There Is No Shame in Surrender

Posted on 01/29/2008 by Jane Devin

Please listen.

There is no shame in understanding that it’s too much, or in recognizing your limitations.

There is no shame in giving your child up for adoption.

Please don’t let shame be your weakness, or let it decide your child’s fate. Those eyes that surround you, whether at school, at work, or at the family table, cannot see into your future. They are not the ones who have to be emotionally, financially, and physically responsible for a child.

They will not be there for the all-night crying jags, the teething pains, or the earaches. They will not be the ones responsible for bottles, diapers, doctor visits, or daycare. That will be you, and chances are, only you.

There is no shame in knowing that you are not ready. Maybe you are too young. Maybe your temperament does not yet have the patience necessary to parent. Maybe your financial situation is unstable with no promise of a quick or easy recovery. Maybe there are dreams you’ve yet to fulfill that you would regret forgoing if you stopped to raise a child. Maybe this is just the wrong time, or you’re with the wrong partner.

You, and more importantly, your child, do not have to be the victims of circumstance. You can, instead, gather your courage and strength, face your own truths and reality, and with no small amount of pride, you can surrender.

You can surrender knowing that no matter how other people in your life question your decision, or how they may judge you, you have made a decision based on the the purest,and most unselfish kind of love. You, through adoption, have given your child the ultimate gift — a secure home with people who are excited about being parents — who will love your child and provide him or her with stability and every opportunity for happiness.

Maybe you didn’t have that kind of happiness growing up. Maybe you imagine that all that love you have stored up inside will make up for everything else.

Please know — and this is a hard, hard truth — it doesn’t.

Love cannot buy you the time it takes to care for a child. It cannot provide a paycheck that will cover your expenses. At three in the morning, when your child is crying, love does not buy you patience. At three in the afternoon, when you’re bone tired, it won’t buy you a much needed rest. When you want to go out at night — when you need to have some fun — love will not buy you a babysitter.

Love is not a cure for desperation. A child’s love, as defenseless and unconditional as it is, will not fix the broken pieces of a life. Having a child is not a cure for sadness, loneliness, or depression.

No matter how many others in your life are excited about your pregnancy — no matter how many declarations of love, baby showers and well-wishes there are while you are pregnant — eventually you will be left alone with a helpless infant. One who is totally dependent on you 24 hours a day. One who will be dependent on you for many years, not just for love, but for every single thing in their existence.

If you are not ready for that, if you are not prepared, there’s no shame in surrender.

There’s no shame in surrender when they are newly born, or even when they are months old.

There is no shame in picking up the phone and saying –

I need help. I thought I could do this, but it’s too much. I can’t.

Somewhere, there are loving, patient, ready arms waiting to hold that child. Somewhere in your heart is the courage to surrender what you created so that he or she can have the best life possible.

There is no shame in surrender. Only in hanging on past the point of reason. Beyond the point of love.

(For further information, please see first comment).

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When None of the Power is Yours

Posted on 01/28/2008 by Jane Devin

I didn’t know my Nana Hlatky very well. She lived in Conneticut, on the other side of the coast, and only came to visit every few years. Still, I felt a connection with her, far more than my sisters did. They couldn’t decipher her accent as well as I could, and none of them had either my curiosity or my rock solid determination.

I knew she had stories to tell, and I wanted to hear them. What was the hole in her chest? What happened to the farm in the Ukraine? Was she really on a train for 40 days before being sent to a work camp? How did she escape, where were her parents, how did she get to America?

Nana wasn’t big on talking, and I don’t know if that was her nature, or the circumstance of being in a different kitchen. Nana hardly ever left the kitchen when she visited – she was usually cooking or baking something, and when she wasn’t, she seemed to feel most at home at the kitchen table, sipping coffee.

I’m sure, too, that she thought I was the weirdest granddaughter ever, and a real shkidnyk – a total pest. But I adored her – all 4’11″ of her, with her serious green eyes, work-weary hands, knee high nylons, and soft red lipstick. I loved to watch those hands as they folded pierogies into perfect half-moon shapes, or mounds of fluffy dough into loaves of sweet bread.

