My Workweek

As We'd Say Around Here: Must Be One of God's Foods!

Because it Doesn't Always Have to Be That Way

Whenever people start arguing about biological roles and restrictions and "that's just the way it's always been" and "it'll always be that way," it always pissed me the fuck off, not only because things could be really differet, but because sometimes, things are really different (fast foward to about minute 4 if you're impatient).

It'll just "always be that way" until a bunch of you decide that it isn't.

Snapshots of Dayton

At lunch today, a bunch of people in suits and skirts participated in a rubber duck race in the big fountain in the main square near the courthouse downtown. There was a big inflated duck on a stage. When the whistle blew, the desk jockeys leapt into the knee-high fountain with their ducks and were off. One woman tripped in the fountain and got soaked from hat brim to stockinged feet.

AFter work, while sitting on the courthouse steps waiting for the bus amid a congregation of likeminded travelers, I witnessed a young man with a bible in his hand take up his place in front of us and proceeded to preach to us of Satan and Jesus, and how if Satan had stolen our self respect, our job, our luck, that Jesus would break into Satan's kingdom and get all of those things back for us.

One woman yelled from the audience, "Satan rules!"

It occurred to me that I don't have any street preachers in God's War. I need to remedy this.

I think the rest of the day was just too surreal to process.

Take Me Out

I was looking at an ad for a play showing in Dayton tonight and saw this warning message attached to the ad in the local City Guide:

"WARNING: Contains strong lanauage and male nudity - not recommended for audiences under 17."

I don't think I've ever seen a rating system that specificed the sex that was baring all. I'm assuming that the assumption here is that audiences will find a flacid male member far more intimidating than a pair of breasts (the play is also about race and homosexuality - maybe the whole "male nudity" thing is code for that in case insecure het men decide to go and see a "play about baseball" and get freaked out that it's *also* about baseball...).

There's no reason why a naked woman couldn't be seen as powerful and sexually threatening and a naked man viewed as a docile object to be dominated. There are certainly *instances* of this, and much of the control of women and their bodies - what they show, to who, and when - is of course done because women *are* secretly seen as powerful. But it *is* a secret super power - the rest of the world doesn't want to code it that way.

It does make me wonder if the whole bluster about male nudity is just a big sham to cover up the fact that the naked man is just as vulnerable - if not more so - than the naked female.

Ever so fascinating.