Life and the Mind

So I try to be out in the classroom. I try to make sure my examples involve male and female partners. And though I don’t talk much about my personal life, I think it’s important for a wide range of reasons, given the world we live in, that my students know I am a bisexual. But these days I am encountering an interesting generation gap as my use of the word "bisexual" doesn’t match up so well with the word as it’s used by my students. If my student newspaper’s sex survey is to be believed fully 25% of my female students count themselves as "bi." Does this mean that 1/4 of my female students have relationships with other women? Sadly no. Would that it were so. The student facebook interest groups include the following when you search for "bisexuality":

• A woman is like spaghetti - they’re all straight until you
  get them wet …

• A straight girl is just a sober bisexual

Now I’m no model of perfection here says the married (to a man)  with 3 kids bisexual…maybe it’s a case of people in their yellow brick houses shouldn’t throw stones! But my bisexuality is more than a party trick, more than a taste I indulge in bars when drunk. Certainly it’s not something I do to impress or turn on straight men. And part of me really hopes that it is more than that for these young women too. We should all resist divisions among us and be wary whenever we want to say "I’m not that sort of queer." So as much as I think I am not that kind of bisexual, I try not to ever say it. People who would judge my sex life as sinful and evil would certainly lump them in with me. And I can’t regret the freedom these young women have to experiment, who knows what they will discover. I can wish it were there for the young men too. I don’t hear much talk of young men making out in bars to impress the girls. That might be fun but from what I can tell it isn’t happening. Soon maybe.

I’ve enjoyed reading bitch phd for some time and lately have found other female academics blogging, such as prof grrrl . I like these two for including their personal lives but I also like some of the sites that stick to more academic matters, such as Feminist Law Profs. Back to work…

March 6, 2007 — A man who tortured a "sex slave" then forced her to
maintain a Web site filled with depraved images of her bleeding and
bruised body was convicted of sex trafficking and forced labor
yesterday in Brooklyn federal court.

Glenn Marcus - who sources said turned down a plea deal for no jail time - faces up to life in prison for the crimes.

A seven-man, five-woman jury deliberated for seven days before finding
Marcus, 53, guilty of the two charges. They acquitted him of an
obscenity charge he faced stemming from the graphic images depicted on
his slavespace.com Web site.

Marcus, a chubby, balding man with thick glasses, showed no emotion as the jury forewoman read the verdict.

After the jury left the courtroom, Marcus spoke to a meek-looking woman
in the courtroom who sources said was one of his current "slaves." He
told her: "It’s a victory in one sense," apparently in reference to the
acquittal on the obscenity charge. Friends say Marcus refused the plea
deal because he saw his case as a First Amendment issue.

He will remain out on $1 million bail until his sentencing.

stefanie.cohen@nypost.co

Brooklyn jury given graphic S&M lessonPosted 2/23/2007 4:16 AM ET

The testimony came
during a trial in Brooklyn that has given jurors lessons on the
lifestyle of a man dubbed an "S&M Svengali" by the tabloids, the
inner-workings of a sadomasochism website and the federal government’s
crackdown on obscenity.

The jury began deliberating Thursday.

In
recent years, federal authorities have stepped up prosecutions of
purveyors of hardcore adult pornography to "protect citizens from
unwanted exposure to obscene material," Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales has said.

One pending case in
Pittsburgh — involving videos of simulated rape and murder — was
initially thrown out before being reinstated on appeal by the
Department of Justice.

Under the Bush
administration, at least 52 people or businesses have been convicted of
violating federal obscenity statutes, and more than a dozen indictments
are pending, federal officials said. By comparison, there were four
such prosecutions during the eight years of the Clinton administration,
they said.

In the Brooklyn case, Rona and the
prosecution’s star witness, named Jodi, gave conflicting accounts of an
alleged campaign of sadism by Glenn Marcus, 53, operator of a website
devoted to BDSM — shorthand for bondage, domination and sadomasochism.
A judge allowed both women to testify using only their first names.

Marcus
included Jodi and other women in thousands of photos posted on his
website — a practice that prompted the government to bring obscenity
charges along with sex trafficking and a forced labor count.

