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So last week I read this fluffy article, “10 reasons he may not ask you out again.” I must say, this article is chock full of good advice for women who may not have gotten the memo that it’s bad form to spend your first date talking about your ex, talking on the phone (especially to your ex), and belching. Also, if you haven’t gotten the memo that sometimes guys just aren’t that into you and have a tendency to move on with other women they are that into, this article should be very enlightening. I should also be clear that every single one of these ten reasons is a legitimate reason not to ask a woman out on a second date. I mean, if you don’t want to date someone, any reason will do. “Wouldn’t put out” is a legitimate reason.
But there are reasons, and then there are reasons that make you lame. In my opinion, the first two reasons in this list of 10 reasons fall under the “make you lame” category.
Reason that makes you lame #1: “We’re shy/intimidated.”
From the article:
Some guys just get intimidated, or we’re too shy to ask for a second date. Make sure you get his number, and call the dude up to scope things out.
You’ll know if he’s intimidated in the first 10 seconds of the call when he either claims the phone is on fire and hangs up or he nervously vomits into the receiver.
This is good advice for you to follow, ladies, if you want to be with a man who’s intimidated by you. By all means, do chase after that man. Make sure you get his phone number so you can make him vomit into the phone. That will be hot.
To be sure, there are men out there who are entirely too confident, i.e. clueless. They can’t take a hint and they can’t tell the difference between “I’m just being polite” and “I totally want you.” They just keep going for it until you file a restraining order. That’s too much confidence. And then there are men who vomit into the phone. The trick is to strike that happy medium where neither legal action nor nausea gets in the way of true love. But this strikes me as being the dude’s problem. This belongs in an article called “10 reasons why she isn’t going out with you again (or ever!)”
Dudes, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Women don’t like to say no. It makes us feel guilty. We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or for anyone to think that we’re mean. There are two lessons you can glean from this little secret. Lesson #1: If a woman says no, there’s a 99.99999% chance that she really means it. Lesson #2: Saying no is probably the worst thing she’s going to do to you, and if you can’t handle that, you aren’t any kind of man. I know, that’s harsh, but the truth is harsh sometimes. You’re going to have to get a thicker skin if you want to date a woman who won’t walk all over you.
Semi-relevant anecdote: Sugar Daddy and I have a mutual male friend who spent many years as a bachelor for reasons no one could figure out because not only was he a very nice guy, but he was also very good-looking and made a nice living. Unlike most single Mormon men, he was finished with school. Women found him attractive. (I myself found him attractive, but he wasn’t into me. That was okay. I was too busy resigning myself to a lifetime of celibacy anyway. Ah, memories.) Anyway, at one point SD set this mutual friend up with a woman who had been a missionary in SD’s mission. Later, SD asked his old missionary (girl) buddy how the date had went. She said that she had thought it went fine, but he (the mutual friend) had never called again. So SD asked the mutual friend what the deal was, and he said he wasn’t sure if the girl wanted to go out with him again. At which point SD said, “Dude [he didn't really say "dude," but I don't want to use his real name], you’re handsome, you have a Master’s degree, and you make [a desirable amount of money] a year. You’re guaranteed at least three dates because the woman WANTS to like you.”
My take on this story: our mutual friend was either lying–i.e. he wasn’t that into the girl and just didn’t want to say so–or he was just being dumb. Dumb guys don’t get to date the girls of their dreams, I tell you what. Certainly not more than once. So I’m just saying, guys, don’t be dumb.
Reason that makes you lame #2: “You didn’t offer to pay.”
From the article:
Most men have no problem paying for their dates. We’re gentlemen at heart, or at least we like to think so. Still, we like it when our dates at least offer to cover their share. If our date seems to be taking advantage of a free dinner, that second date isn’t going to happen.
This is the thing that really made me inordinately upset, considering that I’m not even a single woman anymore and theoretically don’t have a dog in this race or a chicken in that casserole. Yet this language offends me. “Taking advantage of a free dinner”? Insert scandalized gasp. I am speechless. OF COURSE WE ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF A FREE DINNER. THAT’S WHAT DATING IS ALL ABOUT. You give us free stuff, we like you. We like you, we either marry you or have sex with you, depending on the circumstances. (Let’s not get bogged down in details.) Either way, women are the ones taking the risk of getting pregnant. We’re entitled to a free dinner out of the deal.
