Fluid Sex

Cheryl and Ellen were good friends of my best friend. As a lesbian couple, they were in a monogamous relationship for many many years. So I was pretty shocked when my friend told me that they had broken up, and Ellen was now in a relationship with... a man. But... but... but... she's a lesbian, I thought. How could she be with a man?

I had no idea at the time, but that was my first exposure to a new way of looking at sexual orientation. Since then I have heard of several anecdotal cases of out lesbians, women who were clearly established and comfortable in their sexuality, who went on to date or marry a man.

The issue become much more personal to me when a good friend of mine, a lesbian, recently started dating a man. She herself was surprised to find herself with a man, because she's never been attracted to men, and although she's happy in her "straight" relationship, she knows that her orientation is still overwhelmingly homosexual. One relationship with one man is not enough to "turn" her straight. This has confused a lot of people. "How can she be happy with a man if she's gay?" "Why won't she call herself bisexual?" "Won't she ultimately crave women too much?" "Doesn't she think, 'Ewwww... penis!'?"

These are good questions, and the people who asked them are sincere supporters of gay rights who take sexual orientation very seriously.

A book that I've recently read helps to address this issue. It introduces a new way to think of sexual orientation, a way that challenges the old dichotomy between biological unchanging rigid determinism and environmental malleable lifestyle choice. (The book was so important to me that I actually waited til I was done with the whole thing to blog about it. No half-read review this time.)

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Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire by Lisa M. Diamond provides ample evidence that human sexuality, like so many other domains of scientific inquiry, is much more complicated than we thought. The old view of homosexuality-- that it's inborn and unchanging and it can't be "cured"-- has helped to give homosexuals much mainstream acceptance, but it's time for "more forward-thinking approaches to sexuality," as Diamond says. One that is more inclusive to the wide range of ways that people (particularly women) feel and express their sexuality.

Over the course of 10 years Diamond follows a hundred women, interviewing them every two years to track their sexual identity, orientation, and behavior (which are actually three distinct things.) At each interview she asks them to identify themselves as gay, straight, bisexual, or unlabeled.

What she found was that only about a third of the women keep the same identity label throughout the entire study. For the others, they tended to shift as circumstances changed-- from straight to lesbian, or lesbian to unlabeled, or bixexual to lesbian, or unlabeled to straight, and every possible combination. Some switched multiple times throughout the five interviews.

This "sexual fluidity" varies from individual to individual, but Diamond believes (and provides evidence) that women on the whole are much more "fluid" than men. Women are much likely to be attracted to "the person, not the gender." My personal anecdotal evidence bears this out: I know several cases of lesbians who ended up dating/marrying men, but I don't know of any personal cases of out gay men dating a woman. (I don't mean to imply that sexual fluidity only applies to lesbians. Many "straight" women find themselves in same-sex relationships, too.) Historically, most of the homosexual research done has focused on gay men, which would explain why the idea of fluidity has not been studied til now. Women's sexuality has been largely left out of the research.

One important idea that Diamond challenges is the assumption that if something is biological or inherent it cannot be changed, and if it is the result of environment or experience it can be. Both assumptions are wrong. Some biological traits can be changed, and some "learned" traits cannot. Rather than focus on whether homosexuality is natured or nurtured, she focuses on the varying degrees that one can be gay, straight, or bisexual, and how that can change as some women become attracted to "the person, not the gender." There is a lot of room between being 100% gay and 100% straight, and that percentage itself can change over time. As she quotes Kinsey, "The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats." (Which reminds me of the homoerotic scene from Spartacus where the skeevy old Roman patrician asks his bathing slave boy, "Do you prefer oysters or clams?")

