I have just one very important question.

When is someone going to make a dry ice that’s not so dry?

I mean, I go to a concert, the music’s just pounding and throbbing, I wanna shout another witty comment to my buddy, the fuckin’ dry ice is spewing in, my throat closes up, I get all hoarse, my eyes get sore, I hack, I cough. Bah! The only good thing about dry ice is it provides cover to disguise in-concert pot-smoking. Which we do appreciate.

Here’s to the fine, fine art of not getting caught.

Can’t someone invent semi-arid ice? No? Bah!

The band was The Kills. Not the Killers, no, The Kills. Came out at the same time, but The Kills are dirty, dirty lo-fi garage rock with very little retro throwback. Edgy, hot, just sweaty, sexy, good, fucking relentless. That’s The Kills in concert. There’s a guy and a girl, and they ooze dirty raw sexuality. They were the first band I found at age 30 that made me feel like 30 was a great thing to be. Keep on Your Mean Side, No Wow, and Midnight Boom are the albums, and all are worth having. Someone asked me a long time ago about good sex music and I kinda dodged the question ‘cos it’s so incredibly subjective, but, y’know, dirty sex and The Kills go hand in hand, man. Why I just love seeing them live. (Three times now, and as many times as they’ll have me.)

Their song Kissy Kissy, which they played tonight and was as fucking hawt as ever, was my inspiration behind a rare work of fiction not-so-originally also called Kissy-Kissy, which I posted way back when I wasn’t sure how I wanted this blog to go, so it was one of the first things I posted. (Then I decided there were enough good erotic fiction authors out there without throwing my hate in that ring, so you got what you got, babycakes.)

You can check The Kills out on their site, which is here, and there’s an MP3 of Kissy-Kissy on the main page, so check that out, too. Their tour is almost over, so I’m sorry if you’ve missed them. Sucks to be you.

Allison and Jamie, thanks for leaving it all on the floor. Another fab gig. And I hurt, all over. Good times. Just what the doctor ordered.

Somewhere in England sits Sue Tilley, a hefty 51-year-old woman, smiling happily, knowing that someone has paid a record $33.6 million for the painting of her lying naked on a couch for artist Lucian Freud.
It’s the most ever paid for a living artist’s work.
And it’s by far the most ever paid for an artwork of a morbidly obese woman.
The way I see it: You’re either a fan of big women and you’re into it that way; You’re repulsed by her and you like it for the shock value; or You’re that rare person that sees it for what it is, a woman unashamed to be herself, as open and vulnerable as the day is long. Then again, maybe you completely dislike it.
Personally, I kind of like it. I doubt I’d pay more than $500 for it, but I like it. $33.6 million? Hey, Mark Rothko makes mondo paint chips that sell for $72.84 million, man.
And I’m all excited when I can afford to spend $60 on a frame for one of my 11x14s. Fuck. Crazy.
Oh, right, we were talking about the proverbial eye of the beholder.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? That this would sell for that? Scandalous, would you say? Here’s what the story on CNN had to say:

The painting challenges modern notions of beauty and elicits a reaction from everyone who sees it. That may have been precisely the aim of Freud, who told London’s Tate Gallery in 2002 that he wanted his paintings to “astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.” Though some regard the painting as shocking — ugly, even — that is also the appeal for collectors, said Michael Hall, editor of Apollo Magazine in London.
“There’s a reaction against art that’s regarded as too pretty,” he said.
Hall said he thinks a more conventionally beautiful painting would not be able to fetch such a large amount.
“It’s the sort of thing that everyone immediately wants to voice an opinion about,” he said of the painting. “It challenges conventional taste … and people do find that rather exciting and interesting to talk about.”

It’s an awful lot to pay for a conversation, don’t you think? But it’s great.
I think the vulnerability is what’s so striking about it. A beautiful woman lying there isn’t taking much of a chance, but an obese woman like that, exposing herself and relaxing, it’s a really unexpected image in this day and age. She knows, we know, that people will be (and are) offended at the site of her.
And who’s got the last laugh this time, hey?
It’s refreshing to know that obesity– something television, magazines, and movies think is too horrific to put on display –has fetched $33.6 million from a single itty-bitty buyer.
Put that in yer pipe and smoke it, Hollywood chumps.

