Another reason to talk to your kids about sex

"Playing doctor" in the new millenium has far greater consequences than it did when we were kids. No longer is there simply the fear that Mom will burst in on us and yell at us. Read about today's consequences. And remember, the designation of sexual offender lasts for LIFE!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-0129-sexting-20100128,0,202244.story

Humour

On his 78th birthday a man got a gift certificate from his wife.

The certificate paid for a visit to a medicine man living on a nearby reservation, who was rumoured to have a wonderful cure for erectile dysfunction.
After being persuaded, the man drove to the reservation, handed his gift certificate to the medicine man and wondered what he was in for.

The medicine man slowly, methodically produced a potion, handed it to him, and with a grip on his shoulder, warned: "This is powerful medicine and it must be respected. You take only a teaspoonful and then say, '1-2-3'. When you do that, you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life and be able to perform as long as you want!"

The elderly man was encouraged. As he walked away, he turned and asked, "How do I stop the medicine from working?" "Your partner must say, '1-2-3-4'," the medicine man responded, "but when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon."

He was very eager to see if it worked. When he got home, he shaved, showered, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom. When she came in, he took off his clothes and said, "1-2-3!" Immediately, he was the manliest of men!

His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes and then she asked, "What was the 1-2-3 for?"

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition because, if we do, we could end up with a dangling participle.

Book Review of The Trauma Myth

Books

Abusing Not Only Children, but Also Science

The Trauma Myth

From The New York Times

By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.

Published: January 25, 2010

Given the vested interests lurking all over the current medical landscape, it is no wonder that the scientific method is so often mauled a little in transit. Cases of data ignored or manipulated to serve an agenda are like muggings in a bad neighborhood: you hear about them all the time, but in fact relatively few are ever openly examined.

And so even readers with no personal or professional connection to the sexual abuse of children may be edified by “The Trauma Myth,” a short tale of one such particularly fraught episode.

For a graduate research project at Harvard in the mid-1990s, the psychologist Susan A. Clancy arranged to interview adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, expecting to confirm the conventional wisdom that the more traumatic the abuse had been, the more troubled an adult the child had become.

Dr. Clancy figured she knew what she would find: “Everything I knew dictated that the abuse should be a horrible experience, that the child should be traumatized at the time it was happening — overwhelmed with fear, shock, horror.”

But many carefully documented interviews revealed nothing of the sort. Commonly, the abuse had been confusing for the child but not traumatic in the usual sense of the word. Only when the child grew old enough to understand exactly what had happened — sometimes many years later — did the fear, shock and horror begin. And only at that point did the experience become traumatic and begin its well-known destructive process.

Dr. Clancy questioned her findings, reconfirmed them and was convinced. Her audience, when she made the data public, was outraged.

First, her data flew in the face of several decades of politically correct trauma theory, feminist theory and sexual politics.

Second, Dr. Clancy found that the world had little appetite for scientific subtlety: “Unfortunately, when people heard ‘not traumatic when it happens,’ they translated my words to mean, ‘It doesn’t harm victims later on.’ Even worse, some assumed I was blaming victims for their abuse.”

Dr. Clancy reports that she became a pariah in lay and academic circles. She was “crucified” in the press as a “friend of pedophiles,” colleagues boycotted her talks, advisers suggested that continuing on her trajectory would rule out an academic career.

All that fuss about one little word — “trauma” — and a change in its timing. Why should it matter one way or the other?

Dr. Clancy suggests several reasons her data aroused such passion. For one thing, a whole academic and therapeutic structure rides on the old model of sexual abuse; her findings had the potential to undermine a host of expensive treatment and prevention projects.

Meanwhile, she argues, it is her model that may really help victims. Adult survivors of childhood abuse are commonly mortified by their own behavior as children. By not fighting back or calling for help, they blame themselves for effectively colluding with their abuser. It can be intensely comforting for them to hear that their reaction, or lack thereof, was completely normal.

Dr. Clancy’s model also makes some sense of the whole sticky question of repressed memory. Most traumatic events are likely to be vividly remembered. But if instances of sexual abuse are simply among the many confusions that characterize childhood, they are perfectly forgettable: “Why should a child remember them if, at the time they happened, they were not particularly traumatic?” Only when reprocessed and fully understood do the memories leap into focus.

Even without all these practicalities, the moral of Dr. Clancy’s story is clear: science should represent truth, not wishful thinking. When good data fly in the face of beloved theory, the theory has to go.

Dr. Clancy writes with the precision and patient repetition of a good teacher on complicated terrain. Her prose could not be clearer, and her points are restated many, many times over. But at Amazon.com, an outraged customer-reviewer has already pounced.

