Answering Queries: Sexual Orientation and Child-Rearing

I put some thought into recent responses on Quora and figured I'd share them here, too, since I clearly need to work on writing more consistently.

How does gender identity and the relatively recent occurrence of people identifying themselves as pan-sexual poly-sexual, omnis-sexual, ambi-sexual, and fluid sexuality merge into traditional mother and father roles when raising children?

The sexual orientations listed in the original question (pansexual, polysexual, omnisexual, ambisexual, fluid), as well as homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual, really only define the types of people that one finds sexually or romantically attractive.

Whether one is attracted to men, women, or anyone else is not indicative of whether they want children or how they would choose to raise them.

For any parents of any type, the division of labor and childcare in a house is up to them to determine based on their preferences, skills, and abilities.

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Answering Queries: My Spouse is Bisexual?

I put some thought into recent responses on Quora and figured I'd share them here, too, since I clearly need to work on writing more consistently.

What should I do that I've discovered my husband is a bisexual?

If he has told you he is bisexual, then support him and thank him for trusting you with that information. It can be hard to come out to friends and loved ones because there is so much erasure of bisexuality in our culture as well as negative stereotypes and bi-phobia from both heterosexual AND homosexual peers.

Nothing has actually changed except that he has revealed a private part of himself to you. Maybe ask him if he feels a desire to act on those feelings and discuss whether or how you two want to address that.

If he has not told you, then he is not ready to, and it is not for you to “out” him.

Despite common misconceptions, bisexual people are no more or less likely to break relationship agreements than, say, a person who finds both blondes and brunettes attractive.

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Answering Queries: Superheroes' Tragic Origins

I put some time into recent responses on Quora and figured I'd share them here, too, since I clearly need to work on writing more consistently.

Are there any superheroes without tragic backstories? Why does a tragic backstory seem to be obligatory for a superhero comic?

There are some superheroes without tragic backstories, but many of them aren’t as widely known as the blockbusters’ lead characters. A few have unremarkable lives before gaining powers or becoming heroes. Several experience tragedy only after becoming heroes. And others have tragic events in their past unrelated to their being superheroes.

John Stewart has an unremarkable history before being chosen as Green Lantern, after which he fails in love and marries, and then his wife dies.

Lunella Lafayette (Moon Girl) is a 9-year-old prodigy and an outcast at school before meeting Devil Dinosaur. There's no real tragedy, just frustration at not being taken seriously by others. She fears the Terrigan Mist, but her encountering it is suspenseful, still not tragic.

Squirrel Girl discovers she can communicate with squirrels and later grows a tail—awkward, but no tragedy.

Faith/Zephyr from Image Comics begins her first solo issue with a monologue about how her parents died and didn't leave her with anything extraordinary except “the stories they loved. Stories that showed me how people could make the world a better place. And then I met a guy named Peter Stanchek and he helped me discover I had superpowers.” He was capable of activating others’ latent powers, but there is no drama to it.

Even Wonder Woman lives an idyllic life, literally growing up on Paradise Island, before Steve Trevor comes along.

[Edited to add] Kitty Pryde of the X-Men has no tragic backstory. She began suffering headaches at the age of 13 when her powers began to manifest, but she doesn’t encounter conflict until after meeting the X-Men. [/end edit]

The tragic origin story trope exists because conflict is generally considered essential to plot, and the reality is that no one has a perfect life.

There's simply nothing compelling nor remotely relatable or engaging in a story about someone who overcame no obstacles and now has it all plus extraordinary powers and a quiet life; they need an event to create the opportunity for them to right a wrong.

Superheroes can only be superheroes at all if there is conflict. A person with nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs cannot be called “heroic.

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A Letter to my Congressmen on SCOTUS Nominees and Roe v. Wade

I'm sharing the wording from my recent letter-writing efforts to state and national legislators/politicians for those who want ideas on where to begin. Do feel free to borrow my ideas and wording and get shit done.
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As your constituent, I’m writing today to urge you to reject any Trump nominee for the Supreme Court who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and turn back 45 years of progress since the landmark decision.  

A recent poll showed that 67 percent of Americans do not want Roe to be overturned. We’re the majority and we’re not going anywhere.

“El Salvador has a 'culture of life.' There, abortion is banned for any reason. Estimates from the Ministry of Health put the number of illegal abortions performed at 19,290 between 2005 and 2008. However, it’s difficult to trace illegal activity properly, so some other estimates claim this is closer to the annual average. We do know, from a 2011 study by the World Health Organization that 11 percent of the women undergoing these illegal abortions die. That is, at the bare minimum, over 2,000 women.