Being the ever-watchful eye I am, I’ve noticed a disconcerting trend amongst the circles I travel in. Like most issues I tackle, this too is neither black nor white; instead, it’s many varying shades of grey…

…Hairs, that is.

My friends and I are now clearly showing we’re older, more damaged goods. Specs of grey appear weekly, like has-beens at the clubs we once frequented.

Now and then I avenge myself, pulling out the tweezers, I pluck the weathered-looking straggling greys out. I’ll usually max out at about 5 or so hairs, which tends to be all I can find (so this is no epidemic here) and then I wander off, pleased with myself that yet again I’ve turned back the hands of time.

Age: Foiled by the sneaky Steff once again! Tune in next week when we see what crafty devices our ever-youthful heroine employs against the dreaded arch-nemesis “Age”!

Weeks will pass before I notice new grey hairs. Conspicuously always in the same region…

Don’t kid yourself: If, in fact, once a hair goes grey, it will always come back grey, thanks to evil-grey follicles, then I don’t want to know! Don’t tell me the truth. Don’t rain on my mostly-non-grey parade. My ignorance is my bliss and I’m coddling it fiercely.

On the flipside, though, part of me is steadfastly thinking “Fuck dye! I’m not dyeing my hair, even if it is going grey!” Me, I like the idea of a little salt-n-pepper action. Sexy sage still-naughty librarian, that’s me.

Ahh, I’m torn… as, I suspect, are all who start finding that they, too, are slowly being turned toward The Grey Side.

But maybe I can put the tweezers away after all.

Last month, the good folks at the University of Chicago released a study that says people get happier with life the older they get. Except for the baby boomers, who are all apparently about 7.2 minutes away from a bell-tower with a shotgun. They’re discontented and too driven, it would seem, them baby boomer types.

The secret to getting happier with age? The old folks say it’s pretty simple: Appreciate what you have, and worry less about what you don’t. Hang out with people, take life easy, and you’ll find it’s good.

Huh. Who’d have thought it was as simple as that? Yeah, right, simple.

Overthinking stuff’ll getcha every time. Cut out the overthinking thing and we’ll all just be hunky-dory. Consider it. People stop overthinking things, just accept things, and see what it does to society.

• All of a sudden traffic accident numbers will radically decline.
• Women will stop being distracted in sex and will orgasm better, easier, and every time. Ch-ching!
• Politicians will just do their jobs instead of trying to work every angle.
• We’d start doing what we want instead of “what’s best”. Fast-food stoner jobs will become the rage with over-40 types, a la American Beauty.
• Dr. Phil could simplify his show even more to a blurb about someone’s stupidity, then he confronts the guest with, “That’s just dumb! What the hell are you doin’ that for?” and the guest could say, “Because I’m dumb?” Phil would blurt, “Well, stop!” “Okay.” Then the show would be over.

But that’s just ludicrous… People no longer overthinking? Ending the distraction? Accepting things? Being content?

It’d be terrible for reality television, and that’s just for starters. Think what could happen to my wee blog! No, I think the art of overthinking is too advantageous to our society. A happy world? What a droll, dull idea. People will never buy it. Just the old and feeble types will fall for such a silly notion. Happiness. Silly fools. What next, pride?

In keeping with yesterday’s pope-fuelled rant against the Catholic Church, let’s talk some more about religion.

I was thrilled on May 2nd when I read an article revealing that there’s a new movement within America’s evangelical religious types to call for a return of separating church from state. They believe the evangelical’s insistence toward ingratiating itself into America’s political landscape during the Bush years has caused harm to the country and even to the faith itself.

CNN’s story on the drafting of this “manifesto” these leaders want Americans to be familiar with included this excerpt:

The statement, called “An Evangelical Manifesto,” condemns Christians on the right and left for using faith to express political views without regard to the truth of the Bible, according to a draft of the document obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

“That way faith loses its independence, Christians become ‘useful idiots’ for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology,” according to the draft.

The declaration, scheduled to be released Wednesday in Washington, encourages Christians to be politically engaged and uphold teachings such as traditional marriage. But the drafters say evangelicals have often expressed “truth without love,” helping create a backlash against religion during a “generation of culture warring.”

“All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others,” the statement says, “while we have condoned our own sins.” It argues, “we must reform our own behavior.”

Yes, THANK you. Many of us have been standing, pointing, and shouting “hypocrisy” a little too long. Our voices have grown hoarse and tired. Put your actions where your words are, and let your walking do your talking. GOOD plan. I, for one, applaud.

