The Bedlamite's Greatest Hits: The Pearls Are Swine (No, That's An Insult To Swine)

A lot of people go around, saying things like "humorless PC SJWs can't take a joke" whenever those of us who care about things like racism point out that it isn't funny.

Now, I could write an extensive post detailing exactly why racism isn't funny, going into How Humor Works and the specifics of "punching up" and "punching down" and explaining why one makes you a comedian and the other makes you a bully (at this point the Bedlamite makes a note on a five-foot-long To Do list), but as an empiricist it would be better to provide a counterexample.

And so, I present one of my own jokes from elsewhere, tested in an SJW space and demonstrably SJW-approved!

A bit of context, first.

Michael and Debi Pearl are a pair of Christian conservatives (bordering on reactionaries), associated with a number of fundamentalist and evangelical movements including Quiverfull (known to the American public through the show 19 Kids And Counting). I know them through Libby Anne's blog, where she live-read several of their books: To Train Up A Child, Created to be His Helpmeet, and Created to Need a Helpmeet. In these books, which another commenter compared (unfavorably) to excrement, Michael and Debi describe their preferred way to raise children and Tame Shrews resolve marital disputes: devise rules, the more arbitrary the better; wait for the victim person to break a rule; hit the person with a stick; repeat as necessary.

Those of you who are reading this are probably thinking to yourselves: Bedlamite, that sounds like child and spousal abuse!

Yes. Yes it is. In fact, children have died as a result of the Pearls' teachings.

Now you are probably thinking: But you PC SJWs are supposed to be easily offended! How can you go making jokes about serious topics like that?

Wait for the joke; it's behind a bit more necessary context. Then, if you still don't understand how us "PC" SJWs can make jokes about serious and traumatic subjects, wait for the post about How Humor Works and I'll tell you how to make Holocaust jokes funny.

Back to the necessary context, before I was so rudely interrupted.

The Aristocrats is a common joke that comedians tell one another. The form is simple:

1. A guy walks into a talent agency, and he says "Have I got an act for you!"
2. He then demonstrates or describes the act, usually calling in his family to help.
3. The agent asks what he calls the act, and he responds, usually in a dramatic way, "The Aristocrats!"
4. In some tellings of the joke, the agent asks a question, such as "How much for season tickets?" or "Can you really get [famous performer]?"

Part 2 is almost always the longest part of the joke. It consists of the most vile thing the comedian can imagine. Murder, necrophilia, bodily waste, bestiality, blasphemy, and mocking of famous tragedies such as the Holocaust or 9/11 are common. As you might expect, this kind of joke is one of the reasons why some comedy clubs don't admit kids.

Since you can probably see where this is going, I now present the joke:

[SCENE: Room interior. A PUBLISHER sits at a desk. MICHAEL and DEBI enter.]
PUBLISHER: So, I hear the two of you want to write Christian advice books?
MICHAEL: Yeah. Underserved market and all that.
DEBI: Got to strike a blow for God in this fallen world.
PUBLISHER: Anything in particular?
MICHAEL: Well, I was thinking I'd start with a child-rearing book.
DEBI: And if that's a success, I'd write a marriage advice book.
PUBLISHER: Okay, that sounds good.
MICHAEL: So many unhappy children. They need to be beaten until they're happy!
PUBLISHER: (jaw drops, stunned silence)
DEBI: And so many couples just don't get along. You know the answer? Wifely obedience!
MICHAEL: Right. She's so much happier since she stopped having any will of her own.
DEBI: And our kids are much happier since we started hitting them with plumbing line.
MICHAEL: Yeah, that's going to be a big thing in my book. Hit your kids for disobedience.
DEBI: Hit them for being unhappy.
MICHAEL: Hit them for speaking when not spoken to.
DEBI: Hit them for not crying when hit.
MICHAEL: Hit them for crying too much when hit.
DEBI: Hit them for breaking rules.
MICHAEL: Oh, but the rules don't have to make sense. Or be ones that the kids have had a chance to learn. In fact, it's better if they're complete nonsense you made up five seconds ago.
DEBI: Yeah. Kids need to respect rules, and they can't learn respect for the rules if the rules aren't completely arbitrary.
MICHAEL: And of course, no one will ever take this too far.
DEBI: Not that we'll define what "too far" is. It's enough to not use the rod in anger.
MICHAEL: Of course, all of this is because all children are born full of sin, and rebel against rightful authority.
DEBI: Which is why their wills need to broken.
MICHAEL: Like I did with yours, honey?
DEBI: Yes, and that's what my book's about.
MICHAEL: She's been so much happier after I beat the shit out of her. Wasn't over anything important either. Just whose turn it was to take out the garbage.
DEBI: My book's about how God wants women to be quiet and submit themselves completely to their husbands.
MICHAEL: Even if it's about sex, and she doesn't want it. Especially then!
DEBI: Right. It's the wife's duty to do absolutely anything the husband wants.
MICHAEL: Aside from treating him like a woman.
DEBI: Right. No gay stuff. Anyway, the wife needs to keep all of her problems bottled up. Otherwise she'll drive him away.
MICHAEL: I was thinking I might write a companion book, where the husband's told that if his wife doesn't say anything, he should assume that everything's fine. Muahaha.
DEBI: Even if the husband's doing illegal things, she should just smile and help him bury the bodies. Unless he's pimping out their minor son.
MICHAEL: Right. No gay stuff.
DEBI: Even if he beats her, and breaks her bones, it's probably because she did something to deserve it. Like asking him to do something, or not being a perfect servant all the time.
MICHAEL: Or frowning. Or not being beautiful enough.
DEBI: Right, and if she really needs something from him, like enough money to buy food fit for human consumption, what she needs to do is submit harder and let God take care of it.
MICHAEL: Or else he'll leave her for a hot young girl, and leave her alone in a duplex.
DEBI: Where she gets tempted into the worst sin possible: gay stuff!
MICHAEL: Oh, and you forgot, it needs to be more focused on the man.
DEBI: Right, right. All women are meant to mold themselves into the shape that fits their man, but there's three types of men. There's the boring kind. There's the flighty kind. And there's the kind who loves you and shows you that he does.
MICHAEL: By beating the shit out of you.
DEBI: And if you're lucky enough to have that kind --
PUBLISHER: Who the hell are you two?!
MICHAEL & DEBI: The Aristocrats!

A Few Thoughts on Free Speech

So.

Apparently someone has made the news for suffering consequences for speech, or I've just gotten fed up with trolls claiming the same. So, to begin, what is freedom of speech?

For purposes of this post, let's call it the ability to say whatever you want without punishment.

But then, what is punishment?

