Volume
3 Issue 7, September 2004
Letter
From the Editor
The second item has to
do with receiving this newsletter. Last month in particular,
a LOT of the mail got bounced back to me. I have done
some preliminary investigations, and all I can surmise
is that the appearance of "sex" in our name
may be triggering some spam blockers. AOL users were
the hardest hit. I want to urge all of our subscribers
to take the following steps:
- except us from your
spam blockers
- resubscribe with a non-free
(i.e. NOT Hotmail or Yahoo) email
- let me know if you have
any problems receiving the email
- you can view this year's
newsletters online at www.smartsextalk.com/newsletter_archives_2004.html
If any of you have any information
about this or any problem with our list, please do not
hesitate to contact me.
~ Editor
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Hot
Topic: The Cost of Knowledge
…and
Hubris
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This month’s
column is dedicated to the memory of David
Reimer, aka Bruce (and later Brenda), aka
John/Joan/John, an unwitting and unwilling
hero/victim in a grand experiment that showed
great promise but went terribly, terribly
wrong.
It began in
1966 when the eight month old twin boys
born to rural Manitoba parents Ron and Janet
Reimer were taken to Winnipeg to undergo
what was thought would be routine circumcisions.
(It is ironic that the book later written
about this case would be entitled As
Nature Made Him, for had baby Bruce
been left as nature made him, he would never
have become the subject of such interest).
The procedure was horribly botched, reducing
Bruce’s penis to a charred remnant.
In 1966, phalloplasty was unknown.
Click here
and listen to the audio file to hear the
story of what transpired next. Suffice it
to say that the distraught parents made
their way to Dr. John Money at Johns Hopkins
in the States. There they learned that nurture,
and not nature, determined gender identification,
and the family, steered by Money, embarked
on a course of action that ended thirty-eight
years later with the little boy’s
despondent suicide.
I believe
Dr. Money meant well. I believe he believed
he was correct when he stated that gender
was malleable before the age of two or three.
I believe he thought he was doing the youngster,
and the world, an important favour.
But
despite young Brenda’s (as she was
renamed) protestations and copius evidence
that the experiement had failed, Money held
fast to his beliefs, his hubris overtaking
his scientific responsibility to search
always for the truth. Brenda eventually
refused any more visits to the doctor, refused
any more hormones, refused to conform to
the expectations of her parents and her
culture. She led
a tortured childhood until a day in her
teens when her father, who could witness
his child’s despair no longer, took
her out for ice cream and told her the truth.
Brenda, heartbroken and relieved, reverted
to maleness and renamed herself David.
John
Colopinto, a journalist, happened upon this
story in the late 1990s and, following exemplary
research and innumerable interviews, penned
the story of this sad little child. As
Nature Made Him kicked open all of
David’s doors. He became, overnight,
a media sensation. Dr. Money, on the other
hand, retreated behind his academic walls
and refused to make comment.
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Article
of the Month
In anticipation
of the May 6 release of Jonathan Margolis'
book O: The Intimate History of
the Orgasm, The Guardian
published this
interesting excerpt.
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Research
of the Month
We have linked to the
BBC Science and Nature site before,
and now they have a new test: "What
Sex is Your Brain?"
UCLA researchers offer
alternative to "fight or flight"
theories on women's friendship. Read
it here:
it's more interesting than it sounds.
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"Watercooler"
links of the Month
We have all been
there - lusty and lucky in love...this
research from New Scientist
Print Edition suggests it's all
in the hormones.
It's
an election year in the U.S., which
means voters are being bombarded by
political messages. Read this
excerpt from the book Bushwomen,
Tales of a Cynical Species for
a view on Bush's use of gender politics.
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After
his return to his proper gender, David set about
making a life for himself. He eventually received
some much-delayed phalloplasty and married a woman
with three children. It began to look like this
tragic story might have a happy ending after all.
