Unhappy Valentines

(Pun definitely intended.)

A Mississippi court awarded a man $754,500 in damages against his wife's lover for "stolen affections" and loss of consortium (i.e. his wife's sexual "services").

The ex-lover apparently attempted to challenge the constitutionality of the law, on the ground that it is based on the "medieval" notion that a woman is the property of her husband, but the law was upheld.

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Update (2008/01/09):

For those who are not familiar with the term, consortium was one of the three heads under which a plaintiff could claim moral damages. (These categories of moral injury have lost their importance in Québec civil law.)

The others heads were solatium (i.e. grief) and servitium (i.e. the loss of the domestic services of the plaintiff's wife).

It is unclear whether women could claim damages for loss of consortium. In my humble opinion, it would have been unlikely, as married women, lacking legal capacity, could not sue on their own, and had to do so via their husband.

This reminds me of a Canadian civil liability case from the 50's. The plaintiff was a husband who was suing a hairdresser on his own behalf and on behalf of his wife. His wife had her scalp badly burnt by hair dye products, and had become bald as a result. The husband claimed damages on account of a loss of solatium, because his wife was so disfigured that he could not go out with her in public anymore, and for loss of consortium, because she had become so ugly that he couldn't bring himself to have intercourse with her...

*sigh* How tactful...

Almost "Dateline" - Incestuous quote of the day

Picture this. A fifty-something man takes a teenaged girl out on a date to a formal event.

Feels awkward, doesn't it? (Not to mention blatantly illegal if the girl is under 14...)

What if the man is the girl's father? And what if he says things like this:

"This was a great event to teach your daughter how a gentleman conducts himself with a young lady."

Eewww... Doesn't that scream "incest" or what?

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The statement above was made by one of the thousands of Conservative Christian American fathers who took a daughter to a "Purity Ball" over the last few years.

For those who are not familiar with the concept, it's a formal, high school prom-style of gathering where girls as young as 7 pledge their virginity to their fathers until the day they marry, and where fathers pledge to "war" for the hearts, purity and honour of their daughters.

Yuck. Many things ire me about purity balls.


First and foremost is the fact that it basically indoctrinates very young girls with the idea that she will never own her sexuality. These events effectively tell girls and young women that their sexuality is something that first belongs to their fathers, and that will be, upon marriage, passed on to their husbands.

The older girls at the Broadmoor tonight are themselves curvaceous and sexy in backless dresses and artful makeup; next to their fathers, some look disconcertingly like wives. In fact, in the parlance of the purity ball folks, one-on-one time with dad is a “date,” and the only sanctioned one a girl can have until she is “courted” by a man. The roles are clear: Dad is the only man in a girl’s life until her husband arrives, a lifestyle straight out of biblical times. “In patriarchy, a father owns a girl’s sexuality,” notes psychologist and feminist author Carol Gilligan, Ph.D. “And like any other property, he guards it, protects it, even loves it.”

...

“When you sign a pledge to your father to preserve your virginity, your sexuality is basically being taken away from you until you sign yet another contract, a marital one,” worries Eve Ensler, the writer and activist. “It makes you feel like you’re the least important person in the whole equation. It makes you feel invisible.”


Secondly, Purity Balls in particular, and abstinence-only sex ed in general convey the message that virginity has a material value. They speak in terms of "value," "treasure," and "gift." When you think about it, this is not so far from such backward practices of being sold into marriage, or of arranged marriages.

And guess what? That's exactly what those wackos do.

When I point out to Christy Parcha’s father, Mike, that experience with relationships, bumps and all, can help young women mature emotionally and become ready for sex and marriage, he warily concedes that’s true. “But there can be damage, too,” he says. “I guess we’d rather err on the side of avoiding these things. The girl can learn after marriage.”

...

“I am not worried about that. She is not even going to come close to those situations. She believes, and I do too, that her husband will come through our family connections or through me before her heart even gets involved.”

[Emphasis added.]

Again: yuck...

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(Thanks to MJ for the links!)

This is what happens when you legalize gay marriage...

Stephen Harper, Peter McKay, and their little conservative/crazy religious right friends must be so happy right now. Here's proof they were right all along about gay marriage. You know, the slippery slope argument? If we allow gays to marry, then we'll have to let people tie the knot with multiple partners, and even animals...


Well, guess what?



It just happened.

Some man in India - you know, a country where gays have been widely accepted for, like, ages- just married a bitch (of the canine kind), apparently as an attempt to break a curse that had plagued him ever since he killed two dogs some 15 years ago.



Here's a picture of the newlyweds.

The dog is actually really cute, but she doesn't seem to be enjoying herself very much... As the good people from CuteOverload would say, she's all "baroo?"

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So why again are gay rights in general and the issue of gay marriage relevant from a feminist perspective?

