Are greatly clichéd.
Actually, there haven't been any rumors. That I've seen, anyways. I suppose you all could be rumoring behind my back. But you guys wouldn't do that to me!
Trust me, I'm well aware that we're coming up on 3 weeks since the last update. And this one doesn't really count, because it's an update about not updating. (How meta.) And I'm sure you're all breathlessly awaiting my next installment. So what's the holdup?
Well, partly it's the usual excuses about life getting in the way, work, vacation, kids, where's my jetpack, get off my lawn, grumble grumble grump. Which is all true, but not really it. And I'm about to go on vacation again, which certainly isn't going to help. Hashtag humblebrag or something.
And it's not that I've been lacking in inspiration. I mean, I did blow my best personal stories to get the blog started off, but I literally have 6 other posts sitting here in various states of draft, a couple others in my head, and I'm sure I can come up with additional embarrassing stories about myself if I think about it for a bit. Content ideas are not a problem.
My problem is that I've lost my funny. I'm feeling like the gang from The West Wing when they're trying to write President Bartlett's speech for the Correspondents' Dinner. All those posts are sitting there in draft because, quite frankly, they're pretty lousy right now.
So instead, you get this lousy whining. Aren't you lucky?
See, this is how bad it is. I can normally at least be funny when I complain, but I can't even manage that right now!
You know who can, though? Kieran. The other day in the car, he was whining about something in the back seat. And when Kieran whines, he tends to get quieter (thank goodness for small mercies!) and higher-pitched (as one does when one whines), neither of which is particularly conducive to being heard over road noise. So we told him that we couldn't hear him while he was whining. And in the tiniest, quietest voice you could possibly hear from the back seat, he says, "But I want to whine..."
.
.
.
Okay, you know what? To salvage the rest of this post and make it worth your while, you get a couple more Kieran stories. Because 3-year-olds are funny, and life, lemons, lemonade, all that. (For the record, this is a metaphor for my writing struggles. I did not just compare my child to a lemon. Just thought I should clarify that.)
Story two: Kieran is at that stage where he'll talk to his stuffed animals, and also make them talk. Normally, this just happens like a normal conversation, except Kieran is saying both sides. Today, however, I went in to get him up from his nap, and he's hiding behind Beebee, his teddy bear. (Hiding has been a very fun game lately. So, playing along, I said, "Is there a Kieran in here? I can't see him!" And Kieran replied, "'Kieran's not here', said Beebee."
No, I didn't get those quotation marks wrong. Apparently reading books with character dialogue has made a big impression on him.
Story three: The other day, Kieran and I were going down the stairs to build a train track with his wooden train set, and his Duplos were still sitting out from playing with them before naptime. Kieran takes my hand, looks up at me with all seriousness, and says, "If you want to play with the Legos later, you just tell me, and we can go play with them instead of the trains. You just have to tell me, and we can do that."
He has become quite the little mimic of things we say to him. I'm just glad he chooses to mimic those sorts of things most of the time...
Okay, that's it for today. Hopefully I can be funny in the future without having to rely on my 3-year-old for inspiration. Valete!
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Politics and Facts
When I told Emily that I was writing my previous post on sex ed, she said, "Well, so much for not talking about politics." I made a similar off-hand remark here, as well.
And to some extent, of course, she's right. Teaching sex ed in schools, and to what extent, has definitely become a political issue. But it shouldn't be.
Actually, that's not quite right, either. Here's what I'm trying to get at.
As a country, we've reached a point where basic facts are up for debate, based on your politics. And that's just not healthy. It's insane, actually, in a very real sense.
The world obviously does not change based on your beliefs. We cannot, as a country, function if the people in charge of running the country can't even acknowledge a basic set of facts. It just can't work. (I originally said "agree on" here instead of "acknowledge", but that implies that the facts are negotiable. They are not.)
Whether it's climate change, vaccinations, the economy, evolution, or sex ed, there are basic facts underlying the arguments (I refuse to dignify most of those topics with the term "debate"). Climate change is happening. Vaccinations are safe and effective. Austerity during a recession is empirically self-defeating. Evolution is a real thing. Sex ed... has facts too. (Sorry, I was trying to maintain the parallel construction, but it didn't really work out.) And so on.
As I see it, the job of politics is to decide what we
dowith those facts, not to decide on whether those facts are actually facts or not. We
haveto be able to acknowledge these facts, or everything else is meaningless. How can you debate a proper course of action if you can't even agree on your starting point?
So in the case of sex ed, for example, here's where I see the line. Pushing abstinence-only sex ed because you think it works is anti-factual. That's not politics, that's operating in a different reality. Giving inaccurate information to kids (which really does happen)? Not politics.
