Please tell me it’s because a rapist drew back a bloody stump and complained to 60 Minutes.

Every now and then, I get a wild hair and check my blog stats. It’s usually pretty much the same every time: a couple dozen new visitors a day plus a handful of loyal returning Rib readers (you know who you are, my friends - and several uppity unlinkables).¹

The keywords from whence people have found my blog range from amusing (”how do you pronounce friggatriskaidekaphobia”) to disturbing (”bat into women’s pussy”) to perplexing (”uppity baby stroller”).

Yesterday was a wild hair day so I bellied up to the Statcounter and found, to my surprise, that the Rib’s hits had spiked dramatically for the week. I checked again today and the trend continues. By the first week in May, I had as many hits as I had for the entire month of April.

Keyword log reveals that almost all of these recent visitors are finding my blog by searching for text or images of “anti rape condom” and “vagina dentata,” and have landed on this post.

I wrote my rant about Rapex when it was scheduled for mass production in April 2007. I didn’t follow the story to confirm whether that actually happened. Now for some reason, almost exactly a year later, buttloads of people are boning up² on this device.

WTF? Did it have a birthday party and forget to invite me? Is it now available over-the-counter like Zyrtec? Or at the pharmacy like a kind of creepy Plan B (”When you’re out of mace, there’s Rapex”)?

I conducted my own googlefest and found no recent news on the weenie whooper-chopper. I did, however, get to reread many idiotic complaints about it from critics. Most of them say, essentially:

“Rapex maims men! It’s too bad about the slut– er, victim and all, but what about the poor rapist? Didja ever think about him? Huh? Huh?!”

I have my own concerns about the so-called anti-rape device, but they sure as fuck aren’t about protecting a rapist’s precious wanker.

Anyway, if you know why everyone and their dog is recently reading up on Rapex, please comment.

Technorati Tags: Rapex

1. At least, you’re unlinkable as far as I know. If you read my blog and have one of your own, leave a comment for some link love! [↩]
2. Sorry… [↩]

Don’t rain on my festival

Subtitle: Happy Earth Day!

One of the best memories from my otherwise mostly-terrible twenties is a weekend in May of 1990 spent at the Whole Earth Festival in Davis, California.

For three days, I hung out with friends on the UC-Davis campus celebrating the anniversary of Earth Day. I wore the same tie-dyed tank top and short red skirt every day. I skipped barefoot in the sun¹ and got as brown as a free-range chicken. I did the hippie spin to live music. I ate my weight in organic food.

And pretty much by osmosis, I learned about the concept of living respectfully with this planet. Educators and vendors taught me some of it, but most I learned by observing socially-conscious people around me who walked their talk.

It was awesome.

Eighteen years later, people are saying my rose-colored memory is just…well, a memory. That Earth Day has become another “Buy More Stuff!!” Day:

“People are being deceived,” [Glen MacIntosh, of the Toronto Climate Campaign] says. “They attend the Earth Day events thinking they are doing a good thing, but really they are being entertained, sold to.”

Well, it may be true that Earth Day events are becoming commercial, joining the ranks of other “causes” selling stuff, like the breast cancer awareness folks and their pink ribbon products² and Gap’s RED campaign.

But I doubt people don’t realize “they are being entertained, sold to.” Of course they know. We live in a consumer culture where it’s virtually unheard of not to be entertained and sold to.

And judging by the numbers of people who are buying clear consciences, we may be losing a sense of value in charity. It seems we feel that when we give, we must always get something in return, even for our gestures of goodwill.

But the coffer doesn’t have to be seen as half empty.

Product campaigns raise awareness of issues in a much more far-reaching way than non-consumer campaigns can. And even though intended audiences may take home only superficial knowledge of the issues, there’s a good chance they will retain it.

Due to Bono’s involvement in the Gap campaign, a millions of kids know about the epidemic of children and women with AIDs in Africa. Because it’s associated in their minds with a pop icon, they’ll probably remember it when they’re adults. You can’t get that from a mention in a textbook or on NPR.

How many of us can remember the name of the lead singer of our favorite band during our senior year in high school? Lots. What were the primary global human rights issues that year? Right.

When I went to the Whole Earth Festival eighteen years ago, I was as green to going-green as a girl raised in the Excessive 80’s could be. I didn’t go to honor the planet or learn anything; I went to party. My education was a happy side-effect.

Lots of things were marketed at me that weekend (who knew you could do so many things with hemp?), but I also experienced a new lifestyle that influences me to this day.   I never forgot what I learned because I was having a blast at the time.

I don’t know if there are a lot more mass-produced “Earth Day products” being marketed nowadays; probably. But even so, as long they dole out the information along with it, and they don’t leave a bigger footprint than they are trying to erase, it’s really not the end of the world.

And a final word to aspiring product marketers: If you have to capitalize on holidays, pick really important ones, like National Jelly Bean Day.