Call me old-fashioned, but real men don’t expect their dates to “cover their share.” More to the point, dates who pay for themselves aren’t real dates. They’re…appointments. If you ask a woman on a date, you should expect that she will expect you to pay for it. It’s part of the ages-old mating ritual whereby you demonstrate your ability to provide for a family and your dominance over the other beasts of the field. It’s biology. Or anthropology. Or something. If she asks you on a date, I reckon she’d expect to pay for it herself. (But a real man wouldn’t tolerate such feminist nonsense, really. Let a woman buy you dinner? What are you, some kind of gigolo?) I would only offer to pay for a date if I felt like insulting a guy’s masculinity. Seriously, is this what modern men have become? I am appalled.
Needless to say, ladies, if you didn’t get asked on a second date because you didn’t offer to pay for your half of the first “date,” I’d say you dodged a bullet there. Of course, if you feel more comfortable paying your own way, by all means, do so. Just don’t come crying to me when the dude turns out to be a vomiting jerk.
Seriously, man, “cover her share”? Why shouldn’t she belch afterward?
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Madhousewife is the new Dating and Lameness Czar for the Obama administration. She welcomes comments about how you and your significant other split the tab, had some queasy phone conversations and lived happily ever after.
Against my better judgment, I followed a link to this story in the New York Times about a school strip-search case that has reached the Supreme Court. (They will hear arguments on April 21.)
SAFFORD, Ariz. — Savana Redding still remembers the clothes she had on — black stretch pants with butterfly patches and a pink T-shirt — the day school officials here forced her to strip six years ago. She was 13 and in eighth grade.
An assistant principal, enforcing the school’s antidrug policies, suspected her of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school. One of the pills is as strong as two Advils.
Two Advils–quelle horreur! A strip search. On a thirteen-year-old. For ibuprofen.
Ibu.
F***ing.
Profen. (Pardon my French.)
Question: What the hell is the matter with people?
About twelve years ago I read about a similar story in McMinnville, Oregon, where they forced an entire eighth grade girls’ gym class to strip because they were searching for stolen cosmetics. I repeat: What the hell?
The case will require the justices to consider the thorny question of just how much leeway school officials should have in policing zero-tolerance policies for drugs and violence, and the court is likely to provide important guidance to schools around the nation.
.
Well, I sure hope the hell so! It must be so confusing to be a school official these days–such tough calls to make when there’s prescription ibuprofen at stake. God knows how our children’s security could be threatened if that ibuprofen were to get out into the general school population or–God forbid–swallowed by some unsuspecting youngster. This sort of thing can’t go on. Long-term kidney damage could occur, not to mention the perpetual threat of anarchy. It won’t do, I’m telling you. It simply won’t do.
You know what’s a good reason to perform a strip-search on a child at school?
IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A BOMB.
And now I can’t write anymore without using the F-word, which is my signal to stop.
Madhousewife is the new Common Sense Czar for the Obama administration.
This is something I didn’t talk about during the election season, but I’m going to talk about it now because it’s still going on and it’s just bugging the living crap out of me. I’m talking about people–mostly right-wing fringies and Ann Coulter–going out of their way to reference Barack Obama’s middle name, “Hussein.” Fringies and Ann Coulter-type people, what the heck is this about? So his middle name is “Hussein.” BIG DEAL. Lots of folks are named Hussein. It’s a very common name. It was his father’s name, I believe. (Right? I know, I could Wiki it, but I’m too lazy.) When you make a special point to call him “Barack Hussein Obama” or “B. Hussein Obama,” what exactly are you trying to say? That his father was a Muslim? That he must be secretly Muslim? Ooooh, I’m soooooo scared! (In case you couldn’t tell, I was being sarcastic!) Seriously, it’s his name. His parents gave it to him when he was a BABY. It’s not like he grew up idolizing Saddam Hussein and changed his name when he turned 18 in order to signify his crazy-murdering-dictator worship. IT’S JUST A NAME! IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING! And if you think it does mean something, you are a stupid idiot. (Yes, I know “stupid idiot” is redundant, but I figured you were so dumb you would need to hear it twice in order to understand!) Remember when Dick Cheney shot that guy on accident while duck-hunting (or quail-hunting–like it matters) and the media made this big deal out of it, like it was now obvious that Dick Cheney was dangerous? (He shot his best friend on accident! Run for your lives!) This rivals that in stupidity, only it’s worse because it’s such a thinly-veiled appeal to people’s bigotry. (Yes, I said “bigotry.” I’m going all touchy-feely on you now. Don’t worry, it won’t last.)
