain, he forbids other humans to harm him.  Bottum writes, building on Genesis 4:10-16:

Life and death in the story of Cain and Abel, however, are curious things. Abel’s blood cries out from the ground, but the Lord refuses to allow anyone to impose the penalty.

If Jesus Christ “sheds light on the meaning of life and the death of every human being,” we can see in that light both how blood demands repayment and how Jesus has forever done the re paying with his death. In Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II holds to a delicate line. This is not necessarily a full-blown Anselmian theory of atonement, but it is at least a recognition that two elements in the Cain and Abel story are vital for Christians: the genuine truth that spilled blood calls for justice, and the refusal to demand that this blood-debt be paid with yet more blood.

That’s good.  This consistent-life ethic Anabaptist/Episcopalian says "amen".  Bottum begins his final paragraph by listing the young women killed by Michael Ross:

Dzung Ngoc Tu, Tammy Williams, Paula Perrera, Debra Smith Taylor, Robin Stavinsky, Leslie Shelley, April Brunais, Wendy Baribeault: These were real people, girls and young women raped and killed, and their blood cries out from the ground. But high justice for their deaths—the story of the killer killed, the narrative we want to give us closure—is something we cannot permit the State of Connecticut to wield.

Bold emphasis is mine.  If Bottum is willing to write such a strongly anti-capital punishment piece — in his capacity as the editor of this flagship journal of Catholic conservatives — we just might be growing closer and closer to seeing the ethic of consistent life embraced by those on the so-called religious right.   I am very pleased.

One last post on older men, younger women: a reply to “Emily”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 28, 2005
in Older Men & Younger Women, Relationships and Sexuality
. 13 Comments

I do pay attention to what search terms folks use to find this site.  Over the past six months, one theme has continued to bring dozens and dozens of folks here every single day:  "older men, younger women."   Perhaps these searchers hope to find pornographic images, but I suspect that most of them are looking for more information and discussion.

Here are my two main posts on the subject:

Older Men, Younger Women, and Integrity

More on Older Men, Younger Women, a long response to Kate

As with "Kate", I fairly regularly get e-mails asking for advice.  This one arrived today:

Hi i noticed u helped out "Kate" well i have a similar problem but not quite the same, i posted a comment on the bottom of "Kate’s" problem but here it is again exactly how i wrote it on comments page:

hey i had an un-fortunate relationship with a man of 52 when i was only 15 (UK by the way) it turn into a sexual relationship before i hit 16, all of this happened without my parents knowing, but then they found out and it went to court as a pedophile case, it was then drummed into me how much of a b*****d this man was so i ended up hating him for having sex with me before it was legal. despite all this i thought i was in love with him at the time that’s why i did it. i know now that it was just infatuation. but my problem now is ever since this happened i have found myself attracted to the much older man (being 40’s early 50’s) i don’t know why and it may be just lust but can someone please give me some advice, I’m 17 now by the way, i don’t think I’m abnormal but i just would like to hear someone elses opinion.

i don’t even know if i was meant to send it to you but the website wasn’t very clear so i just saw an e-mail address an thought I’d send it.
thank you for your time
"Emily"

First off, let me be very clear that I am a college history and gender studies professor, not a licensed psychologist.  I think most folks are clear on this, and I’m sure "Emily" is too, but it bears repeating.  At the same time, I don’t want to blow off what I assume is a sincere appeal for help, so I’ll reply in this public forum.

Second off:  It’s almost universally accepted that our early experiences help shape our adolescent and adult desires.  It’s not at all uncommon for victims of sexual abuse (which in a legal and moral and spiritual sense, Emily surely is) to report having enjoyed certain aspects of the abuse.  Mutual pleasure, as I’ve argued before, doesn’t mitigate the harm done to the victim of the abuse.  Indeed, it may even compound the problem, as a survivor of molestation who experienced some enjoyment during the abuse may be more likely to assign herself responsibility for what happened to her.

In Emily’s case, she finds herself attracted to men who meet the profile of her abuser.  This is also perfectly understandable.    If she wants reassurance that she is "normal" and "okay", I see no reason not to give her that.  Given her experiences, her emotional and physical desires make sense, and she certainly ought not to experience shame or guilt as a consequence.  But desires are not a justification for action!  I believe that 17 is old enough for legal consent in the UK, but it doesn’t mean that Emily is equipped to handle another sexual or romantic relationship with a man two or three decades her senior.   Emily may imagine that at 17 (as opposed to 15) she is more mature, more experienced, and better prepared for such a relationship.  She may even (and I say "may") fantasize that she can heal the damage done by her previous lover if she can have a successful relationship with a man of similar age to her abuser.  She wouldn’t be the first survivor of abuse to have such a fantasy; therapists’ offices are filled with women and men who continually re-enact (invariably unhappily) these childhood traumas.

I’m going to ask Emily (and anyone else in her position) to reread the advice I gave to "Kate" last May, particularly the bit about doing what is so difficult to do in adolescence: wait.  And I’m going to say this as well:

Any man in his thirties, forties, or above who has a sexual relationship with an adolescent girl is a criminal.  Now, that may not always be true legally, but in my book, it’s always true spiritually and morally.   A man in his forties might say of Emily, "She’s of legal age" (which she is in the UK), "and she knows what she wants; it’s absurd to say I’m a criminal for giving her what she wants.  What about Emily’s agency?"  Emily’s own letter makes it clear that she badly misjudged her abuser when she was 15, and though she might like to believe otherwise, it’s unlikely that she has become a substantially wiser and more effective judge of character in the space of two years.  Frankly, as an adult who works with teens, I don’t trust their desires, knowing how volatile they are.  A good man, a kind man, a "together" man in the age range that Emily finds attractive will set clear and healthy boundaries with her.  Her desires do not give him permission to engage with her in what will be, I’m convinced, a sad and painful re-enactment of her earlier abuse.

Male sexual fantasy — particularly in pornography — is filled with narratives of seductive Lolita figures who captivate and seduce much older men.  The fantasy goes like this:  perfectly nice and respectable thirty or forty-something man encounters niece/daughter of friend/student/what-have you, an apparently virginal girl in her teens.  In these fantasy scenarios, played out in countless erotic short stories and even in what passes for serious literature, it is always the adolescent girl who pursues the initially reluctant older man.  He generally makes some protestations, trying to convince his pursuer that she’s too young, that it isn’t right, but she persists and invariably gets her way.   The intensity of the girl’s desire gives the adult man in the story (and by proxy, the male reader) permission to cross the line drawn by both the state and common sense.   The story usually ends happily (Nabokov excepted), with the girl enthusiastically grateful for her sexual awakening and the man thrilled with this guilt-free fantasy!

Barf.  Seriously, barf.  The fact that so many men (and not a few young women) find compelling elements in this fantasy doesn’t make it okay to act upon.    Girls like Emily may look "grown-up", they may claim to be active sexual agents and not passive victims, but for all their apparent maturity and aggression they are still girls, girls who ought to arouse a paternal and protective response in any man biologically old enough to be their father!  While Emily might long for an older man, I can assure her that any man in his thirties, forties, or fifties who takes her to bed when she is still a teen is not himself emotionally or spiritually capable of offering her anything of enduring value.  Indeed, though she may plead her own agency to the high heavens, he is still a predator, even if he deludes himself into believing that it was he who was pursued.

I think I’ve said my peace on this subject.  Emily, best of luck.  I’ll pray for you.

Thursday Short Poem: Olds’ California Swimming Pool

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 28, 2005
in Poetry
. 3 Comments

No living American poet writes the body,adolescence, and sexuality better than Sharon Olds.  This isn’t one of her more famous ones, but it is one of my absolute favorites.  I grew up spending my summers around a Northern California swimming pool shaded by live-oak trees, so I know of whence she writes. 

