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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I don't plan to ever have kids, and I'm not generally interested in parenting articles (although unlike some readers, I tend to just skip them rather than write shrill screeds to the Letters section about how par-runts are taking over Salon). But I found Mary Elizabeth Williams's article to be funny, honest, and informative, even as it induced twinges of sympathetic pain.
There will always be some Salon articles that don't interest me. If I had a criticism of the topics Salon covers in "personal life" type articles, if would be that the focus appears to be on well-to-do urbanites who have problems that I really can't relate to. I'd rather read more articles about people like myself in the struggling middle class, even if they are "breeders" and even if they are lame-os like me, living in the 'burbs.
I've been reading Salon since 1997 and there have always been these "Life" sort of articles. One great thing about Salon is that one day a political article is the headliner, and the next day a treatise about a TV show is up front. The editors mix it up.
The nastiness of these letters is insane. The letters section has become the whiniest writing online. If you don't like the topic of an article, don't read it! No newspaper, magazine or web site NEEDS to be compulsively read "cover to cover" to be enjoyed. Pick what interests you, and read that. Not interested in a particular writer or topic? DON'T READ IT. Simple.
Here's another idea. Instead of spending so much time writing letters decrying the topics or quality of articles on Salon, how about spending your time writing something you'd like to see here, and submitting it? And then you can sit back and wait for the barrage of whacko hatred from the letters to the editor.
My friend just got her first book published all about this very topic. It a great read!
Confessions of a Naughty Mommy : How I Found My Lost Libido by Heidi Raykeil. It gives a lot of insight into the process she went through. This is definatly a subject many women have felt unable to talk about for way too long. It's good to see all this writing and positive discussion going on.
This article was well-written and humorous. I enjoyed it. Thanks.
I too dreaded sex after pushing out my second son (I was "luckily" single when my first was born, no pressure there!). I remember what it felt like to be terrified of being touched, disappointed in my lack of libido (which was on fire both before and during my pregnancy). The fear lessened, the desired increased, and my husband and I made it work. This fall I had an abortion, and a bit surprisingly to me faced the same fears and doubts. My body was "back to normal" after a week, but I didn't know if I wanted to ever have the kind of sex that got me pregnant in the first place. After the first couple of attempts at penetrative sex, I was really worried it would never feel good again. Of course, months later things are back to normal.
I write because Mary Elizabeth Williams writes frankly but lightly about a subject that happens to millions of women. I concur with other writers here: there is a difference between spurring on discussion and just ripping the author/article apart.
I agree with what Pony and several others have said. Many of the comments (letters) lately, as well as discussions on Table Talk, have led me to the conclusion recently that Salon hasn't changed as much as the complaints suggest. Maybe its reader base is what has changed. Or maybe the cranky, humor-impaired voices are just getting louder. Every article about sex seems to bring on a torrent of these humorless complaints. On Table Talk, the Real Dolls piece is still coming up. It's just sex, people. You can't catch anything over the Internet, really.
Salon isn't where I expected to find a community of the humorless and puritanical. Frankly, if the "new" direction (which isn't all that new - Salon has always run sex stories) drives them away, all the better. I can get preachy, self-righteous, mean-spirited rants from the 700 Club.
I thought the piece was funny and well-written. Although I'm a parent, I'm not a former sex goddess and didn't feel any strong identification with the writer but I still enjoyed spending a couple of pages sharing her perspective and her sharp writing. That's the marker of a good personal essay.
I don't have children and I'm not interested in having any, however I still enjoy reading about others' experiences. So I don't have a problem with the subject matter but the writing was just really boring. The writer tried very hard to make it interesting by making her descriptions very graphic. Just because something is true, it's not necessarily good or powerful writing. Just because someone experienced something difficult, it doesn't necessarily merit a feature article. I felt like I didn't learn anything new. I mean, come on, we all know that giving birth is very painful and that life is never the same after having a baby. It's wonderful if she figured something out about her ego but the magnitude of her insight is such that it could have been discussed with her friend or put in her journal. I don't want to put her down, but when I finished reading, I just thought: "so what". Reiterating the facts of life in explicit ways just won't make an interesting story in a magazine. To me it still sounds like she is serving her ego by telling.
Mary wrote a very funny, informative and interesting article about her sex life. It amused me to read the complaints and critical letters from some members. It seems to me that some people respond with ire because they have a need to vent their anger at someone or something. The indirectness and anonymity, even here, of the internet seems to encourage folks to write things they might not write elsewhere. Chat rooms used to be notorious for "flaming". I stopped going there years ago, and don't miss them. Mixing up articles like Mary's with other types breaks the monotony of all politics, etc. Now, as Nick Cage said in "The Weatherman", "That was refreshing."
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
