to everyone in israel who thinks that anti-semitism isn't really a thing, check this out. read the comments. ignoring (for a moment) the fact that the laws preventing homosexual couples from engaging in surrogacy in israel are primitive and shameful (as are the laws regarding civil marriage), the reality is that no other people in the world would be judged for taking care of their surrogate or adopted babies and not the mothers.
nobody gives a shit about the mothers... unless there are jews involved.
if you think these are just a few voices on the internet, i'm sorry to tell you that you are very, very wrong. it continually horrifies me to learn how much anti-semitism there is even here, in canada, where people are famous for being non-judgmental pluralists.
Showing posts with label lgbt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lgbt. Show all posts
Saturday, May 02, 2015
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
the porsche story
apparently i've never shared the porsche story on my blog! how shameful...
hido used to work in a restaurant, and the owner developed a giant crush on me. he was an attractive man and very sweet, but i'm not that way inclined... over a period of weeks and months he made his intentions extremely clear, sometimes in a funny way and sometimes crossing the line of sexual harassment. i was always there to see hido, though, not him, so i just let it slide. aside from inappropriate solicitations he was quite kind to me (and the food coming out of his kitchen was delicious), and he certainly wasn't threatening so no biggie.
one day, a gorgeous summer's sunday, a few of us were sitting at a table outside drinking and having a good time, all the while eyeballing a brand new (80km on the odometer) porsche carrera parked right outside with the top down. we'd been ogling it for ages when hido's boss came out to say hi...
... and saw what i'd been looking at. it was his new purchase...
"hey, totalwaste. you can HAVE the porsche.
...
IF you'll be my boyfriend"
let me tell you, for eighteen year-old me that was mind-blowing - the next five seconds were some of the toughest of my young adult life :(
"i'm sorry, man, i'm going to have to say no."
i think i was almost in tears.
...
my buddies all had a good laugh then, and i'm constantly surprised by how many straight guys i know who are horrified when i tell the story.
"you did what?! are you mad?!?? you should have taken the porsche!!!"
hido used to work in a restaurant, and the owner developed a giant crush on me. he was an attractive man and very sweet, but i'm not that way inclined... over a period of weeks and months he made his intentions extremely clear, sometimes in a funny way and sometimes crossing the line of sexual harassment. i was always there to see hido, though, not him, so i just let it slide. aside from inappropriate solicitations he was quite kind to me (and the food coming out of his kitchen was delicious), and he certainly wasn't threatening so no biggie.
one day, a gorgeous summer's sunday, a few of us were sitting at a table outside drinking and having a good time, all the while eyeballing a brand new (80km on the odometer) porsche carrera parked right outside with the top down. we'd been ogling it for ages when hido's boss came out to say hi...
... and saw what i'd been looking at. it was his new purchase...
"hey, totalwaste. you can HAVE the porsche.
...
IF you'll be my boyfriend"
let me tell you, for eighteen year-old me that was mind-blowing - the next five seconds were some of the toughest of my young adult life :(
"i'm sorry, man, i'm going to have to say no."
i think i was almost in tears.
...
my buddies all had a good laugh then, and i'm constantly surprised by how many straight guys i know who are horrified when i tell the story.
"you did what?! are you mad?!?? you should have taken the porsche!!!"
Saturday, June 22, 2013
gender insensitive
okay, i'm upset by the internet getting angry with mike krahulik over his transgender insensitivity.
i'm not transgender, so i'll never really understand it but i can most certainly accept it. especially after a long and enlightening lecture about gender biology where i learned just how weird male / females definitions can be. regardless, most people are not informed, and that's not because they're bad, or narrow-minded. it's because our species-wide awareness of these issues is new enough that it goes directly against what everyone's been taught since forever.
it is in our nature to fight conflicting ideas, and being antagonized doesn't assist the process.
not that i don't identify with the defensive nature of any minority that feels threatened! but it's counter-productive. and here we see a flame war on twitter that had a net negative effect for both sides. mike eventually started coming around, and that demonstrates that he's not simply a jerk. you can't demonize people who don't know about *your* minority, there are plenty of minorities you don't know or care about and that's just fine because life's too short to invest only in everyone else.
mike and jerry are the faces of the penny arcade empire, and they got that way because they're human beings, not corporate representations. *that* is why we adore them. because they're honest even when they're at their worst. judge them! but discuss things with them, instead of jumping to conclusions and putting them on the defensive.
--- about the dickwolves thing: it was a really funny comic and did not in any way imply that rape is okay, and most certainly not that the guys are "rape apologists". anyone upset by this comic on those grounds is simply too stupid to "get" that [JOKE EXPLANATION WARNING] what's being ridiculed is the gaming paradigm in which your character doesn't have to care about the plight of NPC's no matter how horrible their situation is. it's saying that rape is bad, and that it's weird that these games are telling you that you don't have to care about all the victims.
which is realistic, i guess. IRL you can't save everyone.
i'm not transgender, so i'll never really understand it but i can most certainly accept it. especially after a long and enlightening lecture about gender biology where i learned just how weird male / females definitions can be. regardless, most people are not informed, and that's not because they're bad, or narrow-minded. it's because our species-wide awareness of these issues is new enough that it goes directly against what everyone's been taught since forever.
it is in our nature to fight conflicting ideas, and being antagonized doesn't assist the process.
not that i don't identify with the defensive nature of any minority that feels threatened! but it's counter-productive. and here we see a flame war on twitter that had a net negative effect for both sides. mike eventually started coming around, and that demonstrates that he's not simply a jerk. you can't demonize people who don't know about *your* minority, there are plenty of minorities you don't know or care about and that's just fine because life's too short to invest only in everyone else.
mike and jerry are the faces of the penny arcade empire, and they got that way because they're human beings, not corporate representations. *that* is why we adore them. because they're honest even when they're at their worst. judge them! but discuss things with them, instead of jumping to conclusions and putting them on the defensive.
which is realistic, i guess. IRL you can't save everyone.
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