Greta Christina's Blog

Atheists and the Closet: or, Keith Olbermann, Tonight's Worst Person in the World

If you're an atheist, and you're promoting atheists coming out and knowing that they're not alone -- but you, yourself, are not entirely out of the closet about your atheism -- does that make you a bad person?

Keith Olbermann seems to think so. In his fabled "Worst Person in the World" segment tonight, he had this to say:

Tonight's worst persons in the world. The bronze: To the person who donated the scratch for ten thousand dollars worth of ads on the sides of buses in New York City, promoting atheism. They read, "You don't have to believe in God to be a moral or ethical person." The hope, from president Ken Bronstein of the group NYC Atheists, is to get people to stop hiding their non- belief -- to stop hiding it. No complaint about the message -- however, while Bronstein says, "We want to get atheists to come join us, to get out of the closet," unfortunately the donor who made the ads possible is keeping his identity anonymous. (Contemptuous eye-roll.)

Okay. Here is my question for Mr. Olbermann.

If you were doing a segment about an ad campaign designed to let gay people know that they weren't alone and to encourage them to come out of the closet -- and one of the major donors to the campaign wanted to remain anonymous -- would you decry them as one of the worst persons in the world?

Or would you understand that coming out as gay can -- yes, still, even this day and age -- be a hazardous enterprise? Would you understand that coming out can mean alienating family and friends, losing your job or your kids, getting beaten up or even killed? Would you understand that people have to come out on their own timetable, and that a person who wants to take action to support gay rights and gay visibility still might not be completely out of the closet? Would you understand that even gay people who are out to their families and friends and colleagues still might not want their name, and their gayness, splashed all over the national news?

And if so, then why don't you understand it about atheists?

There are some realities about living as an atheist that you may not know about, Mr. Olbermann. Coming out as an atheist can have serious real-world consequences. Parents get denied custody of their children for being atheists. People get harassed and vandalized by their neighbors for being atheists. Teachers get suspended for being atheists. Teenagers get harassed and suspended from school for being atheists. Politicians whip up anti-atheist fear to try to get elected. (And that's just in the US. I'm not even talking about parts of the world where atheism is a crime, punishable by imprisonment or death.)

I wish atheists would come out of the closet, too. It is the single most powerful act we can do to gain acceptance and understanding. And there's definitely a Catch-22: the world isn't safe for atheists since so few atheists are out... but as long as atheists don't come out, it will continue to be unsafe. Some of us need to take the risk, so it'll be easier and less risky for others.

But I also understand that that is not my decision to make for others. I understand that, while I can encourage atheists to come out, I can't judge them if they decide they can't do it. I understand that coming out is not as easy for some people as it is for others. It was pretty easy for me: my family are atheists; my wife is an atheist; I live in San Francisco, the world capital of alternative culture and "who gives a damn what other people believe"-ism; I work for a hippie punk-rock anarchist business; I don't have kids. (And even I lost friends when I came out as an atheist.) I understand that not everyone is as lucky as me: I understand that there is a substantial amount of anti- atheist bigotry in this country and in the world, and that some people have workplaces, neighbors, schools, custody situations, etc., that make coming out as atheist untenable.

Is there an irony in the fact that the major donor behind an atheist visibility ad campaign is choosing to remain anonymous? You bet there is. But that irony should not be making you think, "What a hypocrite that person is. They're one of the worst persons in the world." It should be making you think, "What a messed up world it is we live in -- that even the person promoting atheist visibility doesn't feel safe being completely open about being an atheist."

"I'm Confused": Dance Homophobia, Gender Rigidity, and "So You Think You Can Dance"

So what does it mean when people in the dance world -- I repeat, the dance world -- are shocked and confused at the sight of two men dancing together?

Ingrid and I are fans of the TV show, "So You Think You Can Dance." Yes, it's a cheesy reality competition show; but the cheese factor isn't as bad as it could be, and the level of dancing is quite serious, and quite high. Since I care about dancing, I'm willing to overlook the stupid manufactured drama and the cheese, so I can watch the dancing.... which is very, very good indeed.

A couple weeks ago (I know, I'm behind the times, we Tivoed it and just watched it the other night), they premiered their new season. They started, as always, by showcasing highlights from the audition process. And they showed, for the first time in the show's five- year history, an audition of two men doing ballroom dance together: Misha Belfer, and Mitchel Kibel.

And the judges were completely flummoxed. They were not just confused -- a word two of the three judges used to describe their reactions. They were visibly upset. They were so freaked out that they were unable to render a verdict on the pair's dancing, and insisted that each man repeat the audition with a woman, so they could accurately judge the men's dancing without the distraction of the same-sexness of it all.

Here, so you can judge for yourself, are a few samples of the judges' comments. (For those who think I might be taking these out of context -- or who just don't feel that their blood pressure is high enough -- a complete transcript of the judging scene is at the end of this piece.)

Nigel Lythgoe: "I'm certainly one of those people that really like to see guys be guys and girls be girls on stage. I don't think I liked it, to be frank."

Mary Murphy: This is the first time, honestly, for me to see it. I'm confused, because I see that sometimes you're both being the female role and sometimes the male, so, like, and then sometimes you'll do the trick and then he does it too. So it confuses me.

(Quick note from Greta: Switching back and forth rapidly between lead and follow in a dance -- what I assume Mary meant by "the male role" and "the female role" -- is unbelievably hard to do. It's even harder to do it gracefully and seamlessly. The fact that these dancers were able to do this should not have been freaking these judges out. It should have been making them give high marks.)

Mary: It was hard for me to even kind of focus on that technique, 'cause I was still just trying to figure out... It would have been easier for me, in other words, if, if one person was playing the female role and one was playing the male role.

Sonya Tayeh: I'm saying that in the genre that I've seen, when I see this approach (gesturing), which, I usually see it from the female perspective. I relate more to it as a female. So I just get confused. You guys are both amazing, and the movement quality, but I was just confused in terms of the, the classical form.

Nigel: Do you know what? I'd like to see you both dancing with a girl.

Mary: I would, too.

Sonya: Me, too.

Nigel: You never know. You might enjoy that! (smirking) All right, see you later.

(And at this point, both dancers were sent on to the group choreography, so they could be judged on their dancing with women.)

Now, to be fair -- for some reason, even though this is making me spitting mad, I still feel compelled to be fair -- I don't think this is homophobia in the strictest sense of the word. I don't think the judges are fearful or hostile towards gay people. These judges are dance people, and I'm sure they've all met and worked with kajillions of gay men before, with no problem. (And in fact, one of these two dancers isn't gay. Mitchel is a straight guy, originally from the straight ballroom dance world, who switched to same-sex ballroom because it didn't work out with his female dance partner and he wanted an opportunity to keep dancing.)

I think it's what I call "dance homophobia." It's something I've encountered in the dance world before. People are reasonably accepting of LGBT people and our LGBT-ness in our personal lives... but on the dance floor, it's Heteronormative City. Men are supposed to be men, women are supposed to be women, each is supposed to dance in a certain way, and they're bloody well supposed to dance with each other.

It's the aspect of homophobia that's about a deep attachment to rigid gender roles, and that sees homosexuality as upsetting those roles. (Which, in fact, it is.) It's the aspect of homophobia that sees certain kinds of interactions -- in this case, partner dancing -- as being about one person expressing Masculinity and the other person expressing Femininity, with the two fitting together in some sort of magically ordained way... and that gets confused at best and upset at worst when people call those roles and assumptions into question.

So it's not like I've never encountered this before.

I was still shocked at the judges' attitude, though. And my first reaction was to say, "You're dance people. Are you really not familiar with same-sex ballroom dancing? Do you really not know that this is a thing? Do you really not know that this is being taught and danced at dance studios around the country and around the world? Do you really not know that it's happening on a competitive level?"

But I decided, for some bizarre reason, to be fair for just one more moment. Maybe they never have seen or heard of same-sex ballroom dancing. It is a subculture, after all, a weird little world of a handful of people obsessed with their hobby. I do find it a bit shocking that I, with my extremely limited dance experience, am familiar with a dance form that professional choreographers have apparently never seen or heard of... but hey. Maybe they've never heard of longsword dancing, either. So maybe it's not that appalling that same-sex ballroom would be such a revelation to them.

And then I came up with a much, much better example.

Okay. Maybe they've never seen same-sex ballroom before.

Have they ever seen Mark Morris?

