kband: bluprnt 4 rvolution

Vegetarians can shut up

Ok, so it's all more complicated than that. But the main reason the Amazon is currently being deforested is so that people can grow soy and make your gelatenous meat subsitute. Alright, I like tofu a lot too, but the point is that simplistic ideologies like vegetarianism are not the way to save the world. Eating local food seems like the best way to do it.

Sour grapes on female orgasms

This woman, Dr. Elisabeth A. Lloyd, has decided that, because the clitoris is made up of the same tissue as the penis in males, and because all women don't have G-spot based orgasms every single time they have sex, that the female orgasm is a left over remnant of male-based evolutionary biology and serves absolutely no evolutionary purpose, akin to the male nipple. (the full article is in "more")

I feel bad for her.

Let's figure out why she's wrong.

* Women who have more orgasms want to have sex more and would have more kids. Plane and simple.

* Just because the cervix has contractions during the day does not mean that those a woman has after an orgasm and during sex could not serve to pump sperm towards the egg and, as I've heard, alter the Ph of the acidic vagina, which can be toxic to sperm.

* I don't get what she means by saying the clitoris was "left over" from male evolution. Is she assuming males evolved, hung out for a while, and then females evolved from them, out of a rib perhaps? No. I've heard also that all fetuses are first female, and then morph into males if hormones/chromosomes dictate it.

* This is a perfect example of why evolutionary biologists are so absurd. You simply CANNOT take such a complex thing as the female orgasm, and its absense in the lives of many unfortunate women, and look at it from a physical and evolutionary aspect alone. You must consider the social context. MAYBE there is a lot of bad sex out there? Huh? Dr. Lloyd? Know anything about that? Maybe there are a lot of women who have been trained by our culture to think of their sexuality as scary and sort of bad and simply do not have the comfort levels necessary to have an orgasm.

* If anything female orgams have *driven* a massive amount of evolution. As they alluded to in the article, it does seem that it is far easier to orgams from partners one has a relative level of comfort around. If we're going to look at sociobiological evolution, then we must assume that emotions are also the cause and result of a lot of evolution as well. And emotions play a huge role in whether or not that orgasm occures. Which can tell a women a lot (consciousoly or subconsciously) about compatability and reliability of a partner.

* Women also relased tons of endorphens when they orgasm. Some scientists have even gone so far as to speculate that they are one of the driving hormonal factors behind love.

* As women get older, they have more and more orgasms. This could be behind a drive to have sex as the ideal repruduction time dims.

* Think of your own and post it in the comment section!

May 17, 2005
A Critic Takes On the Logic of Female Orgasm
By DINITIA SMITH
Evolutionary scientists have never had difficulty explaining the male orgasm, closely tied as it is to reproduction.

But the Darwinian logic behind the female orgasm has remained elusive. Women can have sexual intercourse and even become pregnant - doing their part for the perpetuation of the species - without experiencing orgasm. So what is its evolutionary purpose?

Over the last four decades, scientists have come up with a variety of theories, arguing, for example, that orgasm encourages women to have sex and, therefore, reproduce or that it leads women to favor stronger and healthier men, maximizing their offspring's chances of survival.

But in a new book, Dr. Elisabeth A. Lloyd, a philosopher of science and professor of biology at Indiana University, takes on 20 leading theories and finds them wanting. The female orgasm, she argues in the book, "The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution," has no evolutionary function at all.

Rather, Dr. Lloyd says the most convincing theory is one put forward in 1979 by Dr. Donald Symons, an anthropologist.

That theory holds that female orgasms are simply artifacts - a byproduct of the parallel development of male and female embryos in the first eight or nine weeks of life.

In that early period, the nerve and tissue pathways are laid down for various reflexes, including the orgasm, Dr. Lloyd said. As development progresses, male hormones saturate the embryo, and sexuality is defined.

In boys, the penis develops, along with the potential to have orgasms and ejaculate, while "females get the nerve pathways for orgasm by initially having the same body plan."

Nipples in men are similarly vestigial, Dr. Lloyd pointed out.

While nipples in woman serve a purpose, male nipples appear to be simply left over from the initial stage of embryonic development.

The female orgasm, she said, "is for fun."

