Author Archive for Hugo Schwyzer

“Perfomative Ambiguity” and heterosexual privilege: on being a straight man teaching Queer History

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 10, 2008
in GLBTQ, Memories, Pasadena City College and Teaching
. 0 Comments

I’ve posted before on the advantages, disadvantages, and “unearned privileges” of being a man who teaches women’s studies. See here, here here , and here. Those four posts cover most of my feelings and experiences as a man who has taught women’s history for a decade and a half.

I’m thinking today about a somewhat related topic: the role of a heterosexual man teaching gay and lesbian history. (I first taught my “Introduction to Lesbian and Gay American History” course in 2001, and am offering it for the sixth or seventh time this fall.) My maleness is obvious, of course. But sexual orientation is not always as easily definable as gender identity (depending on the person, of course). And though I doubt anyone thinks I’m biologically female, I know that quite a few of my students over the years have “wondered” about my sexuality — particularly because of the various gender studies courses I teach. The stereotype that “only a gay man” would teach women’s history (much less gay and lesbian history!) is an entrenched one, perhaps particularly so among the sort of first-generation college students who make up a majority of the students on the Pasadena City College campus.

I generally don’t tell my students my reasons for teaching my gender studies courses at the beginning of the semester. It’s usually towards the end of the term, after we have (one hopes) developed a good classroom rapport, that I share with the folks in the course my reasons for teaching this particular subject. Because I’d love to raise up future gender studies professors, I share with them a bit of my own academic and personal narrative, and talk to them about the special challenges that those who choose to do gender/sexuality work will face. (Starting with questions from parents about one’s sexual orientation, and segueing quickly to worries about how the heck a living can be scratched out with a Gender Studies major!) And at some point in my gay and lesbian history courses, I talk about what it was like to grow up surrounded by a great many lesbians and gay men who played nurturing and important roles in my youth. (See this post.)

My students know I’m married (I occasionally mention my wife, and I am never without my wedding ring.) I sometimes make self-deprecating remarks about my previous divorces, though I do so less often than I used to. But I’m aware the possibility hangs in the air that my sexuality might still be more unclear than my married status would suggest. I wear more jewelry (necklaces and bracelets) than your average WASP, and my fondness for pink shirts does not go unnoticed. And though I am of course never flirtatious with students of either sex, seeking always to project a clear and unmistakable aura of professionalism and unavailability, I also am aware that some of my body language and mannerisms are direct violations of the rigid expectations of American masculine culture. Call it “perfomative ambiguity”, if you will. It’s not an act, because I come by what the media calls “metrosexuality” honestly. But I am not unaware that it does raise questions in the minds of those students who are inclined to contemplate the sexual habits of their gender studies professors. Continue reading ‘“Perfomative Ambiguity” and heterosexual privilege: on being a straight man teaching Queer History’

Friday Random Ten: music for contemplating the markets

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 10, 2008
in Friday Random Ten
. 0 Comments

I don’t know about any of you all, but my 403(b) retirement account is down 40% this year. In that spirit, music for cheering us up.

There are a few songs so well-loved that I have at least five different versions on my Ipod. #3 is one of those, joining tracks like “Pancho and Lefty” and “Sin City” as alt.country classics of which it’s almost impossible to produce a bad cover. And Richard Shindell, who does many wonderful covers (check out his “Born in the USA”) nails “Willin’”.

1. “When I Drink I Cheat”, The Way-Goners
2. “Reasons to Be Beautiful”, Hole
3. “Willin’”, Richard Shindell
4. “Paradise”, John Prine
5. “Gillian”, The Waifs
6. “It’s Alright”, Dar Williams
7. “Might as Well Dance”, Patty Larkin
8. “Stupid Nouth Shut”, Hem
9. “Step on my Old Size Nines”, Stereophonics
10. “Short Work”, Kris Delmhorst

California Proposition Endorsements

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 10, 2008
in Politics
. 3 Comments

Absentee ballots went out at the beginning of the week, and a number of my fellow Golden Staters are already voting. I’ll vote in person this year, but offer my suggestions with several weeks left before the election for others to consider.

I’ll post next week my formal endorsement of Barack Obama, treading on somewhat familiar ground. For today, my take on the propositions facing my fellow Californians next month.