“It is appalling,” the reviewer wrote, “that ‘experts’ like Susan Clancy can get away with having a book published with a title that is not only false, but one that tells sexual perpetrators, ‘Go ahead, sexually abuse children, they like it, and they aren’t going to be traumatized by it.’ ”

Science is sometimes no match for conviction, and often, evidently, good writing is not either.

Vancouver Pharmacy reverses discriminatory policy

Look at this letter I just got about Lu's Pharmacy changing its discriminatory policy against non-female-born women. Hooray! Progress!

"I just wanted to share the good news. Lu's has de facto removed their women-born women policy! This has been in effect for about two weeks.

I went into Lu's today with a few friends, one of which is a transwoman who moved her prescriptions to Lu's. They were aware of her trans status as her old name is on her health care card. It was a complete non-issue, the pharmacist was very friendly, as was the volunteer who gave us a tour. They were very sincere, and I must say that I rather like them. The pharmacist even gave my friend a hug on the way out!

They have not made a press release or similar announcement as their Executive Director resigned recently, and I get the sense that they are expending quite a lot of energy filling her duties. They did promise to change their Political Agreements on their website, and it seems that they have to make changes to quite a lot of their documentation.

Hooray for everyone helping to open minds! This is a victory for feminists everywhere!"

A sensible letter re: the IOC's recent decision

Interested in a logical rebuttal to the IOC's bizarre decision regarding how sex should be determined? Read about it here:

http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=4426

Sex phobics strike school libraries

Dictionary, yes, dictionary, banned from school library. Sadly, this doesn't surprise me.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/schoolgate/2010/01/dictionary-banned-from-school-classroom.html

Research vindicates same sex parents

Unfortunately, this study seems only to have gotten press in the scientific journals. Important findings.

Do Children Need Both a Mother and a Father?
New Study Examines If the Gender of Parents Matter

LOS ANGELES—January 21, 2010—The presumption that children need both a mother and a father is widespread. It has been used by proponents of Proposition 8 to argue against same-sex marriage and to uphold a ban on same-sex adoption.

On the other end of the political spectrum, Barack Obama endorsed the vital role of fathers in a 2008 speech: “Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important. And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation.”

The lead article in the February issue of Journal of Marriage and Family challenges the idea that “fatherless” children are necessarily at a disadvantage or that men provide a different, indispensable set of parenting skills than women.

“Significant policy decisions have been swayed by the misconception across party lines that children need both a mother and a father. Yet, there is almost no social science research to support this claim. One problem is that proponents of this view routinely ignore research on same-gender parents,” said sociologist Timothy Biblarz of the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Extending their prior work on gender and family, Biblarz and Judith Stacey of NYU analyzed relevant studies about parenting, including available research on single-mother and single-father households, gay male parents and lesbian parents. “That a child needs a male parent and a female parent is so taken for granted that people are uncritical,” Stacey said.

In their analysis, the researchers found no evidence of gender-based parenting abilities, with the “partial exception of lactation,” noting that very little about the gender of the parent has significance for children’s psychological adjustment and social success.

As the researchers write: “The social science research that is routinely cited does not actually speak to the questions of whether or not children need both a mother and a father at home. Instead proponents generally cite research that compares [heterosexual two-parent] families with single parents, thus conflating the number with the gender of parents.”

Indeed, there are far more similarities than differences among children of lesbian and heterosexual parents, according to the study. On average, two mothers tended to play with their children more, were less likely to use physical discipline, and were less likely to raise children with chauvinistic attitudes. Studies of gay male families are still limited.

However, like two heterosexual parents, new parenthood among lesbians increased stress and conflict, exacerbated by general lack of legal recognition of commitment. Also, lesbian biological mothers typically assumed greater caregiving responsibility than their partners, reflecting inequities among heterosexual couples.

“The bottom line is that the science shows that children raised by two same-gender parents do as well on average as children raised by two different-gender parents. This is obviously inconsistent with the widespread claim that children must be raised by a mother and a father to do well,” Biblarz said.

Stacey concluded: “The family type that is best for children is one that has responsible, committed, stable parenting. Two parents are, on average, better than one, but one really good parent is better than two not-so-good ones. The gender of parents only matters in ways that don’t matter.”

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This study is published in the February 2010 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

Another great quote for today

"Light travels faster then sound... which is why most people appear brilliant until you hear them.".... Unknown

Quote of the day

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. It´s time to get your head out of the dumps and your legs in the air!"...Karen from Will and Grace