Culture Shock

As some of you may or may not know, I am not just an English major. In declaring, I diversified and multiplied my options. I'm also a kinesiology major.

This is my first quarter at Western taking mostly kinesiology classes. Previously, I've mostly worked on English classes and science prerequisites, and though it's only been one day, entering the world of kinesiology and the PEHR (Physical Education, Health and Recreation) has been a bit of a culture shock.

The differences in syllabi alone is worth mentioning. Compared to syllabi from my English classes, these have been downright scientific. I've never seen footnotes on a syllabus before. Granted a lot of the information is so detailed it almost feels like the professors think themselves talking to dullards.

In class, the contrast between English and Kinesiology is as stark as a football coach next to a science fiction writer. In some cases, I wouldn't be surprised if that were actually the case. This isn't to deride my Kines profs, from what little interaction we've had it's apparent they're quite intelligent. But it's so... targeted: physics and bodies and athletics. Even in my survey course when suggesting possible research projects, it was all optimized movement of legs during running and analyzing arm reach during the swing of a baseball bat. Okay, I made those up, and it's not like the English department (or other humanities for that matter) is all that different in their specialization with their overlap of literature, philosophy and history.

I suppose it's mostly a culture shock. The personalities of the type of people drawn to both my majors just seem so wildly different.

Among the English majors you can tell that the majority of them do so many other things. They're in sports and active and have interests outside books. Kinesiology majors I've seen are focused much more, oh how do I describe this? Physically. On bodies and sports and the like, but it's even hard to imagine them crossing the line in the other direction and talking about books or poetry and meaning. Which isn't to say English majors are better. No, it's just a different kind of intellect, a different side of the brain. And this is going to take a few weeks to habituate to.

Which means again, we find Danny bitching and moaning about straddling the fence between two disparate worlds. Though it's not an uncomfortable place being between. Liminality may be dusky, but there's always light.

Why Don't We Talk About Sex the Way We Talk About Food?

On Monday night, the Sexual Awareness Center office will be showing the documentary Let's Talk About Sex. While I urge anyone reading this to go to that film showing at 6pm in VU 522, I am not writing this blog post as a representative of that office. Considering we live in a culture that inundates itself with sex, where “sex sells” and “everybody's doing it,” we're awfully reticent to having frank and open discussions about sex and sexuality.

For eight years, we had a Presidential administration that almost exclusively advocated abstinence only sex education,which given rates of sexual abuse, unplanned pregnancy, sexual violence, and sexually transmitted infections (STI), completely ignores the fact that young people are having sex and under an abstinence-only model are having sex unprepared for the consequences of their actions.

The problem though is not merely systemic, it's cultural as well. We don't allow ourselves a space to healthily discuss sex. Within the public domain, we rarely hear about condoms until at least puberty, and even then the focus is on preventing pregnancy with little to no mention of STI prevention. Few parents would be able to overcome their embarrassment to bring up condom use to a teenager beyond surreptitiously leaving a pack bedside and assuming they'll know what to do with it.

Even this discourse completely ignores the range of emotional and social pressures that come along with sex.

About six months ago, I purchased a copy of the Guide to Getting It On by Paul Joannides, an irreverent, comprehensive sex manual that with glossary covers 982 pages. At times it exhibits language that makes me uncomfortable for its misogynistic, heteronormative or culturally-incompetent connotations, but it attempts to be inclusive and is reflective of the idiomatic culture that spawned it, so I would still recommend it for anyone interested about sex.

My favorite part about this guide is not its wide range of sexual positions and detailed descriptions of what to do in bed, for that kind of information I would actually recommend you to a copy of the Kama Sutra or Cosmo, but the way in which this book emphasizes the connection and communication between partners.

Most sex ed that I've encountered deals almost exclusively with the mechanics of conception and rarely STI prevention. This is your basic anatomy. This is how it functions to make a baby. This is everything that can go wrong. If you're going to have sex, use protection or die. What's missing from this approach is pleasure. It tells you nothing about how to make sex better, which comes most strongly from responding to what you and your partner want.

Now, I've been an advocate for good communication skills probably since about the time I became literate. Sexual literacy and communication is no different. A sexual relationship is still, first and foremost, a relationship. Even if it's casual hook-up sex, if only one partner thinks of it that way, problems will occur.

Having sex with another person is intimate. We're trained to keep it behind closed doors both physically and mentally. So acknowledging that you're with another person who has wants and needs and boundaries is the first thing we should be teaching youth.

