Letters to the Editor
labluvr4evr
Published Letters: 2
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It's a Fine Line
[Read the article: Ellen, the dog bullies and me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another poster questioned the enforceability of clauses in adoption contracts that specify returning the dog to the group. That is something I've always wondered, and I sort of hope this gets litigated so we can find out how binding those things are.
Thirteen years ago, I wanted to adopt a mother cat and her kitten from a local rescue group, and was turned down because I said I would allow the cat to go outside. The fact that my previous cat had died at the ripe old age of 20 after a long, happy life of coming and going as she pleased meant nothing. I realized then that they must not have needed a home all that badly, after all. I went to the local county (kill) animal shelter and took home a sweet kitten that had cuddled up to my 3 year old son, practically no questions asked, and decided then and there I'd never adopt from a rescue group, where, of course, nothing bad is going to happen to the animals if they don't get adopted. I would only adopt from kill shelters.
Two and a half years ago, my life situation had finally stabilized to the point where I could get a dog. I browsed around some rescue groups because I really wanted a Lab, but again, found their whole process cumbersome, restrictive and expensive, and was reminded of my previous experience with the cat who obviously didn't need a home as badly as they said she did. I saw some likely candidates at the same shelter on Petfinder, fell madly in love with one of them the instant I met her, and took her home that very day, with very few questions asked and at a fraction of the cost.
This summer, we decided to foster a cat and her litter of kittens for a local rescue group who approved us as fosters after only a brief phone conversation, transfered the cat family to us and then completely forgot about us. We called when it came close to time for shots and spaying, and were never able to establish proper contact with them again.
Right around that time, a news story appeared that the president of this group had been arrested for animal cruelty-- she had moved out of her house and abandoned all the dozens of cats inside to the stench, disease and filth. We found homes for the mother and two kittens, but have ended up keeping the last four kittens and all the spay/neuter costs involved. We won't take them to the pound, have become attached to them, and have room in our house for all those cats anyhow.
I wouldn't work with a rescue group again, any more than I would adopt from one.
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H-Day as Inversion Ritual, or Naughty Slutfest?
[Read the article: My girlfriend's daughter is dressing like a stripper for Halloween!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What bugs me about the "slut" trend in Halloween costumes is that while teen boys tend to use Halloween costumes to display their sense humor or cleverness, it seems teen girls only use their Halloween costumes to display their sexuality in conventionalized, mass-marketed images derived largely from pornography (i.e. sexy nurses, cops, etc.), movies and other media genres. While the boys' costumes are genuinely playful, and often even cleverly mock or subvert normative adult roles and norms, the girls are dead serious in their portrayal of female sexuality. They seem to work so hard at it, and in fact, I don't think that a girl (or a woman) who is acting out a pornographic fantasy character is making much of a mockery or reversal of anything.
I enjoyed Cary's response because it invoked the essence of inversion rituals: a formal occasion in which all the ordinary social roles and norms are temporarily reversed. Some people have suggested that Halloween has become an inversion ritual in America. To the extent that Halloween is a socially sanctioned occasion for people to vent transgressive desires and behaviors, and to parody and invert social order it probably is. The double standard, or virgin-whore complex, still bedevils American women, and in the Backlash Era we've been living through, seems to often put independent, liberated, women in ambiguous, liminal situations, where "success" is often at odds with "femininity". The lavish display of female sexuality on Halloween may be an attempt to resolve this contradiction in women's lives through ritual-- inversion rituals are, after all, all about displaying, mocking and resolving such social contradictions.
The end effect of all inversion rituals, however, is to uphold the conventional order, and Halloween is no different. The college students I teach write in their essays that in their dating world, men attract women by being clever and funny, while women attract men by being, well, sexy. To the extent that Halloween merely exaggerates, rather than inverts or mocks, existing norms and roles suggests its not quite the inversion ritual it seems, on the surface, to be.