Archive for September, 2006

Sleeping together and sleeping together: a post about beds

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 20, 2006
in Feminism and Relationships
. 19 Comments

First off, do check out the new Carnival of the Feminists at Lingual Tremors.  Let me also recommend Jeff Pack’s fine summary of the Althouse-Valenti-Breasts-Bill blow-up about which I blogged on Monday. And Lauren has a superb post on feminism and attractiveness, well worth a read.

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times about sleeping in the same bed with another person.  The piece notes:

There are thousands of studies on sleep and even more on marriage and relationships, but only a handful on couples sleeping together.

The National Sleep Foundation, a nonprofit group in Washington that supports education and research on sleep and sleep disorders, estimates that 61 percent of Americans share their bed with a significant other. And while the very presence of another person in bed increases the chance of sleep disruption, 62 percent of those polled in the foundation’s annual sleep study said they preferred to bed down with their partner.

I remember as a child being very confused by the euphemism "sleeping together" to refer to sexual intercourse.   Though I had my own room as a kid, there had been a few rare occasions where my brother and I had had to share a bed on family trips.  The idea that sleeping in the same bed could lead to babies — a concept I grasped before I knew much else about human reproduction — was a bit unnerving!   Despite the confusion it generated in my childhood, when talking about two people having sex, I still tend to use the phrase "sleep together" quite often.

Like many of my peers, I became sexually active when I was in high school.  My girlfriend and I were able to find times to be sexual after school or while out on dates, but we both had strict curfews.  We were "sleeping together" in the euphemistic sense without ever having the chance to actually fall asleep side by side in the same bed.  I can remember how excited we both were when she was finally able to come to my family’s ranch in Northern California for a weekend.  Though according to family protocol, the "luggage stays in separate rooms", I was able to sneak into her room and we could fall asleep together.  We’d been a sexually active couple for months before we got to have that experience; frankly, we anticipated sleeping the whole night through in the same bed almost as much as we anticipated having sex!  I’ve heard this from other folks who were sexually active long before they were allowed to spend the night with a partner – the literal "sleeping together" becomes almost as big a deal as the figurative "sleeping together"!

In an odd way, reading this article this morning made me envious of some of my Christian conservative friends who lost their virginity on their wedding nights. After making love for the first time ("making love" is another questionable euphemism), they didn’t have to tear themselves apart and go home.  They "got to sleep with the person they first slept with", and given how rare that experience was in my social circle, it’s one perhaps to be envied!

Having been married four times and having lived with several other partners whom I didn’t marry, I certainly have my opinions on sleeping with someone else in the same bed.  In college, away from parents and their curfews, I spent a lot of time sleeping with others in tiny, narrow, twin beds.   I can remember waking up in someone else’s dorm room on many an occasion, cramped and uncomfortable, usually with one arm and one leg dangling over the side of my temporary partner’s little bed.  We called it the "one night stand dangle", and my friends of both sexes and I often swapped funny horror stories about the contorted positions we had had to get into in order to sleep the night through with another person in a bed designed for one.

In my first two marriages, I had a full-size bed, which seemed terribly luxurious after my spartan college experiences.  In my third marriage, I upgraded to a queen size. Sleeping with one’s lovers in progressively larger beds is part of the narrative of ageing, as far as I can tell!  Besides, at thirty-nine, I recover more slowly today from a "bed cramp" than I did when I was nineteen.

My wife and I today have a lovely big sleigh bed.  And I am very used to having her next to me.   When we spend a night apart, particularly when she is traveling and I am staying home, I miss her presence next to me.  Our bed is large enough so that we don’t have to lie draped around each other like drunken college frosh, but it’s not so big that we can’t instantly sense the other’s presence.  During the week, I tend to be "early to bed, early to rise", which doesn’t fit my wife’s schedule.  She often comes to bed a couple of hours after I’ve turned in.  I’ll admit that I sleep more soundly once she’s beside me.  Even though I can be out cold without her, it’s as if a small part of my unconscious mind is waiting for her; when she (finally!) comes in well after midnight, my body moves to a deeper state of relaxation.  All is right in the world.

My sweet father, who died not quite three months ago, died at home.  He was under hospice care the last few weeks of his life, but he was able to sleep in the same bed as my stepmother all the way to the end.  The last night of his life on earth, he was able to be in the same bed as the woman he loved most.  For his sake and hers, I am so damned grateful that they were able to share that together.  May it be so for all of us.

Place cards and dinner parties

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 19, 2006
in Class and Memories
. 79 Comments

On a completely different topic than what’s been up here lately: seating arrangements at dinner parties.

Growing up, my family regularly had large dinner parties, particularly around holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July.  From the time I was a small child, I can remember my mother, aunt, and grandmother carefully discussing who should sit next to whom.  At larger gatherings — which could involve up to 50 guests — charts were sketched on notepads.  It was not uncommon to have long discussions about the best way to arrange everyone, and the seating charts would often go through several drafts.

There were some basic ground rules, the most sacred of which was this: couples were never to be seated together.  Husbands and wives were usually put at separate tables, or at least at opposite ends of the same table.  This was also true for long-time boyfriends and girlfriends; the one exception to the rule was when a member of the family brought a new date to a big gathering.  So as not to overwhelm the newcomer, that person was allowed to sit next to his or her lover.

My mother and grandmother explained to me that one of the functions of dinner parties was to get to know people one didn’t always get a chance to chat with.  "It’s not about you being comfortable, dear", my grandmother said when I complained; "It’s about interacting with new people and making them feel comfortable."  Of course, as in every family, there were a few relatives who were considered especially taxing.  So one of us might volunteer to sit next to Cousin Albert and listen cheerfully to his boring stories and endure his halitosis without comment or complaint.  In return for this heroism, he or she who sat with the difficult one might be encouraged to relax while others handled the usually considerable cleaning-up.  The task of sitting next to the dull and the challenging was always rotated, mind you, and I got my share plenty of times.

This emphasis on "being social" was enormously important.  As a child, my grandmother told me something that left a profound impression on me.  She said that when two couples are riding in an automobile, one could always tell their social class by how they arranged themselves.  "Working class" people, I was told, have the men ride in front and the women in back.  "Middle class" people (the term was one of opprobrium) ride as couples, with husbands and wives sitting together.  The "right way" (the OKOP way) was to divide the couples.  I was told that the reason was to ensure that "people got a chance to know each other", and that it was "ever so much more fun" that way!

In college, I read an old sociology book — I think it might have been the (hilarious but discomfiting) Status Seekers — and was horrified to discover that my grandmother’s bit of motoring wisdom  had a slightly different interpretation.  The author of the text suggested that working class couples put men in front to emphasize male dominance, middle class couples sit with their spouses to emphasize the importance of bourgeois marriage, and the aspiring upper class divide up the spouses in order to emphasize illicit sexuality.  I was scandalized on behalf of my very proper grandmother!