The politics comes after we all acknowledge the basic set of facts. What do we do with them? Do we teach them to kids in school or not? Either one is a valid political decision, although you know which one I think is the better decision, both as parents and as a society. I feel like that ought to figure into the political calculus. But either way, it has to start from a basic set of common facts that we can use to make a decision.
Same with creationism, as another example. Teaching it as an alternative explanation for how things came to be because you don't "believe" in evolution? That's not politics, that's anti-science. Acknowledging that evolution is real, but electing to teach creationism anyways? Well, that's cynical as heck, but it's a political decision. Teaching it along with other creation myths? Works for me. Leave it out entirely? Also works for me.
This factual disconnect seems to be underlying a lot of the "political" disagreements you see these days. We as a polity have to decide, every day, what we want to be, in a self-determining sense. And the political process is used to put those decisions into place and enforce them. (Social contracts are probably another post down the road; I'm just trying to skirt around the edges here.)
But how can we make any sort of informed decisions about who and what we want to be, if we can't even agree on what the current state of reality is? We can't, and that's why so many current "political" disagreements (see the list above for starters) seem so intractable: We have groups literally operating from different versions of reality, and deriving positions from there.
Again, insanity.
So how do we fix this? Two things immediately come to mind:
- Knock it off with the anti-science. Seriously, just stop.
Not only is it difficult to run a country when people are actively and openly disparaging science (as we've already discussed), it's difficult to run a technologically advanced civilization which is dependent on, y'know, science.
- Learn to admit when we're wrong, and adapt to new data. A large part of our issues are because people simply won't admit when they've been proven wrong, and adapt their position accordingly.
So, you know, nothing big. Should be able to fix that in a week or two, no problem.
It's worth remembering that agreeing on the facts doesn't necessarily mean that we all have to agree on the policies that deal with those facts. Just as there's more than one way to skin a cat, there's also more than one direction to go with a given set of facts.
It does mean, however, that the policies need to be backed up by the actual facts, though. And that's something we currently struggle with. Like whoa.
Okay, enough of the heavy, preachy posts. The next couple will be lighter, I promise!
And to some extent, of course, she's right. Teaching sex ed in schools, and to what extent, has definitely become a political issue. But it shouldn't be.
Actually, that's not quite right, either. Here's what I'm trying to get at.
As a country, we've reached a point where basic facts are up for debate, based on your politics. And that's just not healthy. It's insane, actually, in a very real sense.
The world obviously does not change based on your beliefs. We cannot, as a country, function if the people in charge of running the country can't even acknowledge a basic set of facts. It just can't work. (I originally said "agree on" here instead of "acknowledge", but that implies that the facts are negotiable. They are not.)
Whether it's climate change, vaccinations, the economy, evolution, or sex ed, there are basic facts underlying the arguments (I refuse to dignify most of those topics with the term "debate"). Climate change is happening. Vaccinations are safe and effective. Austerity during a recession is empirically self-defeating. Evolution is a real thing. Sex ed... has facts too. (Sorry, I was trying to maintain the parallel construction, but it didn't really work out.) And so on.
As I see it, the job of politics is to decide what we
dowith those facts, not to decide on whether those facts are actually facts or not. We
haveto be able to acknowledge these facts, or everything else is meaningless. How can you debate a proper course of action if you can't even agree on your starting point?
So in the case of sex ed, for example, here's where I see the line. Pushing abstinence-only sex ed because you think it works is anti-factual. That's not politics, that's operating in a different reality. Giving inaccurate information to kids (which really does happen)? Not politics.
The politics comes after we all acknowledge the basic set of facts. What do we do with them? Do we teach them to kids in school or not? Either one is a valid political decision, although you know which one I think is the better decision, both as parents and as a society. I feel like that ought to figure into the political calculus. But either way, it has to start from a basic set of common facts that we can use to make a decision.
Same with creationism, as another example. Teaching it as an alternative explanation for how things came to be because you don't "believe" in evolution? That's not politics, that's anti-science. Acknowledging that evolution is real, but electing to teach creationism anyways? Well, that's cynical as heck, but it's a political decision. Teaching it along with other creation myths? Works for me. Leave it out entirely? Also works for me.
This factual disconnect seems to be underlying a lot of the "political" disagreements you see these days. We as a polity have to decide, every day, what we want to be, in a self-determining sense. And the political process is used to put those decisions into place and enforce them. (Social contracts are probably another post down the road; I'm just trying to skirt around the edges here.)
But how can we make any sort of informed decisions about who and what we want to be, if we can't even agree on what the current state of reality is? We can't, and that's why so many current "political" disagreements (see the list above for starters) seem so intractable: We have groups literally operating from different versions of reality, and deriving positions from there.
Again, insanity.
So how do we fix this? Two things immediately come to mind:
- Knock it off with the anti-science. Seriously, just stop.
Not only is it difficult to run a country when people are actively and openly disparaging science (as we've already discussed), it's difficult to run a technologically advanced civilization which is dependent on, y'know, science.