For those of you who aren't familiar with the dance world: That was a very snarky question. Mark Morris is one of the most famous, important, influential choreographers of our time. In the dance world, he is as famous and important and influential as Alvin Ailey or Twyla Tharpe. The judges of "So You Think You Can Dance" have absolutely heard of him.

And one of the things Mark Morris is most famous for -- one of the single most defining features of his choreography -- is gender fluidity.

Mark Morris loves to play with gender. He has men dancing women's roles, women dancing men's roles, dancers switching back and forth between male and female roles throughout a ballet. He has men dancing together, women dancing together, women dancing with men. He has group dances where everyone is doing the same routines and steps, and you can't tell which dancers are the men and which are the women. (And you don't care.) He has dances where it's an important, written-in part of the dance that men dance as women and women dance as men; he has dances where he casts the roles without regard to gender. Mark Morris understands that both men and women all have both masculine and feminine qualities -- not to mention qualities that have bupkis to do with gender -- and he loves to play with bringing all of those qualities out in all of his dancers. Mark Morris is very far from the only gay choreographer in the world; but he is one of the first to be publicly, proudly, fiercely gay, and to openly weave his gayness, and the way his gayness has informed his playful and fluid perception of gender, into his work.

I repeat: One of the most famous, important, influential choreographers of our time.

And yet, despite the fact that every one these judges is absolutely guaranteed to be familiar with Mark Morris's work, somehow they still found the notion of gender fluidity and same-sex interaction in dance to be not only new, but shocking and confusing and upsetting. They were still so freaked out and distracted by two men dancing ballroom together -- and switching roles, no less -- that they were unable to judge the men's dancing abilities without seeing them dance "the men's part" with women. Despite being professional dance people of many years' standing, they were so fixated on rigid gender roles, so flummoxed at a little same-sexness and gender fluidity, that they were completely unable to see through it and just see the dancing.

Shame on them.

(Full transcript of the judging scene is below the jump.)

Rachel Maddow and the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Haven't seen this on any of the atheist blogs I usually read, and I thought y'all might like to know about it in case you missed it:

Rachel Maddow gave a nice big shoutout to the Flying Spaghetti Monster on her show on Darwin Day.

A whole little story, even. The first half of this video snippet is devoted to the FSM, may we all be touched by his noodly appendage. (The second half is an interview with history and law professor Edward Larson, some dumb old Pulitzer- prize winning writer and scholar, on the history of anti- evolution sentiment in the U.S.)

Video below the fold.

Offended: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about a piece of sexual expression that deeply offended me... and what I intend to do about it.

It's called Offended, and here's the teaser:

He (William F. Buckley) said that a society has the right to decide what it's offended by... and to protect itself from that which offends it. And at one point he said -- I’m going to have to paraphrase here, since I erased the Tivo before I realized I wanted to write about it -- that a society can look at sadomasochistic imagery, and at the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, and say, "We don’t want this."

And I was so offended by this statement, it took my breath away.

I don't mean mock offended. I don’t mean "offended as a useful rhetorical device" offended. I was genuinely, seriously, viscerally offended. I wanted to reach into the television and smack him across his smug little rat face. I sat there, shocked, thinking, "Did he just go on national television and equate consensual sadomasochism with Nazi Germany?"

How dare he.

How fucking dare he.

It is, in my opinion, grossly outrageous to equate a sex act between consenting adults that gives them both pleasure with the deliberate genocide of millions. It's not just offensive to sadomasochists. It's offensive to people who went through the Holocaust. It dehumanizes the one, and trivializes the other. It was one of the most offensive things I’d heard all month.

And yet at no point in my outrage did I think, "There oughta be a law. He shouldn't be allowed to do that. There oughta be a law against equating sadomasochism and the Holocaust."

Why not?

To find out more, read the rest of the the piece. Enjoy!

Hurricane Katrina, or What Government Is For

This is a rerun of a piece I wrote about two years ago. I'm repeating it because now, in this Presidential election, it seems particularly pertinent.

So I'm watching When the Levees Broke, the Spike Lee HBO documentary on Hurricane Katrina (which you all absolutely have to see, by the way), and what with that and the one-year anniversary, it seemed like a good time to say something I've been wanting to say for a while, about what government is -- or what it should be, anyway -- and about people who think government is a bad idea.

Here's what I think government is. Or rather, here's what I think government should be, and what it actually is at least some of the time. I think government is/should be the structure with which a society pools some of its resources for projects and services that benefit that society, but are too big to be handled privately by individuals or small groups. And it is/should be the structure a society uses to decide how those pooled resources should be used.

Think roads. Sewers. Parks. Fire departments. Public health services. Law enforcement, even. God knows I have mixed feelings about law enforcement as it actually exists in our society -- but as Ingrid pointed out recently, when there's a Ted Bundy on the streets, you want there to be people whose job it is to catch them. It's pretty much spelled out in the Preamble to the Constitution, actually: "...to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."

And think emergency services. For fuck's sweet sake, think emergency services.

Except we have a government -- a federal government, anyway -- that's run by people who think government is a bad idea. We have a government run by people who think government should always be as small as possible, that taxes should always be as low as possible, that government is at best a necessary evil. (Or who say that's what they think, anyway. I think they're big fuckin' hypocrites, but that's a different rant.)

And when you see what happened a year ago in New Orleans, you see why government run by people who think government is a bad idea is a criminally bad idea.

Because when you think about what government is -- or what it should be -- you realize that people who think government is a bad idea are essentially opposed to the idea of pooling resources. To oppose the very idea of government, to think of it as at best a necessary evil, is to believe in the philosophy of "Every man for himself." It is to believe in the philosophy of "Screw you, Jack, I've got mine." It is to believe that sharing is bad. It is to believe in the atomization of society, the breakdown of social responsibility into smaller and smaller units. To believe that government is a bad idea is to believe that society itself is a bad idea.

It feels freaky to be defending the idea of government when I'm watching a documentary about its callous incompetence, its inhuman detachment, its colossal screw-up on every level. And it feels ultra-freaky to be defending the idea of government when we're suffering through what may well go down as the worst Presidential administration in history. But in a way, that's my point. I think that government should be run by people who think government is a good idea. People who think government is a good idea are looking for ways to make it run better. People who think government is a bad idea are cynically looking for ways they can use it to enrich themselves and their buddies.

The big devil's advocate question, of course, is why all those big social projects -- roads, sewers, parks, fire departments, public health, law enforcement, etc. -- can't be handled privately, by business or charity? That brings me to the second part of my "what government should be" theory -- namely, the structure a society uses to decide how its pooled resources should be used. The problem with big social projects being handled by the private sector is accountability. I want to have my roads maintained, my fires put out, my immunizations delivered -- and my emergency services provided -- by people I can vote for, and vote against. And I don't want them handled by people whose top priority is not roads or fires or immunizations or emergency services, but profit. (If you want a top-notch example of why social services shouldn't be delivered by the private sector, watch the part of the Spike Lee Katrina documentary that talks about how the insurance companies completely shafted Katrina victims.)

Are there problems with government? Fuck, yes. Massive ones. It needs to be fixed, and pronto. But it needs to be fixed by people who believe in it. So the next time someone's running for office by promising to reduce government and cut taxes, think about whether that's what you really want from your people in office. Because if there's a better way for a society to pool its resources and decide how those resources should be used than a democratically elected government, I can't think of it.

On Watching...

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sexuality -- specifically, my personal tastes in erotica -- in quite a bit of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read that stuff are advised to skip this one. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

On Watching the Same Ten-Second TV Spank Scene... Over and Over and Over by Greta Christina

It seemed vaguely ridiculous at the time.

It seems even more ridiculous now.

Why -- in a world where I have almost infinite pornographic material at my fingertips -- would I find a ten-second spanking scene in a cable TV comedy series so erotically compelling? Why would I rewind and re-watch it a half a dozen times... and then fetch my vibrator, and watch it a dozen times more?

What is it about sex scenes in non- porno movies and TV shows, novels and comic books, that makes them hot? Not necessarily better than porn; but different, and different in a way that makes them special and exciting?

I'd like to say it's how unexpected it is. You rent or download a spanking video, you expect to see a spanking. It's fun, it's hot, but it's a bit anticlimactic. But you're watching a regular old TV show -- okay, on Showtime, but still -- and you see a spanking? (Or a lap-dance, or blowjob, or whatever it is that floats your boat?) That's a bit of a shock. And the shock of having one of your erotic buttons pushed out of nowhere can jolt you out of your TV- watching haze, and wake up your libido like a slap in the face.