Years later, when she came to live with us, those same hands would hold a butter knife in preparation for the danger that was coming through the door or sleeping on the couch. I would watch those hands wring as Nana begged to speak to the manager of this hotel. Those serious green eyes turned anxious and afraid, and were often filled with tears of confusion and frustration. My parents did not help. They harmed in ways that are still too painful to talk about. It was a terrible, brutal, heart-scathing thing to watch. My Nana. 4’11″. Some things are just not forgivable, and I will never forgive them.

I did the best I could at 15 years old, but what’s the best when none of the power is yours? I put in urgent, confidential calls to social services from payphones, and waited. In the interim, I bathed Nana, I talked to her, I tried to show her love, but as soon as she remembered my name, she forgot it. As soon as trust was established, it was broken. I was a stranger, I was a girl on the train, I was the maid who stole her purse.

Eventually, Nana was put in a long-term treatment facility, an “old folks home”, where she all but ceased to exist as a human being. She became a tiny, curled up shell, voiceless, with no spark of life left behind her clouded eyes. Her physical death took several years, but I prefer to imagine that her soul went first – to her brightest and kindest version of Heaven, where tragedies would be forgotten and love would be resurrected.

I thought of my Nana today when I read an article about a promising new experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. Bathing the brain in infrared light is thought to spur the growth of new brain cells and may, researchers hope, actually reverse memory loss, which would make it a groundbreaking discovery for hundreds of thousands of Alzheimer’s sufferers worldwide. The experiments worked on mice, but the first human trials will begin this summer.

After seeing the horrific powerlessness of Alzheimer’s firsthand, I have lived with the fear that my mind might go before my body. It’s a dreadful fear, particularly for me, since I already have a mind that’s prone to wandering off, or taking long daydream journeys. I wonder, really, how far of a leap it would be to go from merely wandering to getting irretrievably lost. I’d guess not far, and that’s frightening. So, like millions of others who share my concerns, I watch for new treatments, get excited by every advance made, and anxiously wait for the day a cure is found.

“Nana, do you think I’m pretty?”
“Vhat’s perrty to do in life? You tink perrty is important? Pffft. Be good, be schmart. Tat’s da perrty tat matters.”

She was, of course, very beautiful.

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Camille Paglia: Tabloid-Style Politics

Posted on 01/18/2008 by Jane Devin

In her most recent political essay, Camille Paglia exposes readers to a skeletal mindset covered in layers of archaic academia — her own.

In so many ways, Paglia reminds me of Ann Coulter. They are both well-fed media darlings not, it seems, for the depth or truth of anything they might say, but for their ability to pander to one group while shocking another. Their brand of outrageousness gets picked up by the wire services, meaning more publicity, and more advertising sales.

Paglia infuriates me more, though. Coulter is so out in far right field, and so beyond intellectual redemption, that I dismiss her as easily as I dismiss other vapid mouthpieces of the neocon movement. Paglia, on the other hand, is capable of critical thinking — and she claims to be a democrat. Perhaps she is, in her own way, but I resent that she mixes my party of choice, the party I believe to be most humanitarian, with hateful, empty, propaganda.

Her recent diatribe in Salon is just one of many examples. Paglia wanted to write of her support for Obama, which is admirable, but rather than use the space to promote her candidate of choice, and tell readers of Obama’s accomplishments and goals, she sneers at and belittles his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Far beyond that, though, Paglia fictionalizes the life of a woman she does not personally know, has no firsthand knowledge of, and did not interview — projecting adjective-heavy attributes onto Clinton and her family as if she were intimately involved with them. Paglia’s sin of taking fictionalized license with Clinton’s life includes:

. . .the inky depths of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s warren-riddled psyche.