And that enticing, dangerous, captivating sense of nascent sexuality she captures in this poem is dead-on.  First time I read it, it brought back twelve and thirteen in an instant.  Still does.

California Swimming Pool


On the dirt, the dead live-oak leaves
lay like dried-out turtle shells,
scorched and crisp, their points sharp as
wasps’ stingers.  Sated mosquitoes
hung in the air like sharks in water,
and when you hold up a tuna sandwich
a gold sphere of yellow-jackets
formed around your hand in the air
and moved when you moved. Everything circled
around the great pool, blue and
glittering as the sacred waters at
Crocodilopolis, and the boys
came from underwater like that
to pull you down.  But the true center was the
dressing rooms: the wet suits,
the smell of chlorine, cold concrete,
the splintered pine wall, on the other
side of which were boys, actually
naked there in air clouded as the
shadows at the bottom of the pool, where the crocodiles
glistened in their slicks skins.  All summer
the knothole in the wall hissed at me
"come see, come see, come eat and be eaten."

A follow-up on Christians and the “number”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 27, 2005
in Christianity and Sexuality
. 3 Comments

The discussion below yesterday’s post has been excellent, and has continued at Amanda’s place and at Feministing.  There’s a lot to respond to, and doing so is made more difficult by by the very wide variety of viewpoints and experiences from which these comments are coming.  I did want to pick up on this comment from Tony:

Hugo, your addendum seems to be
right on target in identifying the problem, but not enough in solving
it. Our culture puts virginity - especially female virginity - on a
pedestal. It supposedly means they’re morally superior, love you more,
will feel better in bed, etc. And Christian social conservatism has a
lot to answer for in maintaining this meme (although of course not
creating it).

I’m glad you personally feel that people shouldn’t get to judge
others for not being a virgin, but do you think that the populace at
large can reconcile "being a virgin is better" with "if your partner
was promiscuous, it doesn’t matter"? Your recent posts on the diversity
of homophobes or on how thoughts of lust and violence can be similarly
sinful to acts of lust and violence, show that you understand how hard
it is to maintain nuances like this on a grand societal scale. As long
as we fetishize virginity (no matter how good our reason for doing so),
"the number" will be a way men have of value-ing women.

Here’s where Christians have to do a very delicate dance.  On the one hand, we are called to give a witness about what sexuality ought to mean.  We are called to insist that sexuality is properly expressed in an atmosphere of enduring commitment, trust, and a mutual willingness to accept all of the emotional and physical consequences of the sexual act.  For most Christians, that means proclaiming that marital sex is the ideal, and perhaps only, licit form of sex with another human being.

But that doesn’t mean we Christians have to "fetishize" virginity, though Lord knows, some of my fellow believers have done just that.   We have to make it clear that it isn’t Christian to say that virgins are "better" than other folks.  Even if you regard all pre-marital sex as sinful (a position I am unwilling to take), that doesn’t mean that a virgin is any more "pure" in a biblical sense.  After all, in a proper Christian understanding, we are all sinners, all fragile, and all — in the ultimate sense — equally in need of forgiveness.  One can be sexually innocent and have plenty of other sins to account for, after all.

When I read Scripture, I rarely get the sense that Jesus is asking me "Hugo, who have you been?  What have you done in the past, and with whom have you done it?"  Rather, I get the strong sense that He is asking, "Hugo, do you love me?  Hugo, will you feed my lambs?"   The focus of the Christian life is how we live today, right now.  Do I feel myself to be a lesser Christian because I have three divorces and a colorful private history?  Of course not.  I’ve asked for forgiveness, and been granted it by a God whom I believe grants it instantly and without hesitation, a thousand times over if need be.  (And in my case, it needed be!)

Though Christians can continue to advance a standard of sexual morality that is at odds with some elements of the culture, they can do so without belittling, shaming, or condemning those who, in past or present, choose to live by a different standard.    Most Christians have learned how to practice ecumenical dialogue with grace and warmth, figuring out how to talk to those who believe differently without condemning them.  We’ve got to apply the same tactics we use in interreligious dialogue to our conversations with those whose sexual mores differ from what we believe to be the ideal.  And when dealing with the countless Christians who fall short of their own ideal, we can respond with love and encouragement and nary a word of condemnation.

This past Sunday, we marked the feast day of Mary Magdalene.  No, most modern biblical scholars see no evidence that the Magdalene was a prostitute.  But the slim evidence that surrounds her, as well as centuries of tradition, suggest that she was one of the many women around Jesus with less than a stellar reputation.  Like the five-times married and divorced Samaritan woman at the well, Magdalene was, in the broadest sense of the modern slur, a woman whom the community would have probably called a "slut."  Jesus’ radical acceptance of Magdalene, and her devotion to Him, form one of the most moving parts of the Gospels.  It is that radical acceptance that ought to characterize the Christian approach to those who sexual behavior is at odds with what society deems acceptable.  While we can continue to point to an ideal, we can do so without condemning those who fall short and without making idols out of those who adhere to the call to chastity.

My computer is going back into the shop tomorrow; posting will be intermittent for a time.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” and the right to a private history

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 26, 2005
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006, Sexuality and Teaching
. 61 Comments

Regarding the David Allen appointment, I’m quoted in this morning’s Scott Jaschik piece at InsideHigherEd.  I’ve got more thoughts about men teaching women’s studies (and, in my case, a straight man teaching lesbian and gay history), but that will have to wait.

Complete shift of topic:

I heard from a former student the other day wanting a bit of advice.   Her boyfriend recently left her, ending a two-year relationship.  The reason?  He couldn’t "handle" her sexual past.  When they started dating, he was a virgin, while she had had a modest number of sexual partners (she didn’t specify a number to me.)  Their relationship had been going along swimmingly until that fateful day when he chose to ask her "So, how many men have you slept with?"  She chose to answer truthfully, and things were never the same.  For the remaining months of their relationship, he alternated between pestering her for details of her past, and calling her a "slut".  (Why she put up with such demeaning and inappropriate behavior is another topic altogether.)  Finally, unable to cope with the truth of the disparity in their experiences, he dumped her.  She was devastated.

Over the years, I’ve thought quite a bit about the phenomenon of sexual jealousy.  I respect its power.  Without any verifiable evidence, however, I have my own theory on the subject of men’s obsession with women’s purity.  It’s hardly an original one, but here goes: men are terrified of two things, I think.  One (and this is probably a hold-over from our ancestors),  men are scared that if women are not virgins on their wedding night and faithful ever after, they will be unable to know with certainty if they are really the fathers of their own children.  In a world withoud DNA testing, fathers have precious little assurance that their children are really theirs.  (Of course, they could simply trust their wives, but that would involve making one’s emotional wellbeing dependent on a woman!)  The "double-standard" thus serves to protect men from the awful, nagging doubt that a child is not their own.

Male sexual anxiety seems to play a part as well.   I’ve heard from many, many women whose boyfriends or husbands seemed stunningly preoccupied with comparisons.   After all, the more lovers a woman has had, the greater the number of other men to which a current beau can feel himself compared.   As one man put it to me bluntly, years ago, "If you marry a virgin, Hugo, you’ll be guaranteed to be the best f@*k she’s ever had."    Charming, huh?  Nothing seems to threaten an insecure man like the possibility of being found "less than" compared to other males.  Female purity, therefore, seems to be an effective tool for safeguarding the male ego.