So this past weekend, my wife and I arranged a party at a local restaurant to honor her best friend, who has just entered the fourth decade of life. We invited 28 people for a very nice Spanish tapas meal.  My wife, who shares my family conviction about dividing couples at parties, carefully made out the seating chart.  in the original draft, we weren’t sitting near each other.  Indeed, I was to be seated next to strangers, an opportunity I relished.  Meeting new people rather than conversing with familiar ones is one of the obligations of social gatherings, at least according to how I was raised.  But my wife and I made the mistake of leaking word of our seating arrangement, and we were soon besieged with calls and emails from people frantic not to be separated from their near and dear, if only for a couple of hours.  "I won’t come if I can’t sit with my boyfriend", one woman wailed; "Please don’t put me next to strangers", someone else begged.

In the end, we tried to accommodate an avalanche of requests.  But as often happens in these ill-mannered days, our guests arrived at the restaurant, took one look at my wife’s beautifully lettered place cards, and promptly rearranged them to suit themselves.  And of course, the entire dinner party dissolved into little cliques, as the guest of honor’s friends from work, from her school days, and her family members stayed among themselves without showing the slightest willingness to mingle and mix. Worst of all, most of the couples seemed positively joined at the hip, utterly unwilling to move away from the safety net represented by their husband, wife, or lover. 

It was a very NOKOP event.  The vegetarian paella, on the other hand, was really good.

Folks, what do you think?  Is compulsory separation of married couples at social events an antiquated relic of the WASPy upper-middle class? Or is it an important nicety that encourages people to step out of their "safety zones" and expand their horizons?

Jessica’s breasts and Bill Clinton: a lengthy reflection

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 18, 2006
in Feminism, Politics and Sexuality
. 32 Comments

Towards the end of last week, there was a considerable amount of discussion in the feminist blogosphere about Bill Clinton and breasts.  Specifically, the breasts of Jessica Valenti, executive editor of Feministing and one of the most highly regarded voices in the online feminist community.

For those who haven’t followed the kerfuffle, here’s what happened.  Ann Althouse,a  feminist law professor, wrote a scathing attack last Wednesday on the progressive bloggers who lunched with Bill Clinton last Tuesday.  Althouse focused in on a photo of the group with the former president, a picture in which Jessica of Feministing is standing right in front of the former president.Bloggers_with_bill

Click to enlarge.

Last Wednesday, Althouse implied that the arrangement of the bloggers with Clinton was not random, an unmistakable reference to Jessica’s appearance and posture.  When called on her crass sexism by Jessica herself, Althouse responded:

I’m not judging you by your looks. (Don’t flatter yourself.) I’m judging you by your apparent behavior. It’s not about the smiling, but the three-quarter pose and related posturing, the sort of thing people razz Katherine Harris about. I really don’t know why people who care about feminism don’t have any edge against Clinton for the harm he did to the cause of taking sexual harassment seriously, and posing in front of him like that irks me, as a feminist. So don’t assume you’re the one representing feminist values here.

(Three-quarter pose and "related posturing"?  Althouse is perhaps interested in auditioning to be a judge on America’s Next Top Model.)  In any event, it was a truly nasty thing to say.  As someone who has great admiration for Jessica Valenti (Feministing is perhaps the most essential read in the entire "femosphere"), I’m furious. And as someone whose poses are regularly misinterpreted (tell me, do I look like a "leering pedophile" in this picture, as an MRA suggested in a now-deleted comment?  Or how about this one?), I think it’s asinine to insinuate something fundamentally unprofessional about someone’s posture in an awkwardly posed candid photo.

Jessica has defended herself admirably, and more good commentary on the Althouse incident can be found at Feministe by Zuzu and Jill.  But I am not blogging today in defense of Jessica, though I stand (or do I pose provocatively?) in solidarity with her.  I’m interested in blogging about Althouse’s other comment:

I really don’t know why people who care about feminism don’t have any edge against Clinton for the harm he did to the cause of taking sexual harrassment seriously, and posing in front of him like that irks me, as a feminist.

What ought to be the feminist response to Bill Clinton?  It’s a good question, and one often asked by conservatives who sense (inaccurately, I think) a certain level of hypocrisy.  Why didn’t feminists as a group support impeachment?  Why don’t feminists shun Clinton as a pariah given his personal behavior? 

From the standpoint of this progressive feminist, Bill Clinton fascinates and exasperates me.  He has infuriated and disappointed me many times, and he’s also won my enduring admiration.  As has often been pointed out, Clinton was very "lucky in his enemies."  Like most liberals, I always figured that any man who could create apopletic rage in so many right-wingers must be a godsend to the left.  Of course, that was part of Clinton’s masterful skill — he could always point out to feminists and progressives that he was hated by the same right-wing that hated our causes.  We assumed that meant that he would support our agendas.  Most of the time, he didn’t –or at least, he offered only tepid support for real progressive justice.  But we always hoped that his enemies hated him so much because they saw something we couldn’t see, which we fantasized was his "inner lefty."

Bill Clinton’s presidency also comes sandwiched in between the two Bush presidencies.  Whatever his failures as a progressive, we on the left are still kind to Clinton because we compare him to the only other presidents we’ve ever known.  For most of us under 40, we’ve only really been politically aware for three or four presidents: Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, and for those of us over 30, Reagan.  Of that trio or that quartet, Clinton was by far the best on women’s issues in terms of his appointments and policies.  If we compare Clinton’s actual accomplishments to an authentic feminist agenda, he was a bit of a disappointment.  If we compare him to his predecessors and to his immediate successor, he’s the lion of Judah!

But what of Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and the other women whom Clinton (at best) treated shabbily?  Are feminists wrong not to hold a track record of sexual misbehavior against him?  I don’t want to rehash the events of the impeachment era, and what was and wasn’t said in 1998 and ‘99.  But I do want to make clear that most feminists I know were deeply appalled by Clinton’s misconduct.  His relationship with Lewinsky was profoundly unethical,and his treatment of his wife tremendously disappointing.  To put it in the terms I use often on this blog, in Bill Clinton’s case, there was a profound disconnect between his language and his life.

But we don’t judge our leaders merely on their private behavior!  There’s more to male feminism, too, than sexual fidelity and propriety.  Whatever his youthful indiscretions, no one suggests that George W. Bush has been unfaithful to Laura.  His professional relationships  with the likes of Karen Hughes and Condi Rice suggest that he is quite comfortable with women in positions of power.  But his overall track record on feminist issues has been fairly weak, particularly from the standpoint of the pro-choice/reproductive rights movement. In Bush’s case, his faithfulness to his wife doesn’t earn him "brownie points"; it doesn’t mitigate his woeful record on public issues that matter deeply to feminists.  By the same token, Clinton’s execrable behavior in private towards women is objectionable and offensive.  But his private sins don’t vitiate the public good he accomplished and is continuing to acoomplish.

