On Sex and Politics

"The idea of this 'virtual representation' is the most contemptible that ever entered into the head of a man. It does not deserve a serious refutation. We have ever been in possession of the exercise of this our constitutional right, of giving and granting our own money. We would have been slaves if we had not."

~Prime Minister William Pitt, 1766

Ever heard of that the rallying cry, “no taxation without representation?” It became famous in the eighteenth century, when America was getting collectively pissed off at the British for taxing them without representing them in Parliament. It’s a fair criticism of systems that seek to take the resources of citizens without giving them political rights, or other benefit, in exchange for them. This is known in a moderate form as communism and in an extreme form as slavery.

How is communism the same as slavery, you ask? It takes away resources by force and redistributes them. But one is done to rich people and one to poor people, you say? Well, principles are principles. Our society, like it or not, is based on the idea that we're allowed to have what we earned. Giving someone in power the right to take it away is either naughty or it isn't, regardless of whether you do it to people who have lots or nothing. I say it is. Heartily disagree with me? I respectfully direct you to either Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness" or David Kelley's "Unrugged Individualism: The Selfish Basis of Benevolence." Still disagree? Too bad, it's my blog and I get to do whatever I want, so there.

So America dealt with this injustice by dumping tea in the Boston Harbour and then throwing an eight year tantrum known as the American Revolution. If you ask me, "no taxation without representation" is also a stellar way to look at modern relationships.

I’ve already explored the idea that relationships are heavily impacted by technological advancements, particularly the Internet. But technology only represents the bed of the river. Swirling above is social norms, our culture, our manners…the fluid and ever-moving elements that are generally quite content to be shaped by the bed but which still have the capacity, occasionally, to completely subvert them. Language is just one of these forces, but like the banks of a river, can cut a swath right through rock over time.

As a long-time observer of social customs, relationship quirks and gender wars, the one complaint I've heard more than any other is about the lack of definition in relationships. Relationships were, at one time, very clearly defined. You 1) dated, then 2) went steady, then 3) got engaged, then 4) got married and 5) had children. Moreover, there were very clear designations at each stage: a tongue down your throat meant you were dating; a pin or letterman jacket (or the absence of other tongues down your throat) meant you were going steady, a ring meant you were engaged, a new last name and having sex meant you were married, and squeezing small people out of your body generally meant children. No real confusion there. And, much like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you didn’t advance to the next stage until you’d completed the one before. Do not stop, do not pass go. Clear definitions and clear demarcation meant that the rights and obligations of your respective stage were protected. Thus at each stage, you had representation.

For the brave souls out there on the singles scene today, the stages are not that clear and with the exception of that resilient survivor, the engagement ring (and if you think us women are ever giving that up, you’re crazy) there are few if any defining markers at any point. So if we can no longer define our relationships, can we really ever expect representation for them?

Modern dating simply does not serve the same purpose as it did in the days of poodle skirts and cars large enough to actually have sex in. Back then, it was a time to establish the other person’s social graces, assess income level and earnings potential, identify existing areas of irreconcilable differences, and try to postulate whether you could ever bear the idea of seeing them naked on a daily basis.

Nowadays, it remains a relatively good way to establish social graces and earning potential, but irreconcilable differences aren’t really all that important when the maximum obligation you’re likely going to have to each other may only be for the time it takes to order and eat a crispy salmon skin roll. And the mystery has largely been taken out of the whole 'marital relations' factor; dating is now more a chance to work a good meal into our busy work schedules and assess whether or not you’re attracted enough to the person to justify the sex you may or may not be having shortly after the crispy salmon skin roll.

Going steady? This one of all the stages is on the most shaky ground. No one really asks to "go steady" anymore, although "The Talk" is still a dreaded phenomenon among the commitment-phobic. But even having "The Talk" doesn't really clearly define a relationship. I remember once having a summit with a girlfriend of mine who had been dating someone for three months and who, somewhat by accident, found herself the recipient of The Talk.

"I think we should only see each other," he proposed.

She felt the same way, and since things were going marvelously, was ecstatic. However, she was completely confused when, immediately following the Dedication Proclamation, he followed up with, "But, I'm just not comfortable with the term girlfriend. I'm having lots of fun with you. Do we really need a label?"

Yes, we do. Because it's getting way too confusing.

It used to be that monogamy was the sole indicators of relationship status. Once that was established, it was all good to go on the girlfriend/boyfriend terminology. Certain obligations (sleepovers, bathroom storage, guaranteed date for weddings, appropriateness of suggesting fetish sex) were assumed. Now, it takes a complicated mathematical formula involving weighted averages to figure it out. I had one girlfriend who had been living with a man for a year, had met the parents, spent every weekend with him, had exchanged "I love yous," and had gone on several vacations with him...yet he resolutely insisted on introducing her as a 'friend.' I knew another woman who very much enjoyed the company and mutual orgasms of a great man for six years and yet never once considered accepting his proposal to "try and make it work," nor would she even spend the night. (His friends eventually suspected she was an invention, which was a constant source of indignance for him.)

