Posts from — March 2011

The comment love fest (and annual giveaway) is heating up, so you really get two Roundups this week — the one you’re creating in the comment section over here and this one.  I am baking all weekend and trying to get my first round of boxes out on Tuesday, so you only have until Monday morning to comment elsewhere (and compliment that person’s writing) in order to win.

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So, does everyone know about Cyclesista?  It started probably five years ago as a way for people to connect with others cycling at the same time.  (Someone help me out with this — my blog is almost five years old, and I think it was there before I started blogging.)  People submit their blog name and what they’re doing (IUI or IVF) and then they can visit the other people cycling at the same time — giving support and getting support.

Equally fun is going back through the archives and seeing old blogs.

I was trying to remember the five original members this week.  I believe it was Things Get If’fy, Journey to the Centre of the Egg (which became Rememberella), Prop Up Your Hips (now deleted), Stella and/or Ben, and Jenny from the Infertility Block?  Correct me if there were others who came before these members.

The torch has been passed a few times now, and it is currently run by Bea and Jen.  Seriously, no one needs to cycle alone.  Go add yourself to this month’s list if you’re not on it.

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Who will be the next Limerick chick?  Only you can determine that.  Go over and vote (hint: it won’t be me).

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The Weekly What If: what if you could either be transported to the first show or the last show of your favourite band.  Would you rather go see them before they became the polished musicians you know them to be; to catch that first spark?  Or would you rather go enjoy their last hurrah?

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And now, the blogs…

BigP and Me has a moving post about whether or not to give a lost twin a name.  She writes, “It feels like if I give her a name, it means she was more than she was.  She was hope and possibility.  I wonder if naming her makes her out to be more than that?  More than she was.”  I feel that the naming of things is such a gut, personal decision, but I also love the discussion of what naming someone means, how that helps (or doesn’t help) us heal.

It is what it is (or is it?) has a post about her adoption story and how it contributed to how she processed her child’s birth.  Because she was never told about the moment of her birth but rather the placement in her parent’s arms, she always saw herself as someone who was “hatched.”  She explains: “Unless you have been raised without that knowledge you simply cannot appreciate how profound it is to know.”  The post gives a lot of food for thought.

Here We Go Again has been keeping a secret — but it’s one she placed in clear sight in another post.

Finally, Bloodsigns hit it out of the park with her post on the classroom orgasm incident this week.  The story she tells of her own experience as a teacher showing a controversial film illuminates how no one can speak for the way anyone else processes an event and that almost parental-like care teachers should have for their students.

The roundup to the Roundup: The comment love fest winner will be announced on Monday (so keep reading those posts that are being linked to in the comment section this weekend).  Do you know about Cyclesista?  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great posts to read.

Perhaps you noticed Purim creeping up on the calendar.  Perhaps you thought I had forgotten.  But no, like an elephant, I always remember.  At least, that is the case when it comes to candy.

It is once again time for my annual mishloach manot giveaway. (I believe this is the fourth time doing this.)  The idea behind mishloach manot is to send out treats so no one is without dessert after the Purim feast.  It’s a recognition that not everyone has money for extras, but everyone could use some sweetness in their life. (And on that end, not everyone has my mad baking skillz so this is to save a person from Pepperidge Farm.)

It is my favourite thing I do all year, and we have a great theme planned (past ones include “Yes, We Can(dies)!” in honour of Obama’s inauguration, the Winter Olympics, and Dr. Suess), but you’ll need to win the basket to see it.  I have been sitting on this theme for almost a year now.  It’s that good.

I can tell you that in the baskets thus far (and whoever wins can tailor this to their tastes/allergies):

• Chocolate and sea salt peanut butter cups
• Chocolate and sea salt nutella cups
• Hamantaschen
• My infamous chocolate chip cookies
• Homemade lollipops
• Brown sugar toffee
• Chocolate bar
• Non-edible items which cannot be named because they will give away the theme

And whatever else I dream up between now and mailing the packages.  I’m not going to be modest — people tell me that my baking and candies are fantastic and while they may be lying, they have inflated my culinary ego.  This basket is going to rock.  And 100% of the items so far are recipes of my own creation.

