culture

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The Micropenis

I know that as a class we are a pretty open group of people, but because this is a public blog (and because I am unsure how people will feel about me posting pictures) I am going to refrain from doing so for this particular post, however, if you are interested in finding pictures they are very easy to come across online. I will also warn you that the sites I have posted do contain graphic pictures, so don’t visit them if you don’t want to see the pictures.

Interestingly enough, I stumbled upon this topic after our class discussion of a utopian society in which all babies were born with the possibility of all inheriting any genetic traits from the entire population. A conflict arose when two groups of people argued whether or not they should “exclude the negative traits” without ever specifying what those negative traits are or might be. Well, I figure this is easily something that could be seen as a “negative trait”- the microphallus or micropenis.

According to http://www.micropenis.biz/p/micropenis-information.html  and Wikipedia, a micropenis can be defined as “an erect penis that is 2.5 standard deviations less than the average human penis size”. However, the two sites differ on what the average erect human penis size is. The first site defines a micropenis as being 9 centimeters or 3.5 inches or less, while the second site defines it as 7 centimeters or 2.5 inches or less. According to the websites, 0.5-0.6% of the male population has this condition. But does having a condition mean that you suffer from it?

It is possible. Even the author of micropenis.biz says that he “suffers” from the condition. Some people think they no longer suffer if the condition goes away with some form of treatment.

In the 1960s and 70s sex reassignment surgery was recommended for the micropenis condition, and if the parents consented, the testes would be removed, an artificial vagina would be constructed, and the boy would be raised as a girl. Even at our very own Johns Hopkins Hospital they performed 12 of these surgeries. However, these surgeries were based on three assumptions that are now in question:

  1. gender identity and sex differences were solely a matter of social learning rather than biology.
  2. a male with a penis too small to put into a vagina could not find a satisfactory social and sexual place in society.
  3. a functionally acceptable vagina could be constructed surgically

Because intersex individuals and some of these patients believe that children’s sex organs, sexual identity, and gender identity shouldn’t be decided for them, or regretted the surgeries that have been performed on them, many of these surgeries have stopped and parents are waiting until their children are old enough to make the decisions for themselves.

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Virgin are we?

So I’ll definitely put myself out there I am a virgin and I am 22 years old. And yes I am waiting till marriage. That being said I am tired of the, what seems to me, random depictions of virgins. In the movies usually the virgin is one prophetess or religious deity like in the movies Immortal and Conan the Barbarian. Or people in generally think that all virgins are prudish, stuck up, extra conservative, and hyper religious. It’s as if within the push for the feminist movement that means that have as much sex as you please and make the choice to have sex. What if you do not make that choice are you then against feminism. I thought the whole point of feminism is to respect women and the choices they make with their bodies (themselves). But more so it is lets show the men we can have as much sex as they can. I personally am not interested. It is as self there are two different secs the women who chose to wait and rock purity rings and the women who engage in sexual intercourse looking down on those that don’t. Of course I know that this goes both ways. But I feel as if women need to know that both options are viable and for this to happen sexual education needs to occur. Sex is everywhere and women are constantly being pressured to engage in something they might not be ready to yet. So where is the dialogue for those who want to wait and those who do not.

I think it is equally annoying to have certain body movements legitimatized by bodies who have sex and those that don’t. Just because I can wind and swirl my hips a certain way doesn’t then mean I have sex. Or if I can’t dance for anything doesn’t mean I am a prude. We create so many binary for ourselves that it is difficult to claim to be a feminist is daunting if as a part of that it means you have a body that participates in sexual intercourse. And to add on to that if you are any other ‘color’ than white your body is then hyper sexualized and expected to participate in sex. And if you are not that you are linked to being a prude. And fyi a prude means “a person who is excessively proper or modest in speech, conduct, dress, etc.” It comes from the french word meaning “worthy or respectable women”. But we take words and add our own derogation connotation to them and look down on the people that fit the altered rhetoric of the word. Lets change our words and connotations or words. In thus doing we change the frame of our world.

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Bodies that speak

I’ll put my name in this post because it will make more sense.This is Renita.

