In which his trusty fiddle channels the soul of Kappa Alpha

Dude. That English major you set me up with totally freaked me out. She was all in to me "reading more" so she made me waste two hours reading the first chapter of this book Hooking Up. It was way more lame than I expected, but whatever. And no, before you ask, of course I'm not answering her texts because I am way over it. But that's not my point. This guy Wolfe's book was all sounding the alarm because the sexual revolution might be bad for women because he had learned about "hooking up." Kind of freaked me out, you know? I was like, is this the stuff these chicks are starting to read? And are they getting it? I mean, the book was 2001 so I figured it was probably too old for too many girls to be interested, but damn. See, Wolfe was predicting that hooking up might make women unhappy. Yeah, yeah, who cares, right? But still, better if they're not thinking about this stuff, you know?

Thank God the New York Times is on the case. They're all like, the problem isn't the death of time-honored traditions which have been evolutionarily tested over ten thousand years of human civilization. Hell no! It's math and economics:

Jayne Dallas, a senior studying advertising who was seated across the table, grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool. “Out of that 40 percent [of males making up the student body], there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent,” she said.

Needless to say, this puts guys in a position to play the field, and tends to mean that even the ones willing to make a commitment come with storied romantic histories. Rachel Sasser, a senior history major at the table, said that before she and her boyfriend started dating, he had “hooked up with a least five of my friends in my sorority — that I know of.”

Can't beat the numbers! See, Tom Wolfe, you crotchety old hack, there's nothing these poor little biddies can do! Dude, the Times is so badass! Them and their friends, Bro, they're like a fleet of wingmen all flying in the name of science.

[T]here’s currently a buyer’s market in women who are up for just about anything with the right kind of cad.

Supply and demand, Wolfe, get a frickin' clue. It's like, oh boo hoo let's all have a pity party for these liberated nymphos who finally got everything their forbears dreamed about. These chicks are simply making the proper adjustments to changing market conditions. Natural selection! Survival of the fittest! The future is NOW and it is AWESOME, Bro!

So some yoked Alpha like our boy Skyler gets his pick of the litter no strings attached? I say do the evolution! Weepy emo-douchebag-Betas backed the wrong pony and, hey, it works out better for us anyway, because now she has a shoulder to cry on in the morning when Sky gotta skip class for a High Life and Boondock Saints with you and me at the House.

I mean, this is like paradise! It's like we're all Solomon with fifty Shebas, you know? All I'm saying is look out, though. The market can turn on you like way fast. Housing bust, dude, check your six.

A group of ersatz alpha males seems to have garnered a disproportionate number of women, while the beta and gamma males, nice guys, guys who would make good husbands or boy friends, are left out of the game.

Naturally, they want to be in the game. They do not esteem themselves and are not esteemed by women for their good qualities, so they decide that they want to become pick-up artists.

Okay, I don't want you to stress out too much, Bro, and seriously, like any Secondhand Serenade-listening, Chardonnay-sipping, progressive choir boy could pwn us? I know, crazy, right? I'm just saying you gotta keep your edge. Own it, man. Own her. It's the only way to stay on top.

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Check all the links for the various stories. Via Dr. Helen, Via Stuart Schneiderman

Please keep your compassion in a safe place where it can't hurt anyone

The first time Airbear and I went to Haiti, we were shocked by the strict standards for foreign adoption. The price was easy to understand: Haiti is ruled by corrupt politicians who are loathe to lose a major portion of their income by giving starving orphans families. That much made sense.

What didn't make sense was that the process was lengthened considerably by UNICEF's anti-adoption policy.

For children who cannot be raised by their own families, an appropriate alternative family environment should be sought in preference to institutional care which should be used only as a last resort and as a temporary measure. Inter-country adoption is one of a range of care options which may be open to children, and for individual children who cannot be placed in a permanent family setting in their countries of origin, it may indeed be the best solution. In each case, the best interests of the individual child must be the guiding principle in making a decision regarding adoption.

Now, that statement just sounds great. Best interests! Individual child! But wait. Wheresoever thou shalt stumble upon kind sentiment, beware the shadowy caveat that liest beneath:

Over the past 30 years, the number of families from wealthy countries wanting to adopt children from other countries has grown substantially. At the same time, lack of regulation and oversight, particularly in the countries of origin, coupled with the potential for financial gain, has spurred the growth of an industry around adoption, where profit, rather than the best interests of children, takes centre stage. Abuses include the sale and abduction of children, coercion of parents, and bribery.

What, you didn't know? You didn't hear about how the rash of dirty, profit-grubbing American dollars led to rampant sexual violence against kind little Haitian babies? Oh. Well neither did I. Neither did anybody. Because that never happened in Haiti, where a penchant for the macabre predated any spate of adoptions. Thankfully, the UN, in its infinite wisdom, decided to make the adoption process ridiculously difficult, because using that paragon of virtue that is the Haitian government to prolong and regulate the adoption process makes sure that any opportunistic greed-mongers will abandon their ventures in the private sector and...become bureaucrats! Yay! No more graft! Transparency!