Sure. Sometimes that's true.

But in this case, it would be a filthy lie. The spanking I'm talking about had been heavily foreshadowed in the previous week's episode. Heck, it had been highlighted in the "And now, scenes from next week's episode" clips. I didn't see the spanking come out of nowhere. I'd been waiting for it all week. With bated breath, and a twitchy hand on the remote.

So that's not it.

It's not the authentic feel you get from good acting, either. Usually when I rave about porn, it's the authenticity that I rave about: the feeling that the performers have genuine enthusiasm and passion about what they're doing. But that's almost the exact opposite of what I saw here. In a spanking video, there's a pretty decent chance that the people you're watching are really getting off on it. In "Weeds," these are highly- skilled, professional television actors... and while they did an excellent job convincing me of the characters' passions, I have no idea how the actors themselves felt about it. That's what makes them, you know, actors.

And I'd like to say that it was exceptional porn. Exceptionally erotic, exceptionally well-made. Something.

But honestly, it wasn't. The scene was fine by spanking porn standards -- it was certainly better- filmed and better- acted than most -- but it wasn't wildly extraordinary. And the actual spanking only lasted ten seconds... which is a pretty major downside for porn. The very fact that I had to rewind and re-watch it a dozen times was something of a hassle. It did lend a certain sleazy, drooling- pervert charm to the proceedings (especially when I was watching on frame- by- frame slow- forward); but it's hard to keep a sustained arc of sexual arousal when you're hitting "Rewind" every ten seconds. And while it was a good, hard ten- second spanking, from a purely porny standpoint it wasn't all that and a bag of chips.

See for yourself. If you Google "Weeds Nancy Botwin spanking," or go to YouTube and search on those words, you can see what I'm talking about. You can watch it here, if they haven't taken it down already. But unless you've been watching the show and care about the characters already, it probably won't seem all that interesting.

And that, I think, is the key.

That is what the ten-second spanking scene on "Weeds" has to offer that the overwhelming majority of porn doesn't:

Caring about the characters.

You can get some of that in written porn, if you know who the good writers are. But for reasons that surpass my understanding, from a purely porny standpoint I'm a much bigger fan of video than I am of fiction. And alas, the overwhelming majority of porn videos completely suck at engaging you with the characters, giving you a sense of what all this sex means to them, getting you to give a damn about them.

But I already care about the characters on "Weeds." I've been watching "Weeds" for close to three years now, and it's an unusually smart and well- written TV show. So compared to any porno vid I'm going to watch, it already has a three- year head start... not to mention the considerable advantage that a well-paid writing staff will give you.

So when I watched Nancy Botwin get spanked, it was like watching a friend get spanked.

No, not a friend exactly. I don't think the characters I watch on TV are my friends. But a reasonably close acquaintance. A friend of a friend. Someone I know a lot about and have come to care about from a distance.

And I think this is part of why people get so excited about sex scenes or kink scenes in non-porno TV and movies. (Apart from the celebrity fetish, of course; but that's not my thing, so I can't say much about it.) It's not like porn, where nine times out of ten you sit through a stupidly- written, woodenly- acted pool- boy seduction scene that's both unconvincing and unsurprising before you get to the "good stuff." The spanking in "Weeds" had all the complex intensity and emotional depth that my own sex fantasies have... with the added treat of not being made up in my own head, and therefore being at least a little surprising and new.

And that's something I've only gotten from a handful of porno vids.

Things I Like: Dexter

The blog has been a little heavy the last couple of days -- fascinating, and I'm loving it, but heavy -- and I have a couple of heavy-ish posts planned for the coming couple/ few days. So I'm taking a moment to indulge in my new "Things I Like" series. In the interest of fending off incipient crankhood, I am making a conscious effort to occasionally write something positive about things I like. Here's one of them.

It's not just that it's well- written and well- acted. It's not just that it's a fascinating character study. It's not just that it manages to be both seriously grisly and seriously funny (a combination that I'm almost always fond of).

Here's what I like about "Dexter."

(The Showtime series where the protagonist is a sociopathic serial killer who works as a blood spatter analyst for the cops and only kills murderers. For those who aren't familiar.)

When I tried to get Ingrid interested in the show, she watched one episode and argued through it the whole way. Ingrid is something of an aficionado of true crime, and something of an amateur expert (if that makes sense) about sociopathic serial killers. Which is what made me think she'd like the show. But throughout it she just kept arguing, "No sociopathic serial killer would be like that. No sociopathic serial killer would care about whether the people he killed were good or bad. No sociopathic serial killer would care about some code his policeman father taught him. That's what makes them sociopaths. They don't care about right or wrong, and they don't care what other people think. They think of themselves as above all that."

A fair critique, and one I can certainly understand. After all, if I were watching a TV drama series on a topic I knew and cared a lot about -- sex toys, say, or atheism -- I'd probably give up on it myself if it got the basic facts about its subject so very wrong.

But her critique made me think about what it is I like so much about the show, and why I like it despite its lack of realism.

I don't watch "Dexter" as an exploration of human nature.

I watch it as a truly astonishing narrative exercise.

The exercise: Can you make an audience care about a serial killer? Can you make them root for him? Can you make them sympathize with him, identify with him, want him to do well? Can you even make them sympathize enough with him that they want him to get what he wants... which is to kill people, and keep on killing people?

And the answer, astonishingly, is Yes.

I like Dexter. The character, I mean, as well as the show. Watching the show, I find myself on the edge of my seat, hoping that he'll be able to go through with this next murder, that he'll be able to hide the evidence, that he'll be able to successfully frame someone else for it, that he'll be able to get away with it.

Which is an intensely compelling, if somewhat unsettling, experience. And it's an amazing achievement in narrative.

There's a book called Freaks Talk Back, about sexual non-conformity and tabloid talk shows. (No, this isn't a tangent -- stay with me.) I haven't read it, but Ingrid has, and she's told me many of the interesting bits from it. And one of them is this bit of fascinating information: The best predictive factor in determining whether a talk show audience will be with you or against you, cheering and hollering "You go, girl!" or booing and cussing you out? It's nothing at all to do with your story. It's whether you get to tell your story first. Whoever gets to tell their story first gets the audience on their side.

The character of Dexter gets to tell his story first. The show is almost all from his point of view, with his internal monologue narrating the proceedings. And so he gets you on his side.

Then, of course, you have the whole "he only kills bad people" thing. He kills people you have no sympathy for. He kills people you're actively repulsed by. He kills people you yourself might want to kill, or at least feel a desire to kill, even though of course you wouldn't. And that turns down the volume on the moral revulsion as well.

And then you throw in Dexter's horrible childhood trauma. I won't describe it, in case you haven't seen the show yet, but suffice to say: Horrible. Makes you feel sorry for him. Makes you feel like maybe he can't help being who he is, and doing what he does.

All this -- plus the pure likability of lead actor Michael C. Hall (of "Six Feet Under" fame) -- and you get a likable, sympathetic protagonist who kills people for pleasure, in a truly gruesome way, and then cuts up their bodies and dumps them in the harbor.

I may be making it sound as if watching it were a cool exercise in aesthetic appreciation. But it's more powerful than that. It's not like I'm sitting back going, "Hm, this is interesting, I'm sympathizing with this character even while I'm finding him reprehensible and repugnant." It's more like I'm feeling both of these emotions at the same time: the compassion and the repulsion, the fervent hope for him to succeed and the fervent hope for him to drop off the face of the earth.

It's unsettling as hell. But it's also weirdly enlivening. It makes me question, and pay attention to, what I'm feeling. It takes the standards of the sympathetic- hero narrative and uses them to twist your emotions. Thus making you question, not just your emotions, but the narrative standards as well.

And that's just neat.

It's not a perfect series. It has a tendency -- all too common on TV drama serieses -- to throw too many curveballs at once, substituting lots of big dramatic moments for actual drama. And some of the inaccuracies bug me as well... like the ones about recovered memory. But ultimately, I don't care. It's clever, and it's well-made, and it's vastly entertaining, and it totally screws with the assumptions we make about what stories are supposed to be like and how they're supposed to go. And it is, above all else, unique.

And that's good enough for me.

(Dexter Seasons 1 and 2 are available on DVD, for purchase or rental; Season 3 starts on Sept. 28.)

Sex, TV, And Actual Human Beings: "Swingtown" And "Secret Diary Of A Call Girl"

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog. This review was originally written a couple of months ago, when the programs in question were just starting; the first seasons of both are now over, and an update appears at the end of the piece.