Dr. Lloyd said scientists had insisted on finding an evolutionary function for female orgasm in humans either because they were invested in believing that women's sexuality must exactly parallel that of men or because they were convinced that all traits had to be "adaptations," that is, serve an evolutionary function.

Theories of female orgasm are significant, she added, because "men's expectations about women's normal sexuality, about how women should perform, are built around these notions."

"And men are the ones who reflect back immediately to the woman whether or not she is adequate sexually," Dr. Lloyd continued.

Central to her thesis is the fact that women do not routinely have orgasms during sexual intercourse.

She analyzed 32 studies, conducted over 74 years, of the frequency of female orgasm during intercourse.

When intercourse was "unassisted," that is not accompanied by stimulation of the clitoris, just a quarter of the women studied experienced orgasms often or very often during intercourse, she found.

Five to 10 percent never had orgasms. Yet many of the women became pregnant.

Dr. Lloyd's figures are lower than those of Dr. Alfred A. Kinsey, who in his 1953 book "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" found that 39 to 47 percent of women reported that they always, or almost always, had orgasm during intercourse.

But Kinsey, Dr. Lloyd said, included orgasms assisted by clitoral stimulation.

Dr. Lloyd said there was no doubt in her mind that the clitoris was an evolutionary adaptation, selected to create excitement, leading to sexual intercourse and then reproduction.

But, "without a link to fertility or reproduction," Dr. Lloyd said, "orgasm cannot be an adaptation."

Not everyone agrees. For example, Dr. John Alcock, a professor of biology at Arizona State University, criticized an earlier version of Dr. Lloyd's thesis, discussed in in a 1987 article by Stephen Jay Gould in the magazine Natural History.

In a phone interview, Dr. Alcock said that he had not read her new book, but that he still maintained the hypothesis that the fact that "orgasm doesn't occur every time a woman has intercourse is not evidence that it's not adaptive."

"I'm flabbergasted by the notion that orgasm has to happen every time to be adaptive," he added.

Dr. Alcock theorized that a woman might use orgasm "as an unconscious way to evaluate the quality of the male," his genetic fitness and, thus, how suitable he would be as a father for her offspring.

"Under those circumstances, you wouldn't expect her to have it every time," Dr. Alcock said.

Among the theories that Dr. Lloyd addresses in her book is one proposed in 1993, by Dr. R. Robin Baker and Dr. Mark A. Bellis, at Manchester University in England. In two papers published in the journal Animal Behaviour, they argued that female orgasm was a way of manipulating the retention of sperm by creating suction in the uterus. When a woman has an orgasm from one minute before the man ejaculates to 45 minutes after, she retains more sperm, they said.

Furthermore, they asserted, when a woman has intercourse with a man other than her regular sexual partner, she is more likely to have an orgasm in that prime time span and thus retain more sperm, presumably making conception more likely. They postulated that women seek other partners in an effort to obtain better genes for their offspring.

Dr. Lloyd said the Baker-Bellis argument was "fatally flawed because their sample size is too small."

"In one table," she said, "73 percent of the data is based on the experience of one person."

In an e-mail message recently, Dr. Baker wrote that his and Dr. Bellis's manuscript had "received intense peer review appraisal" before publication. Statisticians were among the reviewers, he said, and they noted that some sample sizes were small, "but considered that none of these were fatal to our paper."

Dr. Lloyd said that studies called into question the logic of such theories. Research by Dr. Ludwig Wildt and his colleagues at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany in 1998, for example, found that in a healthy woman the uterus undergoes peristaltic contractions throughout the day in the absence of sexual intercourse or orgasm. This casts doubt, Dr. Lloyd argues, on the idea that the contractions of orgasm somehow affect sperm retention.

Another hypothesis, proposed in 1995 by Dr. Randy Thornhill, a professor of biology at the University of New Mexico and two colleagues, held that women were more likely to have orgasms during intercourse with men with symmetrical physical features. On the basis of earlier studies of physical attraction, Dr. Thornhill argued that symmetry might be an indicator of genetic fitness.

Dr. Lloyd, however, said those conclusions were not viable because "they only cover a minority of women, 45 percent, who say they sometimes do, and sometimes don't, have orgasm during intercourse."