I don’t know why I never blogged about this before. It fits all my criteria for political blogging: a) it’s trivial, and b) it involves stupid idiots. Perhaps I was afraid it would distract people from the myriad of legitimate reasons not to vote for Barack Obama. … No. That’s really unlike me. Maybe I just didn’t want to feed that attention whore, Ann Coulter. (Because I’m jealous! That must be it!)
Some have speculated that Barack Obama will probably not be sworn in with his middle name, but I hope they’re wrong. I hope he does use his middle name, just to stick it to all the stupid idiots who are bothered by him having a name of Arabic origin. I want to hear him say, “I, Barack HUSSEIN Obama–suck it, haters!–do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Even on behalf of stupid idiots.” That would be using his power for AWESOME.
It’s time to ease up on the all-caps and exclamation points and have a little music (very little).
This morning, Princess Zurg was hating on the Disney channel again. This is a digression, but we don’t even have the Disney channel, we don’t have cable period, and she has never seen the Disney channel, so it’s kind of funny that the Disney channel would intrude so much into our personal lives. But there it is. Anyway, to distract her from yet another speech on the poor taste of tween girls, I decided to tell her the story of Hannah Montana’s dad, Billy Ray Cyrus. How when I was in college, Billy Ray Cyrus had a very popular song called “Achy-Breaky Heart.” She thought that was a very funny name for a song. I knew that she would because come on, it was ridiculous then–it must be twice as ridiculous now! I even sung a few bars for her, and that sent her over the edge. “What does that even mean???” she asked, all broken up in giggles. Then she asked me to stop singing because, let’s face it, it’s kind of a painful song to listen to. And I’m no Hannah Montana.
Wasn’t there also a line dance or something called the “Achy-Breaky”? Not that I would know. [Changes subject abruptly] How about those Ducks?
One of your FAQs is “How do I view and fill prescriptions for my spouse, children, or other dependents?” It would be really helpful if you would answer this question. Unfortunately you do not. You only tell me how I can permit my spouse or domestic partner to view and order MY prescriptions. That’s not what I want to know. It’s not what the question asks. AT ALL. Please change the answer so that it gives information relevant to the question, or change the question to fit the answer that’s already there. As is, it makes me think you are being deliberately unhelpful, for some reason I can’t begin to fathom, unless you are just trying to discourage me from ordering prescriptions at all, which doesn’t make sense. Obviously you don’t want to talk to me in real life because every time I click on “contact us,” you remind me to consult the FAQs. I’m happy to consult the FAQs. I don’t want to talk to you either. But consulting the FAQs is not helpful. In point of fact, it’s driving me nuts. Why do you want to drive me nuts? Thank you for your attention.
X’s & O’s,
Madhousewife
Someone explain to me why this isn’t CRAZY.
eHarmony Agrees to Provide Same-Sex Matches
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Online dating service eHarmony said Wednesday it will launch a new Web site which caters to same-sex singles as part of a discrimination settlement with New Jersey’s Civil Rights Division.
The settlement is the result of a complaint New Jersey resident Eric McKinley filed against the online matchmaker in 2005. McKinley, 46, said he was shocked when he tried to sign up for the dating site but couldn’t get past the first screen because there was no option for men seeking men.
