marriage

I realize that I'm a couple days late by blogging standards, but I still want to join Anita Wagner, Alan, and Loving More in cheering for the polyamorous threesome on The Daily Show last Monday:

The poly folks come in at 3:10, but the whole clip is a good analysis of the marriage debates.

As the comments on Poly in the News agree (including one from George and Joy Reagan, the couple featured),  The Daily Show did an impressive job of showing the poly interviewees as articulate, well-adjusted, sexy people, and getting its laughs at the expense of professional-comedian Jason Jones and his mock-sensationalism instead.

In 1850, Nathanial Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” was first published; it is now considered to be his most famous work.  A dissertation on sin and guilt paralleling the Christian myth of Adam and Eve, the novel draws upon such themes that dominated the 1950’s social landscape and maintains significant relevance even today. In brief synopsis, a young woman in 1700 Boston commits the sin of adultery, bearing a child out marriage.  The story chronicles the trials and tribulations of the young woman and her purported lover; following the public scorn, shame and attempts at redemption.  The first images of the book describe an early morning release of a female prisoner and her infant daughter.  The young woman bears a scrap of red fabric in the shape of the letter “A”: Adulterer.

It would be supremely naïve to believe that women and men were destined to remain monogamous and become sexually active only within the confines of blessed-from-above marriage; yet heterosexual relationships are indeed the norm.  Polygamy, sodomy, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, bisexuality and any other form of sexual/intimate relationship between two human beings have all been considered a sin at one point of another since the introduction and prevalence of puritanical patriarchy , now called Christian ‘values’ , which dominate modern American culture.  In typical duplicitous fashion, American rulers, male politicians, are among the foremost purveyors of these “Christian Values”, while consistently the most egregious rule breakers amongst us. Case in point: Eliot Spitzer, former Governor of New York.

Boy, Thanksgiving surprised me. What I thought was going to be an otherwise quiet evening with the family (Although it rarely ever is) turned out to be an engaging conversation about relationships, money, sex, politics, pop culture, feminism, and marriage from the perspective of three different generations, all of which had originated from the island of Jamaica, one that has impressively progressed since I’d last seen it at age 12.

About six weeks after my wedding, I'm finally getting around to legally changing my name.  Which is a highly personal and arguably an eccentric choice for me to make as a polyamorous feminist. I've heard all the arguments for keeping one's maiden name, and I confess that I have no rational argument against them.  My husband and I are still separate individuals. ...But for a few weeks after the wedding, every time I said, heard, or signed my name with my husband's last name, I did get a kick of girlish glee. It's a cool name.  And now that the novelty is wearing off of it, my maiden name has started sounding increasingly strange to me.

Recently I turned 24. For some of you reading this that makes me old, to others of you that makes me young.  See, it matters, but my point is a little longer than that.

You see people tell you all sorts of hallmark card bullshit snippets of advice in the hope making life easier, in the hope of enlightening you, in the hope of helping you make sense of this thing called life. But things aren't as simple as that, while Confucius may disagree.

I often feel that people lie about certain key worries of life, it comes from the fact that so few of us understand ourselves that it is impossible to deal with the enormous emotional burden that is other people.  So we dole out cheap advice and hope that people find their own way, eventually.  One of these is age.

Women and orgasms haven’t always been synonymous with sex. Tons of studies released have shown that the majority of sexually active women do NOT regularly have an orgasm. This is astonishing to me. How is this possible? Well, first, it’s not necessary in procreation that women have an orgasm. Secondly, one doesn’t achieve an orgasm simply by penetration as many sources contend (romance novels love to portray a woman’s climax from penetration only).

My purpose in writing this post isn’t to instruct in some detached clinical sense, how a women can achieve an orgasm (I mean seriously, buy a vibrator already). I am attempting to refute the recent notion presented in several different articles, that the orgasm isn’t necessary to good sex and that an orgasm is actually unhealthy. I also contend that the notion that sex(the great kind WITHOUT an orgasm) should always lead to a close, long-lasting, heteronormative relationship is harmful to women specifically, as they are encouraged to forgo their own pleasure in lieu of some far-fetched hope for a serious relationship (i.e.- marriage).

CHENNAI - Members of transsexual community in Chennai launched the world’s first matrimonial website for their clan. 

A Chennai based transgender Kalki is the director and the founder of the website, sahodari.org, which is one of first websites in the world for transsexual marriages.

Kalki said that the reason why she thought of launching this website was because the profiles of the members of the transsexual community were being rejected by popular matrimonial websites.

“Some of the transsexual ladies wanted to upload their profiles on the popular matrimonial websites in the country and few of them even tried but their profiles were rejected because of the gender identity because they were not the biological women and that is the discrimination. So we wanted to take it in our own hands,” said Kalki.

Transsexuals in India are commonly referred to as ‘hijras’ and often do not fit easily into society.

But widespread superstitions have also accorded them a certain amount of fearful respect, while a handful has been elected to public office.

Singing and dancing bands of sari-clad hijras will often appear, invited or otherwise, at weddings and at the blessing ceremonies of newborn babies. (ANI)

This wonderful new ad, promoting decency and equality is out.  Please help keep the bigots and haters from stealing humanity in Maine, like they did in California.

Contact Protect Maine Equality at their website.  They can also be contacted at:

• Campaign Headquarters: 550 Forest Avenue, Suite 101, Portland, Maine 04101
• Mailing Address: PO Box 8780, Portland, Maine 04104
• Phone: (207) 899-1330
• Email: info@protectmaineequality.org
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/protectmaineequality

I would like to apologize to all of my readers for my long and sudden absence. I had thought that I might need to take some time off for the whole business of getting married, but the intensity of the bridal-to-do list and an injury sneaked up on me quite suddenly, and left me without any backlog to post during this stressful summer.

But now that I am so close to being legally married and starting to get my life back (i.e. writing again), I would like to address the great archetype of Bridezilla. Because for the over-a-year that I've been engaged, people have loved to tell me Bridezilla stories, or ask me whether I've "yet" become Bridezilla. Bridezillas are on reality TV all day and all night, seven days a week. And yes, obviously, the ubiquitous TV brides sobbing and shrieking at their closest loved are easy to despise, which makes them great for reality-TV. But what the producers of those shows don't often admit is that most of these women have spent the last year of their lives listening to sexist, heterosexist stories about Bridezilla, repeating again and again that all women really want to be is a princess-bride, and all princess-brides are crazy. Self-fulfilled prophecy, anyone?