Archive for the 'Top Ten in 2006' Category

Top Posts in 2006: the top five

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 12, 2006
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006 and Top Ten in 2006
. 1 Comment

I’m not entirely done with regular posts yet; I’ll be back to posting normally tomorrow.

Last Friday, I posted the first half of my “Top Ten in ‘06″. Today, I offer the top half.

Were these the five best posts I wrote all year? I’m not sure, but they were picked because I’m proud of the writing or the insights within them; a couple were picked merely because they proved to be particularly popular or controversial. (I left out the OKOP, masturbation, and circumcision posts, though they attracted lots of attention.) Ranking them was not easy either, and if I were doing this in another month, I might well have a different order. But for now, these are my five favorites posts of 2006, in ascending order from fifth to first. (And why three of them ended up being from March, I have no idea. Perhaps my mind is more fertile at the onset of spring.)

5. Some Thoughts on Teaching and Student Crushes (March 24) Key excerpt:

There’s an old axiom in pop psychology: we don’t just get crushes on people whom we want, we get crushes on people whom we want to be like! Students don’t get crushes on me because they want to go to bed with me or be my girlfriend or boyfriend; they get crushes on me because I’ve got a quality that they want to bring out in themselves. They’re externalizing all of their hopes for themselves. And rather than encourage the crush to feed my ego, my job is to turn the focus back on to the student, encouraging him or her to take their new-found curiosity or enthusiasm or passion and use it, run with it, indulge it, let it take them places! That’s what student crushes mean to me.

4. Closing the Door: men, aging, younger women, and ego (October 26) Key excerpt:

I am absolutely convinced that many of my peers (and men older than myself) chase younger women for precisely this reason. It’s not that women our own age are less attractive, it’s that they lack the culturally-based power to reassure our fragile, aging egos that we are still “younger than our fathers”, still hot and hip and filled with potential. Inspiring romantic or erotic desire in women young enough to be our daughters becomes the most potent of all anti-aging remedies, particularly when we can display our much younger mates to our peers. By comparison, the famous little red sports car reveals only the size of our pocketbook; attracting a girl barely out of her teens reveals the enduring power of our youthful appeal. And for those men who are desperately afraid of losing out on possibilities, afraid of closing doors, afraid of the humble acceptance that things have changed forever — then there is nothing, nothing more compelling than significantly younger women.

3. Some lengthy thoughts on feminism, traditional families, contingent happiness and daring to disappoint (March 14) Key excerpt:

I can’t truly know what it’s like to be a first-generation female college student, carrying the hopes and dreams of my parents and my ancestors on my shoulders, on my heart –or on my hymen. Sure, I’m privileged in ways that I probably don’t even fully understand. But I do believe that at the heart of the feminist project is this: women ought to have the right to pursue happiness. That happiness will manifest differently in the lives of different women; some will find their most sublime joy in marriage and motherhood while others will find it in on an archaeological dig while others will find it in the arms of another woman. And if feminists can agree on one thing, it’s this: the collective sacrifices of your parents, ancestors, and culture do not trump your own personal right to be happy.

2. Words are not fists: some thoughts on how men work to defuse feminist anger (May 25) Key excerpt:

Part of being a pro-feminist man, I’ve come to realize in recent years, is being willing to face the real anger of real women. Far too many men spend a great deal of time trying to talk women out of their anger, or by creating social pressures that remind women of the consequences of expressing that anger. Many men, frankly, are profoundly frightened by women who will directly challenge them. In a classroom, they don’t really fear being struck or hit. But by comparing a verbal attack on their own sexist attitudes towards physical violence, they hope to defuse the verbal expression of very real female pain and frustration. I know that it’s hard to be a young man in a feminist setting for the first time, and I know, (oh, how I know) how difficult it is to sit and listen to someone challenge you on your most basic beliefs about your identity, your sexuality, your behavior, and your beliefs about gender. It’s difficult to take the risk to speak up and push back a bit, and it’s scary to realize just how infuriating your views really are to other people, especially women.

1. “My life doesn’t just revolve around you”: a note of gratitude for a feminist mom (March 20) Key excerpt:

So my belief in the importance of women’s autonomy and personal freedom — even as wives and mothers — came to me early in life. A first-born son growing up in a household without a father (amateur psychologists, have at it!), I was very close to my mother. I still am. And my adult feminism is linked in no small way to the lessons she taught me. Motherhood, I learned, is a role — but it need not be an all-consuming identity. The fact that my mother had a life outside of her children gave me the confidence to live out my life without fear that I would destroy her if I made mistakes or deviated from a planned path. Her commitment to her own happiness allowed me to make a similar commitment to my own — and for that, I will forever be tremendously grateful.