Because the concept of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution is based on a reductive view of women's place in society, as well as gender-based stereotypes, which feminists abhor and seek to eradicate. Such premises include:

• The sole purpose of marriage is procreation (So if you're gay, sterile, menopaused or if you simply don't want to reproduce, screw you. This one also presupposes that men would normally not enter into long-term, committed relationships with women if it were not to have sex with them and impregnate them.);
• Only heterosexual, i.e. "complete" couples are able to parent (uh... did Britney get the memo?);
• Children cannot be raised in the absence of a mother and a father (but especially in the absence of a mother, so get back to the kitchen, you selfish, ambitious career girls);
• There is nothing wrong in the heterosexual, patriarchical model of society, as a matter of fact, it has worked just fine for the last thousand years, so why change our good old traditions? (Like treating women, children and icky foreigners as chattels that can be bought, sold and destroyed at will?)

Not the good kind of retro...

There's the good kind of retro (e.g. kitten heels, polka dots, cupcakes), and then there's the bad kind of retro.

Like, for instance, asking your girlfriend's father's permission to marry her.

Feministing gathered a couple of interesting pieces on what is apparently a (creepy) trend, including this gem, which explains the seven steps of asking a man for permission to buy/marry his daughter. (The editors highlight that "[a]sking [a father] permission to marry his daughter demonstrates your respect for her family and their feelings". It's quite telling that they don't mention the daughter's own feelings and preferences at all - not to mention the fact that women are not considered as chattels anymore...)

Here's another article by Ellie Levenson on the same topic, where she describes her surprise that her self-proclaimed feminist friends not only decide to tie the knot, but give in to retrograde practices such as having their hand asked in marriage.

"But I thought you didn't believe in marriage?" - I have spluttered, "Well, at least he didn't ask your dad for his permission!" In each case, I have expected my friends to laugh along, before being shocked by the mumbled admission that, yes, their boyfriend did ask their father, and, worse, they were very pleased he had.

*sigh* I acknowledge that, under certain circumstances and with certain people, it may sound like a sweet and tactful thing to do. However, it remains that this tradition is really about discussing an eventual exchange of wealth between two families, not about love and sincere family connections.

I really liked the conclusion of Levenson's article:

My dad is lovely. He is a kind, intelligent man, and I am sure we have the same outlook on most things. But the idea that he would have any say whatsoever in my major life decisions distresses me. I rang him for permission to quote him in this article. This aside, we couldn't remember me asking him permission for anything since I was about 14. "I would refuse permission to any bloke who is wimpish enough to feel he has to ask me," he says. "And if he took any notice of me I'd think even worse of him."

Now, that is a sweet thing to do!

Because your wedding vows didn’t make you a housecleaning sex-bot

Being interested in women’s issues often means that you have to read unpleasant, backwards statements written by stupid – or just careless – people. Sometimes, such anti-feminist articles are so egregiously misogynistic and so crazy that they’re almost hilarious. Hey, in another context, the whole “feminists are turned on by murdering babies” affair could have been a brilliant piece of satire. Such assertions are so fucked up, you really need to be a crazy phallocrat to endorse them.

But what frustrates me and freaks me out the most are those articles that are equally egregiously misogynistic but which, by some sort of pop psychology smoke and mirrors, are afforded credibility and are hailed as thoughtful and needed reflections on human experience.

Such as this one.

When Globe and Mail’s columnist Sarah Hampson named her article about men’s sexual needs in marriage “Sex, or he’s your ex”, boy did she mean it.

The penis rules.




This, people, is actually the first sentence of her piece. You can already guess where she is going.
A few lines below, she reaffirms the point:

The penis rules. Or should, anyway.



By which she means that:

1) Men have a HUGE sex drive, and thus typically feel horny all the time;
2) Men have a huge sex drive because their masculinity and ego depends on it;
3) Women don’t understand their husbands’ sex drive, because they’re emotional beings.
4) Women unjustifiably deny their husbands’ required dose of sex, on flimsy grounds, e.g. all they want to do is talk about their day, they want to share feelings, they’re physically exhausted after having taken care of the kids all day, cleaned the house, done the laundry and fixed dinner, they’re pregnant, have just given birth or are nursing, they simply don’t want to;
5) When you’re a man, being denied sex by your WIFE is “emasculating”;
6) Men who are not getting any from their wives and who cannot get the same egotistical fulfilment “through sports” or “through work by the accumulation of money” will get on their wives;
7) It’s a wife’s duty to service her husband and submit to his sexual demands, even though she doesn’t want to, if she wants to keep her marriage on the rails.

Got that ladies? YOU, and only you (that means, not that jerk you’re married to) are responsible if he cheats on you and/or leaves you for a sexier model. If entirely your fault if the marriage isn’t working. So stop being that selfish and frigid and follow Ms. Hampson’s thoughtful advice.


