Confessions of the Flesh

On the way home from The Kid's rather raucous 5th grade graduation party, I commented to him that it would be the last graduation party that he would have to attend with his parents... that he will soon be going to new and different kinds of parties.


"Yeah," he replied, "the kind of parties where girls take off their tops."

The Partner chimed in, "Those kind of girls are called strippers..."

The Kid: "Whores."

I balked and, tripping over my slack jaw, began, somewhat firmly, to correct him. "Um... no... not prostitutes..." The Partner then took the reigns and tried to explain that "whore" isn't the most socially acceptable term nowadays. (He suggested "sex worker" which The Kid totally rejected, and rightfully so... I mean, middle school and sex worker don't exactly jibe, do they?). So, in any event, I tried to differentiate taking off one's clothes for money from having sex for money.

The Kid's response?
"Well, the girls I know will not be taking off their tops for money... they'll do it because they are drunk."

Le Conflit

Why not read about Conflict: The Woman and the Mother for a cursory, NYT synopsis of what I suspect this text actually contains. I definitely like the idea of a critique based on ecology, ethology and essentialism -- especially the latter since it is, from where I sit, the bane of popular feminism today. More on this once I actually lay my eyes on a translation of the text.

Anyway, I am happy enough with Badinter's closing quote, whatever The Times was trying to communicate with it. It's not often you hear such sentiments from feminists today:

"I’m a mediocre mother like the vast majority of women, because I’m human."

Solitude of Ravens

Masahisa Fukase