Hookups and "Counts As Sex"

Oliver Wang (subbing for Ta-Nehesis Coates) posted about sociological research on hookup culture. I commented:

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Thank you for shedding a little clarity and rationality on the topic.

One of the things baffling me, though, is that I don't know what you (or the researchers) mean by "having sex". The contexts.org article, for instance, includes under "hooking up" activities that in my distant youth were called "making out", which was definitely *not* classified as "having sex".

Similarly, I have a lot of trouble with remembering who is supposed to be "receiving" oral sex, and wish people would just say "fellatio" when that's all they mean. It's extremely difficult, reading this material, to figure out who is actively trying to have an orgasm with whom and how often, which I figured was the Gold Standard of When It Counts, but maybe I'm just a fogey.

In "This Side of Paradise", doesn't Fitzgerald talk about a culture of "petting" and "petting parties" in the 1920s? -- which sounds a lot like hooking up to me, if hooking includes what us fogeys called "second base".

Lee and the Custis family slaves

Andy Hall was one of Ta-Nehesis Coates' pinch-hitters this week. Today he wrote about Arlington, Bobby Lee, and the 'Peculiar Institution'. I replied to another commenter, saying:

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Lee owned slaves because his wife and her family did. As the original post implies, the slaves in question probably included *her siblings*, and doubtless other relatives as well.

By framing his relationship with the Custis slaves as purely economic, a matter of labor, Lee was wilfully ignoring the fact that the slaves should have been treated as blood relatives, his wife's siblings and his children's cousins. The Custises had "indulged" their slaves because on some level they recognized that they were literally family; Lee was a stern and legalistic master IMHO because he was denying that they were.

Remember, Lee marriage to Mary Custis made many people consider him to be George Washington's heir -- but the Arlington slaves were, by that same count, also Washington's heirs. By treating them rigorously, Lee was making sure that his children had no competition for Washington's legacy.

In Martin Chuzzlewit (1843), Dickens describes the Southern American as a man

who dreamt of freedom in the arms of a slave, and woke to sell her children and his own in the public marketplace.

More on the Book of Jonah

Mark Kleinman, subbing for Ta-Nehesis Coates, posted a rather serious analysis of the Book of Jonah, but noted that some people read it as comedy or satire. I commented:

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I'm glad that I'm not the only one who reads Jonah as comedy -- I think it's *hilarious*, as funny as a well-done megillah. [I then explained my take on the book]

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I always assumed that the Hebrew Bible was basically humorless

Are you joking?!? Not only is there Jonah, but also:

- the Golden Hemorrhoids of I Samuel chapters 5 & 6.

- Rachel steals her father's household gods, then when he comes to look for them she sits on them and says she's having her period and doesn't want to get up, so he goes away. Genesis 31:34-35.

- Balaam and his talking ass, Numbers 22:21-38.

That's just off the top of my head. And I don't even know Hebrew, so I can't cite the puns that I'm sure are all through the texts.

I'm kind of boggled to see that you're Orthodox -- I thought not seeing the humor in the Bible was a province of literalist Christians, frankly. Reconstructionist/Renewal rabbis, at least, always are aware of the funny bits, the ha-ha-only-serious. I first became consciously aware of Jonah's humor during a bibliodrama one Yom Kippur afternoon, because it's impossible to act out Jonah's lines without realizing that he's hilariously absurd.

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My 4th grade rebbe (who was hands down the greatest teacher I ever had) approached the material in a way that was, in retrospect, reminiscent of the Bible routines of comics like Bill Cosby or David Steinberg, but it felt like his own interpolations, not something inherent in the text itself.

I think I probably looked at it this way until I ran into the Golden Hemorrhoids. I contend that it is impossible for human beings, regardless of cultural background, not to see that story as humor. It *must* have always been intended as funny -- and if there is one instance of deliberate humor in the TaNaKh, there's bound to be others. Once I let myself see them, there they were -- especially when I realized that the Bible was not meant to be read, but to be read *aloud*, with inflection and "doing the voices" and all the other things you do when you're reading for an audience.

Blogcomment record: Divorcing Israel

The Knesset is considering a bill that would give the Orthodox Rabbinate a monopoly on matters of Jewish identity. This would, among other things, make Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and even many American Orthodox conversions "not count" in Israel -- only Haredi aka "Ultra-Orthodox" would pass their test.

Or, as Jeffrey Goldberg (normally a reliable cheerleader for the Zionist section) put it: Israel to Diaspora: Drop Dead. American Jews are *extremely* upset.

This is a summary of comments I left in Ta-Nehesi Coates' open thread, at a a Jerusalem Post article, at Tablet Magazine, and at Emily Hauser's; I also emailed Goldberg.

