The thieves of glory

One of my passions is soccer (no, really..?) and particularly the local soccer teams, the Timbers on the men's side and the Thorns on the women's.

Laid up as I am I spend a fair bit of time watching both teams - and the Timbers are, after a pretty awful start, on a bit of a tear so Howay you Timbers! - as well as thinking and writing about them over at my other gig, Riveting!

So it was with sickened horror I read this past week that the Thorns' coach during the 2014 and 2015 seasons was a loathsome rapey scumbag who was savaging his own players while we all cheered and sang for him and them and then got away clean after being fired for fucking up the 2015 season on the pitch.

It's a sad, tired, familiar old story, but carries a heavy blow because it comes so close to home.

Anyway, I'm still immersed in this mess as I go through the boring daily round of my rehabilitation, and though I don't want to go any deeper into it here (you can read my full thoughts on the mess over here), I just thought I'd mention it briefly. 

I'm sick, sad, and angry at everyone - in my club, in the league - who had a role in this desecration of the young women of my beloved Thorns and, through them, many of my own happy and cherished memories.

Princess Unchained

A couple of years back I wrote a post about the character Princess Leia in George Lucas' Star Wars epic. Specifically, the bizarre incongruity of putting the character in a metal bikini for no real reason other to, well, frankly, ogle Carrie Fisher's pretty figure in a skimpy outfit.

In the post I wrote that;

"...Slave Leias are troublesome...because they have the effect of (making the Leia character valued because of) sexual display, and, in turn, devaluing (the female characters) based on a sort of juvenile smuttiness about seeing their bodies."

The whole macguffin of Star Wars, women, their bodies, and how they come together seems to have returned with the new Lucas flick, The Force Awakens with Ms. Fisher, again, in the middle of it.

Fisher isn't happy that she has been slammed by viewers for "not aging well", and is pretty pissed off that - unlike her co-stars Hamil and Ford - her value relative to the new film is often being weighed based on her looks.

(It's worth noting that a hell of a lot of this goes back to the ridiculous but bog-bro-standard of a woman's sexual desuetude increasing with age, a stupid idea I've discussed here before...)

Why bring this up? Because the Boy and I went to see her new film last week.

I could go all Siskel and Ebert on you here, but why? You know what it was; a Star Wars flick. X-wings and blasters, "I have a bad feeling...", droids, alien critters, good Jedi and bad Sith.

Overall we both enjoyed it. It was good popcorn entertainment and a fun diversion, which is all I'd ask from a popcorn film.

The plot rolled along nicely with the minimal required fanservice, the two young leads were well written and well acted, and even though you'd think that after the first TWO times the Empire would have learned about the whole...ah, but I won't spoiler that part in case you want to go see it.

Here's the thing, though. The most challenging and intriguing thing about it - two words I'd never have thought I'd ever say about a Lucas film - was watching Fisher and Harrison Ford, the two of the oldest actors on screen. They've been mailing it in for so long that I'd almost forgotten what made them stars back in the day. But together they provide what modest throw-weight there is to the tale and, as such, do the best work they've done in a long time.

Ford's Han Solo was spot-on; trying to be the same "scoundrel" that makes him feel like he's still got some remnant of his youth and the sort of swagger that captivated the Princess when they met.

But...he's also smart enough to know he's kidding himself. Years and sorrows have slowed him down. He knows that he's slowing down and that the things he's running from are catching up to him. He knows that while he can't stop running that he can't run fast enough to escape his past and his grief, and that's as grievous as what he's fleeing.

All the while Ford doesn't lose the essential core of the guy. It's an older Solo but still Solo. Good work...but Fisher's older Leia was as good or even better.

I've read reviews that called Fisher's performance "perfunctory" or "embarrassed" but I disagree completely; her restrained work is perfect for the part. Leia is scarred as her lover is scarred, but her way of dealing with that is to lock down. She withdraws inside the austere senior officer and faction leader, all too aware of her responsibilities, just as her ex retreats into his feckless bad boy all too heedless of his.

Fisher conveys this by using her older looks and body to great effect. She wears the strained face of someone who lives with the constant fear of agony, a veteran trooper who has taken the big wound. She moves slowly and cautiously as someone who expects at any moment to be spitted on the spear of old pain that she knows from experience will stagger her and drive her to her knees.

She's damaged, just as he's damaged, but her scar tissue is formed in stillness as his is in motion.

As a couple they're terrific.

(Selfishly, I wish that there had been a little more sexual desire, some sexual tension, but expecting adult sexuality from a Star Wars flick is like expecting grand opera from friggin' Care Bears; you know it ain't gonna happen.)

Together their work shows the viewer that all their emotions are still there but that both have wrapped those emotions away in deep storage because they hurt too much to be exposed. They hate the baggage each of them carries while loving the person almost - but not quite completely - buried under the baggage. They're still in love but given their griefs and, more particularly, their disparate reactions to their griefs they can't stand to live with each other.

I was amazed...until I remembered that George Lucas had nothing to do with writing this thing. Anyway, this was perhaps the first time I've ever seen one of these SW flicks where the characters 1) felt like actual people and 2) drove the story along. It felt like an actual movie instead of a toy commercial written by a 12-year old. I think a huge part of that was the age of Ford and Fisher, and the knowledge of the actual pain and suffering that the blasting and slashing were inflicting.

The characters they played in the earlier films were young people having "an adventure" for other young people to enjoy.

In this one they're still "adventuring"...but at the heart of the adventure, like a hidden knife inlayed with old blood, is mortality. Age and pain have taught them that "adventuring" has a deep and sorrowful cost.