So I was born in Cleverly, MD and I have lived in Maryland for 21 years I lived in Oklahoma for one year and I am 22 years old. However when I open my mouth and begin to speak something strange comes out – an accent. I have no idea why or how I sound the way I do. My mother who was born in Nigeria doesn’t have the accent and neither do my cousins who I spent a significant amount of with have one. So I have no idea where my voice comes from. Interestingly enough when in America and in other parts of the world (I have traveled a bunch) whenever I speak people accept that I am from Nigerian as opposed to when I say I am from America.

Usually the conversation goes something like this

“where are you from”

me – “Maryland”

“no I mean where are you really from”

me – “my family is from Nigeria”

“oh so where you born there”

me – “nope I was born here”

“oh so you lived there”

me – “nope I have lived here all my life

This conversation has happened many a time. It is very hard for me to explain to people that I am American and they never truly seem convinced. So more often then not I say I am Nigerian it is a lot easier then the long conversation. Or if I really want to make the person that I am talking to upset I say “I was born in America but I am from Nigeria”. My thing is that everyone has an accent to anyone else. There is no unified way that Americans talk. There are different southern accents, there are new England accents, new york accents so on and so forth. So why the obsession which trying to pin point where a ‘body’ is from based on how they sound. I mean if I wanted I could make my self sound American which probably means Caucasian (which by the way a lot of people that come from Nigeria and move here do). But sorry I am not going to make it easy. This is the way I speak.

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The Great Wall of Vagina

Artist Jamie McCartney is trying to start a sexual revolution… but not the kind we usually think of.

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He is attempting through art to change female body perceptions and show us that every woman’s vulvas are normal.  McCartney is a life cast artist; he spent five years collecting casts of volunteers’ vulva mounds and has turned the result into The Great Wall of Vagina.

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The work includes 400 casts, as accurate as photographs, displayed in ten wall panels. They range in age from 18 to 76 and include mothers and daughters, identical twins, transgendered men and women, women pre and post natal, and another one pre and post labiaplasty. It is impressive and at times overwhelming, but by reducing the body part to a simple white plaster cast, he removes the sexualization we would typically attach to such a display.  His use of spectacle shows us how absolutely diverse each and every woman’s vulva is – on the website it mentions how each one is as unique as a face.  And they are!

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“For many women their genital appearance is a source of anxiety and I was in a unique position to do something about that.” - Jamie McCartney

There are several things I find interesting about this art project.  First, by bombarding us with 400 vulvas in a small space, he reduces the body to a single part, from a view many of us have never seen. And while we ARE viewing the diversity and differences in vulvas, it also manages to emphasize the similarities.  We see the similarities in our differences.

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And second, if women are shocked and surprised at the diversity shown here – why is that?  Is it simply because most heterosexual women haven’t seen other women’s open vulvas?  Or is it the “pornification” of our modern culture?  If labiaplasties are on the rise, do you think an exhibit like this would help stop that trend? Do you think hetereosexual men and lesbians are surprised by this diversity?

So, would you go see the show?  And if you are the owner of a vulva, are you looking for one that looks like yours?

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“It’s time our society grew up around these issues and I’m certain that art has a role to play.” - Jamie McCartney

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Hijabs and Hoodies

After we discussed the horrific and tragic murder of Trayvon Martin in class today, this article in particular caught my attention:

Shaima Alawadi, a resident of San Diego, California, was found beaten unconscious in her home last Wednesday and died of her wounds this past Saturday.  A note was found saying, “Go back to your own country. You’re a terrorist”.

Shaima was a stay at home mother with five children.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-california-iraqi-memorial-idUSBRE82R01N20120328.

This happened less than a week ago.

There was mention in class of how certain ideas in society become normalized, for better or for worse. In Trayvon and Shaima’s case there is no question these ideas create a poisonous environment.

But in both cases there was a similarity: clothing.

Trayvon was wearing a hoodie; which according to sources across the spectrum, most notably Geraldo Rivera, made him a target for suspicion. Last I checked wearing a hooded sweatshirt left no one with the ability to label someone as “suspicious” and cause cruel loss of life to another.

Shaima also had an article of clothing that marked her; a hijab. For those who are unfamiliar with a hijab, it is a head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women for reasons of modesty. Yet by wearing a hijab Shaima marked herself as “other”.