”It’s very frustrating and it’s very humiliating to think that other people can do it and I can’t,” he said. ”And the only reason I can’t is because I’m a gay man. That’s very hurtful.”
Neither the company nor its founder, Neil Clark Warren, acknowledged any liability. Under the settlement, eHarmony will pay New Jersey state division $50,000 to cover administrative costs and will pay McKinley $5,000.
Seriously, I have no words.
No, wait, I’m sure I could come up with words if I removed all my verbal filters and allowed myself to say, “What the bleeping hell?!? Do we no longer live in America? Is it now a constitutional right to be provided with dates via the internet? Does this cat not have a job? What good might he have done with his spare time instead of suing a business for not specializing in his particular area of need? What’s he going to do next, sue an adult video store for not having any gay porn? DID I FALL ASLEEP AND WAKE UP IN BIZARRO WORLD? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???”
It is a tough time for satirists, my friends. Reality is going to put them out of business.
I found this candidate calculator (via Sisterblogger JustRandi) which promised to tell me which 2008 candidate “best aligns with my beliefs.” I don’t usually put much stock in such things, and this particular “calculator” just reaffirmed my belief that voting must and should involve more than just plugging your public policy variables into a particular formula and solving for Candidate X (or if you prefer, Candidate Y). Why do I say this? Because the Candidate Calculator just told me that my guy for 2008 is…Rep. Tom Tancredo of California Colorado! (Thanks, JustRandi!)
I seriously did physically recoil from the computer screen when I saw this because, to be perfectly frank, although I don’t really “follow” the campaigns of the lower-tier candidates, I’ve always been under the impression that Rep. Tancredo is a little nutso. No offense to him. He has some admirable libertarian tendencies, and I can see–I guess–why the calculator would say that his beliefs line up largely with mine. Except that I’m a reasonable person who doesn’t tie every social and economic ill to the issue of illegal immigration–and therein lies the problemo. There’s nothing in the Candidate Calculator to account for reasonableness versus unreasonableness.
To illustrate my point, there is no way in hell I would vote for anyone who says, as Rep. Tancredo did in yesterday’s GOP debate, “I am absolutely tired and sick and tired of being forced to go to the polls and say I’m going to make this choice between the lesser of two evils. I really don’t intend to do that again.”
Rep. Tancredo said this in response to a question about supporting his party’s eventual nominee (assuming that it would not be him)–which just goes to show that the man may have it “right” on certain questions of federalism, but he lacks the fundamental quality most important in any candidate who wants to be leader of the free world, and that’s a desire to engage reality.
In the real world we don’t get many choices between totally evil and totally good. If that’s what life were about, we wouldn’t even need the political process because the solution to every problem would be so obvious. I would be scared to death of having a president who refused to choose between Bad and Not As Bad. What on earth would happen to him the first time he had to make a decision about something consequential? Would he spontaneously combust? Or would he just sit there and fold his arms until he was miraculously presented with an option that didn’t require him to “choose evil”? Thanks, but I think I’d prefer a lesser evil.
Ron Paul was another candidate who said that he wouldn’t support a GOP nominee who wasn’t willing to end the Iraq war and brings the troops home. “You won’t want me then, pal,” said John McCain. I try not to vote for a candidate strictly on the basis of personal charm, but I have to tell you, Sen. McCain continues to grow on me. I can’t help it.
Speaking of Sen. McCain, here is a candidate whose views certainly don’t match up perfectly with mine, on a few issues I consider relatively important. (For one, I wince every time campaign finance reform comes up. First Amendment, anyone? Anyone?) And yet I would be much more comfortable with President McCain than President Tancredo because I think John McCain strikes an acceptable balance between principles and pragmatism. After he lost the GOP nomination in 2000, some floated the idea of McCain running as an independent or possibly as the Reform candidate. McCain, of course, didn’t do this. Instead he campaigned for George W. Bush–because he thought W would make a better president than Al Gore. Better, not best. That’s the way a grown-up thinks. A third-party run by McCain would have been pure vanity on his part, and at least McCain had sense enough to realize that. It gives me hope that he would have similar sense about a host of other choices, even if he didn’t choose perfectly.