The two young actors in the piece are their yesterday and our today, strong and brave and striving for today's bright crown of honor and glory.

The two older actors are tomorrow; the slave standing behind us holding above our heads that crown and whispering into our ears alone the reminder that beyond today is the inescapable nightfall of age and death.

And as important as the quest for, and the brightness of, that light is how we face the darkness.

Butter domme

Just when you thought that there couldn't possibly anything stupider than believing that the pyramids were grain silos...

...or that magical Green Lantern powers will convince Mexico to build a border wall, there's this:

"Inside every single woman are hormones called copulins that are used to drug a man and control his mind. The vagina produces a thick fluid known as copulin that has actual mind control effects on a male’s brain. If a man is exposed to a woman’s copulins, over time she will be able to...change, remove, or insert memories in a man’s mind...(t)ell the male what he sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes....(i)nsert subconscious thoughts that will surface as “his own ideas” or behavior later, and...(p)lant trigger words or actions that can cause thoughts, actions, or sensations in the male at later dates (days, weeks, even months)."

How about that, hunh? Who knew?

Our intrepid investigator has even tracked down the tell-tale aroma of this horrible va-jay-jay vitriol:

"[S]imply by being around women they are releasing these hormones into the air. Apparently they smell like butter which is the smell I notice when I’m in any place where I notice girls walking around in their mid to late teenage years. I’m guessing those are the years when they they release the most of these hormones when they are approaching peak fertility."

Mmm. Butter. Who doesn't love butter?

Mind you, the whole "mid- to late teenage girls smell like buttery mind control juices" thing is, well...extremely squicky. But sometimes extremes must be pushed in the need of Science! Thank the Patriarchal Lord that brave men like this fellow have exposed this frightful puff-puff potion and opened our timid male eyes (and, umm, whatever...) to this threat to our Male Sovereignty.

Although some of us may feel a trifle differently.

I, for one, welcome our buttery-flavored overladies.

(h/t to bspencer over at LG&M...)

Wars and Lechery

Part of the genesis of this post was a leftover image from the "Philippine Sea" writeup. I went looking for "WW2 Imperial Navy poster" and found this:

Which I thought was perfect; ships, flags, pretty pin-up girl...there you have your basic "Join the Navy, see the world and get laid" appeal that had probably been a central feature of every recruiter's spiel since the first Sumerian sergeant told lies to a bunch of dumb hicks straight off the farm.

The thing is...one of the other images Google showed me was this one:

Wrong country, right period, but...damn. Talk about a different way of looking at the whole "guns/girls" thing.

I find it hard to believe that even in 1944 an 18-year-old Japanese kid, male or female, had instincts much different than an American teenager. Different manners and mores, yes, but the hormones? Right in there pitching. Look at a picture of a pretty girl? He's thinking "I'd like to get next to that..." (and she's probably thinking "I'd like to be that so he will want to get next to me...").

But the WAVE practically radiates sex - she's a Petty pin-up, y'think..? - as opposed to the very G-rated patriotic Japanese gal in the IJN poster. No wonder so many other cultures think we're obsessed with our genitals.

Not that I think we really are - I think ALL humans spend tons of time thinking about putting Tab A into Slot B. Americans are just more upfront about it and it seems were were seventy years ago, too.

Mind you, the Japanese appear to have made up for lost time:

And that's pretty mild compared to the whole "tentacle rape" thing.

But that's a whole 'nother story.

Bible belting

Though I'm not personally religious I have always been fascinated by religion.

As Mark Twain said, its kind of like dandruff; a lot of people seem to have it and spend an inordinate amount of time and money fooling with it.

My Salvation Army grandfather gave me a King James Version Bible back when I was just a little proto-atheist and I've always treasured it just for the connection to him and the poetry. Whether or not you buy the religion the KGV does have some pretty terrific poetry.

I think part of being irreligious but intrigued by religion is that I was raised in a conventionally religious household but also raised United Presbyterian.

In case you're not familiar with this suburban sort of American Protestantism I should note that it's perhaps the whitest of Wonder Bread religions in this country. Even the Episcopalians (who are probably "whiter" in the pasty-faced Aryan sense) have their smells and bells and their faux-Catholic imagery. The Presbies?

Let's put it this way; when I was a kid I'd actually watch the service and take in what happened and what seemed important and what didn't. Finally one Sunday morning I asked my mother "So...what's so important about the money?"

Because to eight-year-old me the most exciting, most fun, most interesting part of the morning was when people got up and started passing these big brass dishes around. They were heavy, shiny brass with a broad brim and red velvet on the bottom of the cup-shape in the middle. Everybody put money in them while we all sang a song and then the passers took them up front and set them on a table and we all sang another song. It seemed like the highlight of the whole occasion, so I kind of figured that the object was to worship the money. This "God" stuff seemed pretty opaque but the money had its own cool dishes and songs and everything.

My mother was pretty irked at how I missed the point to churchgoing as she saw it. But that is a pretty good summation of how religion never really "took" to me.

So when speaking of the whole "buying the religion", the other morning my Bride (my rose of Sharon, my lily of the valley, my sister, my spouse...) asked me "Are you an atheist, or an agnostic?" and for the life of me I couldn't come up with a good answer. Given my background that probably shouldn't be a real shock, but, still.

"I haven't really thought about it enough to say." was my reply, and I realized that I really hadn't. In a backhanded way I suspect that I'm open to the idea of a god or gods - if no other way simply because I don't know enough about Life, the Universe, and everything to rule out a god or gods - but in my everyday life I really have no use for one or more of them. If there is a god, or are gods, it and they seem to me to be pretty careless of human lives. Both "careless" in the sense of casually throwing them away or bending and breaking them and "care less" in the don't-give-a-shit sense. If there are then they owe me huge for the death of my oldest child. But I don't see anything that makes me suspect that there is anyone there. Our lives appear to be just what we, and others, make of them.

