The submission was listed as “Doctors for the Family” and is available here.

The big problem for Professor Kuruvilla George, being his role as a board member for an organisation that promotes equality and acts in cases of discrimination against protected attributes, one of which is sexual orientation.  He is also the Deputy Chief Psychiatrist for Victoria.  According to The Age today, his resignation was voluntary and had nothing to do with his submission to the Senate Enquiry which was done in as a private individual (though signed with: MBBS MPhil FRCPsych FRANZCP after his name – which means he was signing it in a medical capacity at least – as far as I read it).

I was going to talk about the ACL’s press release and their suggestion that all research on queer families was bunk, but the delightful Chrys beat me too it, so I’ll point you at her work here, and another article which debunks the authors that the ACL are relying on here.

There is one comment from the ACL press release that I want to address:

“This is clearly no basis for Federal politicians to make a decision about changing the Marriage Act – a decision which will have big consequences for children deliberately excluded from one of their biological parents for life.”

Mr Wallace said Professor George should be invited back to the Victorian Human rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and that claims by homosexual activists of equal parenting outcomes should be subjected to much more rigour before politicians legislate to create another stolen generation.

Firstly I’ve addressed the issue with comparing children in same sex relationships to the Stolen Generations here.  Hello David Van Gend, you’re still an arsehat.  Clearly the ACL are not above emotional manipulation and appropriation for their own agenda – I would hope that an organisation that claims to be Christian would be more compassionate towards those members of the Stolen Generation who are still with us and the trauma they experienced.

Secondly, let’s address the claim “children deliberately excluded from one of their biological parents for life”.  Now I’m not 100% sure what is meant here, so I’m going to go with all options and discuss which ones the ACL seems to not mind, and the ones they do.

1. Child of heterosexual parents has a parent die – child is deliberately excluded from one of their biological parents for life, but that’s ok because it’s part of God’s plan
2. Child of heterosexual parents has a parent separate/abandon/divorce acrimoniously/were never in a relationship – not good, but not as bad two committed same sex people bringing up a child
3. Child of heterosexual parents where the child was conceived by donor sperm or egg and does not know the donor – not good, but not as bad as two committed same sex people bringing up a child (though in this case the child is potentially being excluded from a biological parent)
4. Child of heterosexual parents where the child was conceived by donor sperm or egg and who does know the donor – perfectly fine
5. Child of currently queer parents, where the child was conceived by donor sperm or egg, and who know the other biological parent – EVIL!
6. Child of currently queer parents, where the child was conceived by donor sperm or egg, and who does not know the donor – EVIL!
7. Child of currently queer parents, where the child was conceived in a heterosexual relationship before at least one parent’s sexual orientation changed/was realised – assume custody arrangements apply – EVIL!
8. Child of currently queer parents, where the child was conceived in a heterosexual relationship before one of the parents died – child is deliberately excluded from one of their biological parents for life – EVIL!

And let’s not even think about how this debate yet again makes bisexuals invisible – because I’m bisexual and married to a bisexual, so we’re queer parents, and yet because we’re opposite sex if we had children it’d be A’OK by the ACL.

The ACL in their hysteria to condemn equal marriage and same sex relationships throw single parents (for whatever reason) under the bus as well.  Instead of preaching tolerance, compassion, unconditional love, understanding, charity and hope as I’d expect a Christian organisation to do, they peddle in fear, bigotry and lies.  It’s time (still) that the ACL closed the door and gave up, they have no credibility and only continue to lose respect every time they go out in public.

Further recommended reading: Doctors for the Family – Debunked

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For a piece I haven’t gotten around to writing yet, “Feminist porn aims to mix pleasure with principle” from The Age and by Michael Lallo.

Melbourne, she adds, has a reputation among her peers as ”a hotbed of radical sexuality”. Thanks to the efforts of local women such as Gala Vanting, Anna Brownfield and Liandra Dahl, it’s also considered a leader in ”feminist porn”.

Yet this term confuses many. Some wrongly assume that ”feminist” means an absence of male performers; others imagine that films made by women involve endless dialogue and soft-core sex scenes.

At Aces Too High News, “Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85%“, a piece which has some parallels to some of the experiences of some people I love dearly *trigger warning for discussion of child neglect and abuse*:

A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln – and, safe to say, at most high schools in this country – is automatic suspension. Instead, Sporleder sits the kid down and says quietly:

“Wow. Are you OK? This doesn’t sound like you. What’s going on?” He gets even more specific: “You really looked stressed. On a scale of 1-10, where are you with your anger?”

The kid was ready. Ready, man! For an anger blast to his face….”How could you do that?” “What’s wrong with you?”…and for the big boot out of school. But he was NOT ready for kindness. The armor-plated  defenses melt like ice under a blowtorch and the words pour out: “My dad’s an alcoholic. He’s promised me things my whole life and never keeps those promises.” The waterfall of words that go deep into his home life, which is no piece of breeze, end with this sentence: “I shouldn’t have blown up at the teacher.”

From Geek Feminism, ““Oh, You Sexy Geek!”: “Geek Girls” and the Problem of Self-Objectification“:

The sexism that persists in geek communities is not special. It is not separable and inherently different than sexist institutions and behaviors in the “real world.” This means that the sexualization and objectification of women is not unique to geek cultures, though it is particularly severe in geek media. Video games, comics, science fiction, fantasy—these media forms are often at fault for promoting unrealistic (and, pretty regularly, physically impossible) standards of beauty for women. They fashion their female heroines and villains as sexy objects to be consumed, unlike male counterparts. Further, geek industries bring the objectification of women into the real world, hiring, for example, booth babes for conventions. Booth babes are conventionally attractive models hired by media companies to wear skimpy clothing and entice convention-goers to their respective booths. Geek women exist within this culture, which devalues their contributions as producers of media and meaning, but values their contributions as adornment.