The
most serious charge — forced labor — by statute carries a potential
life sentence, although such a punishment is unlikely under federal
sentencing guidelines.

Jodi told the jury
that after meeting Marcus over the Internet in 1998, she agreed to
become one of his "slaves." Over two years, he systematically degraded
her by shaving her head, branding the initial "G" on her buttocks and
carving "Slave" on her stomach during liaisons in homes in Maryland,
Washington, D.C., New York City and on Long Island.

When
the 39-year-old Jodi failed to properly perform tasks for the
defendant’s website in 2001, he punished her by putting a ball in her
mouth, closing it shut with surgical needles and hanging her on a wall,
she said. Other times, he tied her down and mutilated her genitals with
a smoldering cigarette as she screamed out in pain, she said.

"I felt like I was literally in hell," she said. "I felt like I was on fire and I couldn’t put it out."

Rona,
51, a longtime friend called as a defense witness, said that while
living with Marcus and Jodi, the accuser was a willing participant in
their sex games. She called the defendant harmless.

"I
love being around Glenn," she said, even as prosecutors displayed
photos of her breasts punctured with dozens of pins. "He’s a lot of
fun."

Jodi testified she built up enough
courage to leave Marcus in late 2001, but also conceded she continued
to have contact with him, even going camping. She decided to go to the
FBI when he refused to take her photos off the Internet.

By
law, it didn’t matter that the accuser wasn’t always under lock and
key, prosecutor Pam Chen said during closing arguments Thursday. "She
was terrified. She was made captive by the fear."

Chen
told the Brooklyn jury it must agree that Marcus’ website was "patently
offensive" to convict on the obscenity count, and argued the material
was "so misogynist and so violent, it’s offensive."

The
defense has countered by arguing that Marcus and Jodi had a "contract"
to engage in a master-slave relationship that, while potentially
offensive to the general public, was consensual and even pleasurable to
the participants.

"Cases like this test the
very capacity of this society we live in for tolerance," defense lawyer
Maurice Sercarz said in his closing argument.

Defense
experts testified that the BDSM scene follows rules that purposely blur
the line between pleasure and pain, but demand mutual consent. One said
it draws from a "vast array of people," including judges; another said
that Marcus’ website had "serious scientific value" as a tool to study
sexual behavior.

But Chen portrayed the
defendant as a sadist who violated both the standards of a civilized
society and of the S&M community.

"Glenn Marcus made his own rules," she said. "He thought he was God."

They have apologized etc.
                                                                   
February 22, 2007

Mr. Brent Farrington
National Deputy Chair
Canadian Federation of Students
170 Metcalfe St., Suite 500
Ottawa, ON K2P 1P3

Dear Mr. Farrington,
We want to apologize that T-shirts carried in our stores caused insult and offense to the public and to your organization’s ‘No Means No’ initiatives.We are a company committed to reflecting the values of our customers. The slogan carried on the Tshirts did not reflect those values and was a mistake. We recognize the social responsibility that comes with being one of Canada’s foremost retailers and assure you that we will be more vigilant with the products we produce.
We want to assure you that we removed all the T-shirts carrying the offending slogan from our 116 stores on February 18, 2007. We are also inviting the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) to work with us to develop a line of T-shirts that reflect our common values. A portion of proceeds from these t-shirts will go
back to the CFS to help ensure that that the integrity of your ‘No Means No’ campaign is maintained and reinforced through continued communications initiatives.Again, please accept our apologies on behalf of Bluenotes and our employees. We strongly support the work you and your organization conduct.
Sincerely,
Michael Roden Lee Yaroschak
President Vice President of Merchandising
Bluenotes Bluenotes