It’s possible to condemn someone’s private behavior and laud someone’s public actions.  The reverse is equally true.  Though our goal ought always to be harmony between how we live in the limelight and how we live behind closed doors, all of us — including feminists — must be pragmatic.  In this case, pragmatism can mean rebuking Clinton’s bad private behavior while honoring his commitment to many of the causes and issues that are of value to us.  Human beings are complex, multi-faceted creatures; of few is this more true than of Bill Clinton.  Is he a man who has repeatedly abused his power in sexual relationships with subordinates?  Yes. Is this a man who has been an important ally on other issues? Yes.   He’s not either a good or a bad man –he’s manifestly both.  And we can honor the good in him and lament the bad at the same time without contradicting ourselves.  We can work with him when he’s right, and excoriate him when he’s wrong.  And we sure as hell can take a picture with him.

For the record, I will happily pose for a picture with anyone.  If the local leader of the Klan came by, I’d stand for a photo with my arm around him and grin for the camera, and then promptly give him a good earful.  If the camera only captures my smile, and not my rebuke, that’s not my responsibility.  Bill Clinton is not in the Klan. * Clinton’s private failings are better known than the failings of any other human being alive.  But compared to the other living men who have held the office of president, he  has clearly been the one most committed to the overall goals of the feminist agenda.  And for that, he deserves our — qualified — gratitude.

*Sometimes I post things I ought not to have.  Once they’ve been commented on, though, I don’t delete them — just strike them as evidence of my foolishness.

All Saints and the IRS: the battle escalates

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 18, 2006
in All Saints Pasadena
. 15 Comments

I’m in the adjunct faculty computer room on this Monday morning.  For the second time this year, some wretch has tried to pick the lock on my office door.  They have failed, but they have successfully jammed the lock.  Eloy, my office mate, and I now are waiting patiently for the one locksmith on the entire campus to arrive.

The big local news, of course, is that the IRS has elevated its campaign to revoke my church’s tax-exempt status. The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that All Saints Pasadena was hit with a summons late last week, demanding an extraordinary host of documents relating to one particular 2004 sermon preached by our rector emeritus, George Regas.  The Times reported:

(All Saints must surrender) all the documents and e-mails it produced during the 2004 election year with references to political candidates.

All Saints Episcopal Church and its rector, the Rev. Ed Bacon, have until Sept. 29 to present the sermons, newsletters and electronic communications.

Though I was not at church yesterday to hear our rector’s sermon on the subject, I’ve spoken to a few friends who were. The Times also had a reporter in the pews,(heck, several Times reporters are long-time parishioners), and a lengthy article about our collective response to the IRS appears in today’s paper.

George Regas, the former rector of All Saints (from 1967-1995) comes back to preach at the church a few times a year.  The sermon that launched the IRS investigation was one he preached on October 31, 2004 — two days before the election.  To my knowledge, I am the only blogger who blogged about the sermon at the time it was given, and probably one of the few regular bloggers in the ’sphere who actually was present that day.   Here’s my November 1, 2004 post: God, Voting, and Election Eve.

Rereading my post, I wince.  I don’t help the All Saints case much!  Though I voted for John Kerry in that election, I was upset with George Regas for taking what I thought was an exceptionally partisan tone.  His sermon, entitled "How Would Jesus Vote?", left little doubt that Jesus would not vote for the incumbent.  I wrote the day after:

Regas proceeded to tell the jammed sanctuary (high attendance at church yesterday) exactly how Jesus would feel about the Iraq war, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and abortion rights. Jesus, we learned, would consider this war an abomination, the failure to disarm the gravest of contemporary sins, the latest round of tax cuts as an assault on the poor, and the right to abortion necessary in order to save lives. Except for fleeting references to Micah 6:8 (we liberals do love that text), no Scripture was cited to support these positions, but that didn’t seem to matter. George Regas was certain of how Jesus would stand on all of these complex modern issues, and by the time he was done, there was little doubt how Regas thought Jesus wanted us to vote.

I didn’t put it in bold in the original post.  I am quite confident (or am I?) that no one from the IRS read this post; the LA Times ran an article on the Regas sermon, and that is surely the source of the inquiry.  I wrote at the time that since Regas didn’t explicitly endorse Kerry, I didn’t think he had violated federal regulatory guidelines.  But I am not a lawyer, and am unfamiliar with the subtleties of the tax code and what non-profits are permitted to say and do.

(For what it’s worth, I’m enough of an Anabaptist that before listening to a sermon on how Jesus would vote, I’d want to hear a sermon on whether or not he would participate in the electoral process at all!  It may not be a sin to vote, but it’s not a sin not to vote either — the Kingdom of the Lamb is not of this world, and the transforming of hearts and minds will happen through inner conversions, not elections.  I wrote as much after listening to the Regas sermon. From my November 1, 2004 post:

Ultimately, Bush and Kerry are competing to be the most powerful prince in the contemporary world’s greatest principality. And while Christians can and should take an active interest in the affairs of this world, there is no question that real justice, real transformation, and real hope cannot come from the princes of this world.)

All Saints is now trying to decide whether or not to comply with the IRS summons.  The general sense at this early point in the process is that most folks associated with the church do not want to comply.  I was on the Vestry, the governing body of the church, from 2002-2003 (I resigned for many, many reasons not worth going into here).  I know most of the folks on the Vestry now, and I know Ed Bacon, our rector, quite well.  I can’t predict the future, but I will be very surprised if our church doesn’t end up fighting the IRS in court over this summons.  If I were on the Vestry still, I would certainly be among those who would vote to take on the government.

Again, I am not a lawyer.  Again, I disagreed with most of George Regas’ original sermon.  But there’s an enormous difference between an explicit endorsement of a candidate ("Vote for Kerry!") and an implicit endorsement of a candidate ("Jesus wouldn’t have supported the invasion of Iraq").  The IRS code does not demand quietism and passivity from churches.  Our friends on the religious right regularly fulminate about "anti-family" politicians from the pulpit; they usually stop just short of telling their congregants how to vote.  They don’t get investigated.  But if this IRS investigation proceeds, and a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008 — it may not be long before a flurry of summonses are falling into the laps of conservative preachers who are deemed to have "crossed the line."

I predict that despite a deep animus towards the theological and political orientation of the All Saints community, we are about to see a major outpouring of support from evangelicals and religious conservatives well to our right.   If the IRS can go after All Saints Pasadena during a Republican Administration, they can easily go after Jerry Falwell’s megachurch when the political tides turn again, as they inevitably will sooner or later.  And though I was annoyed with Regas’ sermon, I think it’s absolutely vital that churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious and spiritual institutions feel free to preach on the relationship of faith and politics.  It’s one thing to say you can’t endorse a specific candidate.  But it’s another to say you can no longer proclaim "Jesus is against war."  (Or, for my right-wing friends, "Jesus is against homosexuality.")  If these statements are construed by the IRS as political speech that can cost a church its tax-exempt status, then all people of faith, regardless of where they fall on the conservative-liberal spectrum, are under attack.