This latter theory plays well with what I’ve written about before, Michael Kimmel’s notion of homosociality.  (Homosociality is the idea that men are more concerned with winning the approval of other males than of women.  Men measure their worth according to standards set by other men, not by women).   Accordingly, many men who are in relationship with heterosexually experienced women may find themselves competing with all of her previous lovers.  Indeed, this sense of competition often seems to happen even when the woman involved is scrupulous about not making such comparisons herself.  But, if one buys into the notion of homosociality, it doesn’t matter much what the woman thinks; the man will be competing with her past lovers in his head, even if no such rivalry is taking place in hers.  After all, he isn’t really after her validation; his real goal is to prove himself "better than" those she’s been with previously.   And while some men might find that competition exhilarating (and many more women find it bewildering and exhausting), other men may find it terrifying.  And let’s face it: it’s a lot easier to call one’s girlfriend a "slut" than it is to acknowledge one’s own sexual anxieties.

On the subject of one’s sexual past, I’ve become a great believer that no one should ever ask — or answer — the question "So, how many people have you slept with?"  (Let me clarify: I don’t mean one shouldn’t tell one’s good friends — just not one’s partner.)   Answering a request to reveal one’s number rarely turns out well, especially for women.  For more conservative (and insecure) men, any number higher than "zero" will be too high; whether it’s five or fifty or five hundred, she may pay a high price for answering truthfully!  To be fair, some women are also going to be unnerved by what they may regard as an "inappropriately high" number.  The only rational response to such a query from a current or prospective partner is a gentle, loving "Tell me why you really want to know, and tell me what you’re going to do with this information once you have it." 

I recognize that we’re all curious people.  Folks like to talk about "the number"; I’ve posted on this before.  But I’m a very strong believer that we all have the right to have had a past, and to have that past without apology.  Mind you, this is not an argument against pre-marital chastity!  Those who, for spiritual reasons, choose to remain virgins until the wedding night do not deserve our scorn.  In certain instances, they may even merit our admiration.  But those who, for whatever reason, have not "waited" deserve not to be shamed by their current partners.

It is possible to have a loving, honest relationship without disclosing every detail of one’s sexual history to one’s current partner or spouse.  Indeed, I suspect it’s a sign of high maturity and self-confidence not to ask for details of one’s lover’s past!   A true lover can say, "Before there was an ‘us’, there was a ‘you’ and a ‘me’, and I will never use what you did in the past against you.  I honor your right to have lived the life you chose to live before we were together, and I ask that you honor my right to my past as well."  True love focuses on the joy of the present and a shared commitment to the future; it seldom dwells on the past.  There are times when a focus on the past matters; a history of abuse or molestation can have huge ramifications for one’s future sex life, as can certain sexually-transmitted infections.  But with those caveats, I think it’s safe to advise a policy of "Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue."

When we marry, we promise each other many things: fidelity, devotion, and a willingness to share all one has.  For many of my generation who come to the altar after years and years of "experience", we perhaps ought to give another kind of pledge: the promise to focus on the future together, not on the past.   Real love rejoices in all the things that have made one’s husband or wife who he or she is today, knowing that without those experiences he or she would be a fundamentally different person.  But despite the often overwhelming temptation to pry, I’m convinced the wisest course is to acknowledge that there are some things none of us need to know, and we can give our partners and spouses the gift of an uncondemned, unchallenged, unquestioned past.

Postscript:  I realize that I haven’t mentioned how this intersects with faith.  That’s probably another post in and of itself, but let me say this for now:  from a spiritual standpoint, there’s a huge difference between holding oneself to a high standard and expecting that same standard from everyone else.  A good Christian might well desire to be a virgin on his or her wedding night; it doesn’t follow that a good Christian has a right to demand that his or her spouse have an equally low level of sexual experience.   I know quite a few Christian couples where one partner was a virgin, and the other wasn’t.   This often happens when a "cradle Christian" marries an adult convert;  new Christian Lauren Winner writes quite honestly about this when she talks about the disparity in experience between herself and her lifelong believer husband.  Indeed, it’s a particularly Christian act of love to marry someone who has had a colorful and extensive past when one hasn’t had one oneself.  It’s even more Christian to never condemn that past, and to never allow the spectre of past lovers to haunt the marriage bed.

Hurrah for David Allen, and more on men teaching women’s studies

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 25, 2005
in Feminism, Men and Masculinity, Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 5 Comments

Well, I’ve had several thousand hits in the last five hours.  Not only has Inside Higher Ed sent hundreds to this piece on hot students and over-sharing professors, but Kendall Harmon has sent his "Kendall-lanche" my way.  Jeepers.  I never get as many hits as when Kendall links to me, and he sent his readers to the piece immediately below this one.  Some folks are commenting there.

Kendall also had a question for me.  When I challenged Christian conservatives to repudiate the likes of Fred Phelps, Kendall responded by wondering if in doing so, thoughtful traditionalists such as he might not just be drawing still more attention to the fringe hatemongers like those who follow Phelp’s Westboro Baptist Church.  He has a point! I should make clear that I don’t expect conservative Christians to condemn Phelps by name.  Rather, they can simply continue to do what I know Kendall already does, and that is firmly and publicly dissociate themselves from the far-right wing fringe that claims that "God hates fags."  No need to name names — just the need to make it clear that it is possible to oppose full legal recognition for gays and lesbians and not believe that homosexuals are fundamentally evil.    For that matter, maybe I should stop mentioning Phelps by name and linking to him.

On an unrelated note, I learn from Jessica at Feministing that the University of Washington has named David Allen chair of the Women’s Studies Department.   Allen  becomes the first man to hold such a position at any major American university.  Reactions are mixed:

Nancy Kenney, an associate professor in the department, said most people are stunned.

"It’s a little hard to understand how it’s going to work out," she said. "Some people are disappointed."

Kenney said she respects Allen as an individual and colleague. She even finds that her own aversion to a male leader doesn’t sit well with the politics she has been teaching at the UW for nearly 30 years.

"I think I’m being sexist in my interpretation," she said. "Why should I critique a person because of his sex when I fight sexism at all times?"

And:

Melissa Pico, a UW undergraduate who is majoring in women studies, said the university could have found a qualified woman for the position who also could have served as a role model to students.

"Men can never be as personally affected by women’s issues as women are," she said. "It affects our everyday life, how we treat our bodies, our careers, everything."

On the other hand:

Priti Ramamurthy, an associate professor of women studies, said Allen has an excellent rapport with students and faculty and is the ideal person for the job.

"It marks changes in the field of women’s studies. The idea that women’s studies is only for and about women is no longer the case," she said. "It’s moved to a focus on social construction, not just of women but also of masculinity, and the changing relationships between men and women, women and women, and men and men."

For what it’s worth, count me firmly in the camp (obviously) of Allen supporters!  Here at Pasadena City College, we don’t have a Women’s Studies Department.   We offer a variety of courses that tie into gender work (including three that I teach: Women in American Society; Men and Masculinity; Introduction to American Lesbian and Gay History).  If we did have such a department, I see no reason why I ought not be considered as a serious applicant. 

Back in January, I defended the right of men to teach women’s studies classes.  I’ll quote some excerpts from that post:

I do acknowledge that having a man teaching women’s history to a class filled with women (and always at least one or two other men) is problematic.  I know just how important it is that young women have feminist role models who, in both their work and their private lives, can live out feminist principles.  But higher education is not just about providing role models!  It is about the principle that knowledge itself has no sex, and that all human experience is equally worthy of study by all human beings.  When we limit the teaching of women’s studies to women, we send the message that this subject is not, somehow, worth the time and attention of male academics.  This does not mean that a male teacher confers a legitimacy his female colleagues do not — though some students may perceive it that way.  But it does mean that it is immensely counter-productive to "ghettoize" (I use that term carefully) an academic discipline by suggesting that only some folks can teach it.