If your brain is the most important sexual organ, your ears are the second.

Part of what will help make this process of education easier is changing the way we talk about sex. The other day I was at a presentation by Cynthia Morrison from the Washington State Department of Health and a question she asked our scant audience of eight was why do we not talk about sex the way we talk about eating.

The question was mostly meant to address language use in a sex positive culture. Consider for a moment the slang used for masturbation. Jacking off, beating one out, spanking the monkey, choking the chicken, ad nauseum, I would go on, but doesn't this list seem rather violent, and it only really talks about male masturbation. Or for another matter, what does it mean that some of the worst insults are related to body parts?

I like to eat standing in the kitchen as I'm making food for other people. Sitting down is a rarity.

I like to fuck in bed, being penetrated while on top, riding my partner.

Okay, so you wouldn't exactly talk about sex the way you talk about eating and I apologize if that last sentence gave any of you far too graphic mental images of me, but the language we use is important. I would rather hear about spicy, succulent, delicate, aromatic, tasty things in bed than I would this pseudo-violent harder, faster, aren't-I-such-a-good-little-bitch, use me, rhetoric we most often ascribe to sex. 


Can you imagine if it were the other way around? You're a bad apple, I'm going to have to take a bite out of you and swallow you whole. 


Yeah... this is still a developing series of thoughts.

Cheese is my master.

Having grown up on slices of Kraft American Singles and pre-packaged partial-skim mozzarella string cheese, it's taken me a while to warm up to the world of cheese making. I think it's partly because I never knew what possibilities were out there, there's still so many to try too. Here's just a few of the cheeses I've had the pleasure of enjoying:

Swiss cheese has a tiny bit of tang to it with an almost waxy texture. It's sweet too, which I like in a cheese (I've since learned that I am not alone in this and that Americans in general favor sweeter cheeses, which is how the ewephoria variety was developed).

Another Swiss cheese that I like is a variety called gruyere. It too is sweet, but it lacks that same tang; it has a slightly nuttier flavor and a definite pungency about it that gives it some oomph. The texture is nice too. It's a hard cheese with a kind of gritty, crumble in your mouth feel. Pieces closer to the rind take on a slight chewiness. When I'm in the mood to treat myself, this is the cheese I splurge with, eating it by the block. Which at roughly $30 per pound, making a pretty standard-sized block about $9.50, doesn't happen very often.

Cheddar is kind of strong in my opinion. Next to American cheese (whatever the hell that is), it's the white bread of cheeses. Or rather, it's the toasted Wonder Bread of cheeses or the fake-tanned faux-Californian from the middle of suburbia of cheeses. Cheese is not naturally yellow-orange, you know. They add annatto, a vegetable extract, to it to make it that color.

The only cheddar I've had that I really liked was a free sample at a Haagen store of a wine-soaked variety. It was purple on the outside and still had that distinctive cheddar sharpness, but it was mellowed by the winey taste.

Generally I've avoided pre-sliced sandwich cheeses, I think mostly from bad experiences with Slices (that processed, individually-wrapped "Cheese-product" you could almost use as flame-retardant, worse than Velveeta) than anything else. That said, provolone isn't bad. I've only ever had it in sandwiches though, so I tend to think of it as pretty bland with a soft, creamy texture.

I'm not too big on soft cheeses: Munster and the like. They have their place and go really well with certain things, but as far as snacking on them by themselves, they're too mushy and don't really lend themselves to portability. When I get the chance though, I want to try some more.

That said, I like mozzarella. The real kind that you find in specialty stores and closer to the deli, not the stuff that goes on pizza or gets individually wrapped and put in lunches for school, though when melted those can be quite tasty. Top some firm heirloom (or regular) tomato slices with a piece of mozzarella and a little basil or Italian seasoning, and it's a perfect. It's mild enough that it has versatility, but it's distinct enough that you still know you have mozzarella when it's put in front of you. Plus it retains its stringiness which is fun.

Like any food in your standard American culture, cheese is vastly underrated. When your standard consumer can only name maybe five varieties of cheese they use on a day to day basis (two of which are pre-shredded mixes of the other three), you live in a cultural wasteland. Explore a little, people! There is more to food than meat, bread and potatoes. There is more to flavor than just meat or salt!

And if you truly enjoy that and are happy with that, then I can respect your decision. But before you settle down to your bland little grocery world, will you at least try something different first?

I've degenerated to ranting now. This is usually the sign I should stop typing and go away, so I think I will. Try some cheese, send me some suggestions and enjoy your day.