Overthrown by Eros

[World, November 18, 1995]

As Morality in Media launched their eighth annual "White Ribbon Against Pornography" campaign, the New Yorker magazine helpfully provided a 22-page look inside the world of porn film production. Author Susan Faludi gave readers a sympathetic glimpse at the tough lot of a male porn star. No, really. In this business, the woman is the object of desire and the male is furniture, and pay follows accordingly. What's more, male actors regularly find themselves the unwilling cause of production delays, and reap as a result the irritation and scorn of their peers. Habitual apprehension creates more problems, and this career-destroying pressure eventually destroys every career. Has-beens shuffle into backstage work, or, if they're lucky, marry a female star who can support them.

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Unnatural Childbirth

[World, October 7, 1995] 

I got a “what’s wrong with this picture” feeling from reading the news clip: Sens. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kansas) and Bill Bradley (D-New Jersey) were introducing a bill to require health insurers to provide a minimum 48 hour stay after childbirth. Over the last twenty years, the length of postpartum stays has shortened from four days to two or less.

Health insurers, not surprisingly, love the shorter stays.

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Isn't Censorship Part of a Parent's Job?

[Religion News Service, September 5, 1995]

An on‑line friend regularly sends me E‑mail titled "Hathos!" These are items that prompt a mix of hatred and pathos (and embarrassment, loathing, and other emotions). Something that showed up the other day certainly fills that bill: the liberal advocacy group People For the American Way is accusing America's parents of censorship.

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Monster

[World, April 29, 1995]

"I recoiled so much from what I had done that it seemed to be not my choice at all. A mystery, I thought. A monster did it."

Michael Warner writes these words in the Village Voice (Jan. 31,  1995), in an article titled "Why Gay Men are Having Risky Sex." He is perplexed at the statistics: 30-38% of HIV-negative gay men admit they don't always use condoms.

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The Wiedros in Winter

[Unpublished, February 1995]

Long winter evenings have always challenged families; the Hagley Museum in Wilmington, Delaware recently hosted an afternoon of "19th century winter pastimes…once-popular parlor games challenging the mind or the memory." For some readers, early March will bring more snowstorms, and a list of old parlor games sounds appealing.

But who needs outmoded forms of entertainment, when you can keep jolly the Wiedro way? "The Wiedros" became our family alias when daughter Megan, attempting to enter the surname "Weirdo" on a computer questionaire at Disneyworld, logged something like "Wiedr O" instead. On our last Wiedro outing we visited museums in Delaware’s Brandywine Valley, then spent abed-and-breakfast evening, free from all electronic diversions. Here are the pastimes taht helped pass our time—some old familiars, some invented on the spot. The first is a guiding principle:

1. Drive it into the ground. Don’t let a promising topic go until it’s exhausted.

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Born That Way

[World, October 29, 1994] 

An interview in the September 1994 Heterodoxy introduced us to a man the homosexual mainstream (or “Gaystream”) would prefer we didn’t meet: Leland Stevenson. Stevenson is a spokesman for the North American Man-Boy Love Association, which promotes sexual encounters between adults and adolescent boys.

This organization causes the Gaystream some awkward moments. When reporter Paul Mulshine phoned a representative of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the representative, Ms Kane, stated that her organization did not support NAMBLA. Then she added, apparently automatically, "We believe that people should not be denied their civil rights because of the sexual orientation with which they are born."

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Hotel Full of Cowboys

[World, October 15, 1994] 

We had gathered, about a hundred pro-family leaders, for a weekend conference in a Washington hotel. It was encouraging to see so many other fellow laborers assembled at one time; we filled a small dining room at lunchtime, and felt like the forward edge of a mighty army.

But as the day went on we began to be outnumbered by cowboys. Cowboys in the elevators, cowboys in the halls, cowboys sitting at tiny glass tables in the lounge. Two things about this seemed unusual:

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Twice Liberated: A Personal Journey Through Feminism

[Touchstone, Summer 1994]

When I joined the college newspaper as a shy freshman many years ago, the editor gave me my first assignment: “Find out what’s all this stuff about women’s lib.” I was baffled as to how to do that; reports of feminism (which was then usually called “women’s lib”) were just beginning to titillate the public, just beginning to show up in Johnny Carson jokes about “bra-burners.” Was it possible to dig up any local “libbers”? My editor had a suggestion: go to the Student Union and have them announce over the loudspeaker, “Anyone representing the women’s liberation movement, please come to the information desk.”

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The Flaws of the Fifties: Ozzie and Harriet's Rebellious Children

[World, January 22, 1994]

As Christians today push for the renewal of moral values in our nation, they have a tendency to idealize the Fifties. Wouldn't it be great if families were like the Ozzie-and-Harriet households prevalent then? Strong two-parent families, where the dads worked and the moms stayed home with the kids. Where kids were cherished and not hurried through childhood. Where "family values" were celebrated by schools, the media, and entertainment. If only things were like that again...

...we could raise a new generation of Americans who would take drugs, burn flags, have indiscriminate sex, champion abortion, mock the faith, and complain continuously about what a lousy deal we handed them.

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Fraternizing with the Enemy

[World, October 23, 1993]

I arrived a little early to pick up my 11-year-old son at church camp. It was dinnertime in the long wooden hall, 263 kids noisily banging the cups and wolfing down cherry cobbler. Suddenly a table of boys burst into incoherent song--the words a blur, but the tone tauntingly playful. It was greeted with a mixture of applause and boos. "That's Cabin 44," Stephen grinned. "Every night they have a battle with Cabin 5. They make up rhymes about each other."

When a few minutes had lapsed another song struck up, this one all in girls' voices. "That's Cabin 5," Stephen told me. When they finished, I joined the yays (Go, team!) while Stephen went "Boo!" "I had to go 'boo,'" he explained to me, sincerely. "I knew they were making fun of men. I knew it was a sexist joke."

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