From Addicting Info by Pat Tiffin, “Marissa Alexander: Shoot to Kill Or You Must Not Be Scared Enough“, a story that makes me go GRRR *trigger warning for racism and domestic violence*:

Marissa Alexander is another victim of Florida’s infamous Stand Your Ground law, proving that Florida statute 776.013 is not for battered women or people who won’t shoot to kill. When attacked by her husband in her home, with an order of protection in place, Marissa Alexander shot into the ceiling, instead of into his body, to scare him away. She is now sitting in a jail cell, awaiting sentencing for assault with a deadly weapon.

Ms. Alexander is black and a mother of three. She had given birth nine days earlier to a premature infant, allegedly as a result of battering during her pregnancy. She is a licensed gun owner, with concealed carry permit. She was in her own home. Her husband had a documented history of domestic violence. She reasonably believed that her life was in danger and her husband was violating an order of protection.

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I have this idea.  I’m not sure if it would work, or even be possible, but I’d like to try it out – sadly control groups and experimental groups are lacking.

A little background might help I guess, because what I’m asking for is people’s opinions and ideas as to whether my idea is feasible, whether they’ve seen anything else similar anywhere else, and overall whether I should push this as a form of community engagement.

I’m a member of a polyamorous community in Victoria (Australia).  There has been a lot of discussion recently about how to ensure that the community remains safe and what (if any) role the committee of the incorporated organisation play in that.  There is clearly a desire for clarity around the committee’s role and what the community can expect – but this isn’t the discussion I want here, this discussion is for my idea of creating a safer community.

If the leaders of a community (whether elected official leaders or other identified leaders) expressed clear opposition to unsafe behaviours and encouraged the community to openly and safely discuss how those unsafe behaviours have affected them personally (with no mention of perpetrators) in their lives, would that create a community were those who engaged in those behaviours would not feel welcome?

That’s nice and complicated, let me break it down to a specific example.  If the committee/leaders stated that rape and other sexual crimes are behaviours that are not tolerated in the poly community, and the community was encouraged to have ongoing discussions regarding the effect that rape has had on their lives, without naming he perpetrator because this is the space for those who have experienced rape or other sex crimes, would those who believe that rape is no big deal have their minds changed, and would those who have raped or who will rape be less likely to remain in the community?  Could a community be built that does not blame victims for the crimes against them but instead supports them and talks about the damage that silence and victim blaming causes?

We don’t talk about violence against others nearly often enough in the community spaces I inhabit.  We do not express our distaste, our displeasure, our repulsion, our abhorrence against what is done by some to others.  This culture of silence often means it is easy for people to be unaware of the extent of the harm that violence causes, and also how wide-spread some forms of violence are.  If those of my community, who evidently felt safe to do so, stood up and told our stories of violence, those who don’t know would most likely be shocked at how common such things are.  I’d want the leaders (elected or generally respected) to be very clear that no one invites crimes to be committed against them and that any form of victim blaming would not be tolerated.

I feel, in an ideal world, that this could work, that a community could start to talk about the harm that violence causes, and make it a very unwelcome environment for those individuals that participate in forms of violence against others – because their viewpoints that their behaviour is ok would be challenged by people who think it is not.

I’d love other opinions on this however.

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When I first found the MeetUp.com page of a support group for polyamorous relation­ships, it seemed perfect. Not only was it tailored to our style, the description explicitly said that it welcomed all women, in­cluding “self-identified women.” For two trans-identified people, this sounded perfect, even too good to be true.

After sending the orga­nizer pictures she had requested so she could rec­ognize us at the door, we learned my partner’s self-identification as a woman was trumped by her body. Though she had no prob­lem with a transmasculine female-bodied person entering the group, when the organizer saw my partner’s face, she balked and my part­ner was informed that she was not wel­come. “Self-identified woman” turned out to be “post-operative, hormonally modified, culturally-identified women.” In short, she had better pass as a ciswoman. The organizer defend­ed her decision to bar my part­ner from the group by arguing that she was making sure people in the group felt ‘safe.’ The crux of this issue is what it means to be a woman and what women-only spaces look like.

Vivienne Chen at the Huffington Post, writes “Poly-Baiting: Why We Need a More Inclusive LGBT Movement“:

The problem is Santorum is right. Did I just say that? (This is where I say things that not everyone in the LGBTQ community agrees with, so my post should not be used as a monolithic representation of LGBTQ activism.)

He’s right in the sense that once we realize it’s stupid to keep any two loving, consenting adults apart, we may start wondering whether it’s equally stupid to keep three or more loving, consenting adults apart. However, he’s totally wrong in assuming that the latter is necessarily a bad thing, and thus deserves to be booed at any opportunity.