I may no longer be on the All Saints Vestry.  But I am very active with the youth group.  I am sure we’ll be talking with our teenagers about this, and asking them to consider the cost of defying the government.  Believe it or not, even in this liberal bastion we do regularly talk with our kids about the cost of discipleship.  I suspect that all of us in the All Saints Pasadena family are about to learn a tough lesson about that cost.  I am hopeful that we will prevail in the courts should this case progress.  But I am absolutely confident that whatever the outcome of this investigation, All Saints will continue to be a powerful, prophetic community.  Though I am often at odds with those who lead my church, I stand with them today, and ask those who belong to other faith communities to offer support to us.

Another note on trust, parents, blogging, and youth ministry: a response to Rob

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 15, 2006
in Blogging, Family, Porn and Youth ministry
. 8 Comments

In a comment below yesterday’s post on sex in marriage, Rob at Unspace provides a link to a post of his: Sex, Christians, Blogs, and Youth Group.

Like me, Rob works with a high school youth group in his church.   In both his church and mine, the youth programs got underway this week, replete with introductions.  Rob wrote:

Last night, we handed out contact information to the kids in our chatroom. Mine used my gmail address, which is a mess and happens to include my paramedic con-ed number. Like I said, a mess. Not something easy to remember. I realized I dare not mention my blog to my 7th and 8th graders.

I’m not hiding it because of the copious amounts of profanity on this blog, or all the photos of sexual organs (some of those insect shots had to include sexual organs). For crying out loud, kids in this age group have seen harder pornography than I have. Given that I regularly do medical searches, that frightens me. But that’s not why I dare not mention this blog.

I am afraid a parent or someone at the church will find this blog. See, I say what I believe. Ok, so maybe I’ll soften it a bit and put some spin on it or explain it in subtle ways to get past watchful dragons. But I say things that are the truth, even if they will get me in trouble. 3

The church I go to is mostly conservative. In the 2004 election, the whole "Christians vote for Bush, because we’re selling our soul to the Republican Party" schtick got on my nerves. I’m actually not the most liberal person in the church. But can you imagine what happens to the head of the youth group if someone goes screaming to the head minister with the URL for this blog?

In his comment below my post yesterday, Rob asks if I ever get grief from parents because of my blog.

Most of "my kids" know about my blog.  Some have found it on their own, or been told about it.  Some came only for pictures of my chinchilla, others to read more about their youth leader.  Most don’t read regularly.  "Your blog is boring", I’ve been told by more than one of the kids in my youth group.  They tell me this apologetically, and usually urge me to go back on Myspace.  (A topic I dealt with here.)

A number of parents do read my blog.  One of our pastors at All Saints, Susan Russell, blogs; she’s linked here for quite some time.  I only occasionally blog about issues in the Anglican Communion, but I blog regularly about sexuality, adolescents, and my experiences as a professor and veteran youth group leader.  I’m fortunate that no parents have, to my knowledge, complained to church authorities about the sexual content of this blog.   They have, however, complained about some of my views; when I wrote words of praise about conservative Anglican Kendall Harmon, I apparently ticked off some liberal parent.  It says something about All Saints Pasadena that my cordial relationship with Christian traditionalists is more worrisome to some parents than my frank blogging about human sexuality!

I walk a fine line at church.  On the one hand, as a youth leader, I feel a tremendous responsibility to be a good shepherd to "my kids", knowing that they belong to their parents and to our God more than to me.  I am humbled by this opportunity to work so closely with these teens, to share with them so much of their lives.   With many, I see them every week of their high school years (save for vacation times); I watch them grow and change.  I’ve been with them through a lot: coming to terms with their own homosexuality; going through their parents’ divorce;  losing their virginity; unwanted pregnancies; the suicide of close friends; heartbreak; bad prom dates; abortions; drug addiction; legal troubles; anorexia; the anxiety of college applications.    And I’ve been with them through a lot of joy as well — I’ve gone to concerts and plays and basketball games and graduations. 

I always try to get to know the parents of my teens.  They need to see me, have a relationship with me, and they need to know they can approach me with their concerns.  They need to trust me, because, like any youth leader, I’m going to hear things from my kids that I can’t repeat to their parents.   My teens share a lot with me.  I meet with them in groups, but also one-on-one.  (Always on church grounds in a place where we can be seen but not heard.)  Frequently, kids tell me things that they don’t want their parents to know.  Sometimes, I encourage them to bring the issues they are struggling with to their mother or father. Other times, I acknowledge that that kind of disclosure is not for the best.  I keep confidences well, knowing that only in a few very specific instances (like an admission of suicidal thoughts) am I obligated to disclose what I have been told. 

Obviously, parents need to trust that I have their kids’ best interests at heart.  If they discover this blog, I would hope that they would gather that I am, at my core, fundamentally safe.  Yes, I’ve had a colorful background with a lot of pre-conversion chaos.  But my transformation is real, and enough years have passed that there need be no fear of Hugo relapsing into old, irresponsible behavior.  My past is now a resource for me to tap into to use with troubled teens.  I know what it’s like to get someone pregnant in high school.  I can roll up my sleeves and show the scars from years of serious self-mutilation.  Those are tools for me to use to connect with frightened, overwhelmed, and alienated teenagers. 

I could probably be a youth minister at very few places besides All Saints Church Pasadena.   At many places, my past and my persona would be obstacles to putting me in a position of trust with so many teenagers.  But at All Saints, I have earned that trust with seven years of transparency, seven years of accountability, seven years of retreats, lock-ins, dances and intimate discussions.  I’ve earned it by hearing, hugging, and holding hundreds and hundreds of kids in a way that is both respectful and exuberant.    My boundaries are excellent, but I won’t let fear hold me back from loving the kids the way Christ calls me to love them.  And I won’t let worry about what parents might think hold me back from blogging about my past, my present, and my myriad, contradictory views about the world.  Because though I change my politics like I change my socks, my commitment to feeding His lambs is unrelenting.  And if you’ve spent time with me, you know that.

I hope that all youth ministers can be as fortunate as I have been and continue to be.

Friday Random Ten: No randomer than the average bear

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 15, 2006
in Friday Random Ten
. 2 Comments

Do I have a song I love more than the first on this list?  I can’t think of one.  I’ve heard Emmylou do it live twice, and cried both times.  #3 is one of my favorite "running songs."  I don’t run with music, but I "play songs in my head", and that U2 track is an apt one when by myself in the mountains.  #4 I love even though I shouldn’t; #9 is an anthem from my undergrad days, and #7 has to be one of the most covered vallenato songs of the past decade.

1.  "Boulder to Birmingham", Emmylou Harris
2. "Romeo", Donna Summer
3.  "In God’s Country", U2
4.  "One in a Million", Guns n’ Roses
5.  "Holy Diver", Dio
6.  "Heart of Stone", Erasure
7.  "Los Caminos de la Vida", Sabor Vallenata
8.  "Rosewood Casket", Trio (Dolly Parton, Emmylou, Linda Ronstadt)
9.  "A Question of Lust", Depeche Mode
10.  "Alleluia", Dar Williams

Bonus Track: "Hot Child in the City", Nick Gilder and Time Machine  (Believe it or not, this was the late Matilde the chinchilla’s theme song.)