I don’t have similar confidence in Rep. Tancredo. Refusing to support your party’s candidate is called “voting for the other guy.” Which is fine, if you think the other guy (or gal, as the case may be) is the better choice, but I don’t think that’s Rep. Tancredo’s reasoning. He just doesn’t want to choose the lesser of two evils; he’d rather have the evil chosen for him–in which case he is either too silly or too dangerous to be president, and that Candidate Calculator can just kiss my Inner Libertarian’s big toe.
You all will be relieved to learn that reports of my favorite saucepan’s demise were premature. I was able to save it last night with a combination of elbow grease, S.O.S pads and the ever-popular love. Yes, I’m sure you’re relieved, but probably you also feel a teensy bit used, after all that fuss I made–if you wanted a ride on that emotional roller coaster, you would have just followed the link to the ferret post. Well, I’m sorry. I promise not to blog “wolf” again. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t promise. I don’t like to lie so blatantly.
Does this story strike you as weird?
New York Post: “Agita over Chelsea Photo”
September 26, 2007 — Hillary Clinton just lost one vote. Yesterday, Nino Selimaj, owner of Italian eatery Osso Buco on University Place, received a letter from Bill Clinton’s office demanding that a photo of Chelsea Clinton with Selimaj, which had hung in the front window for five years, be taken down. “I am really heartbroken,” Selimaj told us. “Until this morning, I would have voted for Hillary. Bill was my favorite president of all time . . . I really hope they will reconsider.” Selimaj also said he would “post the letter from the office instead of the photo.” The letter from Clinton lawyer Douglas Band stated, “Ms. Clinton, a private citizen, was not consulted prior to this picture being displayed, and thus, her permission was not given for you to do so. While she may have dined at your restaurant, this does not serve as an endorsement. We ask that you immediately remove that picture and any and all pictures displaying Ms. Clinton.” Selimaj said he has never before been asked to take down a photo of a public figure. “Hillary has lost my vote,” he said.
The weirdness is three-fold:
1) Isn’t Chelsea Clinton an adult now? Can’t she handle her own correspondence?
2) Isn’t Chelsea Clinton a public figure? Did she not pose for the picture of her own free will? Is it not merely hanging on the wall of the restaurant which is privately owned by Nino Selimaj, the other subject in the photograph? Is it also plastered all over the subways and sides of buses with copy along the lines of “My dad says eat at Osso Buco or he’ll have you audited” or “The vast, right-wing conspiracy doesn’t want you to eat at Osso Buco”? Is it not just a document of a historical fact, i.e. Chelsea Clinton ate here?
3) Is this not a freaking picture? Not even a particularly unflattering one? Was she drunk? Was she thirteen? Does this not make the Clintons look petty and/or lame? Does this not fall under the category of Not Remotely Worth The Bother?
Is it just me?
From the Associated Press:
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. –
An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will.
“It causes a lot of conflict on the playground,” said Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school.
Running games are still allowed as long as students don’t chase each other, she said.
Fesgen said two parents complained to her about the ban but most parents and children didn’t object.
In 2005, two elementary schools in the nearby Falcon School District did away with tag and similar games in favor of alternatives with less physical contact. School officials said the move encouraged more students to play games and helped reduce playground squabbles.
This story reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to write about for a long time, except that other issues–such as the upcoming presidential election, Mormon movies, and the weather–have been preoccupying me.
OUR neighborhood school banned tag. Princess Zurg came home from first grade and informed us that there was a rule against “chasing.” I thought she must mean that there was a rule against unwanted chasing. Because surely they still let children play games, like tag. No, she said, all chasing games were against the rules. This really bothered me at the time, but I never complained about it because I was too busy complaining about their inadequate accommodations for disabled students. I just had to shrug my shoulders and say, “Oh well, paranoid public schools,” and make a mental note to find other opportunities for my children to engage in such innocuous activities.
Then Mister Bubby came home from kindergarten and said there was a “no running” rule. Even Princess Zurg–who didn’t have much of a problem with the “no chasing” rule because it was, after all, a safety issue (you can never be too careful)–was incredulous. “You mean there’s no chasing,” she said. “You can run, just not chase.”