An Anonymous Guest-Post at Warren Ellis’s blog.  This guest post is from a possibly former member of Anonymous:

Now, what I’m going to talk about isn’t really a tale from the front line, as there wasn’t one. Spike, in his foxhole, getting shelled, trying to stave off terror by finding a way to brew up some tea whilst drawing naked ladies on his copy of the standing orders would doubtless have been extremely envious at that way I could get involved from the comforts of home, or my workplace, or out on the streets of London or the idyllic countryside around East Grinstead, even if that bit did involve hiding up trees in the rain, trying not to laugh as serious looking security heavies beat the bushes below and didn’t think to look up. Despite the relative tameness of this tale in comparison to virtually any and all war stories, Spike Milligan’s books are an inspiration in terms of getting down some of the stories of events you (the generic, Royal ‘you’, that is) were involved in, so here’s the tale of how I played a part in changing the way Anonymous interacted with the media, and the ways in which it did make a difference to a couple of individuals, even if the international impact is much, much harder to assess.

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So what happens when you get a GP and Family Planning Specialist, and a Psychotherapist and Life Coach together to write about sex after giving birth?  You end up with this train wreck of an article.  Honestly I expected that two such qualified people would be able to write an article that used language that was easily understandable and didn’t read like the two authors were thinking that their 12 year old children might read it.

My first issue with the article is not the language, but instead the hetero-centrism, that the only people who give birth are women who are in relationships with men (not other women), and secondly that sometimes people who give birth don’t identify as women.

So the point of the article is about resuming sexual activity after giving birth, and things that couples (and individuals) should keep in mind given the trauma of childbirth on the vagina.

(All quote below are from the article above unless specified otherwise)

You see, childbirth is a pretty traumatic process for a woman. Having a baby pass through her vagina is almost like having a small explosion go off inside her.

Apparently children are explosive.  I found this short paragraph really confusing.  Since I’ve never had an explosion go off in me, and I assume most people haven’t, and I assume that most people haven’t actually ever played with explosive materials, I don’t know how anyone is supposed to assess what an explosion going off inside someone is actually like.

And I love the use of “a woman”, because really this article isn’t written for the person who just gave birth, but presumably for the other partner who wants to resume sex, because masturbation isn’t enough.

Furthermore, childbirth involves considerable hormone changes – as well as emotional stresses. And as a consequence, very, very few women feel rampagingly sexy until a long time after they have given birth.

Oh those days of feeling rampaginly sexy… whatever that actually means.  If they mean that the person who gave birth may not feel horny/randy/hungry for sex for a period after giving birth, perhaps they’d've been better of saying that.

Therefore, it’s important for both mother and father to realise that lovemaking may not go brilliantly in the first six months or so after the baby arrives. So be prepared – and be patient!

Or you know, the mother and the mother, or any other variation that works in context.  I do think the last sentence, minus the exclamation mark, is a great thing to tell people though.  Be patient and prepared for things to be different.

Traditionally, midwives and doctors have advised that a woman shouldn’t consider having full sex (ie intercourse) until after her postnatal check-up. This examination usually takes place about six weeks after the birth.

However, in recent years several American medical publications have pointed out that there is no real scientific basis for this ‘prohibition’ until sex weeks.

Just pointing out the last sentence, because it is a very funny, unintentional typo.

Even then, she may not feel ready to ‘go all the way’ – particularly if she has had stitches and the opening of her vagina is sore.

If you’re in any doubt about whether to resume sex, ask the doctor who does your postnatal examination for advice – particularly about using additional lubrication.

She?  She???  Is this article directed at the partner of the person who has given birth or the person who has given birth? The following sentence in that quote is then directed at the person who has given birth.  A little bit of consistency on who the article is addressing (hint: it should be the person who has given birth) would be nice.

Can you go in for any other sexual activity before resuming intercourse?

Yes – and it can be a good way of ‘letting off steam’. Couples do often get very frustrated when they’re waiting to resume sexual intercourse. This applies particularly to men!

Yes, masturbation (and hey using that word won’t kill you) is a fine thing.  If someone doesn’t want sex, then the other one masturbating is all well and good in my book.  And we all know how men starve to death if they don’t regularly get off… and how especially sexual they are, and how they must have all their needs catered too… blah blah blah.

Can both of you go as far as the point of climax?

Definitely! It will do the postnatal woman no harm at all to have orgasms if she wants to.

So, things you can do include:

• hand petting of the man by the woman – what’s often called a hand job
• hand petting of the woman by the man – using his fingers to stimulate her clitoris. But he should not put his fingers inside until she has had her postnatal examination and the doctor or midwife has said that everything has healed up. So, just stick to stroking and rubbing the outside of her sex organs. It’s quite safe to pay plenty of attention to her clitoris, which is well away from the area where stitches are put in
• oral sex performed on the man by the woman. This type of loveplay – termed fellatio – often proves a great boon to a male who is desperate for sexual release
• mutual caressing of various other parts of each other’s bodies.

Most awkward descriptions of non-penetrative sexual activities ever.

I have always considered my clitoris part of my sexual organs, so it’s a bit of a surprise to discover that they aren’t.

Is there anything we should avoid?

Yes. Please heed this important warning. You’ll note that in the section above we have not recommended oral sex performed by the man on the woman (ie ‘going down’ on her).

This activity – often termed cunnilingus – is definitely off limits during the first few of months after childbirth.

Why? For two reasons.

1. It could introduce infection into the vagina and womb.
2. Even more seriously, it has occasionally led to death. These tragedies have occurred because the man has (often accidentally) managed to blow air into the vagina. Air can very easily get into the blood vessels of the newly-delivered womb – and cause an often fatal illness called ‘air embolism’. Not long ago, the British newspapers reported an appalling case in which a man forced his wife into cunnilingus shortly after she came home from hospital, puffed air into her – and killed her.

Some more awkwardly worded euphemisms for sexual activity.

