From the smarties at Drexel University comes this little post on sexual limitations the Church placed on marital relations. I guess we forget how lucky we are today that the Church will basically let you do ANYTHING as long as it’s with your spouse…. hell, I’ve even come across websites that advocate the use of porn, and even pegging!!! in Christian marriages. (Please click that link, I promise, it will not disappoint.)

Here: an excerpt on punishments from our Holy Catholic church in the Middle Ages…. The numbers correspond to the length of time you were to abstain from any sexual impurity. I challenge you: think about your own sexual activity this week, self-induced or whatnot, and see what your score is.

Dorsal sex (woman on top): three years
Lateral, seated, standing: 40 days
Coitus retro — rear entry: 40 days
Mutual masturbation: 30 days
Inter-femural sex — ejaculation between the legs: 40 days
Coitus in terga — anal sex: three years (with an adult); two years (with a boy); seven years (habitual); 10 years (with a cleric)

Theologians were divided on the punishment for coitus interruptus, the withdrawal method that frustrated procreation, arguing for a penance of between two and 10 years, while semenem in ore (semen in the mouth) could attract anywhere from three to 15 years. Pierre de La Padule added that sex during menstruation, sex in churches and sex preceded by kissing and fondling were almost as bad as the previously mentioned positions. Masturbation was so common that it only incurred a 10-day penalty for men and 30 days for monks, but women who used “erotic devices” did penance for one year.

I stopped counting when I had surpassed the 10 year mark…. In a way you could view this as the Middle Ages Abstinence Movement, and hey, what do you know?? The human race is somehow still here….Abstinence doesn’t work people.

Via The Smart Set

So, apparently, a year ago, I moved to the big city. A look back on some NYC firsts.

1. Ate my first Coney Island Nathan’s Dog.
2. Black bagged a beer for the subway.
3. Bitched out a parent at a Park Slope playground.
4. Verbally disrespected a NYPD officer.
5. Fell asleep on the F Train and woke up at Stillwell Ave.
6. Had a dude rub up on me on a crowded subway.
7. Had my karma shaken when someone genuinely wished me a nice day.
8. Had my karma shaken when a man peeled off a layer of his skin and offered it to me.
9. Had a dude masturbate within feet of me on the F Train.
10. Got my freak on, also on the F Train.
11. Witnessed my first subway fight.
12. Forgot and subsequently remembered what clean air smelled like.
13. Saw a subway tunnel on fire, and no one seemed to care.
14. Signed a petition for increased F Train service.

And since I’ve moved here:

15. Have not been directly affected by the price of gas per gallon, or ridonculous car insurance prices, nor have I sat in a drivers seat.
16. Can not fall asleep without the sound of loud Mexican music and garbage trucks
17. While home in my homestate: Gave the stank eye to a man who looked me in the eye, and smiled!! What an asshole!
18. Could map out the Subway System on a napkin if provided with 8 crayons (Jack would definitely help out,too.)
19. Have been obsessed with integration of all things Google. Coincidence?
20. Have stopped attending church, even when paid (NY is a godless city.)
21. Was labelled a NY’er (or the enemy) at a Mom & Pop coffee shop in NH.
22. Have become somewhat less idealistic, and definitely more cynical.
23. Can locate the nearest Starbucks location within half a block. Likewise, where the cheap bars are.
24. Could give two shits about fashion, unless I spend the day in Manhattan…. and then I just want to kill myself.
25. Have had my share of career uppers and downers.
26. Figured out (kind of) how to collaborate with a significant other.
27. Have never battled more with depression, addictions, poverty…. and have never felt more confident that I’m living/doing just what I’m supposed to be living/doing.

In my hasty post this morning, I neglected to link to the Detroit power plant video that generated all the sweetie-ness…..Obama called the reporter within hours of the incident, and apologized, and the reporter admits that she’s been called way worse. As you can see from the video, he’s a busy man, being pulled in a million directions, but sometimes when we respond in moments where we have no time to think about what the appropriate response may be, it offers insight into those uninhibited parts of our brain…..Either way, it’s been a great dialogue starter on something that a lot of men and women feel passionate about.

I knew the other day that I needed to post on the "Sweetie" issue because the use of simple everyday words that diminish and oppress women is something I'm quite passionate about. While I enjoy being called Sweetie by my grandfather, and other loved ones, I do not enjoy being called Sweetie, or Beautiful, or Honey by the guy making my sandwich at Subway, or the Metro North train conductor, or especially, an old school exec at Time Warner.

You can argue that words are words, and especially in the case of the old school Time Warner guy that the generational gap here is definitely in play. I might not be as upset if a waitress called me Sweetie when she dropped my check at my table, or the older guy at the corner store where I buy cigarettes and beer when it's been a rough night.

When a term of endearment is used to create an environment of familiarity when that intimacy isn't there, it's wrong. I don't mind my cigarette guy calling me Sweetie, because we talk about baseball, and the weather and my son whenever I stop in. I'm cool with it because I feel a sense of community with him, and similarly with the waitress at the diner down the street. I have definitely been that uppity woman who has said, I'm not your sweetie to random shopkeepers, because I'm not YOUR  sweetie. In that moment, that intimacy that is built up over time in a real relationship, or through familial bonds, or through gradual friendship is being forced.

It's also quite dismissive. It's a passive way of unruffling feathers when there's a crisis at hand, such as a mistake in an order, or when a cashier is talking on their cell phone instead of taking your order. To assume that to compliment a woman on her beauty or demeanor will keep her in a submissive state is foolish. I'd also like to point out that Sweetie and Honey are diminishing terms, they don't help edify ones of self, they attempt to stun it into a state of submission and that's bullshit.