Funny thing. When I wrote my recent Blowfish review of the "Sex and the City" movie, my friends all had just one question:

What did you think of "Swingtown"?

(I guess they figured out what I thought of "Sex and the City" without need of any more questions...)

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, but until I started getting these questions, I hadn't even heard of "Swingtown." I'm not sure how a prime- time major- network TV show about swinging escaped my notice. But if you don't mind, I'd like to let my lack of pop- culture coolness slide for the moment, and just talk about "Swingtown."

And "Secret Diary of a Call Girl."

And a new face of sex on television.

To some extent, I'm reserving judgment on both shows. I've only seen a couple episodes of each, and it's way too early to get into the serious socio- politico- sexual analysis of either one. But it's not too early to say this: I'm watching. I'm curious. I care about the stories and the characters, and I want to see what happens next.

And that's because the characters are -- dare I say it? -- human beings.

Which is an exciting new development in the relationship between alternative sex and television.

Let's take "Swingtown" first. A new prime- time drama on CBS, "Swingtown" is about Susan and Bruce Miller, a couple who move to a nice Chicago suburb in 1976 and are introduced by their neighbors to the world of swinging. They're clearly intrigued by these new possibilities; at the same time, they're clearly freaked out, and not at all sure where they want to go with it or even if they want to go with it at all. Adding to their confusion are their old best friends, Janet and Roger, a more conservative couple who disapprove heartily: of all these new '70s shenanigans in general, and of their friends' new friends in particular. Susan and Bruce -- especially Susan, who's clearly the central character -- feel increasingly torn between the old friends and the new... a conflict that symbolizes, and gets tangled up in, their conflicted feelings about the new sexual world that the decade is offering.

I'm not sure where the show's going with this. And I'm not sure what its attitude toward swingers and swinging will ultimately be. On the one hand, the swinging neighbors, Trina and Tom, are a little too evangelical about swinging: a little too convinced that it's the solution to all life's problems, and a little too cool-kid superior about people who don't want to play. On the other hand... well, that is a reality. I've met people like that. I've been people like that, in my younger days. And while Trina and Tom definitely have a high- school cool- kids vibe, they also come across as very genuine, complicated and three-dimensional, with honest affection for Susan and Bruce, and a strong marriage that works for them.

And while the show may be a little pissily judgmental about Trina and Tom, and may even be gearing up to play them as sophisticated seducers who blindly fuck up a happy marriage, it isn't playing Susan and Bruce that way at all. It may be setting them up for a fall, but it isn't being judgmental of them for being curious and open- minded and willing to try new things -- and new people -- in bed. They are the moral center on which all these social changes are pivoting... and they're making friends with committed swingers, and taking baby steps into trying out that world for themselves.

"Secret Diary of a Call Girl" (Showtime) is nowhere near as complex or subtly shaded as "Swingtown." It’s definitely a bit in that lurid, gratuitous, "how can we put sex on our network today?" vein that Showtime is so good at. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...) But it also shows its characters -- prostitutes and customers alike -- as very real and human indeed: funny and poignant, anxious and clueless, selfish and touching.

The show is based on the blog of a real (or supposedly real) high class London call girl, Belle de Jour. And reality is a major player in the story. While it definitely shows the sexy, entertaining, soft- core- pornographic side of Belle's work, it also shows her as a thoughtful, quirky character, someone who basically likes her job but has issues with how it affects her non-working life. And in these early stages of the show, it’s not yet clear how that conflict is going to play out.

In fact, in the first five minutes of the first episode, Belle puts it this way, in what may amount to the show's mission statement: "There are as many different kinds of working girl as there are kinds of people, so you can't generalize. But I can tell you about me."

And that, folks, is what I've been waiting to see in mass- media depictions of non- mainstream sex. Not role models; not shiny happy people with perfect lives. Just people: people who want freedom and who want security, people who love sex and who are cautious about its power, people who think carefully about their sex lives and who make hasty, impulsive decisions about it. People who aren't based on stereotypes or formulas, and whose actions can't always be predicted.

Like I said, I'm still reserving judgment on both programs. I'm waiting to see whether "Swingtown" goes for the easy and predictable arc of seduction and ruination -- which it might be doing -- or whether it goes for a more complex, ups and downs, plusses and minuses vibe -- which it might also be doing. I'm waiting to see if "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" comes up with any real analysis of sex work, or just winds up showing pretty pictures of sexy people.

But the point is that I'm waiting. So far, both shows have been about human beings, every bit as unpredictable as non- fictional human beings are. And I'm just going to have to watch, and wait, to find out what happens next.

Which is one of the biggest compliments I can pay to any show on TV.

---

Update: I originally wrote this review a couple of months ago, when both shows were pretty new and I was all giddy with excitement about them. Now that the first seasons of both shows are over, here's my sober, better- informed opinion.

"Swingtown": I'm enjoying this show a fair amount. Not as much as I'd like to be, mind you... but a fair amount. The plotting tends strongly towards the soapy, and much of the time the dialogue is, shall we say, rather less than sparkling. But the characters are interesting and complicated and human. And it's easily the smartest and most sympathetic treatment of non-monogamy on prime- time network that I've ever seen. It's actually one of the smartest and most sympathetic treatments of non-monogamy that I've seen in any pop-culture venue. It's not all sunshine and roses -- it wouldn't be much of a drama if it were -- but the sexual mistakes and conflicts are human, and understandable, and presented with a surprising lack of purse-lipped judgment.

And I love, love, love the fact that, of all the three main couples in the story, the happiest, most loving, most connected, most shit- together- having -- by a long shot -- is the swinger couple. When the show first began, I thought its moral center was Susan and Bruce, the newcomers dipping their toes into the world of swinging and unconventional sex. But it isn't. If the show has a moral center, it's Tom and Trina... the hard-core swinging veterans and evangelists.

And that, I wasn't expecting.

Which is kind of what it comes down to for me with this show. The dialog is often on the flat and cheesy side; the plotting often leans toward both the soap opera and the after- school special. But ultimately, it's unpredictable. It keeps surprising me: not with its stupid curve- ball plot complications (which are legion, alas), but with characters who keep turning out to be more complicated and multi-layered than you'd expected. I wish I liked it better than I do; I wish I could rave about it unreservedly and tell you all to rush out and watch every episode. But like I said in my original review, the characters are human; and I've come to care about them; and I want to see what they're going to do next.

In summary: Execution, 6.5. Content, 8.5.

"Secret Diary of a Call Girl": This definitely isn't as deep or serious as "Swingtown." It's lighter, it's shinier, it's fluffier, it's way more about the soft-core sex. (For a show about swinging, there's surprisingly little sex in "Swingtown." "Swingtown" may be more serious than "Secret Diary..." but "Secret Diary" is rather more fun to watch.)

But again, I'm sucked in. The characters -- especially the main character, Belle -- are complicated and human, and they stayed complicated and human throughout the course of the season. And the show does an excellent job of presenting sex work as a positive career choice that a smart person with choices might reasonably make... without sugar- coating the real problems that the choice can create.

And it's really, really pretty.

Like with "Swingtown," I'm a tad disappointed. It's not quite all that it should be or could be. But again, I'm sucked in. And happily so. I'm not completely blown away -- the show isn't "Buffy" or "Six Feet Under," neither one of these shows is -- but it has a lot of surprises up its sleeve, and I'm definitely watching to see what happens next.

And for a show about sex work -- for a show about any kind of unconventional sexuality -- that is pretty darned high praise.

Execution, 8. Content, 6.5.

Gratitude For Small Favors: "Evolve: Sex" (The Blowfish Blog)

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's a review of the "Sex" episode of the new History Channel series, "Evolve"... and it talks about why, despite a number of complaints I have about the program's handling of sex, I'm overall giving it a thumbs-up. It's called Gratitude For Small Favors: "Evolve: Sex," and here's the teaser:

I suppose I should be grateful.

And I am grateful.

But it's a bit sad that I should be grateful about something that should be ridiculously obvious -- and ridiculously common.

I'm grateful for this: On the History Channel's series "Evolve," on the episode about sex, they say the word "penis."

Several times. Casually, matter- of- factly, as if they were saying the word "jaw" or "kidney." When they say, "The penis is a good example of convergent evolution," they could just as easily have been saying, "The eye is a good example of convergent evolution."

Ditto with the words "intercourse," "sperm," "sex organs," "climax," "ejaculate," and more.