I also wrote:

I know that I have male privilege in the classroom.  Because I am a man, few of my students assume that my course will be a "man-bashing" course.  (Some of my men’s rights advocate critics are convinced it is, but none of them, to my knowledge, have sat through a single lecture.)  Where my female colleagues are assumed by students to be "pushing an agenda", I, as a supposedly objective man, am considered more "fair."  I’ve heard these comments over and over again, and I am saddened by them. But what should I do with this privilege? I can acknowledge it and withdraw from the classroom, leaving women’s studies to female professors.  But how, exactly, does that help things?  How would my quitting further the legitimization of gender work?  I think it’s better to stay in the classroom, while openly calling attention to that unmerited assumption of objectivity that so many students have about male professors.

I would never want to see a world where all women’s studies courses were taught by men.  For any number of reasons, I suspect that women will constitute the majority of women’s studies professors for years and years to come.  But students need to see male professors teaching this subject too!  They need to see men risking ridicule and opprobrium; they need to see men committed to justice; they need to see men professionally committed to feminism.

No, I will never know what it is like to menstruate.  No, I will never know what it is like to have to choose between motherhood and career.  I will never have a clitoris, I will never give birth, and my chances of being a victim of acquaintance rape are infinitesimal.  But a shared biology, even a shared experience of suffering, is no guarantee of empathy; just look at the legions of anti-feminist women in public life!  Yes, men like David Allen and Hugo Schwyzer can be role models too, though perhaps not the sort that Melissa Pico expects.   

At the risk of real hubris, men like us send the vital signal to young men that feminism is a man’s concern as well.  In our public work and our private behavior, we model (imperfectly, I’m aware) what it is to live as a pro-feminist man.  Our young men need to see that to know it is possible. Heck, our young women also need to know that there are men out there who do see their experiences, hopes, fears, dreams, and history as colossally important.

Hurrah for David Allen.

A long musing about gays, love, and dialogue

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 25, 2005
in Christianity, GLBTQ and Sexuality
. 21 Comments

First off, I’m very pleased that my Michael Gee post was picked up today by Inside Higher Education.  Thanks for the link!  NYMOM continues to think I’m awfully hard on Michael Gee; most other folks seem to agree that his remarks about an attractive student made his position in the classroom untenable.

Dear Cliopatriarch Jonathan Dresner always sends me some wonderful links.   He sent me two yesterday, both from the Positive Liberty blog.  First, check out this very powerful photo essay from Jason Kuznicki: How Not to Make Me Ex-Gay.  Jason interweaves pictures of himself and his spouse, Scott, along with a letter from someone who urges Jason to "leave the lifestyle" with words like these:

I am writing to let you know that you are making a terrible mistake. You may think that being gay is who you actually are, but it’s not. Homosexuality is only something that you choose to do–and you can choose to stop it if you want. A person like you, with all of your talents and abilities, should not waste his life on a destructive, unfulfilling lifestyle.

The photo-essay is the perfect answer; misunderstanding contrasted with images of real love, devotion, and a shared garden.

Eve Tushnet has an interesting response.  A conservative Catholic, Tushnet bristles at the tone of the letter sent to Jason — not because she doesn’t believe homosexuality is sinful, but because she knows that even a sinful life can have beauty in it, something the anonymous author of the letter doesn’t acknowledge:

What on earth would make you think that sin never contains any seed of goodness, any element of love? St. Augustine thought precisely the opposite of that–that every sin was a virtue misdirected.

Eve concludes:

I believe what the Catholic Church teaches not solely–not even, when I’m at my best, primarily–because the alternatives are ugly. Quite often the alternatives are attractive, insofar as they partake in a partial share of the goodness, love, and grace that God offers. I believe what the Catholic Church teaches because, when I’m at my best, I love Jesus Christ, I love God, and I can faintly discern the beauty, hope, and peace He wants for me.

Now, that’s powerful.  It’s understandable that many gays and lesbians, particularly those who are not in the church, have a hard time distinguishing the various forms which opposition to full acceptance of homosexuality can take.   Indeed, from a secular left-wing perspective, it is at times overwhelmingly tempting to tar all religious opponents of gay marriage with the same brush.  Why should gays and lesbians — and their allies — be the ones to do the work of distinguishing between the hateful bile of a Fred Phelps, the ex-gay ministry of an evangelical group like Exodus International, and the humble, loving, but ultimately non-affirming position of Catholics like Eve Tushnet?  Yes, the rhetoric and the tactics are radically different.  As someone who strongly believes that same-sex marriage is compatible with the Gospel, I’m confident that I could sit down to dinner with Eve and have a very civil disagreement; I don’t think Fred Phelps and I could do the same. Then again, I’m a straight man about to be married to a woman, despite multiple previous divorces.  I can be passionate about gay rights, but ultimately, it’s an academic issue to me.  My civility towards those who oppose gay marriage is no doubt linked to the obvious fact that the issue doesn’t actually affect me personally.

Ultimately, I do think it’s the job of those conservative Christians who oppose homosexuality (but do see things as Eve does, with the possibility of a "partial share" of goodness and grace in gay and lesbian relationships) to regularly do as she has done: repudiate the more extreme and insensitive anti-gay bigotry of those further to their right on the spectrum.  There’s a world of difference between telling a loving, married gay couple:  "Friends, I think your relationship falls short of the mark" and telling them "Fellas, if you don’t repent, you are burning in hellfire for eternity."   At the same time, conservative Christians have to be careful to be honest.  If (in their heart of hearts) they really believe the latter statement about hell, then they owe it to the gay and lesbian community to reveal their true feelings.  Many of my non-Christian GLBT friends tell me (frequently) that they distrust the "love" rhetoric they hear from conservative Christians.   A lesbian student of mine said to me recently, "Hugo, honestly, whenever I hear a Christian tell me ‘God loves gays, He just wants them to change’, I want to scream.  I’d so much rather hear the truth:  "I think you’re going to hell."   At the very least, I want my conservative Christian friends to be bold enough to say exactly what it is they believe are the consequences of living out an authentic gay or lesbian life.  If they do suspect this is a salvation issue, then they have a moral obligation to be honest about that.

To his great credit, Jason recognizes the distinctions.   In his response to Eve, he writes:

But two questions remain: First, how should civil society treat someone with only an incomplete share of God’s love? I think I know the answer to this question, but it would be nice to hear it from some Christians as well.

And second, what will you, as a Christian, do to draw the line between your measured, thoughtful disapprovals–and those of religious extremists?

From where we sit–and I ask Eve Tushnet to pardon me–it often looks as though there were a seamless continuum of intensity between her position and those of the Iranian executioners.

This absolutely does not mean that the two see eye to eye, nor does it mean that the more decent among the anti-gay are serving as a front, knowing or otherwise, for the killers. It does not mean, as Maggie Gallagher falsely claims, that gays and lesbians always hold anyone who opposes “the gay agenda” summarily guilty of bigotry–as if all prejudice were one and the same.

What it does mean, though, is that if anyone has some soul-searching to do, surely it is not those of us who seek equal treatment for gay and straight relationships, and for gay and straight people.

It’s with that last bit that I disagree; my faith tells me we’ve all got plenty of soul-searching to do.  Gays and lesbians do need to do the hard, and often painful work, of listening carefully for nuances and differences in the arguments that are used by the "other side."  Here, Christians who do affirm homosexuality can play a vital role, as many of us are familiar with the various theological arguments which different factions of the traditional values movement are likely to employ.