Hillary is the barracuda who fought for dominance at their expense

Flashes of that ruthless old family drama have come out repeatedly in this campaign, as when Hillary could barely conceal her sneers at her fellow debaters onstage — the wimpy, cringing brothers at the dinner table.

. . .general contempt for men. She distrusts them and feels morally superior to them. Following the pattern of her long-suffering mother, she thinks it is her mission to endure every insult and personal degradation for a higher cause — which, unlike her self-sacrificing mother, she identifies with her near-messianic personal ambition.

Hillary’s disdain for masculinity fits right into the classic feminazi package, which is why Hillary acts on Gloria Steinem like catnip.

Contemptuous condescension seems to be Hillary’s default mode with any male who criticizes her or stands in her way.

The Clintons live to campaign. It’s what holds them together and gives them a glowing sense of meaning and value.

She is a brittle, relentless manipulator with few stable core values who shuffles through useful personalities like a card shark (“Cue the tears!”).

Paglia, (and she has proudly confirmed this fact), is arrogant. Her words ooze with grandeur and self-importance. It’s her sense of entitlement, though, that is truly appalling.

Rather than offer an opinion based on reason or fact, Paglia creates her own scripts, in which real people (like Clinton, like Steinem) are replaced outright or marginalized by Paglia’s flamboyant and fictionalized characterization.

Paglia, in fact, has no insight at all into Hillary Rodham Clinton. She does not know how Clinton feels. She does not know what makes up Clinton’s psyche. She does not know what gives Clinton a sense of meaning and value. She does not know Clinton, or her brothers, or her husband. So Paglia, without conscience, and without regard for either her subject or the truth, just makes it up — which, in my mind, gives her no more value than a tabloid writer, no matter how lofty her literary references or imperious her language.

I have to say, too, that one of the many things I hope will go the way of the political dinosaurs this November is the hateful, off-base term “feminazi”. The collective feminine spirit is nurturing, caring, warm, loving, analytical, deep, innovative, creative, sustaining. The feminine spirit, if it ruled the world, would not have had an Auschwitz, a Dachau, a Hitler or a Mengele. That women who believe they have equal value in the world would be called called “feminazis” reeks of hatred for the very idea of equality. It’s a term that belittles the intelligence, contributions, and spirit of women — and in Paglia style — fictionalizes them into monsters.

Interesting that Paglia, who accuses Clinton of a “contemptuous condenscenion” towards males, would employ a term like feminazi — a word that heaps contempt upon women and seeks to diminish their value.

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Marion Jones, Meet Halliburton

Posted on 01/12/2008 by Jane Devin

Olympic medalist Marion Jones was sentenced to six months in jail yesterday on two counts of perjury, after admitting to lying to federal investigators about her steroid use. Following the serving of her sentence, Jones will be on probation for two years and serve 800 hours of community service.

Somehow, I am reminded of Martha Stewart. Perhaps because in both cases, the judges wanted to impress on their defendants and the public the seriousness of lying.

“I want people to think twice before lying,” Judge Karas said to Marion Jones. “I want to make them realize no one is above the law.”

“Lying to government agencies during the course of an investigation is a very serious matter,” said Judge Miriam Cedarbaum at Martha Stewart’s sentencing. “A term of incarceration is justified and appropriate in this case.”

Lying to investigators and obstruction of justice are, it goes without saying, against the law. Jones pled guilty, and a jury convicted Stewart. Both begged for mercy from their respective judges and some would argue that their sentences were lenient. I won’t argue that point. (I won’t even talk about the dozens of (male) athletes who consistently denied steroid use, and who received only suspensions or a slap on the wrist, although I’m sure someone will – and should). Instead, what I’d like to talk about is Dick Cheney’s Halliburton and middle-class outrage.