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We non-Orthodox are like a woman who's been abused, insulted, stolen from, and betrayed by her husband. At last he's given her a get -- but it still hurts, to know how little she was ever respected.

A crucial aspect that both American and Israeli Orthodox (and secular Israelis) seem to be mostly missing is that non-Orthodox Jewish practice seems more *right* to us. We aren't interested in just being halachically "good" Jews, we want to be good people who are Jewish. We look at Israeli Orthodoxy and we see the same behavior and attitudes we see in Christian or Muslim or Hindu fundamentalists. We do *not* see the true foundations of our Jewish religion: Hillel's "one-leg Torah" (aka The Golden Rule), teshuva, tikkun olam, justice and wisdom, wrestling with G-d. Indeed, I think that to many of us Israeli Orthodoxy seems to make idols out of even the Torah and Eretz Israel, preferring to focus on these rather than the more difficult mitzvot: “Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the stranger or the poor", for a start. We let strangers into our congregations because we do still know the feelings of the stranger.

The NYT piece says:

Neither the Jewish diaspora nor Israel can afford a split between the two communities

I disagree. Diaspora Judaism *must* split, for the sake of our souls. In the first place, we’ve been handed our get, we need to recognize it, weep, and move on. In the second place, Israel was the wrong Bridegroom: there’s only One Who truly counts, and Who is the security of the Jewish people and faith.

Even when you've been kicked out, it's hard to walk away -- but I think that's what non-Orthodox Jews have to do to remain true to our Jewish obligations.

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Emily pointed out that the law hasn't been passed, the divorce has not been finalized. There's still time for Israel to back away, to say "Oh baby, I never meant to make you *cry*." But I don't know how reparable the marriage is, at this point.

I invite my Israeli or Orthodox friends to persuade me I'm wrong.

Ted Kennedy; health care; incompetance

Within you may find comments on: Ted Kennedy at Ta-Nehesi Coates'; incompetence as a strategy, at Crooked Timber; health reform, at Obsidian Wings.
Ta-Nehesi Coates, who's a young whippersnapper, asked How did he get that lion of the senate title? What were the nuts and bolts he screwed with to get business done? What's the why and how?. I said:

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I think the main reason Kennedy could accomplish so much was that he was an hereditary aristocrat. His life is a textbook example of how that is both good and bad.

Because he came to his position essentially by inheritance, he didn't have to fight for it. He could afford to be principled, but he could also afford to be magnanimous.

Even very conservative Republicans could work with him, because what's more conservative than hereditary aristocracy? Indeed, he wasn't just an aristocrat, he was a *celebrity*, the very highest class of American society, rarified even by the standards of the Senate Millionaire's Club.

The good part of being an aristocrat is *supposed* to be being reared to public service; care for the downtrodden also *supposed* to be one of the emblems of Catholicism. In Kennedy's case they actually worked, so he was an aristocrat in a very Catholic mold, blending the sense of duty with the awareness of not being particularly "elect" in the Protestant sense. In Catholicism, "sinner" and "saint" are not opposites nor mutually exclusive.

And of course, being an aristocrat -- and more than that, a celebrity -- meant that Kennedy's ability to *do* things could not be destroyed by Chappaquidick or anyting else. His hereditary position could not be undone or unmade, so he could get away with things.

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[in reply to an accusation of ignorance]
You misunderstand me. I admire Kennedy *deeply* and have for many decades.

But his virtues -- magnanimity, firm principle, kindness, friendliness -- are not enough to explain why *Republicans* got along with him and were willing to work with him. Virtue and strength of character aren't enough; he also needed power, the kind of unassailable power that came from his hereditary celebrity.

The contrast to GWB, of course, is painful and acute. GWB is the poster boy for all the ways aristocracy is a bad idea -- and how of all the hereditary aristocracies, the worst are the ones where the aristocrats think they've *earned* their positions.

TNC's question is *how* Kennedy could do so much. I don't think personality, principle, or a tradition of collegiality are enough to explain why Hatch and others were willing to work with Kennedy -- I think it's that he was, in an American way, of a higher social class than they were. He was able to use that power for good, but the foundation of his power was just as unearned as any X-Men's. (X-Man's?)

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Karen in DC wrote:

.. after Kennedy got in trouble for cheating at Harvard, he ENLISTED in the army and served as a private, not as an officer as his older brothers had. So, he had to LEARN how to engage with people from other classes, including live and work with them and take orders from those who were not of a higher class. He had a lived experience as a "regular" person that his brothers had not.

Thanks for the info, Karen, I didn't know that. I'm betting that experience -- and being so far down on the sibling totem pole -- did indeed help give him experience seeing things through other people's eyes.

Nonetheless, his position in public life began and depended upon his lineage -- as the Charles Pierce bio a few years ago said:

If his name were Edward Moore . . .