- Learn to admit when we're wrong, and adapt to new data. A large part of our issues are because people simply won't admit when they've been proven wrong, and adapt their position accordingly.
So, you know, nothing big. Should be able to fix that in a week or two, no problem.
It's worth remembering that agreeing on the facts doesn't necessarily mean that we all have to agree on the policies that deal with those facts. Just as there's more than one way to skin a cat, there's also more than one direction to go with a given set of facts.
It does mean, however, that the policies need to be backed up by the actual facts, though. And that's something we currently struggle with. Like whoa.
Okay, enough of the heavy, preachy posts. The next couple will be lighter, I promise!
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Sex Ed
(Warning: this post turned out to be a lot longer than I expected. Stick with me!)
(In honor of UN Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson's call for more men to stand up for gender equality, I hereby dedicate this post to her. I'm sure she'll be quite moved.)
My goal with this blog is to not turn it into a parenting blog. There are plenty of those out there already, some of you probably don't care about a parenting blog, and in general, my position is, "Do whatever works for you," which really isn't all that interesting as far as blogs go. (I do hope that my blog is interesting. Uninteresting is not my goal.)
The exception to that, of course, is that, as a parent, you don't do things that hurt your kids. I try to be non-judgy, but that's where I draw the line. In fairness, I think that's where most people who try to be non-judgy draw the line, so I'm not claiming some great moral triumph here. And, of course, defining what actually hurts a kid can be more of an art than a science.
Except, that is, where we have actual science! And so my non-judginess doesn't extend to, say, not vaccinating your kids. Vaccinate your darn kids! (Barring real medical reasons not to, of course. Note that "because autism!" is not a valid reason, nor is any other squishy "I'm not comfortable" reason. To quote Neil DeGrasse Tyson, "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.")
Nor does it extend, to get to the actual topic of this post now that we're already four paragraphs and many digressions and parentheticals in, to bad sex ed.
I have to admit, I honestly never expected to really care about sex ed. Why would I? I never really got much out of it; one advantage (From one perspective, anyways) of reading above your grade level is that you start reading books with the good stuff in them long before people expect you to start knowing about it. And it's especially helpful when your parents preview a book and tell you what pages not to read, so that you know to pay extra close attention when you get there, and know the page numbers for quick reference later.
(Sorry, Mom and Dad, if you read this, but honestly, what did you expect was going to happen? Unless this was another one of your sneaky ploys, which I would not put past you.)
So yeah. I'm not saying I knew everything there was to know, 'cuz I really didn't, but I had a pretty good idea of what was going on by the time anyone got around to providing a formal education on the subject. And as I recall, the formal education was pretty pathetic. So, no real expectations of caring.
But then again, I also didn't expect to like beer, and that ship sailed a LONG time ago (support your local microbreweries!). So what we expect doesn't always happen. And so here I find myself caring about sex ed, at least enough to write a blog post about it. And it's long, so you know I mean it!
In a way, it's an offshoot of my anti-"anti-science" stance. Why would you want your kids to deliberately be poorly- or mis-educated? But that's not entirely it, because I believe that bad sex ed is wrapped up in a whole other set of gender issues. And not giving your kids the facts, and the whole story, about sex, is harmful in a way I just can't support.
First of all, I'm not really going to draw a distinction between not teaching your kids anything about sex and abstinence-only sex ed, because abstinence-only sex ed also doesn't teach your kids about sex. It also doesn't work.
Here's one thing I want to make sure we get straight, because I can already see this objection coming: I don't really care what you tell your kids at home. You can give them every fact known to man, or you can tell them nothing but "wait until you're married". Or both. Or something in between. Whatever. (Emily and I haven't decided yet what approach we'll take, because it's not exactly relevant yet, and we also haven't gotten the "Where do babies come from?" question yet. Maybe we'll just tell Kieran what pages not to read.)
I get that as parents, we're responsible for our children's personal and spiritual (if that's applicable to you) growth and development. That's why I don't have any issues with the whole "wait until marriage" thing, as long as it's done at home.
But "leave it out of schools, because it's a parent's job" doesn't cut it, because all too often, it's not happening at home, either, and also why should this valid topic of scientific knowledge be excluded just because it's making someone uncomfortable? And I have some major philosophical objections to "opting out", because withholding important, personally relevant scientific facts from our kids because we simply don't want them to know not only crosses my "harming the kid" line, but it also raises some serious concerns at a societal level. (Probably the topic of another post in and of itself.)
And when it comes to schools, which are actually supposed to educate kids, abstinence-only doesn't cut it. Simple anatomy lessons don't cut it, either. This is important, and quite possibly literally life-saving, knowledge for kids to have, and I honestly do not see a conscionable reason for denying it to them. Life skills, people! You're always talking about how kids should learn to make a budget or balance a checkbook in school; you don't think this might be important, too?
