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The more thorny question is whether relativism is relevant to those domains we generally want to put in the non-benign category: harassment, sexual coercion, even sexual violence. Could it be that offensiveness is relative to the perspective of the recipient, based on her own cultural sensibilities? More troubling, could it be that our very experience of an encounter might be significantly affected by our background, upbringing, culture, ethnicity, in short, by what Michel Foucault called our discourse?

date rapes, statutory rapes, and many instances of harassment can be subject to multiple interpretations, which has given rise to the new term popular on college campuses — “gray” rape. The writer Mary Gaitskill famously argued some years back that the binary categories of rape/not-rape were simply insufficient to classify the thick complexity of her own experience. In this netherworld of ambiguous experiences, can understanding cultural relativism be useful?

Whether workplace pornography is experienced as threatening or a reminder of the sexual power of women is simply relative to one’s expectations and prior predilections, some might say. Those who take offense are simply operating with the “wrong paradigm.” This has the danger of returning us to pre-feminist days when women’s own first person reports and interpretations of their experiences were routinely set aside in favor of more “objective” analyses given by doctors, psychiatrists, and social scientists, inevitably male.

It is correct and admirable to grant a child unconditional love even if he or she has trouble fitting into the two clubs — straight boys and straight girls — that arithmetically dominate all societies. But it is a species of lie — and a damaging one, at that — to pretend that those clubs are illusory. They do exist, as surely as I threw two very different parties for my daughter’s classmates last week; and thanks to biology, they begin forming before children can even process full sentences — let alone understand indoctrination about “gender exploration.”

Indeed, the very fact that “gender” is a word that falls so easily from the lips of the Footloose parents tells us a lot about their worldview. Sex is a biological reality and every human being is born with one. “Gender” is a recent theory-based locution and always has to do with a person’s Sexuality. Children know their sex but cannot possibly consider their gender because they are too young to appreciate what their sexuality is. The only way to explain gender to a child is to explain sexual desire, which no child wishes to know about. So the fact that Jazz writes a little family newspaper called The Gender Report tells you that he hears that word a lot, and that he is being fed a daily dose of theory he is too young to appreciate and that is clearly confusing him.

David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day, in which there appears a wonderful story about what it was like for Sedaris to be a gay fifth-grade student at a North Carolina school. Describing his efforts to hammer out his lisp in the speech therapy lab, Sedaris remembers life thusly: “None of the therapy students were girls. They were all boys like me who kept movie star scrapbooks and made their own curtains. ‘You don’t want to be doing that,’ the men in our families would say. ‘That’s a girl thing.’ Baking scones and cupcakes for the school janitors, watching Guiding Light with our mothers, collecting rose petals for use in a fragrant potpourri: anything worth doing turned out to be a girl thing. In order to enjoy ourselves, we learned to be duplicitous. Our stacks of Cosmopolitan were topped with an unread issue of Boy’s Life or Sports Illustrated, and our decoupage projects were concealed beneath the sporting equipment.” Sedaris has some painful memories of his childhood — alongside many funny ones. But his is not the usual cri de coeur from someone who considers himself to have been a victim of torment and discrimination. He is an extraordinarily self-aware writer who recognizes that there are very real and permanent differences between the school’s lispers (the “future homosexuals of America,” he calls them — a line no straight man would ever be allowed to write) and the majority of the school’s males, who worship fast cars and professional football; and that these differences cannot be erased or bridged merely with good intentions. In short, he recognizes that there is a boy’s club, and that he isn’t in it — not in its majority caucus anyway. Better to seize on that sobering realization than wallow in the myth that the world can be brought into one giant gender-free mélange if we all send our children out in feather boas.

the lefties who crafted this video seem to be seriously out of touch with the folks they are arguing against. Worlds apart. To the point that I initially failed to realize that the piece is intended as satire, and I still think it utterly fails as a parody. Why? Because I and many others agree with it literally. Look, the essence of successful political satire is to take a position, alter it slightly, and ridicule the new, altered position. The goal is for everyone to thus realize just how absurd the original stance was, too.

, none of this is news to either Christian traditionalists or the pagan manosphere. In these camps, the idea of curtailing divorce laws is pedestrian (how many of you, as you watched the first minute of that video, found yourselves agreeing completely and wondering where on earth the punchline was?). Outside the internet, in The Real World, there are similar rumblings in actual state legislatures. And that’s the reason I bothered to write about all this in the first place: I was stunned that these lefties actually thought that banning divorce was so far-fetched that the idea could only appear as parody. That’s how out of touch the anti-traditional values crowd is.

