As for Kathleen Parker, as times change, so does the desire of certain people to cling to past ways. Every conservative voice has at least one foot in the past, or a traditional approach of doing things, but as the column on Kathleen Parker points out, much of conservative ire is directed out of largely baseless fears. Even so, the fear of many feminists and progressives alike include such matters as the return to coathanger abortions, rigid gender stereotypes, and willful subjugation of LGBTs. Though we may bemoan the status quo, we have made much progress, too. The truth of the matter is that we live in a centrist nation that is inherently skeptical of positions it dubs either too far right or too far left.

I get the feeling from the article on American Prospect that Parker and I have very different ideas about what it means to "Save the Males." From what I understand, she wants to protect the false heirarchical binary between men and women by telling women to be less vaginist than what Ensler encourages. I think that this wouldn't achieve anything I want to see!
I think that saving the males would involve something more like calling upon men everywhere to recognize and talk about how much socially constructed genders also hurt men.

I made it through about 4 minutes of that horrific 5 minute movie promo. Creepy...

I made it through about 4 minutes of that horrific 5 minute movie promo. Creepy...

If women weren't depicted in photographs, movies, public displays, or paintings as helpless, naked, sexual, vacant eyed, and masochistic "creatures," then there would be at least 90% less "art" in this world.

In the first century of our civilization, maybe this was innovative, but today it has surpassed cliche, and yet, it is still flaunted and hailed as if new. Women are made to starve themselves, wear garments and clothing that is restrictive, to pose in submissive ways, and to subject themselves to unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles all for the entertainment and "aesthetic" purposes that our "society" has deemed appropriate,and to the detriment of the well being of our entire gender. Maybe it's a little bit more than just "art."

That film trailer was beyond ridiculous, and it would be completely irresponsible to let it go ignored. I'm sick of violence and psychopathy being glorified in the media (and mostly aimed at women). It's just as bad as the sensational reporting of journalists and news broadcaster's when someone goes on a shooting spree, only enticing other deranged people to follow suit, because they want the fame as well. This is why we have so many copy cat crimes. I know people in our society are not this dumb, and that's what really has caused me to be ashamed to be a part of it.

I honestly have nothing to say about the video except "EWWWWW," just absolutely sickening. Clearly constructed from the male's point of view, and absolutely detrimental in working to end our rape culture.

I think it's interesting how things that I do in the context of a respectful relationship are absolutely disturbing beyond any measure when taken out of that context. RE: the trailer.

Shorter Kathleen Parker article: Leans right, therefore can't escape the spotlight of the liberal media.

I mean, that's what it is, right? It's liberal media, so they can't stop showcasing conservatives, because... that makes sense. Somehow. The Washington Post will tell us, someday.

Trailers like that make me lose faith in filmmaking. It seems like it's going down a plughole.

"Christine Firer Hinze, a theologian at Fordham University, believes that choosing abstinence can carry a strong countercultural message and a vision of personal fulfillment beyond immediate gratification.

Oh, sure, there's no cultural precedence whatsoever of women being expected to be abstinent and forego their immediate gratification while men go about gratifying it up. Nope. None at all.

The other thing that annoys the shit out of me about "abstinence until marriage" is that MARRIAGE IS A FRICKIN' ABSTRACT HUMAN-CONSTRUCTED INSTITUTION. Of course it has tangible privileges and benefits, but it's not some "natural" institution that just issued from the wellsprings of nature and that "naturally" makes sex OK. Sex, to me, is far more natural than marriage. It seems like the most unnatural thing in the world to deny one's basic sexual desires for a person s/he loves in order to wait for the abstract constructed institution of marriage to make it all better.

Ugh. Yes, we may be surrounded by a consumerist culture that pushes immediate gratification, but men and women experience this differently, and to ignore this fact is to give one a distorted view of reality.

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You know, if that trailer didn't have all the purposefully shocking, amped-up, "sexy" violence...it'd be pretty damn boring. So if that's not the entire point of the movie, it's the only way the filmmakers thought they could spice up the trailer. And that's pathetic.

My takedown of the Lisa Miller column at Yes Means Yes Blog

I know Kathleen Parker from my local paper. Her smile irritates me, now I know why

I really think the movie is not showing that all women want to be smacked around and spanked and then submit. It's a movie about characters; there are all kinds of people in the world and not all of them are smart feminists. I think Girls Gone Wild is a million times worse for women than a fictional movie. GGW makes it look like all girls LOVE getting naked and kissing each other for the pleasure of men. They are not actors, they are not paid, and they are not playing a role.

Why is this movie getting more heat than the dozens of other movies with violence in them?

I posted this comment on the Yes Means Yes article about the Lisa Miller column, but I wanted to post it here too:

I do think she’s right in that a lot of college students are not having sex, and yet they’re being given this idea that part of the college experience means random hook-ups and if you haven’t lost your virginity by 19, you’re a loser. But groups like TLR are not helping the matter; they’re making it worse. Considering that 95% of people today DO have sex outside of marriage, chances are the majority of those 80% of college students who have had

The other problem is that TLR and such groups don't make it easier to be a virgin as much as they promote the idea that there's only one reason one would choose to be a virgin in college – saving oneself for marriage, because of religion – because without Jesus, we're all so filled with lust that we can't resist our carnal urges. So anyone else who is a virgin falls into "loser who can't get any" or "repressed beyond belief" or some other such category, where there's something inherently wrong that's keeping them from having sex. Because, obviously, they really really really wanna get laid, right? I mean, who doesn't?

I have to deal with this stigma all the time, as a 19-year-old college student who hasn't had sex, but is an agnostic and thus clearly isn't one of the "purity pledge people." I can't tell you how many times I've been told I should stop waiting to get into a relationship with a guy I care about, and "just get laid." I'm a gender & sexuality minor, so sex is no mystery to me and in some ways I'm more educated about it than my sexually-active friends. However, there's this assumption that because I haven't had sex yet, and I'm not particularly eager to have it simply for the sake of "getting laid," I'm somehow repressed about sex. And that unsatisfying sex with someone I'm not interested in is somehow going to change this.

In short, college students who are virgins do need a place for support, but groups like TLR are giving the wrong kind. Most of us aren't necessarily proud, much less hoity-toity and finger-wagging, about our virginity, and thus aren't interested in shoving our message down other students' throats. And abstinence groups tie lack of sex too clearly to religion and to marriage, when for most students who aren't currently sexually-active, those aren't the reasons. I think the point is more that we need a group that teaches us not to be proud, but simply to be not-ashamed, if we're not having sex, and to promote the idea that being sexually progressive means accepting those who choose not to have it as having more complex sexualities than simply religious nut, social outcast, or repressed.

P.S. I wanted to clarify that I’m not trying to demonize sex outside of relationships just because I make it clear that’s not what I want. That’s a personal preference; I’m a very private person, so I generally need to really trust someone before I let them sleep with me. However, I know not everyone is like me in this sense. Also, by “sex for the sake of getting laid,” I mean the sort of sex some of my friends encourage I have, where I sleep with someone I’m only marginally interested in just so I can say “I did it!” Which to me, doesn’t sound very fulfilling. I wasn’t trying to say that sex outside of relationships all falls into that category. Obviously, one doesn’t need to be dating someone else to be strongly attracted to them, or for the sex to be satisfying.

Also, for those interested in hearing from the other side of the Harvard "abstinence battle", check out senior Lena Chen (of "Sex and the Ivy" fame) at http://thechicktionary.com/

"chances are the majority of those 80% of college students who have had