I can see how comforting it'd be to think that there was this incredibly powerful mystical Being that cared about me and had my back. I just don't see any evidence that's true, and don't see the sense in spending a great deal of time fretting about that. I have all sorts of intellectual and moral wellsprings to learn from and to guide me. I don't feel the lack of or the need for a deity for that, so I guess the best way to describe wouldn't be "atheist" or "agnostic" but "indifferent".

So that's my religious condition taken care of.

Anyway, I got to thinking about all this when I came across Jim Wright's post over at Stonekettle Station about the recent brou-ha-ha over "religious freedom" and hatin' on Teh Gays that cited a bunch of the usual directives from Leviticus. You know what I'm talking about, right? Don't eat owl, leave seed in the field for the poor, don't bonk a guy like you would a girl, that sort of thing.

As you'd expect, down in the comments section several discussions ensued about the Levitican prohibitions and how they apply, or don't, to Christians. And that was sort of fascinating to me, historian and self-identifying scholar that I think I am. Because they all circle back to a single source; the text of one of the Gospels, Matthew, chapter 5, verses 17-19:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

That made me run down a bunch of commentary on this piece of Matt, which seems to be one of the more contentious issues in Christian exegesis.

The bottom line seems to be the question of "when the Christ said "fulfilled" what did he mean by that?" The passage in Matthew seems to suggest that the old Levitican strictures - indeed, all the laws and directives laid down prior to the 1st Century C.E. - might "pass" once "all is fulfilled". And it seems that many Christian theologians think that with the Christ the law was fulfilled; that with the events that are reported as occurring 2,015 years ago the old laws "pass". These scholars cite passages like Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapter 10, verse 4: "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."

What the hell does that mean?

Certainly it doesn't mean what it says: "...the end of the law..." Western Christians, American Christians, live hedged about with laws like every other American. Local laws, state laws, federal laws. Certainly being the spiritual heirs to a god's sacrifice doesn't let you beat a speeding ticket.

But does it mean that modern Christians are exempt from the stuff laid down in the Old Testament?

(As an aside, let's hope so. There's some pretty appalling shit in there. Take, for example, Exodus, chapter 21. That's the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" bit that a lot of us think of when we think of "Old Testament-y" crime and punishment. But that's actually pretty mild compared to the slavery. Selling your daughter into slavery? Jake with the Lord. You just can't sell her to smelly foreigners. Or if you and your wife are slaves after six years you get your "Get out of slavery free" card. But...if you married during those six years? Your wife and kiddies belong to your former master. Seriously.)

All this is good fun, but the question before the floor remains; are modern Christians bound by the Levitican strictures against homosexuality and homosexuals? Or does Christ "fulfill" those strictures and replace them with his own words, none of which discusses the question of who gets to go into the Fun Zone and how and whether that's bad?

Lemme cut to the crux of the biscuit: it doesn't really matter. You either don't get to hate on the queers...or hatin' on the homos is the least of your worries.

If old laws still apply, and if you want to hate the homos you also can't eat fat (Leviticus 3:17) or pet a dog (Leviticus 5:2) or wear cotton-poly fabrics. You basically can't live a modern life. I suppose if the idea of a couple of husky bears kissing reeeeeally drives you wild you could do that, but I'd put the actual number of Americans that could in the low single digits.

Go read that Leviticus stuff. I'm serious - it's completely fucking whack.

Or they don't, and you pretty much have to go with what J-dawg said:

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

Don't see "...except for the homos" after the "thyself". Seems to pretty much settle that.

So Christopath-Americans? You can all go home now. You're wrong.

Sue, kiss Sally. Joe, kiss Matt. Everybody happy now?

The hell with all this legal parsing. Let's have some poetry.

"Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.

Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.

Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.

Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,

Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:

A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon."

(Song of Solomon 4:3-15)

What IS it with the yoga pants..?

Remember the nice Christian lady here in Oregon who promised her hubby (and informed us all in Outer Blogistan) that she was hangin' up the leggings and yoga pants because of the way that watching her bottom twitching around inside them made good Christian dudes all hot, sweaty, and hard to control?

Well...turns out that she's got a brother in Christ - one Dave "Doc" Moore - up in the Montana legislature who has an even better idea.

Make it illegal to show all dat ass (and that pubic mound, and thighs, and those taut, limber calves, and bare feet, too, I'm guessing...). Nudity, revealing clothing, anything that shows off you ladies' butts? Foul! Unclean! Illegal!

But this dope got himself in real trouble when he threw in yoga pants and Speedos; that just seemed a little too much like sharia law even for the Good People of the Treasure State (the bill he introduced has been officially tabled).

Course ol' Doc now says that the whole "yoga pants SHOULD be illegal.." thing was just a jest, a jape, a mere rhetorical flourish...now that he's been shown up for some sort of moronic, bible-banging panty-sniffer all across the Intertoobz. But, really...what the fuck, guys?

Why even make the suggestion in the first place?

I mean...don't you like women? Don't you think they're nice to look at? Don't you appreciate the human body, including the female body, as "God's creation", like a sunset or a mountain or a rainbow? Why all this fuss about other people's bottoms?

And...if not, I guess my other question would be, what the fuck business is it of yours what he or she wears, or doesn't wear? Doesn't your Bible enjoin you to worry about the fucking beam in your OWN eye?

I guess I will just never understand Christians. They're like that wierd jello thing with little marshmallows that people used to serve in the Seventies; you just have to have been there to understand.