One dead giveaway of a middle-class person is obvious sticker shock. When we see the prices at a high-end restaurant, or a brand name clothing store, our eyebrows raise and our mouths fall open in disbelief. We can’t help it. Our middle class sensibilities began when we first heard the word ‘no’ and realized that it applied to us. In prepubescence we learned that work is hard, money doesn’t grow on trees and that one day we, too, would appreciate generic cans of surprise fruit and “slightly-off” bargain basement jeans, even if we did have to hem two inches from one leg, or cover a cigarette burn on the calf with a Peace patch.

When we got our first minimum wage paycheck from that summer job we needed “in order to learn what responsibility means”, we began to understand that there’s no such thing as easy money. We began to look at price tags in terms of labor hours: a two-hour T-shirt, an eight-hour concert, a 40 hour leather jacket.

Now, as hard-working adults, we budget even our spontaneity. We faithfully add $10 a week to our Christmas Club accounts, and keep a cookie jar of “mad money” that rarely goes past two digits. Our impulse to buy the latest gadget is tempered by knowing we’ll have to pack our lunches for the next six months. And anytime we have to write a check that has more zeroes before the decimal point than after, we feel a little faint.

While it’s true that many of us are stunned by the $9,000,000,000,000.00 (nine TRILLION) dollar debt of our Bush-plundered nation, we understand democracy in action. When the majority of our peers (or the U.S. Supreme Court) hands us a President, he belongs to all of us, come prosperity and good times — or scandal, corruption, and war. We understand the give-and-take of taxes and government budgets, and know that eventually, even if it takes decades ( and it will), we’ll work together to ease this astounding debt.

It’s the obvious pillaging of our communal coffers by private corporations that really throws us into apocalyptic shock, and topping the list of thieving, ink-stained hands are those belonging to Dick Cheney’s pals at Halliburton.

Even though Halliburton moved their base of operations out of the U.S. in March, 2007 and into the friendlier country of Dubai so that they could save paying taxes on the billions of dollars of profit they enjoyed through their no-bid U.S. contracts – and even though they divested themselves of their most controversial subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), last April – Halliburton continues to be a source of angst for many Americans, particularly those who don’t like being gouged, exploited, lied to, railroaded, evaded, and shut out.

The list of Halliburton’s crimes and misdeeds against America is staggering. Billions of dollars are missing, billions more were wasted. Among the charges spelled out in Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) hearings held from 2003-2006:

* Halliburton billed taxpayers $1.4 billion in questionable and undocumented charges under its contract to supply troops in Iraq, as documented by the Pentagon’s own auditors.

* Halliburton charged taxpayers for services that it never provided and tens of thousands of meals that it never served.

* Halliburton employees burned new trucks on the side of the road because they didn’t have the right wrench to change a tire — and knew that the trucks could be replaced on a profitable “cost-plus” basis, at taxpayer expense.

* Halliburton chose a subcontractor to build an ice factory in the desert even though its bid was 800 percent higher than an equally qualified bidder.

* Halliburton actively discouraged cooperation with U.S. government auditors, sent one whistleblower into a combat zone to keep him away from auditors, and put another whistleblower under armed guard before kicking her out of the country.

* Under its no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure contract, Halliburton overcharged by over 600 percent for the delivery of fuel from Kuwait.

Before he became Vice President, Cheney sold his stock in Halliburton to the tune of $20 million, and assigned any future profit to an irrevocable charitable trust. The question is not whether Cheney is now profiting from government contracts – the answer would appear to be no – the question is how Halliburton became the beneficiary of such wealth in the first place.

It can hardly be denied that Halliburton has a long history of corruption and war profiteering. Under Cheney’s guidance, the company engaged in fraudulent accounting practices, which added $89 million dollars in revenue to their bottom line. Halliburton paid 7.5 million as a settlement to the Securities Exchange Commission to avoid a lawsuit, even as former employees stepped forward to indicate the problem was much deeper and more pervasive than the SEC originally thought.