Is being thrown in prison punishment?
Is being fired from your job punishment?
Is having your ability to speak taken away punishment?
Is losing your audience punishment?
Is being criticized punishment?
Is being thought of as "that dude who supports slavery" punishment?

Let's start with the first of these: is being thrown in prison punishment?

Well, intuitively, the answer would seem to be "yes". According to many people who have put a lot more thought into this than I have, the answer would also seem to be "yes". The exceptions made for things like slander or fraud or sedition are held to be limitations on the right rather than examples of where the right contradicts itself. If you get thrown in prison for what you say, you do not have free speech. That was easy!

Next, let's skip to the end. Is being thought of as "that dude who supports slavery" punishment?

Intuitively, the answer would seem to be "no". When you say things, you expect that people are going to form opinions based on it; one possible group of opinions they might form is opinions about you. Not allowing people to form opinions doesn't just protect you from being punished; it also keeps them from forming opinions. Another easy one! If this keeps up, the whole post will be over pretty quickly!

Is being criticized punishment?

Intuitively, the answer seems to be "no". Criticism tends to take the form of speech, so if free speech is a universal right, you can't restrict the right to criticize. Another quick one --

--hold up. Suppose the criticism isn't meant to counter speech, but instead to block it. Suppose that what someone actually said is being buried beneath out-of-context quotes or deliberate misinterpretations. Suppose that the "criticism" is actually a DDOS attack or a hack that knocks the original speech off the Internet. Suppose that the "criticism" is actually something like a threat to do unspeakable things to the speaker if they keep speaking. That seems like a pretty clear case of "criticism" that is not compatible with free speech.

Is losing your audience punishment?

Well, it's tempting not to rely on intuition after that last one, but the intuitive answer seems to be "yes". If a transmission is blocked, that's censorship even if no one goes after the actual broadcaster, right? If you can't be heard, you may as well have not spoken, right?

But what if your audience walks away on their own? Under most circumstances, no one has an obligation to listen to you. This is especially true if your audience would otherwise pay to listen to you, even indirectly; just because you have a right to free speech doesn't mean you have a right to paid speech.

Is having your ability to speak taken away punishment?

Intuition's batting 500 so far (or something, sports metaphors aren't my thing), so it's looking a bit sketchy. But let's give it a chance to turn this around. The answer seems to be "yes". If you lose your ability to speak, that's practically the definition of censorship, isn't it?

Well, suppose you're speaking using a platform someone else owns. Other people aren't obligated to let you use their microphones to speak to their audiences, no matter how much you beg them. Said audiences certainly aren't obligated to listen. Other people have a right to filter out noise and misinformation from their channels, and ultimately it's the owner of the channel who decides what counts as "noise" or "misinformation".

Is being fired from your job punishment?

So far, intuition's lost more than it's won. But this is pretty obvious. Being fired, that's the sort of thing that happens for incompetence, insubordination, mutiny, and so forth (or so I've heard). It's reprehensible that someone should be fired simply for voicing a particular belief! Even members of the Klan have a right to work!

So what happens when the speaker's job is to speak using the employer's platform? What happens when the speaker's job is to represent the employer? What happens when the speaker's job is to lend the employer their good name? In other words, what happens when an obligation to retain this person would interfere with the employer's free speech?
(These might seem like a distant hypothetical, but this is the era of the professional celebrity. Athletes and actors acquire assets by associating artifacts with their appellations. When you get paid to have a reputation and show up in an ad, saying something that damages your reputation, or even just having a relative who damages it, interferes with your ability to do your job.)

Blasphemy!

The Kim family are humans, and bad ones at that. A flag is just a symbol of an arbitrary division within humanity, and rallying behind a flag a way to keep the sheeple masses from rising against their masters. The invisible hand of the market is fully capable of punching people in the face, but $ECONOMIC_SYSTEM doesn't work any better. $POLITICIAN is the same as any other jerk out to fleece you, xe just repeats the words that you like; ditto $PUNDIT. $SELF_HELP_GURU doesn't have any more answers than you do, and is flogging something xe made up in xir basement. $ALTERNATIVE_MEDICAL_TREATMENT has no hard evidence supporting it and its proposed mechanism of action is, scientifically speaking, pure nonsense; this goes double for things like "Law of Attraction".

Oh, and no religion invented by mankind has contained a deity or a deity's adversary who was even a decent being, let alone a moral example worth following or obeying. And despite what your "Word of Faith" preacher or that one exiled Nigerian royal might tell you, no god will reward you for giving someone money.

One day, we will all be able to speak loudly the truth that "the fool hath said [only] in his heart". One day, the offense caused by a statement will be proportional to its harm. Until then, happy Blasphemy Rights Day.

An Open Letter To People Who Think "Man Coulter" is a Funny Joke

Dear [insert form of address],

It has come to my attention that, when discussing a certain conservative pundit, you think it is a valid criticism, or funny, or in any way appropriate, to make "jokes" to the effect of "she has an Adam's apple" or "she's a man" or the like. I would like to disabuse you of this notion.

To begin, I believe you identify as liberal, correct? You believe in equality, and standing with he oppressed against their oppressors, and the rights of the downtrodden, correct? You believe that membership in a class, even or especially an unprivileged class, is not cause for shame?

Furthermore, you believe, as I do, that Ms. Coulter is a throughly vile human being, correct? You agree that she is a hateful, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, poverty-bashing, genocide-advocating, torture-apologist, victim-blaming, idiotic, willfully ignorant, talentless, unfunny, Christian-supremacist, jingoistic, warmongering, self-loathing, self-absorbed, arrogant, narrow-minded, dichotomously thinking, hypocritical, violent mouthpiece for some of the most disgusting ideologies in mainstream political discourse?

Why then is it, that the best insult for her you can manage amounts to "ha ha ugly t****y"? There is much to criticize: her idea that Christianity should be brought to the Middle East with a sword, her defenses of people who are actively trying to bring about the End of Days, her inability to distinguish between nuance and treason, and all of the things listed in the previous paragraph; so why are you going with something fundamentally irrelevant to her opinions?

For that matter, why are you using "ha ha ugly t****y" as an insult? Why are you choosing to criticize a woman pundit with "ugly", implying that her looks are at all relevant to the validity of her opinions? Why are you criticizing anyone with "t****y", implying that being trans* is fundamentally a bad thing; much less criticizing a pundit with it, and implying that trans* people's opinions are fundamentally invalid?

In conclusion, you should engage with ideas you don't like, instead of dismissing them by claiming that the person who has them is a member of an unprivileged class.

Signed,
A Liberal Who's Tired Of You Undermining The Cause

(Note: This letter is also addressed to people who think "I wouldn't sleep with [name]" is a valid criticism of a conservative politician.)

