Dan Savage vs Fatties?

I was perusing Facebook last night when I came across a link to this excellent post taking sex columnist/homosexual activist Dan Savage to task for his stance on fat people.

Now, I am a big fan of Dan Savage. I think his “It Gets Better” campaign to help gay youth who may be struggling with coming out or dealing with the aftermath of doing so, is one of the best examples of “pay it forward” and compassion that I’ve ever seen.

I also think that the author of this post, titled Savage Intent, has an excellent point when she points out the similarities between gay acceptance and fat acceptance, and the good fight Savage fights daily for the homosexual community while he slams the fat community. I also take issue — as I have for years — with Savage’s seemingly callous dismissal of the correlation of body acceptance and shame with eating disorders. The clincher of this post, for me, is this:

It’s the same fucking ignorance, the same fucking hatred that you are fighting against on behalf of gay Americans. The only difference is that your aesthetic displeasure is on the other side of the fence now. Now you’re the one who feels disgusted and appalled by the public display of what you deem unattractive or unacceptable. And now you’re the one dispensing baseless conjecture, stereotypes and unfounded “science” to claim that your opinions, regardless of how hateful, are fully justified.

And of course, media, including — perhaps especially — movies and television, continues create a barrier for a genuine understanding of the myriad issues that affect weight AND mortality. How many overweight — or even normal-sized — women do you see playing lead roles in movies or on television?

Regardless of where you think you fall on the whole issue of fat acceptance and why people are fat, I have to think that reading the scientific issues laid out the way the author, Shannon, does in this piece cannot help but at least make you think about the assumptions many of us tend to make concerning weight, health and mortality.

P.S. Shannon’s piece is very long, but please take time to read it in its entirety. There’s a ton of useful, relevant, scientific data in there, summarized in a way that really works.

P.P.S. I also thought it was pretty cool that the link to this article on Facebook came from Savage’s colleague at The Stranger, film critic Lindy West.

Apparently, It’s Not Just Natalie Portman Who’s Having Sex Outside of Marriage …

Is it really easier than ever for 20-something guys to get sex with no strings attached? And even if it is, is that necessarily a problem?

“A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange. Societies will therefore define gender roles as if women are sellers and men buyers of sex.” — from the Abstract for the article Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions, authors Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs

I came across a link to the above article, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review, while I was reading this Slate piece by Mark Regnerus about how today’s young men, while “failing in life,” are not failing to get laid.

I found the Slate piece interesting and … well, depressing, in the way in which it reduces sex, which to me should be something (usually) intimate and (always) passionate — even if it’s a one-nighter — down to a purely economic exchange of values. I mean, I get the theory behind it, sure, but I also think that theory is inherently sexist in that it assumes that men want sex MORE than women do, which may be the case for some men and some women but is certainly not a universal truth.

Nonetheless, here’s how the Slate piece more or less breaks it down:

A) In times when women outnumber men (assuming that women are competing with each other for that smaller number of men and not just buying a good, reliable vibrator instead), men become an increasingly desirable commodity;

B) This shifts the balance of power between the sexes, essentially shifting the power structure of the bartering value of sex acts, meaning that men have to exchange less of perceived value (primarily commitment to an exclusive relationship, engagement, marriage, and children … although for some women what they want in exchange is more material) in order to obtain sex from women;

C) When this happens, young women are forced to engage in more casual sex outside the context of a committed relationship in order to gain the value of having any sort of relationship, committed or not, and are willing to entertain the possibility of a wider array of sex acts that men are likely to find more appealing.

D) In order words, what your grandmother told you was true: Men don’t need to buy the cow when they can get the milk for free. When the balance of sexual power has shifted to the male side of the equation, we see more short term relationships, casual hookups, more couples living together long term rather than getting married.

Now, all this is well and good, but it also assumes that there’s something wrong with that. Not that there’s anything wrong with marriage and long-term relationships — I’m married myself — but I don’t think everyone has to get married or that being married is necessary for raising healthy, happy kids. Lesbian partners raise kids. Single moms (and, for that matter, single dads) raise kids. Even Natalie Portman can raise a kid.