Technorati Tags: Earth Day, Whole Earth Festival

1. Literally. There was a posted tongue-in-cheek rule for that weekend: “No running! Only skipping!” Hippie humor. [↩]
2. I have 2 pink ribbon pins, but I got them free for doing the Race for the Cure. Do they count? [↩]

Lady Six Sky

The first runner up in the “Best Ancient Royalty Names” contest, as reported by Archaeology Today magazine, totally rocks.

Besides having the best name ever, Lady Six Sky was also an uppity Guatemalan ass-kicker, barging fearlessly into the boys’ club of her society:

She arrived “here” in 682 as the daughter of King B’alaj Chan K’awiil of Dos Pilas. She was never invested as a Naranjo ruler, she assumed every other prerogative of kingship, portraying herself on monuments and performing key calendrical rituals. This even extended to military symbolism.

It is clear that she assumed the role of Queen regnant and effectively ruled, then perhaps co-ruled for a substantial period. She seems to have been the mother of king K’ak Tiliw Chan Chaak, but the sources never mention his father. She was the central figure, even after the formal enthronement of her son (at age five). She waged war in his name, and remained an important force to until her death at the age of 77. She lived (664-741).

I totally want to move to Belize, start a band called Lady Six Sky, and rock out until I can no longer stand on my crone two legs.

By the way, first place in the name contest went to her son, Smoking Squirrel. Kinda makes you wonder about the sort of folks who read Archaeology Today…

Vagina Dentata

No, this is not a circa 1950 artist’s rendering of a hi-rise of the future. This is a Rapex, billed as “the world’s 1st and only anti-rape condom.”

The Rapex product website doesn’t have much on it right now, but since the product has been out in South Africa since 2005, it does have a Wikipedia page.

The anti-rape female condom (aka anti-rape condom, intended brand name Rapex) was invented by Sonette Ehlers, a South African woman. It is intended to prevent rape by hooking onto an attacker’s penis, hurting and disabling him.

This is a great idea, in theory. But. I have a big, big but.

Critics of this device have called it “medieval, vengeful, horrible, and disgusting.” Kinda like rape. So whatever.

No, my problems with this condom are purely practical.

If I were a woman in South Africa, or any country where rape laws are weak, I would take one look at that toothy schlong-slicer thing and think, “Oh yeah - just what I need! A brand new way to get my ass kicked! Thanks a lot!”

The makers of Rapex think their design will prevent retaliation by razored rapists:

Should an attacker attempt vaginal rape, the penis would penetrate the latex and be hooked by the barbs, causing the attacker pain and (ideally) giving the victim time to escape.

Catch that? Ideally.

I can just see the disclaimer on the box: “Ideal conditions necesary for optimum usage; insufficient agony to the penis may cause severe beatings, murder, and/or honor killings.”

Also please note the assumption of vaginal rape, as if that’s the only option to a sexual predator. Once these slice-n-dicers become popular, I suspect so will forced sodomy.

The condom would remain attached to the attacker’s body and could be removed only surgically, which would alert hospital staff and police.

Which is fabulous, except that it assumes the police will actually give a shit. Rape is virtually unprosecuted in most third-world countries and still underprosecuted in the rest of the world. Laws and enforcement have always been biased against rape victims; how will a bunch of mutilated wankers change that?

And finally…what if I pop in my new condom and the damn thing breaks!? Ow ow ow ow ow.

I just don’t think ouchy-hoo-haa contraptions are the answer to the problem of rape. They’re long on instant gratification (at least for half of us) but short on long-term efficacy. A rape-free world is going to take boring, serious efforts like feminist consciousness-raising, retooled laws and enforcement, and education.

Most of all, women everywhere need to reclaim our unconditional right to equality and dignity. It takes guts, perseverance, and solidarity - not an easy row to hoe in any country. But until we do, no sci-fi vaginal cuisinart is going to end the violence against us.

Technorati Tags: Rapex, anti-rape condom, female condom, violence against women

While you were out…

Brain’s back from wherever it went, apparently unscathed, just a few telling grains of beach sand in the crevices.

Meanwhile, I’ve been stashing blog post fodder in the empty space. I don’t have time to give all of them the attention they deserve - little things like my job and old episodes of CSI eat up a considerable amount of my spare time - so here’s the Reader’s Digest version:

A couple of high school girls got suspended from school for uttering the word “vagina” during a staging of (wait for it): The Vagina Monologues. Elsewhere on Planet Fear, a movie theater had to change its marquee to The Hoohah Monologues after an incredibly repressed irate local woman complained that the original title would warp her daughter. Post title: Vagina Vagina Vagina!

All through the shameless exploitation that was her teens, Britney Spears was hypersexualized and worked like a dog. Predictably, her young adulthood is a wreck of Frankensteinian proportions, littered with husbands, divorces, babies, drugs, alcohol, rehab, shaved head and tatoos. Just as predictably but without the excuse of innocence, Americans fire up the torches and head for the castle. Post title: Tears for Spears.

Is it possible to gain 10 pounds and get smaller? You betcher barbell, baby, as I discovered at a recent visit to the doctor. Post title: Hand Me That Piano.