While Cheney was leading Halliburton, millions in allegedly illegal payments were made to Nigerian officials by Halliburton’s subsidiary, KBR, for the construction of a natural-gas plant in Nigeria. There’s also the $73 million dollars that Halliburton is accused of making when, again, under Cheney’s reign, they defied U.S. sanctions and did business with Iraq, Iran, and Libya. Then there’s the $7 billion dollar no-bid contract awarded to KBR, and more – so much more that we, the wide-eyed, mouth-agape middle class have to wonder — who’s going to jail?

While judges are busy making big public examples out of small-time crime mavens like Marion Jones and Martha Stewart, the wheels of justice in Washington seem to have skipped off the wagon .

In 2005, Senate Republicans defeated a measure that would have established a special committee to investigate Halliburton, but promised that hearings would be held by a subcomittee of the Armed Services Committee, led by John Ensign, R-NV. They also stated that Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction would conduct an investigation. Two years and two months later, the American public is still waiting.

Bunnatine H. Greenhouse is waiting, too. Greenhouse, you probably (don’t) recall, was the chief civilian procurement executive for the Army Corps or Engineers, who was removed from her job after criticizing the no-bid contract the U.S. signed with Halliburton-KBR. “I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper abuse I have witnessed,” said Greenhouse during the DPC hearings. Those strong words, coming from a twenty-year government veteran, have faded into the background of diversionary politics, including overall debate about the Middle East and Senate tub-thumping during an election year.

Those of us who remember Whitewater – the Republican-led witch hunt against the Clintons which took 12 years and cost taxpayers $70M (and which Ken Starr, lacking sufficient evidence, gleefully turned into a sex scandal) – have to wonder at the hypocrisy. The Clintons lost money on the Whitewater venture, and it was their own money, not the U.S. taxpayers. In the end, fourteen people were convicted on various charges, many not related to Whitewater. There was no evidence of financial or ethical wrong-doing by either Bill or Hillary Clinton.

Where’s the call to investigative arms with Halliburton and KBR? Where’s the fiery outrage of the conservative moralists now? How is it possible that those who claim to hold taxpayer money in higher regard than their “tax and spend” liberal counterparts have turned a blind eye to the outrageous thefts perpetrated by Halliburton and company?

The same right-wing politicians who screamed impeachment over one President’s private sexual activity, have stood in vocal and voting solidarity with a President and Vice-President who have lied to the American people, thrown our military into an unjust war, brought the country to the brink of financial ruin, usurped the U.S. Constitution with the Patriot Act, arrogantly defied the Geneva Convention, ignored the United Nations, advocated torture, and broken both promises and treaties.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the demagogues of the right-wing have turned blind, deaf and dumb when it comes to the abuses of Halliburton and Company, but we are. We’re surprised that the issue of anabolic steroid use received more Congressional attention in 2003, 2004 and 2005 than the issue of billions of missing dollars and Halliburton’s war profiteering. But what really throws us for a loop is the spinelessness of the Democrat-majority Congress we elected in 2006, which has not stood up to the Bush administration as we expected it to, or taken the type of swift, immediate action we wanted to stop the hemorrhaging of U.S. tax dollars.

Election year or not, divided or not, our nation owes its taxpayers a strict accounting, and it’s the job of Congress to ensure that we get one, and to see to it that those who are responsible for perhaps the largest and most collusive theft in the history of the United States are brought to bear.

That would be an example worth setting.

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America: Dumbed Down, Fattened Up, Porned Out & Pissed Off

Posted on 01/01/2008 by Jane Devin

Sure, it could be blamed on television or movies. It could also be about fast food, preservatives, and hormone-laden chickens. Maybe it’s violent rap music or video games. Overworked, stressed out adults. Over-scheduled or latchkey kids. The end of stickball and street hockey. Not enough vegetables and too many cans of Coca-Cola.It could be any of those things, or. . .it could that my theory is true, and America is suffering from a collective, nearly all-inclusive depression. Of course, one of the hallmarks of depression is that people who suffer it don’t believe they have it – they invent other reasons for feeling lousy, or are so used to feeling lousy that it almost feels good.

However, an analysis of clinical depression symptoms with the current state of America looks something like this.