As Diamond says,

...it is altogether false to assume that if a woman's sexual orientation is an essential trait, then her sexual attractions must be fundamentally rigid. Sexual orientation can have an inborn basis and yet still permit variation in desire over time. The amount of variation a woman experiences is determined by two factors: (1) her specific degree of fluidity, which varies from woman to woman, and (2) her exposure to the types of environmental, situational, and interpersonal factors that might trigger her fluidity. (p. 161)

Don't get me wrong. I love categories. I am a librarian, after all. Diamond is not advocating that we disregard labels altogether, but she is saying that a gay or straight identity doesn't always lead to the same orientation or behavior. She tells the story of visiting a school to give a lecture on providing support for gay students. One teacher asked her at what age you can be sure that kids will no longer question their sexuality. Diamond's answer was, there is no such age. There's no time in a person's life when you can say, "Okay, you're safe-- you won't turn gay now." (Or vice-versa.)

The last chapter, on biological processes, posits a fascinating idea that there is a demonstrable difference between sexual attraction and romantic love. For example, prepubescent children feel romantic love without sexual attraction. It turns out the two forces come from different parts of the brain. The theory is that romantic love actually happens to be a residual form of parent-child bonding. So when you fall in love, you're using the same part of the brain that infants use to bond with their caregiver. In our evoluationary development, this parent-child bonding impulse turned out to be useful for bonding mating couples, as well. I happen to thing that is amazing, and it's yet another reason why I love evolution.

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I can understand the confusion and consternation that many well-meaning supporters of gay rights have when they hear stories of perceived "flips" in sexual orientation. Most of the arguments in the gay rights movement have depended on the idea that homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable, not a lifestyle choice. For years and years anti-gay activists have maintained that "gay can be cured," and people who think they're gay are really just choosing an abhorrent and sinful lifestyle. So when a seemingly gay person takes up with someone of the "wrong" gender, it puts at risk the political gains made by gay rights advocates.

Diamond addresses these concerns in her book, and she doesn't take them lightly. She makes very clear that just because sexuality can shift (due to forces beyond our control) does not mean it can be manipulated or controlled. In the end, homophobes will always take whatever research is out there and try to twist it to their own agenda. We do homosexuals (and women in particular) no favors by sticking with obsolete ideas that, although well-intentioned, do just as much damage as good.

There is no longer any excuse for dismissing female sexual fluidity as an anomaly attributable to women's repression, disingenuousness, confusion, or immaturity. (p 234)

Plus, it's never a good idea to ignore the truth, even for a good cause.

If you want to expand your understanding of sexual orientation, I highly recommend you read the book yourself.

Eat'nLocal

Ever since I read the latest indictment of the abuses of big business, The Omnivore's Dilemma, I have been looking at my food a little differently. I've started playing a game where I read all the ingredients of the things I eat, and indeed corn-processed products are all up in them. It's like playing Where's Waldo with my food, only in this case Waldo is cut up into 17 different parts and spread all over the ingredients list. I was actually giddy a few weeks ago when I bought an upscale off-brand soft drink and it listed "cane sugar" as an ingredient-- and not "high fructose corn syrup."

I also have a new campaign to try to eat local whenever I can. This seems to be the best solution to our processed food problem. Local food solves most of the problems caused by the economies of scale that are necessary with large industrial farming. Eating locally grown food is better for the environment, better for our bodies, and better for farmers. (You know, the people who actually grow our food.)

This presents quite a dilemma for me, a lazy convenience-phile who rarely cooks and never buys produce. Probably 60% of my diet is frozen dinners and pizza. This is the same person who, when I lived in Germany, used to complain that my bread would go bad after a week. "Haven't these people ever heard of preservatives?!?" I would shout. So it's going to be a challenge for me to put my, uh, mouth where my mouth is. This new attitude has the potential to just add another heap of guilt on me when I eat, to go with all the other Catholic guilt I grew up with.


But I can start with small steps, like joining the local food co-op and trying to be on the lookout for better eating options. Just like you can't eat Rome in a day (I think Godzilla said that), neither will I be able to completely transform my bachelor eating habits overnight.

So it was with this mindset that I was looking for food on my latest road trip to Philadelphia. (My fifth visit there in the past eight months-- Boy, do I love history!) I often break the trip into two days, and my 800-mile, 14-hour journey always has me driving through the Washington, PA area around lunch time. The past few times I've stopped at Wendy's there, but it's been less than satisfying. In addition to my new social food conscience, I fear that I may be becoming a food snob. I blame it on the people I hang out with.

