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Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 18:47:28
To: [the usual suspects]
From: "Uncle Mike"
Subject: the evils of sex education...
...or is that the lack thereof?
I will admit, speaking for most 13-year-old boys of all ages (even
if they won't), that I know I *should* be appalled and horrified at
Ms. LeTourneau's actions. However (and this may be revealing more
about me than even my close friends would care to know), my usual
reaction when watching this on the local news was "damn, wish I'd
been so lucky when I was 13." There, I've said it.
And it is interesting that in a recent similar case here in the
northwest involving a 40-something (male) teacher and a 15-year-old
(female) student, the courts pretty much threw the entire bookshelf
at him. He's in jail; Ms. LeTourneau, in contrast, is free as long
as she participates in counseling. [1998 update: she's back in
jail -- pending the outcome of her appeal -- after violating the terms
of her 1997 probation by getting back together with her young lover,
who steadfastly refuses to refer to himself as a "victim," by the way].
Hmm, double standards? And for those who would like some evidence
of just how mature a 15-year-old woman (interesting that they're
referred to as "women" at that age unless the media want to emphasize
victim status) can look, try to get ahold of some bootleg copies of
Traci Lords's old videos (if you have to ask, don't bother).
Mr. Un-PC
>--------------------------------------------------------------
> From News of the Weird [506] - 17Oct97
> ...
>
> CLICHES COME TO LIFE
>
> * In May, Kent, Wash., elementary school teacher Mary Kay
> LeTourneau, 35, gave birth to a baby girl, the father of whom is
> one of her sixth-graders. LeTourneau is the daughter of ex-U.S.
> Rep. John Schmitz, an intense right-wing Republican who was so
> notoriously opposed to sex education in schools that he would
> move little Mary out of any school contemplating such a program.
> In August, she pleaded guilty to child rape. (Unofficially, though,
> she admires the boy: "There was a respect, an insight, a spirit, an
> understanding between us that grew over time." They met when he
> was in second grade.)
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Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 22:07:30
To: "Uncle Mike"
From: "Athos"
Subject: Re: the evils of sex education...
>... However (and this may be revealing more about me than even
>my close friends would care to know), my usual reaction when
>watching this on the local news was "damn, wish I'd been so
>lucky when I was 13." There, I've said it.
Time somebody did.
...
>Hmm, double standards?
>...
Don't get me started. Here at PCU (and I presume at most U's these
days), we're supposed to refer to every female student, including the
freshest of frosh, as "women." Time for a reality check, no? There are
25-year-old girls, and, occasionally, 15-year-old women. But what on
earth does managing to squeeze out of high school and into a so-called
university have to do with it?
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Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 12:30:46
To: "Art Babe"
From: "Uncle Mike"
Subject: RE: the evils of sex education...
Interesting distinction, and one I wasn't aware of. Although,
I would guess that one could find a case where the similiarities
are even closer (i.e., one in which the man admitted his guilt)
yet still got a, er, stiffer sentence.
Also, I find it interesting that simply admitting guilt means
one is amenable to treatment. Could also mean (he said cynically)
that the person in question has a good lawyer who has pointed out
the difference in sentencing.
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>At 11:25 AM 11/26/97, "Art Babe" wrote:
>As my criminal defense lawyer husband (and a couple of judges I know) are
>quick to point out, the difference is SHE ADMITTED HER GUILT and has
>accepted treatment. He DENIED HIS GUILT and is therefore not amenable to
>treatment and received a harsher sentence. For some reason, the media
>continues to over look this hugely significant point.
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Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 14:40:31
To: "Droll Dude"
From: "Uncle Mike"
Subject: RE: the evils of sex education...
At 10:07 AM 11/26/97, you wrote:
>>..."damn, wish I'd been so lucky when I was 13."
>
>Yeah, that was my initial reaction, too.
>
>I suppose there is a double standard at work, here,
>and I support it whole-heartedly.
>============================
Yeah, me too: vive la difference.
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Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 16:32:03
To: "Drill Sergeant"
From: "Uncle Mike"
Subject: Re: excellent point
At 03:48 PM 11/26/97 PST, "Drill Sergeant" wrote:
>I and most guys I know felt the same way. I have this theory
>that a lot of society is structured to protect the females from
>marauding males looking for sex. Although I have lots of
>questionable theories, a case like this does cause one to wonder.