A note about unwanted flattery and flirtation: UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 14, 2006
in Ratemyprofessors and Sexuality
. 11 Comments

A rare fourth post of the day, simply to make a new policy.

I’ve been getting quite a few comments lately that are flirtatious, complimentary, and vaguely sexual in nature. (Here, here, here, here.)

At first they were mildly flattering, now they’re getting annoying, and I have heard they annoy some of my readers too (thanks, folks, for writing in).  Future such comments will all get deleted and the posters will be banned.  I’m putting the annoyingly flirtatious in the same category as pesky MRAs.

UPDATE:  In thinking more about this, I realize that I have been very ambivalent about the whole "hot professor" thing that’s come down since the advent of Rate my Professors.   If I ignore it, others bring it up.  If I bring it up — for example, in discussing how perceived hotness and student crushes work together, I’m accused of preening conceit.  Or someone writes in to say "you’re not that hot at all, get over yourself."  It’s exhausting.

Like most human beings, I like compliments, but tire quickly of what seems insincere or vulgar.  And I’ve been very candid on this blog about many things.  But for now, I’m declaring a moratorium  — in my posts and in the comments section — about my real or imagined attractiveness.  Comments and/or insults about my appearance can be directed to various rating sites or to the heavens above, but they don’t belong here.

Note: I will continue to discuss shoe purchases.  That element of vanity is not being purged from the blog!

“The Perfect Recipe for an Eye Candy”: the student newspaper hits a depressing new low

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 14, 2006
in Feminism, Pasadena City College and Sexuality
. 17 Comments

Our school newspaper, the Pasadena City College Courier, has a new feature: "Eye Candy", featuring an interview with young, attractive, female students wearing relatively revealing clothing.  Perhaps wisely, the Courier doesn’t provide a link online.  But the feature has attracted considerable criticism, and justifiably so.  This is the commentary on this week’s model, Fabiola:

"She doesn’t have a major, but that doesn’t mean she lacks ambition.  Having a wide range of recipes from entrees to pastries, this girl knows how to cook — she is sizzlin’ 

She’s been pulled over twice by the cops.  Once for speeding and the other for her killer looks…. she’s not in a rush to get married, but she considers herself mature enough to know what she wants.  Whatever she wants, she looks like the perfect recipe for an (sic) eye candy."

This is accompanied by the following request:

We’re looking for our next eye candy fix. Are you a PCC student, who is willing to strike a pose and tend not to shy away from the camera?  Do you shine in the limelight and make an impression on a crowd?  We Want You!  No model experience necessary.  Must be 18 years or older.  You know how you should look.  Contact us eyecandy_courier@yahoo.com

Our student-run, student-supported newspaper at work.  It’s vulgar, demeaning, extraordinarily sexist, and perhaps only possible at a community college such as this one.  (I doubt the Harvard Crimson or the Daily Cal would ever even dream of this).  Please, folks, take advantage of the email above to share a piece of your mind with the kids at the Courier.

Kindness is not enough: marriage, sex, and the importance of mutual desire

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 14, 2006
in Marriage, Relationships and Sexuality
. 11 Comments

On Tuesday, I posted a reflection on 9/11 and the small role the events of that day may have played in the end of a marriage.  As sometimes happens, I ended up getting more emails about the post than comments.  One of those emails, from a woman I will identify as "Cyndy", asks a series of questions to which I’d like to respond.

In regards to my most recent ex-wife, I wrote:

It was a kind marriage, characterized by civility and thoughtfulness on my part and on hers. It was also a marriage nearly devoid of excitement, passion, and chemistry. While chemistry fluctuates, it’s not as if my third wife and I ever lost it — we’d never had it to begin with.

Cyndy wrote a long response, most of which I’m printing here:

What, in your opinion, is the excitement, passion, and
chemistry you describe? (I am hoping you will not
respond with the usual, "If you have to ask, then it
isn’t it.") Is it the physiological response to which
you are referring? A spiritual response? Is it the
"intense sexual desire"? Something else?

Also, do you truly think excitement, passion, and
chemistry are absolutely critical to a marriage?

I can think of older couples (our parents’ generation
and our generation) who, as far as I can tell from
what at least the women have told me, that there was
never the intense sexual desire you mentioned. These
older women (some are Christian, some are not, and
they are not necessarily sexually repressed) tell me
chemistry is deceiving and a poor indicator of the
potential success of a relationship. Most often, these
older women tell me a good man is a man who respects
you, isn’t overbearing/controlling, works hard to
provide for his family, will be a good role model and
father to his children, and ideally, comes from a
"good" family (meaning they won’t mistreat you, him,
and your children, and there are few/no criminal/shady
elements/influences). (FYI, most of these women work,
too, so they’re not saying the man should be the sole
provider or anything.) In fact, these women discourage
younger women like myself from including chemistry,
passion, and excitement as a criteria by which to
judge potential mates.

As far as I can tell, these women and their husbands
continue to live a content life together as a couple
and family. OK, I can’t say for sure if they’ve ever
had a clothes-ripping romp in the bed or not, but day
to day, they seem happy. They laugh together. They cry
together. They take joy in each other, their family.
Sometimes they bicker. They usually make up. They have
the usual ups and downs, like everyone else.

What you are saying would seem to invalidate their
experience. Are you suggesting that they can’t
possibly be happy because these women lack that
chemistry, passion, and excitement?

Or possibly, is it something that the man must have,
but is optional for the woman? (I am a woman.)

There’s a lot there to unpack, and I want to do my best to answer at least part of what Cyndy is asking.

Cyndy wants to know what I mean by "excitement, passion, chemistry".  It’s notoriously difficult to articulate, but I mean a combination of intense and persistent physical attraction with a sense that one’s partner arouses both sexual and romantic feelings.  It is physical, it is sexual, it is spiritual, and it is emotional.  Now, I am as aware as any (and probably, based on experience, more aware than most) of how temporary and transitory that initial chemical "rush" of a new relationship can be.  Within a matter of weeks or months, what once was incredibly new and exciting often loses some of its "freshness".

But I want to distinguish between placing a high value on passion and the "pursuit of everlasting novelty" which I have criticized here in the past.  On the one hand, we make a serious mistake if we turn into compulsive, serial monogamists, always looking for the next person to bring us a rush of excitement.  On the other hand, we make an equally serious mistake, in my opinion, when we claim that mutual sexual attraction and fulfillment aren’t immensely important components of a successful marriage.  While chemistry may wane and lust may fluctuate, I do believe that in order for a relationship to be successful, there must at the least be an initial period of extraordinary desire.   In times of low desire and little sexual activity, memories of "how it used to be" can serve as a reminder that the two people in a given relationship really did once passionately long for each other.  What one once had and then lost can be found again.  What one never had in the first place is a lot harder to create from scratch.  That’s the lesson I got from my last marriage.

