I'm not candy, sweetie.

I get that she's trying to be clever.   She looks like a nice person.    Why didn't anyone tell her she's not a piece of candy though? 

The comments on facebook (it was posted on Feminists United) struck me as interesting.   One of them was that it struck them as shaming.  The other was that this young woman had been taught to think of herself as a sex object.   Her value lay in what she gave men, in this case, a 'wrapped candy'. 

I think this has to stop.   Before anybody starts hating on Muslims, Christians and Jews do it too.  I remember in high school everybody was so obsessed with virginity that there were campaigns over it.  Promise rings were the thing---for women.  The boys didn't wear them.  No one gave a shit how much sexual experience they acquired.  People signed chastity pledges.   Like God was obsessed with sex or a lack of  it outside marriage.  There's a lot of pressure on teenagers about sex.  To have it, to not have it, to try it with a person of the opposite sex before someone "decides" they're gay.  

It's a ridiculous obsession, really, and it has less to do with God than a lot of things.   I understand that teenage pregnancy is a life changing, education limiting, and dangerous thing, I do.  I get it.  Our society has our kids going to school and putting off regular adult life long after their bodies tell them it's time to start being adults.  We're fighting a losing battle though and it's costing our girls something very valuable.  Something Christianity introduced women to in the first place. 

Their sense of self as something other than a sex object.  A sense of self that that puts their personhood over their reproductive capabilities.  A sense of self that means that they are more than something to present to a man some day so he can be the first one to fuck it.  

Galatians 3:28 NASThere is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female ; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Are you happy?  This subject made me proof text something...

But I'm right.  I'm more than a sex object.  I matter more, in Christ, than what I do or do not do with my junk.   Don't get me wrong, sexual morality matters.  It just doesn't matter more than people.   It doesn't matter so much that women need to think of themselves as an unwrapped piece of CANDY...

You know what you do with candy?  You eat it.  You eat it and then you shit it out.  That's what we're teaching our girls to see themselves as.   Think about it.

Christ didn't engage in slut shaming and neither should we.   Early Christianity popularized the thinking of women as humans, age equity in marriage, and valuing of women's gifts in a religious setting.  We've done a lot to set ourselves back over the last 2,000 years.   Can we stop obsessing over virginity?

It's dehumanizing and stupid.

You want your daughter to stay not -pregant long enough to get a bachelor's degree?  Make sure she understands how her own body works.  Make sure she has access to birth control.  Make sure she knows how to use it.  Make sure she respects herself enough insist on loving the person she's making love to---even if she's going to sleep with someone before you'd like her to.   Teach her she's more than candy.  Infinitely more.


I'm not candy, sweetie.

Uptight and White....and that's alright.

 Enter his gates with thanksgiving; 

go into his courts with praise; 

give thanks to him and call upon his Name.

I've been hearing a lot lately about what a chore it is to go to church.   How it doesn't feel right for one reason or another, or it makes people uncomfortable, or they go there and they hear people being put down by the preacher or other members.   It shouldn't be that way.  Sometimes it is.

I think the trick is figuring out why it doesn't feel right.  Is because someone is making unreasonable demands?  Did you have a falling out with a fellow member?  Is the pastor a total dick? (This is always a possibility.)  Do you know you're supposed to be somewhere else?

A long time ago, high school-ish, I did what teenagers do and let a friend of mine convince me to visit his church.  I think they were going to give him pizza or something if he brought the most people.   My friend either didn't know or didn't admit to being gay.  Skinny, ginger, sweet, 17 but looked 12.  At this point in our lives he's around 30 and looks 24 so I guess that was a mixed curse.   He conned me into it, and I hopped into his father's huge mini-van and rode out to Meno.

I should point out that I am uptight, white, and absolutely not a demonstrative person during worship.  More so then than now.  I like/d the scriptedness of Episcopal Church for a reason.  It matches my personality.  I'm not touchy, I'm not feely, when I'm huggy it's learned freaking behavior.  That's just me.   So when I wandered into a non-denominational church, you can say it was because my friend was persuasive.

Entirely because he was persuasive.   The church was/is a converted high school.  There are stairs everywhere.  The second I walked through the doors, I got an eerie feeling.   Stupid me, I just assumed it was because the building was probably haunted.  My church is haunted.  Lots of churches are haunted.  I tried to dismiss it as a cranky spook.  The kids had talked about being drunk on the Holy Spirit like some kids talked about drinking everclear.   (Not exaggerating)  We went up some stairs and down some stairs (Salvador Dali painting?) and into the 'youth room'.   There was a lovely painting of Jesus on the wall that another friend of mine had done.  We sat down and listed to youth pastor preach.  He talked about David and Bathsheba, totally threw poor Bathsheba under the bus and made David sound like an innocent victim of her being a female who dared to take a bath.   I got really pretty pissed at him and wanted to mouth off but I didn't want to embarrass my friends.  Their parents went there, they had to live with this asshole.  Then he tells the entire room that he wasn't a virgin when they got married but his wife was, *wink* wink* and I wanted to punch him in the face.  