There are three ballot propositions I care about more than the others: 2,4,8. An enthusiastic “yes” to the first, strong “no”s to the others.

Since at least 1978, I’ve been a loyal reader of ballot pamphlets. Californians have had the initiative process in place for nearly a century, and there’s little question that the system has often failed to deliver the progress results its creators hoped for. Legislators are “let off the hook” by an initiative system that allows them to pass off hard decisions on the voters; what we end up with is a lot of “ballot-box budgeting” that ends up tying those very legislators’ hands. Still, it’s better to have the system than not. And even when I was a child, growing up in a politically active family, I studied the language of the various propositions each election season. And I’ve done my due diligence this time around as well.

I do follow closely what organizations I respect have to say about propositions. I’m a life Sierra Clubber, and always read their endorsement lists; my mother was and is active in the League of Women Voters, and I always give a great deal of weight to their selections. So, here’s the League’s call for next month’s election, and here’s the Club’s. Both the League and the Club have certain requirements for making endorsements, so they don’t take a stand on each and every initiative. For the first time in a while, however, the League of Women Voters and I are not in complete agreement. The one point of disagreement comes on Prop. 5.

Proposition 1A: Yes. authorizes the state to issue $9.95 billion in general obligation bonds to fund (1) pre-construction activities and construction of a high-speed passenger train system in California, and (2) capital improvements to passenger rail systems that expand capacity, improve safety and/or enable train riders to connect to the high-speed train system.. A no-brainer for those of us concerned about combatting global warming and reducing fossil fuel consumption.

Proposition 2: Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! The California Humane Farms Act is short and sweet. All it requires is that each and every confined pig, cow, and chicken be in a cage large enough to turn around, stand up, spread its limbs (or wings) and lie down. That’s it. The New York Times gave a strong endorsement here. I care about this proposal more than virtually anything else on a ballot filled with important races.

Proposition 3: Yes. Children’s Hospital Bond Act. Backed by Democrats and major Republican figures (former Gov. Pete Wilson), this is the sort of capital improvement project for which bond financing is designed.

Proposition 4: No. Been down this road twice before, and I’ve given my reasons for opposing parental notification twice. Read my reasons why here.

Proposition 5: No, reluctantly, but no. This proposition expands Prop. 36, an initiative I supported many years ago, which authorized treatment rather than incarceration for non-violent drug offenders. As a recovering addict, that made sense to me and I still support the idea in principle. But while Prop. 36 allowed addicts to avoid incarceration for a first possession offense, Proposition 5 allows them to avoid jail for burglaries committed to get money to buy drugs — a dangerous expansion of the original idea. Martin Sheen, whose progressive credentials are more impeccable than any other actor in Hollywood, weighs in against Prop. 5 here.

Proposition 6: No. Easy to oppose this right-wing initiative. We may not need the get out of jail free card that Prop 5 offers, but this attempt to impose even more draconian penalties on various offenders is a disaster. An expensive and inhumane disaster.

Proposition 7: No. Sounds like an initiative an environmentalist should back — but all the major environmental groups oppose it. Here’s the argument against from the Sierra Club.

Proposition 8: No, No, No, No, and double No. Marriage has meant many things throughout history; it is an institution that in the past has been as much about property as about love or children. Today, marriage is about the public sanction of private commitment, and the right to seek that sanction (and all of its benefits) ought to be given to all. The most essential quality of marriage is not its potential for reproductivity, but its unifying of two people in love and shared responsibility. We will be a better society, with stronger families for all, when we extend the full benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples.

Proposition 9: No. More nonsense. Under the guise of “victim’s rights” (already enshrined in the California constitution since 1982), an attempt to ensure that our prisons and jails stay even more crowded. Will definitely raise taxes, as it will require county supervisors to provide funds to ensure that no prisoners are released early from county jails because of over-crowding.

Proposition 10: No. The “make T. Boone Pickens even richer initiative” allows substantial rebates for buying natural gas-powered cars. Problem: the cars could be bought en-masse in California, the rebates received — and then the cars could be sold a day later in Nevada or Arizona, leaving the state with no benefit but a huge expense. That’s only one of many potential pitfalls that come with a well-intentioned (one would like to think), but poorly written plan.