Symptoms:

1. Changes in weight. An increased or decreased appetite. Weight gain or weight loss.
2. Impaired thinking and/or concentration. Trouble making decisions.
3. Sleep disturbances. Problems falling asleep or problems waking.
4. Heightened feelings of agitation. Easily annoyed. Irritability, restlessness.
5. Fatigue or sluggishness. Weariness. A lack of physical energy.
6. Depressed mood, with feelings of apathy, helplessness, and hopelessness.
7. Loss of interest in sex, changes in sexual functioning.

America:

1. Growing steadily obese. 64.5% of us are overweight. 1-5% are anorexic or bulimic.
2. America now ranks 20th in the world for education. We are becoming dumber.
3. Sales of sleep-aids like Ambien have skyrocketed. Starbucks has heavily expanded.
4. Road rage. School shootings. We have become more temperamental.
5. Despite a plethora of health clubs, we’re exercising less and eating more fast food.
6. A high voter turnout in America is 54%. 66% of us call in sick when we’re not.
7. Since 1998, Viagra has been one of the most popular drugs in America.

I think a scientific case might be made for my theory of a collective American meltdown in the last decade, but the empirical evidence by itself is overwhelming.

Stolen Childhoods

In 2001, I was at a grocery store when I saw a sweet grandmotherly woman bend over a stroller to coo at an infant and congratulate the mother. The mother quickly jerked the stroller away and said, “I am teaching him NOT to talk to strangers!”. The child was about six months old. Teaching kids the danger of strangers is appropriate, but making them paranoid, fearful, and anxious is not.

The protection of society’s children is warped. Those who most need protection do not get it, and the public is left with harrowing stories of child abuse and murder. Meanwhile, there are far too many over-coddled children whose parents forgo discipline in favor of a “my child can do no wrong” attitude. When their children act out at school, parents are quick to blame the teachers. While teachers aren’t infallible, it does not help that classroom time is often dominated by children with behavior problems. Teachers cite defensive parents and discipline as two of their major struggles.

At the same time, many public schools have eliminated recess, and any chance for children to expend excess energy, in order to fit more learning into the schedule. Children are being saddled with more and more homework, further cutting into a child’s play time. The average backpack of an elementary school child weighs 13.8 pounds. A 2004 study found that over 64% of middle school children report pain from carrying heavy backpacks.

There has been a 500% increase in the number of ADD/ADHD drugs prescribed to children since 1991. An article published by Education World states, “According to the Congressional Testimony of Terrance Woodworth, a deputy director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the number of prescriptions written for methylphenidate has increased by a factor of five since 1991. About 80 percent of the 11 million prescriptions doctors write for that medication each year treat childhood ADHD, he said. In addition, production of Adderall and Dexedrine, also used to treat ADHD, has risen 2,000 percent in nine years.”

Is it really any wonder that America’s children are becoming overweight couch potatoes who are less interested in learning and more interested in the latest video game release? We have stolen childhood away from them at every turn. We need to give it back to them, complete with free time, family time, the outdoors, and discipline.

All the Rage . . . and the Apathy

Rape is the fastest growing crime in the world, with America still in the lead. The statistics are simply staggering, but perhaps none more so than this — only 2% of perpetrators are convicted. Pedophilia is a rising crime that has actually gained proponents in the academic sector.

While people should be enraged by that, and the often light sentences handed out to rapists and child molesters when they are convicted, many choose to expend their energies elsewhere — like on the highway. In 1999, a prominent Twin Cities anesthesiologist beat up a 68 year old female driver for going too slowly. The case was shocking at the time, but road rage has since become more common. Violence and deaths caused by road rage have risen steadily.