“No,” MB said, “you can’t run OR chase.”
“Maybe that’s a rule just for kindergarteners,” she said.
“No, it’s a rule for the whole school,” he insisted.
I was incredulous myself. But again, I was preoccupied with other issues, so while I was certainly upset in the philosophical sense, I could not spare any moral outrage on behalf of tag, especially since MB seemed to be taking the whole thing in stride. But even if it doesn’t bother my kids, it still bothers me, for one simple reason:
IT’S TAG!
I understand that some children don’t like to be chased. Some kids are okay with being chased at some times and not at other times. Some kids are a little too aggressive with their chasing. Sometimes when you “tag” someone, you might be overzealous and maybe hit them. You might trip. You might trip someone else. I understand all the risks. I just don’t understand the remedy.
Just how often children have to be hospitalized for tag injuries? I’m sure there are freak occurrences, like two kids run into each other head on and one of them gets a concussion, maybe even sustains some brain damage. I would not put that outside the realm of possibility. Someone could trip over a tree root and break a bone, maybe. Someone with a heart condition maybe shouldn’t play tag. I don’t know.
But safety concerns apparently aren’t the issue in Colorado Springs, where they banned tagged after some students complained about being chased against their will.
Here’s an idea: why don’t you make a rule about not playing tag with people who don’t want to play tag? “Only willing participants may play tag.” That sounds like a good rule to me. A little more complicated than “no running.” A little more nuance than some school-age children are prepared to deal with. But here’s another idea: why don’t we stop micromanaging children’s games altogether? Not that recess should be some Lord of the Flies free-for-all. But would a tiny step in that direction be such a bad thing?
I’m totally against bullying and harassment. When I was in grade school, one of the boys in my class and his buddy used to throw rocks at me on the way home from school. That was uncool. Okay, they weren’t big rocks, and they weren’t aiming at my head, but still, it was annoying. That’s what I recall thinking at the time. “This is annoying. I’d like to walk home without having rocks thrown at me. I wish they’d go do something else and leave me alone.” And yes, I was ignoring them. I’ve always been good at ignoring people, or at least pretending to ignore them. But they still kept throwing rocks at me, and I was still annoyed. So I told my mother, and since we didn’t know the boys’ parents, my mother talked to the principal. The principal talked to the boys’ parents, and the parents punished the boys. (I’d like to point out that at no time were the police or the district attorney’s office involved. Shocking, I know.) The boys were reasonably annoyed with me for getting them in trouble, but they didn’t throw any more rocks at me. I wish I could say we all became good friends and that I eventually married one of them, but that would be a fiction. (I’m sure SD threw some rocks at girls in his youth, too, but that’s neither here nor there.) We didn’t stay enemies, either. We lived happily ever after in mutual indifference to one another, which was just fine with me.
See, that’s an incident of harassment that didn’t even occur on school property, yet the school did, I think, play an appropriate role. As far as I know, the boys never received any school discipline, which was fine, because none of this occurred during school hours or on school grounds. If they were throwing rocks at me at recess, I would have expected them to get, I don’t know, detention or something. Have to stand in a corner or clap erasers or something. Write “I will not stone innocent bystanders” a thousand times. How did they punish us in elementary school? I don’t know, I was always a perfect angel. But I digress. That was then. Nowadays I’d expect that maybe the whole student body would be barred from walking home without an adult escort. Because nowadays the world is crazy.
At PZ’s school they are not allowed to pick up sticks. I assume this is because they don’t want anyone hitting or poking others with sticks, or running and tripping and accidentally impaling themselves with sticks. (As far as PZ knows, kids are still allowed to run at her school.) That makes sense. I can understand telling a youngster who’s running with a stick, “Hey, stop running with that stick! You could trip and fall and impale yourself!” I can also understand telling youngsters who appear to be engaging in a mock sword fight with sticks, “Hey, put down those sticks, you could poke each other’s eyes out!” (I’m not saying that I would be so uptight, mind you, but a reasonable amount of uptightness is tolerable, I think.) I definitely understand telling a youngster who’s beating another youngster with a stick, “Hey, stop beating that other kid with a stick! And get thee to a principal’s office, go!” That is all reasonable stuff.