CNN has another story on there today, about how the evangelicals appear to even be warming to the Democratic party. Fantastic. Here’s an excerpt from there:

A group of influential Christian leaders are declaring they are tired of divisive politics, tired of watching fights over some issues trump all the good they could be doing.

“Our proposal in [our] manifesto is to join forces with all those who support a civil public square. … a vision of public life in which people of all faiths — which, of course, means no faith — are free to enter and engage public life on the basis of their faith,” said evangelical leader Os Guinness.

What? All people, all faiths should be welcome in the quest to make a new, better country for all to live in as one community? What kind of radical conversation is this, and coming, of all places, from the evangelicals?

It is sensational. It’s fantastic. It’s the voice of reason we’ve been waiting for, a voice to stand up and oppose the hypocrites like Sally Kern, Larry Craig, Tom Delay, and all the other lying bastards who claim they’re religious just to get some votes, then live under very, very unChristian ideals, compared to a Democrat like Obama who really did, at the grassroots, get very involved with his church’s on-the-street ministry.

It is time that we as a world see people for how they act, their generosity, their respect towards others, and the lives they lead rather than for what belief system is tattooed on their forehead, or what their sexual or religious persuasions might be.

Oh, there are no tattoos? Then how have we gotten this culture of intolerance? Hmm. Puzzling.

Sadly, it’s only a fraction of the evangelical leaders getting behind this “Manifesto”, but it’s a start. It’s a wonderful, praiseworthy start. A hope towards inclusion and community and unity taking new hold in America.

Just plain hope. Hope is good, I like hope. But, like yesterday, I still say fuck the pope.

I know I haven’t been writing a lot this week… I’m percolating. I suspect it’ll bubble up for you in the next few days.

Tonight I’m just reposting something I wrote on my other blog 18 months ago. I was trying to find something else and happened upon it and thought, “Fuck. And the genocide is ongoing, even now,” in Darfur, so, I thought I’d use my little soapbox here for this cause.

Darfur is a genocide. We, the world, need to step in and stop it. Sudan needs to be overruled, and we need to say “Not on our watch.” People don’t die, shouldn’t die, on our watch.

I wrote this 18 months ago and yet it is still current? What a fucking travesty. We’re better than that.

***

I am reading a harrowing account of the atrocities that transpired during 1994 (and beyond) in Rwanda. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our familes: Stories From Rwanda is written by Philip Gourevitch.

This book, this depressing, morbid, tragic, bitter, woeful book, evokes much of what has always made me want to be a writer. I’ve always wanted to be the travelling kind of writer. I write well of cultures and differences. I’m observant. I notice the ways and means in which we all differ, but, more importantly, I sense the ways in which we are all the same. When speaking, I can’t do any of it justice. I’m sure I’ve sounded racist more than once, but it’s a crying shame if that’s how it seems. Sigh. Travelling and writing don’t yet seem to be in the cards. I’m sure that hand’s to be dealt sometime, though, and when it is, I’ll pounce.

A particular passage struck me like a brick this morning, in which Gourevitch is setting the scene to make us understand just how a genocide must be orchestrated — like any dance or wedding or ceremony, the execution of such an undertaking must be done meticulously. And most importantly, must be an easily sold concept that one can convince hundreds of thousands, if not more, to become a willing part of. Genocide doesn’t happen because a few guys had some beers and wanted to off a few folk they disagreed with. Genocide happens en masse because a message has been bought and sold by the masses, and a fit-in-or-fuck-off mentality has been adopted nearly universally by one party versus the other. But I fumble, and Gourevitch explained it all so succinctly. Here’s his words:

But mass violence, too must be organized; it does not occur aimlessly. Even mobs and riots have a design, and great and sustained destruction requires great ambition. It must be conceived as the means toward achieving a new order, and although the idea behind that new order may be criminal and objectively very stupid, it must also be compellingly simple and at the same time absolute.

Too true. Simple, yet absolute.

One wonders, then, if it’s so simple and so absolute that it simply can’t be sold as a news story. I mean, “They don’t like them, and never have, therefore they’re killing them by the hundreds of thousands” just doesn’t seem to work when you tack it onto African place names like, oh, say, Rwanda or, say, Darfur. I mean, it’s such a dull story. Or is it?

