a note on all blog entries

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I´m back

Hi everyone. My vacation has lasted longer then expected: I decided to extend my time in Brazil. As befitting the Latino stereotype, last night, a brief channel search revealed about five sex channels (which also play during the day), which led to a discussion about pornography with my Brazilian hosts.

I realized that a) I have never sat down and watched a porn movie, and have no desire to do so - not just because the industry caters to male desires while creating unrealistic sexual expectations and abuses its workers, pressuring female workers to literally alter their bodies in order to create an image that no woman not willing to alter her body can expect to live up to, but also because it just does not appeal to my sexual desires. b) I do have however, a great desire to buy Playboy. I am curious what the women in its magazine look like (one study shows in times of economic difficulty, pornographic photos skew towards the breast-y), and whether the articles really are worth reading. c) I have no desire to buy Playgirl, because there is less of a mystique surrounding it, and I have no desire to view random naked men.

I also realized that while seeing naked women in the media is normal to me, seeing naked men is not - it would be strange to see nude men in magazines, in a way that seeing nude women would not be.

This is because in our society, naked women are acceptable in a way that naked men are not - think about the different standards in gender nudity for R and X rated movies. This is partially because our society´s standards are based on the sexual standards of straight men, and anything they consider too much of a turn-on must be bad, and therefore banned. Of course, the subject of why sex is bad or "not innocent" stems back to the Middle Ages Catholic literature surrounding the Garden of Eden, and continues with Puritan and later Victorian society - yes, I am over-simplifying, and yes, Puritans believed in unbriddled horniness within marriage, and Victorian men often frequented prostitutes.

This is also partially however, because our society venerates the penis. Vaginas can be shown, because they are just another part of a woman´s sexual anatomy. Penises however, are powerful in a way that vaginas are not (since they belong to men and not women), and thus, deserve a classification of their own. They can only be shown under certain circumstances, just as certain idols must remained covered except for certain occasions, or in front of certain people - yes, I just compared our society´s phallocentrism to idol worship. Suck on that.

Vacation

I have not posed in a while because I have been on vacation, but there is a new development I must report: 1. The Jewish Press published an op-ed by an openly gay Orthodox Jewish man, urging the Orthodox community to treat gay Orthodox Jews better 2. When bullied about the op-ed, the Jewish press chose to fight back, saying, " significant number of suicide attempts are committed by boys from not just religious but rabbinic homes — because they thought they were homosexual and had no place in the Orthodox world they grew up in, even if they had never acted on those impulses.

Until politics exits the science, it won’t be known if homosexuality is genetic, hormonal, neurological, psychological, or a choice. The Torah itself is very clear on where it stands on homosexual acts.

But the Torah is also very clear on how one should treat one’s fellow Jew, and certainly one who tries to be religious — whether he or she succeeds or not — should not be driven by fellow Jews to contemplate suicide.

A situation where religious Jews are provoking children and adults who are different to consider suicide is unthinkable and unacceptable.

Following the publication of this op-ed, a number of Jewish Press advertisers were approached and threatened. They were told to stop advertising with The Jewish Press.

The Jewish Press won’t give in to threats and we won’t be silenced."

Below are links to the op-ed and the Jewish presses response.

Op-ed:http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/surviving-bullying-silencing-and-torment-for-being-gay-in-the-frum-community/2012/01/25/

Response:http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/editorial/the-jewish-press-wont-be-silenced/2012/01/31/

While I'm providing links, here's another one to the Jewish Press - a letter written by an awesome feminist frummie husband:http://www.jewishpress.com/sections/family/marriage-relationships/dear-dr-yael/2012/01/12/

And an article about the Exodus, slavery, and birthing practices: http://shayna-abramson.suite101.com/exodus-and-new-world-slavery-a401965