And, of course, the word "sex" itself.

To find out more about why I liked this show despite my complaints about it -- and what exactly those complaints are -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

The Eroticism of the Olympics, and the Inherent Hotness of Variety: The Blowfish Blog

Please note: This post, and the post it links to, discusses my personal sexuality and sexual practices -- not at great length, but in a certain amount of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read about that stuff will probably want to skip this post.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about the eroticism of the Olympics, and the astonishing variety of beautiful forms that the bodies of top-level athletes come in... a variety that, in and of itself, I find erotic. It's called The Eroticism of the Olympics, and the Inherent Hotness of Variety, and here's the teaser:

It’s all too common in our culture to mistake athleticism for body fascism. “Physically fit” is too often used as a euphemism for “approaching a single ideal of perfection that all bodies are supposed to aspire to.” I’ve fallen into that trap myself: I’ve definitely felt lumpy and out of place at the gym as a chubby middle-aged lady in a weight room full of Venuses and Adonises. (It doesn’t help that I work out at a university gym, populated largely by grad students in their twenties.)

But watching the Olympics is a lovely, sexy reminder that even top-level physical fitness comes in a delightful variety of forms.

To find out more, read the rest of the post. Enjoy!

A Parade of Weird Little Worlds: Why I Like The Olympics

Ingrid and I are not, generally speaking, sports fans. To put it mildly. (I had a brief stretch of fairly serious baseball fandom in the late '80s and early '90s, but I fell out of the habit in the strike of '94, and never got back into it.)

And yet, we are getting completely sucked into the Olympics.

I've been thinking about why.

Yes, we're watching the gymnastics and a couple of the other big-ticket events (diving is always a good time). And yes, I'm watching women's wrestling, for reasons that should be obvious. But mostly I'm being a big old dilettante, and am watching bits and pieces of the largely unsung sports.

Archery. Fencing. Badminton. Table tennis. Synchronized swimming and trampoline are coming up later this week, and I can't wait.

I'm having a ball with this.

Some of it is that it's always a good time to watch people doing something -- anything at all -- really, really well. The look of pure concentration on a person's face when they're deeply immersed in something they passionately love and are extraordinarily good at... it's one of the most beautiful sights there is.

And, of course, some of it is the two-week parade of beautiful athletic bodies in tight, skimpy outfits. My libidinal interest varies from sport to sport (sky-high for divers and female wrestlers, almost nil for weightlifters and female gymnasts), but I can't be the only erotic connoisseur/ drooling pervert who's getting off on this.

But most of it is this:

One of the things I love best about human beings is the way we create these weird little worlds for ourselves. The world of competitive ballroom dancing. Of model train building. Of comic book enthusiasts. Show dog owners. Historical recreation societies. Contra dancing. Atheist blogging. These worlds always call to mind for me a line from Dave Barry: "There's a fine line between a hobby and mental illness." Yet at the same time, they call to mind that line from the teenage kid from "Trekkies": "People tell me to get a life. Well, I have a life. This is a hobby. And having hobbies is part of having a life."

There are anthropologists and neurologists and evolutionary biologists who think that the human brain evolved to deal with about 100 or 150 other people, tops, and I'm convinced that the forming of these weird little worlds is a way of narrowing down the dauntingly enormous and increasingly interconnected global village into something a bit more manageable.

I love that each of these weird little worlds has not just its own skills and trends and passions, but its own gossip, its own politics, its own scandals and controversies. I love how immersed people get in our weird little worlds: how the issues of historically accurate shoes at Civil War re-enactments, or gender- balancing at contra dances, can seem like life or death. I love how much time and care and passion people put into these endeavors that will never make them famous or rich or remembered in the larger world, the world outside of a handful of equally demented enthusiasts.

And I love that these worlds have stars and celebrities that nobody on the outside has ever, ever heard of. If you don't do English country dancing, you've almost certainly never heard of Bare Necessities: and yet they are a band with a rabidly devoted following, across the country and around the world. And when Ingrid and I met PZ Myers on a recent visit he made to the Bay Area, we told all our friends about it with bubbly excitement... to be met with almost universal blank stares. (Stares that got even blanker when we explained that he was "a famous biologist and atheist blogger.")

As thousands of pundits have noted before me, the world is becoming ickily homogenous, filled with depressingly interchangeable supermarkets and strip malls, processed foods and chain restaurants. But the weird little worlds of hobbyists and enthusiasts are a bulwark against that tendency. Whenever I despair over humanity losing its quirkiness, all I have to do is read the Carnival of the Godless, or go queer contra dancing, or turn on "Project Runway" and watch the contestants pissing themselves with excitement over some fashion designer I've never heard of.

And what I love about the Olympics is that, for two weeks every four years, I get a peek inside a dozen or so of these worlds.

I love finding out what the strategy is in weightlifting (yes, there's strategy -- I know, it was news to me as well), and that it's forbidden in Olympic weightlifting to lubricate your thighs. I love learning that a round of play in archery is called an "end." I love discovering the existence of a triathlon-style sport that combines running, swimming, fencing, shooting, and equestrian... and learning that it was invented as a narrative of a soldier ordered to deliver a message on horseback.

And I love how intensely immersed the athletes are in their worlds, how hard they work to become so superbly good in them with so little in the way of obvious payoff.

I mean, it's easy to understand why you'd want to be a famous gymnast or a multi- medal- winning swimmer. If you succeed, you actually get a fair degree of fame and fortune in the larger world. But if you sacrifice years of your life to become the absolute top of your game in archery or fencing or badminton, nobody is ever going to know about it but your immediate circle of family and friends, a handful of other archers and fencers and badmintonites... and every four years, some weirdos like me, who could care less about Michael Phelps's eight gold medals but get intensely sucked into the women's saber competition for about fifteen minutes.

I love that they do it anyway.


(P.S. Tivo helps with this a lot, btw. I can't believe I ever watched the Olympics without it. Tivo lets you watch all the weird events you want to watch... and skip the ones you think are boring.)

Ballroom dance photo by Petr Novak, Wikipedia.

On Watching... The Blowfish Blog

Please note: This post, and the post it links to, contain detailed descriptions of my personal sex life and sexual practices. Family members and others who don't want to read about that: This would be a very good post to skip.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about... well, the title on this one is pretty self- explanatory. It's called On Watching The Same Ten-Second TV Spank Scene… Over And Over And Over, and here's the teaser:

It seemed vaguely ridiculous at the time.

It seems even more ridiculous now.

Why -- in a world where I have almost infinite pornographic material at my fingertips -- would I find a ten-second spanking scene in a cable TV comedy series so erotically compelling? Why would I rewind and re-watch it a half a dozen times... and then fetch my vibrator, and watch it a dozen times more?

What is it about sex scenes in non- porno movies and TV shows, novels and comic books, that makes them hot? Not necessarily better than porn; but different, and different in a way that makes them special and exciting?

To find out why and what, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Sex, TV, and Actual Human Beings: "Swingtown" and "Secret Diary of a Call Girl": The Blowfish Blog

Since so many of you responded to my "Sex and the City" review by asking what I thought of "Swingtown," I thought I should oblige. (Hey, I'm always up for a good non sequitur...) I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog: a review of the show, with a review of a second show thrown in for good measure. It's titled Sex, TV, and Actual Human Beings: "Swingtown" and "Secret Diary of a Call Girl", and here's the teaser:

To some extent, I'm reserving judgment on both shows. I've only seen a couple episodes of each, and it's way too early to get into the serious socio- politico- sexual analysis of either one. But it's not too early to say this: I'm watching. I'm curious. I care about the stories and the characters, and I want to see what happens next.

And that's because the characters are -- dare I say it? -- human beings.

Which is an exciting new development in the relationship between alternative sex and television.

To find out more about these exciting new actual human beings, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Barack Obama, and the Stupidity of ABC News

Boy, do I hate TV news.

I happened to watch Barack Obama's speech last night. It was purely by accident -- I was watching "Jeopardy," and the speech broke in as breaking news -- but I was extremely glad I did. My support of Obama is not unmixed, but I found myself surprisingly moved and inspired by his speech, and I haven't felt that way about a politician in a long, long time. And I'm enough of a bleeding- heart liberal to feel a thrill of pride at the fact that America is nominating an African- American as the nominee for President in a major party. It was an historic moment, and I was glad to have witnessed it. (I'll feel a lot more pride if he gets elected in November.)

