Virginity....yawn

OK. I promised to come back to this discussion a month ago, and life has just been too darn busy for me to get all worked up about this subject again. Here goes...

Every once in awhile I stick my head out from the incredibly progressive bubble of my community and tune my ears into what the "mainstream" is talking about. Lo and behold! There are still folks yakking about virginity as the single biggest and most valuable commodity a woman possesses.

Are they serious? Haven't we already evolved past this? Am I still in the 21st century? Who ARE these people who have such a narrow view of a woman's worth?

This virginity-as-primary-valuation b.s. only works if a woman is still a mere commodity to be traded by her father to her husband. As odious as this sounds, the notion of marriage as a joining of two lovers is very, very new on the cultural radar. I would argue that a huge percentage of marriages today are based on some sort of economic agreement or another, rather than strictly romantic ones.

Here's what increases women's and men's value in the marriage market: healthy sexuality. Those folks who are raised to appreciate the sacredness of their bodies and the incredibly intimate nature of sex are not likely to open the proverbial "garden gate" to just any old person who looks their way. If they have sexual relationships with people before they meet the person they choose to spend their life with, so be it. The chances of that person coming into a marriage with much to offer the marriage bed are greater than the very fleeting rip of a hymen with a virgin.

Because NO, folks, I don't think a hymen has a single whit of value for the success of a marriage. Not a whit.

Virginity as  badge of honor is an arbitrary and irrelevant piece of tissue. I have actually known girls whose sexual activity was far, ahem, racier than anything in my regular repertoire simply because anal sex allows them to engage in sex that didn't involve the vagina. All to save the precious hymen for the satisfaction of whom? Their future husbands? Talk about shallow. Is that really all virginity is about?

Nope. Not buying it. Mature, responsible, adults with healthy sexual attitudes don't get married, or not, because one of them has had other sexual relationships...because IT DOESN'T MATTER. Virginity has never been what makes or breaks a marriage, at least one that isn't a business deal, and it never will be.

Some Christian groups have tried to sell virginity lately on the idea that it's the only thing that protects you from STDs. True, but we're talking about the sexual human animal here, kids, and denying sex simply doesn't work. The example above is a perfect indicator of how Christian kids are getting around that pesky virginity issue, and I can assure you that STDs don't stop at the vagina.

Educating our children to make smart sexual decisions that honor their self-respect and their souls leads them to make inherently better decisions about who they have sex with. Encouraging them to understand that time, even as a teen, doesn't end in the very next second further helps them to understand the value of considering their actions. Open conversations about our own life experiences and the mistakes we've made help our children to consider their own actions with more information and more intellect than if they are uneducated and uninformed.

And NO, trying to slap a bible over sex isn't going to stop it. IT NEVER HAS. The bible isn't a chastity belt. It's a book written and edited by dozens of people over the course of almost two millenia and can't be credibly accepted as the de-facto text for human behavior.

I say "evolve or perish," and acknowledging the powerful hold our sexuality holds over us and encouraging our kids to do so as well seems, to me, to be the best way to prepare them for the future.

Rockin Jelly Bean & Juxtapoz Are Dead

I was so grossed out by the icky, cliche sexism in the latest Juxtapoz magazine last night that I actually made a point of not letting my daughter see it.

The "art" feature was about some dude named "Rockin Jelly Bean" who is, no doubt, too damn old to be producing such pre-pubescent fantasy crap as this.

Anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact that I'm pretty liberal, pretty forthright, and pretty stinking tolerant. BUT THIS? I don't need to have this kind of misogynistic crap rubbed in my face, and I'm certainly capable of intellectually putting it in its place. What's my 12 year old daughter supposed to get from this kind of blatant objectification of women?

Nothing positive, that's for sure.

I've written to Juxtapoz in the past to tell them that I love the premise of their mag, but that it's just....so....cock-heavy. Jeez, Louise, can we get some really cool urban art in here that doesn't recycle all the same old, trite, cliche, sexist bullshit?

I know killer art is out there, because I'm surrounded by people creating mind-boggling art in all sorts of mediums. Some of the graffiti murals and contemporary art here in my weird little hip town are being by artists whose soul and talent will run with the best of them.

I was just considering re-upping my subscription to Juxtapoz and buying my hubby one of their groovy t-shirts in the shake. Forget it. I'm done with this juvenile cock-fest. I think I'll send a check for what I would have paid for the subscription to the folks at Apache Skateboards.

Now those folks, guys and girls alike, have got it goin' ON! Maybe Juxtapoz will pull their heads out of their girlie-mag mentality and focus on that crew of super creatives. Hmmm. I'm dubious.

Here She Goes

The prodigy is off to middle school. Public middle school. She pleaded with us last year to let her leave the cozy enclave of her small, private school and go into the larger gene pool at a local public one. She's traveled. She knows that the world simply doesn't look as mono-cultural and, well, as affluent as the population at her private school might have suggested. So, off she goes.

And she's thrilled. She makes new friends almost daily. She loves the diversity and the variety of people at her new school. Her teachers know she's an eager learner, and they've made it clear that they'll keep her engaged and interested. Wonderful...and we don't have to write a huge, bank-draining check every month. Wahoo.

So what am I about to uncork? My amusement that it's taken approximately one month for my fabulous child to encounter the same crazy, Christian evangelism in 7th grade that I did when I was the same age. And let me tell you, those lunchroom conversion attempts turned me off the whole movement to this day.

Anyone who indoctrinates their children to the degree that they'll proseletyze about a religious figure with truly dubious historical roots to their friends, classmates, or total strangers at age 12 is to be feared. My daughter had her pencil pouch stolen in history by a boy who threatened to keep it until she "accepted Jesus Christ as (her) personal lord and savior." He was, in turn, told by my little wonder that he'd be "waiting a long time for that one." Could I love her any more?

What brought the subject of Jesus up in a history class? A discussion about the terms "A.D." and "B.C." and their problematical reference to Christ as the defining point in the world's timeline. My daughter agreed with the teacher that Christ, and Christianity, are illogical ways to reference history to a world in which the majority of people are not Christians, and in which religion should not be the defining consideration.

The charming young and eager Christian boy for whom this opinion posed a faith problem called my daughter a "criticizing bitch." Sadly, that is such typical Christian behavior.

Fortunately for my little fourth-wave feminist, the term "bitch" doesn't even faze her and she knows that it's a feeble attempt by a weak little mind to silence a discussion he's not intellectually capable of having. Did it quiet her? Nope. I pity the fool who tries to silence that girl; her mind is too sharp and she's too comfortable with lively discussions and opposing viewpoints to let a trifling threat of eternal damnation slow her down.

That brings me to my next thought: Why do so many women STILL fail to speak up for fear of being called a "bitch," and what's with our annoying tendency to say "Yes" or to say nothing when we really want to say "NO," "No Way," and "No Damn Way"?  I'll be back later for that.