I find myself wondering if we can draw parallels between Shaima’s and Trayvon’s murders. They were both marginalized members of society, Trayvon was black and Shaima was an Iraqi-American immigrant. Both were wearing articles of clothing that are innocuous (although a hijab may stand out for those unfamiliar with the garb) but these clothes became threatening to those with prejudices and stereotypes.

I think we, as a Western society, are not past our cultural and racial biases when two murders are committed within a month of each other on the basis of race and ethnicity, with the flimsy excuses of clothing as reasoning. (By the way, I’m not ignoring that there are far, far too many of these crimes that go purposely unnoticed or are unreported).

In response to this hate crime there has been an out pour on social media and I found a group on facebook that seemed particularly fitting: http://www.facebook.com/pages/One-Million-Hijabs-for-Shaima-Alawadi/137306256397032.

When women are told, “you were asking for it”, if they are raped and happened to be wearing a miniskirt, when young black men are shot for wearing hoodies, and a woman is beaten to death in California for wearing a hijab because it “makes her a terrorist”, I have to wonder about the emphasis placed on clothing and the body-the cycle of violence around the clothing people wear for religious or personal reasons and why people use these articles of clothing as excuses for committing atrocities.

I find myself sick at heart with the violence, the hate, the prejudice, and the inbred bias. I send loving and peaceful wishes to the members of Trayvon Martin and Shaima Alawadi’s families.

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Summer, Sandals and Socialized Feet

So summer is swiftly approaching. The heat will of course cause a large shift in the way bodies are covered. Shorter and shorter skirts, barely there shorts, sleeveless tops and if your really hot, just bikinis all day! This of course horrifies the conservative sector of society that prefers woman cover up for moral reason. I however am concerned with a very specific body part that suddenly gets over exposed. FEET.

They are everywhere. There are flip-flops, peep-toe heals, strappy sandals and more, all overly exposing the foot to the population. I recognize this is not generally considered a big deal. I’m sure members of the foot fetish society community love this time of year. As for me, it is dreadful.

Here is why. All winter I had the luxury of socks and boots, fully protecting my feet from the public view. Now I have the added hassle of constantly preparing my feet for society. Painting my nails, making sure my heels and toes have lotion at all times, and making sure they have a generally attractive appearance. No one told me explicitly that I need to put the extra effort toward my toes. Yet I know, from the sexy models with the perfect feet in the DSW and Payless commercials. Every single one has toes painted with wonderfully bright colors, their toes fit perfectly in the shoe as if the designer tailored the shoe for that specific foot. Meanwhile, I have to pull of the same strappy sandal with my imperfect feet.  This may just be a personal dilemma, but I’m certain I’m not the only one who has noticed how even the barely noticed parts of our bodies have been subjected to socially constructed norms.Image

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Bows and Arrows vs. Vampire Fangs

If you’re a nerd like me and spent this past Thursday night eagerly waiting for The Hunger Games midnight premier, you might recognize the name Katniss Everdeen. Katniss is the heroine of the wildly popular Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. If you haven’t had the opportunity to read these books yet I highly recommend checking them out at your local library.

Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of media comparing Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight with Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games, or more specifically, Katniss vs. Bella.

I did a little research and I found this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-katniss-of-hunger-games-a-lasting-heroine/2012/03/20/gIQAXvVbUS_story.html

The main point of the article is Katniss is not a new character, her physical and emotional strength are not new concepts to female heroines. However, many of the “sheroes” depicted in present day teen fiction, such as Bella Swan, are the exact opposite of the force that is Katniss Everdeen. Bella doesn’t push herself forward, and fight. Bella’s route is different, but her choices are her own. I am not a Twilight fan in any sense of the word but this article had a fascinating insight: there is room for both sheroes. Katniss needs to exist alongside Bella, both are representational of different aspects of feminism and the choices it allows women to have.

I appreciated the article for having the insight to point out characters like Katniss, who defy the norm, have existed in literature for ages. Has anyone besides me read Little Women? Jo and Katniss would have been best friends.

Ultimately I have to agree with the Washington Post article; Jo, from Little Women is remembered as is Alana from  Tamora Pierce novels, and I don’t think anyone will ever forget the brilliant Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. These women, along with Katniss Everdeen, are powerful, dynamic creatures who put their complete selves into a struggle against all odds.