(Before you write in with stories of arranged marriages where a couple learns to kindle desire over time, let me say I’m dealing with the realities of marriage in our culture, in our time.  There is very little that is cross-culturally timeless and enduring about marriage, historians always point out.  And comparing marriages of choice and desire to those which are arranged is the ultimate example of weighing the apples against the oranges.)

Cyndy asks if I think if this passion and excitement are critical to a marriage.  Obviously, I’m the last person in the world to be giving advice on what makes a lasting marriage.  Give me a few years with my wife, and I’ll have more to say. I do know that for me, passion is non-negotiable.  That doesn’t mean I demand sex all the time (thanks for asking), but it does mean that I would never enter into a long-term relationship with someone for whom sexual fulfillment — within a monogamous context — was not also a high priority.  Sex is not just about orgasm or reproduction — it is a uniquely intense expression of intimacy, a joining of bodies in a profoundly intimate way.

I’m a hugger.  I’m a kisser of foreheads and cheeks.  Last night at All Saints, I hugged and kissed three dozen kids and a dozen adults.  I walked up to old friends, put my arms around them, and made my affection for them tangible.  (Mind you, I know who I’m doing this with — I don’t foist my embraces on the unwilling.)  In any event, I’m a physically expressive human being.  But while my hugs and kisses are shared with a very large number of people, sexual intimacy is saved only for my wife.   Sex is more than just boisterous affection or mutual "getting off"; sex in a long-term, monogamous pairing becomes the "you and me" thing that is unique to the two people in that relationship. My wife and I love many people in our lives.  We tell them we love them.  We hug them, kiss them, cry with them, worry about them, think about them.  Of course, we also love, kiss, cry with and think about each other.  But while our hugs and kisses and tears are shared with many, our sexual intimacy is not.  Sex is the "private language" of the relationship, and all the more sacred because it is reserved for just one other person at a time.  If sex isn’t present in the marriage, then where is the physical expression of love that is truly unique?

What of those couples of whom Cyndy writes, for whom sexual desire is not a major component at all?  Am I invalidating the worth and goodness of their marriages?  Of course not.  As we say a lot in the blogosphere, YMMV = your mileage may vary.  I’ve seen "sure things" fail many times, and I’ve seen what looked doomed survive for years.  I’ve got no right to judge what it is that others consider vitally important to sustain their love and their mutual commitment.  At the same time, I’ve learned not to let "the good be the enemy of the best."  That means many things, but in this case I’m arguing that just because two people laugh and cry well together and enjoy each other’s company doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be even happier and more fulfilled if they also had an exciting sexual relationship!   Joy is not a zero-sum game, and emotional fulfillment and sexual excitement aren’t mutually exclusive.

As for how this impacts men and women, I don’t think a sweeping generalization will work.  Some humans have stronger sex drives than others, and it would be woefully inaccurate to say that men always are hornier than women.  Particularly over time, the evidence suggests that that is not the case.   (And though the stereotype is that among the young, boys have higher libidos, I can think of several young people of both sexes who prove exceptions to that rule.)  Our desire for sex is affected by so many factors: physiology and psychology work together in a strange dance that often leaves us bewildered.  Ask most folks about desire, and they will tell you it sometimes is there when you don’t want it — and won’t show up at all when you really wish it would.   For most of us of either sex, our desire is not a light switch to be turned on or off whenever we please.

So in the end, I’m saying that I think several things are essential for a happy marriage.  Trust, shared values, a mutual willingness to grow, compatible if not identical long-term priorities.  But those are also the values of many a long-term platonic friendship!  On top of these other essentials, I’d add physical desire and at least an initial experience of intense romantic devotion.  To me, those are among the sine qua nons of a successful and enduring marriage.

Thursday Short Poem: Glaser’s “A Poem Ending…”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 14, 2006
in Poetry
. 0 Comments

Unmerited grace and unconditional love are difficult to imagine, difficult to describe, difficult to believe in.  And yet, for those of us who call ourselves Christians, they are the greatest of realities.  This Michael S. Glaser poem, from a back issue of First Things, captures this mystery nicely.

A Poem Ending in the Preposition "with"

"You can fail love, but love will never fail you."

. . . an idea so luminous,
so . . . so . . . amazing

that most of us
have to make up conditions:

Thus, love comes free,
but not for you or me.

we have to deserve it,
we have to be worthy of it

and thus we live for the if of ever
wondering always whether

we have failed again
or have somehow earned

what was always there to begin
with.

Young women, sensitivity, sociopaths, and remote controls: a pop psychology reflection

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 13, 2006
in Sociopaths and Teaching
. 18 Comments

Yesterday’s post about 9/11, lukewarm marriages, and divorce has spawned a few interesting emails.  I hope to have another post up within the week on the topic.

I want to blog this morning, however, about a very different topic: the remarkable fascination so many bright, acutely sensitive young women  have with serial killers and sociopaths.  I’m not talking about the women who actually pursue and fall in love with (and even marry) actual incarcerated murderers.  I’m talking about something much more subtle, and, in my experience as a teacher and youth worker, surprisingly common.

Just this past week I was having a chat in my office with a very bright, perceptive, student of mine; I’ll call her "Michelle."     She had taken my women’s history class last fall, and her journals were vivid, imaginative, and indicative of an exceptionally empathy towards others.   Michelle is trying to decide on a major, and she’s choosing between psychology and women’s studies.  As we were exploring her reasons for picking one or the other, I asked which field of psych appealed most to her.  I must confess that based on experience, I knew what Michelle was going to say before she said it.   I was right; she answered "abnormal and forensic psychology."  She explained she’s always been fascinated with "serial killers and sociopaths."  "I want to know what makes them tick", she explained, "they are endlessly interesting to me."

Without the slightest exaggeration, I can think of two dozen other young women I’ve worked with in the past decade who share Michelle’s intense interest in sociopathic killers.  Invariably, these young women are unusually bright, unusually sensitive, and almost always either the first-born or the only daughter in the family.  I’ve only known of one who actually pursued forensic psychology as a career (I think she ended up at the John Jay school of Criminal Justice); the others just loyally consumed television programs, books, and movies on the subject of serial murderers.

My theory may not be original, but since I haven’t seen it in print anywhere else, I’m going to put it out there.  I’m convinced that young women like Michelle become fascinated with sociopaths for the simple reason that these men represent the opposite end of the emotional spectrum from where these women find themselves.  Sociopaths, by definition, lack compassion and remorse.  The young women who become intensely intrigued by them are often overwhelmed by chronic feelings of guilt and a painfully acute sensitivity to other’s perceptions.  They are often emotionally drained and exhausted, because within their families they’ve frequently been the ones to shoulder all of the responsibility and do all of the "feeling work" for everyone else.