He would not have served so long, if he'd served at all.

If his name were Edward Moore, Robert Bork might be on the Supreme Court today. Robert Dole might have been elected president of the United States. There might still be a draft. There would not have been the Civil Rights Act of 1991

This is the dream of aristocracy, as good as it can get: someone of such high, unearned position that they can be thorougly magnanimous. Alas for Plato, it doesn't happen often enough to justify the whole system, but at least we can recognize it when it does.

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Henry at Crooked Timber posted on incompetance as a signalling device, linking to Scott McLemee's review of Diego Gambetta on Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate, and makes comparisons to the Italian academic scene:

“Being incompetent and displaying it,” he writes, “conveys the message * I will not run away, for I have no strong legs to run anywhere else. * In a corrupt academic market, being good at and interested in one’s own research, by contrast, signal a potential for a career independent of corrupt reciprocity

I said:

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Now *that’s* a theory with broad applicability, if you know what I mean.

I recently read Deer Hunting with Jesus, and was thinking about Sarah Palin and the glorification of ignorance and ill-education in what David Hackett Fischer calls American “Borderer” culture. Gambetta’s theory makes the light bulb go off, for me.

If education is a ticket out of poverty or marginalization, then poor and marginalized people will (rightly) see it as disloyal to the group or the family, unless it goes along with a strong tradition of supporting your parents and extended kin. Proud ignorance is proof that you won’t leave your kin behind—because you have no-where else to go.

Do any of you know if Gambetta talks about such signalling by Japanese yakuza? They are famous for using tattooing and self-mutilation as demonstrations of loyalty and commitment.

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von, one of the conservatives at Obsidian Wings, posted about health care reform and his support for Wyden-Bennett. I wrote:

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Having read a brief overview of W-B, von, I have a question:

Does any other country do this?

I personally have had *enough* of American exceptionalism and insisting on being the first penguin off the ice floe. There's no point in having a big world if you have to keep inventing the wheel to prove how Special we are.

I also am quite appalled at the idea that the solution to our problem is to give more money to insurance companies. Step right this way for yet more regulatory capture and market failure!

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I will also add that the reason I am for single payer is that I abhor means testing. To people of means, means testing may seem "only fair", but in practice it is tiring, degrading, confusing, privacy-destroying, and taxing in every sense. It also inevitably involves huge, invasive bureaucracies and the pushing of much paper, things to which von is deeply opposed.

Now playing

Mixed bag of recent comments, to keep track of what discussions I'm in where.

More at Dreher's Culture and the knowability of truth:

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the stupid Chris:

Shucks, my blushes. But really, you *have* to laugh -- when Copernicus did it, it was a watershed in human thought. At this point, it's a long-running gag.

the essence of the contemplative life is to banish C/certainty and A/authority as we muddle our way toward T/truth.

I think it's significant that various schemes for contemplative lives (in many traditions) all involve great discipline and stability in what you actually *do* with your time. Contemplatives may banish ontological certainty, but they generally live to very strict schedules. They still meet the basic human emotional need for stability, just not in philosophical matters.

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at Ta-Nehesi Coates' It's the Racism, Stupid:

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What was the gain from white supremacy? If not material, then what spiritual gain could people think they were getting? Something big enough to kill over, something important enough to forgo material gain in order to preserve. What?

Their place in the hierarchy.

As long as blacks were "in their place", not being "uppity", a white man -- no matter how poor and ignorant -- could not be the bottom rung. Upper-class or educated white men can afford not to be racist, because they won't fall to the very bottom just because blacks are in the hierarchy. But the further down the ladder a white man is, the more threatened he is by black equality.

I think the exact same process drives homophobia in the black community. As long as homosexuals are despised, no straight black man can be the very bottom of the social scale.

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At Plumb Lines' Are "We" Guilty of Torture?:

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our shared cultural belief that the body is different from the person

Wow, do I disagree. One would then assume that a less dualistic culture would be less prone to war crimes — the Japanese, for instance.

No, I think the reasons for both the high-level and low-level torture policiess were perfectly outlined by John Dean several years ago, in Conservatives Without Conscience: this is authoritarianism.

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At Daniel Larison's Of “Centrists” And Moderates:

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what pundits and journalists usually describe as “centrism” is capitulation to the other side on high-profile pieces of legislation by going against the grain of one’s own party in a melodramatic way and usually by backing the position that had won the approval of political establishment figures.

This is why a *lot* of us wanted you to get a Times/Post slot. Still want — surely they can swap out Krauthammer, now that he has re-defined “bottom of the moral barrel”?

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At hilzoy's Disbar them:

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I also really, *really* want to see professional sanctions against the doctors and psychiatrists. Are there any moves being made in that direction?