Speaking Out About Problems: Brave Heroes and Problem Solvers

Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it? Time to make some people angry!

The following material is flagged Red Level. It deals with the blogger's original ideas, personal beliefs, and delusions; and might not be believed by any expert in any field anywhere.

Disclaimer: I am not claiming that anyone does this intentionally or consciously. This is primarily a sarcastic response to the "children starving in Africa" argument, and partly an attempted explanation of why it's always children starving in Africa instead of someone starving nearby.

Suppose you are asked to speak about one problem somewhere in the world. What criteria should you use to choose the problem?

Well, that depends on whether you want to be a Brave Hero or a Problem Solver.

A Brave Hero is someone who is speaking about a problem mostly to be seen caring about it. You might be a Brave Hero because your PR agent told you that a show of compassion would help your image, or because you recently said something insensitive and intend to make up for it with a display of sensitivity, or because you want a talking point to bring up to get someone else to be quiet or otherwise do what you want.

If you are a Brave Hero, you want to pick your problem based on these criteria:

1. It Has To Be Bad. You should go with the worst problem you can find. Pick the thing you know about that causes the most suffering, and plays on empathy the most. You should find something that has Good Victims: civilians, children, innocents, and so on. You're giving the speech to show how compassionate you are; the worse the problem, the better for you.
2. It Has To Be Uncontroversial. You're giving the speech to make yourself popular, not to make yourself unpopular. This ties in with the point above; the worse your problem, the fewer people there are who will risk being seen calling it "not bad". As much of your audience as possible should agree that the problem is one that needs to be solved.
3. It Has To Be Difficult. You want a problem with no obvious solution, or at least no obvious solution on your part. If you must mention a solution, go with something you are already doing. If there is an obvious solution, come up with a reason, no matter how poorly-thought-out it is, why it won't work. This is to minimize the chance that you might be asked to actually do something.
4. It Should Be Well-Known. This isn't quite as important as the other criteria. You can spend some time explaining the problem, for those who don't know about it, but your goal is to show yourself as one of your audience. Mentioning problems that they aren't likely to know about both introduces a distinction between you and your audience, and requires you to spend time explaining both what the problem is and why it is a problem.

On the other hand, a Problem Solver is speaking about a problem in an attempt to solve it. If you are a Problem Solver, you care about the problem or your chosen cause. The problem you pick might not be the worst one you want to solve, or the most severe manifestation of what your cause opposes, but it is one you care about and want to fix.

If you are a Problem Solver, you should use these criteria:

1. It Has To Be Solvable Or Reducible. If it doesn't have a solution, you're just wasting time. If the solution is one that your audience can't act on, you're wasting time. Pick something that your audience could, if they chose to, contribute to fixing. If possible, present alternatives or solutions.
2. It Should Be Controversial. If your audience already considers your problem a problem, all you can do is suggest solutions. If your audience already knows about your solution, you're wasting time.
3. It Should Be Obscure. The only thing a speech can do toward solving a problem (other than "I can use my speaking fees for something" or "the problem is that we don't have a speaker") is raise awareness of the problem or a solution. If all information about the problem and its solutions is publicly known, speaking about it is a waste of time.

(Alternate titles for this post include "Why Games? In Defense of Sarkesian" and "We Get It, Harris. You Don't Like Islamic Misogyny".)

A Game Designer's Reflections on Scarlet Blade

No doubt, if you spend time on the internet, you have seen ads for games that openly use sex to sell games. You've seen the banner ads that have scantily-clad ladies and sexually-charged captions to get you to click on the ad, which takes you to a game that only rarely has anything to do with sex.

Well, I'm going to be discussing something a bit different here. I'm going to be discussing one of the games that does that, and actually delivers, and all of the things that are wrong with it.

The following material is flagged Red Level. It deals with the blogger's original ideas, personal beliefs, and delusions; and might not be believed by any expert in any field anywhere.

Now, let me start with a bit of a disclaimer. I have nothing against sex in general, nor against sex in games specifically. It is my belief that a game containing sex, or even about sex, can be good; in the same way as non-game entertainment containing sex, or even outright porn, can be funny or dramatic or sweet or otherwise well-written (no I am not going to put any links here; what I get off to is one of those things that I do not wish to share with the Internet, and I am sure that you do not wish to know either)

What I do object to is trying to replace good writing with sex appeal.

Now, on to a discussion of the game in question.

Scarlet Blade is one of the games that uses the advertising gimmicks I mentioned in the introduction. The banner ads it puts up are a woman, or more accurately a 3D model of a porcelain doll resembling a woman (either nude or in what appears to be bondage gear) with a sexualized caption. The game itself is a fairly bog-standard MMORPG with several bugs (largely related to pathfinding) and some severe balance issues (most adversaries are trivially easy to defeat; the only way to really lose outside of a boss fight is to run a streak without resting; and doing this does not grant any benefits). It is obvious from this that SB does not intend to sell itself on unique or challenging gameplay.

No, SB runs mostly on sex appeal. The login page depicts a character similar to the ones in the ads who appears to be making use of some kind of mecha in a rather unconventional way. About 85% of the dialogue (a rough guess) is either explicitly sexual or an obvious double entendre. Your avatar's dialogue with you (see later in this post for an explanation of this part) is, for the most part, intended to get you to think of your avatar as a sexual being, and is based on the assumption that you find your avatar sexually attractive; the continuous propositions from other characters do not work against this. Your avatar is portrayed wearing very little; in the beginning the avatar is wearing little more than what appears to be a metal bikini; and even in full armor your avatar is wearing much less than even is usual for heroines in most graphic media. For those players who did not find this level of sexualization overwhelming, there is an option, advertised in loading screens, to remove even what little your avatar was wearing.

Which is a real shame, because there's a few bits of good story that could have been developed into games (with some rather unusual gameplay!) of their own. Occasionally, a bit of dialogue or flavor text will show up involving transhumanist philosophy (your avatar has been biologically modified to the point of being no longer human; and every now and then there's discussion about whether or not a creation has a duty to its creators or the reverse or at what point a modified human stops being human); the framing narrative is interestingly metafictional (essentially, you are, well, you: the person sitting in the chair playing the game. Your avatar is a separate person to whom you give orders, which seems to deliberately parallel the idea of a video game character); the narrative at least in theory focuses on a war, and occasional mentions are made of the cost of war to the people fighting it, the civilian population, the idea of morals, and the land itself; and part of the plot centers around the (at least) three different relationships between you and your avatar.

In other words, the actual story reads as though the developers were trying to create a mature game, but did not know the difference between "mature" and "adult"; and so, they ruined several mature games by making a game that was mature only in rating.