While I won't deny that I've witnessed my male friends being called Sweetie at restaurants, I'd like to also point out that that instance occurs so rarely to them that it may in fact not register as something that over time, compounded with the daily weight of walking down sidewalks knowing that most males view you as merely a sex object, could get a little tiring. And remember, when men are labeled with temporary intimate labels they are called EDIFYING terms, like Champ, Chief, Big Guy, and Tough Guy….

I guarantee you, if that had been a male reporter, Obama would not have called her sweetie. He would have stopped to learn his name,  which I'm NOT saying he should have done or most likely, adressed the man with an unfamiliar label of respect, probably "sir"…..and you have to agree that the difference between sweetie and sir is pretty extensive.

At the end of the day, being called Sweetie is not the biggest issue I will face as a feminist,  but just because there are bigger issues, and this particular one does not mean everything, does not mean that it does not mean anything.

The judge found that since Ross and Day had previously had a sexual relationship, Ross should have known her claims were “frivolous… there was no reasonable belief that a court would accept Plaintiff’s claims…”

The nightmare of this case, for Melanie Ross and for all future rape victims in Georgia, is that she was forced to discuss in elaborate detail her sexual past, and then she had her claims dismissed in part because she wasn’t a virgin. Moreover, not only did Ross lose her case, the judge fined her $150,000 for bringing it in the first place – a fee sure to dissuade other victims from coming forward with their own claims. This case is currently being appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia, which can choose to hear it or not – let’s hope they right this wrong before it hurts more victims.

So, if you intend to pursue a rape case in Georgia, prepare to have your sexual history paraded and scrutinized on the stand, despite the fact that it violates BOTH state and federal law…. And remember that if you have engaged in consensual sex at one point in your life, the state of Georgia, who I can only guess is taking their logic from the School of Phyllis Schlafly, will only see you as a ho.

Via Feministing

The California Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry, rejecting state marriage laws as discriminatory. The long-awaited court decision stemmed from San Francisco's highly publicized same-sex weddings, which in 2004 helped spur a conservative backlash in a presidential election year and a national dialogue over gay rights. Several states have since passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. Today, 27 states have such amendments. The reaction to today's ruling outside the courthouse in San Francisco was one of jubilation as couples, once denied marriage, hugged, kissed, shouted and shook their fists at the sky. Holding up a sign that says, "Life feels different when you're married," Helen Pontac said she was beyond words.

While I view marriage as somewhat arcane, far be it for me, or any state legislature to prohibit anyone their right to happiness in the institution of marriage.

Via LA TIMES

Ladies, let’s do our part for the environment! Keep your mini-vans in park, and your vag’s in the kitchen!!!

Upon researching his 2007 book, What’s the Matter with California, author Jack Cashill, has somehow managed to pin the largest biosphere damage on the rise of feminism. I forged my way through the bullshit so you don’t have to, but I’ll leave you with a few choice gems:

Equal pay for equal work also means equal commutes. In California, it is not at all unusual in two-income families for the two jobs to be an hour or more apart.

With only one parent in the workforce, the family has the ability to live closer to the breadwinner’s place of employment, and most do.

Indeed, stay-at-homes moms save the state’s highway infrastructure from meltdown, especially since a “nanny” often drives to the working mom’s house, putting three cars on the road where otherwise one would do.

Homeschooling moms further ease the strain on the ecosystem by keeping their kids off the road. The California judged who ruled that “parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children” obviously did not prepare an environmental impact statement before doing so.

Equal pay!! Buddy, it’s a fiction…. it’s a fucking pipe dream for most women! Last time I checked my figures, a married woman with children earns $.56 to a married man’s dollar, and a single woman $.72 to a married man’s dollar. Equal pay my ass. Secondly, there is no mention of stay at home fathers, and this concept is no longer novel. When I was working at DC Comics I was surprised at the number of stay at home daddy writers we had employed. The assumption that women by nature of their vaginal structure are to remain at home to rear children is fucking archaic.

And finally, in a somewhat “Freakanomics” like approach to divorce statistics, Cashill attempts to show a correlation between The “no-fault” divorce and the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. And no matter how many times I read this paragraph, I don’t quite see his point, or how any of it relates to feminism, except perhaps that they occurred the same year???

In 1970, the first full year of the no-fault law, the state registered a record 112,942 divorces, a 38 percent increase from just the year before. To put that number in perspective, consider that in 1960, there had been only 105,352 marriages in California.

…….

If, however, mom has a nest, and dad has a nest, California needs a whole lot more nests than it otherwise would, not to mention more resources to heat, cool, light and water those nests and more gas to ferry the baby birds between them.

My vag and I are going to make breakfast now.
link

Info on a few upcoming shows I’m performing in:

Stravinsky Masterpieces at Park Avenue Armory
Symphony of Psalms
Requiem Canticles
Mass
Variations
Saturday April 19th, 7:30 pm

Early Romantic Masters
Clarion Music Society
Music of Schubert, Mendelssohn and Donizetti
Church of St. Ignatius Loyola
May 7th, 8:00 pm

Newspeak Ensemble
Which Side Are You On? Music For and Against Frederic Rzewski
Music of Rzewski, Little, Hearne, Early, Bettison and Schanzer
May 2nd, Brooklyn Lyceum
This program will also be aired on WNYC

In between those rehearsals, Matt and Pete and I have been working up The Little Death for various venues in the summer and fall. When I’m awake I practice my play and sings and I am now working out poly-rhythms in my sleep with my feet. Of all the gigs I’m working right now, this one is by far the most challenging, and rewarding.

I believe I said in my rehearsal on Saturday, “Flacid isn’t fun for anyone….” Now I can’t remember what it was in reference to…..

via Ad Rants