We've all been in relationships that were intense, involved, intimate, and yet never defined. So are we paying into a system without receiving fair representation? And if so, should we be gathering up rebel leaders to commiserate and dumping tea into a harbour, instead of gathering up our friends to commiserate and dumping vodka down our throats?

Or if not, could it be that the freedom we enjoy makes up for what we lose?

Perhaps. Once, long ago, I remember being about six weeks in with a really lovely guy. We didn't have too much in common, but the conversation was good, he had great taste, and not to put too fine of a point on it, he had the face of an angel and the body of an underwear model. Furthermore, he was three years younger, than I, which lent an insouciant 'coo coo cachoo Mrs. Robinson' air to the whole affair. I figured especially given his age, that he wouldn't be in much of a hurry to define things.

Or so I thought. Sometime after the seared foie gras and just before the third glass of Cabernet Sauvignon he decided to spring The Talk.

Whether We Were On The Same Page. He Wasn't Looking For Casual Anymore. It Was Time To Think Seriously About Things. And then...the harbinger of relationship death: Where Was This Going.

It was as if everything had capital letters. I looked around in panic. Candles on the tables. Dinner had been his suggestion. He'd made reservations. We were on a courtyard. There was a bread basket. I had been planning dessert while he had been planning progeny. And, after only a split second pause to mentally try out the new last name (hey, we're girls) I felt the hated litany bubble up from my own lips.

"You know, I'm really having fun with you the way things are. I don't want to rush anything. I think you're a great person. Do we really need to define things?

Turns out, I did. A few weeks later the ick factor settled in and I realized that the Americas were right; sometimes revolution is preferable to an uneasy truce. I broke things off for good. I still kind of miss him, sometimes.

Oy. Maybe there's something to that virtual representation deal after all, Mr. Pitt.

On Housekeeping and State Dumplings

It's rare that I deal with such trivial matters as housekeeping, so you'll have to indulge me while I write a whole post that is neither snarky nor particularly interesting nor that uses the word of God as a catchy platform for a series on venal sins. It's just...housekeeping.

First off, I put links to the "Best of," which is really stretching the Greatest Hits concept since I've only got a handful of posts on here, period. (Then again, if Hillary Duff can have a greatest hits album after only two albums so can I. She might as well have just called that compilation "One Half the Crap I Sang" and been done with it.)

Then I thought that nothing would motivate me to write the rest of the Deadly Sins more than to clearly admit on the home page that I only have 3 of the 7 Deadly Sins done, and they're all the pansy ones.

Lastly, I put an (fictitiously named) email address up so that people can contact me, so everyone can stop pointing out now that I don't have one on my profile. And I changed my profile picture. I'll buy a pink martini for anyone who gets the reference.

So here it is, not at all new, but (slightly) improved. Enjoy.

On a side note, during the whole housekeeping process, I noticed someone from Botswana was reading A Walk in the Snark - not just flipping through but actually reading it - and as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't get much cooler than someone from Botswana popping in. So in honor of our Tswanian friend, here are some fun facts about Botswana:

Botswana's national motto is one word, Pula. It means 'rain.' Pretty direct and to the point; way to resist all that flowery "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet" nonsense like Saudi Arabia or "Liberty, equality, fraternity" crap like France. No, they just want it to fucking rain already. Poor Botswana only gets about 300 mm of rainfall per year. Vancouver gets 4,030 mm...and we bitch about it constantly. Think about that the next time you're griping and pulling out the Mountain Equipment Co-op.

Botswana attained independence from the United Kingdom back in 1966. It essentially pulled a coyote ugly and gnawed off its own arm to escape the Commonwealth. Later that year, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton formed the Black Panther Party. Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in China. Kellogg's introduced Apple Jacks cereal. Coincidence? I think not.

Botswana is home to the Kalahari Desert. I know you're all out there going, well, duh! but I bet you secretly didn't know where it was either. Now you do, and now you can shame other people with your worldly knowledge at cocktail parties.

Botswana is the 45th largest country in the world, only slightly smaller than the Ukraine. Now, we all know size doesn't matter all that much, but more importantly, if Botswana has a national treat that even comes close to the tastiness of the perogi, I don't know about it. I'm not even sure if Botswana has a state dumpling. Might be something to look at, in case the former Soviet Union tries to rise and absorb Slavic Europe again and Botswana gets to jump ahead. Not that it's a contest. Because it's not.