Atheism+: A (Not) Brief Reflection on Pick Up Artistry

Normally, I wouldn't care about such things. But because I somehow got onto the spam list of a bunch of PUA sites (and keep seeing PUA ads on Pandora and such), I think I'll post a rant about PUA from an Atheist+ perspective.

The following material is flagged Red Level. It deals with the blogger's original ideas, personal beliefs, and delusions; and might not be believed by any expert in any field anywhere.

There will be two parts to this rant: one explaining what PUA is, one dealing with the problems with PUA from a Skeptical perspective, and one dealing with the problems from a Feminist perspective.

Three parts.  There are three parts to this rant: what PUA is, Skeptical problems, Feminist problems, and a conclusion.

I'll come in again.

The following material is flagged Red Level. It deals with the blogger's original ideas, personal beliefs, and delusions; and might not be believed by any expert in any field anywhere.

There are four parts to this post, yadda yadda. Cardinal! Read the charges!
Charges? I thought this was just a rant.
The rant is the charges, Cardinal. Never mind; I'll do it.

First off, what is PUA? PUA, or Pick Up Artistry, is a technique that a number of people teach. These people claim that, by using their techniques, any person (usually but not always male) can enjoy the intimate company of any person or persons (usually but not always female) xe desires. Usually, these techniques are claimed to be "perfect", "undetectable", "irresistible", and so forth. It is claimed that by buying the book or taking the class that the "trainer" offers, the subject will never lack for intimate company again.

The advertising used will be discussed here (because I don't feel like shelling out cash just to write a more thorough take-down). Often, the advertising is based on a testimonial, often personal, claiming that the person was completely unable to attract intimate company until having taken the class, after which people (almost always women) were desperate to give xim their company. Other methods are used in the advertising, such as social proof ("everyone's doing it!"), appeal to authority ("let me tell you what Einstein said!", as well as references to the author's questionable credentials ["I've read three books on this subject!"] in psychology or "female psychology"), time pressure ("limited time offer! Act now!"), low-balling ("this would normally be worth $700, but we're giving it away for a tenth of that!"), likeability ("I'm really on your side!"), mock anti-authoritarianism ("I'm on the run from THEM, because THEY want to suppress this!"), and so forth. Generally, any component of the advertising that is not posted in plain sight in a public place is overtly sexual (at least, for the version aimed at men).

First, I will start with a skeptical perspective on the subject. The claim made is that the person has discovered an easy, generally applicable, undetectable, and irresistible form of what is essentially mind control. At the very least, the claim is that the person has discovered a way to block impulse control while controlling emotion.

To which I respond, "Why then are you not the Evil Overlord yet?"

There are many better uses for mind control than obtaining intimate company. One could go with the old standby of RULING THE WORLD! MUAHAHAHA! One could sell the secret to military or intelligence organizations (heaven knows the CIA would be interested). One could easily go viral as an artist or a pop-culture phenomenon.

One could even, say, make irresistible and undetectable advertising to sell the secret.

And yet, the world remains unruled, the military does not field mind control battalions, intelligence agencies are restricted to conventional propaganda, artists and pop-culture phenomena have less-than-universal appeal, and the secret to mind control is sold using transparent and resistible manipulation.

Doubtless the defenders would claim that there are reasons for this: it only works on women, it can only be used for sexual purposes, and so on. To which I respond: this is classic special pleading. Nothing in the advertising suggests that this might be the case. Nothing in conventional (read: appearing in respectable peer-reviewed journals) psychological research indicates that there are inherent psychological differences across gender lines, or that there are neural pathways tied to sexuality that are unrelated to anything else (in fact, the common adage that "sex sells" is very much true).

(I might do another piece more fully examining the problems from a skeptical perspective, such as regression to the mean in the testimonials, placebo effect, committedness bias, and so on; but that's for another time. This is already starting to run a bit long.)

Next, the feminist perspective.

There are some truly serious problems in this.

First, there's the problematic takes on sex and sexuality and intimacy. The advertising plays into the gendered tropes surrounding intimate relationships: that men only think of sex, and that women only think of relationships.

And this sounds like an excellent time for another installment of Tropes Versus Men and Women Alike!
(Be warned: there are TVTropes links ahead.)

1.Men Are Horndogs
Versus Men: It's an old joke: men are always interested in physical intimacy. The running assumption is that men are incapable of thinking while female secondary sexual characteristics are visible, that a man who receives any sexual attention wanted it (even if he transparently did not), and that it is the Natural State of Men to always pursue physical intimacy. Naturally, this leads to a number of problems for men: men who are harassed or assaulted sexually are treated, at best, as the butt of a joke; at worst given a "why are you complaining?" treatment. It is believed that men "cannot be trusted" around anyone they might possibly be interested in. And men who do not fit this template, who do not pursue every woman around them or are capable of thinking clearly even while near conventionally-or-otherwise-attractive women, are "not Real Men".
Versus Women:  Naturally, if men cannot control themselves while seeing women they find attractive, this places a duty on women to, as some Evangelical Christians put it, "prevent their brothers from stumbling". Under this idea, there is an assumption that a woman who does not do this is "asking" for any unwanted attention or action she receives; and therefore that if a woman receives unwanted attention, she may have done something to "deserve" it or she may have been "asking for it".

2.Women Are Sensitive
Versus Women: The other side of that trope is that women care about emotional intimacy to the exclusion of physical intimacy. The idea is that while the Man enjoys himself, the woman "lies back and thinks of England" (or her country of choice). Of course, the main problem with this is that this presents a stunted and severely warped perspective on women's motivations in relationships: it's always about the emotional (or in some cases, financial) aspects, and never about the physical ones. This has the effect of causing women who feel physical attraction (which is most of them, at some point) to feel as though there is something "disgusting" or "wrong" about them for it, and to be shunned for their "impure" thoughts.
Versus Men: Of course, if caring about emotional attachments is an exclusively feminine trait, this means that men cannot be allowed to care about such "soft" things. Men are expected to only enter into relationships for the physical aspects, or sometimes for the cooking or cleaning; never because they "feel" something as wussy as an "emotional bond" with another person. This means that men are supposed to function without any emotional support network, or even a supportive emotional bond.

But how does this apply to PUA? Simple. Male!PUA and Female!PUA are advertised very differently. In Male!PUA advertising, the usual formula in video media involves a man who is depicted as vaguely pathetic and meant to be the audience: not a True Man because He Is Not Sexually Active. With the Help Of Our Product, he becomes a True Man who is depicted (sometimes in ways bordering on pornographic) enjoying the company of a number of Beautiful Women in Various States Of Undress. On the other hand, Female!PUA advertising focuses on a woman who is Interested In Pursuing A Relationship With A Man. Instead of showing her undressed and physically involved with the man, she is shown as getting him to The Marital Altar (both fully dressed, of course). This suggests completely different goals in the products sold: men getting some action, and women getting some commitment. The idea that men might want commitment, or women might want action, or either might want a relationship (even just for one night) based on mutual respect does not seem to occur to the producers.