But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

I was watching the speech on ABC News. Again, simply by accident: I'd been watching "Jeopardy" when it came on, and just kept it on that channel. The first part of the speech wasn't very substantive: fairly typical Obama stuff about hope and the future, unity and healing, the wonderfulness of the American people. Inspiring, some of it, and it certainly seemed heartfelt... but there wasn't a lot of there there.

But then he started talking about John McCain. He started talking about the specific, significant ways that his policies and proposals differed from those of McCain.

And at that point -- roughly half a sentence into Obama switching from vague hopeful platitudes to specific policies -- ABC cut in.

They kept the speech on. But they turned down the volume, and put George Stephanopoulos and some other yahoo on the screen. They switched over from airing Obama's speech... to airing ABC's commentary on the speech, with the speech itself burbling along in the background like Muzak.

I was furious. I sat there stunned for a minute, waiting for them to shut the hell up and get back to the speech. And as soon as it became clear that they weren't going to do that any time soon, I frantically scrambled for the remote, and switched over to CNN as fast as my fingers could fly. I was so glad I did, of course: it was an amazing speech, and it did, in fact, go into quite a few specifics about what Obama cares about. And -- whaddya know? -- a lot of what he cares about are the things I care about. Education; global warming; health care; science; an end to the war in Iraq. And he spoke about these things with both intellect and passion -- a combination that is way the hell too rare in American politics. I still have a few mixed feelings about him, I still don't think he's the second coming of John F. Kennedy, but I am now totally on board.

But the more inspired I got by his speech, the angrier I got at ABC News.

What the hell were they thinking?

The tinfoil- hat conspiracy theory part of my brain kept asking: Is this deliberate? Are they trying to play the "Obama is inspiring but doesn't have any policy specifics or detailed plans" story, and the "here is precisely where my proposals differ from those of my opponent" part of Obama's speech doesn't fit into that narrative... so they edit it out?

Or -- and in many ways this is worse -- are they just totally tone- deaf? Do they really think that their talking- heads analysis of Obama's speech is more important and more interesting than the speech itself? Do they really think that this historic occasion -- what amounted to the acceptance speech of the first African- American major- party candidate for President of the United States -- deserved, at most, a couple/few minutes of sound bite, before the really important business of George Stephanopoulos gassing on?

Did they really think that, at this moment in history, what George Stephanopoulos had to say was more interesting and important than what Barack Obama had to say?

I don't know how long they kept it up. Like I said, I switched over to CNN as fast as my fingers could get me there, and I stayed there for the rest of the speech. But I don't care. The fact that they did it at all, even if it was just for a minute or two, shows an insensitivity so appalling that it verges into flat- out racism. And it was a pitch- perfect example of what is wrong with political discourse in this country. Political news in this country consists largely of brief, sound- bite snippets from the actual candidates and newsmakers and people in government... sandwiched in between endless hours of yammering from reporters and pundits and opinion- makers, until the meta-news, the news about the news, becomes more important than the news itself.

And yes, I'm aware of the irony of me gassing on about this, engaging in this sort of meta-commentary and acting as if my opinion is important. True, I'm not interrupting a broadcast of a major speech to tell you what I think about it, but still. So you know? Go watch the speech. It's much more interesting, and much more important, than anything I have to say about it.

The Necessity of Humor: Battlestar Galactica

As insanely observant readers of this blog may have noticed, I've recently started watching "Battlestar Galactica." (I haven't seen any of this season yet -- I'm midway through Season 2 on the DVDs, for once I'm going to watch a TV series in order -- so please don't give anything away.) I like the show a lot so far. It's everything the critics and fans say it is: it's smart, imaginative, well-written, richly detailed, emotionally and morally complex.

But as much as I'm enjoying it, I can already tell that it's never going to be one of my all-time favorite TV shows. It's never going to be, say, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," or "The Simpsons," or "The Office." I'm not going to watch it again and again; I'm not going to read books on its philosophical/ sociological/ political perspective; I'm not going to watch every director's commentary, or indeed any of them. I'm not even 100% sure that I'm going to watch the rest of the series. I like it, I respect it... but it's lacking something that I find essential in a long- running narrative.

It's lacking humor.

The problem isn't that it's dark. Some of my favorite TV shows have been very dark indeed. "Buffy" is dark. "Six Feet Under" is dark. And while it's technically a comedy (and is in fact very funny), I think "The Office" is one of the darkest things that's ever been put on television. But all of these shows brought the funny as well: sometimes in the form of comic relief, sometimes woven into the darkness so closely the two were indistinguishable, but passionately, and skillfully, and in generous doses.

And to me, that's essential.

It's not just that humor makes a dark story bearable, offering relief and making it easier to watch. That's true; but other things offer this as well. (Sex, for instance... which "Battlestar Galactica" has in trumps.)

It's that humor is a central part of life.

Humor is one of the main pillars that supports us; one of the main nutrients that sustains us; one of the main threads running through our lives. Even in dark times. Heck, especially in dark times. The ability to laugh and make jokes in a sad, frightening, terrible time is crucial. It gives us strength. It gives us perspective. It reminds us of why the bad times are worth getting through. There are times in my life that I can't even begin to imagine having weathered without my sick, morbid, fucked-up sense of humor.

To spend literally years telling a sprawling, wide-ranging, ensemble-cast story without exploring humor is overlooking a fundamental reality of what makes us human. It's like overlooking love, or conflict, or fear, or friendship. It's not just a disservice to the audience. It's a disservice to the characters. Humor doesn't just make a dark story easier to watch. It makes a dark story ring more true.

I'm not saying that every narrative -- every novel, every film, every ballad, every graphic novel -- has to have humor. They don't. I've read/ seen/ heard some wonderful, completely satisfying ones that haven't. But a long-running television show is different. If your show is an hour-long drama, you have about twenty hours a year, and you have it over the course of (hopefully) several years. It's a unique art form, with a uniquely large scope. To spend that much time telling a story and still leave out the humor is like, I don't know, spending all day cooking Thanksgiving dinner and leaving out dessert. It can be a delicious dinner, but it still leaves you feeling like you aren't quite full... even if you ate for hours.

Star Trek Meets Monty Python, or, The Geekiest Thing in the Universe This Week

Oh, my sweet Loki.

I am speechless.

It's a montage of video clips from Star Trek (Original Series), arranged to the "Camelot" song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

And I am embarassed to admit that it's the funniest thing I've seen all week. Not to mention how embarassed I am to admit that I recognized almost every one of the clips. My geek badge of shame is shining brightly this week.

Video below the fold (since putting it above the fold mucks up my archives).

The Simpsons Church Sign Generator

I ran across this when I was hunting for images to illustrate my Non-Science of Intelligent Design piece. It's unbelievably nifty, and I thought I should share the wealth and the glory.

It's the Simpsons Church Sign Generator.

It's a website/ widget that lets you put any text you want onto the sign in front of the Simpsons church. Blasphemy, obscenity, stupid jokes, football scores, total gibberish -- whatever you want. As long as the text fits... and you can change the font size, so it's fairly easy to get longer or shorter text fitting snugly into the sign.

Like this:



Or this, from the Duelling Billboards comment thread (thanks, Mark!):

Or this, inspired by my cat's newfound worship of the Norse gods:

I've used other image generators before for this blog -- most notably a gravestone generator and a newspaper headline generator. But this one totally takes the prize, and I suspect that you'll be seeing a lot of it in the months to come.

BTW, the Simpsons Church Sign Generator site does link to some regular Church Sign Generator sites as well, using photographs of actual church signs as their templates. But somehow, that doesn't seem right to me. I don't like having words put in my mouth, and I don't feel right putting my words in the mouth of actual, literal churches.

I am, however, perfectly happy to put my words in the mouth of the Reverend Lovejoy. Fictional ministers seem like fair game to me.

So go forth and spread the gospel of the Good Reverend Lovejoy. Whatever you decide that is. And if you put your own made-up Simpsons church signs on your blog, please drop me a comment and let me know.

GOP Candidates and Buffy Villains: Separated At Birth?

If you're not a Buffy fan, you probably won't get this at all. If you are a Buffy fan, do not imbibe liquids while reading this, as you will spit them all over your keyboard.

It's The GOP Primary Field in Buffy Villains -- a guide to the Republican Presidential candidates, explaining them by comparing them to villains from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

My very favorite is Fred Thompson as The Judge: "His backers got all excited and made a big effort to assemble him. When they finally put him together, he turned out to be a lethargic mess and didn't accomplish very much."