I  note that they don’t discuss the possibility of performing oral sex with a dam to avoid either of the two issues that they have raised, which would be sensible and you know practising safer sex.

I would like to know what a newly-delivered womb is.  I didn’t know that once you had given birth you also received a new womb, is it part of a two-for-one deal?  I might also add, that if someone is blowing air into a vagina during oral sex they may (unless it’s your thing) be doing oral sex wrong.  Oral sex, as far as I understand, experience, and provide, generally focusses on the clitoris, which isn’t exactly co-located with the vagina (in the same way that your eyes and your nose aren’t co-located), same general location, but still separate.

I also love the scaremongering of the story about the man who forced (in which case it was rape) his wife into receiving oral sex, who later died of an air embolism – please note the lack of link, date, or any details which make this story searchable (I tried).

So I went and looked up air embolisms and oral sex, I found the following (with thanks Go Ask Alice):

Dear Alice,

My girlfriend and I have oral sex. I heard that if you blow in the vagina of a female that it could kill her. Is that true?

Dear Reader,

Yes, it’s a true but very rare occurrence. When air is blown or forced directly into a vagina — without allowing any air to escape — an air embolism (the abnormal presence of air in the cardiovascular system) could form, which can be fatal. Women who are more at risk for this unlikely possibility are those whose pelvic vessels are enlarged (meaning, increased blood supply to the vagina) due to a condition such as trauma and possibly pregnancy. So, if a very large amount of air were to be blown or forced into their vaginal canals, it’s possible that the air could enter their bloodstream, causing a blockage in a blood vessel. As a result, some of these women, perhaps including the pregnant women’s fetus, may experience complications. In extraordinary cases, some of these women (and the fetus) may die if the embolism travels to the heart or lungs.

If you like blowing air into your girlfriend’s vulva, and if your girlfriend enjoys the sensations brought on by this, it may give you two some peace of mind to know that gently puffing some air into or breathing on a woman’s vulva during oral pleasuring appears to be okay. However, it might be better to suck, kiss, lick, probe, press (with lips or fingers), or lightly nibble a woman’s vulva or clitoris than blow or force air directly into her vagina. Safer and enjoyable oral sex on a woman mostly involves using a dam, finding out what feels good to her, and practice.

The answer, my friend, is not blowin’ in the women.

The remainder of the article is a mishmash of stuff that was previously mentioned and actual decent medical advice such as, get counselling if you need it to cope with depression, being a parent, etc.  There is a brief discussion of post-pregnancy depression (for both partners), the change in libido, and communication and respect in relationships.

The second half of the article is far easier to read and manage than the second.

So that’s today’s WTF moment for you all.

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A peer-reviewed journal by the name of “Personality and Individual Differences”, published a paper in March 2012 titled, “Do pigmentation and the melanocortin system modulate aggression and sexuality in humans as they do in other animals?” (full paper available at link), by two psychologists.  The psychology bit is important, because the paper is essentially looking at biology, and there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of qualification in biology that the two authors of the paper have.

I strongly caution you regarding the racism in this paper.  It is abhorrent and awful.  The commentary below delves a bit into who the authors are, my WTF in relation to the contents of the paper, and how fucked up the whole thing is.  The paper is a hard read, and this whole post may be triggering.

One of the authors is J. Philippe Rushton, who has been widely described as racist:

Jean Philippe Rushton (born December 3, 1943) is a Canadian psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario who is most widely known for his work on racial group differences, such as research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and the application of r/K selection theory to humans in his book Race, Evolution and Behavior (1995). His work has been heavily criticised by the scientific community, and it has been widely described as racist, as has the Pioneer Fund, the research foundation he has been head of since 2002.

The other author of the paper, Donald I. Templer, has spoken at American Renaissance, a racialist organisation.  Templer’s talk covered:

Psychologist Donald Templer followed with a scathing and hilarious attack on the blindness of his profession. He has been fascinated by group differences ever since he was a child, and this interest has shaped his academic career. He says denying group differences in ability is costly because it puts unqualified blacks in positions of authority. Whites are twenty times more likely than blacks to have IQs of 130 or above, and these are the people who should be decision-makers.

“There are too many psychologists who poison the minds of their students,” said Prof. Templer. By refusing to acknowledge innate intelligence differences, psychologists encourage white guilt that weakens a psychologist’s capacity to deal with the social problems that blacks pose. Also, it is absurd to blame test bias for low IQ scores. “If blacks score low on an intelligence test,” said Prof. Templer, “I would say that constitutes powerful evidence for its validity.” Many psychologists enjoy giving racial sensitivity training, but it would be much more useful if they treated white guilt. Many psychologists recommend psychological therapy for black prisoners, but Prof. Templer disagrees: “They need 60 hours a week of work therapy. That would give them less time for manufacturing alcohol and weapons, trafficking drugs, and giving each other AIDS.”

Prof. Templer was just as scathing about the grievances of blacks against whites. Many claim high incarceration rates are genocide because they prevent blacks from having children. In Prof. Templer’s view, “the reduced procreation of criminals of all colors is a beneficial side effect of incarceration… If imprisoning criminals is genocide, then I am for genocide.” If Americans are serious about deterring crime, they should farm criminals out to Third World and Communist countries “that have real prisons and real punishment.” (from here)

So, upfront we know that the authors of the study definitely have an angle they’re going to pursue.  We can’t rely on this study to not be looking for the answers that they aim for.  This is important as part of the study is a meta-analysis, and there is no demonstration that in their study they considered data that did not tie in with their own biases/theory.