Public schools are NOT supposed to be used for religious indoctrination, and religion is really the only reason I've ever heard given for why this education shouldn't be provided. I don't buy it, either as a parent or as someone who believes in the value of education.
Obviously, all the usual caveats about age-appropriateness apply. I'm not suggesting we give kindergarteners the full Monty. But I definitely think kids should have a pretty solid idea what's going on by the end of middle school, at least.
Look:
- No sex ed, or abstinence-only sex ed, doesn't keep kids from having sex. (I'm not interested in anecdotal rebuttals. Everyone's personal story differs, but on a population level, this is statistically true. Anecdata is just an attempt to distract from the actual facts of the matter.) They'll do it or they won't. (And most of them will.) And conversely, there's no evidence that I've ever seen that properly informing kids leads to them having more sex, just safer sex.
- Knowing about, and how to properly use, contraception leads to kids having safer sex, which reduces the pregnancy rate. This in turn reduces the numbers of teen parents and abortions, which is a result that I'm sure we can all get behind regardless of any other disagreements we may have.
- For that matter, actually teaching kids how pregnancy happens is probably a good start in that respect. It's appalling to read about teenagers who don't know that most basic fact.
- Knowing about, and how to prevent transmission of, STDs will help prevent their spread. This is some of the "life-saving" that I'm talking about.
- Kids are going to find out on their own, whether through books, movies, mass media, friends, porn, personal experience, whatever, that the main reason most people have sex most of the time is because it feels good. Trying to hide that fact from them is just stupid. I'm not advocating teaching them techniques, but a physiological discussion of why that is would not be amiss.
- I am not averse, at all, to discussing with kids the physiological and emotional effects of sex as well, as that's a key part of the whole thing. This is most emphatically not to scare them out of having sex, however, but so that they can make an informed decision (well, slightly better informed, anyways; let's be realistic) about their own preparedness.
And finally, to really, really get to the point, I promise, I mentioned gender equality as well. I'm not going to dive into (the very real topics of) rape culture, slut-shaming, Hobby Lobby, or anything else here, as I'm sure you've seen them all done to death elsewhere, and I don't know that I have anything new to add on those points, at least here. Here's what I do see:
- Women bear the brunt of a lack of knowledge about contraception and STDs. First of all, they are the ones who have be pregnant, and thus make the hard decisions about an unwanted pregnancy. You can't try to restrict access to contraception and abortion and also withhold the information about how to avoid getting pregnant in the first place! That's just... no. That's not a thing you can do.
Second, female-to-male STD transmission rates are also lower than male-to-female transmission rates, which means they're more vulnerable, especially in a society that condones, if not celebrates, male promiscuity.
And finally, there are many myths and misunderstandings out there about how contraception works on a physical level, which leads to things like certain recent unnamed court decisions, and better education would start to rectify that, hopefully leading to greater acceptance and availability of contraception.
- Women also bear the brunt of a lack of understanding (on both sides) about the physical aspects of the pleasure of sex. I mean, let's face it, in general, it's a lot easier and straightforward for a man to get off than a woman. Furthermore, statistically speaking, what works for men is not what works (at least by itself) for the majority of women. Wouldn't having at least an intellectual understanding, going in, of what works and what doesn't be a benefit to everyone?
Unless, of course, you have a negative view of female sexuality. Keeping them from enjoying it as much as possible is certainly one way to try to restrict it.
I'm not going to go so far as to claim that promoting abstinence-only sex ed is actively misogynistic, because I really don't know people and their motives, and that sort of speculation doesn't help anyone. I'm sure that it is for some people, and it isn't (actively) for others. But it certainly does seem to me to at least be passively misogynistic, for the reasons described above.
And okay, a tiny bit about slut-shaming. As a culture, we are undeniably preoccupied with female sexuality. I'm not saying that better sex ed is going to fix that, but it's sure as heck not going to hurt if we can be more open and honest about things and increase the base knowledge level a bit.
I'm not saying any of this is going to be easy; there are a lot of cultural and institutional hurdles to overcome. I know this post wasn't the easiest thing for me to write (he says 150,000 words and several edits later), and I didn't even start to get graphic or personal. Similarly, I imagine there are a few people out there who will be a bit uncomfortable reading about this topic from me. And again, I didn't even get graphic or personal!
So no, not easy. But something I definitely think is worth tackling. As parents, as educators, as a society.
(In honor of UN Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson's call for more men to stand up for gender equality, I hereby dedicate this post to her. I'm sure she'll be quite moved.)
My goal with this blog is to not turn it into a parenting blog. There are plenty of those out there already, some of you probably don't care about a parenting blog, and in general, my position is, "Do whatever works for you," which really isn't all that interesting as far as blogs go. (I do hope that my blog is interesting. Uninteresting is not my goal.)