First year university students find university professors weird. Personally, as a first year university student I found them weird and also charming. I liked them right off the bat. They made me feel normal. Wow, I’m home. These are my people. That was once I got over the gender issue, but that’s another story. Okay in brief: For years I had crushes on my professors, very unlikely crushes, I didn’t date men then, and especially not old, white haired, rumpley tweed suited men. But crushes I had, long fantasies of staying up all night talking about philosophy with them. I dreamed of being a philosopher’s girlfriend. Once I realized I could be a philosopher myself–I could be more than a philosopher’s girfriend–the crushes ended. Wait, I could be a philosopher and have a girlfriend! But the point is I liked academics and felt at home with them from the start. But enough about me, the wanna be academic/now academic in her own right, and back to them, the 1st year students who don’t generally go on to grad school. They think we’re odd. We’re generally shy and socially awkward. We love our research. We chose these careers because we love books and ideas and thrive on our own, thinking, reading, and writing. And then having spent years nose down writing a thesis, we get university jobs (if we’re lucky). And what do they do? Throw us in front of large groups of young people and expect us to perform. Yikes! Worse yet the 1st year students expect us to be like their wild and wacky outgoing high school teachers who chose their jobs because they liked the idea of being in front of the classroom all day (and all that good stuff about shaping young minds). Class clowns become teachers; class nerds become professors. It explains a lot. So the 1st year transition team talks to them about us–that’s called in biz speak "managing expectations"–and then another group, the teaching support centre, talks to us about them. They remind us that some of our students were now born in the 90s! That they have never known life before the internet. That they often can’t handwrite but they text really fast. And the helpful folks at the teaching support centre try to get us to find ways being comfortable in front of the class, to be the best darn introverts we can be.

from EggHead Cafe’s Personality Types page

INTJ - The Free-Thinker

Profile

INTJs are strong individualists who seek new angles or novel ways of
looking at things. They enjoy coming to new understandings. They are
insightful and mentally quick; however, this mental quickness may not
always be outwardly apparent to others since they keep a great deal to
themselves. They are very determined people who trust their vision of
the possibilities, regardless of what others think. They may even be
considered the most independent of all of the sixteen personality
types. INTJs are at their best in quietly and firmly developing their
ideas, theories, and principles.

Living

The independent and individualistic INTJ
manner appears early in life. As children, INTJs are often inwardly
focused on their thoughts of the way the world is or ought to be; they
enjoy day dreaming. They can be quite stubborn when information relayed
to them by authorities, such as parents and teachers, contradicts what
they believe. They are sure of their own belief system. INTJs are
compelled to establish their own rules, boundaries, standards, and
style. Often at an early age, INTJs make a commitment to furthering
their education. The life of the mind is very important to them.
Examples abound of INTJs from economically or intellectually
impoverished circumstances setting goals for themselves to continue in
education, often earning the highest degree possible. INTJ teenagers
may be seen as serious and reserved young people who are labeled as
bookworms by others. They set internal standards of achievement for
themselves and often do well academically. Being sociable is a standard
that they rarely think is worth their time and energy. As adults, INTJs
are focused on attaining their inner goals and standards. They set a
particular course based on their theory of what ought to be. They work
extremely diligently to accomplish what they feel is important. They
enjoy what they do and see it as a challenge. They are not easily
dissuaded and may regard others’ needs and wants as an impediment to
attaining their objectives.

Learning and Working

INTJs learn best when
they can design their won approach and when they are able to absorb
themselves in an area that interests them. They tend to focus on
systems, theories, and constructs relating to universal truths and
principles. They prefer challenging teachers, ones who meet their
standards. High grade-point averages and test scores tend to
characterize INTJs, who like rigorous academic work. Learning needs to
be a creative process. Rote memory can be dull and boring for the INTJ.
INTJs are diligent in pursuing new ideas and thoughts, and they exert
effort to master a given subject. This makes INTJs particularly adept
in most school situations. Because of their resourcefulness, thirst for
knowledge, and inner needs, INTJs tend to find ways of acquiring
knowledge. They gravitate toward libraries, public lectures, courses,
and other learners and teachers - sources that offer them information
and direction. At work, INTJs use their conceptual strengths to analyze
situations and then develop models to understand and anticipate through
relentlessly to reach their goals. They will continue on with their
plans, even in the face of adversity and data that might suggest to
other more practical types that their goals are no longer feasible. By
nature, INTJs are independent individualists. They see their visions so
clearly that they are often surprised when others do not see things the
same way. INTJs are strong at critiquing and as a result tend to notice
the negatives. To them, a job well done should be reward enough in
itself. They may neglect to comment favorably on others’ contributions.
INTJs tend to seek occupations that allow them to change the status quo
and to design models to express their vision creatively. They desire
autonomy and room for growth. They prefer to work in a place in which
the future can be planned and where they can work for change in an
organized manner. Some occupations seem to be especially attractive to
INTJs: computer systems analyst, electrical engineer, judge, lawyer,
photographer, psychologist, research department manager, researcher,
scientist, university instructor, and other occupations in which
long-range vision is essential.