>______________________________________________________
Yeah, I can usually count on you to have theories and opinions that
are at least as outrageous as mine. Although this one isn't all that
off-the-wall.
What I regret is that the all-too-brief period (late 60s to late 70s)
in my own life when the sexual revolution meant that women could be
just as "predatory" as men seems to be long gone. Guess the freedom
was too scary, and now they have returned to the Victorian ideal of
being "protected from big, bad, hairy men."
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Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 21:53:54
To: "Uncle Mike", "Aramis"
From: "Athos"
Subject: Re: boyz 2 men
At 06:05 PM 11/27/97, "Uncle Mike" wrote:
>>Don't get me started. Here at PCU (and I presume at most U's these days),
>>we're supposed to refer to every female student, including the freshest
>>of frosh, as "women." Time for a reality check, no? There are 25-year-
>>old girls, and, occasionally, 15-year-old women. But what on earth does
>>managing to squeeze out of high school and into a so-called university
>>have to do with it?
>>====================
>
>Yeah, reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a fem-person
>going for her doctorate in ***** ... A good soul, but irretrievably
>tainted.
>
>Anyway, "Aramis" was present at this; he can vouch for the veracity
>(assuming he hadn't put away too many glasses of merlot at that
>point). I had the audacity to refer to someone of the female
>persuasion who was younger than 15 as a "girl." Predictable reaction
>from our dinner companion ... . I replied that I would also refer to
>a sub-15-year-old male person as a "boy," so what was the big deal?
>Not mollified, ***** held fast to her guns that the person I had
>originally discussed was still a "woman" (without really addressing
>the issue of the boyhood of my second example).
Holy shit. This one is off the deep end even by "PCU" standards.
Cute, the trick of not answering the point about males.
>I pressed (knowing I was going for a stroll on a field
>of land mines, but somehow the older I get, the more I like to stir
>things up [por ejemplo, my recent "sex education" email thread]).
'F y'ask me, ain't you stirrin' things up, it's people who make
crackpot statements. I imagine you're right, too, that the *****
school doesn't help much. 'Spect she adores long-winded gatherings
called workshops, loves to dialog, and starts out her contributions
with "I just wanted to share this with you." Does she hiss her esses
as well, like a Sears ad? And flip two fingers on each hand for
quotes?
>Just what was the Rubicon between being a girl and being a woman,
>I inquired disingenously. Replied *****: whenever a girl was
>physiologically capable of giving birth ("puberty" I seem to recall
>was the term in vogue during my distant youth). So, said I, all
>innocence, guess that meant that any 10-year-old male whose sperm
>was capable of impregnating a female should by the same logic be
>called a "man"? ("Aramis": help me out here; I believe at this
>point our waitr[ess] arrived to take our dessert order and I never
>did get an answer [not that I was expecting one]).
She fails to answer twice, then. You got'er and she knew it.
[Athos's daughter] is now nine. Younger than 15 is 14. Am I to believe
that she'll be a woman in five years?
We gotta get "Latin Scholar" to recount his experience here at *****
with a pseudo-feminist librarian. Even nuttier than this *****. --
'Course, reasoned discussion with any of these characters will get you
about as far as arguing religion with a Baptist (or a Muslim, or a
Mormon, or...).
Ignorance knows no bounds. Couple years ago there was an apparently
sharp young gringa woman here doing grad work in Italian. One of the
guys, a feministly sensitive fellow from "the old country," [a teaching
assistant or TA], as she was, referred to one of his undergrad students
as a "ragazza", totally normal for any female from 11-12-13 to well
into the 20's.
The gringa flipped out, equating ragazza with girl, and berated him
no end. The Italian TA explained that ragazza has a much wider age
range than girl, even for at least some rabid feminists, sort of the
way biondo extends to include much darker shades of hair color than can
be included in 'blond' in English. Italian women in the TA offices
assured her that this was true, and that there was nothing offensive
about referring to an 18- or 19-year-old female as ragazza. Not good
enough. It'll just have to be changed. It's sexism in the language and
you're all so victimized that you don't realize it. Not so, they counter-
argued, since ragazzo is used just as widely for males. "Oh, that's
different ... " -- All this from someone who was very much into what's
being called cultural studies.
Whatever happened to the motto "Lighten up"?
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Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 04:29:34
To: "Uncle Mike"
From: "Aramis"
Subject: Re: boyz 2 men
At 06:05 PM 11/27/97, you wrote:
>...