"It excludes women on either end of the spectrum," she said. "The 25 percent who say they almost always have orgasm in intercourse and the 30 percent who say they rarely or never do. And that last 30 percent includes the 10 percent who say they never have orgasm under any circumstances."

In a phone interview, Dr. Thornhill said that he had not read Dr. Lloyd's book but the fact that not all women have orgasms during intercourse supports his theory.

"There will be patterns in orgasm with preferred and not preferred men," he said.

Dr. Lloyd also criticized work by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, who studies primate behavior and female reproductive strategies.

Scientists have documented that orgasm occurs in some female primates; for other mammals, whether orgasm occurs remains an open question.

In the 1981 book "The Woman That Never Evolved" and in her other work, Dr. Hrdy argues that orgasm evolved in nonhuman primates as a way for the female to protect her offspring from the depredation of males.

She points out that langur monkeys have a high infant mortality rate, with 30 percent of deaths a result of babies' being killed by males who are not the fathers. Male langurs, she says, will not kill the babies of females they have mated with.

In macaques and chimpanzees, she said, females are conditioned by the pleasurable sensations of clitoral stimulation to keep copulating with multiple partners until they have an orgasm. Thus, males do not know which infants are theirs and which are not and do not attack them.

Dr. Hrdy also argues against the idea that female orgasm is an artifact of the early parallel development of male and female embryos.

"I'm convinced," she said, "that the selection of the clitoris is quite separate from that of the penis in males."

In critiquing Dr. Hrdy's view, Dr. Lloyd disputes the idea that longer periods of sexual intercourse lead to a higher incidence of orgasm, something that if it is true, may provide an evolutionary rationale for female orgasm.

But Dr. Hrdy said her work did not speak one way or another to the issue of female orgasm in humans. "My hypothesis is silent," she said.

One possibility, Dr. Hrdy said, is that orgasm in women may have been an adaptive trait in our prehuman ancestors.

"But we separated from our common primate ancestors about seven million years ago," she said.

"Perhaps the reason orgasm is so erratic is that it's phasing out," Dr. Hrdy said. "Our descendants on the starships may well wonder what all the fuss was about."

Western culture is suffused with images of women's sexuality, of women in the throes of orgasm during intercourse and seeming to reach heights of pleasure that are rare, if not impossible, for most women in everyday life.

"Accounts of our evolutionary past tell us how the various parts of our body should function," Dr. Lloyd said.

If women, she said, are told that it is "natural" to have orgasms every time they have intercourse and that orgasms will help make them pregnant, then they feel inadequate or inferior or abnormal when they do not achieve it.

"Getting the evolutionary story straight has potentially very large social and personal consequences for all women," Dr. Lloyd said. "And indirectly for men, as well."

Yes Men strike again!

May 12, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DOW REJECTS PROPOSAL TO CLEAN BHOPAL USING FIRST-QUARTER PROFITS

The same man who appeared on BBC World TV last December as a Dow
representative to announce that Dow would finally clean up Bhopal [1]
showed up today at Dow's Annual General Meeting (AGM) to suggest the
same thing to Dow's board of directors and shareholders.

"We made an incredible $1.35 billion this quarter," said "Jude
Finisterra," aka Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men [2]. "But for most of
us, that'll just mean a new set of golf clubs. Let's do something
useful instead - like finally cleaning up the Bhopal plant site, or
funding the new clinic there [3]." Dow Chairman Bill Stavropolous
responded to "Finisterra's" suggestion with a curt dismissal [4].

The Yes Men joined other shareholder groups in Midland, including
Amnesty International, which condemns Dow's lack of response to the
Bhopal crisis as a human rights issue [5].

BANKERS EMBRACE "GOLDEN SKELETON" MASCOT

Two weeks ago at a London banking conference to which they had
accidentally been invited, two "Dow representatives" described a new
Dow computer program that puts a precise financial value on human
life.

The 70 bankers in attendance enthusiastically applauded the lecture,
which described various industrial crimes, including IBM's sale of
technology to the Nazis for use in identifying Jews, as "golden
skeletons in the closet"--i.e. lucrative and therefore acceptable.