Proposition 11: Yes. We need redistricting badly. Here I break with the Democratic and Republican parties. The last two redistricting plans drawn in California were “incumbent protection plans”, designed to ensure that the only competitive races for state assembly or state senate were in the party primaries. The fundamentally unhealthy nature of these uncompetitive districts shows up in the lack of willingness to compromise in Sacramento — and that stubbornness has been one factor in the state’s endless budget negotiations. I wish this proposal, which calls for fair and bipartisan redistricting done by a commission, not politicians, went farther. We need to end term limits and the 2/3rds requirement to pass a budget too — but this is a good start.

Proposition 12: Yes. Simply continues the Veteran’s Mortgage program, one that has already worked well for decades. Not a new program, but the reauthorization of an old and sensible one.

Thursday Short Poem: Sutzkever’s “Great Silence”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 9, 2008
in Poetry
. 0 Comments

No other posting today, but on Yom Kippur, it makes more than a little sense to have a poem with a biblical theme. Abraham Sutzkever was born in Lithuania, survived the Shoah, and lives today in Tel Aviv. He is considered one of the great twentieth-century Yiddish poets. I like a lot of his stuff, but this little one is my favorite.

The Great Silence

In the Sinai Desert, on a cloud of granite
Sculpted by the Genesis-night,
Hewn of black flame facing the Red Sea,
I saw the Great Silence.

The Great Silence
Sifts the secrets of the night.
Unmoving, its thin flour falls on my brows.
Silently, whispering,
I ask the Great Silence,
If I could I would ask more silently:
How many stars did you count
Since your beginning, since your hovering steady
Over the Genesis-night facing the Red Sea?

And the Great Silence replies:
When I shall count it all —
From nothing to the very first thing,
Then, son of man, I shall tell you first.

Of abortion, atonement, and the wickedness of politicizing grief: UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 8, 2008
in Abortion and Memories
. 21 Comments

It’s the eve of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, and it’s a good day for asking forgiveness and thinking about the injuries — intentional or accidental — that we inflict on others.

Somewhat in that vein, I’m thinking about regret and experience, particularly around sexuality and abortion. Lynn Gazis-Sax offers this wonderful post inspired by this equally fine piece from Christy at Dry Bones Dance. And I’m thinking about the PR campaign that is spreading like wildfire among my pro-life friends surrounding the new book Changed: Making Sense of Your Own or a Loved One’s Abortion Experience.

The book is by Michaelene Fredenburg (a splendid name, whatever else may be said), who is about my age. From interviews (I haven’t read the book), we learn that she became pregnant at 18 and chose to terminate the pregnancy. Had she carried to term, the child that might have come into the world would have graduated from college (assuming a normative time to degree) this past spring. That caught my eye, because as I have shared many times, I got my high school girlfriend pregnant in 1985. Had a child been born as a result of that pregnancy, he or she would have come into the world sometime in early February 1986 — and would thus have been, like Michaelene’s potential offspring, ready for college graduation this year.

In the interviews I’ve read — and at the AbortionChangesYou site developed to promote the book and the message — the message is emphasized that undergoing an abortion (or being close to someone undergoing an abortion) can have lasting and damaging psychological consequences. And you know, I’ve got no problem with that. Honestly, not a month goes by that I don’t find myself wondering what it would be like to have a child in his or early twenties. Time and again, I have tried to imagine whether my high school ex and I would have had a boy or a girl; I wonder about what the child would look like, what their interests would be, and what it would have been like to become a father so very young. And given the life I led for so many years, I have often wondered if I was responsible for other abortions about which I never knew. (For that matter, I still occasionally contemplate the possibility, one hopes remote, that I might have a child out there somewhere.)