And I don’t believe that all young women who are engaging in casual sex are doing so purely out of the economics of relationships. Isn’t it possible — just possible — that 40-some years after the advent of the feminist movement, and 38 years after Roe v. Wade, a lot of these young women have simply grown up in a time when virginity is less important, and when the primary concern around casual sexual encounters is more about avoiding unwanted pregnancies and STIs, rather than whether the guy will marry you after you negotiate the terms of your sexual relationship?

The nuclear family model we’ve been conditioned to accept as the brass ring girls are supposed to be reaching for from the time they first dress Barbie in a wedding dress isn’t necessarily all that it’s cracked up to be. Conservatives like to point a finger at the feminist movement and blame the divorce rate on uppity women and their feminist ideas. To an extent, they’re right: feminism has empowered women to no longer believe that they need to get married, or stay in a bad or unfulfilling marriages. Feminism has encouraged women to balance having kids with having careers, which in turn makes it easier for women not to be trapped in bad marriages for financial reasons. And feminism is responsible for things like birth control and legal abortion, which make it easier for young women to enjoy an active sex life.

One of the points in the Slate piece has to do with the “low cost of sex for men,” which the author backs up, in part, with these stats: “Take the speed with which these men say their romantic relationships become sexual: 36 percent of young men’s relationships add sex by the end of the second week of exclusivity; an additional 13 percent do so by the end of the first month.” Another 30%, he says, have engaged in sex without any wooing necessary at all. (These stats are pulled from a source that’s pretty reliable, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health ).

But isn’t it possible that, for some women, there’s also a perceived “low cost of sex” from her perspective as well? After all, if a young woman in her 20s wants to steer clear of the entanglement of a committed relationship but still wants to enjoy a healthy, vigorous sex life like the boys do, what the hell is wrong with that? I’m assuming here, kids, that we’re all old enough to be smart about birth control and condom use and having regular checkups to ensure we’re not picking up and passing around any STIs. But these are all things that BOTH men and women having consensual sex with multiple partners should be doing anyhow, right? Get laid all you want, but be responsible about it.

The problem with the Slate piece is that it’s operating from the assumption that the young men in question — these unmotivated, uneducated, unemployed or under-employed, video-game addicted slackers of whom the piece speaks — should actually be desirable to these young women as anything but sexual partners, or, potentially, as future sperm donors should these young women some day desire to have a kid. Why would a smart young woman even want to have a commitment from someone who isn’t committed to his own life?

I’m reminded of a conversation my mom overheard at the store between a couple of 20-something hipster guys:

HIPSTER GUY #1: So, you find a job yet?

HIPSTER GUY #2: Nah, but it’s cool. I got a girlfriend who has one.

Girlfriend, trust me. You can do better than that.

On the Stupidity of Mike Huckabee and Michael Medved Taking Harvard-Educated, 29-Year-Old, Pregnant Natalie Portman to Task for Setting Such a Bad Example

**Editor’s Note: A lot of smart people have gone to Yale, but Natalie Portman was not one of them. She went to Harvard. Correction duly made, with thanks to the reader who spotted my egregious error, apologies to Ms. Portman for insinuating she chose Yale, and Harvard people everywhere offended by the mix-up. Mea culpa.

So former presidential candidate/former governor of Arkansas (and, let’s not forget kids, likely presidential candidate in 2012) Mike Huckabee has an issue with Natalie Portman being unwed and pregnant. So sayeth The Hollywood Reporter, who picked it up from MediaMatters.org.

If you read the Media Matters piece, you’ll note that this all actually came from an interview with Huckabee on the February 27th edition of The Michael Medved Show, which makes it even less surprising. The controversial quote happened in response to Medved complaining about Natalie Portman’s speech, in which she thanked her choreographer fiance, Benjamin Millepied, for their soon-to-be baby. Medved took issue with this: “He didn’t give her the most wonderful gift, which would be a wedding ring! And it just seems to me that sending that kind of message is problematic.”

Huckabee responded at length, but the bit that’s seemed to set people off the most is this:

“Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out-of-wedlock children.”

But apparently Ms. Portman, who is 29 years old, has a high-paying job and a degree from YaleHarvard, and can surely afford to raise a child with or without being married to any man, is setting a bad example for young girls who will see her all preggers and think, “Hey, if a rich movie star like Natalie Portman can afford a baby, I can too!” Or not.