I’m only 50 pages into this book, but it’s hitting an awful lot of chords within. It reminds me, too, that I like to read books on aspects of history. Not vast, expansive books that cover countries and such, but books on topics that ultimately seem only a footnote in humanity’s tome. Like King Leopold’s Ghosts or The Nutmeg Wars or To What End?

Y’know, I went into the journalism program at the age of 17, dreaming idly of being a foreign correspondent. I would have loved the danger and excitement of that life. The movie Welcome to Sarajevo evoked a lot for me in that vein, so does any rivetting moment of correspondence I see. I never had the confidence or courage to pursue it, though. I’ll always regret that, and I have few regrets. I would have liked to be the person on the ground that finds the stories the rest of the world absolutely needs to hear. It would have been amazing to be that little footnote in the story, the person who the story’s not about, but who birthed it.

Gourevitch wasn’t even on the ground when the killings came down. The world didn’t even notice, really, as 800,000 people were killed — most by hand, with machetes, to save money — in less than 100 days. Gourevitch saw scattered news stories, and then, when all the dust began to settle, went to the country with a couple Canadian soldiers and tried to make sense of all that had happened. Of course, I’m sure he’ll find the truth, that there is no sense. There seldom is.

And that’s why the media can’t sell us on Darfur. It’s why nobody wants to get involved. How do you solve a problem that defies sense? How do you propose a solution when the problem itself is barely intelligible?

“Look. They’re dying. A lot of them. All the time. It doesn’t stop. Women, raped. Children, orphaned, killed. Men, slaughtered. No one, safe. Nothing to do. No way to stop. Help, please.”

We would rather ignore it and believe it’s impossible, a figment of our overworked, deluded imaginations. It’s a twist to that old conundrum: If a scream is ignored, did it ever really happen?

I don’t know how the media can make people care about Darfur. It has become apparent to me that it’s not the governments’ inaction about the slaughter in Sudan that’s the problem, it’s that the media doesn’t know how to make the public care. Or maybe it’s that we’re so hell-bent on having nice, digestible news so we don’t upset our tummies as we chow down on tacos in front of the telly. I don’t know. But I blame society for ignoring it.

There’s a scene in Hotel Rwanda that made me physically ill. They’re driving on a bumpy road in dense fog native to the area, and it becomes impassable. They get out only to find out the bumps are corpses, not potholes, and that the road is now a mass grave.

We wish to inform you tells of how the rare survivors managed to stay alive in the jungles. They’d look in the air for hordes of vultures and other scavenging birds — signs a massacre had taken place below. They’d steer clear, they’d stay alive. Only just.

If you feel like an ass for never giving a shit about the fact that 300,000-400,000 people are dead and 2.5 million are displaced, and the West has done nothing, nothing at all, then you can go here and sign a petition for the powers that be to do something. Of course the Sudanese government doesn’t want aid organizations or NGOs of any kind there. So? They’re abetting a systematic slaughter — what the hell do they know, eh? Maybe there’s no solution to this Darfur Problem. But I think the firepower needs a little evening out, to say the least. If it’s a numbers game, then let’s jack up the underdog, then, shall we?

So, Barbara Walters, one of the greatest female journalists ever, has written her life story, Auditions, and is doing a massive media blitz for its release.

I haven’t read it, but as far as bios go, it’s one I’d be interested in. She talks about everything, from her affair with a black senator in the ’70s, to why Star Jones was ostensibly booted from The View.

Walters maintains that it was ludicrous for Jones to never fess up to having gastic bypass surgery on the air. Apparently Jones never wanted to admit to the bypass, and it caused tensions on the show as a result of the other hosts feeling they had to fudge the truth to help Jones skirt the issue when confronted by press and such, as Jones always alleged her weight loss was due to Pilates and portion control.

Here’s a bit from CNN that covers Walters’ side of the story here:

Walters says Jones, who’d dropped 160 pounds in three years, changed her mind after telling Walters she’d talk about the procedure on the program. Walters says she didn’t want to be the “poster child” for the procedure.

“I understood that, but it put us all in a terrible position,” Walters writes. “It meant we virtually had to lie for Star, especially when she said again and again on the air that her weight loss was due primarily to portion control and Pilates. … Joy (Behar), in particular, resented having to go along with the lie that implied that all one needed to do was sit-ups and ingest one cookie instead of two.”