Women and leggings and...well, Carlos Bocanegra NOT wearing leggings

My friends Lisa and Labrys reminded me that looking at attractive bodies is not a gender-specific thing. So here's some eye-candy for the female readers; U.S. Soccer's Carlos Bocanegra:

If you knew that this body was under baggy sweats and a ballcap, would it matter whether it was tight shorts or baggy sweats, or a bare chest or a hoodie?

I mean, certainly less clothing is more scenic...but what is unseen can still be seen, if you're thinking about it.

As Lisa said; the brain is the real sexual organ. What can be imagined will be imagine, whether it be by man or woman. We men may be a trifle more visual, but we were all designed to respond to each other's (or our own gender's, for those of us hardwired that way...) bodies. As Labrys said; we may be married, or in love, or committed, but we're neither blind nor dead. We respond to those bodies as our own minds and bodies tell us we should. And that's just fine; if we are truly civilized people we can surely find ways to dealing with our desires in civilized ways.

The fact that religious zealots - whether fundamentalist Christians, ultraorthodox Jews, Wahhabi Muslims, or every other flavor of God-bothering asshole - can't seem to do that is their problem, not ours, frankly.

Otherwise?

Enjoy.

Men and leggings and living with them both.

So I open the digital version of the World's Worst Newspaper this morning and there's this:

"Why I Chose to No Longer Wear Leggings...(Veronica) Partridge, a 25-year-old Christian, felt conflicted about modesty, she writes in the post, and talked with her husband about whether or not leggings are appropriate as pants. He told her that it's hard for him not to look at other women wearing the tight athletic wear. She wrote: "And at that moment, I made a personal vow to myself and to my husband. I will no longer wear thin, form-fitting yoga pants or leggings in public."

And I thought, oh, Ronnie.

Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie...

You and me, girlfriend. We need to have a little talk.

Well, OK, first, let me admit; this wasn't the first time I'd heard of this leggings-deal. I ran across it the other night skimming Fred Clarke's blog Slacktivist, where he kinda slammed you not for your obsession with "modesty" but for your misprision of the central tenets of your Christianity:

"For white American evangelicals, religion is always about sex — about other people’s genitals, but when Jesus spoke about modesty of dress it was never about sex and lust. It was about money and greed and self-indulgence at the expense of those in need. If you’re striving for “biblical modesty,” that is the core and the whole of what the Bible itself has to say about leggings and yoga pants: “Whoever has two pair of leggings must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."

Which is in itself all well and good from a religious-good-doing sort of perspective. Though I should note that I tend to agree with Fred that Dale's comment was sort of a dick move. Sorry, Ron, but he was implying that it is haaaard to be faithful to you with those darn sluts prancing around in yoga pants. But that's a whole 'nother thing.

Thing is, sorry, I'm not a Christian like Fred (who is a pretty insightful guy and a fellow Jesus-pesterer; you might give him a read, just sayin'...) I'm just some random atheist. So I can't really help you on the whole "Christian morality" thing.

But.

I, like your husband Dale the "serial entrepreneur", am a guy. Dude. Vato. Hombre. Mensch. Fella. Goombah. We're both members of the He-Man Chest-Beater Club, sharers of the descended testicles, and we have a lot in common, saint and sinner the two of us.

And I thought we should reeeeeeally talk about this whole thing you said Dale said to you. Accoring to your blog "...he told me, “yeah, when I walk into a place and there are women wearing yoga pants everywhere, it’s hard to not look. I don’t, but it’s not easy.”

And, Ronnie, love ya, sweetie, bless your heart, but I'm here as a guy to tell you; Dale's lying his dear little Christian ass off.

"Looks?" Of course he looks. We ALL look.

Why?

Because we like you.

Sure, he loves you as a person, as a wife, mother of your kids, helpmeet, companion, lover. But...he's also a heterosexual guy. So he likes you as a woman.

Meaning he likes women. Women, plural. Women in general.

We're like that, us het guys. We may like some women as individual friends. We may love some - or, one, hopefully as in your case - as our inamorata, our one-and-only, our Bride, our Delight. But those are personality things, emotional things, spiritual things, individual things.

But we also like women. Physically. Generically. Generally. En masse. As a class of beings. We like how they look, how their voices sound, how they move, how they stand. We like how their faces fit together, how their hair falls, how they look hipshot, or sitting, or dancing, or sleeping. We like the high curve of the tops of their breasts, the slender taper of their fingers (or the square sturdiness of their hands - women come in a delightful assortment of sizes, shapes, and proportions, and that's another thing we like about them). We like the swell of their hips, and the roundness of their bottoms, the intricate curve where their belly meets their thigh.

We like how they laugh when they're silly, the frown that furls their brow when they're thinking. And...I hope this doesn't shock you, dear, but we like making love to them and we think about that from time to time when we look at them.

We don't really think about having sex with them when we see those women in their yoga pants and leggings.

Because, I'm sorry to say, dear, we don't need the yoga pants and leggings to think about having sex with them.

We don't need leggings...or yoga pants, or pantyhose or high heels or pushup bras or bustiers. We don't need accessories or special outfits or fetish wear. We're guys, Ronnie. Guys! We can look at a cool stylish matron in a chic suit and think of lust in the back of a limo. Or a ponytailed jogger in Nikes and imagine sweaty gym sex. Or the tattooed barista at the coffeeshop and picture wild lovemaking in a loft full of modern art.

Hell, don't even get me started on burkas or habits or granny shoes, darlin'. We're men and all of life is one ginormous Rule 34 for us. We look, and we think, and...if we love you, that's all we do.