Did going through the abortion experience (as closely as any male can) change me? Of course it did. I’d like to say it turned me into a lifelong advocate of effective contraception, but that would be a substantial fib; I had plenty of foolishly unprotected sex in the years that followed. I didn’t “learn a lesson” quite as well as I would like to imagine. But the experience did touch me, and the memories of what my girlfriend and I went through nearly a quarter century ago still come into my consciousness, particularly around the time of the abortion (late June) and the due date (early February). Continue reading ‘Of abortion, atonement, and the wickedness of politicizing grief: UPDATED’

From friend to mentor: a short note on teaching and boundaries

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 7, 2008
in Academia, Emotional and Sexual Boundaries and Teaching
. 3 Comments

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve had a whole new batch of “older men/younger women” relationship emails come by way. Perhaps it’s seasonal: in the spring, a young man or woman’s fancy turns to love and baseball; in the fall, it turns to age-disparate relationships and boundary violations? One wonders.

I can’t post about all the emails I get, and those that simply repeat old queries are better off looking at my growing archives under older men/younger women, or perhaps student crushes. But there’s always something new to think about; “Kay” wrote to me last week:

I have (a) professor whom I adore and who I know is keenly interested in my future…he has said before how much he enjoys my being his student. I have nothing but platonic interest in him (your posts on understanding the difference between mental and physical arousal have been VERY helpful). I’d really like to be his mentee as well…but it would be more of a big brother connection as he is only 34.

The reason I am writing in is because I am not sure how to re-route our initial relationship building. The first time I slapped eyes on him last year I thought “peer.” He was still an adjunct, finishing his PhD, and applying for the asst. prof. job he currently has. He’s the same age as many of my friends, and we have a lot in common. I have previously invited him to go play trivia with a group (he declined), and when I swing by his office I talk about movies and music instead of the DSM-IV. I was trying to make him my friend, not my professor and I am embarrassed when I think of the transparency of my motives.

So, the question: What can a young female student to do help build the best and most appropriate mentor-mentee relationships? I’m sure I’m not the only person who has, after a time, realized that their initial motives in relationship-building were slightly askew. More specifically for my situation, how can I let him know that “friend” is off the agenda? Any advice would be helpful…I’ve been feeling as awkward as arse around him lately.

It’s a good question Kay asks. In both graduate school and undergrad, mentor/mentee relationships are vitally important to both students and faculty. There are few aspects of my job from which I derive more deep and enduring satisfaction than the opportunity to mentor young men and women. And looking back on my own days at Berkeley and UCLA, I’m eternally grateful to the men and women (Fred Tubach, Scott Waugh, Marilyn Adams) who served as my academic advisers and guides. Students need to be encouraged to seek out mentors from the ranks of the faculty, and professors need to be reminded that nurturing students’ intellectual and personal growth, while not always among our stated tasks, is our moral responsibility.

Where a student and professor are close in age, each can be tempted to adopt a “friend” approach to the mentoring relationship. And on one level, there’s nothing wrong with that! I talk about music with my students, I talk about veganism and politics and fashion. I understand well how “small talk” (as if veganism could ever be “small talk”!) serves as a lubricant for social interaction. A discussion of common interests doesn’t need to obscure the healthy hierarchy at work in a mentor/mentee relationship. At the same time, new junior faculty in particular need to remember that their own common unease and uncertainty about their newly acquired status doesn’t mean that the power they now exercise isn’t real. Kay’s prospective mentor has gone from being a graduate student to tenure-track faculty in the same department in which she studies — and he, as well as she, needs to be keenly aware that that upgraded role has a real impact on everyone.

If Kay’s professor seems unclear about his role, it’s not her job to set the boundaries for him. At the same time, Kay can do a lot to make clear how she sees him. Little things can set the tone: visiting him only during his listed conference hours rather than meeting him for coffee. (There’s nothing wrong with students and teachers having coffee together, of course — but usually that’s best after a very clear line of demarcation has been set up. And that line is best set up initially inside, rather than outside, the office.) While calling him “Dr.” or “Prof.” when she has previously addressed him by his first name is probably a step too far too soon, directing the conversation onto academic rather than personal topics ought to do the trick. Continue reading ‘From friend to mentor: a short note on teaching and boundaries’

Pornography, empathy, and the misuse of the disease model: some further thoughts on a way forward

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 6, 2008
in Addiction and mental illness, Porn, Sex work, Sexual ethics and transformation and Sexuality
. 84 Comments

I’m easing back into blogging this week. I have a bad cold, my first in months, probably contracted over the course of various recent travels. My wife and I spent Rosh Hashanah with the Kabbalah Centre International in Dallas, Texas last week; on Friday we flew up to Northern California for a weekend at our family’s country place in the hills northeast of San Jose. We went, in the damp and the bluster of an early autumn storm, to the Cal-Arizona State Homecoming game in Berkeley on Saturday afternoon. And our plane finally landed at Burbank Airport at 10:30 last night. I’m a bit groggy, but hoping to feel better as the week goes on.