Several of the bankers then posed for photos with "Dow Acceptable
Risk" mascot "Gilda, the Golden Skeleton," and signed up for licenses
for the "Acceptable Risk Calculator," which helps businesses determine
the exact point where human casualties will start to cut into profit,
and suggests the best regions on earth to locate ventures with
potentially very high death tolls.

See http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/dow/acceptablerisk.shtml for video
and photos of the event, and http://dowethics.com/risk/ to try out the
"Acceptable Risk Calculator" for yourself.

STATE DEPARTMENT FINDS FAKE DOW WEBSITE USEFUL

Dow may not appreciate the DowEthics.com website--but the US State
Department finds it quite useful, and refers requests for information
about Bhopal to various of its pages: see
http://www.dowethics.com/statedeptfoi/ for an example.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] See http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/dow/bhopal2004.shtml

[2] Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno had been given one Dow
"proxy" each by actual shareholders, giving them the right to attend
the annual meeting and address the Dow board.

[3] Two weeks ago, the Sambhavna Trust Clinic of Bhopal opened a new
wing to serve the victims whose numbers continue to grow due to
groundwater contamination from the uncleaned plant site. See
http://www.bhopal.org/ for information on how you can contribute.

[4] See http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/dow/2005agm.shtml for complete
statements and responses, including Yes Man Mike Bonanno's feverish,
red-eared tirade in a neck brace.

[5] See http://www.amnestyusa.org/business/dow_letters.html. See also
http://www.proxyinformation.com/dow/summary.htm and
http://www.TRWNews.net/

The world's smallest violin...

Apparently the fashion world is in a tizzy because all of the women who can afford the cutour styles runway models model, can also afford to insert tons of plastic into their not-so-runway bussoms. And, as we all know, gay men run the fashion industry and don't really design boobie-oriented clothes that often.

"Brian Bolke, the owner of a boutique in Dallas called 4510 for its address on McKinney Avenue, said, "For women who love fashion, breast enlargements and designer dresses do not go together." He estimated more than half his customers have had cosmetic surgery. "

"Surgery for breast enlargement (including breast lifts) has grown by 257 percent since 1997, reaching 432,403 patients last year, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery"

That is, HALF A MILLION breasts are implanted each year. Or, I guess, a million actual breasts, half a million pairs. Amazing.

So great: ""I gave up my wardrobe to show off my breasts," said Tara Fierstatt, a national merchandiser for Buffalo Jeans in New York."

Article from NYT.

Mother's day madness

Mother's Day is not a hallmark Holliday. It's not even really that much about loving out mothers (although that's a great use of it.)

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe called for women to rise up and oppose War.
It's really really beautiful.

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Black Metal Babes

This guy did an amazing photo project of Norwegian Black Metal Satan worshiping men. It's incredibly interesting. And sort of hot. Well, I guess they would be without all that blood....

It's funny how they're quite litterally as hardcore as humanly possible, but there's still an obvious dress code. The bullet belt, the spikey forearms, the upsidown cross. You've got to imagine they're like "Wow, Urrrgn's nails on his leather arm cuffs are rusted. That's killer! Satan would pleased if I had such arm cuffs. Oh yes, I'm coveting. Take THAT ten commandments!"

But there are interviews as well!

An open letter to all my dearest urbanites,

Up until recently, I’ve been sort of regretting leaving you all for fresh air and less than evil politicians. I’ve been living in a bit of a cultural void and have been dreaming of the move back home. I’m sure you’ve heard me kvetch. “I miss art! I miss excess! I miss nonwhite people! I miss single men!”

The reality, I am pleased to discover, is that I was really giving my all at living a humble existence. So as not to upset my Canadian comrades, there was a stint in a commune, the basement of a professor, an apartment complex for single mothers, it was all really one horrible manila stucco wall and beige carpet after another. But no longer! I got sick of feigning hippie-dom and decided to flex opulence for my last year in this fair country. I moved into a beautiful studio downtown and this is my call for you to come visit me in it.

“Flexing opulence” might be a bit strong when one considers the exchange rate, but it’s really quite lovely and I’ve got a spare bed. It’s funny, all of the Canadians who have come over so far have been flabbergasted by the lack of walls and keep giving me suggestions for dividing it up. Pah! I say. There will be no dividing! I think living in NYC makes people really covet open space, while here, in this country of few people and lots of land, coziness is something to strive for. Plus we can camp on the roof! No one will kill you, they’re Canadian.