Loving

For INTJs, love means including someone in
their vision of the world. INTJ men tend to be attracted to partners
who enjoy living their lives with and outward vitality and zest.
Perhaps it is to compensate for their internal, visionary focus that
they often find partners who are more outgoing and may even run
interference to help the INTJ deal with the day-to-day world. INTJ
women, however, may seek someone more like themselves. INTJs tend to
have a model in mind of how their relationship ought to be. This is
less a romantic vision than it is and idea that relates to how the
relationship functions in a unique or special way. They tend to
withhold their deep feelings and affections from the public and
sometimes even from the object of their affections. They can be
intensely loyal and caring, even though this is not always expressed in
words. INTJs can be generous with their gifts if the gift fits their
vision of what ought to be appreciated by their partner. When scorned,
INTJs retreat to their own world and may share none of their feelings
with others. They may assume that there is a right way for a
relationship to end and look for that. They act on the outside as if
nothing has happened to them when indeed much has. They may lash out
with criticisms of their former loved ones. It may take them a while to
recover.

While reading the latest installment in Dykes to Watch Out For which chronicles the story of Cynthia, the conservative lesbian smarty pants student/wannabe CIA agent, who alternately amuses and appalls her older radical mentors. On the blog which accompanies the strip Alison Bechdel answers a reader who wonders whether the CIA would really hire lesbians. Sure enough, it seems the CIA is committed to all sorts of diversity, including sexual orientation, and Bechdel links to the CIA personality quiz according to which I am a Curious Adventurer. Bechdel herself is a thoughtful observer. And if you care about Myers-Briggs at all, I’m a INTJ, and I don’t know what AB is though I’m guessing we share the I, as in "introvert." At least my career choices matches my personality type…see the list below from  Suggested Careers for Myers-Briggs Types. Most of this list I like, but dentists?! More later on how well the INTJ types do in the classroom and why we are doomed to disappoint our students. (Hint: almost all high school teachers-and church ministers-are E’s.)

INTJ -
Scientists, engineers, professors, teachers, medical doctors,
dentists, corporate strategists, organization founders, business
administrators, managers, military, lawyers, judges, computer
programmers, system analysts, computer specialists,
psychologists, photographers, research department managers,
researchers, university instructors, chess players. They have a
particular skill at grasping difficult, complex concepts and
building strategies.

I haven’t posted much here about my kids, mostly for reasons
of their privacy and a sense that it’s their story to tell, but sometimes I can’t
resist sharing snippets of our family life together. My sons, like many children,
play with action figures. For years they’ve played back and forth with one son’s
battle stories existing intertwined with the other son’s stories of love and
fashion. Sample dialogue overheard: “And then battle ship came out of nowhere
and sent a huge missile into the ship, kapo! says Son 1. Son 2 takes the story
in a different direction, “The princess says to the prince, ‘This isn’t a very
romantic cruise.” The rest of the story alternated between dresses being ruined
and battles being fought. For very different children, they get along
remarkably well, giving equal place to the different kinds of stories they
favor. Tales of kings and queens work well because you can both battles with
dragons and fashionable balls.  I didn’t
realize how differently they played with their toys though until recently when
a friend’s child visited and had to have the rules and the script regarding the
action figures explained to him. They have together created an All Girl Army.
Otherwise, as they explained, all the girl figures which come in the packages
would be wasted. So they were stripped of their girly accessories and outfitted
with the spare shields, swords etc. that we’ve accumulated over the years. The
All Girl Army is led by this tall blonde warrior woman they’ve named The Lemon
Girl. The Lemon Girl has special powers, mostly lemon shaped bombs attached to
her dress that she lobs into battle when needed. I’ve known about Lemon Girl
for awhile and about her warrior sisters. I have one son who directs the All
Girl Army and the other who leads the Men’s Army. But what comes next was news
to me. A torture scene led t the discovery that with their latest favorite kind
of action figure you can separate the heads from the torsos and the torsos from
the legs and trunk. This led to new possibilities. They have an army they call
the She-He’s. There are She-He-She’s and She-He-He’s (it depends on which head
you get which category you fall into). Visiting child insisted you either had
to be a she or a he, and I was charmed to hear my kids defending the idea that
life wasn’t that simple. It’s not simple at all but much more interesting this
way. Later we had a fun chat about how many variations on the gender theme there
might be. They said they’d think about that and I am sure they will.