>...("Aramis": help me out here; I believe at this point our waitr[ess]
>arrived to take our dessert order and I never did get an answer [not
>that I was expecting one]).
Moi? I was torn between (a) chortling gleefully that you had the courage
to go where angels fear to tread, (b) temptation to dive in and join you,
(c) serious contemplation of the ceiling, and (d) wondering where to dive
to when explosions start.
I concur that there was no answer. I also recall that there was no answer
to your corollary question of what the hell puberty had to do with it.
Why should we posit that the simply biological fact of being able to
breed provides one with the intellectual and emotional maturity that
"woman" or "man" connote in contrast to "girl" or "boy"?
I think one of us (moi?) asked later, on the way home, what about the
facts that (a) women call each other "girls" or (b) both genders use
"girls" and "guys" as informal synonyms of women and men. I don't recall
an intelligent answer to that, either, but I think (unless the memory is
befuddled) that there was a firm refusal to allow men to call women
"girls" under damn near any circumstances.
PS: I have made the mistake, from time to time, of using the "girls /
guys" pair in ***** school. The girls (and they are generally "women")
have been quite kind and understanding, though I have seen some winces.
I guess they figure I'm such an old geezer that they can't expect anything
more enlightened. Fact is, if they made a stink about it, I just might
blurt out something equally PC like, "Honey, I'm old enough to be your
father, so you're still a girl to me." Or worse.
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Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 04:39:35
To: "Athos", "Uncle Mike"
From: "Aramis"
Subject: Re: boyz 2 men
At 09:53 PM 11/27/97, "Athos" wrote:
>.... It's sexism in the language and you're all so victimized that you
>don't realize it. Not so, they counter-argued, since ragazzo is used
>just as widely for males. That's different... -- All this from someone
>who was very much into what's being called cultural studies.
There -- you have your explanation. "Cultural studies" are primarily
characterized as group-gropes in which the participants vie with one
another to conjure up ever more creative scenarios of oppression and
victimization.
Ooof -- better delete that off your harddrives, boys, and the servers
too, and promise never to forward it to no one! If that statement gets
out, I'll _never_ get hired at a university. (So much for academic
freedom and open converse of ideas...)
>Whatever happened to the motto "Lighten up"?
Somebody turned out the light.
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Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 16:45:51
To: "Aramis", "Uncle Mike"
From: "Athos"
Subject: Re: boyz 2 men
>>At 04:29 AM 11/28/97, "Aramis" wrote:
>>I think one of us (moi?) asked later, on the way home, what about the
>>facts that (a) women call each other "girls" or (b) both genders use
>>"girls" and "guys" as informal synonyms of women and men. I don't recall
>>an intelligent answer to that, either, but I think (unless the memory is
>>befuddled) that there was a firm refusal to allow men to call women
>>"girls" under damn near any circumstances.
>>...
>>======================
>
>At 02:31 PM 11/28/97, "Uncle Mike" replied:
>
>Oh yeah, you did indeed! And once again, my memory banks have no
>recollection of any reasonable response, other than the one you mention:
>It may be permissible for persons of the female persuasion to refer to one
>another as "gals" (just as gay folk can greet one another with "hey,
>faggot!" or blacks can say "whassup, nigger?"), but under no circumstances
>should white (or even various shades of brown) men refer to female humanoids
>of any age as "girls." I do recall half-jocularly suggesting the old-
>style "gals" as the female equivalent to "guys." (I mean, c'mon, just how
>is one supposed to refer to a gaggle of wo-persons? I've tried "guys,"
>but gotten nothing but smirks in response, like "can't you see we're
>not men?"). I think that that suggestion got about the same reception as
>a fart in an elevator full of Avon sales reps.
And yet seems to me that that's the crux of the whole matter, lexically
speaking (i.e. setting true crackpotdom aside for the nonce): 'gal' is
pretty much the gender-marked f. equivalent of 'guy' (or has something
offensive been invented for 'gal' as well?), but is falling/has fallen
out of use. Nothing to fill the void but 'girl', so nuthin' but trouble.
>>At 04:29 AM 11/28/97, "Aramis" wrote:
>>
>>PS: I have made the mistake, from time to time, of using the "girls /
>>guys" pair in law school. The girls (and they are generally "women")
>>have been quite kind and understanding, though I have seen some winces.
>>Fact is, ... I just might blurt out something equally PC like, "Honey,
>>I'm old enough to be your father, so you're still a girl to me."