So I offer up the question, of all the female characters in modern day literature, whom do you think will be remembered?  Will our daughters read about Bella Swan while Katniss fades quietly into the background and is eventually forgotten? Or will it be characters like Bella, who passively accept their surroundings, who will eventually be forgotten?

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crap I have a left hand

Being right handed is the best. Why we even have a a left hand is a mystery to me? Of course I am being sarcastic but in most cultures being right handed is preferred. I mean preferred to the point that I have seen children get scolded for using their left hand instead of their right. My older cousin should be a lefty but her father decided that he would beat every impulse to right with her left hand. Today she can write with either hand. So why the preference? Here are some fun facts about left handed people;

  • see more easily under water
  •  excel in tennis, baseball, fencing and swimming
  • generally more intelligent, better looking, imaginative, and more talented
  • children having basic problems using the wrong tools so most often times considered slow. (Maybe if we make more left handed tools it wouldn’t take them forever to figure out how to use a right handed scissors.)
  • They seem to make exceptional leaders, inventors, artists, musicians and murderers!
  • more eloquent

Even with these generally good aspects that come from being left handed we are pushed to be right handed. There is a particular Nigerian food called Eba or Pounded Yam and uses one hand to eat it. Well one time I saw one family friend sitting in the corner and eating her food. I asked her why she was basically was hiding in the corner. And she replied that she was eating her food with her left hand. It was strange to me that she felt weird eating in front of people because she was using her left hand. When you type you use both hands to do so (well unless you are my mom then you use on finger) but were did this preference for right had come from? What are some things that you do better with your left hand then you right?

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Skittles and Iced Tea

The murder of 17 year old Trayvon Martin is gathering a large amount of attention in social media. Of course, his murder and the freedom of his murderer are main topics, but there is another cause for concern. What was so suspicious about Trayvon? Why was his black, male body in a hoodie so scary that it caused one to commit murder? More importantly, why does this man, so frightened of black men, continue to walk free?

I believe the whole problem ties back to the Western view of black masculinity. Black men are seen as violent, angry animals. I find this especially interesting since our current president is literally African-American. Why is so much fear directed toward black men? America has historically subverted the black man into being an inferior animal. I guess people really do hate what they do not understand. Sadly enough, Trayvon came to learn this while getting some Skittles and iced tea for his little brother. Unfortunately, Trayvon’s case is not the only one. Sean Bell was murdered the day before his wedding, leaving his fiance and son behind. Bell was also an unarmed black man. His case is different in that he was shot numerous times and by the police.

Can we truly call ourselves “post-racism” when the bodies of black men lay blood soaked and dying simply for being black and “suspicious”? We call ourselves color blind, when all we see is color. A few weeks ago Kony 2012 was viral, and America was so concerned about black bodies in Africa. Since tragedy struck home, though, America has been pretty quiet. I am personally devastated by the case of Trayvon Martin.

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Bodies that bleed

The crucifixion of Jesus have been painted for decades. But for some reason they all look the same. He has little to no blood and has a halo that surrounds his head. Different artist my add his mother or other disciples but the amount of blood is little or none. Now this is a quite interesting depiction when from the 39 stripes on his back, the nails in his has and feet and not to mention the crown of thorns on his head one would think there would be more blood. But is we compare a picture like this: now if you would compare this typical portrayal of Jesu to the most recent depiction done by Mel Gibson and the Passion Of Christ  in this youtube clip (start watching from 2:10-4:05… be advised it is very bloody. The movie is R rated) http://youtu.be/G52Ejcf2qu8

So my question is why did earlier depictions of Jesus show Him as barely having a scratch on Him what that depiction is unrealistic. The whips they had were adorned with nails. So the nails on the whips went in his skin and then ripped off his flesh. Not only that but to make sure He was dead they pierced His side with a spear so that blood came gushing out. But society has it that what is on the inside of the body must remain on the inside. The that raises the question is there an inward and outside part of the body? Because I thought they were one in the same. But the parts of the body that we can not see should remain unseen. As soon there is a breach between the seen and unseen there is a problem. Heaven forbid we sneeze or leak and by all means possible defiantly do not bleed. We get cuts and bruised but of course we have bandaids to cover it up. And then heaven forbid we talk about females that might bleed five times a month. But don’t worry there are ways of hiding that too. So please do not bleed because that makes you human and we al know society basically wants us to be robots.