Back to the clip, “Doodlebug.” A man is trying to squash a bug. That’s the film. Watch it. Watch out for the surprise ending.

I once had a client who organized her DVD collection by director. Mine was only alphabetical (the tragedy!). I didn’t see her point until I started watching Chris Nolan movies. Of course he had to do something with Batman before I’d pay attention. Doodlebug is his earliest available work… I just bought some of his others. “Following“will be watched this weekend.

My DVDs are now arranged by director. It’s a much cooler (and snobby!) way to watch movies.

Who are your favorite directors? Why?

“I don’t want you to smile, or laugh, or say anything.”

“Well…it’s not a problem. Well, actually, it IS a problem. Why is it a problem?”

“Ooooohhhhhh nnnnnnnnooooooooooo. The scary guts monsters!”

“She has blowouts.”

“Wha ya say?”

“I appreciatcha.”

“I’m proud of you.”

“It’s okay to be sad.”

“Um, I just want you to come upstairs. Just because I love you.”

“Mommy? Where are ya-a-a-a-a-a-a-a.”

“It’s sticky red goo. Purple… red goo.”

“From Santa Claus I want a candycane and some tape with stickiness on it.”

“Why are you going to school? So you can help some people? Cause they’re sad? A mommy and a daddy? They get frustrated?”

“I tried harder and harder!”

“You don’t need a timeout dad.”

What have your kids said lately?

• The original study came up with 237 “distinct” reasons, based on a sample of 203 men and 241 women (ages 17 to 52).
• The 237 reasons were then given to another set of 1,549 undergrads (ages 16 to 42), and a the reasons were listed in order of frequency.
• The book I’m reading is on a study that took the 237 reasons, and asked 1,006 women (ages 18 to 86) from throughout the U.S. and many other countries. 80% were in a relationship, 93% heterosexual, 2% bisexual, and 5% homosexual. 57% considered themselves to be part of a specific religious tradition, 26% agnostic, and 14% atheist.

The book divides up the reasons into 11 categories for women. The #1 reason for women is “the basic biochemistry of attraction.” If that’s the case, what is it that women find sexually attractive?

• Scent. Women rate how someone smells as the MOST important of the senses in choosing a lover, more important than sight. “Women’s sexual arousal is enhanced by good body odors–and killed by bad ones… women can literally smell the scent of a gene complex known to play a key role in immune functioning.”
• Height. Over 6′ is good, but not TOO tall. Tall(ish) men, for example, have a higher SES on average, women report feeling safer with them, and they tend to be healthier.
• Fit. Heterosexual women on average prefer strong, athletic men with a high shoulder-to-hip ratio, and a muscular torso, but NOT muscle-bound. Men may overestimate how much muscle a women wants. Women often don’t want as much muscle on man as men think they do. Also, more muscular men tend to have more sexual affairs. Think Men’s Health rather than Flex.
• Face. Heterosexual women prefer more masculine faces for casual sexual encounters, and less masculine faces for long-term relationships. This may be due to the “fact that the more masculine men are less sexually faithful.”
• A Voice like James Earl Jones. Men with sexy voices tend to have a higher shoulder-to-hip ratio, and are judged by women to be healthier, more socially dominant, and well-respected. Women usually prefer these voices more for short-term encounters, however.
• Humor and Confidence. Women view these as the two most important personality characteristics related to attractiveness. Married women who think their husbands are witty are more satisfied!
• Similarity. “Opposites attract” is the exception for long-term relationships. Having a partner with similar values or beliefs is validating.
• One’s “type.” Every women has unique and subtle differences, based in early childhood and adolescence.

Can men do anything about their attractiveness?

Which of these characteristics are most important to you?

Police there were called to the beach after lifeguards requested that the sunbathers replace their tops. “Passers-by came up to the lifeguard and said they were alarmed and unhappy with the females showing their breasts,” Police Chief Keith Banks said. “The lifeguard responded and saw that they were males.”

