Here is this week’s list of blog posts, comics, videos, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.
Meaningless via SMBCComics. Ack, everything I want to say about this comic strip gives away too many spoilers. 🙂
Something Strange Happened at McDonalds. And here I thought I was the only one who tidies up after strangers in public! I’ve never gone this far, though.
Questions for Sighted People. This video was made by a man who was born blind. Among other questions, he wants to know what it’s like to go somewhere alone and how we remember what everyone else’s faces look like. I loved his sense of humour and hope questions for ____ people becomes a meme.
My Gender Identity via tmamone. As someone who has never questioned my gender identity I find Travis’ journey to be really interesting. I hope this is the beginning of a series on the topic.
Love Letters from a Scientist. This particular page is work safe. The rest of the site may not be.
Telescopic Droppings via Bluestocking. One of the (dis?)advantages of moving far away from the communities I grew up in is that I rarely hear the latest news about who died, or more likely at this stage in my life who got married or had a baby. While I absolutely relish the privacy of city life I can see the advantages of occasionally popping your head back into the loop to see what the latest community news might be.
From What Boys Become: Modesty Culture and Learned Irresponsibility:
This is the primary sin of modesty culture – it teaches irresponsibility and blaming others, but masks it as sexual purity. It teaches men to dispose of women who don’t fit their mold, under the guise of “keeping themselves pure.” It teaches men that women exist on a spectrum of worth determined by their clothing and that it is their right as men to determine which women are worth more – and yet, modesty culture masks it as “keeping away from sexual sin.” It teaches men irresponsibility and plays it off as “integrity.”
An Intimate Life is the autobiography of a sexual surrogate. The author works with clients who are disabled or who need help with some aspect of their sexual life. She sleeps with some – but not all – of her clients in order to teach them skills that are extremely difficult to learn by reading a book.
I loved the author’s descriptions of the people she has helped over the years, especially the professional relationship she develops with a man named Mark who became severely disabled after contracting polio as a child. Some passages are sexually explicit, but they are in no way intended to be titillating.
This is a book about the importance of connecting with others. As far as I know none of my readers are sexual surrogates ( 😉 ), but I think all of us can benefit from slowing down and getting to know people we might ordinarily breeze past without a second thought.
What have you been reading?
You are the most widely read person I know. Your links are a plethora of depth and range.
That means a lot to me. Thanks. 🙂