The baskets are for our friends and family, but we also make one every year for the lovely people of the Internets, and it’s yours to win.  Here’s what you need to do to enter the giveaway (and you can enter as many times as you like):

• Leave a comment below (yes, a box full of candy for the low low price of one comment!) telling me where you left a comment already today–and feel free to leave, write a comment somewhere, and come back.  Please put the name of that blog and a link to the post in the comment.  And say something nice about that person’s post.  And no, commenting on this post doesn’t count for where you’ve left a comment (though my blog still counts as long as you’ve commented on a different post).  The posts that you’re commenting on need to have been written in March 2011 (only entries with a link to a post written in that time frame count).
• You can enter as many times as you like.  Which means the more you comment around the blogosphere, the more chances you have to win (last year’s winner did an insane amount of commenting).  Only comments that talk about a post you read elsewhere in the blogosphere have a chance at winning (in other words, if you write below, “that looks delicious!” I’ll be appreciative, but you won’t be eligible to win.  You need to list a place where you commented today, give the url for the post, and say something about the post).
• Each comment counts as one entry, so if you’ve commented in three places, you’re allowed to leave that in three entries here.  Leaving it in separate comments is actually sort of an important fact because too many links in a comment will make it caught by the spam filter.  I will release comments caught by the spam filter, but it will take me a moment.
• The giveaway ends at 8 a.m. EST on Monday the 14th, therefore, you can return all weekend and list new, great blog posts you found.  If you’re still confused, think of this as creating a Friday Blog Roundup-type list in the comment section, one comment at a time.

I will also love you forever if you read down the list and click over to read the other posts listed in the comment section.  And don’t just hit the first ones at the top of the comment list. Make sure you hit some of the people in the middle or bottom of the list and leave them a comment telling them that you agree with the original commenter — their writing does rock.

If someone writes something nice about a post you wrote this week, bask in the love.  Oh, and here’s a good impetus to go write something amazing on your own blog so people can come and comment on it over here and win the basket.

My usual blog rules apply: any spam is deleted — the point is to honour another person, not drum up business for a Viagra website — as well as anything rude.

I’ll use the random number generator and announce it on Monday after I’ve contacted the person.  So let the commenting/mishloach manot winning begin.  Oh, and no, I’m not sharing these recipes yet.  You’ll have to win them to eat them.

I have joined GoodReads and I’m just figuring out the site, though I can’t really find anyone unless I’m willing to let it search my email addresses, and I learned that lesson with StumbleUpon (remember that SPAM event, anyone, when I clicked the wrong button?).  So if you are on GoodReads, please let me know or friend me so I can see what you’re reading.

Also, a question — I got an email that someone is following my reviews.  How do I follow her back?  And how is that different from friending?  And why do I have friends and fans?  What is the difference?  I guess that was more than one question.

I am hosting a Q&A for Life of Scratch over there for the month of March.  So please join along and ask your questions.  And spread word to others on GoodReads.  I’ll be really sad if I’m just chatting with myself.  Looking a bit insane.

I really wish I had joined it months ago because I’m always forgetting what I’ve read and here is this chance to have a history of what I’m reading — all in one place.  I added the two books I’m currently reading (Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens on your recommendation when I was reading Coraline — see, I do listen to you — and Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter) as well as what I’ll read next (Hunger Games.  Then it’s back to the vampires).

Mostly, I just like being around others who pick up books and rub them against their cheek as they would a cashmere sweater. (What, am I the only book cheek-rubber?)

NY Times has an article today about injecting hcG in order to lose weight.  You can go laugh for a moment; I can wait.

The regimen combines daily injections with a near-starvation diet, and patients, mostly women, are often enticed by promises that they can lose about a pound a day without feeling hungry. Perhaps even more seductively, they are frequently told that the hCG will prompt their bodies to carry away and metabolize fat that has been stored where they least want it — in their upper arms, bellies and thighs.

I would post a picture of the fat ass I received from fertility drugs, but I don’t want to freak these women out.  Granted, I wasn’t consuming 500 calories a day and I was only injecting hcG once a cycle, but still, hard for me see pictures of myself pre-treatments and post-treatments and not do a slightly hysterical laugh when I hear diet stories like this.*

*Just to be clear, I have no opinion on the actual diet since I haven’t read any of the research.  I am merely commenting that hcG took me in the completely opposite direction from these women.

You know how some ideas leave a film on you, and you can either wait for enough time to pass for it to rub off, or you can write it out and take the equivalent of a verbal shower?  I was going to do the former when it came to the topic of Professor Fucksaw, but after reading Jezebel’s write-up today, I decided to aim for the latter — it’s faster, and I really want this off of me.

For those who don’t know what I’m referring to, J. Michael Bailey, a professor at Northwestern University, had a demonstration after his human sexuality class where he brought a woman on stage and had another man bring her to orgasm with a dildo attached to a power tool (which he calls a “fucksaw” — which I think is our first warning about his motivations, but more on that in a moment).