So, with fast food not appealing to me, and with this new attitude about eating local, non-processed food, I pulled off the highway and drove past Wendy's, McDonald's, and Taco Bell hoping to find some local restaurant that might have fresher options.

My eyes perked up when I saw a sign for a place called Eat'nPark. Not a great name (what the hell does "eat 'n park" mean? Shouldn't it be the other way around?) but it looked like a local greasy spoon that might at least be something different than the ubiquitous MickieDees. But it also looked like a sit-down restaurant, and I wanted something fast. I did have a schedule to keep, after all. I drove past Eat'nPark, but there were no other options closer to town. So I turned around. I was just about to give up and go back to Wendy's when I passed Eat'nPark again. And I noticed the marquee sign outside said, "Local produce in our salad bar." If I was looking for a sign from the Universe, that was it. With all my talk about eating local, how could I pass that up?

So I pulled off the road and parked. I was very apprehensive, because I never take chances like this when I travel. I'm not spontaneous, daring, or comfortable with unknown situations. But I took a chance.

It was like a higher quality Denny's. Clean and wholesome with fast friendly service and a glass case full of pies next to the register. I ordered a chicken mushroom sandwich with a side of cole slaw and felt very pleased with myself. Look at me, taking chances! Eating local and healthy! The food was great and it didn't take me much longer than a fast food place. I ate half my sandwich and took the other half with me, which made a great leftover lunch the next day. The rest of the afternoon I felt so smug and self-satisfied for my lunch choice that I could have burst. I can't wait for my next road trip to Philly so I can stop there again.

When I got home I looked up Eat'nPark. It turns out it's a Pittsburg-based chain of about 75 restaurants in PA, WV, and OH. I couldn't find any mention on their website about the local angle, but the one in Washington, PA, sure had a local feel to it.

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While in Philadelphia, I visited a local farmer's market in, of all places, a subway station. It was one local farm selling their products, and although I wasn't interested in any of the produce (my friend bought enough for the both of us), I did noticed that they had beef jerky. One of the things that I learned from my book is that grass-fed beef is way healthier (and better for the environment, etc.) than the corn-fed ones that live in crowded factories their whole life. The grass-fed lifestyle also appears to negate many of the (legitimate) objections that vegetarians have about eating beef. So I asked the guy if their cows were grass-fed, and he said yes. I couldn't pass this up, so I bought grass-fed beef jerky. I wonder if it's the first time I've ever had grass-fed beef, but there's really no way to know. I am enjoying my jerky as I type this. (I know that sounds dirty, but it's not. Unless you think eating beef is in itself pornographic.)

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On my return trip, I was driving through western Ohio at lunchtime and I had the same dilemma as before. How can I feed myself without stopping at fast food?

I couldn't hope to find another Eat'nPark with a local salad bar, but I decided to just pull off at an exit with lots of restaurants and hope to find at least a local business, if not local food. What I found instead was Tim Hortons. What the hell was a Tim Hortons doing in Dayton, OH?

I'd never seen a Tim Hortons before, but as I understand it, it's like the Canadian Starbucks. They are ubiquitous in Canada and serve coffee and pastries. Do they also serve lunch? I didn't know. But I was going to find out.
I realize that going to Tim Hortons is the opposite of eating local. It's a large international chain that probably buys all of its food in bulk from all over the world. But it's also Canadian, and I imagine that large evil corporations in Canada aren't nearly as large and evil as their American counterparts. Plus, it was at least a new experience.

The food was serviceable and the service friendly. My turkey club sandwich at least had the appearance of being fresh, like they advertise.

And now my Eat'nFresh souvenir cup has a companion.

Feeding Our Cornholes

There I go again, reading.

Learnin' stuff.

The more I learn about how our world operates, the more I believe that ignorance really is bliss. Because The Omnivore's Dilemma : a Natural History of Four Meals, a book by Michael Pollan, is bumming me out.


Basically, it's about how we're all just big ole' walking piles of corn. Bushels and bushels and bushels of corn. It's in almost everything we eat. It's in a lot of things we don't eat. It's what the things we eat eat. It's what the things we drive eat.