There are some issues about which I am gravely conflicted.  (Abortion chief among them.)  Gay marriage, I can say, isn’t one of them.  On both a civil and a religious level, I’m unequivocally in favor of complete equality.  I’m proud to belong to a church that has made full inclusion for gays and lesbians an issue of Gospel justice.  At the same time, I know a great many wonderful, kind, sincere Christians on the "other side."  I’ve sat and talked with many of them, and felt their genuine grief at being perceived as "haters".  One man I know well, a very prominent evangelical, told me of his years marching in the anti-Vietnam war movement of the 60s and 70s; he has a forty-year long commitment to Christ and social justice.  He would love to be able to stand up for gay marriage, he says.  "I’ve never opposed any group’s demand for inclusion", he told me, "until now  I’d love to go there with you, Hugo", he said, "My heart wants to see gay and lesbians feel completely accepted.  But my reading of the Gospel simply won’t allow me to go there.  It hurts me that I can’t, but I can’t." 

My friend’s anguish was real.  I honored his inability to go where I — and the national Episcopal Church — have gone.  My friend is a loving man.  But his sadness, ultimately, doesn’t cost him much (beyond a discomfited conscience.)  His position does cost gays and lesbians — both in the church and civil society — something very tangible.  So Christians like my friend will have to understand if most gay and lesbian folk aren’t overwhelmed with sympathy for those whose theology will not allow them to endorse what their hearts long to embrace!

All movements for justice and inclusion have their radicals and their moderates.   One needs both Malcolms and Martins, after all.  Similarly, those who react against such movements have their own extremists and thoughtful centrists.  The best opportunity for dialogue is between those on both sides who are still convinced of the essential humanity and decency of those on the other side.  And those who have that conviction have the crucial responsibility of restraining the over-heated rhetoric of their more radical allies.

Saturday notes

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 23, 2005
in Athletics and Fitness, Books and Music
. 1 Comment

Random Saturday notes:

I’m exhausted on this Saturday, but, mysteriously invigorated as well.  A small group of us banged out an eighteen-mile run this morning, my longest since last month’s disappointing marathon.  It was incredibly hot and humid.  I have to say, there’s a rather masochistic pleasure associated with running in these conditions.  When you’ve lost so much sweat that you can hear your shoes squeak from the accumulated fluid, you know it’s a good run!

On long runs like this, my faster companions usually drop me in the final few miles.  In the heat, and with tired legs from a hard week, I was struggling to stay under a nine-minute mile, while they were pulling solid sub-eights.  When I’m running with others, I love to talk; by myself, I keep right on talking.  I recite poetry (especially Auden) and sing songs to distract myself from discomfort, often to the amusement of passersby; it’s not every day you see a runner talking to his pencil (I always run with an unsharpened pencil) and singing.  Different songs get stuck in my head at different times, and this can be frustrating when one gets a song one doesn’t like or isn’t very inspiring.  Last week, I had Gram Parson’s "In my Hour of Darkness" in my head; it’s a great song but not very motivating (even if the refrain includes the line "Oh Lord grant me vision / Oh Lord grant me speed.") Today I had Coldplay’s "Fix You" in my head for most of the last hour of the run, and that is as stirring as anything I’ve heard on the radio in quite a while.  It’s funny — I snobbishly insist that real runners don’t ever wear headphones, but I end up singing off-key to the entire Arroyo Seco as I trundle along.

I’m afraid I’ve gotten quite addicted to I-Tunes; this week I’ve downloaded stuff from everyone from Bad Religion to Dar Williams to Joan Baez to the Alarm to Tift Merritt to Arlo Guthrie to Oingo Boingo.  (Oh, how I loved Oingo Boingo in high school and college!)  My Amex bill will show me the damage soon.

I’ve been reading Daniel Coyle’s Lance Armstrong’s War.  It’s a terrifically insightful book, and it neither lionizes nor demonizes this most deservedly celebrated of modern athletes.  I’m tired of reading the hagiography that is regularly produced (especially each July during the Tour); I have no patience with the bitter and the jealous detractors who are convinced that L.A. is an arrogant, overrated doper.    I’m not sure I’d want to be too close to a man like Lance; that single-minded intensity is a bit scary.  But from a distance, it’s splendid to watch. I don’t need him to be without flaws in order to admire him;  there’s nothing wrong with having complicated heroes.  And he’s one of mine.

Off to enjoy the rest of the weekend.

A very long post about Marie Claire, sexiness, fat, cashews, and when to intervene

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 22, 2005
in Body, Eating disorders, Feminism and Sexuality
. 21 Comments

It is brutally hot and humid outside; a hot breeze is blowing, and I can see thunderheads forming over the mountains.  Bits of Hurricane Emily are on their way to Southern California, apparently…

I managed a 20-miler on the bike this morning at the Rose Bowl.   On the downhill side of the Bowl, the heat wasn’t bad at all; pushing up the other side, however, was a very sweaty activity.  It was a "two-bottle" ride, even if it didn’t take much more than an hour.

I’ve got plenty of grading to do, as well as writing for some other projects, but did want to put up a brief Friday post.

Nemohee and Kameron Hurley both link to (and provide fine commentary on) this interesting experiment from Marie Claire magazine:

Does your attitude about your body influence the way other people see you?

We photographed a gorgeous, size-14 model in a neutral pose and made the unretouched photos into two mobile

billboards. Then we gave each billboard a vastly different message: one
confident ("I think I’m sexy. Do you?"), one unsure ("I think I’m fat.
Do you?"). We asked everyone who saw these billboards to visit
MarieClaire.com and tell us what they thought. Here’s how 4,000 people
reacted.

Here’s the link to the "I think I’m fat" billboard; 55% of those who saw it agreed with the professed self-assessment of model Nicole.

Here’s the link to the "I think I’m sexy"  billboard; 66% of those who saw this one agreed with Nicole’s statement.

Marie Claire used these reactions to make a fairly superficial but no doubt useful point about how our own self-perception shapes other’s responses to our body:


"When someone has never met you before, they look for any signals that
will help them decide what they think about you," says (psychologist Ann) Demarais.
"The first words you say will be perceived as the ‘real you.’" When a
woman describes her body as fat, she immediately introduces a negative
vibe that other people pick up on. "Pointing out your perceived flaws
draws attention to something that may not be true," says Dr. Demarais.
"Without any facts to go on, people will form an opinion based on
whatever limited information you give them."

Similarly, calling yourself "sexy" sends a positive message to others
– and that translates into attractiveness. "A confident attitude puts
other people at ease. In turn, they’re more likely to see you in a
positive light," explains Dr. Demarais. "It’s what psychologists call
‘mood contagion.’ The attitude you project when you meet someone is the
emotion they begin to feel themselves, and they project that feeling
back onto you." The bottom line? "You have the power to control what
other people think of you."

Well, it’s an interesting experiment.  Kameron doesn’t make much comment, but she does title the  post in which she links to Marie Claire "Am I Fat or Sexy?  (Implying one can’t be both)."  That’s right on, Kameron.  (Kameron also has this powerful personal post about weight and eating).  It’s not as if the two self-assessment statements are mutually exclusive!  Fat and sexy are not opposites.  "Sexy" and "unsexy" are; so too are "fat" and "skinny."   I doubt it was the magazine’s intent to suggest that "sexy fat" is an oxymoron, but that’s certainly the impression with which one is left after reading the account of the experiment and reading folks’ reactions.

Marie Claire and I came to different conclusions.  The magazine article creates a bit of a straw man, namely the idea that it ought to be odd that folks agreed with both the "I think I’m fat" and the "I think I’m sexy" statements.  But what if a great many of those who responded to the billboards weren’t so much influenced by what Nicole said about herself as they were acknowledging what should be fairly bloody obvious:  that a woman can be overweight according to the  generally accepted standards of our culture, but still be sexually desirable?   Why couldn’t they reach that conclusion without being influenced by the model’s self-assessment?  Hell, it’s the conclusion I reached.  I look at Nicole’s picture and I see an attractive woman whom I happen to think is slightly over an ideal weight.   That’s hardly a contradictory response, is it?