And the emails! Folks, if you’ve emailed me recently, please be patient. I’m more than a little swamped. (Seven — count ‘em, seven — with questions about older men/younger women relationships in the last week alone. Flattering but overwhelming.)

The discussion thread below my post on “rethinking a virulent anti-porn/sex work stance” is approaching 200 comments, and is still quite active (and, all things considered, reasonably civil.) Amber Rhea put up a lengthy and thoughtful initial response at her place, and both she and Ren took issue with this remark I made in the original post:

I am keenly aware that porn can play a part in reducing our ability to connect with each other as full and complete creatures of light. Porn, it still seems to me, is the enemy of empathy.

That deserves some more explanation.

Empathy, of course, is the ability to not only imagine what an other person might be feeling(sympathy), but actually to understand what an other person understands, feels, and experiences. Contemporary English often confuses empathy and sympathy to the point that even many scholars seem to disagree as to the precise boundary that separates one concept from another — a point driven home to me in a few minutes of googling about this morning! Here’s one possible definition, from an article for physicians:

The origin of the word empathy dates back to the 1880s, when German psychologist Theodore Lipps coined the term “einfuhlung” (literally, “in-feeling”) to describe the emotional appreciation of another’s feelings. Empathy has further been described as the process of understanding a person’s subjective experience by vicariously sharing that experience while maintaining an observant stance. Empathy is a balanced curiosity leading to a deeper understanding of another human being; stated another way, empathy is the capacity to understand another person’s experience from within that person’s frame of reference.

I like that last bit, and it’s relevant to the experience that I think a great many men have with heterosexual pornography. One of the valid criticisms that gets thrown at Robert Jensen is that as a man writing about men’s use of pornography from a feminist perspective, he centers men’s experiences and reactions; his Getting Off contains relatively few women’s voices. (Given that he was writing a book about how pornography impacted men, rather than an overarching cultural critique of commercialized sexuality, this seems like a fairly reasonable editorial decision to have made. The problem, if there was one with Getting Off, seems to lie in his fairly brief and caricatured descriptions of the women who work in pornography — more certainly could have been done to hear what they were saying.) In any event, both Jensen and I come to the same conclusion: almost regardless of the conditions under which pornography is produced, the impact upon the men who “consume” it regularly is often a decreased ability to connect and empathize with other human beings. Continue reading ‘Pornography, empathy, and the misuse of the disease model: some further thoughts on a way forward’

Off until the 6th

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 25, 2008
in Blogging
. 0 Comments

Lots of upcoming travel hither and yon over the next ten days, and not much time for blogging. I’ve already got some posts in mind for the week I come back, and I’ll do my best to deliver a good October of blogging. But for now, no posts until Monday, October 6.

I will be monitoring and participating in existing discussion threads.

Voting Memories

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 25, 2008
in Memories, Politics and Voting
. 2 Comments

Lauren, of Feministe and Faux Real Tho, is compiling “voting stories” as we head towards the November 4 general election. Many of those stories have already appeared at Feministe. Here’s the announcement:

FEMINISTE is soliciting stories about your voting experiences to help encourage registered and unregistered voters to vote.

Do you have a story about working a registration drive? About working the polls? Do you live in a split-ticket household? What kinds of traditions or stories does your family have when it comes to voting in an election? Do you have additional ideas on how to participate in the election during the final weeks? How is the subtext of race and gender this election season going to affect how you, your friends, and family members, are going to vote — or is it?

Send your stories to fauxrealtho at gmail dot com with “VOTE” in the title, including your name and a link to your website, and we will publish your stories as they come in along with additional information about voting registration, disenfranchisement, and election news. Send us what you’ve got.