As omnivores, humans eat both plants and meat. We're not like koala bears, who eat nothing but eucalyptus leaves. The "dilemma" in Pollan's title is, when you have such a wide range of possibilities, what do you eat? Well, it turns out that more and more, we Americans eat corn. And we don't have much choice about it.

According to Pollan, 45 out of the 60 items on a McDonald's menu contain some form of processed corn. It's in the drinks, it's in the hamburger bun, it's in the cheese, it's in the fries. The McNuggets? Fuggedaboudit! They're loaded with corn products! (Ironically, actual corn is not on the menu.)

Because of all this cornhole stuffing, we're becoming less like omnivores and more like the koala. "This is what the industrialized eater has become: the koala of corn."

That's what you are.

Pollan lays out lots of reasons why it's become almost unsustainable for farmers to grow anything but corn in this country: "A quarter century of farm policies designed to encourage the overproduction of this crop [corn] and nothing else."

The problem is-- this overproduction of corn at the expense of all other crops-- it's bad for us. It's bad for farmers, who, because of the supersaturated market, can't get a good price for their corn, but because of subsidies can't afford to grow anything else. It's bad for the environment. It's bad for the livestock who eat it. (Cattle don't naturally eat corn.) Hence, it's bad for us who eat the livestock who eat the corn. It's bad for our health, because of all the unhealthy ways it's processed. ("We subsidize high fructose corn syrup in this country, but not carrots.")

The only people who benefit by this overproduction of corn is (SURPRISE!) the large food corporations (ADM and Cargill) who process all this cheap, overabundant corn into the high-calorie products that we stuff down our fat gullets.

It should come as no surprise that this policy, which has hurt the little guy (farmers) at the expense of big corporations, was instituted by a Republican administration. Earl Butz (heh, heh, you said "butts") was Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture. He made it a priority to change many New Deal farm subsidy programs, to the detriment of small farms. According to Wikipedia (this quote sounds like it was lifted from Pollan's book):

His mantra to farmers was "get big or get out," and he urged farmers to plant commodity crops like corn "from fencerow to fencerow." These policy shifts coincided with the rise of major agribusiness corporations, and the declining financial stability of the small family farm.

Incidentally, after implementing policies that would dismantle the family farm, rape the nation's soil, stuff livestock into unsustainable factories, and cause the current obesity epidemic, Butz went on to make offensive and racist statements which forced him out of office. Oh, he also went to jail for tax evasion. What a guy!

For a more sympathetic view of Butz that considers historical context, see this:
http://www.culinate.com/articles/opinion/meeting_king_corn

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This whole story just bums me out because it once again shows how we live in a corporatocracy. Corporations wield all the power, and all the big decisions get made based on the bottom line. Our health, our environment, our standard of living-- none of that matters when it gets in the way of a corporation making a big pile of money.


Another example from the book: the "Industrial Organic" industry. That sounds like an oxymoron, but it's actually how most of the "organic" food that we buy is grown. What started out as an alternative movement to grow food on smaller farms in a sustainable and healthy way has grown into a huge industry, run by giant corporations. The corporations themselves have a hand in defining how the FDA labels things as "organic." So of course they allow a lot of the same practices that support the economic model of the factory farm.

An economic model that, though efficient and financially successful to the large corporation, is overworking the land and its resources. As Pollan warns, "Civilizations that abuse their soil eventually collapse."

So as organic farmers have become more successful, they have turned into the very thing that they originally set out to oppose. Overworking the land for economic gain. It's depressing to see how human nature does that. How even the best intentions get corrupted.

Seriously, how can you think of anything but corruption when you hear phrases like, "organic Twinkie" or "organic frozen dinner"?

Ugh, it hurts my head to think about. Where's my corn-coated organic aspirin?

A Holiday from Cliches

Since my weekend was uncharacteristically full of wide-open leisure time, I decided to catch up on my Netflix queue. I watched a movie on Friday that looked good in the trailers, but turned out to be an awful piece of shit in full-length. I guess it's fitting that the trailers made the movie look good, since one of the main characters is a movie-trailer maker.