Top Ten in 2006: the first half

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 8, 2006
in Favorite Posts, 2004-2006 and Top Ten in 2006
. 1 Comment

For the past two Decembers, Bob Carlton at The Corner has organized a “Top Five” posts carnival. Those of us who have written interesting posts in the past year are invited to rank them and post links to them, perhaps with a small excerpt. I’m hoping Bob will do it for a third year in 2006. And for those of you who write longer posts (or just some shorties you’re proud of), please consider doing this!

Last year, I couldn’t limit myself to five favorite posts for the year, so I had to have ten. (Here’s a link to posts 10 through 6 in 2005, and here’s a link to the actual top five in ‘05.)

I will probably not have any particularly good posts in the remainder of December. In any event, I’ll post my top five of 2006 next week. But for today, here’s the first half of my top ten of this year.

10. The Happy Wasp Boy (March 30) Excerpt:

Yes, we’re WASPs. If you want to stereotype one aspect of us, we’re a Brooks Brothers wearing, Bloody Mary drinking, Buick Roadmaster station-wagon driving, fraternity and sorority joining, tennis-playing, mayonnaise and meat loaf eating, Junior League cookbook owning, monogrammed thank-you note writing, Town and Country magazine reading, English horseback riding, debutante ball attending, Social Register listed, pastel polo-shirt or sweater set clad clan. Without apologies.

9. “But you’re pretty!” A pro-feminist musing on why compliments don’t help (January 5) Excerpt:

…this “be very careful with physical comments and compliments rule” is applicable in the rest of the world, as well. Pro-feminist men must recognize that men constantly use compliments to gain access to women, and that that is a fundamentally destructive dynamic. How many bad pick-up lines start with overzealous praise of a woman’s appearance? Men use these lines because as hackneyed as they are, they know sometimes they work. By the time they reach college, most men recognize that a great many women are deeply and profoundly hungry for praise, and by offering that praise, guys will be able to gain an opening. When men praise the beauty of women they barely know, they are employing an old patriarchal strategy that preys upon a serious vulnerability.

8. Another Long Post about Pleasure, Feminism, Food, and Sex (November 16) Excerpt:

I don’t tell my students that they must masturbate without concomitant shame in order to be good feminists. I don’t tell them they need to eat cheesecake without guilt in order to be liberated. It’s not the place of a feminist professor (particularly a male one) to prescribe specific steps for transformation and growth in such profoundly personal arenas as sexuality and food. But at the same time, I am clear that there are few areas of life where it is more important to live out our egalitarian values than eating and sex. I am not advocating uncontrolled gluttony or destructive promiscuity. I am advocating an ethic that respects women’s pleasure as an a priori good. I am not advocating selfishness. (Heck, I’m a monogamous vegetarian; I understand the importance of balancing one’s own desires with one’s commitments to others.) I am challenging my students to see physical joy as their human birthright.

7. A long and personal post about agape, All Saints youth, and the progressive notion of salvation (February 9) Excerpt:

But when I think about agape and my youth group, I think of the end of the gospel of John. You know, the bit where Jesus makes breakfast for the disciples on the beach? He asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” And when Peter answers yes each time, Jesus tells him, “feed my lambs”; “take care of my sheep.” I suppose I’m not the only youth minister who thinks of his beloved teenagers as being like lambs. And in my heart, I believe that by trying my best to love everyone of these kids as much as I can, as intensely as I can, with as much openness and freedom from conditions as I can, I am feeding them just as Jesus wants me to. My conservative friends will tell me that I’m feeding them a diet of sweet sugar that tastes good, but is ultimately not enough to end real hunger — but I’m convinced and convicted that we at All Saints are giving them the real deal.

6. Between the Already and the Not Yet: a long post on premarital sexuality and doing “everything but”. (June 7)

I pass no judgment on those young people, Christian or not, who choose to have sexual intercourse before marriage. (I lost my seat in judgment city decades ago, and for good reason.) I honor those young people who believe that God has called them to an especially restrictive understanding of purity. I’ve been to weddings and watched a couple kiss — for the first time ever — after they were pronounced man and wife. I celebrate that choice! But I don’t think that it makes good sense to suggest that there’s nothing valuable about taking the middle ground position of “everything but.” For a great many young people, “doing everything but” offers a chance to explore and grow emotionally and sexually while remaining true to their spiritual and romantic commitments. Rather than ridiculing it, all of us who call ourselves older and wiser would do well to consider the possibility that “everything but” may represent not a foolish and indefensible compromise, but a healthy and spiritually mature middle ground.

Look for the top five of 2006 next week; I know which posts I’ve chosen, but am not yet sure in which order to place ‘em.