So, the introduction of the essay starts initially simply enough describing why animals and humans have different hair, skin, cuticle, feather and eye colours.  It then moves into a description of how darker pigmented animals are more aggressive and sexually active than lighter pigmented animals – you can see where this is going already.  And then BANG!  “In humans, darker skin also correlates with lower IQ (Rushton & Jensen, 2005)”, yes for no reason whatsoever, some direct racism with a quote from one of his own papers. I think if you’re going to make such a claim, especially in the introduction, you’d want a million other papers backing up your point.  There ends the introduction with that lovely comment and self citation.

So onto the body of the paper, and where you’d hope that things would start to make a bit more sense.  The paper starts off with a study of over 40 vertebrate species where pigmentation plays a role in aggression and sexual activity, because clearly as humans are also vertebrate animals, we’d be just the same as lions, sheep, deer, four species of fish, four species of reptile, a toad, and 36 species of birds.  Notice that there isn’t a single monkey or ape in that list.  No close relatives of humans where you could look at behaviour in the wild and perhaps match it to humans (also problematic since humans really are individually their own species and you don’t compare sparrows and eagles to look at similar behaviours).  Another study of a tortoise displayed behavioural traits based on pigmentation.  And if you placed darker pigmented baby animals with lighter pigmented ones (darked maned lions for example), they were still more aggressive than their lighter pigmented relatives/adopted family.

You can really see where this is going can’t you.

They do include a caution from one of the other authors they’ve cited for this study, but they seem to mention it and then completely ignore it:

However, Ducrest et al. (2008) cautioned, because of genetic mutations, melanin-based coloration may not exhibit these traits consistently across human populations.

The authors then completely get wrong one of my favourite biological studies and mangle it beyond recognition.  This is the study on the domestication of silver foxes in the former USSR.  Yes it was a study that saw the destruction of thousands of kits that didn’t pass the grade and was rather brutal, but it was a fast track demonstration of evolution and domestication.  The study is described in detail in this blog post.

So according to the authors of this paper, it was the domestication of these foxes, with the reduced aggression that went along with it, that changed the pigmentation of their fur, despite the fact that they were already called silver foxes, and despite their wild colouration being:

Silver foxes display a great deal of pelt variation: some are completely black, save for the white tail tip, while others are bluish-grey, and others may have a cinereous colour on the sides. (Wikipedia)

(cinereous – ashen grey)

So really, this paragraph in their study doesn’t prove anything, so we’ll move right along.  Really, when it comes to domestication of any animal, it’s generally a case of neoteny (thanks to James for remembering that word).

Neoteny, also called juvenilization, is one of the two ways by which pedomorphism can arise. Pedomorphism is the retention by adults of traits previously seen only in juveniles, and is a subject studied in the field of developmental biology. In neoteny, the physiological (or somatic) development of an animal or organism is slowed or delayed. In contrast, in progenesis, sexual development occurs faster. Both processes result in pedomorphism. Ultimately this process results in the retention, in the adults of a species, of juvenile physical characteristics well into maturity and pedogenesis (paedogenesis), the reproduction in a neotenized state.

Neoteny is one of three dimensions of heterochrony, or the change in timing of developmental events: acceleration (faster) vs. neoteny (slower), hypermorphosis (further) vs. progenesis (not as far), and predisplacement (begins earlier) vs. postdisplacement (begins later).

…

Domestication

Domestication has involved selection for behavioral characteristics that characterize young animals so, since “behavior is rooted in biology”, domestication has resulted in an array of similar neotenous physical traits having arisen in various domesticated animals. Such neotenous physical traits in domesticated animals such as dogs, pigs, cats, and recently foxes are floppy ears, changes in reproductive cycle, curly tails, piebald coloration, fewer or shortened vertebra, large eyes, rounded forehead, large ears and shortened muzzle. (Wikipedia)

Let’s now move into where the comparison with random non-relatives of humans means that the authors can be as racist as they possibly want to be.  They’ve attempted to convince you that dark pigmented animals are more aggressive and sexually active than light pigmented animals, and now they apply this directly to humans.  The same humans who are self aware, and are strongly influenced by their environment and social conditioning.  The same humans who are great and/or horrible to each other.  The same humans who do amazing things, build amazing nations, discover amazing things, and who are incredible capable.

Anyway, the paper proposes:

A first examination of whether melanin based pigmentation plays a role in human aggression and sexuality (as seen in non-human animals), is to compare people of African descent with those of European descent and observe whether darker skinned individuals average higher levels of aggression and sexuality (with violent crime the main indicator of aggression). Internationally, we found Blacks are over-represented in crime statistics relative to Whites and Asians. … Since victims’ surveys tell a similar story, the differences in arrest statistics cannot just be attributed to police prejudice.

There is no discussion of institutional racism and how that would affect incarceration rates. There is also no discussion of whether the crime statistics were for certain types of crimes, and also no discussion of how non-white people are sentenced for longer periods than whites in Western nations.  There is also no citation for the “victims’ surveys” as to where, when or how that data was considered.  There is no attempt here to demonstrate rigorous studies, but to push an agenda that the authors have.

The authors quote Richard Lynn, another author who has been accused of racism and who has written in support of eugenics.  Lynn is also on the board of the Pioneer Fund with Rushton.

Later they detail how in African and Caribbean nations there is higher rate of violent crime than in Western or Asian nations, with no detail on how effective judicial systems and support for the rule of law makes that possible in some nations and not in others.