And there's quite a bit of debate over where to put Rudy Giuliani. It's a toughie, but after giving it way too much thought, here's my suggestion:

Illyria.

Constantly obsessing about a moment of glory in his past, to the point where it's become pathetic. Convinced that this past moment of glory still makes him impressive and intimidating and worthy of respect... and prone to getting very agitated when people don't share this opinion. Nowhere near as powerful as he used to be, but still a threat. Not completely incapable of human feeling, but ultimately craven and self-centered.

What are y'all's thoughts? And what about the Dems? What Buffy villains -- or flawed heroes -- are they?

And thanks to Rebecca for the tip!

A Reality Show About Art: Project Runway

It's somewhat alarming how quickly this happened.

I went from catching the last half hour of a rerun on the TV at the gym, to obsessively Tivoing every new episode plus every rerun from every single season that has ever aired... in the space of about four weeks.

I've sucked Ingrid into it as well. And we have totally gone to the bad place, watching hours-long marathons and even renting the season we missed on Netflix. In a matter of a few weeks, this silly reality show has become like "The Daily Show" or "The Office" -- one of the very few TV shows that I never, ever want to miss.

So here's the thing about this show, the thing you might not be expecting, the thing that surprised the hell out of me:

"Project Runway" is actually smart and interesting.

Yes, it's fun, entertaining, easy-to-swallow pop culture fluff. But it's fun, entertaining, easy-to-swallow pop culture fluff with some thought and substance behind it, and with perspective and light to shed on the reality of the human world.

Maybe I'm just rationalizing. But I don't think so. And I have backup for my opinion. I mean, the whole reason I watched the damn show at the gym in the first place was that I'd read more than one article, by more than one smart and thoughtful TV or culture critic, with a headline reading something like, "Project Runway: Actually A Good TV Show."

Subhead: "No, Really. Stop Laughing. I'm Serious."

So here's my Grand Theory of what I think makes "Project Runway" smart and interesting:

It's a reality show about art.

Atheism in Pop Culture Part 7: The Motherlode

Ted Williams and Nina Hartley. David Cronenberg and Dave Barry. Brian Eno and Barry Manilow. Joss Whedon and Andy Rooney. Sarah Vowell and Ted Turner.

All atheists.

I've found the "atheism in pop culture" motherlode, people. It's the Celebrity Atheist List, "an offbeat collection of notable individuals who have been public about their lack of belief in deities."

And it's hilarious.

It's just such a fascinating mish-mosh. I'd be hard pressed to find any other characteristic that all these people have in common, apart from being carbon-based humanoid life forms.

I mean -- Barry Manilow?

Really?

And that's what I like about it. It's such a rich vein of counter-examples to the stereotype of atheists as sad, hopeless, amoral, unpatriotic, self-centered nihilists who only live for ourselves and only live for the moment.

After all, are you really going to call Dave Barry sad and hopeless? Andy Rooney unpatriotic? Studs Terkel nihilistic? Salman Rushdie self-centered and amoral? Did Pat Tillman live only for himself? Does Barbara Ehrenreich live only for the moment?

Plus it's just hilarious. I mean -- Mickey Dolenz and Ingmar Bergman! Jean-Luc Godard and Ani DiFranco! Ray Romano and Marie Curie! Noam Chomsky and Bjork!

Hours of time-wasting fun. Check it out. And tell me who your favorites are!

Why Religion Is Like Fanfic

I was reading some unusually wacky Christian theology in Disinformation's new book, Everything You Know About God Is Wrong (more on the book when I'm done with it -- the thing is great, but it's huge). Specifically: In the Middle Ages, there was all this theology about the immaculate conception virgin birth and how exactly Mary got impregnated by God, with several theologians putting forth the theory that -- get this -- the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary in her ear.

No, really. In her ear.

What's more, there's other theology of the period seriously discussing the question of how, physically, Jesus was born. Did he just teleport out of Mary's womb, or was he born out of her ear (since he was conceived there, after all), or what?

Because, after all, the pussy is a disgusting, putrid font of sin and evil, and God would never go there. Or be born out of there.

But I digress.

I was reading this, and I was suddenly struck with how familiar it all seemed.

It reads exactly like fan-written blueprints for the Enterprise in "Star Trek." Or fan-written explanations for discrepancies in star dates, or why the Enterprise has completely reliable lie detectors that they only use in three episodes.

"Its offspring made small mewling sounds": Edward Gorey's "The Trouble With Tribbles"

This made me laugh harder than anything else all week.

It's a... I don't even know how to say what it is. Shaenon K. Garrity, a fan of Edward Gorey and Star Trek, discovered that the former had been a fan of the latter, and created this imagining -- essentially a fanfic mash-up in comic form -- of what Gorey would have done with "The Trouble With Tribbles."

The drawing doesn't quite have Gorey's touch (who does?), but it's pretty darned good, with some very Gorey-esque compositions -- and the writing is dead-on. Absolutely not to be missed.

Note to the artist: Gorey was also a Buffy fan. Can we get a mash-up of "Band Candy" next? Please please please please please?

Via Making Light, and also via my friend Rebecca.

Showtime's "Californication": Well, There's Promiscuous and There's Promiscuous

You'd think I'd be irritated by it.

You'd think that Little Miss Sex-Positive Culture Critic would be foaming at the mouth. Another goddamn pop-culture depiction of promiscuity and casual sex as a sign of immaturity and instability and low self-esteem. You'd think I'd have my boilerplate rant all ready to go.

But I'm not. I don't. I've only seen one episode of "Californication" so far -- but so far I love it. And I'm dying to see more.

Quick precis, for those who haven't seen it: "Californication" is a new series on Showtime, starring David Duchovny as Hank, a messed-up writer in Los Angeles with writer's block, a divorce he's unhappy about, a whole passel of emotional problems, and a good book that got turned into a lousy movie. He has a passive, bemused, almost happy-go-lucky attitude about the life that's going down the toilet… and he deals with, or doesn't deal with, his despair and fucked-up-edness with casual, wildly promiscuous sex.

Now, I've definitely had a bellyful of the "casual promiscuous sex as sign of emotional problems" trope. I've seen it dozens, maybe even hundreds of times, and a big part of me never wants to see it again.

But I'm cutting "Californication" a whole lot of slack. It's smart, and it's funny... and most importantly, it's obviously trying to be true. And it's obviously trying to be true, not just about life in general, but about sex in particular.

I was pretty much sold in the first five minutes. I don't think I've ever seen a TV show that featured, in the first five minutes of the first scene of the premiere episode, a conversation about the clit. Where it is; where it isn't, how to find it; what to do about men who can't find it. That sort of thing. (Oh, they probably talked about it on "Sex in the City." I'm guessing: I never made it through more than two episodes of that damn show. But "Californication" makes the glib, smirking fakitude of "Sex in the City" look like... well, glib, smirking fakitude. It puts it to shame.)

And I've definitely never seen a TV show with a conversation about the clit that was anywhere near this funny. I love the moment where Hank and the woman he's going down on are about to be caught by her lousy-lover husband, and he says, "Well, maybe I should hide under your clit. He'll never find me there." (And I love even more the scene where he gives the enraged husband a lesson on female sexual anatomy.)

It just gets better from there. I'm tempted to tell you all the good bits, all the funny and freaky and trenchant sexual moments. I'm tempted to describe all the scenes where Hank's sexual passivity, sexual vengefulness, and honest desire for sexual pleasure and connection, come crashing together in a snarky, detached emotional mosh pit. I'm tempted to describe how he uses both his fame and his self-deprecation about his fame to get women to tumble into bed with him. I'm tempted to describe his defensive unease about his daughter's emerging sexuality, and thus her emergence into a world full of asshole men like him.

But I don't want to spoil it for you. I'll leave it at this so I can move on: This is a TV show that is intelligent about sex, funny about sex, perceptive about sex... and, as far as I can tell, trying really hard to be true about sex.

Which brings me back to the whole sex-positive thing.

I'm not an idiot. I get that drama requires conflict, and a TV show about a casually promiscuous guy who's overall pretty happy with his life and doesn't have any real problems would make for some profoundly boring drama. And I'm not an idiot, Part 2: I get that sex is complicated and messy and irrational, and that people don't always handle it very well. As much as I hate the narrow, luridly moralistic vision of sex that pop culture usually hands us, I'm not looking for sex-positive propaganda either.