I remember an acquaintance of mine complaining about her husband's expectation of sex. She had two young sons at the time, and she was a wonderful hands-on and attentive mother. There were lunches to be made, laundry to finish, dinner to make, homework to help with, errands to run, and just before she passed out from exhaustion, a husband to do. And she did, because if nothing else, she is highly responsible. (And still married, by the way.) [emphasis added]

Wow. Are wee still in the 50’s? I don’t remember ever getting that memo.

Seriously, how is the fact that you’re still married at this point supposed to show that you’re “responsible”? If you get to do all the domestic work, in addition to working a full-time job, and your husband keeps whining about how you’re not properly taking care of him, then the wise thing to do is undoubtedly to just dump the ungrateful bastard.


But I guess in Ms. Hampson’s world, female “selfishness” is way worse than male utter lack of empathy:

“It's not healthy for men to feel pathetic about their urges and shame about their desire. It's not just their masculinity they are expressing through sex but also their lesser masculine qualities, their tenderness, their vulnerability, their desire to give pleasure and receive it,” she explains.

So, to summarize her point, men need to be fucked by their wives to feel manlier, so that they can express non-manly qualities? Uh?!? And please, let’s reflect on the alleged “desire to give pleasure and receive it”. What a hypocrisy! The part about giving pleasure is merely an attempt to comfort themselves. How much pleasure can one give to a partner who’d rather not have sex at all?



(Also note that this statement presupposes that such men are actually able to please their wives in bed. This has yet to be established.)

It's easy for the women to just brush it off, and say, ‘All he wants is sex.' What they should be asking is, ‘Why am I never interested? What happened to my own desires?'


Here you go. If you’re so exhausted after working two jobs (i.e. your real job and the part of the domestic work that your husband is too cheap to do himself) that you’re simply not interested in “taking care” of him by sexually servicing him, then there’s OBVIOUSLY something wrong with you, honey. YOU are the one who should feel responsible for the problem, and YOU are the one who should be working to “solve” it.


And here comes the scary part, shortly followed by the mandatory sexual objectification of women part.

Many men, not being the greatest communicators, resort to anger when they're not getting the intimacy they crave. They will say lack of sex makes them feel “they were sold a bill of goods,” as one guy explains, since “women are much more sexually aggressive and suggestive during the courting stage, and inexperienced men can be fooled by that.


Excuse me? “Bill of goods”? “Fooled by that”? Is it just me or is she actually a wacky version of the caveat emptor rule to heterosexual relationships? WTF?!?


For men, on the other hand, a romp in bed is stress therapy. “For us, it can be like golf or watching television,” admits a source from the world of men.


Awnnn. How flattering. Nothing turns me on like having my feminine charms compared to a wide-screen plasma TV.


You also gotta love the “for us, men” tone. Because, you know, it’s not as if women actually enjoyed sex, or actually knew that it’s not just for making babies.

See:

Of course, for women, talking is like golf. (Confused yet?) “Women want to emotionally share and talk about their day,” the man continues.


Still married to his wife of 21 years, with whom he has two children, he should be called Mr. Highly Evolved. But he didn't get there on his own. All that wisdom about how women and men think differently comes from years of couples therapy.


“For men, it's like Chinese water torture to be talking about something endlessly,” he says. “Guys think, ‘Just fix it.' So when the wife says she wants to be asked how she is, the man goes, ‘What? We've got to have an hour and a half discussion about emotional connection before you feel like having sex? What happened to sex on the kitchen floor?'

Poor thing. Forced to communicate for a whole hour and a half with the person he chose to spend the rest of his life with. What a torture indeed. Someone please send this poor guy a check or something. ‘Really breaks my heart.

But if interacting with another (yet female, thus uninteresting) human being is such a pain in the ass, why do such men marry at all?


Silly goose! Here’s why!


“Men marry for two reasons,” she states. “They're proud to be with that woman socially. Look,” she adds in best-girlfriend whisper, “we both know women who have sex with men who aren't seen with them publicly. The second reason men marry is sexual compatibility.”

Bravo! Now, at last, our crazy acid trip into the 50’s is complete with the trophy wife truth! Bravo I say!


And now for the great finale:


Which brings me to a final bit of good advice. Be a lady in public and a whore in the bedroom. And help him understand that before talking dirty, the whore sometimes needs to have a cuddly chat about her day.

So, to wrap up, women need to be dirty whores in the bedroom in order not to be evil ball-crushers. On the other hand, the same women, in order not to bring eternal shame to their husbands, need to be all virginal and sexless.

I guess Ms. Hampson really meant that only men should not feel ashamed of their sexual urges and desires…

With the Whore-Madonna dichotomy, Ms. Hampson brilliantly completes the exercise of compiling in a single hateful piece a sample of practically all the existing stereotypes on heterosexual relationships and sexual behaviour.

You’ve got to admire the effort. I could not possibly have done any better.



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If you’re not too pissed/depressed about this article already, have a look at the comments following the article online.

Your friendly neighbourhood housecleaning sex-bots, i.e. "responsible" wives...