Tuesday, March 27, 2007

This just creeps me out

This is an old post from February that I never put up on my blog.

A purity ball.

At which, young women pledge their virginity to their fathers. And fathers pledge to protect their daughter's purity. This is a copy of the father's pledge:


The Pledge
I, (DAUGHTER'S NAME)'S FATHER, CHOOSE BEFORE GOD TO COVER MY DAUGHTER AS HER AUTHORITY AND PROTECTION IN THE AREA OF PURITY. I WILL BE PURE IN MY OWN LIFE AS A MAN, HUSBAND AND FATHER. I WILL BE A MAN OF INTEGRITY AND ACCOUNTABLITY AS I LEAD, GUIDE AND PRAY OVER MY DAUGHTER AND MY FAMILY AS THE HIGH PRIEST IN MY HOME. THIS COVERING WILL BE USED BY GOD TO INFLUENCE GENERATIONS TO COME.



Is anyone else creeped out by this? Let's forget about the fact that their don't appear to be any mother/son purity balls. Or father/son ones. So I guess boys don't have to be pure.

I part ways with many feminists when it comes to teenage sexual freedom. While I understand teenage sexual experimentation is normal, I've seen the dark side of it. Kids who think that sex will equal a relationship. Kids who are forced to grow up too fast. Kids who because they are sexually active are ready victims for adult abusers. And of course, disease and pregnancy. I work in an inner city school district, but not as a teacher. I'm a computer technician, yet I still see these young girls who get pregnant just to have someone to love them. In fact, when we went to an electronic record keeping program, we had to contact their support for a patch. Seems you couldn't have a student be a parent of a kindergarten age child. Unfortunately, we have quite a few of them in our district.

But pledging you virginity to your father? It's like he owns the girl's body and wants to keep his property valuable (sort of like people who buy toys and keep them in the box, hoping they will increase in value? Ok, I just completely grossed myself out comparing children to commodities, but that's what it sounds like to me.) until the new owner, husband, is ready to take possession. What kind of person does this to their child? What kind of father puts value on their child this way?

Of course, this entire thing is sponsored by creepy Christians. And not just creepy Christians, but illiterate creepy Christians who can't spell "Accountability".

Monday, March 05, 2007

More on Internet Addictions

Miss Snark also posted on Internet addictions (hers is sudoku). Sudoku was one of mine for a while, but I'm past that now.

My latest internet addiction

I have a new Internet addiction. No, it isn't videos of kinky monkey sex. It is The sentence Game . It is an online version of Eat Poop You Cat. If you aren't familiar with that, it's a party game that is a cross between pictionary and Whisper Down the Alley:

  1. First player writes a sentence and passes it to the second player.
  2. Second player draws a picture to represent the sentence, then folds the paper so only the picture shows and gives it to the third player.
  3. The third player (without seeing the original sentence) creates a caption for the picture, folds the paper so only the caption shows and passes it to the fourth player.
  4. It continues until all have played.

If I've confused you, here's a link to a completed game .

This is a fantastic way to increase creativity. I find that it makes a great warm up to my writing. I recommend it to anyone who needs to get their creative energies flowing.

What's really funny is that some of the people there think I'm a sock puppet for a troll named Jake. He is what they call a ruiner and will put up ridiculous sentences and pictures that have nothing to do with the sentence. It cracks me up that I'm accused of being this fellow, and part of me wants to encourage it, while another part just wants to see how far they go.

There is a bit of artistic snobbery. Some of the users are very talented, while the rest of us just use clip art and stick figures. What's funny is that the artists are the opposite side of the coin of the ruiners. While the ruiners divert the game from its natural flow, the artists are too good and there is no ambiguity. It's like playing charades with a mime or pictionary with a commercial artist. That isn't fun.

Using the example in the link, you'll see that someone tried to draw Cthulhu, but the next user thought it was a pac man ghost, so the story took a very silly fork.

For all my writer friends, try this! It really helps to get into the writing groove! Just be careful, or you'll spend all your writing time playing.

But be advised. The graphics can get crude and the players rude.