Just looking - and thinking - doesn't mean we're going to tear off their yoga pants in a mad frenxy of lust. It doesn't mean that anytime we see a woman in a cute outfit, or a bathing suit, that we're gonna screw the poor girl to the wall. We may think about how pretty and sexy they are. We may get a little thrill of excitement looking at them.

But then we take all that home and if we're lucky get to feel and think the same way about you.

My own Bride, who is a very sensible and pragmatic woman, has a term for it: "You go ahead and work up an appetite wherever you want, big guy. Just come home to eat."

She knows we look, and she knows we know she knows, and she's okay with that. She's a smart woman and she knows that if what we have is good, and strong, and right that the looking is no more than enjoyment, and that she will reap the benefits.

And so can you so long as you remember this simple little rule: Guys Are Gonna Look - It Doesn't Matter What You Wear

So you pull on those Carharts, Ronnie dear, if it makes you feel better. But just remember - it's not about the leggings. It's about the legs, and he's gonna think about those legs - yours, hers, your Aunt Louise's - and probably will no matter if you and every other woman within sight are dressed in goddamn garbage sacks.

Let me help you with that

A friend of mine posted this little picture to her Facebook page:

To which she added "That's my guy..."

I looked at this and my immediate thought was:

"But a real, REAL woman would kick him square in the 'nards for being a pushy jerk who won't listen to her, so a real REAL guy will smile and have a couple of stiff drinks for her when she finishes up doing it herself..."

And that seemed like a frankly nasty and uncharitable reaction to what was intended to be a sweet tribute from a very good woman to her loving husband. So I sat and thought about that for a while. And after thinking about it I realized what it was about that trite little picture that pushed my feminist button.

It was the word "let".

Thing is, I don't "let" my Bride do or not do anything. There may be times that she does something and I offer to help her and there may be times she takes me up on that. But "let her" do something she wants to do herself? That presumes that it's my choice whether she does something. Which assumes that I'm the boss of her. And assuming that would earn me a solid kick in the 'nards were I foolish enough to try and insist on that.

And that kinda brings us right back to the irritation that I've been simmering in since the Hobby Lobby decision and its implications; that your gender - or your religion - lets you make decisions for someone else about what amounts to their life or their paycheck (see Lance Mannion for a nice discursion on this aspect of the issue...) so long as you're a man (or a Christian of the bible-clutching variety) and I'm a woman or married or emotionally or financially attached to one or some sort of not-your sort of Christian.

I wrote a post back in 2012 called "Looking for FitzUrse" which I ended with:

"One of the truly fundamental principles of the United States is that you're only allowed to pester people with your whacko religious ideas to the degree and extent that your powers of persuasion allow. The U.S. government, by its constitutive documents, is forbidden from allowing - much less encouraging - one religion or other to enshrine its prejudices and preferences into civil or criminal law. For the good reason that the United States is supposed to be a land where the public forum is open to people of all religions, or none, and the moment you let the pope's nose into the lawbook that freedom is doomed.

This does not, has not, and will not prevent prelates of various sorts from trying to do this. Repeatedly, patiently, relentlessly, mercilessly.

Which is why the steps of the Capitol must, must always be guarded by fitzUrse with his naked sword in his hand.For that pious, humble, saintly man Tom Becket is the black enemy of public freedom and always will be."

And I see no reason to alter or retract that statement. You are free to follow your inner religious nut to the tip of my nose, and, in the public forum, are allowed to advocate for your religious nuttery and, if elected, let it guide your personal decisions.

What you're NOT free to do is use the levers of civil or criminal law to force ME to follow your religious nuttery.

This country has seen an explosion of magical thinking in its politics in the past thirty years. Belief is allowed to trump logic, desire commonsense, ridiculous ideas like "trickle-down economics" over fiscal experience, nonsensical opinion outweigh rational inquiry.

Like the idea that because I have external genitalia or a mystical inside line to an invisible magical sky wizard I have the power to "let" my inamorata "do something herself" or decide for someone else what they can or can't do with their money?

I'm really fucking sick and tired of people who think like that and, worse, who are trying to get me and those like me to think, or act, like that.

Just fucking sick and tired.

The Army I Knew: Panama, Part 2, or, Hootchie Mamas, Push-buttons, and Peace Brides

So if you recall we left young SP5 Chief getting off the aircraft down in Panama in the late autumn of 1985, having asked the Army to send him to Japan or Italy and ending up instead assigned to HHC, 2nd Battalion (ABN)(LT) 187th Infantry when the old 3rd Battalion, 5th Infantry was reflagged as a jump outfit.

Another time I'll talk about what I did during my time there. But tonight I want to talk about who I met there.

The Americans were the usual gang of nice kids, assholes, hardasses, goofballs, tough professionals, ambitious careerists, weirdos, manics, and wild men you find in any military outfit.

It was the Panamanians that were new to me.

They locals came in two basic varieties (like all people): men, and women. The men I'll talk about in the next installment; tonight I want talk about the women.

The women I knew mostly as business girls (since prostitution was one of the major commercial activities of Panama City and probably had been ever since de Lesseps showed up with a bunch of horny Canal diggers) or as girlfriends, or wanna-be girlfriends, of my fellow GIs.

(Here's an odd fact; many of the working girls in Panama were Colombian. One of them claimed that she was, like many of her competitors, working in Panama to pick up enough money for a dowry after which she was going to return to Colombia and settle down. I have no idea if this was true, if she believed it to be true, or whether it was the sort of bullshit a working girl thinks a john wants to hear. But that was her story, anyway)

The working girls were part of the scenery in the GI clubs down on Calle J, "J Street"; the Ancon Inn, the Ovalo (or Ovalvo, I honestly don't recall which; we called it the "Oval-Oh"), the Buffalo Bar, where a chunky young woman once offered me the use of her body for five dollars (and where I recall I gave her the five and recommended she value her favors more dearly if she wanted others to do the same), and the bizarrely-named "Blue Goose" near the edge of the city.

