Brain Fertilizer

After handling my petulance with grace and aplomb, check out how Michelle Malkin handles this one. She sends traffic over, with minimal self-defense and mostly compliments.

And I can understand the angst Shelley Powers is feeling, at least as far as feeling like you are getting less attention than you deserve. (although now I feel I get more than I deserve...I guess it evens out)

Other thoughts and reactions:

I suspect that Ms. Powers didn't realize that Michelle Malkin was already a well-known and widely respected columnist, author, and talk-show guest/pundit who already shaped conservative thought long before she began blogging. Which is why she got so many hits so soon...it really had little connection with her book publishing, methinks.

I found Michele Catalano's response to the post highly intriguing. She talks about the 70s as being just as sexualized as the 00's. I disagree. I strongly disagree. Heck, I strenuously object! The 70s appeared to be a time of excessive sexualization, but it was only in comparison to the 50s and early 60s that preceded it. The sexual activity was mixed up in the drug culture and widespread rebellion against authority that were also prevalent at the time. And so I find it interesting that Michele feels she must apologize for her impulse running counter to that, now that she has gained both experience (wisdom, maturity) and a child. Michele has obviously learned that such a focus and emphasis on sex is not good for the individual spirit, despite how much the body may enjoy it. But even though the sexual revolution was born of questioning authority and rebelling against conventional wisdom of morality and status quo, Michele feels uncomfortable questioning the authority of purveyors of sexuality and rebelling against conventional wisdom of immorality. Freedom should be more free, right? Why does Michele feel uncomfortable drawing her own conclusions from her own experiences...?

And our times are far more sexualized. As a later poster indicated, you can find all sorts of things on TV that you couldn't in the 70s. Heck, you could find more simulated sex on TV in the 80s than in the 70s, thanks to HBO and music videos. Nowadays, you can find graphic pornography with just a few clicks of the mouse, junior high school students perform oral sex in the classroom, and it is difficult to find clothes for your 10-year-old girl that are less suggestive than the average hooker wears.

The message of the 60s was "Self-Actualization and Enlightenment Through Sex."
As a society, we tried it out throughout the 70s and early 80s until we got the AIDS epidemic. Yay. We had teen pregnancy. Yay. The left fought to popularize abortion, so now we have teen pregnancy at higher rates and abortion at higher rates. Yay.

One solution? Stop brainwashing our kids into thinking that sex is the ultimate expression of love, or perhaps teach them that attraction and love aren't the same thing.

Instead, as a society, we denigrate anyone who suggests kids should wait until marriage to have sex. Keep setting low expectations, right? That way you don't make anyone feel bad for not even meeting those...

Maturity means figuring out what actually works. Wisdom means being able to apply those lessons to other situations. Compassion means helping our youth understand the costs and the choices without having to go through the pain themselves.

...and I'm rambling. Ah, well, I mean what I say, and I think it is worth saying, but I doubt anyone really wants to listen. Either you agree and I'm wasting my breath, or you'll never agree and I'm wasting my breath. Er, fingers energy. Whatever.

In any case, I can ramble if I want to.