But earlier this month we learned that David Reimer
took his own life. Despondent after losing his
wife and children to divorce, his schizophrenic
twin brother to suicide, and his fortune to a
swindle, he quit fighting and overdosed.
And so we lost a
reluctant hero who showed us that gender cannot
be decided by anyone but ourselves. We come with
gender, and temperament, and eye colour preordained.
They are not for us to manipulate.
We need more compassion
in how we greet those different from mainstream
expectations. We need to listen to our children
when they insist a mistake has been made in assigning
them to the blue or pink lines. We’ve no
right to make one more child suffer needlessly
after poor David taught us so well that each of
us is the expert on ourselves.
So here’s
to you brave baby boy Bruce. We did you wrong,
and you paid the extreme sacrifice for our devotion
to seeing what we wanted to see. May you be the
last that suffers such consequence.
Read his obituary here.
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The
Politics of Fitness: Curves
Dear Readers,
The following was sent to me through a newsgroup.
Although it is not directly of sexual interest,
it is yet another reminder of the need to assess
critically what we believe we know.
Many cheered the widespread distribution of Curves
franchises. Their advertisements were apparently
pro-women and their gyms designed to welcome the
less-than-fit. How very disappointing to discover
that Heavin, the founder and creator of these
women-centred gyms, is himself a right-wing conservative
who contributes part of Curves's profits to definitively
anti-woman causes such as anti-choice organizations.
The articles below explain how it all works. Read
it and weep!
__________
Hello friends,
A friend of mine had raised a concern re: Curves
and so I did some digging to try and substantiate
the claims. I have come across a number of disturbing
pieces of information and stories of various women's
experiences at different Curves locations. However,
I think the following article sums up the concerns
the best. The allegations have been: 1) that Curves
makes money off of women and uses that money to
fund anti-choice and pro-life groups and 2) that
there are some locations where non-christians
are made to feel uncomfortable and at times are
pressured to attend church and 'convert'. Both
of these claims seem to be at least somewhat substantiated
in the following article. And I have found a couple
of websites with other supporting information.
Please share this info with other women - I think
it is important for women to know where their
money is going and to be informed about the goals
of the company so they can decide whether or not
they want to support this venture.
~ Newsgroup Member
__________
Apr. 16, 2004
Curves CEO fuses theology and fitness in franchises
GARY HEAVIN CREATES SANCTUARIES FOR WOMEN
By Vera H-C Chan
Special to the Mercury News
Curves, the workout chain, will
be flattening out. Not sales, at $750 million
in annual revenues. Not members, at 2 million
and growing. Not in world ambition, with roll-outs
in 20 countries, including Spain, Mexico, Canada,
Ireland, Dubai, Hong Kong and India. The flattening
out will be the number of franchises in America.
By 2005 -- 10 years after its first franchise
in Paris, Texas -- Curves for Women will max out
at 8,000 outlets, outstripping Starbucks and gaining
on McDonalds.
CEO Gary Heavin (pronounced ``haven'')
has been a believer in its success since the beginning.
``When we founded 50, then 250 (in less than a
year), the handwriting was on the wall,'' says
the Texan, who co-founded the first Curves in
1992 with his wife, Diana. The numbers may not
have surprised the fitness and nutrition mogul,
but the passion that engendered them has. ``If
I missed anything in predicting this whole thing,''
he says, ``it was this inability to perceive this
culture, this community of women who would create
a sanctuary for other women to work hard and work
toward good health.''
Heavin, a born-again Christian
who found his faith after filing bankruptcy and
losing custody of his two children, oversees an
exercise empire. Clubs have relied on word of
mouth -- not simply ads -- to bring members in.
customers have become franchise owners, and meet
at the annual Curves convention. Many of the franchise
owners, the Web site (www.curvesinternational.com)
notes, are religious.
``It's all faiths,'' Heavin says.
``We have Hasidic Jewish franchises in Brooklyn,
which are closed on Saturday and open on Sunday.