And that segues nicely into the next point. A good sexual relationship (from what I understand anyway; I can't really speak from experience here) is based on communication, mutual respect, mutual desire, and very importantly consent. See, consent is the difference between sex and rape (regardless of what Todd Akin might have to say on the subject). And this leads to a very important problem in PUA: if it worked, how would any "consent" given be meaningful? If consent absolutely must be given, and not consenting is psychologically impossible, that consent is not consent. And so, using mind control to obtain intimacy, especially physical intimacy, is a Very Bad Thing.

And so, to conclude: PUA is a technique that cannot possibly work as advertised, because if it did the advertising would be a lot better (at least). It seems to be marketed in ways that play into and reinforce gender stereotypes that are fundamentally harmful to both men and women (the ways in which they harm genderqueer, agender, and genderfluid persons are left as an exercise to the reader; as are the harms to LGBTA persons). And it is a very good thing that it does not work, because if it did using it would be a horrific crime.

Banking and the Credit Crunch, Two Cows Version

Okay, since my piece on pickup artistry from an Atheist+ standpoint isn't going anywhere, I figure I'll get this off my chest instead.

Two Cows

The idea of the "Two Cows" metaphor comes from economics. It consists of simplifying a complex system into a simple one, starting with the phrase "You have two cows", in which cows stand for something that produces, milk stands for what is produced, and a number of other metaphors are thrown in as needed. For example:
Capitalism (in theory): You have two cows. Your neighbor has two bulls. You trade a cow for a bull.
Capitalism (in practice): You have two cows. You sell one cow. You try to extract three cows' worth of milk from your remaining cow. You briefly wonder why you have one dead cow, and sell the farm that was able to get three cows worth of milk from one cow. Screw your neighbor; if he deserved any milk, he'd have something to trade for it.
Communism (in theory): You have two cows. Your neighbor has two bulls. Your neighbor lets anyone who wants borrow xir bulls. You give all of the milk aside from what you need to anyone who needs it.
Communism (in practice): You have two cows.  You give all of the milk to the government, and get back slightly less than you need. A bull occasionally visits your farm, but you never know when.

This idea has spread to other areas, but aside from giving a few examples of this it isn't relevant to the post:
Objectivism: You have two cows, and a farm that your ancestors stole, but it's okay because the other owners weren't using it as well as you are. Your neighbor mentions that he'd like some milk. You poison one of your cows to make a point, subject your neighbor to a five-hour rant, and take your remaining cow into the mountains.
Judaism: You have two cows. You give some of your milk to your neighbors in exchange for some of their crops. Your neighbors set their crops on fire, blame you, and take one of your cows as reparation. You move someplace else. Your old neighbors tell your new neighbors that you stole one of their cows.

Banking

You have two cows.  You sell milk futures on them to buy a third cow, and hope the third cow shows up before you get thirsty.

The Credit Crunch

You have two cows. The government tells you that you can't take the race of the seller into consideration when buying cows, but refuses to interfere with cow or milk markets otherwise. You sell milk futures on your cows and buy two sick cows. You show people your healthy cows, sell them milk futures on your sick cows, and repeat until you own lots of cows. Word gets out that your cows are sick, and that some of them have died. The cheesemakers can't hire anyone unless they can be certain of getting milk, so lots of people are unemployed. The government looks at the situation. Because you have friends in high places, rather than throwing you in the slammer and seizing your cows, the government raises the tax on carts, buys your dead and sick cows at the price of healthy cows, gives you healthy cows, and tells you "now don't do it again". People look at the situation, and conclude a) that you deserve to own lots of cows, and b) that there not being enough cheese yet is the government's fault for forcing you to buy sick cows.

Forward Thinking/Society 2.0: What Is Marriage? (Part I)

Sometimes, there are such odd coincidences of timing that I sometimes wonder if the universe has a sense of humor. This is one of those times.

First, I got into a conversation on Facebook about what marriage was and what it should be: one of my friends probably heard someone say something to the effect of "if it can be man-on-man, why not brother-on-sister or man-on-dog*?" and essentially replied "Why not? Marriage is already more of a social institution used to allocate benefits that are more efficient if they can be allocated to permanent cohabitants than anything it may have been; why not extend the institution to any group that enters into a contract to live together?" (edited conversation reproduced with permission at bottom of page).

Then I saw this blog post on Brute Reason, about a person talking about the "threat" of "sham marriages".

Then, I saw this article in Libby Anne and Daniel Finke's Forward Thinking series less than a week later.

So what should marriage be?

The following material is flagged Red Level. It deals with the blogger's original ideas, personal beliefs, and delusions; and might not be believed by any expert in any field anywhere.

The institution that we call "marriage" is divided by some into "traditional marriages" and "modern marriages", with "traditional marriages" being "an unrelated man-woman pair" (sometimes with added constraints of "with the man making all decisions for the pair" or "with each of the two running a distinctly separate part of the couple's affairs") and "modern marriages" being everything else; but there really isn't such a thing as a "traditional marriage" anymore*, because the traditions have changed:

• The current idea of marriage is that a couple marries for Love and that the Power of Their Love should be affirmed by society.
• Before that, a marriage was a woman's father selling her to a husband, to provide him with sexual gratification and a continued family name and her with an income.
• Before that, a marriage was a political union between two families, made to formalize an alliance or a partnership.

But really, when was the last time you heard about the last of those as something positive? Or the one before it, for that matter?
And why is Twu Wuv such an important feeling that the State should have an interest in affirming it, but only if it happens to fit a prescribed template (heterosexual, monogamous, prior to the 1960s same-race***, prior to the 1920s with the woman's father's permission***, for most of human history only if the woman was sexually inexperienced...***)?

My answer: It shouldn't. At the risk of borrowing an old joke, marriage should not have anything to do with love or sex.

Ideally, marriage should be nothing more than a contract to share certain resources with an option to nullify, and the interest of the State should be to allocate those resources efficiently. Other aspects of the relationship can certainly be connected to the contract (such as a "roommate agreement" that might or might not include provisions about sexual exclusivity or discussion about what to do with children born or adopted during that time), but these should be negotiated separately.