The exception to that, of course, is that, as a parent, you don't do things that hurt your kids. I try to be non-judgy, but that's where I draw the line. In fairness, I think that's where most people who try to be non-judgy draw the line, so I'm not claiming some great moral triumph here. And, of course, defining what actually hurts a kid can be more of an art than a science.
Except, that is, where we have actual science! And so my non-judginess doesn't extend to, say, not vaccinating your kids. Vaccinate your darn kids! (Barring real medical reasons not to, of course. Note that "because autism!" is not a valid reason, nor is any other squishy "I'm not comfortable" reason. To quote Neil DeGrasse Tyson, "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.")
Nor does it extend, to get to the actual topic of this post now that we're already four paragraphs and many digressions and parentheticals in, to bad sex ed.
I have to admit, I honestly never expected to really care about sex ed. Why would I? I never really got much out of it; one advantage (From one perspective, anyways) of reading above your grade level is that you start reading books with the good stuff in them long before people expect you to start knowing about it. And it's especially helpful when your parents preview a book and tell you what pages not to read, so that you know to pay extra close attention when you get there, and know the page numbers for quick reference later.
(Sorry, Mom and Dad, if you read this, but honestly, what did you expect was going to happen? Unless this was another one of your sneaky ploys, which I would not put past you.)
So yeah. I'm not saying I knew everything there was to know, 'cuz I really didn't, but I had a pretty good idea of what was going on by the time anyone got around to providing a formal education on the subject. And as I recall, the formal education was pretty pathetic. So, no real expectations of caring.
But then again, I also didn't expect to like beer, and that ship sailed a LONG time ago (support your local microbreweries!). So what we expect doesn't always happen. And so here I find myself caring about sex ed, at least enough to write a blog post about it. And it's long, so you know I mean it!
In a way, it's an offshoot of my anti-"anti-science" stance. Why would you want your kids to deliberately be poorly- or mis-educated? But that's not entirely it, because I believe that bad sex ed is wrapped up in a whole other set of gender issues. And not giving your kids the facts, and the whole story, about sex, is harmful in a way I just can't support.
First of all, I'm not really going to draw a distinction between not teaching your kids anything about sex and abstinence-only sex ed, because abstinence-only sex ed also doesn't teach your kids about sex. It also doesn't work.
Here's one thing I want to make sure we get straight, because I can already see this objection coming: I don't really care what you tell your kids at home. You can give them every fact known to man, or you can tell them nothing but "wait until you're married". Or both. Or something in between. Whatever. (Emily and I haven't decided yet what approach we'll take, because it's not exactly relevant yet, and we also haven't gotten the "Where do babies come from?" question yet. Maybe we'll just tell Kieran what pages not to read.)
I get that as parents, we're responsible for our children's personal and spiritual (if that's applicable to you) growth and development. That's why I don't have any issues with the whole "wait until marriage" thing, as long as it's done at home.
But "leave it out of schools, because it's a parent's job" doesn't cut it, because all too often, it's not happening at home, either, and also why should this valid topic of scientific knowledge be excluded just because it's making someone uncomfortable? And I have some major philosophical objections to "opting out", because withholding important, personally relevant scientific facts from our kids because we simply don't want them to know not only crosses my "harming the kid" line, but it also raises some serious concerns at a societal level. (Probably the topic of another post in and of itself.)
And when it comes to schools, which are actually supposed to educate kids, abstinence-only doesn't cut it. Simple anatomy lessons don't cut it, either. This is important, and quite possibly literally life-saving, knowledge for kids to have, and I honestly do not see a conscionable reason for denying it to them. Life skills, people! You're always talking about how kids should learn to make a budget or balance a checkbook in school; you don't think this might be important, too?
Public schools are NOT supposed to be used for religious indoctrination, and religion is really the only reason I've ever heard given for why this education shouldn't be provided. I don't buy it, either as a parent or as someone who believes in the value of education.
Obviously, all the usual caveats about age-appropriateness apply. I'm not suggesting we give kindergarteners the full Monty. But I definitely think kids should have a pretty solid idea what's going on by the end of middle school, at least.
Look:
- No sex ed, or abstinence-only sex ed, doesn't keep kids from having sex. (I'm not interested in anecdotal rebuttals. Everyone's personal story differs, but on a population level, this is statistically true. Anecdata is just an attempt to distract from the actual facts of the matter.) They'll do it or they won't. (And most of them will.) And conversely, there's no evidence that I've ever seen that properly informing kids leads to them having more sex, just safer sex.
- Knowing about, and how to properly use, contraception leads to kids having safer sex, which reduces the pregnancy rate. This in turn reduces the numbers of teen parents and abortions, which is a result that I'm sure we can all get behind regardless of any other disagreements we may have.
- For that matter, actually teaching kids how pregnancy happens is probably a good start in that respect. It's appalling to read about teenagers who don't know that most basic fact.