But I guess not. Odd how these debates that stormed through campuses in my time-the 80s–reappear. And just as it wasn’t funny at Queen’s when the "No Means No" posters were defaced, it isn’t funny now. All sex should be safe, sane, and consensual, with an extra emphasis on consensual. You can write to Bluenotes and complain using their handy feedback link, bottom right on their page. Some useful stats to help with those letters are at women against violence against women and Acquaintance Rape.
————————————————-

A new T-shirt being sold at Bluenotes stores across the country is a big no-no, the Canadian Federation of Students says

The
men’s top is red, and has the words "No means have aNOther drink"
across the front in white letters. It sells for $15.50 plus tax.

No Means No is a slogan that has been used by the CFS in its
campaign against date rape and dating violence for the past 10 years,
said Brent Farrington, national deputy chair of the student group.

"I think it’s incredibly unfortunate that it is . . . inversing the
meaning of this slogan to mean it’s okay to date rape somebody. Not
only is that socially irresponsible, it’s corporately irresponsible."

Mr. Farrington said the company has not responded to calls from the CFS to remove the shirt from store shelves.

"The only reaction we got is that that’s the stuff people buy these days."

Several calls to Bluenotes head office in Toronto yesterday were not
returned, while calls to individual stores indicated the item was
available across the country.

Dana English, co-ordinator for the Avalon East Coalition Against
Violence in St. John’s, said she’s frustrated by the way she says
Bluenotes is "marketing a myth" that endangers young people,
particularly women, and is worried about the damage that may cause.

"[The T-shirt slogan] would be particularly damaging for someone who
was a victim of rape or another sexual assault," Ms. English said.

"It only takes one guy to start wearing this shirt before a lot of
guys are wearing the shirt, and what kind of message is that shirt
sending to females?"

Ms. English said she was first alerted to the T-shirt by a coalition
member, who complained to the manager of one Bluenotes location.

"The manager agreed with her that the T-shirt was offensive, but
said the decisions [on what products to sell] were made at a national
level," Ms. English said.

"I went into [another Bluenotes location] and had the exact same conversation with the manager there."

Bluenotes is operated by Canadian YM Inc., which operates 240 retail
apparel stores across Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico under
the names Bluenotes, Stitches, Suzy Shier, Urban Planet, Sirens and
Siblings.

A Reuters news story is headlined Sex of any kind can harm teens emotionally  and it reports on a paper in the journal Pediatrics. I will briefly quote the Reuters story: "Researchers at the University of California San Francisco
found that up to one-half of the sexually active teenagers in
their study said they’d ever felt "used," guilty or regretful
after having sex.Though such feelings were less common among teens who’d
only had oral sex, about one-third reported some type of
negative consequence." (Actually, it seems odd that only 1/3 had ever experienced regret after sex. Ever? Surely almost all adults have experienced some regret after sex.  Say on the way to work the next day feeling sleep-deprived. But maybe that’s not the sort of regret they mean.) I recommend anyone who is serious about this go to the original source for the information–see below for details–because it’s interesting what aspect of the research that the Reuters reporter picked up on. My response is really a response to the Reuters article not the journal article, which I have read, thanks to a computer hooked up to a university library with free online access to most journals.

While I don’t doubt that kids feel guilty after sex, given our society’s widespread beliefs about sex, many adults still struggle with sexual pleasure and feelings of guilt. Notice though that  no one recommends that adults stop having sex because of guilt and shame feelings. Instead, we recommend  that adults think about society’s views of sex and realize where there views come from. Could we do the same with teens?  The researchers Dr. Sonya S. Brady and Bonnie L. Halpern-Felsher note that girls are twice as likely to report feelings of shame and of being used. Again, I suspect the difference holds with adult women as well. That’s because of the belief, widely held, that good girls don’t. The researchers only suggest that parents talk to teens about the emotional consequences of sex, not that anyone tell them not to have sex.