(This photo of the Ancon is from the Sixties, BTW: it looked considerably dumpier when I knew it.)

At this point I should mention one of the freakish parts of this pay-for-play side of Panama was the "push-button".

Here's a very sweet little post about one foreign couple's adventure in a Panama push-button.(

I want to stop here and recommend this blog, Along the Gringo Trail, for anyone interested in modern Panama. Clyde and Terry really do a nice job of describing my old home station, and they seem like fun people, besides. Well worth the visit, and you can say I said so)

Here's another one that's a little less polite.

The bottom line on these places is that they're the Panamanian equivalent of a Japanese ラブホテル (rabu hoteru), a "love hotel", a place where a couple - living in a place where typically all four generations share a shotgun shack and everyone from abuela to the littlest niños know when anyone in the family sneezes, farts, or scratches their ass - could go to knock off a piece in the afternoon or spend a couple of hours romantically entwined.

You basically drove into a garage and pushed a button to close the door. Then you got out of your car and opened a door and there was a room. With a bed.

There was a slot for payments, and usually a sort of small alcove where you could get food or drinks. You did your business, picked up the phone, someone invisible totted up your bill, you payed, they opened the garage door and you drove away.

While I've got you here I should tell you the story of Doc Pollo and the Pushbutton.

One of the 2/187th medics had a sort of salt-lick scheme for Panama dating that involved fried chicken.

I don't know if this is racist or sexist or what but it was a fact: Doc Pollo used to run down to the local Kentucky Fried Pollo (and, yes, that was the actual name; it was your regular U.S.-type Colonel Sanders KFC complete with the red-and-white face of the goateed old cracker on the sign and the greasy fried chicken inside) and pick up a bucket and then go stand on a corner downtown.

He'd take off the paper lid and waft the aroma of the stuff all around and within ten minutes he'd have half a dozen cuties hovering around him. The lucky girl would receive her first wing and she, the wing, the rest of the chicken, and Doc Pollo, would be bundled into his little Ford for a drive to the nearest pushbutton.

One afternoon Doc promised an infantry pal that he'd demonstrate his special catch-and-release methods, and the buckets of chicken were purchased, the designated cuties selected, and the two bold paratroopers and their ladies retired to adjoining garage-suites in the "Fuente de Amor" pushbutton.

Story goes that Doc and his bride-for-three-hours chose to snack first and were reclining on the mattress nibbling and sipping when they heard the first distant cannons of the other couple's 1812 Overture.

The two of them paused, greasy fingers pressed to their smiling lips, as the thunder in the next room rose to a crescendo when Doc Pollo sat up, grinned at his paramour, dropped a half-eaten drumstick back into the bucket, and seized the headboard and started hammering it against the wall.

"Oh, baby!" he roared "Yeah, baby! Do it! Harder! Faster! Wider! Bigger! Ride me like a wild mustang, my mad angel of lust!"

The angel stared at him for a moment in pure incomprehension, suddenly snorted with laughter, and began pounding on the mattress shrieking "Aieeee! Mi caballero! Martillo me como un clavo, mi jinete loco de las llanuras!"

They kept up this din for a couple of minutes, until the noise from the adjoining room had stopped. Then Doc and his giggling chicken-lover slowly subsided.

In the quiet they could hear some scuffling around next door and a faint "What the fuck they doin' over there..?"

Things were calm for a while after that and slowly the couple in the other room began working up a head of steam again.

But when the noises indicated that the two alpinists had almost summited the Matterhorn of Love Doc Pollo and his galpal began their pounding clamor of simulated insane monkey sex.

Again, the noises from the other side of the wall ceased and Doc and his partner quieted down.

This time the only comment from the other rooms was a heartfelt "GodDAMN!"

According to Doc Pollo this alternating attempted-concupiscence and simulated-rodeo-sex went on several more times, until he and his chica finished their chicken and, growing bored with their game, decided to sate an entirely different hunger.

But he says the driving the girls back to their corner, driving back to post, and even for a couple of days after that when he and his pal would run into each other every so often the other GI would just give him this...look.

Aside from the casual encounters with the women of Panama interested in GIs either just for fun or for profit there were other ladies who had more long-term interests in mind.

These were the girls who were the girlfriends, or wives, or wanna-be-wives.

I'm sure that many of these peace-brides probably loved their GI husbands and married them for love. But it's hard not to suspect that at least some of them married for a passport, a ticket to the Land of the Big PX, an escape from the grinding poverty that was life for most Panamanians.

The one of these peace-brides I knew well during my time in Panama was engaged one of my medics, a very sweet kid we nicknamed "Diesel" because he forgot that the M151 quarter-ton jeep ran on Mogas, the Army's version of gasoline, unlike the M792 GAMA Goat ambulance that ran on diesel fuel. He put the latter into the former with predictable results.

(This is the cartoon version of the two of them from something called "Raiders of the Lost Parts" that I drew when I was station in Panama. Have I posted this yet? No? I should; it's very strange.)

Diesel was a sweet, kind of simple kid from rural North Carolina; Panama was the furthest he'd ever traveled outside the town of his birth. He was decent, kind, and not especially clever - as you can imagine from the whole diesel-in-the-jeep thing - and he was completely enthralled by his unparalleled romantic good-luck.