Meanwhile, you still have at least through September and early October to get registered to vote in the 2008 presidential election. Some states allow voters to register through the end of October. You can find out your state’s deadline here

Below the fold, a bit about my love affair with voting. Continue reading ‘Voting Memories’

Thursday Short Poem: Berry’s “Anglo-Saxon Protestant Heterosexual Men”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 25, 2008
in Poetry
. 3 Comments

This splendid Wendell Berry poem is the perfect riposte to those among the most privileged who would seize for themselves the undeserved mantle of victimhood. I’m half-Anglo-Saxon, reasonably heterosexual, and gently Protestant by theology (if not by either birth or baptism). And I’m a man who is not going to stoop to asking for a cookie. Here’s to picking up after ourselves, my brothers.

Anglo-Saxon Protestant Heterosexual Men

Come, dear brothers
let us cheerfully acknowledge
that we are the last hope of the world,
for we have no excuses,
nobody to blame but ourselves.
Who is going to sit at our feet
and listen while we bewail
our historical sufferings? Who
will ever believe that we also
have wept in the night
with repressed longing to become
our real selves? Who will
stand forth and proclaim
that we have virtues and talents
peculiar to our category? Nobody,
and that is good. For here we are
at last with our real selves
in the real world. Therefore,
let us quiet our hearts, my brothers,
and settle down for a change
to picking up after ourselves
and a few centuries of honest work.

Bridging the Porn Divide: sex, feminism, empathy, and the commitment to stop pathologizing the other side

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 24, 2008
in Feminism, Porn and Sex work
. 210 Comments

If you ask most folks who have been blogging for a while, they’ll remember the one “break-out” post that got them noticed, or first attracted a significant number of comments and hits. For me, it was this post about pornography back in April 2004. I wrote in response to news that several major stars of the adult film industry were infected with HIV.

I wrote that post, and many subsequent posts on pornography from two over-lapping perspectives. I wrote as a pro-feminist steeped in the anti-pornography tradition of one branch of feminism; I wrote as someone who was moved by the desperately sad story of Linda Lovelace, moved by the razor-sharp incisiveness of Andrea Dworkin, challenged by the dazzling legal theory of Catherine MacKinnon. But my intellectual response to porn was mixed with my own experience of “addiction” to pornography, and a long struggle to overcome the compulsive use of sexually explicit material. Porn addiction, particularly in my youth (long before cyber-erotica became available) had done tremendous harm to me — and as a consequence, it had damaging repercussions in many of my relationships. So my feminism, my faith, and my own intense desire never ever to go back into that addiction combined to form a very strong anti-pornography stance.

It has been a long time since I’ve “used” pornography of any kind. But that doesn’t mean I’m blind to the possibility of relapse. Heterosexual married men in my position — teachers, pastors, mentors — are famous for living sexual double lives. (The examples, sadly, are too many to list.) While some fall from grace in spectacular ways –Ted Haggard — others commit “adultery” only with their computers. I know my own tendency towards workaholism and Calvinist striving; I know that that Puritanical streak can, left unchecked, feed a dark side. It’s so easy, after all, to feel heroic doing what I do: mentoring, teaching, volunteering, advising, chairing committees and giving lectures. It’s easy, too, to buy into the lie that I’ve “been so good” and I “deserve” a little “me time.” For a lot of men, including myself for many years, that “me time” involved the compulsive consumption of pornography.

I learned early that a fulfilling sex life with a partner or a spouse is not a prophylaxis against porn addiction. I’m very clear these days that it isn’t my wife’s job to keep me sufficiently sexually sated that I don’t stray, even in my mind. It’s my job. And staying faithful in body and mind involves many things, of which willpower is actually the least important. Staying faithful to my commitments is made much easier by honoring the needs of my body as they arise. I was much more prone to use porn when I was hungry, angry, lonely, or tired; I have become much better (thank God) at recognizing my triggers. I listen to the needs of my body, and I don’t suppress them. That doesn’t mean I indulge every imperious demand! It means I do take the naps I need; it means I do get the (very non-sexual) professional massages that release the tension and the ache in my flesh. It’s when I bottle everything up, I know, that I am at risk of “acting out.”