Huckabee opposes sex education and abortion, so apparently in spite of his issue with supporting the children of single mothers — a problem that will no doubt increase by a multiple of at least 10 due to the unsavory influence of Natalie Portman — he would like there to be MORE children born to mothers who are ill-equipped to be parents. Brilliant, just brilliant.

Here’s Huckabee from the Republican presidential debate in South Carolina:

“I’m pro-life because I believe life begins at conception, and I believe that we should do everything possible to protect that life because it is the centerpiece of what makes us unique as an American people. We value the life of one as if it’s the life of all …”

Well, that’s good to know, Mr. Huckabee. I hope you have a plan in place to personally financially support those lives that we should so protect. Seeing as how we value the life of one as if it’s the life of all, and all.

What’s that? You’re a Republican who doesn’t support those socialist ideas about it taking a village to raise a child? But how can we value the life of one as if it’s the life of all, and then NOT think it’s important for the ALL to have things like food to eat, a safe place to live, universal access to health care? Better not think about that one too hard.

So how do you feel about sex education, Mr. Huckabee? From ProLifeBlogs.com:

“Abstinence education provides a valuable counterweight to peer pressure and the message young people get from the popular culture encouraging casual relationships and separating sex from love, commitment and marriage. I do not believe in teaching about sex or contraception in public schools. That is the responsibility of parents.”

Then it would logically follow that it’s the responsibility of those parents to financially support the babies born out of wedlock to their sexually active teens if they fail to teach their kids about sex and birth control, right? Because what if, in spite of being taught that Abstinence is Good, instead the kids look at pregnant, 29-year-old Natalie Portman and decide to get knocked up anyhow? We value ALL life, remember? Those unaborted babies aren’t going to raise themselves, someone’s gotta do it. Gosh almighty, what a conundrum.

Young women get pregnant without benefit of marriage for a lot of reasons, Mr. Huckabee — most often because they are having sex with men (sometimes young, sometimes not) who are also not married to them at the time. They get pregnant because they are uniformed about how pregnancy happens and how not to get pregnant, when they don’t have access to good sex education — which Huckabee opposes. Sometimes they get pregnant because they have been raised by crappy, unloving parents and mistakenly believe that if they have a baby, someone will love them. Sometimes they get pregnant by immaculate conception, but that doesn’t happen too often.

So to sum up where Huckabee stands:

1. Sex outside of marriage is bad. Everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

2. Abstinence is good. Everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

3. Abortion is bad. So don’t get pregnant if you don’t want a baby. Also, everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

4. Sex education is bad. And remember, kids, everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

5. Waiting to have a baby until you’re 29 years old, have a degree from Yale, and a successful career, is also bad. Because everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

6. Don’t do what Natalie Portman does, kids. Follow Mike Huckabee’s advice instead: Everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

Got it? Good. Because Mike Huckabee values all life so much that he wants to tell you what you can and cannot do with your own uterus, young women. He values all life, but he doesn’t support having access to universal health care once you’re born to ensure you stay healthy and alive. He values all life, but he doesn’t value yours when you have to get a back alley abortion because he gets elected president in 2012 and manages to get Roe v. Wade overturned. He values all life, but not if your mother is a successful career woman who can afford to support you, but doesn’t happen to want to get married just because she got pregnant.

Now I don’t think that any girl will get pregnant because she saw Natalie Portman give her Oscar acceptance speech while unmarried and pregnant. But time and statistical data could prove me wrong on that count. It’s possible that 10 or 20 years from now in an alternative universe that we will have scientific data to support Mr. Medved and Mr. Huckabee’s assertion that Natalie Portman has set a bad example by thanking the father of her kid in her Oscar speech.

Until then, they both continue to be idiots.

P.S. If you are having sex, married or not, and you don’t want to have a baby, USE BIRTH CONTROL. Abstinence only works if you aren’t having sex. And having sex safely and in a way that fits your PERSONAL belief system, is a Good Thing.

P.P.S. If you do get pregnant and do not wish to be, you still have the legal right to get an abortion. Even if you live in Kansas.