Then the authors detail how black people report themselves as having more sex and feeling less guilty about it, as if feeling guilty about having sex is something that is inherently natural and right with the world.  The authors also point out that the percentage of HIV/AIDS suffers in the US is disproportionately black, and then go on to state that the white/black divide for sub-Saharan Africa in relation to HIV/AIDS is also disproportionally black despite those nations having small white populations.  The authors make no comments on other reasons why HIV/AIDS is at the alarming percentage it is in developing nations, and how organisation such as the Catholic church have added to the problem by telling people that condom use will give you AIDS.

The authors then touch on Rushton’s r/K selection theory in relation to race.  Wikipedia describes the theory and it’s issues as follows:

Rushton’s book Race, Evolution, and Behavior (1995) uses r/K selection theory to explain how East Asians consistently average high, blacks low, and whites in the middle on an evolutionary scale of characteristics indicative of nurturing behavior. He first published this theory in 1984. Rushton argues that East Asians and their descendants average a larger brain size, greater intelligence, more sexual restraint, slower rates of maturation, and greater law abidingness and social organization than do Europeans and their descendants, who average higher scores on these dimensions than Africans and their descendants. He theorizes that r/K selection theory explains these differences. Rushton’s application of r/K selection theory to explain differences among racial groups has been widely criticised. One of his many critics is the evolutionary biologist Joseph L. Graves, who has done extensive testing of the r/K selection theory with species of drosophila flies. Graves argues that not only is r/K selection theory considered to be virtually useless when applied to human life history evolution, but Rushton does not apply the theory correctly, and displays a lack of understanding of evolutionary theory in general. Graves also says that Rushton misrepresented the sources for the biological data he gathered in support of his hypothesis, and that much of his social science data was collected by dubious means. Other scholars have argued against Rushton’s hypothesis on the basis that the concept of race is not supported by genetic evidence about the diversity of human populations, and that his research is based on folk taxonomies.

Just when I thought the paper couldn’t get any more racist, it delves into an incredibly nasty bucket of racism at this point, suggesting that Africans produce more children but care less for them, while Asians have less children and care more for them, with Europeans somewhere in the middle.  It also goes on to suggest that white imperialism is due to the superior nature of being white.

Overall, this essay is poorly constructed (who introduces a new theory in their conclusion?), incredibly racist, incredibly biased, and I can’t believe it’s been published at all.  If anyone tries to use it to support their own racism, or to claim that they aren’t at all racist, but those of African descent are just inferior, tell them to fuck off, and/or point to the incredible racism of the authors.  I’m now going to have a shower after delving into that bucket of disgusting.

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The first is actually being introduced/called by my name.  Now most of my team refer to me as “Bec”, which doesn’t bother me too much, but a couple of people, after talking about the importance of being able to be identified as I prefer and how that demonstrates respect to me as a person, go out of their way to call me “Rebecca” because that’s something that I prefer to be called.

The other was to not be referred to as a “guy”.  Initially the two men (who sit on either side of me), laughed when I pointed out that I wasn’t a guy, and went out of their way as a joke to say “Hello guys and Rebecca”, or “Hello guys and girl”, but now it’s said automatically and without any joke or malice attached.

Both of these things are small, but in the end I feel more respected because things I asked for have been given to me by my colleagues without having to fight about it, without tantrums, and without intolerance.

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A great article in Salon about being bisexual in a small town in the US, “Rebel girls“:

“We need to talk,” said my mom. I was 14, and this could have meant any number of ominous things. We’d had many “talks” over the years, most of them related to my adolescent misbehavior, which arrived at 12 in particularly worrying form.

We sat together at our breakfast counter, she with a mug of Bengal spice tea, me with a glass of OJ. My mother was, and is, a very pretty woman, with bright blue eyes, skyscraper cheekbones, and an easy laugh. She sipped her tea and took a breath.

“Karen and I aren’t just friends, honey.” Her features tightened, but her eyes met mine, clear and steady. “We’re more than friends.”

“Yeah, I figured that out,” I said.

“You did?”

“Of course!” I gulped. “Jessica and me aren’t just friends, either, you know.”

“I had a feeling about that.” She nodded with a faint smile.

Mine was the most amiable coming out story I knew. If only the experience of my early sex life were so breezy.

N K Jemisin performs her awesome writing magic with “There’s no such thing as a good stereotype“:

The strong female character (SFC) is a stereotype. It’s gone beyond just a trope at this point. It’s ubiquitous; we see this character appear in films, in books, in video games — and because it’s a stereotype, we’ve started to “see” it in real life. Conservatives love Sarah Palin because she shoots things, and Ann Coulter because she thinks women should never ask for help, and should tote guns (and vote the way their husbands tell them). We celebrate images like this one, which has been all over my Facebook feed this week. We warn that the Republican “war on women” will “awaken the sleeping giant” — with violent, threatening language re what will happen when women fight back.

This is a good thing, right? We all know women can be strong. Us women can wield the big guns like the big boys. We can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan; we can do anything, everything, we can work and have babies and cut the cords with our teeth and then still get up and punch a motherfucker in the face with our brains –

– Yeahno. See, that’s the problem with stereotypes. They contain a grain of truth, sure, but the rest is all melodramatic bullshit.

Elisabeth Soep at Boingboing writes about, “The cool new thing with tweens? Sewing“:

Even so, while sewing’s getting more popular and more techie, Luna can’t totally shake the pastime’s old-lady associations among some of her friends. “Most of them think it’s cool because I always make stuff for them for their birthdays,” she says. “But one of my friends, when I say I have sewing on Saturday, so I can’t hang out, she calls me grandma.”