In its infinite wisdom, the 8th Circuit US Court of Appeals decided this month that it’s not discriminatory for health plans to refuse to cover birth control for women, even when they cover preventative medicines used only by men, as well as Viagra. Post title: I Guess Abortions Are Out Of The Question.

The final Harry Potter book, Deathly Hallows, is 784 pages long (how many bed-time stories is that?) and will be printed “at least partly” on recycled paper. Environmental awareness is expensive, but at the list price of $35 per book (twice what the first HP book cost), Scholastic should be able to handle it. And if not, author and billionaire J. K. Rowling can pay for it with the million or so in change she’s got in the bottom of her purse. Post title: Harry Potter and the Grudgingly Green.

Vocab of the day is pseudomamma: “an unusual presentation of supernumerary breast tissue” (as in hair follicles, eccrine glands, sebaceous glands, nipples and fat tissue) that grow where no boob has grown before. Pseudomamma has been found on people’s faces, backs, thighs and most recently, the bottom of a foot. Post title: I Want To See “Pseudodaddy.”

Technorati Tags: The Vagina Monologues, Britney Spears, weight lifting, birth control, Rogaine, Viagra, abortion, J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter, going green, pseudomamma

Filed under Get Smart, Gynophobia, Healthy, Pop Culture | Comments (2)

Acka Backa Sody Cracka Goodly Honeysweet

As an anthropologist and classic love poetry fan, I really dig this: scholars have found what is so far the world’s oldest known love poem, written in cuniform on a clay tablet and buried in the sands of Iraq.

And the desert’s not the only thing hot about it:

Bridegroom, dear to my heart, Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,
Lion, dear to my heart, Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.
You have captivated me, Let me stand tremblingly before you.
Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber.

And this is just the first few lines… Click here to read the rest (must be 18 or older).

The sultry serenade was written around 2030 BC for an annual summer Sumerian fertility ritual called Sacred Marriage. At the festival’s peak, the high priestess for the goddess Inanna would recite a poem to invite the Sumerian king into bed.

Interesting how the lofty romance of How do I love thee? Let me count the ways stems from the rather earthier “Stick it in!”

I wonder if thousands of years from now, archeologist will uncover the poem I used over ten years ago to enchant a certain King Kevin:

Acka backa sody cracka
Acka backa boo
Acka backa sody cracka
I’m in love with you!

He was putty in my hands, I tell you.

**Stolen from Maya Angelou’s book about her childhood, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. It’s a lot easier to commit to memory than Barrett Browning.

Technorati Tags: archeology, Iraq, anciet Sumeria, love poetry, fertility rituals

News you can lose

Yesterday we heard from the Department of Duh. Today we are treated to the unholy collaboration of the Department of Duh and the Office of Misleading Information.

Reuters recently reported on a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 2007 on the effects on weight loss of dieting vs. dieting with exercise:

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study debunks the widely held belief that diet plus exercise is the most effective way to lose weight. Researchers report that dieting alone is just as effective as dieting plus exercise.

Yes, it is certainly true that calorie restriction will usually result in weight loss. Everybody has a shaky, chain-smoking, yo-yo dieting great aunt in the family who will testify to that.

What this article does NOT tell you is that weight loss achieved through dieting alone is not only temporary, but ultimately results in major fat boomerang.

Statistics show that the vast majority of dieters gain back all the weight they lost, plus some. Why? Because dieting wastes muscle tissue, so now the lucky dieter has even less than they started out with. So the moment they resume their usual eating habits, they begin to gain back the lost fat, plus a little more. And it gets harder and harder to lose fat with each time you try.

This is not my definition of “effective.” Reuters, don’t make me open a can of buff blog on your ass.

Technorati Tags: fitness, health, weight loss, exercise, diet, responsible reporting, critical thinking

The Case of the Misplaced Priorities

From deep within the money-soaked womb of Ortho-McNeil, the brainchild was born: “Forget finding cures for cancer, AIDs, the common cold, annoying relatives. What we really need is chewable birth control.”

Boggle boggle boggle.

Short people got no reason to live

I’ve been alerted by my favorite vertically-challenged person, who in turn was alerted by her most vertically-gifted friend, that science has proven what those of us over 5′7″ have always known:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - While researchers have long shown that tall people earn more than their shorter counterparts, it’s not only social discrimination that accounts for this inequality — tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers, a new study finds.

Because you read my blog faithfully every day, you know that I am all about scientific proof. You know that singing breathlessly whilst jogging has been shown to be an indicator of superior cardiovascular health. Now you know that tall people are intellectually superior to short people. It’s only a matter of time before studies show that brunettes have more fun than blondes, spares have more potential than heirs, and uppity ribs are happier than docile doormats. Surrender, Dorothy.

*UPDATE: I just heard on NPR (and I quote): “Research shows that women are less corrupt than men.” God bless the scientific method.

Technorati Tags: intelligence, weird science, corruption