This luck consisted of a drop-dead gorgeous Panameña named Noris; I kidded her by calling her General Norisiega after the pock-marked caudillo of Panama of the time, and she was also razor-sharp, witty, ingenious, and intelligent.

I could no more see her as the wife of a small-town kid from Cornhole, North Carolina than I could see her as the Dragon Queen of Bhutan.

Their entire relationship seemed founded on the fact that they could barely speak to and, thus, get to know each other.

She spoke no more than scattershot English and Diesel spoke no more Spanish than a GI could; cerveza, por favor, gracias, but the two of them rubbed along in their fashion. She was affectionate, and attentive when he needed attention, and whatever they needed and couldn't get from each other they seemed to find amongst their several friends; his platoon buddies and her local pals.

I liked them both dearly but, frankly, didn't think that they had a hope in hell of making it to their tin anniversary.

The few times I spent alone with her General Norisiega seemed to be aware of the the unspannable gap between the two and slightly apologetic about it. But she also seemed determined to make them work and I don't know, or know if she knew, whether this was because of Diesel himself or the opportunity he presented her, or perhaps even a little of both.

The one little vignette of them I still remember, and the one that I want to leave you with, is of Noris driving around Panama in Diesel's Subaru.

This rig was one of those ridiculous early-Eighties "Brat" things that always seemed to me to symbolize the most gooberish qualities of the cars of the time, right up there with the AMC Gremlin and the Ford Pinto.

Apparently her driving combined all the caution of a demolition derby competitor with the sedate pace of a carjacking.

Poor Diesel, strapped into the passenger seat as his novia seemed determined to see how far she could bury a utility pole between the front seats, would bark with fear as she feathered around the trench-like streets of Panama Viejo at speed.

He didn't know how to tell her to suave - "slow down" - or frenos - "brake" - and what little more of her language he knew had been driven completely out of his head by sheer terror.

All he could do was every so often punctuate his panic with screams of BREQUES! BREQUES! - pronounced "bray-kays" - which, so far as I know, in Spanish means absolutely nothing.

Next: The Men of Panama, or, Salto al Pino!

Back side of dreamtime

That was a lot of Grenada, wasn't it?

OK; no more Grenada. I promise.

Instead, I'm going to tell you a story.

It's a funny story.

At least I think it's funny, and it's my blog so, there you go...but, I should warn you first; it's a funny SEX story.

So be warned; there are things in here that are not wholesome for impressionable young children. Or naive adults. Or people who are shocked by people talking about carnal matters. Or anyone shocked by nudity, because there's some nudity, too.

Are we clear on all of this?

Good.

Kids all out of the room?

Aunt Sally safely immersed in that Golden Girls re-run?

Alright, then.

First, let me say that I think I am a very lucky man.

I have a bride who I not only like as a person and cherish as a companion but desire as a woman.

I find her delightful and delight in her. For me she walks in beauty like the night; all that's best in dark and bright meets in her aspect and her eyes; thus mellowed to that tender light that Heaven to day denies.

One pleasant side-effect of this is that occasionally I have lovely dreams in which she and I are the principals.

Often these are merely diversions; we revisit places we visited in the light of day, or reenact things we did while waking.

Occasionally, these dreams are more...intimate.

But...and I hope nobody reading is disappointed when I confess this...they wouldn't make very good Penthouse-letter-reading.

(Which reminds me; has anyone even seen a "Penthouse" lately?

Remember when those glossy stroke books were the ultimate in smut, the Nirvana of porn, the K2 of wankerdom? Remember going into...well, almost anywhere there were magazines and seeing them and Playboy and the other heavy-bond paper porno periodicals?

Seen them lately? Yeah, me neither.

Was there anything that the Internet killed deader than those glossy porno rags? If there is I can't think of it.

Sorry. Lost my thread there for a moment.)

Anyway...even in my erotic dreams I'm afraid I'm just hopelessly, boringly conventional.

They are usually nothing more daring than boringly wholesome hetero sorts of dreams, the Hallmark Channel of salacious imagination. Making love to my wife on a white sand beach, romantic trysts before a roaring fire, sex under the Christmas tree (without the annoying pine needles poking me in the ass)...you get the idea.

Nice. But...well, sorta vanilla, right?

No frantic kinks, no forbidden pleasures; no S&M, no sweaty pileups, no her dressing up like Mrs. Claus and swinging from the chandelier with four stalwart lechers pulling at her legs.

Nope. Just plain old boring romantic-ish married sex.

That's just jake with me, but it doesn't make for a thrilling blog post read, now, does it?

But...

About a week ago I had a dream.

It started off fairly typically; the two of us lounging in a huge white bed in this enormous tropical-sort of room; long white bedcurtains, huge windows with venetian blinds screening out the blazing white sunlight.

On the silky sheets my bride's pale skin glowed with the sort of luminosity you only see in photographs or in dreams; her whole body seemed to radiate a sort of lush intensity, a warm and fecund sheen that promised all manner of lubricious delights, as did her slantendicular smile below her lowered lids.

In my mind she looked at me and ran her palms down her thighs in a gesture of pure invitation.

So far, so good - and so far, so standard.

So I was dream-shocked when my dream-bride rolled onto her side, loured at me, and murmured in her best throaty dream-voice:

"I want you to make love to my ass..."

Whoa.

Look. I understand myself as well as I hope I possibly can. And - understanding that - I understand that I will take whatever licentious liberties I am offered.

(We're like that, men, most of us, I'm afraid...)

Like most men, though, I won't take what is not offered.

And so far as my bride is concerned - my real bride, my waking-hours bride - that particular form of congress is most surely not offered.