"Amnesty International reports that suicide now accounts for 57 percent of deaths of pregnant females ages 10-19 in El Salvador. Because in an attempt to terminate their pregnancies, women are 'ingesting rat poison or other pesticides, and thrusting knitting needles, pieces of wood and other sharp objects into the cervix.'

"It was not so long ago that women in the United States were in a position similar to the one women in El Salvador find themselves in today. Before the passage of Roe. Vs. Wade in 1973, it’s estimated that between 250 and 8,000 American women were dying per year of illegal abortions."

—Excerpt from Harpers Bazaar

And for as much grief as we saw legislators give Obama’s SCOTUS nominations, at the VERY least, voters deserve the opportunity to voice their votes in November and let a TRULY representative legislature consider nominations on our behalf.

Consider your constituency and vote NO on hasty Supreme Court nominations.

A Letter to my Congressmen on Immigration Policy

I'm sharing the wording from my recent letter-writing efforts to state and national legislators/politicians for those who want ideas on where to begin. Do feel free to borrow my ideas and wording and get shit done.
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As your constituent, I am writing today to express my opposition to the administration’s enactment of a “zero-tolerance” policy toward immigrants and refugees seeking to enter the United States. And I urge you as my representative to work harder to ensure that the US treats people humanely.

Legality does not dictate morality, and the current treatment of immigrant families and children is deplorable. Separating young children from their parents is morally bankrupt and permanently traumatizing. Not even violent crimes could justify the human rights abuses this practice seeks to do.

I share the sentiments of former First Lady Laura Bush, herself a Dallas resident as well:

“I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.

“Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history. We also know that this treatment inflicts trauma; interned Japanese have been two times as likely to suffer cardiovascular disease or die prematurely than those who were not interned.

“Americans pride ourselves on being a moral nation, on being the nation that sends humanitarian relief to places devastated by natural disasters or famine or war. We pride ourselves on believing that people should be seen for the content of their character, not the color of their skin. We pride ourselves on acceptance. If we are truly that country, then it is our obligation to reunite these detained children with their parents — and to stop separating parents and children in the first place.

“People on all sides agree that our immigration system isn't working, but the injustice of zero tolerance is not the answer.”

Answering Queries: Wonder Woman vs. Batman

I put some time into recent responses on Quora and figured I'd share them here, too, since I clearly need to work on writing more consistently.

In the comic book history, has a fight between Batman and Wonder Woman been depicted? Who won?

Yes, and Wonder Woman wins.

SPOILERS BELOW

In The Hiketeia, published in 2002, Wonder Woman is honor-bound to protect a fugitive that Batman is seeking.

The two exchange blows, and the fight ends with Wonder Woman’s boot on Batman’s head as she tells him, “DON’T. GET. UP.” Batman concedes, “…All right. You win.”

One might argue that she doesn’t “win” the fight just because Batman verbally concedes defeat, but the story makes it clear that she will not back down from her duty. We can assume that she—with her nearly limitless strength, superhuman speed, and extensive combat training—would easily outlast Batman if the fight continued.

The Hiketeia is an interesting exploration of Wonder Woman’s sense of honor and the question of what constitutes justice versus revenge. I recommend checking it out if you have the chance. Literally, I checked it out from my library.

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Answering questions: Downsides of volunteerism

I put some time into recent responses on Quora and figured I'd share them here, too, since I clearly need to work on writing more consistently.

What are the three disadvantages of volunteerism?

There are not three specific disadvantages to volunteerism but several issues that one must consider before committing their time and effort to an organization or cause.

First of all, not everyone can afford the time to volunteer since it is unpaid work.

Even if one has the time, their organization of choice may not have volunteer opportunities at a time or place that one can commit to. Many opportunities conflict with work schedules or require volunteers to drive long distances.

Not all organizations can accommodate would-be volunteers who have disabilities or injuries that limit the type of service they can provide. I, unfortunately, had to end my time with one organization because running injuries hampered my ability to participate in the capacity volunteers needed to.

Many volunteer positions require significant physical demands of their volunteers and have injury risks even for fit people. These positions can include building and demolishing structures of varying strength.

• Organizations may provide insufficient tools or tools in poor repair, making the work even more challenging.
• They may require volunteers to provide their own tools and safety equipment such as gloves and goggles.
• They may require long shifts in dangerous weather conditions.
• They may have insufficient shift coverage so that a volunteer cannot even take a moment for water or a bathroom break without leaving their position empty.

Many organizations can better serve their communities or clients with monetary donations than with unskilled volunteer labor.