The original research finding is not that teens have guilt
feelings after sex it’s that they reported these feelings in the case of oral
sex, hence the “sex of any kind” part of the headline. Is guilt an emotional harm? If so, who is to blame?  Let’s consider that outside the context of
teen sex first. Suppose a young woman is raised by a conservative Christian
family and has a certain worldview about the kind of sex that good women enjoy—marital
sex, procreative sex, loving sex and so on. Suppose she finds herself at
university and falls for another woman. At a party, she enjoys a few drinks,
puts her inhibitions aside, and finds herself in bed with another woman. The
sex is amazing. She never knew this kind of pleasure was possible. Fill in
details as you wish. Now imagine our  imaginary young woman awaking in the morning
and feeling mixed emotions. Guilt is part of that mix. If we imagine that the
guilt feelings are strong enough—she has disappointed her parents, broken the
rules, disobeyed her God—that she never does it again and lives a miserable,
repressed life in an unhappy, mostly sexless and certainly joyless, marriage,
who is at fault? Certainly she has some agency in the situation but the whole
story looks to her upbringing and the messages she was taught about sex.

 The point I’d want to make about the teenagers is the same.
We need to know more. We need to know why they feel guilty and what they feel
guilty about. Parents and sex educators need to address the guilt in order to
get at the mistaken beliefs that generate  guilt about sex. I suspect that many teens
also feel guilty about masturbation but who would want to say—the usual
lunatics aside—that masturbation is a bad thing. What is bad is guilt about
sexual pleasure. These lies the real harm. Of course, not all guilt about sex
is a bad thing. Sometimes guilt is based on true beliefs about what one ought
and ought not to do. For example, suppose I feel guilty because I coerced
someone into doing something beyond her comfort zone. Then my guilt feelings
serve a purpose and they remind me of how to better live my sexual life. But my
view is that teenagers shouldn’t feel guilty about being sexually active. That
they do feel guilty means we have to engage with them to find the basis of the
guilt. Especially in the case of girls, or in the case of teens with deviant
desires, we need to find ways to help them become resilient, to develop a sense
of sexual self-esteem that can withstand all of the anti-sex messages around
us.

REFERENCES

Adolescents’ Reported Consequences of Having Oral Sex Versus Vaginal Sex

Sonya S. Brady, PhD^a and
Bonnie L. Halpern-Felsher, PhD^b

^a Departments of Psychiatry
^b Pediatrics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California

OBJECTIVE. The present study examined whether adolescents’ initial consequences of sexual activity differ according to type of sexual activity and gender. 

METHODS. Surveys were administered to 618 adolescents recruited from 2 public high schools in the autumn of ninth grade (2002) and at 6-month intervals until the spring of tenth grade (2004). Analyses were limited to the 275 adolescents (44%) who reported engaging in oral sex and/or vaginal sex at any assessment. Participants were 14 years of age at study entry, 56% female, and of diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. 

RESULTS. In comparison with adolescents who engaged in oral sex and/or vaginal sex, adolescents who engaged only in oral sex were less likely to report experiencing a pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection, feeling guilty or used, having their relationship become worse, and getting into trouble with their parents as a result of sex. Adolescents who engaged only in oral sex were also less likely to report experiencing pleasure, feeling good about themselves, and having their relationship become better as a result of sex. Boys were more likely than girls to report feeling good about themselves, experiencing popularity, and experiencing a pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection as a result of sex, whereas girls were more likely than boys to report feeling bad about themselves and feeling used. 

CONCLUSIONS. Adolescents experience a range of social and emotional consequences after having sex. Our findings have implications for clinical practice and public health campaigns targeted toward youth. 

Key Words: adolescence • gender • sexual behavior • risk-taking • decision-making

Abbreviations: NSFG—National Survey of Family Growth • STI—sexually transmitted infection

Accepted Oct 12, 2006.