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*The main difference between "man-on-woman, man-on-man, woman-on-woman, multiple partners, or brother-on-sister" and "man-on-dog or woman-on-turtle" is one of consent: nonhuman animals are generally assumed to have less mental capacity than human children, and human children are generally assumed to lack the mental capacity to meaningfully consent to a number of activities, contracts and sex among them. There's another point, too, that of autonomy: even if your dog were an uplift with human-level intelligence, it's still too dependent on you for basic needs (food, shelter, and so forth) for any agreement it gives to any activity to be considered freely given. This incidentally also applies to parent-on-child, boss-on-employee, doctor-on-patient, and teacher-on-student relationships.
**And there shouldn't be. See the examples listed.
***If you mention the Middle East in this discussion in the context of these points, I will delete your comments. You are derailing, and anyway there's people in the First World who think it should work that way.

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Robert Gilmore

March 28

With the recently increased attention on gay rights, I'd like to turn people's attention to a similar issue that, while not as trendy to talk about right now, is very closely analogous: the legal status of incest. Incest is illegal in some parts of the US. Think about that for a moment alongside the issue of homosexuality.

Compare our attitudes about incest today with our attitudes about homosexuality fifty years ago. Most people find the topic highly uncomfortable to talk about or condemn the practice outright. Many people who have such desires keep them private for fear of violating the taboo - to put it another way, they're closeted. Those who don't keep it private are often looked down upon, and in fact the practice is openly mocked in our culture.

Some people often argue that incest is bad because of inbreeding. I remind you that offspring are not a necessary result of a sexual relationship, and that people have similarly objected to homosexuality because such sex does not produce children at all. Others express personal revulsion at the idea or cite religious prohibitions of it. (I invite Christian, Jewish, and Muslim objectors to read the book of Genesis. Who bore Cain's children?)

Now, some people may think that there's nothing wrong with incest but not want to say so for fear that it would cause some kind of awkward tension in their families. "Why is So-and-so suddenly supporting the legalisation of incest? Does he himself have incestuous desires?" Think of how many more people would have supported gay rights in the 20th century if they hadn't felt that they would be suspected gay themselves.

If this doesn't sound to you a whole lot like mid-20th-century bigotry toward homosexuals, I don't know what would.

While people with incestuous desires may not be as loud a minority as homosexuals, I think they deserve not to have their love outlawed. I fully expect to be laughed at for this, just as I'm sure many people were laughed at for comparing the obscure issue of gay marriage to something more popular at the time like interracial marriage. The bottom line is that we shouldn't have laws that make stipulations about what mutually consenting people can and can't do when it doesn't affect others' freedoms. If people mutually consent, what does it matter to the rest of us if they make up their own language, or put the toilet paper roll on backwards, or inject each other's ear lobes with hair spray, or cohabit, or have sex, or get married. 

Maybe I'm being too ambitious, expecting our culture of snail's-pace social progress to be ready to tear at the root of the problem rather than snipping off the branches one by one.

[discussion related to toilet paper edited out]

• 
  

   Robert Gilmore Lol. See how uncomfortable the topic of incest is? The topic changed to toilet paper at the first opportunity.
  
  We're so uncomfortable with it that it got used as a topic for taboo night in the improv workshops. Remember that, John? That was your scene.
• 

  John F Hughes Haha, I still get teased about that I remember it well.
• 

  Robert Gilmore Just as I get poked fun at once in a while for kissing a guy in a play - by people who were in that play no less! I'm looking at you, [redacted]. I'll admit, though, that I handed that one to you.

  One interesting corollary to this is a parallel between a woman's right to have an abortion and an incestuous couple's right to have an inbred child. To what extent are those rights analogous?Personally, I'm for abortion and against inbreeding. I feel a deep conflict about those two opinions, though.
• 

  John F Hughes I'd say that's my main issue with incest. Gay marriage in itself causes no one true harm but incest runs the risk of reproducing babies with deleterious traits.
• 

  Robert Gilmore So does pregnancy past the age of 40, which is legal.
  

  
  

  http://mpkb.org/_media/home/alternate/825_f1.gif

  And anyway, many forms of widely legal birth control exist, as well as abortion, which is becoming more legal.
• 

  John F Hughes Touché!..the issue of marriage is very complex. Sometimes it's hard not to bring religion as a moral guideline to who should marry who (at that I am totally for gay marriage even though I am Catholic). It's really hard to say what's exactly right...because as long as there are more than one person on this Earth there will be differences in opinions as to what's "right".
• 

  Robert Gilmore I just noticed that I made an analogy between abortion and inbreeding as rights and then proposed one as a preventative measure for the other.

  There are some really good, systematic ways to assess the ethicality of an act (source: a very interesting ethics class I took). Then again, there are multiple good, systematic ways, so they could still disagree even when they are well thought-out. Honestly, marriage seems like a silly idea to me. I don't know why we make our committed romantic relationships contractual. I remember some comedian saying something to the effect that he loved his wife with all his heart and they got along splendidly for years, but then they got married.
• That said, if people want the right to shoot themselves in the proverbial feet, why deny it?
• 

  John F Hughes Very true words. It's interesting to view marriage like that. Never put that much thought into it haha
• 

  Robert Gilmore On the subject of ethics, if anyone is interested in a very thorough, science-minded rebuttal of ethical relativism, the book "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values" is a good read. It was actually more interesting to me than my ethics class.
• 

  Joe Plock So you're against incest being legalized correct? But you're saying that it's in the same place that the gay marriage was 50 or so years back, and that even though it makes us uncomfortable, that will become an issue in a few years. Is that right?
• 

  Jenifer Krist
  

  
  

  State laws and cousin marriage | Cousin Marriage Resources

  List of states that allow cousin marriage. The list includes legal information for each state. 
  In 27 States You Can Marry Your Cousin — But Not Your Same-Sex Cousin | The New Civil Rights Movemen 
  thenewcivilrightsmovement.com
  Today, in an easy-to-read graphic, we show you the 27 states in which you can marry your first cousin, unless you’re gay. 
  I think one of the reasons incest is so taboo is because when people think of incest they immediately think of non-consensual relationships. It's also a very broad term. Maybe someone could be all right with cousins marrying but not with siblings. Aunts and uncles fair game or not? Half-siblings? There's lots of different types of incest and so you could end up having tons of different factions of people supporting some but not all forms of incest. I'm gonna say that having a sexual relationship with your mother or father is probably where I draw the line. I think that no matter what age you are and your ability to consent I don't think that could ever be a healthy relationship and there is probably some kind of weird power dynamic involved in that relationship (but I suppose lots of relationships like teacher/student or countless others have odd power dynamics...but I think it's more like the dynamic of therapist/patient relationships where it is just considered wrong). But yeah overall I've kinda always had a thing for incest ever since I read a book with an incestuous relationship at a formative age. I've told people before half-jokingly that I always wished I had an attractive older brother......but I'm sure if I actually had a brother that I grew up with my whole life I would find the very idea gross. But I do love incest in books and movies and such. So anyways yeah go incest! 
  When I was 5 I wanted to marry my cousin . My mother made it a point to tell me that I definitely could if I wanted to because his mother (my aunt's daughter) was adopted so he wasn't really "blood related" (but I didn't realize at the time that even if he was blood related it didn't matter because marrying your second cousin is legal in all 50 states). So I used to go around telling everyone how I could totally marry my cousin if I wanted to and then explaining why. When I was older I asked my mother why she really made sure that even at age 5 I understood that I could marry him if I wanted to and she told me that she had had a cousin that she ALWAYS had a crush on when she was younger and was always disappointed that she couldn't act on that...but then later found out when she was a lot older that he was actually adopted or something like that and wished she had known that sooner. Haha.
• 