- Knowing about, and how to prevent transmission of, STDs will help prevent their spread. This is some of the "life-saving" that I'm talking about.
- Kids are going to find out on their own, whether through books, movies, mass media, friends, porn, personal experience, whatever, that the main reason most people have sex most of the time is because it feels good. Trying to hide that fact from them is just stupid. I'm not advocating teaching them techniques, but a physiological discussion of why that is would not be amiss.
- I am not averse, at all, to discussing with kids the physiological and emotional effects of sex as well, as that's a key part of the whole thing. This is most emphatically not to scare them out of having sex, however, but so that they can make an informed decision (well, slightly better informed, anyways; let's be realistic) about their own preparedness.
And finally, to really, really get to the point, I promise, I mentioned gender equality as well. I'm not going to dive into (the very real topics of) rape culture, slut-shaming, Hobby Lobby, or anything else here, as I'm sure you've seen them all done to death elsewhere, and I don't know that I have anything new to add on those points, at least here. Here's what I do see:
- Women bear the brunt of a lack of knowledge about contraception and STDs. First of all, they are the ones who have be pregnant, and thus make the hard decisions about an unwanted pregnancy. You can't try to restrict access to contraception and abortion and also withhold the information about how to avoid getting pregnant in the first place! That's just... no. That's not a thing you can do.
Second, female-to-male STD transmission rates are also lower than male-to-female transmission rates, which means they're more vulnerable, especially in a society that condones, if not celebrates, male promiscuity.
And finally, there are many myths and misunderstandings out there about how contraception works on a physical level, which leads to things like certain recent unnamed court decisions, and better education would start to rectify that, hopefully leading to greater acceptance and availability of contraception.
- Women also bear the brunt of a lack of understanding (on both sides) about the physical aspects of the pleasure of sex. I mean, let's face it, in general, it's a lot easier and straightforward for a man to get off than a woman. Furthermore, statistically speaking, what works for men is not what works (at least by itself) for the majority of women. Wouldn't having at least an intellectual understanding, going in, of what works and what doesn't be a benefit to everyone?
Unless, of course, you have a negative view of female sexuality. Keeping them from enjoying it as much as possible is certainly one way to try to restrict it.
I'm not going to go so far as to claim that promoting abstinence-only sex ed is actively misogynistic, because I really don't know people and their motives, and that sort of speculation doesn't help anyone. I'm sure that it is for some people, and it isn't (actively) for others. But it certainly does seem to me to at least be passively misogynistic, for the reasons described above.
And okay, a tiny bit about slut-shaming. As a culture, we are undeniably preoccupied with female sexuality. I'm not saying that better sex ed is going to fix that, but it's sure as heck not going to hurt if we can be more open and honest about things and increase the base knowledge level a bit.
I'm not saying any of this is going to be easy; there are a lot of cultural and institutional hurdles to overcome. I know this post wasn't the easiest thing for me to write (he says 150,000 words and several edits later), and I didn't even start to get graphic or personal. Similarly, I imagine there are a few people out there who will be a bit uncomfortable reading about this topic from me. And again, I didn't even get graphic or personal!
So no, not easy. But something I definitely think is worth tackling. As parents, as educators, as a society.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Futile Advice for the Internet, Part I: Online Arguing
(Hello, dear readers! I apologize for the unexpected hiatus, but crazy work and vacation make for poor blogging conditions. However, I'm back, and while I can't promise to be better than ever, hopefully I'll at least be better than the poem in the last entry, which it appears very few of you appreciated. Sucks for you, because that's not the only one you're getting. I promise they won't be often, though.)
This post kicks off what I envision as a running series of advice that I think is sorely needed by many on the Internet, but which I fully expect will not make any difference whatsoever. I may not be the first person to make some of these observations, but that doesn't make them any less apropos.
Today's entry: arguing on the Internet.
-----------------------------
I like to argue.
(I also apparently like starting out blog posts with statements that those of you who know me well will find completely obvious.)
To me, it's fun. It's good mental exercise, especially when I'm arguing a position I don't actually believe. Doing so can help me clarify what I do think, and sometimes has even changed my mind. In high school, I even volunteered (with a friend who enjoyed being as contrary as I do) to argue unpopular opinions for mock debates and pissed off my entire Government class, just for fun.
Not everyone appreciates this quality of mine, unfortunately (see the previous paragraph for an example). And I'll admit I can have a little too much fun sometimes arguing things just for the heck of it. (Emily will happily attest to this.) What I don't think anyone will disagree with, though, is that I'm fairly good at it. Practice, and all that. (And if they do disagree, I'll be happy to discuss it with them...)
Which brings me to the topic at hand. The state of argument on the Internet is deplorable. Abysmal. Appalling. Insert your favorite synonym for "terrible" here, preferably starting with "a".