But writing about pornography from the perspective of a recovering addict is problematic. Most saliently, it leads me — as it obviously did in that 2004 post — to be dismissive of those whose experience with pornography was radically different from my own. I’m not talking about the Larry Flynts of the world, mind you; I have little time for them. I’m talking about feminist voices, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, voices of women who work or have worked in the sex industry. Like so many folks, I’ve been more willing to hear the stories that match up with my pre-existing world view. I confess I’ve given more credence to those who spoke of the sex industry in negative terms (exploitation and abuse and addiction) than to those who talked about genuinely enjoying the work they were doing.

What I am most guilty of is pathologizing those whose experiences do not match my world view. I am not alone in this; many of my fellow anti-porn feminists do the same. We of all people, who ought to know better, still regularly suggest that women who work in the sex industry (or merely those who enjoy watching porn) are — take your pick — “deceiving themselves”, “working through childhood abuse issues”, “filled with a self-loathing they cannot acknowledge.” Sometimes, we infantilize female sex workers, suggesting that they are in desperate need of “rescue” by we the enlightened, the middle-class, and the sexually vanilla. Continue reading ‘Bridging the Porn Divide: sex, feminism, empathy, and the commitment to stop pathologizing the other side’

Pacifism and the Animal Liberation Front: against the heresy of endowing property with rights

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 24, 2008
in Animal Rights and Pacifism
. 58 Comments

In a comment on the post immediately below this one, my friend Carlos writes:

It just feels to me that you’re sending a high-pitched, almost indiscernible signal that you do condone violence. I think Gonz accused you a long time of “praising with faint damns” those who use violence to liberate animals… on Facebook you list yourself as a supporter of Animal Liberation Front; on your sidebar you link to the Animal Liberation Press Office. Is this a oblique way of signalling your real views, which may be too radical to put out in the open?

What has happened to your pacifism, a subject about which you used to blog for years?

Here’s my archive on pacifism. It’s true I haven’t written on the subject in more than a year and a half. I came to pacifism after 9/11; seven years ago, following the horror of that famous day and its aftermath, I left the Episcopal parish in which I worshipped to join a local Mennonite church. I had started reading the great Mennonite philosopher John Howard Yoder within days of the September 11 attacks, and his Politics of Jesus seemed like the perfect radical alternative to all the warmongering that was in vogue seven autumns ago.

I’ve thought a lot about pacifism and violence over the years since, though I don’t know if those thoughts are particularly insightful. And though I was attracted to the Anabaptist radicalism of the Mennonites, with their peace witness and their call to simplicity, I ended up feeling a bit like an alien in their midst. (There’s still a strong ethnic element in many Mennonite churches — lots of Yoders and Swartleys and Brennemanns, folks descended from the original Swiss-German founders of the faith.) When I left the Mennonites, I dropped the most doctrinal commitment to pacifism, but remained — and remain — enchanted by the notion that in the struggle for justice, ends and means must be radically congruent. In other words, war is made possible by war, peace by peace. And as a Christian, I must still trust that God is in charge of the final ends — but it is my job to live a life aligned with the means which Jesus modeled when He walked the earth. Continue reading ‘Pacifism and the Animal Liberation Front: against the heresy of endowing property with rights’

The Best and the Good Enough: Abolitionists, Welfarists and the agonizing quarrel over the Humane Farms Initiative

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 23, 2008
in Animal Rights, Environmentalism, Politics and Veganism
. 8 Comments

The initial polling looks good for Proposition 2 here in California, the Humane Farms Initiative. Backed by a coalition of animal welfare, veterinary, and family farming groups, the proposition is modeled on initiatives already successfully passed in New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, and Arizona. It’s just about the simplest initiative in town, requiring that every farm animal in California be allowed the freedom to stand up, turn around, and spread its wings (or other limbs.) Implementation will not be required for nearly seven years, until 2015. The proposition is endorsed by the Humane Society of the United States, most of the leading veterinary groups in the state, and a variety of small family farms that struggle to compete with the heavily mechanized agricultural behemoths (the ones, of course, who use the harshest confinement practices.)