  Robert Gilmore Joe, no. You've misunderstood me. I am in favour of the freedom to have incestuous sex and marriages - I think that mutual consent and privacy should be the only legal requirements for sex and that consent should be the only legal requirement for marriage.
  
  I wonder whether we will ever seriously talk as a culture about incest. I'm attempting to initiate such a discussion, but I kind of picked this issue out of several. The bigger point is that we should be talking about why we culturally and legislatively meddle in private affairs in general instead of doing this demographic-by-demographic sequence. First it was non-property-owners' rights, then it was women's rights, then we looked at race, now sexual orientation, maybe incestuous desire next, and I can imagine places where we'd go that would be too controversial for me to even mention my opinions. Why don't we think about the general problem instead of the specific ones? We'd get it done faster and be able to spend our cultural energy doing things more interesting than inching our freedoms forward every half century.
• 

  Jenifer Krist Joe, just so you know the other opinions Rob is referring to: Robert is also for beastiality as long as the animal consents with a baaa or a neiigghhhh. You should also be able to marry your toaster. Cause I've always had a fondness for my toaster. Or any appliance or inanimate object as long as it gives consent.
• 

  Robert Gilmore Hey, if the toaster is cool with it.

  Heh. Toaster. Cool.
• [NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST] I basically just think the government and marriage should not be intertwined. Okay, marriage equality is important because marriage carries certain legal rights. So, let's tear into those laws. Why are they written? Let's just, to keep the conversation going, say that it is because we assume a married couple to be cohabiting, and, as such, make more efficient use of public services. By that I mean, instead of two single people each independently driving to the grocery store, causing twice as much wear and tear to the publicly funded roads, you've got one family unit, which makes one trip to the store, whether together or one of them individually. I'm probably oversimplifying this, but for brevity's sake, let's say the whole reason we grant legal benefits to marriage is because of the cohabitation aspect. So, the government deals in "Certification of Cohabitation" documents, in which it is ensured that enough of the bottom-line aspects of marriage are covered. As an inanimate object, I'm afraid are dearly beloved toaster would not count for this CoC document, but basically any set of people, whether it's the traditional nuclear family, lovers in a reasonably committed relationship, two platonic roommates, could count.
• 

  Robert Gilmore Ten roommates?
• [NAME WITHHELD] Now then, I am in no way for the removal of marriage as a thing. If you want to have some kind of flowery event, go right ahead. I've seen them done if Firehalls before, we'll let the Justice of the Peace perform a ceremony between two consenting individuals, provided they pay enough money that it isn't a government subsidy, or, for the more traditionally minded, just find a church that agrees that your marriage is "acceptable". If you're gay and the Southern Baptist Convention doesn't support gay marriage, then you'll have to find someplace other than Southern Baptist Church to perform the ceremony. The Justice of the Peace is there in case you have something so unconventional, but legal, that you can't find any other place.
  

  As far as ten roommates goes, sure. Keeping to the oversimplified view of cohabitation as not wearing down the roads as much due to there being half as many cars going to grocery stores, then ten roommates ought to yield 1/10 as many cars.
  Of course, since I am using such an oversimplified view, there are bound to be holes in my idea. There's probably more to "marriage" than cohabitation. But, this is meant as nothing more than a baseline from which to solve the problem. The actual solution, as with anything involving sociology, is bound to be much more complex. 
  Relating this back to the cousins matter, there would be legally no difference from two cousins who have a platonic relationship and are living together to save housing costs, and two cousins who are lovers living together. They're both "cohabitants". If they want to be "married", then they can go to the Justice of the Peace or find another institution willing to perform the legally pointless ceremony. Marriage only remains for those who for sentimental or religious purposes find the same "declaration" that two college freshman living in an apartment could make insufficient. 

  [my comment removed because it's redundant with a footnote above]
• 

  Robert Gilmore My other comment didn't show up, I guess. I'll try again.
  
  The distinction between roommates and husbands is permanence. Marriage is a contractual agreement to cohabit permanently. The contract can be breached, of course, but that requires more paperwork and incurs penalties, as any divorcee will tell you. I think there is also a distinct legal state of separated marriage, which does not stipulate cohabitation. I'm not sure how that works.
  
  And, really, how do you define cohabitation? If I'm married and I decide to go and live in France and my wife doesn't follow, are we still cohabiting? Probably not. What if I change my mind and return the next day, never actually sleeping in France. What If I'm deployed on a military assignment for two years? What if I go to school for a few years in another state? I go away on a business trip for a few weeks? Days? Does sleeping in a different building constitute not cohabiting?
  
  This might sound ridiculous, but it strikes me as a very "hand-wavy" concept because I really have no idea of what US state I'm a legal resident and have no permanent address. I don't cohabit with either of my parents. People ask if I "go home" over breaks, but what is "home", exactly, if not my dormitory? That's where I sleep. That's the location of my one and only bed (or, right now, couch). Once, I lived in four different houses in one year, repeatedly moving between them from month to month. I once couch surfed for a few weeks - where was my home then? I currently don't have any idea where I'll live this May. Because of my frequent... uh... transhabitation, I am currently in a situation that leaves me with no state of residence. The candidates are New York, Oregon, and Texas, but I don't fit the residency requirements for any of them. So what the hell could "home", "residency", "cohabitation", or "permanent address" mean for me. You wouldn't think it, but I've become very familiar with the fact that the mechanisms of society, and government in particular, make the assumption that my "default" sleeping location does not change more than once per year.