I often think of emotional sensitivity as a spectrum from 0-10, similar to the volume controls for a radio.  Most "normal" folks are tuned into the needs of others at about 4 or 5 on the spectrum.  They are aware of the needs of those around them, but aren’t overwhelmed by them.  The Michelles of the world hear the world’s emotional noise at an 8 or 9 on the spectrum.  The needs and demands of others are so clear and loud that these young women often can’t hear themselves think.  They are actually incapacitated from the effort of absorbing so much emotion, and frequently they feel immensely guilty for not meeting the insatiable demands of those around them.  Is it any wonder that they become fascinated with — and even, in some sense, envious of — sociopaths?  What else is a sociopath than someone whose "volume control" for the needs of others has been set to mute?  How many bright, talented, acutely sensitive young women have fantasized about having an internal "mute button" that could silence the judging, nagging, needy voices of all of those around them?

Look, I know I’m playing pop psychologist here.  I’m stepping well outside my field of professional expertise.  I’m blogging my observations as a friend and a mentor, not as a professional therapist.  But as a pro-feminist who teaches women’s studies, the emotional resiliency of my female students is of significant concern to me.  And I’m convinced that one of the key tasks for those of us who do teach in this field is to help young women "find the remote control" that can help them "turn down the volume" in their lives.  Do I want to turn out young women who are amoral sociopaths, cheerfully wreaking havoc on the world?  Of course not.  But if the needs and wants and expectations of others are coming in at the  #9 setting, we who do this work need to help young women learn to turn down the volume to a balanced 4 or 5.  For some women, learning to turn down the volume comes with age and experience.  But we could spare a lot of heartache — and perhaps reduce the demand for endless TV programs about sociopaths — if we who teach and mentor actively encouraged young women to find their inner emotional remote and use it.

9/11, marriage, and divorce

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 12, 2006
in Marriage and Relationships
. 13 Comments

In yesterday’s New York Post (a paper I’ve never actually held in my hands, despite many visits to Manhattan), conservative commentator John Podhoretz wrote a personal commentary on 9/11: The antidote to horror is love.

Podhoretz tells the story of his rapid engagement to his wife, Ayala, in the aftermath of 9/11:

Within two months of 9/11 I was engaged to be married, within 13 months I was married, had a baby 19 months after that and another one due to be born in a months’ time.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be for me. I had only met Ayala in June, and I was determined not to think about marriage for at least a year in any relationship. I had nearly ruined my life getting married precipitously after a 10-day romance in 1997, and I simply could not trust myself.

But I couldn’t be bothered with learning to trust myself. Getting married was an urgent, all-consuming need.

I took Ayala aback with the ferocity of my determination. At every turn I brought up what it would mean to be married. I was so determined that I proposed to her at 9 in the morning sitting in the living room of my Brooklyn Heights apartment, through whose window we had seen the black gash of the sky above Ground Zero every night since 9/11. She accepted - and then informed me we had to come up with a more romantic engagement story to tell her family and friends.

I’m telling the story now for the first time because I think it is romantic. I fell in love more deeply with Ayala and had to marry her because I had witnessed the worst and needed the best. Something deep and elemental within me needed to supersede the evil of 9/11 with the purest affirmation of existence - unconditional hope for the future and new life in the form of children whose presence on this earth would be the most crushing blow a middle-aged man like me could deliver to the cult of death that sought to tear out America’s heart.

I’m inclined to be charitable towards Podhoretz, even if his final sentence seems a bit over-wrought and self-congratulatory.  Too often, the "traditional family" crowd, in their desperation to affirm what they see as an institution under attack, paint the exceedingly common acts of marrying and reproducing as heroically counter-cultural deeds.  It certainly flatters the sensibilities of those who do choose to marry, stay married, and make wee ones.  But it reminds me of those who suggested, five years ago, that the best response to 9/11 was to go shopping.  I mean, I get the principle of the heroism of everyday life, but it still makes me wince to read about how a middle-aged man’s decision to reproduce was a "crushing blow" to Al Qaeda.  ("Honey, let’s make a baby!  That’ll show Osama!")

Anyhow, Podhoretz’s post resonated with me for another, more painful reason.  In September 2001, I was newly married to the woman who would become my third ex-wife.   This was my first "post-conversion, post-recovery" marriage.   She and I had met on the Internet (Matchmaker.com), each of us browsing for available Christian singles.  She was nearing thirty, an evangelical from an Asssemblies of God background, and a graduate student eager to get married.  (Ask any single woman in conservative Christian culture about the pressure to wed.)  I was a new convert, equally eager for marriage, kids, and domestic tranquility after my years of instability and chaos.

We decided to marry about three weeks after we first met.  Though there were some significant red flags, our mutual excitement about "getting it all over with" trumped our reservations.  We were married in May 2001, less then four months before 9/11.

There’s no question that 9/11 impacted folks in some obvious and not-so-obvious ways.  And it’s only now, in hindsight, that I realize that 9/11 played a vital role in bringing this brief and poorly planned union to an end.  Podhoretz is right: the events of that day five years ago made many of us think about our lives in new ways. It brought a sense of immediacy and fragility to countless Americans.   And it sent what ended up becoming a clear signal to she who was my third wife.  Thinking about her own life, my ex began to come to one, unmistakable conclusion: Hugo Schwyzer was not the man she wanted to spend the rest of her days being married to.

I won’t blog the details of that third marriage.  It was a kind marriage, characterized by civility and thoughtfulness on my part and on hers.  It was also a marriage nearly devoid of excitement, passion, and chemistry.  While chemistry fluctuates, it’s not as if my third wife and I ever lost it — we’d never had it to begin with.  In my post-conversion state, I was still relatively suspicious of intense sexual desire (having been misled by it so often in my younger days).  Thus it seemed to make sense to marry a woman who seemed attractive, but with whom I experienced no "heat."  At least initially, she felt the same way.

I know quite a few couples who had a lot of especially passionate lovemaking in the aftermath of 9/11.  I know many, who like John and Ayala Podhoretz, decided to get married and have kids soon after the terrorist attacks.  Podhoretz is right, I think, that on an instinctive level, one response to overwhelming images of death is the desire to commit, to marry, to reproduce, to make new life.  (That’s one explanation for the post-war baby boom.)  But another result of 9/11 was that it made some folks think long and hard about the marriages they were already in — and in our case, it made my ex-wife think long and hard about whether or not she wanted to spend the rest of her life married to man whom she "liked a lot", with whom things were "comfortable", but for whom she felt none of the intensity she realized she wanted and deserved.

It’ s only recently that I’ve begun to come to the conclusion that 9/11 may have hastened the end of my very brief third marriage.  My ex never explicitly connected the two, but in hindsight it seems clearer and clearer that the shattering events of that unforgettable day marked a beginning of the end for both of us. If life is short, and can be taken from us at any moment, then we have no business marking time in a kind, friendly, but ultimately lukewarm relationship that leaves both parties unchallenged and unfulfilled. 