The Holiday made me groan, roll my eyes, and sigh in frustration throughout its two-hour-and-sixteen-minute runtime. Sometimes a movie annoys you but you're not really sure why. It has great stars and a good premise, and yet it just feels too forced, too manipulative, too movie-like. It's just trying too hard. That was the problem with The Holiday. It was one tired old movie cliche (yes, I recognize that that phrase itself has become cliche) after another.

I like reading reviews of movies after I've seen them, but I usually only bother with movies I really loved or really hated. And when I found reviews of The Holiday, I was delighted to see that many of the critics hated it as much as I did. And they brought up the same exact points that I made about the movie. Yay, validation!

Richard Roeper tears it a new one in a review that, unfortunately, I can't link to. For some reason the Sun-Times doesn't offer it for free online. So I found it on a library database, and here's some of his best lines:

This is a romantic comedy filled with moments we recognize from other, mostly better, romantic comedies.

He then lists several examples, and adds:

You get all that and more in "The Holiday." I guess you could say I've just spoiled some of the surprises in the film, but the surprises would be surprises only if this is, like, your fourth movie ever.

Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post writes a brilliantly funny review where she chronicles her thoughts as she watches the movie. This review alone was worth enduring the two-hour movie. Some of my favorites:

8:00 Did Kate Winslet's house in Surrey spring fully formed from the forehead of Thomas Kinkade?

8:15 Kate Winslet is so real. So winning. So utterly wrong for this movie.

8:30 Did Cameron Diaz's house spring fully formed from the forehead of J.W. Marriott?

8:55 I wonder if Kate will add this to her American Express commercial. ("At 31, I fired my agent for putting me in a piece of generic entertainment-industrial product with no redeeming artistic value.")

9:07 Jack Black is so funny. So winning. So utterly wrong for this movie.

9:30 For the love of all that's holy, please stop talking and end this movie.

In my schadenfreudic investigations, I discovered that the movie was written and directed by Nancy Meyers. Some consider her to be "Hollywood's queen of the chick flick." She's also responsible for Baby Boom, Father of the Bride, What Women Want and Something's Gotta Give. Roeper contends that Meyers likes to emasculate her leading men. I never thought that much about that, but I do know that the movies of hers I'm familiar with have annoyed me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against chick flicks or romantic comedies. Love Actually and When Harry Met Sally are two of my all-time favorite movies.

When I gave The Holiday a bad rating on Netflix, it asked me if I wasn't interested in movies with strong female leads. That offends me, because I have no problem with strong female leads. What I have a problem with is bad Hollywood cliche.

As Wesley Morris said in another brilliant review, "Meyers can't sustain a convincing idea in her movies..." He starts his review with a summary of the scene in The Holiday where Cameron Diaz and Jude Law meet:

Knock-knock.

Who's there?

It's Jude.

Jude who?

Jude better sleep me with now. You've only got two weeks!

He adds, "That's cheesy, I know, but welcome to the universe of Nancy Meyers, where low-grade cheesiness is contagious."

Sometimes it can be really fun to hate bad art, so I will say this about Nancy Meyers: her horrible movie has provided me with much great entertainment as reviewer after reviewer has outdone themselves cleverly tearing it to pieces.

To use another Hollywood cliche, that alone was worth the price of admission.

Relative Conflict

My family is a large diverse group with lots of different interpersonal styles and priorities. Some of us are very high-strung. So we argue a lot. It seems that someone is always mad at someone else.

But two stories in the news this week have made me realize that we are a model of harmony.

1. Rod Blagojevich, the sleezy impeached ex-governor of Illinois, is on trial for being a political scumbag. His brother, Robert, has also been mixed up in the scandal, and this week testified as a co-defendant. He said that his relationship with his brother is "strained." Yeah, I'll bet. Can you imagine the next Thanksgiving in the Blagojevich family?
   
   "Moooooom, Roddie tried to illegally sell Obama's vacant Senate seat and shook down a children's hospital and now I might have to go to jail for it!!"
   