The professor gave a half-assed apology afterward (apologizing only for the fact that people are upset, but not for the act itself), stating that “he thought critics had not made reasoned arguments.”

Saying that the demonstration ‘crossed the line,’ ‘went too far,’ ‘was inappropriate,’ or ‘was troubling’ convey disapproval but do not illuminate reasoning.

So I’d like to try my hand at an argument.

This is personal for me because I’ve actually been in the position of his students, though in my case, that part of class wasn’t optional; it was mandatory.  I say this first and foremost because I can see J. Michael Bailey dismissing these thoughts as an emotional reaction based on my own personal experience.  Of course, it is an emotional reaction based on my own personal experience BUT I think that strengthens my argument — not negates it.

Because I can actually tell you how it feels to have your professor show you something like this.  I am going to hazard a guess that he has never been on the receiving end of a lesson like this.  But I have.  So I think, Mr. Bailey, I win in actually having a leg to stand on when discussing whether or not this is troubling having had experienced it.  Whereas you don’t.

Sorry.

I think first and foremost, regardless of whether he allowed students to leave the classroom before the demonstration began, when we are talking about a student/teacher interaction, there is a power dynamic that negates all choice.  There is a reason why universities have rules again students dating their professors — because it can’t ever be a fully consensual relationship when someone holds power over the other person.

This act wouldn’t bother me in the least if it had occurred at a conference amongst equals.  It wouldn’t bother me if it had occurred in a theater performance at the university.  The point is not the watching of a person being brought to orgasm.  The point is that when there is a teacher-student dynamic in place, an act like this becomes an abuse of power — even if you tell them that they have every choice to leave.

It becomes then the educational equivalent to statutory rape — the older party or — in this case — the person with the power — can claim it was consensual, that the other person wanted to engage in the act too.  But how consensual can it be when the two parties are on completely different playing fields in terms of power or decision-making capabilities?

Which is not to liken the act of showing a woman orgasming to rape.  I don’t think there is anything in what J. Michael Bailey did that equates showing a woman being brought to orgasm as a similar act to raping a woman.  BUT, I do think that if we were going to create an analogy, similar to the ones on the SAT, we could say that real education is to J. Michael Bailey’s class as sex is to rape.

real education : Bailey’s class :: sex : rape

Rape is an act of violence.  It’s a power struggle.  It’s not about sex at all.  And I think likewise, Bailey’s class was not about education at all.  I think it’s about his own show of power over students — and I think he finds this titillating, especially since he followed up the presentation by saying,

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but watching naked people on stage doing pleasurable things will never hurt you.

Which leads us into his motivations, which I think is an important factor in whether we look at this as educational or an abuse of his power for his own ends.

This wasn’t black-and-white research, this wasn’t learning for learning’s sake.  If we want to talk about the vagina for medical reasons, we call it a vagina.  When we want to talk about the vagina in order to shock, we call it a cunt.  I think the moment he called it a fucksaw instead of a phallus on a power tool, he revealed exactly why he was doing this.

I think when he points out that “this story has been a top news story for more than two days,” he also tells us exactly what he hoped would happen.  Especially in an Internet age where we all know that our actions easily have a chance of transcending our own small circle and expanding out rapidly across the world.

If he did this 15 years ago pre-Twitter, I could accept his surprise at it becoming national news.  I think when he points it out, it is to draw your attention to it as an accomplishment rather than an admonishment.  Unless we’re supposed to believe that this professor doesn’t know how the Internet works?

I hopefully have made it clear over the last almost-five years of this blog that I am a huge proponent of sex education.  I believe that the only way to make good decisions is to be well-informed, and I intend for my kids to be well-educated.  I hope they take a human sexuality class when they get to university — I took several.

I also hope that they only encounter people in their education whose aim is to impart knowledge and not to use their position in order to fulfill their own fantasies.

I hope they don’t run into power-hungry professors who wield the gradebook like a gun in order to compensate for their own inadequecies.  I hope they don’t run into self-absorbed professors who are so in love with their own mental capabilities that they can’t concede that education is a two-way street and that students often have a lot to teach professors.

And I sure as hell hope that they never run into a smug, small-minded, self-titillating professor like J. Michael Bailey who mistake where their classroom begins and their fetish ends.  I hope my kids are never put into a situation where they are used to fulfill someone else’s fantasy in this manner.

As J. Michael Bailey said in his “apology“:

I certainly have no regrets concerning Northwestern students, who have demonstrated that they are open-minded grown ups rather than fragile children.

Nothing says strong argument than belittling your naysayers as fragile children.  So in taking a page from his book, I say to this professor, grow-up.