Not everywhere, obviously. There are still many places where well-reasoned and well-structured discourse and dispute still exist. Much of the Internet, however, is a disputatious wasteland of fallacies, philippics and fulminations.
But it doesn't have to be this way! Not if those of us who still believe in reasoned debate stand up and declare with one voice, "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!"
In the spirit of not attributing to malice what one can attribute to ignorance, I'm going to assume that most people who argue so poorly on the Internet do so because they don't know how to do any better. (Trolls are beyond the purview of this dialectic dissertation.) But ignorance can be rectified!
So, without further ado, let's look at some ways to improve the state of online arguing:
1) Stop making it personal.
This actually has two parts, one on each side.
a) Someone disagreeing with you is not a personal affront. Well, I guess that depends on how they phrased their dissent, but the sheer fact of dissent most definitely is not. Disagreeing with you does not make either of you stupid. It is not an attack on your (wo)manhood. It is not an insult to your intelligence, your family, or anything else. It's just a disagreement. Happens all the time. This is an opportunity to make your case! Embrace it! Fear is the mind-killer, but taking things personally is the rationality-killer.
b) When disagreeing with someone, refrain from making any sort of insult, impugning anything about their character, family or upbringing, or in any way suggesting that they hold their view because they're an idiot. This is known as an "ad hominem" attack, and is one of the cardinal sins of arguing. So much so, that it starts off the list I'm about to link to. (Yes, I know the list is in alphabetical order. It's still true!)
2) Read this list of logical fallacies. Study it. Consider how you might be using these.
Now refrain from using any of them ever again. EVER.
Every single one of these is WAY too common. In fact, this point would normally be #1 on my list, because it's such a fundamental basis for arguing. But I really think that keeping it from getting too personal is ultimately more important, because that's when things start getting out of hand.
(As someone with a science background, the "correlation =/= causation" one bugs me the most, but most of them are pretty bad.)
Seriously, if we can just get people to follow these first two points, we're 80% of the way there in cleaning up the online argument scene. But that's not enough, oh no, that's not nearly enough.
3) Recognize who has the burden of proof.
"Burden of proof", as everyone should know from one of the 10,593,628 procedural shows currently on TV (number is approximate), is the principle that one has to provide evidence of a particular assertion. Way, WAY too often do I see someone make an assertion, and when challenged, tell the challenger to prove them wrong.
This. Is. Not. How. Things. Work.
The person making the assertion has the burden of proof, and doesn't get to simply demand that their opponents prove them wrong. I mean, you can, but nobody's going to take you seriously, because nobody's going to do your research for you, unless it's really easy. (Seriously, Google and Snopes is good for shooting down about 90% of the stupid stuff in about 0.3 seconds. But seriously, who has the time? (No, I will never get tired of linking to that comic.)
This is a nice segue into point 4, which is:
4) Provide some evidence to back up your position.
This should be obvious. It really should. But apparently it's not, so here we are, including it in this list.
If you have the burden of proof, then provide some! Why are you making your assertion? What do you have to back it up? If you don't have anything except that it's "obvious", "common sense", or something like that, then you might want to reconsider. (Math teachers are especially bad at this one. "Intuitively obvious" rarely is.)
5) Learn how to structure an argument.
Who else remembers doing 5-paragraph essays in school? First paragraph to establish your thesis, three paragraphs of supporting evidence (notice how nicely this ties into points 3 and 4!), final paragraph to summarize. Ah, good times.
This format serves as a wonderful basis for how to structure an argument. You obviously don't have to stick exactly to the format, but keep the general argument-evidence-summary format in mind. So many online arguers throw out (often confused or barely articulated) arguments, assertions, and evidence (if you're lucky) willy-nilly, with no semblance of any sort of logical order or coherent structure, that it's nearly impossible to provide any sort of cogent counter-argument. I suppose this approach has the advantage of deterring rebuttals, but it's still not exactly productive.
Five is a nice round number, so I'll leave off the lengthy explanations here, although there are certainly many other points that could be made (not confusing opinion for fact, for example). Feel free to contribute your own thoughts.
That wraps up our first installment of Futile Advice for the Internet. As the title says, I expect this advice to change the behavior of precisely no one. But isn't it nice to dream?
This post kicks off what I envision as a running series of advice that I think is sorely needed by many on the Internet, but which I fully expect will not make any difference whatsoever. I may not be the first person to make some of these observations, but that doesn't make them any less apropos.
Today's entry: arguing on the Internet.
-----------------------------
I like to argue.
(I also apparently like starting out blog posts with statements that those of you who know me well will find completely obvious.)
To me, it's fun. It's good mental exercise, especially when I'm arguing a position I don't actually believe. Doing so can help me clarify what I do think, and sometimes has even changed my mind. In high school, I even volunteered (with a friend who enjoyed being as contrary as I do) to argue unpopular opinions for mock debates and pissed off my entire Government class, just for fun.