If you still need more reasons, please find your corresponding sexual and gender identify among the list below:

To all the GAY BOYS:
Like so many cowboys hundreds of years ago, the northwest is your frontier. As I’ve written in previous spams, the gay guys here need signs. There’s simply no way to tell the rugged, Carhart-wearing, bearded, butt bangers from the rest of the guys. And as you can imagine, I both love them and hate them. One of my new friends is a fire fighter and a tree planter, as well as being newly single. Plus most of them are smart enough to realize that everyone should do yoga. Manifest your destiny my lovelies!

To all the STRAIGHT GUYS:
1) Vancouver Island has what are called “Island girls.” I think they are incredibly boring but they would be worth a ton in the romance economy in Manhattan; they have assists, if you know what I mean. Victoria is the single healthiest place in Canada, and their butts show it, so do their yoga pants. Everyone is tan and has that glow from living outside in good air. I’ve never seen so many natural blonds in my life. While my own natural pseudo blondness was worth a bit in that romance economy I remember fondly, it’s totally generic here and considered even less blond than it was back home.

2) There are far FAR more females living on Vancouver Island than males. Although it causes me much grief, it does make for interesting social dynamics to analyze. Girls here are, of course, sort of known for being easy. And the men who are single rather than settling for one of the ubiquitous females who are far too good for them, are sought after to the point that they get all up on themselves and are just generally lame if you’re interested in having sex with them. I have friends who go “wife shopping” at local craft markets on weekends. So a real, genuine, interesting, smart, funny guy who could dazzle the locals with well made clothes and stories of wild city antics would do amazingly well here, even on a weeknight.

3) All the better if you’re not white. Have you ever wanted to feel exotic? Have you ever wanted people to play with your hair and laugh because they were having so much fun? Have you ever wanted someone to feel your arm, look you at you, cock their head in amazement, and go on feeling? Well, Victorians are sweating with jungle fever, or rather, they would be if there were any people who were not white around. There are a lot of hippie, rich, guilty, politically-overcorrect leftists who would KILL to be able to have an actual black friend. Your opinion at a dinner party would be really really important. And the girls would see having sex with you as a political statement: “Don’t judge us MOM! We’re in LOVE” and all that. It could be fun.

To all the GAY GIRLS:
It’s a well known fact that when you have a population of all one sex, those who were teetering on the precipice of sexual experimentation go full blown homo. So the sexual dynamic mentioned above works in your favor as well. Everyone’s a lesbian. Eating pussy is practically a prerequisite for certain women’s studies classes. But what is interesting is that you have this female majority mixed with CRAZY leftist mindsets and you pretty much get a matriarchy run by dykes. I, personally, can’t stand them.

Given the cultural street cred given to non-whites, non-straights, and non-gendereds, looking like an actual female makes one an outcast from the gay girl community. Why? Did you think being a lesbian was only about muff diving? No no NO! It’s about dressing like a boy and being a dick! Politics and fashion. Lame-o. But if you have short hair, you will be welcomed with open arms and legs.

To all the STRAIGHT GIRLS:
We can go to the beach, it’s really lovely.

But romance aside, I LIVE IN A RAIN FOREST PEOPLE! Yes, a real one. It has moss and crazy ferns and waterfalls and everything. Plus some of the trees are thousands of years old, with whole ecosystems in their branches. The single most spiritual experience I’ve ever had was walking into their company. The energy is palpable.

Also, it’s worth remembering that marijuana is the single largest export of British Columbia for a reason. The coffee and beer here are also amazing. I don’t know what it is about the west coast that they take their substance usage so seriously but I’m now a huge snob of all items mentioned, and you can be too!

So there’s my argument. Sex. Air. Out of control photosynthesis. Public pot smoking. A fabulous place to stay. And me!

You’ve got one year left. I’m driving back home next spring. I’m teaching until the end of June but have a flexible schedule. Mid to late summer would really be ideal. Get yer grey butts out here while you can. Plus I miss you like crazy.

Sending you cross-continental love vibes,
~ alex