“Young women and girls are reclaiming that image,” says Luna’s mom, Mimi Ito. “They’re making things that are quirky and funky and tied to a punk DIY aesthetic.” Mimi thinks there’s a culture shift going on, even though we still have those old images of what crafting means.

Libby Anne at Love Joy Feminism writes, “My rights as a pregnant woman or the lack thereof“:

Growing up surrounded by people who were anti-abortion, one thing I heard all the time was that all that it would take to make pro-choice people change their mind was for them to get pregnant with a wanted child. They would then see clearly that it was a fetus was a baby, not a ball of tissue, and that it was a person, not just an inconvenience. Weirdly, my experience has been only the opposite.

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Leah Moore guest posts on Warren Ellis’s blog on how the comic industry needs to tap more than the male market in “Thank Heaven for Little Girls“:

Girls read comics, not just Manga either. Girls read superhero comics, indie comics, autobiographical comics, historical comics, literary comics, horror comics, romance comics and even just plain terrible comics. Girls are comic fans. They want comics aimed at them, or aimed not at them, or just comics that are good. They want all the same things male comic fans want. They want to be sold to, they want to buy the cold cast porcelain model of Rogue looking badass and put it on their shelf. They want Wonder Woman underwear sets and Wolverine stationery for the new term. Women are just as whimsical, gullible, romantic and fanciful as men. They are capable of grasping the finer points of all the weird freaky made up stuff that we all commonly know to be “ACCEPTED CONTINUITY.”  They will talk about costume changes and characterisation.

In The Daily Texan, a University of Texan publication, “Bisexual students feel unrecognised in society“:

Bisexuals also encounter negative stereotypes and myths, Whalley said. Whalley said myths and stereotypes amounted to a general belief that bisexuals are excessively promiscuous and not trustworthy in relationships.

“That is a representation that we get from pop culture, but it does not reflect reality,” Whalley said. “No sexual orientation is the gold standard of monogamy; we don’t get to play ‘Monogamy Olympics.”

s.e. smith writes “Beyond the Binary: Self Doubt“:

Self doubt is normal. Being told to suppress it, and being forced to hide it, is also normal, but shouldn’t be, because we should be able to openly talk about the role self doubt plays in our lives. I know that for me, being able to explore those issues probably would have helped me feel more secure in my gender earlier, and could have helped me break down some differences between gender presentation, actual gender, and emotional constructions of gender.

Libby Copeland writes a piece on the history of polyamory and how it is a woman positive movement in “Making love and Trouble“.

The Afternoon Inqueery on Queereka covers “On Proving Oneself Straight and Teaching Kids How to Do It“:

Boys who won’t join ballet, even if they’re good at it. Girls who won’t play certain sports, because it would make their bodies “manly”. It comes with them from their child life and then they’re those grownups who won’t hang out (or won’t be too close to) people who they know are gay. Up to this day I have “friends” who can’t hug me in public for what “people might think”.

I can’t quite grasp where it starts, but it ends up as a vicious cycle in which people said to be straight won’t do things because society says it’s gay (because people said to be straight won’t do it). Which, to me, seems to be hurting everybody involved.

It’s the fear of being mistaken for, labeled as and, especially, turned into a gay person. A kind of fear that comes from many internal and external levels, and that is reinforced every time something is stereotyped into something only gay people do. A fear that makes people deprive themselves of stuff they love, just to prove they are what they should be (whatever it is they actually are).

Lesley writes “GDC Diary, Day 2: Video Games Have 99 Problems, and Bitches Comprise a Large Number of Them” at xojane.

What do you say to the LAAAADY writer, to this possibly unhinged, overexcited broad who wants to hear about your work? Women are not the demographic. If women play a particular game, it is most often an unforeseen side effect and not an intended outcome. If it is an intended outcome, then the game was likely designed specifically with women in mind. This can be both a good and a bad thing.

I experienced two outcomes to my LAAAADY proclamations: In one, the developer or marketing person would feel compelled to immediately switch gears and make the subject “palatable” to me, and ostensibly to all of ladydom thereby. In the other, people would talk to me the same way they’d talk to anyone else, and say, “Hi, this is my game!”

If I’m honest, as amusing as I occasionally found the former, I much preferred the latter. If your game is good, it shouldn’t matter who I’m talking to about it; good transcends gender. That’s all you need to know.

An article on CNN health by Dr. Charles Raison, “Love key to brain development in children“:

Myths inevitably survive long after they’ve been scientifically disproven. Such is the case with the fantasy that mental illnesses can be written off solely to genes and chemicals. Over the last decade a string of scientific discoveries has shown that the biology driving mental illness has at least as much to do with the environment as with chemicals or genetic inheritance. And it increasingly appears that the single most powerful environmental factor is the love – or its lack – that children receive from their parents. So in a very real way we parents are back on the hook for the lifelong emotional well-being of our kids.

The Masculine Femininities Zine has published issue 5, and there is a great piece included titled, “Dear Internalized Biphobia: An Open Letter To The Ugly Beast Inside Me” by Ofelia Del Corazon:

We’ve never had a healthy relationship and I am glad to say we are drifting apart. It’s been a long time since you showed when I was  eleven. When I went to mass where the priest said that birth control and abortions and homosexuality were all equally bad. At that point I knew I liked boys and everyone said that was okay, but I was just starting to figure out that I liked girls too. That feeling I got when I liked a boy was the same feeling I got when I really wanted to be a girl’s friend. Like her best best friend. That’s when I started praying at night that I would wake up and my bisexuality would be gone.