The President of Botswana's name is Festus Mogae. Which is probably a totally common name in Botswana, but to us Canadians sounds pretty damn sinister. I hope he's nice. I just can't picture someone picking up their cute little baby all cooing and wrapped in swaddling clothes and going "Awwwww, look, honey. Look at little baby Festus." But that's just me.

Anyway, there's the Walk in the Snark update and a few fun facts about Botswana.



Writer's Post-Script: While reading through national mottos, I came across the very unassuming motto of Austria, "It is Austria's destiny to rule the world." Wow, that's some pure brotherhood there. I can't even believe that Hitler could have come from a nice little country like that.

On Pride

I'm not so sure about those early Christians.

Sure, you have to kind of admire anyone who thought up the idea of feeding people to lions for fun, but I'm not so sure they really understood the concept of moral relativism. How can pride be a deadly sin? Pride is defined by Wikipedia as “a strong sense of self-respect, a refusal to be humiliated as well as joy in the accomplishments of oneself or a person, group, or object that one identifies with.”

Sounds good to me. People spend a lot of money every year on books to teach them how to have pride in themselves, insofar as pride relates to self esteem. I guess what really got the goat of the robe-and-sandal set was more hubris, or excessive arrogance and vaingloriousness (yes, I used it in a sentence, and yes, I am that good.) I can understand that. They probably had the six deadly sins all ready to go, had the foresight to envision Yaletown, and decided to round it up to lucky ole' number seven.

Even Aesop chimed in on the whole issue. As the story goes, two cocks (OK, roosters, but cock is just more fun to say) were fiercely fighting for the mastery of the farmyard.

"One at last put the other to flight. The vanquished Rooster skulked away and hid himself in a quiet corner, while the conqueror, flying up to a high wall, flapped his wings and crowed exultingly with all his might. An Eagle sailing through the air pounced upon him and carried him off in his talons. The vanquished Rooster immediately came out of his corner, and ruled henceforth with undisputed mastery."

The moral? Pride goeth before a fall.

Man, I wish a big eagle would come around and take George Bush off our hands.

I have no idea why this man is possibly still in power. Come on, Lindsay’s in rehab and Britney is bald and Paris has to poo in a glass room, so there is a God. What on earth is God up to letting this asshat run one of the wealthiest nations in the world? And I don’t blame Americans at all, because I’ve never, ever met one that didn’t think he was a complete asshat too. So who the hell voted for him?

I think God did it as some grand plan to remind us that pride might be OK in Chapters but it's not OK when you start trying to unilaterally blow up things you don't like. Here is a man who barely got in office at all. He should have been thanking his lucky stars that he got to be President after the nation he was set to lead categorically and undisputedly let him know that the majority of them really wanted the other guy. He should have lived out his years in office keeping his mouth shut, quietly emulating Clinton and keeping an eye on his daughters but noooooo, he decided to go rampaging around the developed world like a schoolyard bully. And while admittedly, no one got the atomic wedgie worse than Iraq, there’s no discounting the injustices he’s visited upon the American people he has sworn to serve.

Like the whole faith-based welfare initiatives. I get that George W. Bush is a Christian and is, generally, Up With Christ. But last I checked there was something in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution about keeping church and state separate. I guess nobody but me thinks it’s kind of crappy that the President just read that part in the Constitution, shrugged, and went, "oh well."

And the whole War on Terror. I will go on record and say that I whole-heartedly agree that a response needed to be made to the terrorist attacks. And I appreciate that it had the side benefit of freeing the nation of Afghanistan from an oppressive regime that attracted international criticism for human rights violations and which the US tolerated quite happily for five years. But did it need to be a preemptive war that has permanently jeopardized international relations, led to the deaths of over 650,000 civilians, and allowed the suspension of civil liberties on ground not our own?

Oh, George, but for your pride, you could have listened to those older and wiser than yourself. Martin Luther King Jr. would have seen the futility in your efforts immediately.

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

And moreover, perhaps someone who can’t spell nuclear shouldn’t be in charge of the big red button. I’m just saying. But no, he’s like the proverbial pitbull, who once he locks his jaw into something, cannot let go. Too dumb, and too mean.

And, methinks, about to take a fall. His approval ratings are in the 30s, which are comparable to Nixon’s during the Watergate scandal. Only 19% of the people in his country think that he’s headed in the right direction, which is pretty much tantamount to 4 out of 5 people thinking he’s come unglued. Former President Jimmy Carter called Bush’s presidency the worst in history. Uh, this is Jimmy Carter, folks. This guy believes in UFOs but he stops short at thinking Bush should run the country? That should tell us something.

So if pride goeth before a fall, Mr. Bush’s days are numbered. World wide censure? Check. An impeachment? Getting there.

A giant eagle? We can only hope. Guess those early Christians were onto something after all.