He and his People’s Action Party team-mates contesting Holland-Bukit Timah group representation constituency jointly issued this statement: Dear Friends of the Media Please find below a statement which is being sent on behalf of the PAP team contesting in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC. We would appreciate it very much if you could kindly publish the statement in full, and attribute it to the PAP team contesting in the Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, led by Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. Kindly call me at [phone number deleted] if you have any queries or if you need any clarification. What is his agenda? A video has been posted on the internet showing Vincent Wijeysingha participating at a forum which discussed the promotion of the gay cause in Singapore. The discussion at the forum also touched on sex with boys and whether the age of consent for boys should be 14 years of age. In the video, Wijeysingha was introduced as being from the SDP. In addition to other comments, Wijeysingha stated: ‘I think the gay community has to rally ourselves. Perhaps one outcome of today’s forum would be, for those of us who are interested, to come together to further consider how we can address the 377 issue as well as further rights issues in relation to gays and lesbians.’ We believe that candidates should be upfront about their political agenda and motives, so that voters are able to make an informed choice. The issue is not Wijeysingha’s sexual orientation. That is a matter for him. The video raises the question on whether Wijeysingha will now pursue this cause in the political arena and what is the SDP’s position on the matter. Vivian Balakrishnan Liang Eng Hwa Christopher de Souza Sim Ann

For the record, in case the video is taken down, we only see M Ravi speaking through those 30 seconds. He says (not that it makes a lot of sense): You took so long to come. For sixteen-years old boy, what are you doing? Since sixteen there’s another category, then eighteen there’s another category of consent. This guy says, sixteen I can form an opinion, how come 14 years old in Sweden they form an opinion? You know, right? Consent is as low as 14 years old between males in some western countries and so on. So he has an issue, you know, how come they and we and tho. . .  you know international law becomes an issue, we have a global community and why the discrimination and all that, but the point is this: if you wait too long . . . .

Here's your job: Stand for ten hours in a noisy convention center. (You might want to wear something revealing.) Try to get the attention of thousands of men—and a few women—who rush by. And don't forget to smile.

Many of these intelligent, charming women had a sense of reluctance when it came to taking members of the press seriously. Often we heard girls talk of men who don't understand that a "press badge isn't an excuse" to fondle them as one might touch "everything shiny and pretty" in the booths.

A booth babe's job is to lure convention attendees into her booths, to do a product demonstration or to pass people off to a coworker. That's fine. But when misunderstandings occur—or attendees forget they're interacting with living, breathing human beings—some attendees turn into jerks, pressing intimidatingly close and crossing boundaries. Some slip these girls their hotel keys, pressuring them for a visit later in the day. Others mistake professional flirting for actual flirting and try pick-up lines.

little girls – and teenage girls and girls in their twenties – dream about their wedding day. Is it something in the human psyche or, as Suzanne Moore says in her article in The Guardian on Saturday (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/suzanne-moore-marriage-tax-breaks), just a cultural artefect?

I’m ambivalent about marriage (even though I’m on my second one). If two people want to make a lifelong commitment, that’s fine. Is it realistic? It depends on the couple. Do I think it’s meaningful? No, not really. Years ago, I worked with a divorced woman who had been married for a couple of years. Since her divorce, she’d seen her ex-husband once, in a supermarket. The marriage might not have been for life but the separation was obviously working out very well.

It’s not marriage that binds you for life, it’s children. With the dishonourable exception of those runaway, absentee father, of course, and they bring me to my first main point in writing this: the CSA and the consequent implications for how the state views fathers, a view sustained by The Guardian.

t wherever I look there are discussions about ‘‘the objectification of women’s bodies” or “sexual violence against women and girls” or “pornography and women”. It has reached a point where I have to ask, without irony, “what about the men?”

it’s not as though men just became narcissistic. Simpson says it’’s clear that men had a capacity for sensuality and vanity – a desire to be desired – but for most of history it has been closeted. Men were to be warriors or laborers or empire builders. They weren’t meant to be beautiful. The Victorians codified a sexual division that decreed women were beauty and men were action. But now that men have been encouraged to get in touch with their vanity and sensuality it seems there’s no stopping it!

Metrosexuality differs from other incarnations of male self-love, in that it’s reliant on consumer capitalism. In other words, if you want to look hot: buy more stuff. But that narcissism, ever-apparent for the metro-man who needs mirrors like Narcissus needs the pool, is not necessarily a negative, argues Simpson. “The rise of male behaviors, practices and tastes characterised as metrosexual are made possible in large part by the decline of stigma attached to male homosexuality. While this stigma made life difficult for homosexual men, it also had an instructive, not to say repressive, effect on all men.” In contrast metrosexuality means masculinity is no longer black and white, “no longer always heterosexual and never homosexual or always active never passive, always desiring never desired, always looking never looked at,” says Simpson.

At the time of the post describing Amina's arrest, "A Gay Girl in Damascus" was generally accepted at face value. But the young woman's story began to fall apart under the scrutiny of the bloggers and journalists attempting to fact-check it and follow up. She frequently canceled interviews at the last minute. A photo that Amina sent to The Guardian turned out to be stolen from the Facebook account of a British-Croatian woman named Jelena Lecic. NPR's Andy Carvin discovered that no one—not even her Canadian girlfriend—had met Amina in person.