Banks said police were called because the men originally refused to put their tops back on, but had consented before police arrived. Officers made sure the situation was under control, and no citations were issued.

Banks said it could have been difficult to issue a citation because Rehoboth law defines indecent exposure two ways: “A male is guilty of indecent exposure if he exposes his genitals or buttocks under circumstances which he knows his conduct is likely to cause affront or alarm to another person.

“A female is guilty of indecent exposure if she exposes her genitals, breasts or buttocks under circumstances which she knows her conduct is likely to cause affront or alarm to another person.”

So the men’s behavior may have been upsetting, but it was not illegal. “It is important to say that under Rehoboth law this was not against the law,” Banks said. “In this case, they had male genitalia; therefore, they are not guilty of a crime.”

What are your thoughts on this? Is this a feminist issue? Do men have more freedom? Should people be forced to say, upon entering a beach, what gender they identify with the most? (ha!)

Who needs oil spills, immigration reform, or health care news when you have Delaware beach goers!

Despite years of effort, my own covert prejudices still exist. For example, I once had the thought, “what if one of my kids turned out to be bisexual? Well, I would hope they would choose to marry an opposite-sex partner, all other things being equal.” This bothers me. I thought I was done with homophobia.

I’m also covertly racist. Of course, I have many friends of other races and cultures, and I’m reasonably afraid of any scary lookin’ White dudes in a dark alley (not to mention any white people in creepy small towns, thanks to the X-Files), but I can’t say I have been successful in rooting out all covert racism.

Wheelchairs? Well, first I admit I watch Glee. Second, there was an episode where my least favorite character (the one in the wheelchair, of course), had a dream-sequence where he was able to get out of his chair and dance. It was really cool! Only later did I realize I normally hated this character’s songs. Really? Really?

I have a long way to go.

What has helped you to get over your prejudices? Any advice? Be gentle. Please.

Stage 0: These people have never seen it, and/or don’t care. Maybe they’ll queue it on Netflix sometime, or maybe they really only like courtroom dramas, or NCIS, or DWTS, or SATC, or…

Stage 1: These people LOVED season 1… Plane crash, deserted island, scary monster in the jungle… but they may think the hatch button was a little weird. What happened to tromping through the jungle and the island castaway story? No more LOST for these people.

Stage 2: Okay, the hatch was pretty cool. They accept this new direction… up until Nikki and Paulo. And who cares about Jack’s tattoo? What happened to their favorite show? Well, it started good. This group thinks the show should have ended after the first two seasons.

Stage 3: Yeah, a few episodes were off in season 3, but it overall it was great. This Jacob dude sounds pretty intriguing. But WOW things got weird in season 4. Time Travel? Really? Jumped the Dharma Shark! The show has fallen off the wagon.

Stage 4: Season 4 was great, but wow, was season 5 abysmal. These people may think, “wow, I really thought they were going somewhere… what a letdown.”

Stage 5: Time Travel! Nuclear Explosions! The 70’s! Only to come crashing down into a pointless season 6.

Stage 6: Finished it! The best show ever! These people LOVE the finale – a near-perfect way to wrap up the series.

Disgruntled Stage 6: These people watched every episode, just thinking it would get better, but it never did. Why did they waste so much time on this drivel? This group often accuses those who like the show of being delusional. This accusation comes from a deep-rooted place of pain and fear and shame that they had invested so much. Poor souls.

What stage are you?

KOS Hummer Tour!

“What always strikes me is how intelligent we are as human beings, and yet how often we miss this very simple truth: we want happiness but the ways we go about trying to get it cause us to suffer. Whenever you ask yourself why your having a cigarette or why you’re saying a mean word, the answer is usually that in your guts you feel it will bring some satisfaction. Yet, if you ask yourself if what you are doing has ever given you satisfaction, your honest answer would have to be no. Nevertheless, we keep right on doing it. This kind of stupidity seems to run very deep in human beings.” ~Pema Chödrön

Any behavior / choice / moral / habit etc. can be judged on its on merits regarding whether or not it is truly satisfying.

