It seems you overlooked the significance of this:

Probably not — not really — I mean, once she got to that age, she and I would have had more than a few converstions by then about sex and its ramifications; I would trust her.

The only thing I can conclude is that, since it effectively takes the wind out of the entire first half of your response, you chose to ignore it in the name of scoring rhetorical points. (”I know you said you would trust her and have talked with her about sex, but if you do have a daughter, I would hope that you would go over the uses of Vaseline and pornography with her as much as you would with a male child. Too few women are raised by parents that embrace their sexualities.” … no, that wouldn’t have been anyhere near as effective, would it? And I’d be recommending Astroglide, not Vaseline and not K-Y. It’s a much better lubricant.)

I’m guessing you also managed to overlook the comments I made on Barbie, since you seem to be so willing to assume I’m unable to recognize the intellectual worth of girls or women.

And no, FTR, boys and girls cannot “be raised the exact same way”; boys don’t get pregnant and generally don’t need HPlV inoculations. They also don’t have to worry about missing a date on the cycle and what it could mean; they don’t have to face the fear of back-alley abortions in an increasingly right-wing world full of drooling cretins; and they don’t have the right to show fear or sorrow. Whether you like it or not there are differences in the genders; recognizing and relating to those differences is, I think, more sensible than claiming those differences don’t exist.

I think what surprises me most is the arrogance required for you to tell me that I shouldn’t be a father until I meet your standards. The stunning self-assurance is truly astounding; you seem to think I have issues (and I might), but you have obviously failed to pay attention to virtually every other thing I’ve blogged in the last seven months. That is a level of singlemindedness which suggests I am not the one who needs to wake up and self-actualize; I am not the one who has come to a conclusion based solely upon two hundred words of another’s writing, an offhand comment that in context says very little about me but, reacted to, suggests worlds of information about you. As close readings go, your choice of passages from my ouevre is very poor.

Disagree with me as much as you like. I’m a big boy and I can take it. And I expect you to handle my ripostes as the big girl you are. So do me a favor and don’t assume I’m smacking you down in my space just to show what a Big Man I am. Smack back.

Finally, in the future you might want to be a little more careful before you start hurling around words like “sexist”, or you may find terms such as “belligerent” being applied to yourself.

]]> http://indigestible.nightwares.com/2007/02/16/if-i-had-a-son/#comment-606 lurker Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:47:20 +0000 http://indigestible.nightwares.com/2007/02/16/if-i-had-a-son/#comment-606 1. Who cares if you daughter copulates at the age of 15? Who even cares about that stuff anymore? If you are not religious, there should be no reason why sex isn't OK. It's just sticky parts rubbing together. The ONLY real threat is disease, as long as she knows how to use hormonal contraceptive. And that risk exists for males as much as females. Plus, if you are afraid of a hypothetical daughter being taken advantage of, please be equally afraid that your son will take advantage of another person's daughter. Maybe you should threaten to castrate your own (hypothetical) son lest he de-virginize somebody's daughter. You could keep him locked up inside the house, you know. I think it's interesting that humans decided that it's a good idea to keep tigers, lions, criminals and the like locked away, but instead of keeping those predatorial sons locked away, they keep their daughters locked away. 2. If you do have a daughter, I would hope that you would go over the uses of Vaseline and pornography with her as much as you would with a male child. Too few women are raised by parents that embrace their sexualities. Instead, they talk about menses and consider that the sum total of what females go through in puberty. Please tell me that you won't raise a son with the same attitudes you have. Please, don't have children until you consider female and male children to be equally worthy of your attention. Until you would consider a female child for your first child, I think you shouldn't raise a male child. He WILL pick up on your sexisms and turn out to be sexist himself. Yes, I am a feminist in that I advocate for the equality of the sexes. That is not my primary occupation, however. I am an electrical engineering PhD student at a prestigious university. I am lucky in that my father had no sons, so he was forced to teach me (a GIRL!) stuff like soldering, fishing, fixing stuff, backpacking, tying knots, navigating, math, quantum physics, etc... (lest you think my mother is a slacker, she taught me literature, music, cooking, swimming, bodysurfing, and philosophy) When you stop thinking about "girls" and "boys" as being so freaking different, you will find that they can be raised the exact same way. We are all human, and internal genitalia vs. external genitalia doesn't matter nearly as much as how we are raised. So many of my (90% male) friends tell me that "Oh, you're not like OTHER girls." What they mean is "Gasp! You understand Landau's Fluctuation Dissipation Theorem better than me! Gasp! You get ready faster in the morning than I do! Gasp! You seem like a Guy, but you look like a Girl!". Your son will have attitudes like this unless you get over your weirdness WRT females. 1. Who cares if you daughter copulates at the age of 15? Who even cares about that stuff anymore? If you are not religious, there should be no reason why sex isn’t OK. It’s just sticky parts rubbing together. The ONLY real threat is disease, as long as she knows how to use hormonal contraceptive. And that risk exists for males as much as females. Plus, if you are afraid of a hypothetical daughter being taken advantage of, please be equally afraid that your son will take advantage of another person’s daughter. Maybe you should threaten to castrate your own (hypothetical) son lest he de-virginize somebody’s daughter. You could keep him locked up inside the house, you know. I think it’s interesting that humans decided that it’s a good idea to keep tigers, lions, criminals and the like locked away, but instead of keeping those predatorial sons locked away, they keep their daughters locked away.

2. If you do have a daughter, I would hope that you would go over the uses of Vaseline and pornography with her as much as you would with a male child. Too few women are raised by parents that embrace their sexualities. Instead, they talk about menses and consider that the sum total of what females go through in puberty.

Please tell me that you won’t raise a son with the same attitudes you have. Please, don’t have children until you consider female and male children to be equally worthy of your attention. Until you would consider a female child for your first child, I think you shouldn’t raise a male child. He WILL pick up on your sexisms and turn out to be sexist himself.

Yes, I am a feminist in that I advocate for the equality of the sexes. That is not my primary occupation, however. I am an electrical engineering PhD student at a prestigious university. I am lucky in that my father had no sons, so he was forced to teach me (a GIRL!) stuff like soldering, fishing, fixing stuff, backpacking, tying knots, navigating, math, quantum physics, etc… (lest you think my mother is a slacker, she taught me literature, music, cooking, swimming, bodysurfing, and philosophy)

When you stop thinking about “girls” and “boys” as being so freaking different, you will find that they can be raised the exact same way. We are all human, and internal genitalia vs. external genitalia doesn’t matter nearly as much as how we are raised. So many of my (90% male) friends tell me that “Oh, you’re not like OTHER girls.” What they mean is “Gasp! You understand Landau’s Fluctuation Dissipation Theorem better than me! Gasp! You get ready faster in the morning than I do! Gasp! You seem like a Guy, but you look like a Girl!”. Your son will have attitudes like this unless you get over your weirdness WRT females.

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