Telling a kid that she can’t pick up a stick to write in the dirt or build a home for the ants or some other non-violent act seems a little…excessive.
I don’t tell PZ this is a dumb rule, and I don’t complain about it, because I understand why these rules are made. I do. It’s the same reason I end up screaming at my kids, “Aaaughhhhh! That’s it! No more talking! No more touching! No sounds! Only breathing!” It’s simpler than saying, “No screaming, yelling, teasing, whining or threatening!” and “No hitting, kicking, poking, scraping, or smashing!” and “No fake flatulence!” It’s also simpler to say, “No picking up sticks.” “No fighting with sticks” and “no running with sticks” and “no striking menacing poses with sticks” is unnecessarily complex.
Likewise, “No playing tag” is simple. “No running” is even simpler. But isn’t there a better way to deal with children’s conflicts? Something that doesn’t suck all the fun out of childhood?
Just wondering.
I’ve been meaning to blog about this story out of McMinnville, Oregon, for quite some time, but I haven’t because it makes me so angry and because anger tends to make me verbose, I just haven’t had time. There is a lot more to the story than the above linked article includes, but in a nutshell, two seventh-grade boys in McMinnville are being prosecuted for swatting girls’ bottoms at their school. Originally the the district attorney, Bradley Berry, charged them with several felony counts of sex abuse. They were arrested, went to jail (enduring the attendant humiliations thereof, e.g. strip searches), and hauled into court in shackles. The felony charges have since been dropped, but there are still several misdemeanor sex abuse charges against them, all imprisonable and registerable offenses–”registerable” meaning that they would be required to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.
My first question here is “What the hell goes on in McMinnville?” Not actual sex abuse, apparently, because they obviously have enough time on their hands to pursue frivolous cases like this one. Now, I don’t believe schools should look the other way while the boy students slap the buttocks of the girl students. Buttocks should not be swatted with impunity on school grounds. That’s just inappropriate. Such behavior should be subject to discipline of the school and the parental variety. Any chuckling thereover should be done privately and with due discretion. But seriously, folks–sex abuse? Criminal investigation? Prison time? Lifetime sex-offender registry? Really?
I can appreciate the embarrassment and discomfort suffered by a girl whose bottom was touched without her express permission. Goodness knows I hope to raise my own sons with a greater sense of decorum and chivalry. I also don’t want any punks slapping my girls’ butts, whether they ask for it or not. But I also don’t want to raise any of my children in a world that confuses immature, hormone-informed horseplay among children with sex abuse. My husband has already informed me that if this had been the environment when he was growing up, he would be rotting in prison. Nothing my husband tells me about his youth gives me particular hope for the future. But I digress.
DA Berry says that his office takes sexual abuse of children very seriously, but this can’t possibly be true. If it were true, he’d be spending some taxpayer dollars putting actual predators behind bars instead of prosecuting two ill-mannered teenage boys. (For what it’s worth, this informally-organized “Butt-Slap Day” had male and female participants slapping one another’s butts, but all of the alleged victims, i.e. those who complained about said butt-slapping, were female.) He wouldn’t be forcing them to undergo psychosexual evaluations, characterizing them as perverts for engaging in behavior that, while rude and undesirable, falls well within the boundaries of normal for adolescent boys.
I’m not trying to excuse what the boys did. What I think is especially sad is that instead of being able to use this incident as an opportunity to give their sons some lessons in gentlemanly deportment, the parents have been forced to defend them and their actions against overzealous prosecution. What will the boys learn from this experience, except that they are the victims? Probably they won’t be slapping any more girls’ butts, but most likely their restraint will be due less to an enhanced respect for others’ personal space than an appreciation of, and resentment over, the fact that they are helpless at the hands of nutjobs in high places.
* This case is scheduled to have a hearing this afternoon, at which time the remaining charges could possibly be dropped.
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