The proposition has attracted bi-partisan support. No one would call congressmen Elton Gallegly (R-Ventura) and John Campbell (R-Orange County) liberals; both have written to their colleagues asking for congressional backing for Proposition 2. (See PDF here). Gallegly in particular represents a district with a heavy agricultural presence, making his support all the more noteworthy. The primary public opposition comes, of course, from the biggest of the agricultural producers, along with a loud minority of veterinarians who insist that current confinement practices (in which veal calves cannot stand up, and chickens in battery cages cannot spread their wings) are humane. But there are others, normally on the opposite side of the issue from Big Ag, who are also strongly against Prop 2. Continue reading ‘The Best and the Good Enough: Abolitionists, Welfarists and the agonizing quarrel over the Humane Farms Initiative’

The mess, and how we got into it

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 22, 2008
in Money
. 7 Comments

If you are, like most people, in desperate need of an intelligent primer on how we ended up in this current global financial meltdown, read this post. I’m not an economist, but my colleague who is just sent it to me with rave reviews.

Shame, suicide, sex education and the unwitting incentivizing of abortion

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 22, 2008
in Abortion, Having children, Sexual ethics and transformation, Teaching, Youth and Youth ministry
. 17 Comments

My old debating buddy and men’s right activist Glenn Sacks sent me a note about this post of his: Girl Commits Suicide After Being Expelled from School for Having an Abortion. Here’s an excerpt or two:

Last night my wife and I attended the 15-year-reunion for a Catholic School where I once taught. I taught most of the attendees World History as sophomores.

It was quite a way-back machine. I remembered some names and I recognized some faces, but didn’t do too well at connecting them. Still, many of the students remembered me (fondly, believe it or not), and I enjoyed seeing them again.

One student I wanted to see was Elena, who had been one of my favorites. She and her boyfriend Darian, who was also in my class, were expelled from the school in mid-year because Elena had gotten pregnant and had an abortion at Planned Parenthood.

The day they were expelled from school I had been out sick, and I was later told that they had come to my room after being expelled to see if I could defend them and get the expulsion reversed. I always felt a little guilty about having been out that day, though of course there was nothing I could’ve done about the expulsion anyway. It was quite a surprise–I had no idea she was even pregnant…

I was looking for her at the party last night and when I couldn’t find her I asked Cathy, who organized the event, if she knew whether Elena was coming. She got an odd look on her face, and told my wife and I:

Elena was very depressed after being expelled. She was cut off from her friends and the life she had. She got depressed and her life spiraled down.

A few years later she hanged herself. I was dating a guy whose brother was a friend of hers and he was the one who found her and cut her down.

My jaw dropped. It’s still on the floor. I guess we’ll never know to what degree her expulsion led to her suicide, but it certainly seems that it was a major factor. And however one feels about abortion, I’ve always opposed making pariahs out of scared girls who find themselves in a bad situation.

Glenn, more than most who beat the drum for the cottage industry known as the “men are victims too, and it’s mostly feminism’s fault” lobby, takes a liberal line on certain issues. He’s caught flak from some of his normal allies, who lean well to the political right, for standing up time and again for gays and lesbians. And I welcome the concern he expresses in this piece.

It’s a good time to talk again about teens and abortion. The initiative that won’t die is back on the California ballot this fall: Proposition 4, which requires parental notification for minors seeking an abortion. We beat two earlier incarnations of this proposition (73 and 85) in 2005 and 2006, but its wealthy conservative backers are nothing if not relentless. Given the stakes that they perceive to be at play, I admire their tenacity even as I reject their basic premise. (For more on parental notification, read this old post of mine opposing the identical proposition 85 a few years ago. And check out Mermade’s piece from just this past weekend.)

The story of what happened to Glenn’s old student is desperately sad. My initial inclination is to hold the school which expelled her accountable — at least in significant part — for her suicide. My more right-wing friends would reject that notion, and might even argue that guilt over the abortion was a prime instigator for Elena to take her life. But if guilt was a motivating factor in the suicide, that guilt was something externally imposed on to Elena rather than her own organic response to terminating a pregnancy. Of course, in the absence of a very detailed suicide note, folks on both sides of the abortion divide could argue about this until the proverbial cows wander back into the barn. It’s axiomatic that we come to these painful anecdotes, all of us, with our own prejudices. We interpret a tragedy in a way that fits not only our worldview but our deepest instincts about sexuality and ethics. Continue reading ‘Shame, suicide, sex education and the unwitting incentivizing of abortion’