Or, more accurately, policy that is literally insane:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mmm. Guido is worried about child trafficking. White hippie girl wants to keep kids in-country until they're old enough to return to their "communities."

You know, that reminds me of Michelle, one of the children at our orphanage. Michelle is legally too old to remain in an orphanage--they're supposed to cast you back into you're loving neighborhood of origin when you turn 15. The day after she was released into the wild she and her mother were found wailing at the orphanage gate, begging Pierre to take her back inside. I guess the local gang that controls Michelle's birth home in Cite Soleil decided that Michelle would make a pretty decent prostitute. After all why not, right? Michelle is young, inexperienced, naive. Easy to control and totally without any other means of providing for herself. The gang threatened Michelle's birth mother, telling her that she would be denied access to food unless she put her daughter on the street. They also helpfully informed her that they were going to do it either way, so the only real question was whether or not the poor woman wanted to starve to death.

I for one share Guido's carefully thought out concerns about sex trafficking and child slavery. I am deeply sympathetic to UNICEF's heartfelt commitment to "the best interests of the individual child." But I have this crazy feeling that maybe, just maybe, the elite, highly educated policy-crafting gurus at the United Nations should reconsider the wisdom of their oligarchic master-planning, and take a good long look at the legions of God-fearing, do-gooding, would-be adoptive parents living in America's heartland.

And then just get the hell out of the way.



Notes: Mike is the sole voice of reason in the video. Donate to his non-profit here and check out the trailer to his documentary here. And thanks to Neil for snagging this NBC clip and posting it on Facebook.

Overfed, over-sexed, and over here!

Growing up, I was taught in church that pre- or extramarital sex was bad because it destroyed, or seriously damaged, the people engaging in it. This was, of course, based on the idea of an unchangeable nature, an intrinsic human good. To live a fully human, fully satisfied, fully happy life, it was argued, only sex within the confines of marriage would suffice.

Experience and observation indicate to me that this is not necessarily so. I know many men who, addicted, or at least strongly attracted to sex, really do appear to me to be happier living lives of wanton promiscuity. I know others who, in the name of caution, prefer to “move towards” marriage in steps: date, hook-up, cohabitate, etc. And it seems to me that they really are happier living this way than they would be if they were to abandon themselves to a new car without “kicking the tires first.”

I also know a couple who practice Natural Family Planning; they have been successful in avoiding pregnancy so far (they are both extraordinarily self-disciplined, so this is not much of a surprise). I was curious as to the theological rationale by which the Catholic Church condemned contraception. So I googled it. And I learned a lot.

Sex is to be both “unitive and procreative.” Contraception makes it merely unitive and, if I understand JP and Benedict rightly, encourages it to be not even that—really just another form of masturbation. The official doctrine is that it must be at least potentially procreative, so as long as there is no artificial contraception or Onanism (the pull-out method), intercourse is fully permissible. Maybe this all makes sense to informed Catholics and the theologians who make these kinds of pronouncements, but color me cynical. Natural Family Planning is no different than contraception or Onanism in that it is a way to avoid unwanted pregnancy. So while God might be happier with the method, the intent and result appear identical.

There is, however, one major difference. NFP demands both sexual discipline and marriage. “Demands” in the soft sense. Sure, I guess a woman could probably wait for the “right day” and then rush out to the bar and pick up some guy. Or an unmarried, cohabiting couple could practice NFP, but really, in the real world, the only people practicing NFP are people like my friends, faithful married Catholics. NFP is the church’s instrument for doctrinally instituting what has traditionally been a Christian virtue: sexual discipline. With the advent of contraception, it was feared that sex would first be practiced wantonly within the marriage, then outside of it, then before it, and then without it entirely. There would be sex everywhere! And Catholics, backwards morons that they are, thought this might be a bad thing!

Which brings me back to my theme: whether or not sex outside of marriage “damages” us. The answer is, “Of course not!” unless you subscribe to a certain idea about what humans ought to be. See, a first sexual encounter, the loss of virginity, is almost universally frightening and strange and exciting. The process of breaking up with a long-term sexual partner is almost universally painful and scarring. The life of random, anonymous hooking up has psychological fallout (positive and negative). And as a society, these sex choices are becoming a part of what it is to be a normal human person. As a “well-adjusted” person, I am supposed to have experienced horrible sexual loss and have bounced back from it. I am supposed to have left my “first sexual love” to go to a different college and to have incorporated that experience—however painful or freeing (let’s not be naïve here)—into who I am as a person. It is important for me to bring sexual prowess to a new relationship lest I be ashamed of myself for not “doing it well.” In short, it is now normal and good for humans to have a wide and varying range of sexual experiences.

And it is changing us. Of course it is. Theologians have been calling out the power and primacy of sexual forces for millennia. It used to be normal for a large swathe of the population to remain a virgin for life! Can you imagine? A life without sex! What, were they gay and ashamed? Or were human beings different? Perhaps their circumstances demanded more discipline, more focus on matters less carnal. And perhaps the result over time was people who were different. Stronger in some ways, more given to self-control. But also less adaptable, less able to cope with emotional trauma. Or maybe there was no difference at all.

But somehow I doubt it.