Jones is flaming Walters for any number of reasons now that the book is out, saying “It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book. It speaks to her true character.”

It’s not a sad day when an icon like Walters writes about her life before she hits the end of it. She branded herself as a lover in a dangerous time, with an interracial affair at the peak of the civil rights’ movement while she was an upcoming star of the journalism industry, not just an “adulterer”.

What is sad is someone feeling they have to lie about gastric bypass surgery, or that they have to fool the public because they’re ashamed of themselves. Last year she finally wrote about the procedure and said she was “ashamed at not being able to get (herself) under control without this procedure.” On some levels, that’s understandable. Imagine how useful that feeling might be to someone facing the option of bypass or death from obesity, knowing the shame was a normal feeling?

What’s sad is that she had the opportunity to share her struggle with millions of viewers who may well have supported her, or even changed their lives, and she failed to sieze that chance.

Speaking as someone who’s been losing weight, it is BY FAR the hardest struggle of my life. I have had to change myself from my thinking on down, and it is a daily struggle and war. I’ve had to learn so much about myself, and still am, so much so that there are times it breaks me down to tears. It is a fucking HARD struggle.

I believe, truly, that my life is on the line– perhaps not in a “CODE BLUE! STAT!” kind of way, but I was at that point where the slope was getting very slippery and it seemed like the only way to go was down, down, down. The fight mainly came from “If I don’t, if I continue this unhealthy life, it will kill me, and not in a nice way.”

I think it’s incredible when people can drop 160 pounds or so, naturally, but if it takes gastric bypass surgery, then so be it. Maybe she knew she could have truly lost the weight herself with more control. Who knows, but it’s bullshit to ask that question now, or even worry about it. She made her choice, she’s succeeded with it, and that’s what’s important.

The point is, when you live a public life and you try to pretend you’ve lost your weight by just controlling your portions and doing Pilates three times a week, that’s just not fair to the people who are maybe trying to follow your example, but are depressed and angry when your sensational results don’t follow. It’s not fair. Losing 160 pounds will NEVER happen that way. EVER.

A friend on Facebook yesterday emailed me to say “Wow, 30 pounds, huh? How’d you do it?” By working really fucking hard and being conscious of my choices every single day, whether for the good or bad, I more or less said. It’s not about switching cereal brands or drinking less juice. It’s about CHANGING EVERYTHING.

Weight is by far one of the most damaging issues one can face in their own lives. It affects everything– mood, self-esteem, finances, emotional strength, communication, and more. When I’m not fat anymore, who will I be? I don’t know, but finding out will be incredible.

I think Star Jones had a responsibility to own up to the truth about her weight loss, and that she was a coward when she let her shame talk her out of using her opportunity to allow others to know of her own difficult journey. She made the wrong choice, and it affected her life in every way. Had she stuck it out on the View, been honest with her public, who knows how it could have strengthened her relationship with her fans?

Weight loss is too fucking hard for people not to be more honest about how they get there– whether it’s by completely changing their lives and working out all the time, like I’m trying to, or by gastric surgery– because people do stupid, unhealthy things to try and change their weight, and we need the successful people to share their routes, even if it’s with bypass surgery.

Besides, people can die from gastric bypass, and it’s a dangerous surgery that does not solve obesity on its own. Jones had to work, had to control her eating for it to be a success, so it’s not all the surgery’s doing, and she has a right to be proud of what she accomplished, regardless of the method. But because gastric bypass isn’t just an elaborate Band-aid, she should have taken the opportunity to enlighten people on how it impacts one’s life.

She was a host of a current affairs/talk show run by a journalist. How could she possibly think skirting the truth was going to fly? It’s ridiculous.

Be honest about your struggles, people. We all have them. We need to support each other, we need to understand each other’s struggles. It’s the only way we’ll ever really unite.

And so the primary season rolls on.

The mighty Obama has taken some blows of late. He’s being tacked with every left-wing extremist Clinton can muster; Ayers, Wright, Farrakhan, and then Michael Moore comes along and throws his support behind Obama, like he somehow thinks his support counts anymore.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I’m for Obama.

But these recent tactics by Hillary Clinton have been bothering me long before Carl Bernstein wrote on the Huffington Post that she’s employing, in his rather esteemed opinion, McCarthyist tactics to taint Obama via the “guilt by association” method.

