As far as we've come...

I watched a program on the sexual revolution of the late 60's and fairly extensive interviews with Hugh Hefner were featured in one section. Now, I’ve got to say that I don’t have a lot of respect for the man. For one thing I find it really creepy that you only ever see him in pictures where his arm is around a couple of girls that are young enough to be his granddaughters. Oh wait a minute, I mean his great-great-granddaughters. Maybe I wouldn’t have so much of a problem with that if the road were not firmly labeled as one way. It is glorified for a man to score with a hot, young, nubile girl that (if she’s lucky) has just graduated from high school. Can a woman date someone who is 60 years younger than she is? No. 40, 30, 20, even 10? No. If there’s one thing that makes me angry, it’s a double standard.
Ok, back to the subject. Hugh said something that I agree with. He said that he thought that it was funny that what was (and still is) considered obscene was nudity, instead of violence. He considered sexuality to be one of the nicer sides of humanity; so why censor that? To an extent, I agree.
Here’s where I think ol’ Hugh went wrong:
Playboy did open minds in some ways, but it was not glorifying sexuality in general, it was glorifying male sexuality and a standard of female flesh, and even worse so today. It’s not a message that says “Sex is not a bad thing” it says, “Sex with this is not a bad thing. This is beauty, this is what should be valued.” The sexual revolution was about all people being beautiful, all people being able to freely experience the guilt and shame-free ecstasy of love.
In Hefner’s magazine and TV shows, there is nothing about two people being free to love and enjoy one another, it is about the entitlement of men, and the accessibility of women, whether that’s for serving you drinks, or being there whenever you want to have sex. I have a problem with that.
I certainly have a problem with sex only being viewed as useful for procreation, and all positions other than missionary being illegal (oh yes, that was the case). But I also have a problem with the fact that to this day when a man has a lot of sex he’s viewed as a virile stud, and when a woman has a lot of sex she’s a slut and a whore. I have a big problem with that.
I have a problem with the fact that in a professional situation a man has to be driven, committed, and aggressive to get to the top, and that’s a good thing; the traits of a big league player. When a woman does that, she’s a career driven bitch who clearly just needs a good lay to remind her that she’s a woman.
The Women's Liberation movement was absolutely invaluable; socially, politically, and sexually, and I believe that it made a crucial change in US culture. I owe a huge debt to the women who spoke out. The longer I'm alive the more I could be classified as a feminist. In reality all I want is equality; funny that that should still come with a stigmatized label, huh?

Here we go again...

So the other day I got in my car and went to my friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart in order to exchange some cash monies for physical supplies, and guess what I found when I got back out to the parking lot. No really, go ahead and guess. Did you guess a dent in the hood the size of a small dinner plate? Well you are correct!
Somebody jumped on my car! There were a couple of slightly dusty footprints, and that is how I know how my car happened to have its hood molested!
Somebody jumped on my car! How can you jump on somebody's car unintentionally? The answer: You can't! Jumping on something as big as a Toyota Corolla is, as a general rule, a premeditated action. Who says to themselves, "I believe that I will leap upon the bonnet of this automobile that is not under my ownership."?
There is a slight chance that whoever did it did not realize that they caused damage, but I imagine it probably went more like this:
"Ah f**k dude! You dented it! Hahaha! Nobody saw so let's get inside and get that Blue Moon and Cheez Whiz that we came here for!"

Human Race, I have a serious problem with you! Consider yourself on notice!

Run for the hills...

I am extremely angry right at this moment. So much so that my stomach is aching. I ran across a link to an article on the Poles whilst going through the Yahoo nexus, and thinking that it would be a quick and interesting read, followed it. Unfortunately, I never got to reading the actual article. The first thing that came up was the title and short blurb for the article with another link to get to the body. Right below that were the comments that people had left. I read the first page of them before closing the whole thing in disgust and rage.
These types of comments can be neatly placed in four distinct categories. Ehem:
First you have the people who are intelligent enough to do a bit of research, know what they're talking about, and, *gasp*, actually give a rat's left buttock about what's going on in the world around them.
Then you have your folks who seem to want what's best, but don't really know what's going on. (aka They've watched a Michael Moore film, and that's all the research they need. Those would be the good-hearted "OMG! The polar bears are gonna die!" people.)
Thirdly are the people who are sceptical, which in and of itself is a good thing. Except that they don't follow up on that scepticism. They just sort of hang neutral, spreading their non-opinions around like slow-churned, low trans-fat, heart-healthy, butter substitute product, and basically just convoluting things as much as they can whenever possible.
And lastly (my absolute favorite in all the whole wide freakin' world!), there are the imbeciles that blatantly ignore facts, turn their backs on research, shun simple observation skills, and then go around preaching their strongly held, sarcasm laden, pseudo-scientific "findings" with all the determination of Al Sharpton at the annual CivCon! I'm talking about the type of person that would defend strip mining the Alaskan tundra with their life if they thought they heard Rush Limbaugh say that it would be a good idea one morning whilst they were driving to work in their Ford Expedition. It is these people that absolutely kill any faith in humanity that I happen to have picked up in between times!
I cannot stand willful ignorance, particularly when it is combined with arrogance. Of course, I guess when some people get an idea caught between the only two brain cells that they have floating around in their skulls, it can be kind of hard to knock it loose again.

*Primal scream* Use your brains, people!!!

... ... My stomach doesn't hurt anymore...