MacMaster confessed on the blog: Apology to readers I never expected this level of attention. While the narrative voıce may have been fictional, the facts on thıs blog are true and not mısleading as to the situation on the ground. I do not believe that I have harmed anyone — I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about. I only hope that people pay as much attention to the people of the Middle East and their struggles in thıs year of revolutions. The events there are beıng shaped by the people living them on a daily basis. I have only tried to illuminate them for a western audience. This experience has sadly only confirmed my feelings regarding the often superficial coverage of the Middle East and the pervasiveness of new forms of liberal Orientalism. However, I have been deeply touched by the reactions of readers. Best, Tom MacMaster, Istanbul, Turkey July 12, 2011 The sole author of all posts on this blog

MacMaster, fighting the good fight against liberal Orientalism, hasn't harmed anyone, huh? We wonder if "Amina"'s girlfriend feels the same way.

What’s wrong with the above? Everything! If I have to spell it out, It tramples on women’s sexual autonomy by laying on thick the negativity associated with promiscuity; It reserves to men the right to judge which women qualify for the label; It asserts that other women have no business contesting (1) and (2) above.

– newnation.sg, 4 September 2011, SlutWalk: a celebration of the right to be slutty even when you aren’t by Fang Shihan (which I am told is a pseudonym for a female writer passing off as male).

feminism has long been bedevilled by sex. Many feminists speak of gender equality without wanting to touch the subject of sexual freedom. They’re strong on the right of women to say No, but cannot shake off negative attitudes against those frequently saying Yes.  In this, they are in the same bed as lots of patriarchal men.

legislation now meant some employers believe hiring a woman is a "nightmare". Long maternity leave and fears of costly discrimination action were just two of the issues Ms Pease highlighted as factors that deter firms from taking on women. "Blue chips and PLCs will do the proper HR thing to manage people's careers - keep in touch policies, backfilling," says human resources director Tony Molloy. "But smaller companies are not constrained by the law and will find they can't do some of the things blue chips do. "For SMEs its much more difficult. For example backfilling maternity leave can be a problem. If you can't fill a post you must recruit and that can cost around £5,000 to get the interim worker, then there's the salary for the mother on top," he adds.

Women who find men’s sexual attention especially disturbing or scary, sometimes report gaining weight on purpose.  Being fat, they hope, will protect them from being looked at, unwanted touching, and sexual assault.  In a study by sociologist Julie Winterich, a lesbian suspects that she gained weight for this kind of purpose: You know, I remember thinking one time, maybe one of the reasons I’m overweight is so that men would not be attracted to me, because I knew that I wasn’t attracted to them.

Another reason to become or remain fat would be protect oneself not from the attention that comes with the male gaze, but the fear that you would not be lovable, even if thin.  Being judged as sexually-unacceptable, in this scenario, is less terrifying than being judged as simply unacceptable.   This was the idea expressed in a recent confessional PostSecret postcard: Source: Winterich, Julie. 2007. Aging, Femininity, and the Body: What Appearance Changes Men to Women with Age.  Gender Issues 24: 51-69.

The keynote speaker was Al Gore, who recently released ‘Our Choice’, his latest work on climate change, as both a book and an interactive app for the iPhone and iPad. He touched on a few climate-related topics, and aside from much of his usual (and still right-on) spiel, he had a few interesting thoughts on the role of women in combating climate change — and why empowering women and girls is a key to stabilizing the global climate system. Apologies for the shaky video

The sociological perspective defines eroticism as the pornography of the dominant social class. In this view, eroticism has aristocratic associations, while pornography is a lower-class activity. Thus, pornography but not eroticism may represent a threat to the status quo. Yet, as numerous entries demonstrate, the eroticism of ‘high literature’ is just as capable of subversion as more popular forms of writing about sex.

The gender of the author is another spurious yardstick, by which the pornography/eroticism distinction is sometimes measured. In this perspective, men produce pornography while women ‘write the erotic’. This argument falters when confronted with anonymity, or the extensive use of pseudonyms. Moreover, some authors employ strategies to make believe that the narrator is male or female, creating confusion as to the author’s sex or gender.

As for the familiar charge that this is a literature aimed only at the male voyeur, erotic texts frequently appeal to all of the senses, from the evocation of the sensation of bodily touch, taste and smells to the screams, whispers and silences that can accompany the sex-act. Such descriptions speak as much to women as to men.

past decades, the fundamental focus of education has been on knowledge and comprehension, and not on its application and synthesis. There is massive inertia within the populace to rethink not just about WHAT to learn, but the "WHY" and the "HOW" of learning.

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