You know: Your friends are losers, so you can’t possibly not be a loser, too. That’s what it all comes down to.

But it’s so much worse. It’s so horrible to think that, in a time and age with so much division, we should allow a would-be president to say “You’re unsavoury because of the company you keep.”

I mean, oh, my god.

I’m too young to have lived under the threat posed by the McCarthy era, as are most of my readers, I would imagine, but I’m pretty familiar with the tactics employed in those days, and it terrifies me. (Think of an America like that one in the months following 9/11, where everyone’s a little scared and, where everyone informed on everyone else, embraced by a cult of suspicion. “Oh, he’s a communist/terrorist/radical, I heard him at a party.” Imagine speculation or rumour or guilt-by-association and context-twisting to cause you to have to testify at the notorious McCarthy hearings for “UnAmerican Affairs” and resulting in you losing your job because you’re a suspected “Red” or terrorist or radical. This is what Clinton’s doing these days, reopening old traditions of judging someone solely on the company they keep.)

I, for one, feel that Americans can’t get rid of one freedom-eroding president in trade for someone who’s either, a) a hypocrite and using false sentiment to raise trouble, or b) really does feel that guilt by association is viable or even reliable when it comes to judging someone’s character.

When this campaign began, I honestly felt like I’d like either Obama or Clinton as president, but some of these tactics have really worn out my loyalty to Hillary. It’s a real shame, too.

As readers of sex blogs, you, dear reader, should be alarmed at this method of guilt-by-association that Hillary Clinton’s using against Obama. Especially since she’s been really roasted over the years for her wildly, radically left youth spent working summers with a law firm that defended Black Panthers back in the bad ol’ days of the late ’60s. Is she a murderer because she’s defended a few?

If she was the one doing the judging now, she would be. She’s trying to tell us all that Obama’s a radical (with the middle name Hussein) because he associates with a now-mainstream former member of the extreme left, guilty of some bombings in the ’60s, when Obama was 8, but she’s been known to hang with some Black Panthers? Besides, her hubby used his presidential pardon to give Ayers, the “terrorist” guy Obama’s known on the board of some organizations, a full and complete pardon, for which his wife is now totally dragging the guy back through the muck.

It’s really, really incomprehensible. But as I mentioned, as readers of sex blogs, you, reader, could be some perverted sex-addled horndog that should never be left alone with children, or is that just a ridiculous assertion?

Yeah, do the math, right? It just doesn’t add up. That’s guilt-by-association for you, and it’s never a fair way to judge anyone. It’s tantamount to judging on appearances, because it’s easy to connect the dots into shapes you want, if you know what you’re looking for, right?

Sigh. I’ll be glad when the nomination’s finally made and I can just run with whatever the choice is, but I hope to hell it’s for Obama.

I know I’m Canadian, but the American election’s important to all of us this year. Look at the climate in the world with the oil crisis and the food shortage and the subprime mortgage disaster and the plumetting American dollar. Serious solutions are needed, and we’re all getting invested in what Americans decide this year.

And regardless of the sheen that’s come off his shine in the recent weeks, most of the world’s thinking Obama means hope for everyone. Crazy? Maybe. Maybe not.

Just play nice, Hillary. This is so unbecoming of you. A real disappointment. I thought you were better than this. Obama, at least, still seems pretty dignified. So, there’s that.

With scientists only a few years off, they predict, of creating a means of female-only reproduction– meaning no men jacking off into cups, sperm popsicles, or anything like that being required, just a woman and her eggs — the reality is, women will be getting a whole lot more than just “empowered” in the coming years. But at what price?

“A woman needs a man
like a fish needs a bicycle.”

Margaret Atwood

One acclaimed geneticist (Bryan Sykes, a prof at Oxford) has made the startling pronouncement in the past couple weeks, that he thinks the Y-chromosome (the “male” gene) is slowly but surely degrading and deteriorating so substantially that, in a mere 125,000 years, there will be no Y-chromosome, meaning, no men.
The geneticist has met with a barrage of anger, men writing him with fiery letters basically all saying “How can you betray your gender?” Seriously, that’s just ridiculous. Science is science, there’s no betrayal.
But if the very nature of men is in question, what does the old chiding of “Oh, be a man” really mean in the modern age?
What is a man? Is it that sexy, heroic, but emotional post-9/11 “fireman” kinda guy who puts others before him, overcomes his fears, and gets shit done in the face of all adversity? Is it the well-rounded office guy who’s a great dad and a weekend adventurer? How “manly” does a man need to be? Does he need to be “manly” at all?