I’ve taught entire courses on body image.  I integrate material on body image into my women’s studies class each semester.  Just last week, I posted about my own ongoing "body dysmorphia" and my summer campaign to drop more weight and get into better shape.  Obviously, I’ve given a lot of thought to the issue on both a personal and a professional level for years and years. 

I hate the word "fat."  It’s as damaging a word as I know.  Almost every year, I spend some time asking my girls (the ones in my high school youth group) which words hurt them the most. "Fat"  always wins by a country mile.  "Slut", "bitch", even "cunt" lack the power to wound that "fat" has been given in our culture.  To paraphrase what I’ve heard from many, "If someone calls me a slut, I can know they’re full of shit; if someone calls me fat, a part of me always, always believes them."  (For the boys, of course, the deadly word is "fag"; interesting that only one little letter seems to separate the two most painful terms we can hear in high school.)

But those of us who work with young people — and who care about the self-image of everyone, male and female, young and old, have to walk a difficult line.  When someone calls herself or himself "fat", my first response is automatic:  "Don’t say that.  You’re not fat."  The person could be 400 pounds, and that’s what I’d feel compelled to say.  But when we work with the young, we have to be concerned with two things simultaneously:  their self-esteem and their health.  If we concentrate only on the former, do we run the real risk of ignoring legitimate health concerns?  If all we seek to do is make every teen feel comfortable in his or her own skin, are we really doing our job?

I’ve worked with kids who were compulsive over-eaters; I’ve worked with anorexics.  Having struggled with bulimic behavior myself in my younger years, I’m fairly quick to pick up on it.  Spend enough time with kids at camp and on retreats, and you get good at seeing who uses eating as a drug, and who uses food-deprivation in almost exactly the same way.   God’s honest truth, I feel much more comfortable doing an intervention with an emaciated anorexic or an average-weight bulimic than I do with a heavy-set over-eater!   When a kid is underweight and not eating, I suppose I tend to see the problem as more serious than when a kid is medicating himself or herself with an entire large pizza.   I notice I’m not the only one; there is far more material out there for youth workers on how to address anorexia than there is over-eating!   Of course, I "get" the mindset of the anorexics and the bulimics a bit better, and when appropriate, can share some of my own experiences. 

(Parenthetically and autobiographically, I remember the "low-point" for me with my eating issues.  It was early 1993, and  I’d gotten down below 150 pounds.  I was single, studying for my written and oral Ph.D. qualifying exams at UCLA.  I lived alone in a tiny bachelor apartment in West L.A.   It was Valentine’s weekend, and I was lonely and depressed.  I walked up to a nearby Smart n’ Final store and bought my favorite binge food in the world: salted cashews.  I bought a huge, 5-pound tub.  I took it home with a 2-liter plastic bottle of diet Coke, and settled down to work. I ate two pounds, tried to throw up, failed.  I took the tub of cashews out to the dumpster behind the apartment building, and tossed it in.  I went for a run, came back, and tried to calm myself down.  But I couldn’t stop thinking about the cashews.  At 11:00 that night, I went outside in my bare feet, climbed into the massive dumpster, and poked through the garbage until I found my tub.  And right there, shivering in the cold and surrounded by disgusting food waste and empty cans — wearing only boxers — I ate half of what remained.  I finally dragged myself to bed, in tears.  It was, as they say, "hitting bottom".  And though I haven’t dumpster-dived in a dozen years, I’ll never forget what I felt that night.)

But though I was "soft" in high school and early college years, I was never truly heavy.  I come from a family with many heavy-set people, and that has no doubt contributed to my own body issues.  But my lack of personal experience with being overweight as an adult has made it more difficult for me to work with kids who are struggling with that particular issue.  After all, there’s such a damn thin (no pun intended) line there!  Not every kid who’s heavy, even very heavy, is heavy for the same reason.  Some may have eating disorders, but others may indeed be genetically pre-disposed to obesity.  (I don’t know enough about obesity, frankly, to know the difference.)   When I see an emaciated girl eating only salad for three straight days on a retreat, I have no trouble identifying a problem — and no trouble intervening in a professional and loving fashion.   When I see an overweight young boy going back for a third helping of ice cream on that same retreat, I don’t know what to do.  Sometimes all I do is roll my eyes at another youth leader, and that doesn’t leave me feeling good.

Sigh, I’ve really wandered here! 

As a pro-feminist man and the son of a feminist mother who has struggled with weight issues over much of her adult life, I’d like to think I’m very sensitive to the subject of women and weight.  I’m as angry as anyone else at the ridiculously narrow standard of beauty for women in our culture.  I see the damage it does to the self-esteem of so many girls and women, and I grieve that.   I want my mother, my sisters, my fiancee, my future daughters, my students and my youth group girls to love their bodies, confident in their own skin, at peace with their own flesh.   But when I think of my own future kids, I know I want them to grow up healthy and athletic and strong.  I know that "healthy, athletic, and strong" come in a variety of sizes, but not an infinite variety.  Some young people are simply too thin to be healthy; some are too heavy.  And those of us who love them have to be equally willing to intervene with both extremes.  And my fear of wounding a child’s self-image, combined with my own issues, means I’m still more willing to intervene with those at one end of that spectrum.

 

Thoughts on Jane Roberts and Feminists for Life — UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 21, 2005
in Feminism
. 43 Comments

Watching the video of John Roberts being introduced to the nation by President Bush on Tuesday, I was struck by how young his children were.  I did a little poking about on the Internet, and discovered that sure enough, five year-old Josie and four year-old Jack were both adopted by the Robertses after they discovered that they had married too late for Jane Sullivan Roberts to conceive naturally.

Why should that interest anyone?  Well, I’m struck that John and Jane (an alliterative family indeed) didn’t marry until they were both in their forties, and it’s the first marriage for both of them.  In some ultra-conservative Roman Catholic and evangelical circles these days, it’s popular to push for early marriage and large families.  (Think Rick Santorum, who’s still under fifty, and his six home-schooled children). That doesn’t mean that Catholics are required to marry young and produce many children; but Jane Sullivan’s life narrative seems more in tune with that of a progressive, professional woman than a traditional stay-at-home mom.  (And no, folks, I’m not attacking stay-at-home moms!)  Sullivan Roberts is a Georgetown graduate, a partner in a major Washington law firm, and a major contributor to and volunteer for an outfit I belonged to for several years, Feminists for Life.

While my pro-choice friends might be discomfited by Sullivan Roberts’ close ties to a pro-life advocacy group, I’m heartened by it.  It’s not just that I am (prayerfully and awkwardly) pro-life; it’s also that as a pro-feminist man, I know full well that Feminists for Life is a long way away from more traditional anti-abortion outfits like National Right to Life.  Though I’ve criticised FFL in the past for being insufficiently concerned with issues other than abortion, there’s no question that they’ve historically taken a more progressive stance than their conservative sisters on a variety of issues.  FFL has historically been strongly anti-death penalty, for example.   FFL is also listed as a member organization of the Consistent-Life Movement, which has as its mission statement:

We are committed to the protection of life, which is threatened in today’s world by war, the arms race, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment, and euthanasia.  We believe that these issues are linked under a consistent ethic of life.

If Jane Sullivan Roberts is a card-carrying member of FFL, that means there’s a better-than-sporting chance that she holds the Consistent Life Ethic position (an ethic rejected by most traditional conservatives, who don’t see poverty and the arms race and the death penalty as being nearly as egregious as abortion).  After all, if she didn’t hold the Consistent Life Ethic, there are plenty of more conservative pro-life outfits out there to which she could lend her time and name and money!  And if she held or still holds the Consistent Life Ethic position, is there not some hope that her husband shares her views?