As if often the case in marriages, it was the woman who was the first to grasp this essential emotional truth.  Having been divorced twice before, and newly "come to Christ", I abhorred divorce.  Had I had my way, that marriage would have lasted.  Not because it brought out the best in either of us, but because I wanted to prove to myself that I could make something last no matter what, no matter what, no matter what.  After years of irresponsibility, I had swung to the opposite extreme and turned "white-knuckle, grit-your-teeth and hang on no matter what" tenacity into an idol.  My ex-wife, bless her heart, had enough sense and self-respect to realize that we each deserved better than what we were capable of giving each other.  Though she initiated the divorce over my objections, I came to see the wisdom of our separation.  She freed me to find a relationship that would be infinitely more fulfilling and exciting, and for that I will always be grateful.

I am sure my third wife and I would have ended up divorcing, 9/11 or no 9/11.  But reading Podhoretz last night, it really hit home to me how significant a role the events of that extraordinary day played in hastening the end of an unwise union. 9/11 brought clarity; it brought a hunger for life and for joy and for fulfillment.  And for my last ex-wife and me, it accelerated the process of recognizing that we would both be happier and more capable of growth outside of our marriage.

Yves Magloe Reinstated — Now Confirmed

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 11, 2006
in Addiction and mental illness and Pasadena City College
. 4 Comments

I posted back in June about Yves Magloe’s firing, and mentioned in early July — prematurely, as it turned out — that he had been reinstated.   The first link should give you background on the case.  After that July post, I was told very firmly that I was not to post about this subject again until a series of complicated negotiations were finished.  I’ve stayed silent for two months, waiting for a final, final resolution which at last has arrived.

I can report that the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees finally formally reinstated Yves last Wednesday.  He’s back, he’s safe, he’s doing well, and everyone can now comment.   He’s getting back pay too!

In light of Friday’s post, it’s truly miraculous to consider that I was never fired during my turbulent years of struggle with mental illness.  Of course, I’m from California, and Yves is from Togo, West Africa.  I suspect, but cannot prove, that I was handled more gently because of my white privilege.

The obligatory “where were you” post

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 11, 2006
in Class and Memories
. 11 Comments

Since we’re all sharing 9/11 stories today, here’s mine.

Like Lorie, I’ve avoided writing about the events that happened five years ago today because I never felt that the story was mine to tell.  So many people were deeply and profoundly affected by their losses that day; I wasn’t.  I have long felt that my voice would not add to the conversation.

I was scheduled to teach four classes that day, the first one beginning at 7:30AM Pacific Time.  I had woken up just before 6:00AM, and turned on CNN (something I do most mornings) just after the second plane had gone into the towers.  I watched TV until it was time to leave for school; the first tower collapsed while I was in the car on the way to school, the second just as I walked into my first class. 

We had a television in the classroom, and I made the decision to turn it on.  I told the students who hadn’t heard (a surprising number had made it to school that morning unaware), and we sat and watched coverage together.  I told them I was available to talk, and I sat with them all morning as we watched the local NBC affiliate (the only station that came in clearly).  I did the same thing with all of my classes that day — sitting in the classroom, television on, inviting students to sit with me.  If they wanted to go home, I let them go. If they wanted to step into the hall and chat, we did (only a few wanted to talk).  If they wanted to sit and watch the towers fall, over and over again, they could do that with me nearby. 

The only other time I’ve ever interrupted class to turn on the TV for a live news event was in October 1995, when the OJ Simpson verdict was read aloud.  That was a planned event (we’d heard about the time of the jury announcement the day before), and though my students were stunned (and divided), that was a very different occasion.  Both then and on 9/11, I sat with my students who wanted to talk and "process" their feelings about what had occurred.  It was a lot more fun with OJ.

Did I handle 9/11 the right way?  I don’t know.  Some of my colleagues kept right on teaching, some canceled classes and themselves went home.  I couldn’t teach, but I didn’t want to leave the students who might want a comforting presence there to watch with them.  Under the circumstances, I think it was the best I could do.

Jensen on the High Cost of Manliness, and the importance of role models

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 11, 2006
in Feminism and Men and Masculinity
. 45 Comments

Typepad is very wonky today.

Via Jessica at Feministing, I found a terrific article from one of our leading pro-feminist men: Robert Jensen: The High Cost of Manliness.  Some excerpts:

We need to get rid of the whole idea of masculinity. It’s time to abandon the claim that there are certain psychological or social traits that inherently come with being biologically male. If we can get past that, we have a chance to create a better world for men and women.

That dominant conception of masculinity in U.S. culture is easily summarized: Men are assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a real man is therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination. A man looks at the world, sees what he wants and takes it. Men who don’t measure up are wimps, sissies, fags, girls. The worst insult one man can hurl at another — whether it’s boys on the playground or CEOs in the boardroom — is the accusation that a man is like a woman. Although the culture acknowledges that men can in some situations have traits traditionally associated with women (caring, compassion, tenderness), in the end it is men’s strength-expressed-as-toughness that defines us and must trump any female-like softness. Those aspects of masculinity must prevail for a man to be a "real man."

It’s a good solid summary of the argument pro-feminist men have been making for years now: men have a real investment in working with feminist women to transform the culture.  The costs for men of trying to live up to the unattainable ideal of true masculinity are real, profound, and devastating.   Men deny themselves the opportunity to be fully human, cutting themselves off from a wide range of emotions.  Too many men either lead lives of "quiet desperation", eternally fearful of falling short in a brutally competitive culture, or, as seems increasingly common among the young , they opt out, retreating to a fantasy world of video games, pot, and couch surfing, unwilling to live up to the masculine ideal — but unwilling to work to deconstruct it, either.

I particularly appreciate that Jensen acknowledges that as bad as the current system is for men, it’s measurably worse for women:

This doesn’t mean that the negative consequences of this toxic masculinity are equally dangerous for men and women. As feminists have long pointed out, there’s a big difference between women dealing with the possibility of being raped, beaten and killed by the men in their lives, and men not being able to cry. But we can see that the short-term material gains that men get are not adequate compensation for what we men give up in the long haul — which is to surrender part of our humanity to the project of dominance.

That’s right on.

As a college professor and a youth leader who works with young men and women every day, Jensen’s article reminds me of what a tremendous, daunting, and exciting challenge it is to live a public and private pro-feminist life. If,as he writes, current notions of masculinity need to be deconstructed, then we need men in leadership positions who can model a new way of being male.  It’s all very well to describe what’s wrong with the system, but we need to offer concrete examples of how to live out the alternative. 

Obviously, there is no precise paradigm for how pro-feminist men should live and act.  (Though there are some clear parameters).   Each man who embraces a pro-feminist worldview and seeks to incorporate these principles into his life will do so differently.  But men still need role models, and they still need exhortation and encouragement.  And I am convinced that the most important work that men can do to further the cause of justice and equality for all men and women is to match their lives to their language — and do so publicly, so that others can see and take inspiration.