According to Wikipedia, in the 90′s, “gangsta rap” hit the mainstream, and by the early 2000′s, rap music became one of the bestselling music genres in America. Bustin’ caps, shooting your ass, bitches, pimps and ho’s were introduced into the American lexicon, and embraced by a newly ghettoized culture of youth and young adults. A 1996-1997 study found that illicit drugs were mentioned in 63% of rap songs, compared to 10% in other genres. Defenders of rap music claim that the lyrics are fueled by reality — if the reality did not exist, then neither would the violent, misogynistic lyrics. While that may have some grain of truth, the vast popularity of rap music does not match up with the reality of most American lives, black or white, which are not dominated by shootings, crack cocaine, pimps and whores.

That such things became popularized, and that psuedo-gangs have hit the suburbs, might be attributed less to the reality of American lives than to the feelings of hopelessness, frustration, and rage many Americans, particularly young people, seem to feel. Of course, there are plenty of people who also feel apathetic — they are either numb to the world outside of themselves, or disbelieve that anything they might do would have an impact. They keep to themselves, away from the polls, and apathetically go along with the dumbing down they get from corporate-sponsored television and newspapers, while they read fewer and fewer books.

Sex: Just Not That Sexy Anymore

Pornography continues to sell, and is becoming more mainstream. Estimates of porn sales in America range from a conservative estimate of $4 billion dollars up to $15 billion. In any event, the porn business has boomed since 1970, when revenue was estimated at a relatively paltry $5-10 million.

We can now order porn into our living rooms with a subscription to cable or an internet connection. Americans no longer have to sneak out to dark theaters to get their fill of naked, copulating others. There’s freedom in that — and some socio-cultural changes that don’t seem to be going away any time soon.

American women, taking their cue from porn stars, have started shaving or waxing their nether regions to baldness or near baldness. The trend has taken personal grooming into spas and salons, where for $30-$100 women can get themselves trimmed to bikini perfection, shape their pubic hair into a thin stripe, or go all-out and get the front to back, totally bald Brazilian.

“I wouldn’t date a woman who didn’t shave down there,” said one blog commenter, “too gross.” Preferable, it seems, is a woman’s return to labial prepubescence.

While all cosmetic surgery is on the rise, labiaplasty — a particularly painful operation which involves the cutting and restructuring of labial tissues to form a “youthful” appearance — has gone from being a secret of porn stars into the mainstream of female consciousness. Vaginal rejuvenation, a procedure that actually may have some medical merit for women who have prolapsed vaginas, has become a a fashion trend, with many women seeking the surgery only to appease the fantasies of their porn-fed boyfriends and husbands. From Women’s e-News:

Ileana Vasquez is a 29 year-old Southern California housewife with four children. She read about vaginal rejuvenation after she saw an ad in a magazine. Her marriage was in trouble and she noted that her husband wasn’t happy with her sexually.

“One time he had a few beers and told me that because I had all our kids and was looser now he didn’t want me as a woman anymore,” Vasquez said. “He did say he was sorry later on but I knew he was telling the truth.”

Vasquez had the surgery and she noted her marriage is back on track and her sex life is good again. “He’s become my sweetheart again,” she said. “He bought me a house and he wants me all the time.”

Anal sex, which was once reported by Kinsey to be engaged in by 9% of the heterosexual population, is now a growing trend. The CDC has reported that 38.2% of straight men and 32.6% of women now engage in backdoor play. The sales of anal “toys” have increased dramatically in the last decade.

So have porn, waxed parts, and Greek-style lovemaking made America any sexier? Not really. An estimated 25% of American adults, a third of women and a fifth of men, have no interest in sex. Up to 33% of our adult population has gone one year or longer without a sexual partner. Viagra sales have continued to rise since Pfizer introduced the drug in 1998.

Fewer people, it seems, feel adequate anymore. Their bodies and parts don’t match the sexualized images porn has brought them, and they turn towards surgery and drugs to “save” them. Where the Kama Sutra of decades past brought eroticism and imagination to millions of bedrooms, today’s porn is selling Americans on picture-perfect vaginas, silicone enhanced breasts, enormous phalluses, and taking it up the ass.

For millions of Americans, sex just isn’t that sexy anymore.

(to be continued).

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