   The Chicago Sun Times reports:
   

   "Who am I to give him advice?" Robert answered, acknowledging that his relationship with the ex-governor is "strained." "He doesn't listen to me, you should know that by now."

   As a little brother, I know the feeling.
   
   
2. Last night a local man was arrested for shooting his brother in a grocery store. Presumably it was about more than what kind of beer to buy.

When I consider these two stories, it really puts our family's problems into perspective. Where family feuds are concerned, it's all relative.

Gayest Ad Ever

I'm convinced that the makers of this Shake Weight video knew exactly who they were marketing to. It's got to be the gayest ad this side of Fire Island. Even without the sound, the phallic repetition of the exercise just kinda thrusts itself into your face. Ripped men holding a throbbing, shaking, skin-sliding cylinder right in front of their face? I'm not even gay and it's turning me on. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld would say.)

The models groan and grimace as if they're having the sex of a lifetime with this contraption. After a slow motion segment that clearly evokes a porn money shot, they speed up the video. The model grimaces in exquisite pleasure/pain, bites his lip, then suddenly stops and says, "Whoo, that's it."

The text from the video (delivered in deep, tough, male voice) is further evidence of the clear homoerotic theme:

• This is shake weight, FOR MEN.
• And it's going to kick... your... BUTT.
• ...add SIZE, definition, and strength...
• Technology is all about PACKING megaperformance in less space, right?
• The FASTER YOU SHAKE, the more INTENSE and challenging your workout.
• Think you can HANDLE it?

Seriously, if this was not intended for a gay male audience, then it's also the funniest ad ever made.

Free Drinks

I was at Qdoba in the Indianapolis airport, watching them make my fat yummy burrito, when a lady came up to the line and asked, "Do you provide free drinks to armed forces people?"

The Hispanic man behind the burrito prep station had no idea. He looked to the next guy down the line, who looked at the cashier. Finally one of them said, "No."

The lady turned to the two other people in her party and said, "I guess they don't do that at this one." She was clearly upset. "We'll go to McDonald's instead," she said and left in a huff.

I mean no disrespect, but the lady's response seemed really silly to me.

Who are soldiers to demand free drinks from a private business? And then get all bent out of shape if they don't get them? What, are we living in imperial Rome? A British colony? I thought this was one of the things we rebelled against England for-- that soldiers were demanding accommodations from private citizens.

If it's about honoring their service, surely soldiers are not the only people who protect our way of life. What about teachers, doctors, military contractors, cops, firefighters, judges, sanitation workers, public defenders? Don't all of those people also contribute to the American way of life? They all protect our ideals in different ways, and yet I've never heard, for example, a teacher demand that they get free services from a business while they were off-duty. If the only thing that keeps America "free" is our military, then surely North Korea also deserves to be called "free", because they happen to have a pretty formidable military.

A lady I know once said to me, "I think our troops should get the best possible medical care." I said I agreed. "Just like everyone else," I added. "No, I mean, the best," she said. Yes, exactly. And I think everyone should have that same level of medical care. Her frustration made her unable to continue. Clearly I was too much of a pinko commie to understand what she meant.

It's a free drink, for chrissake. Not comprehensive health care coverage or proper body armor or a fair retirement plan. The cynic in me wonders whether all this trivial respect we are supposed to pay to soldiers is a way for politicians to neglect to take care of them in more substantial ways. Encouraging token acts of respect toward soldiers is a lot easier than considering the effect that sending them off to fight in unnecessary wars will have on their bodies, minds, and families.

I appreciate the dangerous and horribly stressful jobs that soldiers have. But they're not the only ones. Police and firefighters also have very dangerous and stressful jobs. I've never heard them demand special treatment because of it. If soldiers aren't making enough money, that's a separate conversation I'd be happy to have. But don't get all bent out of shape because the poor workers making minimum wage at Qdoba (and have no authority to make such decisions) didn't give your military ID card the proper deference.

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UPDATE: I have added an addendum to this post here: http://tim4814.blogspot.com/2010/09/atoning.html