But it never worked and my bisexuality, and you, biphobia remain inside me. Still though it wasn’t all bad.  By the time I was thirteen I had reasoned that I was only half gay. I still had the option of squashing my squashing my feelings for other girls and I was thankful that I liked boys at all.

It’s sad that this next link had to be written at all, and I strongly caution you to NOT READ THE COMMENTS.  “Why Women Aren’t Crazy” at the Good Men Project:

When someone says these things to you, it’s not an example of inconsiderate behavior. When your spouse shows up half an hour late to dinner without calling—that’s inconsiderate behavior. A remark intended to shut you down like, “Calm down, you’re overreacting,” after you just addressed someone else’s bad behavior, is emotional manipulation—pure and simple.

And this is the sort of emotional manipulation that feeds an epidemic in our country, an epidemic that defines women as crazy, irrational, overly sensitive, unhinged. This epidemic helps fuel the idea that women need only the slightest provocation to unleash their (crazy) emotions. It’s patently false and unfair.

An old piece from 2009, but one that needs to be shared again, “Insufficient Evidence that Sexual Orientation Change Efforts Work, Says APA” from the American Psychological Association:

The American Psychological Association adopted a resolution Wednesday stating that mental health professionals should avoid telling clients that they can change their sexual orientation through therapy or other treatments.

The “Resolution on Appropriate Affirmative Responses to Sexual Orientation Distress and Change Efforts” also advises that parents, guardians, young people and their families avoid sexual orientation treatments that portray homosexuality as a mental illness or developmental disorder and instead seek psychotherapy, social support and educational services “that provide accurate information on sexual orientation and sexuality, increase family and school support and reduce rejection of sexual minority youth.”

Emily Dievendorf at the Huffington Post writes, “Bisexual Invisibility Has Dangerous Consequences“:

I believe sexuality, as a continuum with no easy boxes to fit into, is the most logical explanation for the variations we see in human sexuality. Labels are vile and unrealistic to me, an attempt to satisfy others’ need for simplicity when life just isn’t so. I have struggled with how I would explain myself, resentful that I had to at all. My partners have always known me to be fluid and I hadn’t considered it anybody else’s business. At a certain point I decided that I had to claim my place in the community because my own invisibility would be part of the perpetuation of others pretending I don’t even exist. I wrote ‘bi’ across my forehead and wore it proudly.

The excellent “A Doctor’s Manifesto for Fighting Transvaginal Ultrasounds” at Jezebel (which no doubt has been read by most people, but the more links the merrier):

Where is the physician outrage? Right. Here. I’m speaking, of course, about the required-transvaginal-ultrasound thing that seems to be the flavor-of-the-month in politics. I do not care what your personal politics are. I think we can all agree that my right to swing my fist ends where your face begins.

I do not feel that it is reactionary or even inaccurate to describe an unwanted, non-indicated transvaginal ultrasound as “rape”. If I insert ANY object into ANY orifice without informed consent, it is rape. And coercion of any kind negates consent, informed or otherwise.

Clementine Ford at the Daily Life writes, “Why women still can’t enjoy sex“:

Slut. I used to fixate on the unfairness of the accusation, particularly given that it seemed to be issued with no particular rhyme or reason other than the accuser’s desire to be hurtful. But recent events (including Limbaugh’s outburst) have made me realize that this isn’t about the kind of sex women are having or even the amount. It’s about the fundamental view that women should have only a peripheral relationship to sex and certainly no active engagement with it – and that these two things will determine if she’s a Lady worthy of respect or a Slut deserving of contempt.

Libby Anne at Love Joy Feminism (soon to find a new home), writes “Christian Reconstructionism, Gays, and Stoning“:

Christian Reconstructionism is a fringe movement, but it is a fringe movement that has put its fingers in politics and in the homeschool movement. I’m not actually concerned that this nation will ever turn to publicly executing gays by stoning, but I am increasingly horrified by the teachings of the Christian Patriarchy leaders I used to have so much respect for.

Glenn Mitchell writes at the Drum on, “No more silence: mental illness should be talked about“:

The stats that are put forward by the medical fraternity would indicate that around 20 per cent of people in Australia will be affected by depression at some point in their lifetime and 6 per cent will actually experience a major depressive illness – in today’s terms that equates to 4.5 million and 1.4 million people respectively.

When you look at it in those sorts of terms the numbers are truly staggering and alarming, especially when you consider the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent on road safety awareness as opposed to the issue of mental illness and depression.

Natalie Angier writes in the New York Times about a brilliant mathematician that I’d certainly never heard of, in “The Mighty Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of“:

When Dave Goldberg, a physicist at Drexel University who has written about her work, recently took a little “Noether poll” of several dozen colleagues, students and online followers, he was taken aback by the results. “Surprisingly few could say exactly who she was or why she was important,” he said. “A few others knew her name but couldn’t recall what she’d done, and the majority had never heard of her.”

Noether (pronounced NER-ter) was born in Erlangen, Germany, 130 years ago this month. So it’s a fine time to counter the chronic neglect and celebrate the life and work of a brilliant theorist whose unshakable number love and irrationally robust sense of humor helped her overcome severe handicaps — first, being female in Germany at a time when most German universities didn’t accept female students or hire female professors, and then being a Jewish pacifist in the midst of the Nazis’ rise to power.

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