Of course I'd like to see more genuinely positive images of sex in popular culture. But much more importantly, I'd like to see more sexual truth in popular culture. Sex-positivity isn't about being a cheerleader for sex, all sex, all the time. Sex-positivity is about seeing sex as an essential part of human life: as diverse as the human race, as ecstatic and sad and absurd as the people who are doing it.

And that's exactly what "Californication" does.

At least in the first episode. I can't wait to see more.

My New Favorite Picture

This...

is the best thing...

ever.

It's absolutely my new favorite picture of myself. I want to make it my new primary photo on my blog. I want it to be my author photo on my next book. I want it carved on my gravestone.

It's me as a character on the Simpsons.

It really looks astonishingly like me, I think. Except that I never wear my hair in a headband.

You can get your own here. And if you do, will you please please please please tell me? If you have a blog or website of your own, post the link in the comments. Or else just email me the jpg, to greta at gretachristina dot com. Maybe I'll Photoshop together a group portrait!

P.S. I want that T-shirt!

(Via Friendly Atheist, who is my new favorite atheist blogger for finding this thing.)

The Jasmine Episodes: Atheism (and Anti-Theocracy) in Pop Culture

Warning: This post contains significant Buffy the Vampire Slayer content. However, I think it'll be of interest to non-Buffy fans. If I'm wrong, and you read it anyway... well, that's five minutes of your life that you're never getting back. Them's the breaks.

I was watching the Jasmine story arc of "Angel" recently (for those who aren't familiar with the show, "Angel" was the spinoff series of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"). And it suddenly struck me, in that "Duh, I am an idiot, I can't believe I didn't think of this before" way:

This story is about religion.

From a pretty harsh atheist viewpoint. (Joss Whedon, the creator of the shows, is in fact an atheist -- and not just an atheist, but a self-described "hard-line, angry atheist.") The whole story is about why it's harmful to believe in a deity that isn't real, even if believing makes you happy. It's about what, precisely, makes religion in general and theocracy in particular troubling at best and destructive at worst. And it's about how religion has an inherent tendency to turn into theocracy given the opportunity -- all religion, even a happy and blissful religion with a message of love and peace.

Here's what happens in the story arc. (WARNING -- SPOILER ALERT.) A powerful magical creature, Jasmine, comes into the human world. She's born/brings herself into existence under extremely dubious circumstances (including possession, human sacrifice, and the manipulation of human history, among other things) -- but when she springs fully formed into being, everyone who sees her is instantly filled with peace and bliss, love of one another and acceptance of themselves and the world... and a passionate desire to worship her. All the pain and suffering that had to happen in order for her to come into the world are explained as birth pains, and even the people who were injured the most by the process of her creation immediately love and worship her when they see her. And her power and influence grow exponentially, as more and more people become aware of her and worship her.

But there are problems. Jasmine's spell is blissful, but it's deceptive, and although her followers see her as a beautiful goddess, the reality is that she's a hideous monster with worms crawling out of her decaying flesh.

Also, while she seems to genuinely want peace and love in the world, she also expects, and insists on, unquestioning obedience and devotion.

Also, she eats people.

A small number of people see Jasmine's real face -- and these people quickly become outcasts, violently hated by believers, having to hide and even go underground. Soon the bulk of Jasmine's energy that's not going towards spreading the word and building her numbers is going towards finding and destroying non-believers -- a task she accomplishes by turning her followers into fanatical spies, filled with violent, venomous hatred towards the non-believers. Jasmine's spell is finally broken when the story's hero discovers her true name and reveals it to the world

So let's look at this story's atheist viewpoint on religion and theocracy.

Okay, duh. But I want to break it down anyway.

One: It's better to know the truth then to hold a false belief, even if that makes you happy. This is a morally and emotionally complicated message, and the story doesn't shy away from it: the pain people feel when they lose their belief, and their moral conflict at trying to take that belief away from others. But while many of the story's other points serve to support this position, it also seems to be a basic moral tenet -- truth is a fundamental good, pretty much no matter what. Even if it makes you feel bad in the short run, it is almost always better in the long and even medium run.

Two: It's important to know the truth -- because holding false beliefs makes you susceptible to being manipulated and deceived in other ways. People under Jasmine's blissful, loving spell will do anything for her -- burn down their beloved bookstore, turn against their dearest friends and hunt them down like dogs, allow themselves to be eaten. Jasmine's will is seen by her believers as good by definition... and everything else, every perception and human connection and moral position, gets twisted to fit that unquestionable axiom.

Three:

Religion has a natural tendency to turn into theocracy.

When the stability and peace of a society is built on the foundation of a false belief, nothing is more important than perpetuating that belief, and stamping out non-belief. A society built on reality and truth and evidence can be questioned... but a society built on a false belief -- or even an unproven and unprovable belief -- has to bolster that belief, or else it will crumble. So as soon as a religious belief system gains a foothold and acquires any real social or political power, that power will be turned towards (a) spreading the faith and (b) stamping out non-belief.

There are certainly religious individuals who are comfortable and happy with other people not sharing their belief. But there aren't bloody many religious institutions who are comfortable and happy with that... and the ones that are tend not to be very powerful. (Compare, for instance, the numbers and political power of the Southern Baptists to that of, say, the Quakers.) And the institutional refusal to allow a belief to be questioned naturally leads to evangelism, repression of dissent, and the consolidation of social and political power.

In other words -- theocracy.

This is my entry in the Blogswarm Against Theocracy.

Homer the Vampire Slayer

If you've seen even one or two Buffy episodes and vaguely remember the opening credit sequence, I think you'll be tickled by this. And if you're a rabid fan of both Buffy and The Simpsons, I think you'll bust a gut laughing. FYI, you do have to have your sound on for it to be even remotely funny. Enjoy! (And thanks to Jocelyn for the tip. Keep those cards and letters coming, people!)

Fingertips! Buffy the Vampire Slayer and They Might Be Giants

If you're not a fan of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and They Might Be Giants, this will probably make absolutely no sense to you at all. But if you are, you're going to love it. A friend sent it to me: it's called "21 Vidlets About Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and it... well, just enjoy.

I think my favorite is "What's that blue thing doing here?"

Biochemistry with the Celebrity Stars! (Hilarious Video Week Part 1)

The last week has been Hilarious Video Week at some of my favorite blogs. So I'm going to share some of them. This one comes via Pharyngula, and it (a) made me laugh uncontrollably, and (b) got me strangely hot. (Video below the fold.)

Dream diary, 5/21/06: Cream pie and Star Trek

Dream #1: I dreamed that Ingrid was teaching me how to make a cream pie filling out of frozen waffles, Cool Whip, and frozen fish. It was important that you use the right kind of frozen fish, and you had to use two different kinds. The filling was suprisingly tasty, but somewhat bland, and Ingrid was explaining how to add flavor -- there was a complicated formula, things like "To make it taste like blueberries, you have use coffee."

Dream #2: I was trying to convince the buyers at my job (Last Gasp, the small press/alternative book and comic distributor) that we had to carry every Star Trek magazine that was published, and to take all of them to all the book conventions we attended.

I seem to be dreaming a lot lately about food and pop culture. I don't know what this means.

Dream diary, 3/14/06: Buffy vs. Voldemort

I dreamed that Voldemort was preparing his final attack to take over the world, but instead of being fought by Harry Potter and company, he was being fought by Buffy and her gang (a gang which included me and a few of my friends). Voldemort's attack was going to be launched from Central Park in New York, down near the museums, so the Buffy gang gathered on a street corner at around 75th and Central Park West to prepare for battle.

There were about a dozen of us, and we started to discuss tactics, but Voldemort's followers began pouring into Central Park -- there were thousands of them, marching naked in a zombie-like trance along the park's trails and converging into the center of the park -- and we realized that we hadn't actually made a battle plan, and had no idea how to fight an army of this size with this degree of organization. We all sort of shrugged and said, "Oh, well, I'm sure we'll win, we always do," and barged into the park, but were captured almost immediately and imprisoned in a little shack behind the Metropolitan Museum.

We could see Voldemort's army prepare for battle through the shack's windows -- they had now split into two groups, half still naked and half with skin-tight black body armor, and they were pairing off and morphing together into these weird mutant battle-horses. The Buffy gang was starting to get worried, but mostly we were standing around the shack pretty casually, going, "Well, I'm sure we'll think of something."

I think this dream is about George W. Bush and the Democrats. But I'm not sure how the Metropolitan Museum and the mutant battle-horses fit in.