“The Y chromosome is passed from father to son, it’s what makes babies into boys. Basically the human template is a female: the Y chromosome kicks in a few weeks after conception and makes a boy. “Men are genetically modified women,” explained Sykes. But unlike other chromosomes, the Y chromosome can’t repair itself and will, says Sykes, disappear altogether in about 125,000 years.
“Every generation one percent of men will have a mutation which reduces their fertility by 10 percent,” explained Sykes. Unlike most chromosomes, the Y does not travel through the generation in pairs, so can never repair itself from a mirror. Flaws are never repaired. “So if that goes on for generation after generation,” Sykes argued, “eventually there are no functioning Y chromosomes left.””

Read the whole article here.

Men aren’t what they used to be– I mean, they’re not knuckle-dragging Cro-Magnons who’d grunt, beat their chest, and drag their wimminfolk around by the hair. Women may have come a long way, baby, like Virginia Slims used to claim, but men have come pretty fucking far, too. Maybe the deteriorating Y-chromosome is just part of evolution. Maybe the Y-chromosome’s just a defect after all, and its non-repair-ability means it’s just righting itself to become what it should’ve been after all… a pure X chromosome.
I don’t know, I’m being the devil’s advocate here. I’m a fan of men. I have a vested interest in seeing their kind propagating and succeeding, particularly their penises.
Still… we live in the post-98-pound-weakling world, where geeks are celebrated and bench presses don’t matter. Men get manicures, even buy makeup, and are no longer strangers to wax hair removal. If it wasn’t for the penis and tits, one would think the divides between our orientation just ain’t what it used to be, deteriorating Y-chromosome or not.
Is the fact that men are becoming more sympathetic, more expressive part of this ever-declining Y-chromosome? Is it all Germaine Greer’s fault for emasculating men? Enquiring minds want to know. Are men really, like this genetics doc says, just “genetically modified women” after all, in far more ways than one?
All the kidding aside, it’s time we seriously start studying our genders, and in far more probing ways.
Alfred Kinsey got the ball rolling with his landmark sexual studies more than half a century ago, but no huge advances have been made since, no big surprises, although I would like to extend a collective thank-you from the female race for enlightening us about the clitoris and the g-spot. We liked that. Useful, that bit of wisdom.
However, no study of that scale and magnitude has since been completed. We understand so much more about hormones and mind/chemistry connections, we have so many more resources at our disposal so that we can not only undertake an epic study of Kinsey-ian proportions, but also study the scientific causes and consequences of our desires and wants and in an interconnected sort of way; and, beyond that, to study those in a genetic history context. Compare who we’ve become to who we were, and not just genetically, but societally.
Whether it’s to explore links between mens’ sperm counts dropping (a whopping 20% in 50 years) over the same decades that desk jobs became more predominant, or to understand how women change when they make that change from being unable to orgasm to finally experiencing sexual bliss and how that impacts their lives, if it even does, or to just understand what the emotional ramifications of living in a touch-deficit, electronic-communication society might have on, well, all of us… these studies need to occur more often and in more far-reaching ways.
Gender and sexuality aren’t just fun things to chat about. They’re imperative to understand better. Men’s sperm counts bottoming out by 20% over just 50 years is just one startling example of how quickly we’re changing. To say that the Y-chromosome has a guaranteed 125,000 years shelf-life is as laughable as the scientists who, even 10 years ago, were saying we had a hundred or more years before the climate would be a real issue. Now they’re changing predictions every couple years. One could never have guessed a hundred years ago that men’s sperm counts would decline by a quarter before the century was through.
Gender roles have changed so completely in the last 50 years that we really don’t know where we stand sexually anymore. Who the fuck knows where we’ll be standing in the years to come? How can we possibly know what societal impacts might be doled out over the next centuries? Look at how much our globe has changed just since the internet was born in ’94. Nonetheless, science is our friend. We may not like the answers it provides us, but it’s sure as hell better than going blindly into the night. Even still, we certainly can’t marry ourselves to the information science yields; life moves too fast for science. But at least it’s a starting point.
In the meantime, girls, get yer men while the gettin’s good.