  That sounded bitter. I'm not bitter about this. I like being a rolling stone. What I don't like is when bureaucracy makes bogus assumptions about the citizens that are obligated to use it, like the assumption that only pairs of people with certain demographic characteristics have reason to declare permanent cohabitation.
• [NAME WITHHELD] Regarding the permanence, I've lived for as long as three years with the same roommate. There are a number of marriages that last shorter than that. Perhaps tack on some of those same penalties that divorce involves to prevent abuse of the system.
  As far as how I define cohabitation, well, that falls back to this being an oversimplification. You arguments in the second paragraph are fair ones, and ones that would have to be answered satisfactorily in the "final draft" of my idea. A quick elaboration, let's say that the Contract of Cohabitation specifies that you spend at least half of the days of the year with your contractual cohabitant. If you go away on a business trip for two months, you can still live with that person for 10 months. If you go away to school for two years, then you're effectively no longer cohabiting, and your "CoC" expires. Any type of "marriage" that you arranged through third parties is still valid, but you no longer qualify for the benefits, as you are no longer, in the oversimplified example, driving the same car to the grocery store. If you're on military assignment, the same argument could be made. Perhaps, if society still places the same stigma on letting a "CoC" expire as they do on divorce, we could make explicit riders so that we don't "punish" those serving our country or improving their education, both admirable goals.

  And, of course, that is all still based on the oversimplification that cohabitation is the only factor about present-day marriage that makes the government give legal benefits to it. I don't know all the benefits marriage gives legally, so I couldn't begin to compile a list of what about marriage makes a couple entitled to those benefits. Let's just say there's eight things, cohabitation being one of them. Maybe, by going overseas, you maintain the other seven aspects of "marriage", and therefore your "Contract of Cohabitation", which would of course have to be renamed to more accurately reflect the eight theoretical benefits, would not expire.
• 

  Robert Gilmore Lol. "My CoC expired. I need to get a new CoC document." I feel like a sixth grader laughing at that.
• [NAME WITHHELD] I honestly cannot remember the last time I engaged in a facebook conversation about a "hot button issue" that did not devolve into personal attacks and ad hominem arguments. This is nice.
• 

  Robert Gilmore "[L]et's say that the Contract of Cohabitation specifies that you spend at least half of the days of the year with your contractual cohabitant."
  
  Okay, but what if you work night shifts on the east side of town, your cohabitant works day shifts on the west side of town, and you share an apartment downtown? This is a highly plausible situation in which they wouldn't be in physical proximity very often while sharing a residence. Again, what does it mean to live somewhere and what does it mean to live with someone? On my FAFSA, I'm required to list myself as a resident in at least one of my parents' houses despite the fact that since I was 17 I've only really visited and slept in each for stretches of maybe a week at a time and for maybe two weeks per year.
  
  I think that the reason this doesn't agree with my frame of mind is that this contract is a promise to perform an act that is poorly defined. To what degree must you share resources to be cohabiting and how do you quantify that sharing? Two cars and not sharing food? Most roommates likely wouldn't qualify.
  
  If it were better defined, I think I'd be able to grapple with it better. It's easy to discern when one breaches a contract that requires, say, that an employee spend a certain number of hours in a specified building and complete specified tasks that can be unquestionably shown to be complete or incomplete.
  
  Marriage is so vague as to be meaningless. To tie this back into the original post, why define this nebulous legal entity? Why regulate who can obtain it? Are we merely contractualising the use of a word? A husband by any other name would smell as sweet.

  Oh. Wait. That's not true. I spent a summer at my dad's house before my Freshman year.
• [NAME WITHHELD] As I've said, I've oversimplified things. I'm an engineer, not a sociologist. Getting a bill ready to present to Congress is not within my ability. It's merely an idea.
  

  As to why to define it, if we're going to give legal benefits to it, we have to define it. Can I marry my wristwatch and pay less taxes because of it? An alternative, one which would not be very popular, is to completely remove any legal benefits of marriage. There is no jointly filing for taxes. Everyone pays their own taxes based on their own work. The entrepenur who brought $5 million to his stay at home wife pays the same amount that his household did before the change, while the wife, who doesn't work, pays nothing. Of course, if we start putting housewives of wealthy gentlemen on welfare, then that's taking away money from the people who ACTUALLY need welfare. Perhaps that's another "aspect" of marriage: pooling of resources. That's #2 of my theoretical 8, which could actually be as low as 2 or infinitely high.

  Basically, my core sentiments are this: you cannot give out legal rights based upon a matter of religion, and you can not legislate that a church be forced to perform marriages which violate the laws of that religion. So, figure out how to dole out the benefits without touching "marriage", and allow churches to perform marriages without any legal benefits.
• 

  Robert Gilmore I think that might be what a "civil union" is. I don't think homosexuals have ever been prohibited from doing that. It's somehow legally different from marriage.
• [NAME WITHHELD] For some reason I've found people get hung up on arguments about how the current system is implemented whenever I use words such as "civil union", rather than accepting that I'm describing a new system, which is why I haven't been calling it that. But sure, if you prefer that vocabulary. Let civil unions be the defining factor. You want to go to a Catholic church and get married? Okay, you've fulfilled your religious obligations to not be "living in sin". But that provides no legal benefits. If you want those, enter a civil union. The two aren't mutually exclusive. If the church still wants to issue a "Matrimony License", they can. If they don't want to, I don't care. That piece of paper, in the eyes of the law, carries no more weight that the "Perfect Attendence" award your 1st grade teacher made in MSPaint. Matrimony is not a government affair, the only paperwork they need is the "Civil Union License".
• 

  Robert Gilmore Although, until 2005 or something, sodomy was illegal in Texas. That's kind of a big issue in all of this. The government is legislating sex. What a breach of privacy! I can't really imagine how the perpetrators would ever be caught, though, unless they were exhibitionists.
• 

  Jenifer Krist The problem with civil unions,I believe is that there were still legal benefits that were denied them (I know this from my gay uncles not from any real research on my part so I don't know all the specifics...just a little side story they've been married to each other several times now haha...first in Vermont I think and then California and then finally in New York). But yes you could keep that name as long as all the benefits were actually given to recipients of civil unions. Speaking of outdated laws and exhibitionists there was someone who was actually arrested for adultery near here in Batavia in 2010. But I think the main issue there was the fact that they were caught in the act by a mother and her children in a public park...so that might have had something to do with it. I couldn't remember all the details so I looked it up and here is the article if your curiosity is piqued:
  

  
  

  Woman Charged With Adultery Challenges Law

  abcnews.go.com
  

  A Batavia, New York woman who became on the 13th person in New York State histor...See

  But yeah adultery is still a crime in some states...just because I feel like they never bothered to get rid of it. Not something that usually gets any arrests or convictions. But then I think there are a lot of silly laws like that in some states that I recall hearing about at one time or another.
• 

  Robert Gilmore Yeah, like how stealing a horse can supposedly still technically get you hanged in Travis county, Texas.