A few things that never fail to satisfy:

• spending time with my family or close friends
• playing with my son
• a moderate amount of exercise
• enjoying a meal
• thinking about the things I am grateful for
• moderately planning for the future
• conflict that leads to personal growth

A few things that never satisfy me:

• getting into power struggles with clients or students
• spending too much time online
• trying to change other people
• worrying about the future
• talking about politics

How about you?

Somehow, I missed this: Richard Dawkins seriously considers indoctrinating the young with religious delusions to be WORSE than sexual abuse. I’m fine with opinions, even the opinion that religion is a “delusion” but this is beyond belief.

This makes me so angry I could cry.

Granted, if his case is that emotional abuse is worse than sexual abuse, that is a different topic. But that’s not what he says. For all the Dawkins’ apologists out there, please come to his defense and explain to me how I’ve totally misinterpreted him, because this is just crazy. I’m willing to hold off a little and see if anyone can do some mental gymnastics to explain to me how he is not off his rocker on this one.

A fellow blogger recently had this to say on the topic:

I get tired of the bellyaching about the hardship of living on planet earth sometimes. Is it abuse to be raised to believe in God? Is it abuse to be raised to not believe in God? … Let’s follow Richard Dawkins’ line of logic. Life is stressful with many events outside of our control. To deal with that, people created religions, so they could have the illusion of control (and hope). If those man-made illusions fail, is that abuse? It’s hyperbole to call it abuse. Life itself is abuse by this definition.

Having worked with numerous foster children who were sexually abused, I do know a little of the absolute horror it can create in a life. I have heard and read things about these kids that I never wanted to know. Things I could have never imagined. And Dawkins says the bigger problem is they had a religion. THAT is evil. I need to stop now before I explode.

/end emotional rant.

“The problem is much deeper and it is a society that still tries to cling to a belief in monogamy. I can’t blame them as I also cling to that same belief, but maybe we as society should rethink what we demand from ourselves. Even if we follow it, is monogamy the right way to live, or does Tiger have it right?”

What?

Rethink what we demand from ourselves? That guy sounds like he’s trying to justify an affair in the near future. Does Tiger have it right? As in, should men all sleep with whomever they please?

How about we stop demanding anything, start accepting our basic goodness, and make our daily actions congruent with what we want out of life… perhaps many of us are already doing that though…

The real problem is that we “cling” to anything. Clinging to monogamy, or “clinging” to the neighbor will both cause suffering.

May we be “monogamous” not out of insecurity, but because we are secure. May we form our opinions on the validity of “monogamy” not on what is happening, but on what is healthy.

Forming opinions on what /Tiger Woods/Bill Clinton/closeted senators/the neighbor/ is doing may not work out the best for us. I could be wrong though. Perhaps we are all meant to be arrogant, aggressive, selfish, and unfaithful.

Why should we allow the dregs of society to determine our values?

While most animal species are not monogamous, quite a few are… although neither of those facts are very relevant. WE HAVE MUCH BIGGER BRAINS THAN THE REST OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM! Let’s use the brains we have. THAT is natural.

Then again, if we define “natural” by “whatever we feel like at the moment” then of course a huge percentage of us are not monogamous. A huge percentage of us would also then be classified as arrogant, aggressive, and ignorant. The real “natural” in my opinion is the end result of living a life of personal growth, of not clinging, of serving others, of not letting short term pleasures get in the way of much, much greater goals.

The proof to me that monogamy is natural for humans is the myriad examples of humans who choose NOT to be monogamous: polygamists, polyamorists, swingers, cheaters, etc. etc.

Are those the groups that should be the base for our “natural” norms?

“Natural” or not, the real issue here is what causes infidelity, and what are its consequences.