Thursday, June 25, 2009

Eureka Moment Week Six - The End

A few years back my cousin’s daughter, who was a twenty year old sophomore at Temple College, wanted to help her mom out financially. Her mother is a single mother who’d fallen on some hard times, and she was struggling to pay her daughters tuition on her own. So she confided in a younger cousin of ours (I have a very large family) that she knew some girls that danced and she was thinking of moonlighting as a dancer… without her clothes on. Needless to say that once this information circulated around my family every one banded together and did an intervention. Her mother was upset over the fact her daughter had even thought about being and exotic dancer.

That incident occurred about three years ago. My cousin confided in me that her son has been moonlighting as an exotic dancer for about a week to assist with his college fees. I was surprised that she had no problem with this, since she was very upset that her daughter had thought about it. When I asked my cousin how could she let her son dance? She said what can she do to stop him? He’s over the age of 18 now and a grown man now I can’t tell him what to do, he has his mind.

I also asked her why she thought it was ok for her son to dance and not her daughter. She said it was different for boys than it is for girls, and he can handle himself if a woman tries to get physical with him, however a woman is more vulnerable when she dances and can be victimized. Do you think that it is ok for men to be male exotic dancers, more so than women for the reason that my cousin pointed out? Would you feel differently about a woman who danced than a man… on a moral level?

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Week Five Eureka Moment

Hi Everybody!!!

I got a little chuckle out of my eureka moment this week. Yesterday I was sitting in my car outside of a store waiting for my mother to come out and there was a group of about three boys waiting outside the store and they were talking amongst themselves. They all looked around eighteen to twenty years old. The store that my mother was in sat next to a store that sales dirty videos and porn, and I observed a young man excite the store with a brown bag and he came over to the young men who were standing in front of the store and told his friends to look at a lady that had excited the porn shop behind him.

I listened as the young men as they began to make comments on how they felt she must be a "real freak" and they made jokes about what they could do to help her out. They gawked at her and made comments to each other as she got into her car and drove off. They seemed to be fascinated by the fact that a woman would have the audacity to by porn and they felt that she had to be a slut or easy.

Actually the young lady was a pretty girl around her early twenties. She was dressed conservatively in a pair of dress pants, white dress shirt and heels. She looked to be very professional.

My eureka moment is none of the gentleman seemed to think poorly of themselves or the other men that I observed coming and going out of the porn shop. There was young men, old men, men who looked like they had money and men who looked poor; yet nothing was said about them.

When my mother got into the car I told her what had happened. Keeping in mind that my mother is fifty-nine years old, she said that the young lady should be ashamed of herself. I asked her what did she think of the boys and she said “Boys will be boys.” Honestly I also found it kind of odd to see a young woman exciting a sex shop all by herself and my opinion was not that high of her. However I also thought it was a little odd for so many men to be going in and out of a sex shop all day as well. My opinion and the men and woman was a little questionable.

My question to you guys is do you think the young lady is freaky or easy because she purchased porn? Is it more acceptable for men to express their sexuality than women? Do you think women are repressed because of the way they feel that both men and women will view them if they act as they truly feel?

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Week Four: Eureka Moment

Hi everyone! This week I have an old eureka moment that came back to mind while I was sitting watching TV. I saw a commercial for a movie that I saw a while back called “The Watchmen.” I love watching sci-fi of any kind and I figured the Watchmen would be right up my alley. It is about superheroes and I thought it would be like “Spiderman” or “X-Men” type of movie. The movie was rated R and I am an adult so I had no problem with the rating. I assumed it would be for brief nudity and maybe some violence.

Once we started watching the movie it was a lot of nudity and a lot of violence. Actually I was still ok with this. What shocked me was that they continually showed a full frontal of the “Blue Man”….a lot. I am a big girl and I have seen the male anatomy a bit and truly didn’t mind watching it. However I thought it was a bit much and I found myself thinking this movie should be rated NC 17 or better. The more they showed it the more I was taken aback. I became overly preoccupied with how many times they showed his “willie.” People began to get up and leave the theatre that had children with them…and I honestly couldn’t blame them.

I remember thinking this movie was wrongly rated and they should not show a man’s private areas on an R rated movie. The odd thing is I recall seeing a lot of R rated features that showed full frontals of women and it never crossed my mind that the rating was wrong. I found an article that actually said the same thing. As I sat and thought about it I began to see the unfairness of it. Should it be taboo to show a man’s private areas but ok to show a woman’s private parts? There are lots of R rated features that show’s lots of female nudity and it is exceptable. What does this say about women? That are body are less important than a mans?

My question to everyone is do you feel that a movie that shows a man’s private area should receive a harsher rating than a movie that shows a woman's boobs? I found an article listed below about the movie.
http://blog.spout.com/2009/03/06/watchmen-penis-offends-conservative-critics-today-in-film-bloggery-030609/

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Week Three: Eureka Moment

Howdy Everyone!
Let me give you guys a background on my story first. I have co-worker who is a gay (and I consider him to be a good friend) and about three years ago he got into a religious group that said they could help him overcome and battle his (and I quote what he said) “Gay Demons.” He also told me that they treat being gay as if it is a mental disorder that needs to be cured. Overall they feel that it is a condition that can be changed. He went through a few classes and support groups and was proclaimed to be cured. He still attends support groups and he has a sponsor, kind of like with AA. He married a woman that following year and entered into his first ever heterosexual relationship.

Now it is two years later and he is still married and from what he says he is happy. However he says his wife is not. She feels that they don’t enough sex and he asked me what he should do about it. He is in his late forties and he says they don’t do it much because his sex driver isn’t what it used to be.

Usually when he talks to me I very rarely give him advice I tend to listen and say neutral things like “This is your life you need to decide what is right for you,” or “Maybe you should talk this out with your wife” or “It really doesn’t matter what I think.” When I ask him if he is still attracted to men, he tells me that he is and that when he is intimate with his wife he usually will think of her as a man. I told him that I would be insulted if the man I was with was thinking about someone else during such a touching moment. Yet he states he has never cheated on his wife since they got married.

My question to you guys is due you think someone can go from gay to straight? I have listed some of the sights that give counseling on converting gays and lesbian. What do you think? Do you think my friend is being fair to his wife and to himself, because honestly I don’t have a clue?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-gay_movement
http://www.gayintostraightamerica.com/584.html
http://www.lesbiannewspaper.com/2009/03/converting-gays-and-lesbians.html