A man who marries a brilliant woman who is his intellectual equal when both are in their forties, and happily adopts children with her, is no troglodyte.  And a man married to a woman who is a proud member of a group that has "Feminist" in its title may not be the disaster for women’s rights that some liberals are predicting, nor the champion for the right that some conservatives are hoping.

UPDATE:  In response to requests, here’s a link to my February 1 post on why I stopped giving to Feminists for Life.  And Nathan Newman has come to a similar conclusion to mine.

Thursday Short Poem: Merwin’s “Yesterday”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 21, 2005
in Poetry
. 6 Comments

I love W.S. Merwin; his Vixen was the first poem I put up when I began the Thursday Short Poem just over one full year ago.

This devastating poem makes me cry, and it makes me happy that I’ve been seeing a lot of my Dad this year, and I’ll be visiting with him again soon.

Yesterday

My friend says I was not a good son
you understand
I say yes I understand

he says I did not go
to see my parents very often you know
and I say yes I know

even when I was living in the same city he says
maybe I would go there once
a month or maybe even less
I say oh yes

he says the last time I went to see my father
I say the last time I saw my father

he says the last time I saw my father
he was asking me about my life
how I was making out and he
went into the next room
to get something to give me

oh I say
feeling again the cold
of my father’s hand the last time
he says and my father turned
in the doorway and saw me
look at my wristwatch and he
said you know I would like you to stay
and talk with me

oh yes I say

but if you are busy he said
I don’t want you to feel that you
have to
just because I’m here

I say nothing

he says my father
said maybe
you have important work you are doing
or maybe you should be seeing
somebody I don’t want to keep you

I look out the window
my friend is older than I am
he says and I told my father it was so
and I got up and left him then
you know

though there was nowhere I had to go
and nothing I had to do

“Incredibly Hot” — the Michael Gee case

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 20, 2005
in Sexuality and Teaching
. 18 Comments

A fourth post for the day! Can you tell it’s the lull before the storm of grading summer finals?

The discussion below this post has turned to a technical debate over whether women can climax from having their forearms stroked. Not what I anticipated when I made the original post, but there you go.

There’s a related discussion on feminism and male fantasies at Nonpartisan’s Our Word blog.  Nonpartisan is a man posting on a feminist forum, and he’s troubled by the violent content of many men’s sexual fantasies.  He invites discussion on whether these fantasies are rooted in biology or culture, and gets some thoughtful responses.  And someone posts this old Harry Chapin song with some very appropriate lyrics.

I’ve also followed with interest the case of Michael Gee, the non-tenured journalism professor fired from his teaching job at Boston University after posting on an internet blog site that one of his students was "incredibly hot."  A verbatim quote from Professor Gee on a public blog:

Of my six students, one (the smartest, wouldn’t you know it?) is incredibly hot. If you’ve ever been to Israel, she’s got the sloe eyes and bitchin’ bod of the true Sabra. It was all I could do to remember the other five students. I sense danger, Will Robinson.

I mean, there’s so much wrong there, where do we start?  And who still uses "bitchin’" anymore?  Didn’t that go out with the first Reagan Administration?  (I should probably just google it, but aren’t Sabras native-born Israelis, or am I confusing the term with something else?)

Gee was promptly fired (he had no tenure protection).   As one who normally defends even the most indefensible of academics (such as Jacques Pluss), I have no problem with Gee’s dismissal.  I can only imagine how the "bitchin’ bod Sabra" felt when she heard about it; the five other students whom Gee could barely remember can’t have been too happy about it either.

In the classroom, I am scrupulous about treating all of my students the same, regardless of gender or perceived attractiveness.  It’s much easier to do now than when I was first teaching, and frankly, it’s a lot easier to do now that I am fully and completely in love with one woman!   What makes Gee’s remarks indefensible is that he managed, in an instant, to make the classroom an unsafe place for every single student — both the woman whom he called "incredibly hot" and the other students whom he admitted to neglecting.  At least Jacques Pluss, the Nazi from Fairleigh Dickinson, kept his feelings about his actual students to himself!

Do I have favorites as a teacher?  I suppose from time to time, I do.  There’s always going to be a special student, male or female, young or old, who shows such enthusiasm and such promise that I can’t help but want to give him or her extra attention or encouragement.  These are the guys and gals who come to my office hours over and over again to argue, debate, and talk about life.  I mentor a few of them, I’m honored to say.  I suppose other students might notice that some of their classmates visit me more often than others, and as a result, may end up with more of my attention.  But these "favorites" are not selected because of their looks.  Indeed, one of my most important jobs is to make it clear to any student who comes to see me that my interest in him or her is purely professional. 

The lovely and the homely of both sexes have crosses to bear.  The former often fear that the attention they get is merely superficial; the latter fear being ignored altogether.   As teachers, our job is always, always, to look past the surface of our students.   Sexiness can be a distraction, but it’s completely unacceptable for those of us who teach to allow desirability to influence our attention, our grading, or our willingness to offer help to those who need it.

Several years ago, I had two students who were regular visitors to my office.  I’ll call them "Jack" and "Jill".  Jack was in my ancient history class.  He was an older fellow (mid-forties), usually unkempt.  He was a heavy smoker and infrequent bather.  When he came into my office to talk, he brought with him an odor of cigarettes and dirty clothes; sometimes, the awful stale stench of alcohol seemed to seep through his pores.  Jack was a bright man — very thoughtful (if argumentative). I liked him very much, but I confess that his odor was a distraction.  My office-mate at the time would leave whenever Jack came in, and finally asked me to meet with Jack outside, at the little coffee stand near our building.  Was it easy to work with Jack?  Not always.  His body odor was a test for me, but it was a test I overcame.  It wasn’t my place to comment on his grooming — it was my place to do what the rest of the world probably didn’t do, which was to pay close attention to him despite his truly unpleasant scent.  I’m happy to say he transferred to Cal State LA, and still keeps in touch.

Jill was the opposite, of course.  She was in my women’s history class.  She was young, quite attractive, and she tended to wear much more revealing clothes than her classmates.  She also came to my office regularly, as she was doing a scholar’s option research paper.   I don’t think she was flirtatious, but she was likely aware of the impact her body had on those around her.  Our conversations were always academic in nature, but at times, frankly, I found her a challenge in much the same way as Jack had been.   Both Jack and Jill had bodies that demanded attention!  With both Jack and Jill, my challenge was to be a thoughtful, attentive, loving mentor who saw them as human beings first and foremost. Jill’s exposed flesh and Jack’s stench both grabbed attention,and at times, in remarkably similar ways, I had to force myself to stay absolutely focused on what each was saying.   As with Jack, I had to give Jill what I imagine she didn’t often get from men: completely non-sexual attention.  I’m not in the business of telling young women how to dress, or telling older men to bathe.  Good teaching means dealing professionally and compassionately with the sexy and the malodorous alike! 

Michael Gee didn’t see his "Incredibly hot" student as a person.   He could not do what we who are privileged to work as teachers must do , which is teach without being distracted by either the beauty or repulsiveness of student bodies.   And even when we are challenged by the "Jacks" and "Jills" and "bitchin’ bod Sabras" of the world, for heaven’s sakes, we ought to keep it to ourselves!

Off for a run in the heat.  Let’s hope I don’t fall down again today!

Good news?

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 20, 2005
in People and Politics
. 11 Comments

Three posts in one morning…

Ann Coulter is very unhappy about John Roberts, and this cheers me up immensely.  Fred Barnes isn’t happy either.  This guy isn’t happy either.