No fooling around back there. That's a one-way street. No trespassing. Do not enter.

Mi novia finds nothing enticing about the notion of having someone poking about the distal end of her digestive tract.

And that has always applied to my dream-wife as well. We don't cavort inside my head in ways we don't in real life - including that way.

At least, until the other night's dream.

But...even in my dream I couldn't really buy this sudden wifely desire for the entry into the Forbidden Zone. Dream-me was suddenly as still as the bunny when the hawk passes overhead; every nerve-ending jangling with the sense of imminent danger.

"Are you sure about this..?" I asked, motionless.

In answer my dream-bride writhed in what can only be described as an utterly shameless fashion. "Oh, yessss..." she moaned, "I want it. I need it."

I just sat there staring.

"You're kidding me." I said, finally.

"You really want me to have anal sex with you. Butt sex. Up the ol' dirt road. Drive the Hershey Highway. Bloop you up the doody chute. You're one hundred percent dead solid no-kidding abso-lutely sure you want this?"

My dream-spouse responded by rolling onto her elbows and knees into a position that in the higher primates would be called "presenting".

The sane part of my dream-brain was shrieking like an air raid siren (Warning! Warning! Danger, Doctor Smith, danger! Warning!) but my little dream-head was doing most of the thinking by this time and that thinking was "Well, OK then...".

I got to my knees and shuffled across the sheets. "You're absolutely sure you want this?" I said as I reached for the delicious fundament waggling before me.

In return I received a lascivious moan and a tremor-inducing whole-body wriggle.

Well.

Okay then.

I leaned forward in anticipation, and...

...with the blinding speed and vicious intensity of a striking gaboon viper my inamorata whipped around and instead of the view of her enticing nether regions I was confronted with a face of righteous wrath and an accusatory finger aimed directly at my nose.

"You were gonna fuck me up the butt, weren't you?!" snarled my dream-lover.

"Weren't you!?!"

"A-HA! You WERE!" my dream-bride crowed, pushing me over backwards with an extended palm and climbing decisively off the big round bed.

"And you know I don't go for that stuff, too."

"You...you...pervert!"

And with that she wrapped the robe that appeared in her hands around her body, wagged her finger at me one last time and stalked away, her bare heels beating out a martial rhythm on the shining wood floor.

I lay there dreaming aimlessly a long, long time.

Until my night-wanderings transmuted into something about cleaning the kitchen counters and unloading the dishwasher.

Good Golly, Miss Molly

I wanted to mention the strange saga of Theresa Vail, Miss Kansas 2014, since I ran across it doing the "Miss America" post below.

Apparently one of the reactions to the Indian-American winner was from one "Todd Starnes", some sort of FOX radio shouter. One of the things he was honked off about was that “the liberal Miss America judges were not interested in a gun-toting, deer-hunting, military veteran.”, that is, Miss-Kansas-Vail.

And I have to say this; I loves me some SGT Vail for what has to be the nut graf of the 2014 Miss America competition, an explanation of why she had to sing some opera for her talent rather than her first choice; archery. "I'm singing by default..." she said, "...because there is a clause against projectile objects."

Yessss, Vail for the win..!

Other fun things I learned about the young woman from the Sunflower State:

I love the fact that Theresa is like a real-life Hermie the Gay Elf; her dream is to be a dentist. Okay, a U.S. Army orthodontist, but still...and she has a tatt on one shoulder of...wait for it...the Dental branch insignia.

(Now I may be prejudiced - probably because the dental tech who did my exit exam-and-cleaning at Gorgas Army Hospital in Panama turned the microwave dental-pick thingie up to "deep fat fry" and jangled every tooth-nerve so badly I nearly came out of the chair; she ended up finishing with a metal pick - but...DENTAC? I mean, the U.S. Army Dental Corps doesn't jump to mind when I think of the honor roll of military glory. But, hey, you go, sarge...)

And that's not her only tatt. She's the gal in the swimsuit photo from the Miss America article and you can see that she has that Reinhold Niebuhr "Serenity Prayer" inked down her right side:

I gotta tell you; the mere thought of letting some character with a needle stab that much ink into a place where I can barely stand to be tickled? Eeegah. You may wear too much eye makeup with your fatigues, SGT Vail, but you are harder-core than I will ever be.

Still. I keep coming back to the notion of Miss Kansas as the "real American" because she's a gun-totin', deer-huntin' troopie.

So I looked it up.

The number of U.S. women serving in the U.S. Army as of 2012: 76,694.

The approximate number of women in U.S of military age (between 18 and 49): 71,941,969

So the percentage of women capable of serving that are actually serving in the U.S. Army?

0.001066 or about 0.107% of the potential soldiers in the U.S. female population.

Assuming 53 contestants (50 states plus DC, PR, and USVI) the actual representative number of female soldiers in the Miss America pageant would have been a little more than half a person - 53/100ths of a woman.

So, no. SGT Vail is NOT the real "Miss America", who is probably a community college sophomore in Des Moines.

Whatever.

One last thing before I go.

Our new Miss America got in a little bit of trouble because she, or one of her pals, was caught calling Miss America 2013 "fat as shit". Now I wasn't kidding when I called MA 2013 "queenly"; on the television Sunday Ms. Hagan filled out her white gown quite nicely.

But...fat? You make the call - here she is with a pal of hers in Hawaii this spring; Miss America is on the left in the black bikini:

Fat?

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Except...by the standards of the Misses America, the standards that all the women that were up there doing the bachelorette-party-dance on Sunday night seemed to be held to, the standards of Hollywood glamor and fashion photography and diet schemes and Barbies...well...maybe that is fat.

And that seems to me immensely sad.