>>Or worse.
>>======================
>
>At 02:31 PM 11/28/97, "Uncle Mike" replied:
>
>Oh, you would be so very, very fucked. And not in any way that might
>be construed as pleasant, either. You'd probably get hauled up on
>charges of pedophilia.
'Round here it would probably be the "Honey" bit that would get you
boiled in oil. All this will soon be solved on the ***** campus, though.
The commission writing up the university Speech Code is expected to
have its results ready any day now. I kid you not, mes amis, we're
about to get it in black and white what we can and cannot say in and
out of the classroom.
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Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 23:36:50
To: "Athos", "Uncle Mike"
From: "Aramis"
Subject: Re: boyz 2 men
At 02:31 PM 11/28/97, "Uncle Mike" wrote:
>...I've tried "guys," but gotten nothing but smirks in response,
>like "can't you see we're not men?"). I think that that suggestion
>got about the same reception as a fart in an elevator full of Avon
>sales reps.
Actually, believe it or not, I've used 'guys' with great (?) success. And
I don't think it was the "he's just an incorrigible old geezer" response.
Well, I mean: no one has complained; they've all answered; and I haven't
even seen any smirks or grimaces. I put it down to 'unisex' vocabulary,
like 'actor' or 'waiter'.
Besides (he said uncautiously, leaving historical fact for a speculative
foray wherein his self-confidence was anything but justified), don't most
of 'em wanta be just one of the guys?
[CRASH!!]
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Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 13:42:01
To: "Aramis", "Uncle Mike"
From: "Athos"
Subject: "Latin Scholar's" tale
>Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 12:59:31
>From: "Latin Scholar"
>To: "Athos"
>
>Before I relate the librarian story, allow me to point out the ironic fact
>that it is now hip for young women, copying Black English, to call each
>other "girl".
>
>Let's see... It must have been 1989 or 90. I was working on my doctoral
>dissertation with the Great Professor "Athos," when my intellectual
>peregrinations brought me to the ***** Library on the ***** campus.
>There I asked a female librarian (a woman, I believe, telling from her
>age) to help me find a book. I had some info, including the author's last
>name, and she was able to bring up a list of about twenty authors with
>that last name. I knew the author was a female (I would guess a woman by
>her intellectual maturity), and since only two or three names were of the
>kind conventionally given to female newborns (such as Susan and Mary) I
>asked the librarian if she would please bring up those listings. Her answer:
>"That would be discriminatory. Let's do it another way." I was dumbfounded
>and could not respond in a way that would have expressed the infinite
>measure of stupidity inherent in her statement. Later I related this tale
>to my Master, and after beating me at a bout of quarterstaves while
>blindfolded, he told me what should have been my appropriate answer as he
>filled my cup with the bitter green tea: "Yeah! I want to discriminate
>between the book I want and the ones I don't want." So ends my tale.
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Date: Tue, 02 Dec 1997 14:08:48
To: "Aramis", "Athos", "Latin Scholar"
From: "Uncle Mike"
Subject: Re: "Latin Scholar's" tale
Oy, my head, my head! (Or, as ***** would put it in a
much more colorful expression: "Oh, my aching, big fat ass!")
Here you have a perfectly legitimate, non-judgmental, non-
discriminatory request to "parse" a bunch of data into female
vs. non-female authors (no more discriminatory than saying
"I'm pretty sure the author is South American"; or "teaches
at the University of *****" or etc., etc.). And another
ironic twist to this Moebius Strip of cacademoid logic is
that it's perfectly hunky-dory to have special film festivals
devoted to "Women in Cinema" (as if Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion,
Emma Thompson, Lina Wertmuller, et al were not up to playing in
the same league as "the boys") -- now *that* I do find patronizing,
condescending, and discriminatory. These women are great artists
who happen to be female, just like Beethoven was a great composer
who happened to go deaf. We don't file him under "hearing-impaired
composers" (or, gads, do we?).
Ditto for "Women's Studies," etc. -- as if women are interested
only in reading about other women, or as if the history being
discussed would *not* be interesting/relevant to men, or as if
it needs some condescending special attention, so it can be
"nurtured" away from the harsh masculine gaze.
Oh, my aching, big fat ... Remind me again, "Aramis", how come you,
after besting the cacademons in two out of three falls and escaping
from their den relatively unscathed, actually *want* to return?
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