It’s funny.  As a liberal, I comfort myself whenever right-wingers complain about something the president has done.   It’s the old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing; the more I read on the ‘net today, the more it looks like Roberts was not the favorite son (or daughter) of the hard right.  And that is, naturally, a source of (small) comfort.  Of course, I bet lots of conservatives are doing exactly what I’m doing — trolling around on the internet, reading of liberal outrage about Roberts, and reassuring themselves by saying "Well, if NARAL and Chuck Schumer don’t like him, he must be okay."

We are all very silly, aren’t we!

“Utterly indispensable”: reflections on men, women, military service

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 20, 2005
in Feminism, Pacifism and Politics
. 134 Comments

I’m interested in the discussion (a civil one, I am happy to say) below this post.  The subject of men, women, and the draft has come up.  The military draft is a troublesome issue for feminists and pro-feminists, as it brings a variety of important issues together:  equality for women, social justice, and the morality of war, just to name a few.  From the discussion, I can sketch together a few basic positions:

1.  Social Conservative/Traditionalist:  Women should not be drafted.  Women should not serve in combat positions even in a volunteer army, because their primary role ought to be as wives and mothers, not "cannon fodder."  The fact that women are already fighting and dying in Iraq is a disgrace.  Men, on the other hand, are natural protectors and fighters and ought to be required to serve.

2.  Men’s Rights Advocates: Women ought to be treated exactly as men are treated.  If and when a draft is reinstated, women ought to be drafted.  Women should be required to register with Selective Service, just as men do now.  Ala Warren Farrell, men bear an unequal burden; they could be conscripted and are forced to register for that conscription, while women will not bear that burden of being required to fight for their country.

3.  Feminists: Well, not surprisingly, there is no clear feminist unanimity on this issue.  Liberal feminists who favor full inclusion for women in all aspects of society tend to support Selective Service registration for women, as well as the opportunity for women to serve in combat.  More radical feminists tend to oppose registration and all forms of military service for both sexes.  But few serious feminists defend the current system; they either want more women in the military or they want a complete re-think of how our nation wages war.

Here’s where my pacifism actually leads me into agreement with some of the Men’s Rights Advocates.   (Shock of all shocks.)   Warren Farrell, a man I disagree with 85% of the time, is absolutely right when he calls Selective Service registration "the psychological preparation to be disposable."   Farrell is rightly upset that our national rhetoric around war sees men’s bodies as not worthy of protection:

We don’t call the one-million men who were killed or maimed in one battle in World War I (the Battle of the Somme) a holocaust, we call it "serving the country."

Indeed.  Pro-feminist men (of whom I count myself one) and MRAs share, I think, a real sense of outrage at cultural messages that glorify the deaths of young men in battle.   We share a mutual anger at those from all points of the political spectrum who argue that men have a natural inclination for violence that somehow makes their dying in battle justifiable. 

But few MRAs are actual pacifists.  I oppose the draft because I am fundamentally opposed to war on religious and ethical grounds; I don’t want either my sisters or my brothers fighting.  The thought of any of my loved ones being killed — or killing — fills me with equal horror.  And I get angry at right-wing rhetoric that cheapens men’s lives:

America owes much to its women service members.

But they shouldn’t be in combat. First, they are the bearers of life and the heart of family life, an utterly indispensable role. When America sends young women off to war, watching them kiss their toddlers goodbye, we are making a moral choice that children are just not important anymore. It is much more important to drive a military truck. This callousness is an outgrowth of the abortion culture in which human life itself is cheapened. Any job those women do could be done by a man, but nobody else can be a mother to her children. It is bad enough for children to lose their father, but it is utterly unnecessary for them to lose their mother...

If women are utterly indispensable, what are men?  Here, I think, pro-feminists, feminists, and MRAs can stand together.  While some would like to see women drafted alongside men, and others would like to see a world where war was renounced forever as a policy tool, we can all agree that a  worldview that sees men as fundamentally more dispensable than women is abhorrent.

I stand with my feminist allies who push men hard to change.  I’m a pro-feminist because I want to see the men in my life become better lovers, husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers.  I’m a pro-feminist because I refuse to believe that men are biologically oriented towards domination, violence, and poor parenting skills.  I’m a pro-feminist because I believe that both men and women benefit from a society where gender roles are less rigid and more fluid, and where both men and women have access both to political and economic power as well as the opportunity to nurture the vulnerable.  But I’m also a pro-feminist man because I love men.

My faith tells me that every life is equally precious, from the unborn in the womb, to the hungry child in a refugee camp in Darfur, to the murderer on death row in Texas, to a lance corporal in the Marine Corps.   My consistent-life ethic tells me that no living body is more or less valuable than any other, whether or not it is has a brain, whether or not it has committed a crime, whether or not it has a penis.

According to the God who loves us and made us, we are all, each and every one of us, "utterly indispensable."

Hugo fell down

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 20, 2005
in Athletics and Fitness and Men and Masculinity
. 13 Comments

I’m in the office this morning with badly skinned knees and various bruises on my lower half.

Yesterday afternoon, I took a bad fall while running on a trail near the South Pasadena Golf Course; I tripped over a rock and fell hard on my hands, knees, and side.  It’s been several years since I’ve had a bad fall, and this was far from my worst.  (My worst, in 2002, kept me from running for several weeks after I landed with my back on a rock while crossing a stream at full speed near Chantry Flats).   Those older and wiser than me have always told me that after I fall, I should stay on the ground for a moment; it’s vital not to move until one is certain that there are no potentially serious injuries.  But of course, I bounded up at once after hitting dirt yesterday, and staggered off.

A trio of young men, perhaps in their twenties or early thirties, were standing on a golf tee not more than forty yards from where I fell.  I was certain that they had seen me tumble, and my first thought after hitting the ground was not of pain or surprise but of embarrassment.  I felt  as if their presence compelled me to leap to my feet and trot off as if nothing had happened.  It was only after I had come to a shaded area, out of sight of the golfers, that I stopped again and assessed my injuries (which were bloody, painful, and thankfully minor).

On the remainder of the run, I thought long and hard about that impulse to jump back to my feet and pretend nothing had happened.  I was reminded, of course, of junior high school, which is where I first learned that suffering injury is not a disgrace, but showing pain is.  I learned this lesson from the older guys, who ridiculed even the slightest stumble.   Obviously, it was not okay to cry in school  — but it went beyond that.  It wasn’t okay to display any kind of clumsiness at all.  In the pecking order of my junior high school, those who moved their bodies with purpose and self-confidence were admired; those who were awkward were teased without mercy.  I learned early a vital lesson that both boys and girls learn, albeit in different ways: control of one’s body is the sine qua non of "coolness."

As I ran home yesterday afternoon, I thought also about the sex of those who had witnessed my fall.  Would I have been as embarrassed if it had been a trio of female golfers who had seen me go down?  Yes, but not in the same way.  My experiences in my very clumsy adolescence taught me that while "cool" boys were likely to ridicule me when I fell (or made a ridiculous error playing softball in P.E.), the girls were more likely to pity me.  While the guys might say "What a dweeb!"; the gals might say "Oh, poor guy."   I got both ridicule and pity in high school, as nonathletic boys will, and I never could decide which hurt more.  The cruel teasing stung, of course, but so did the pity.   While the girls’ sympathy lacked the hostility of what I experienced from the guys, it didn’t feel much better, largely because it left me feeling small, weak, and decidedly unmasculine.

Twenty years on from high school, I don’t worry much these days about being teased.  I am so much more confident in my own skin than I was all those years ago.  But when I take a spill, as I did yesterday, I get brief but intense flashbacks to a time when my lack of poise and physical self-control was regularly on display.  And as I pulled myself up out of the dirt, and galloped to the safety of a concealing grove of trees, I was momentarily again that youngster committed to not displaying pain or vulnerability.

Still got work to do, I suppose.