Believe it or not, this wasn't the moment I knew for sure that God didn't want me there. No, no, it wasn't.  It wasn't until they began doing something they called a concert of prayer that this moment came. A 'concert of prayer'is when everybody prays at once but doesn't pray the same thing.  From what I was hearing, it was more a cacophony of prayer.  I was standing there, feeling uptight and white and like I was being lame.  I decided I was going to try this and I started to get on my knees in an attempt to participate..  Then it happened.  My friend passed out at my feet.  Right at the spot where I was going to kneel.  His pale ginger ass was lying on the floor 'slain in the Spirit' as they say.  The Lord had given me a sign!!!  I was supposed to lie low until I could get the hell out of there.

Church shouldn't feel like that.  You shouldn't feel assaulted and abused.  You should be able to be quiet if you want to without feeling like a jackass.  The pastor/priest should probably talk about Jesus and not about David's huge creeper psycho moment that everyone, including God, blamed him for like it was the poor girl's fault.   He probably shouldn't talk about his relationship with his wife like a dirty old man either.  Worship should feel like something bigger than the moment in which it takes place.  It should BE bigger than that moment.  It should be about something other us and something other the preacher.

It should be about entering his gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

Not about some dick with a huge ego.  Just sayin'.  The Episcopal Church: Where even a dick with a huge ego can't hijack the entire Eucharist because well, this isn't about him.  He only gets fifteen minutes of extemporaneous time, and the rest of it is out of his hands.

Some things I will not be worrying about....

Looking hot at the gym: http://fitbie.msn.com/slideshow/hair-tutorials

Seriously.  Never.  Even if I join a gym again (My current one is my living room and it has no dress code), I will not be worried about looking hot at the gym.    That being said, cute hairdos. :)

Girl Rising

Link to article

Go read the article.  Watch the movie.    This should be a good place to start if you don't have TV like me. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/world/girl-rising?SR=SearchCNN_Girl_Rising

Dear Dove: I'm still not worried about my arm pits

I've been thinking about this post for a long, long time.   What you're reading is me cracking under impulse and indulging myself.  Confession time:  I hate deodorant commercials.  The latest offender is Dove and the arm pit hating spiel.

Behold:


Seriously.  Beautiful arm pits.  I'm supposed to worry about having sexy arm pits.  Really? I wasn't supposed to wear a sleeveless top without this deodorant?   Do even my pits have to be sexy now?

Holy crap.   The most attention I give my arm pits is once or twice a week I look at them and realize that I need to shave them.   Daily I put antiperspirant on them but that doesn't require a whole lot of thought.   They're armpits.   I raise my hand even when I'm NOT Sure, so I try to keep them hairless but they're not that high on my list of high maintenance body parts.

They're just not.   If you're wondering, yes, I have tried Dove antiperspirant and it has so much stupid lotion in it that it breaks before you can use even half of it.   It's lousy at keeping up with actual woman sweat as well.   The only reason I didn't break up with Degree over their jingle bell commercial (so incredibly dumb, this is the British version but they showed the same thing in the US) is that their stuff actually works on actual woman sweat.  Let's talk people into wearing bells so they realize how much the move.   Really?

I don't know that I move?  I don't know that when I move more I sweat more?  Do you think I'm an idiot or are you just trying to get it into my subconscious that my perfectly adequate antiperspirant is inadequate because it doesn't take into account that I move? I thought that was the point of antiperspirant.  I move, I sweat, I sweat, I stink.  Worse than stinking, my pits itch. 

Ladies, just say no to arm pit insecurity.   Don't worry about it unless you get that tell-tale sweat itch that makes you realize you didn't put on your deodorant.   While you're at it, you probably don't have to worry about "freshness" either if you're acquainted with soap.  Your children will still love you if you don't choose Jiff.  Your kids don't need designer diapers.   No one is going to think less of you  if you aren't a "Maxinista" and God doesn't care if you don't like and share that idiotic meme.

Brunch doesn't even have to look like it came out of a Better Homes and Gardens showroom as long as the food tastes good and you make your girls a tasty mimosa.   They came to see you, not your house.  At least that's what I tell myself when I don't manage to remove the paw prints from the carpet before my friends arrive.

Irony:

Click on it.