We have Muslim franchises. Many of our franchises
are Christian, of course, because 90 percent of
Americans are Christian.''
(Note from Dr. Ren: Another falsehood
here. Of Americans polled as to whether they believed
in God, 87% said yes. Only a fraction of that
percentage define as Christian.)
Some customers might not be comfortable
with the fusion of theology and fitness. ``We
get a lot of heat because we're so expressive
of our faith, and we encourage our faith,'' Heavin
says. Such expressions include Christian music
that his wife produces, and articulated Judeo-Christian
values in Heavin's newest book, ``Curves: Permanent
Results Without Permanent Dieting'' ($23.95, Penguin/Putnam
Publishing).
``Facilities are welcome to play or not play
the music,'' he says. ``They're welcome to use
my book or not.''
Heavin's philanthropy reflects
his deep beliefs. For example, he gives to pregnancy
centers supported by Operation Save America, the
anti-abortion group whose purpose, according to
its Web site, ``unashamedly takes up the cause
of preborn children in the name of Jesus Christ.''
``It seems everything is tolerated
except the Christian, and that's a tragedy because
of the need to put values in our boardrooms and
classrooms,'' he says. ``Curves is not going to
be another Enron or WorldCom.''
His mission to help older women
who rarely exercise stems from a personal tragedy.
His mother suffered from depression and high-blood
pressure. Not long after her divorce, she died
at age 40, leaving behind 13-year-old Gary and
four other offspring. When Heavin turned 40, he
found himself looking for his parent among the
women he taught in his center.
``I had my epiphany when I realized
what had been driving me all my life,'' he says.
``The Curves model is really to give women who
were neglected, certainly by the fitness industry,
these women who were giving everything and not
taking time for themselves, it was giving them
an opportunity.'' Heavin himself is in a good
place. He reconciled with his father, who died
last year. He regained custody of his two children
some time ago, and now has two more. This December,
he will pilot himself around the world to visit
every country where there is a Curves.
``I'm successful,'' the entrepreneur says, ``because
of the wisdom I've gotten from my faith.''
_________
Suspicious that the whole Curves scare might be
an urban myth, I did some further checking. Please
click here
for verifying information.
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Toy
of the Month: Purple Jac-O
Following on last month's Toy of the Month, we
are offering another masturbation toy for men.
Follow the link above to read reviews of this
simple, inexpensive, and easy-to-clean pleasure
enhancer.
Video of the Month: Orgasm! The Faces of Ecstasy
Earlier this month I was fortunate to attend Joani
Blank’s premier Canadian showing of her
new DVD, Orgasm! The Faces of Ecstasy.
Though two hours long, my butt got tired long
before my eyes did, as each masturbating person
shared on camera their orgasmic experience with
me. These are real people, of varying ages, races,
genders, and body shapes, homogenizing the self-pleasuring
act of masturbation.
I highly recommend this film.
It's perfect for new (or shy) lovers…and
I can’t imagine a teen who wouldn’t
appreciate this most delicate and truthful of
sex education videos.
As always, I’d love to hear your reactions
to our picks of the month.
~ Pega
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Humour
Canadians have a sense of humour too,
eh.
I do my best to keep the content of Smart
Sex Talk Canadian-based, and poking fun at Bush and
his cronies is almost trite now, but this gem is too
good to ignore. Hope it gives you all a laugh.
~ Pega
The President gets off a helicopter at the White House
with a baby pig under each arm.
A Marine guard snaps to attention, salutes, and says,
"Nice pigs, sir."
The President replies,"These are not pigs. These
are authentic Texan Razorback Hogs. I got one for VP
Cheney, and I got one for Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
."
The Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and replies,
"Nice trade, sir."
Quote of the Month
"Life is not a journey
to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in
a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid
in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out,
and loudly proclaiming "WOW - What a ride!"
~ unknown
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