Not everyone appreciates this quality of mine, unfortunately (see the previous paragraph for an example). And I'll admit I can have a little too much fun sometimes arguing things just for the heck of it. (Emily will happily attest to this.) What I don't think anyone will disagree with, though, is that I'm fairly good at it. Practice, and all that. (And if they do disagree, I'll be happy to discuss it with them...)
Which brings me to the topic at hand. The state of argument on the Internet is deplorable. Abysmal. Appalling. Insert your favorite synonym for "terrible" here, preferably starting with "a".
Not everywhere, obviously. There are still many places where well-reasoned and well-structured discourse and dispute still exist. Much of the Internet, however, is a disputatious wasteland of fallacies, philippics and fulminations.
But it doesn't have to be this way! Not if those of us who still believe in reasoned debate stand up and declare with one voice, "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!"
In the spirit of not attributing to malice what one can attribute to ignorance, I'm going to assume that most people who argue so poorly on the Internet do so because they don't know how to do any better. (Trolls are beyond the purview of this dialectic dissertation.) But ignorance can be rectified!
So, without further ado, let's look at some ways to improve the state of online arguing:
1) Stop making it personal.
This actually has two parts, one on each side.
a) Someone disagreeing with you is not a personal affront. Well, I guess that depends on how they phrased their dissent, but the sheer fact of dissent most definitely is not. Disagreeing with you does not make either of you stupid. It is not an attack on your (wo)manhood. It is not an insult to your intelligence, your family, or anything else. It's just a disagreement. Happens all the time. This is an opportunity to make your case! Embrace it! Fear is the mind-killer, but taking things personally is the rationality-killer.
b) When disagreeing with someone, refrain from making any sort of insult, impugning anything about their character, family or upbringing, or in any way suggesting that they hold their view because they're an idiot. This is known as an "ad hominem" attack, and is one of the cardinal sins of arguing. So much so, that it starts off the list I'm about to link to. (Yes, I know the list is in alphabetical order. It's still true!)
2) Read this list of logical fallacies. Study it. Consider how you might be using these.
Now refrain from using any of them ever again. EVER.
Every single one of these is WAY too common. In fact, this point would normally be #1 on my list, because it's such a fundamental basis for arguing. But I really think that keeping it from getting too personal is ultimately more important, because that's when things start getting out of hand.
(As someone with a science background, the "correlation =/= causation" one bugs me the most, but most of them are pretty bad.)
Seriously, if we can just get people to follow these first two points, we're 80% of the way there in cleaning up the online argument scene. But that's not enough, oh no, that's not nearly enough.
3) Recognize who has the burden of proof.
"Burden of proof", as everyone should know from one of the 10,593,628 procedural shows currently on TV (number is approximate), is the principle that one has to provide evidence of a particular assertion. Way, WAY too often do I see someone make an assertion, and when challenged, tell the challenger to prove them wrong.
This. Is. Not. How. Things. Work.
The person making the assertion has the burden of proof, and doesn't get to simply demand that their opponents prove them wrong. I mean, you can, but nobody's going to take you seriously, because nobody's going to do your research for you, unless it's really easy. (Seriously, Google and Snopes is good for shooting down about 90% of the stupid stuff in about 0.3 seconds. But seriously, who has the time? (No, I will never get tired of linking to that comic.)
This is a nice segue into point 4, which is:
4) Provide some evidence to back up your position.
This should be obvious. It really should. But apparently it's not, so here we are, including it in this list.
If you have the burden of proof, then provide some! Why are you making your assertion? What do you have to back it up? If you don't have anything except that it's "obvious", "common sense", or something like that, then you might want to reconsider. (Math teachers are especially bad at this one. "Intuitively obvious" rarely is.)
5) Learn how to structure an argument.
Who else remembers doing 5-paragraph essays in school? First paragraph to establish your thesis, three paragraphs of supporting evidence (notice how nicely this ties into points 3 and 4!), final paragraph to summarize. Ah, good times.
This format serves as a wonderful basis for how to structure an argument. You obviously don't have to stick exactly to the format, but keep the general argument-evidence-summary format in mind. So many online arguers throw out (often confused or barely articulated) arguments, assertions, and evidence (if you're lucky) willy-nilly, with no semblance of any sort of logical order or coherent structure, that it's nearly impossible to provide any sort of cogent counter-argument. I suppose this approach has the advantage of deterring rebuttals, but it's still not exactly productive.
Five is a nice round number, so I'll leave off the lengthy explanations here, although there are certainly many other points that could be made (not confusing opinion for fact, for example). Feel free to contribute your own thoughts.
That wraps up our first installment of Futile Advice for the Internet. As the title says, I expect this advice to change the behavior of precisely no one. But isn't it nice to dream?
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