• It does cost organizations both time and money to train volunteers and provide supervision until the volunteers can confidently and reliably fulfill their roles.
• Anyone can organize a food drive, but food banks can help many more people and provide better quality food with monetary donations because of the tax breaks they get and the connections they have for buying food in bulk. And monetary donations also give food banks the resources to buy specific items that their beneficiaries need more than whatever was in the back of a donor’s pantry.

A lot of volunteer work is boring grunt work that someone needs to do: think envelope stuffing, block walking, phone banking, door greeting, and so on.

Social and political issues and how they impact someone’s paying job may prevent them from volunteering for causes they feel passionate about.

• If one is a public advocate for an organization such as Planned Parenthood, which receives a lot of public censure for providing necessary services, one must consider the potential repercussions if disapproving family, church members, coworkers, etc. hear about that volunteer work.
• If the volunteer is employed in an “at-will” state, they could even be fired for their decision to publicly support certain organizations.

And it can be frustrating to volunteer for an organization that has not planned well or is not prepared to direct volunteers to where they need to be and could leave volunteers with inadequate resources to serve others, maybe putting the unwitting volunteers at the face of complaints from clients or event participants/attendees.

There are, of course, many more potential disadvantages to volunteerism, but it’s up to each individual to be informed and weigh the possibilities for themselves before committing to helping an organization or while deciding whether to continue that volunteer work.

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Answering questions: How do I know if I'm gay?

I put some time into recent responses on Quora and figured I'd share them here, too, since I clearly need to work on writing more consistently.

How do I know if I'm gay?

Only you know and can decide, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. It can be tricky because not everyone’s sexual orientation matches neatly with their romantic orientation nor with their behaviors or preferences.

The short answer is that it’s entirely up to you to identify as you wish, and it’s totally valid, too, if your feelings change over time.

The longer answer requires asking yourself if you feel physical or sexual or romantic attraction toward people of the same gender as you, and whether you feel those things toward only the same gender as you or maybe in differing degrees toward people of various genders.

Popular discourse rarely separates the types of attraction, instead assuming that people uniformly feel physical, sexual, and romantic attraction in the same way. However, people can find themselves experiencing any mix of heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, homosexual attraction paired with heteroromantic or homoromantic or biromantic attraction or even various shades of aromantic, demiromantic, asexual, or demisexual feelings.

These are the simplest definitions (though each has more individual nuance that you can learn about through your own research) for these terms:

• heterosexual – experiencing sexual attraction toward people of a gender different from your own
• homosexual – experiencing sexual attraction toward people of a gender the same as your own
• bisexual – experiencing sexual attraction toward people of genders both like and unlike your own
• pansexual – experiencing sexual attraction toward people of any gender
• asexual – when one generally does not experience sexual attraction toward other people and/or does not desire sexual activity with other people (There’s more info at asexuality.org)
• demisexual – falls under the umbrella of asexual but can mean that one only very rarely experiences sexual attraction toward other people and/or only experiences sexual attraction if there is first a romantic/emotional connection with a person, and many similar caveats (It’s not just “being picky” about sexual partners. There’s more info at asexuality.org)
• heteroromantic – experiencing romantic feelings (attraction/connection/affection) toward people of a gender different from your own
• homoromantic – experiencing romantic feelings(attraction/connection/affection) toward people of a gender the same as your own
• biromantic – experiencing romantic feelings (attraction/connection/affection) toward people of genders both like and unlike your own
• panromantic – experiencing romantic feelings (attraction/connection/affection) toward people of any gender

So it is possible that someone could be both heteroromantic and asexual, someone else could be biromantic and heterosexual, someone could be bisexual and demisexual and homoromantic, and so on.

Most of us have never thought about these particulars and might not know immediately, but knowing there are more spectrums, axes, and nuance to sexual orientation is a great starting point for understanding and determining or defining what our own is.

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Answering questions: Can you be healthy but not fit?

I put some time into recent responses on Quora and figured I'd share them here, too, since I clearly need to work on writing more consistently.

Can you be healthy but not fit?

Yes, but we need to define our terms first.

Americans in the US typically use “fit” to describe physical fitness and athletic capability, whereas other English-speakers in the world may use it to describe people’s appearances and level of attractiveness. The juxtaposition of “healthy and fit” implies the former definition (physical/athletic ability).

“Healthy” has myriad definitions, but I assume the questioner means metabolic health, which includes measures of blood pressure, triglycerides, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, total cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, etc.

There are, indeed, many people who test in the “normal” and “healthy” ranges on such metabolic measures but who do not exercise regularly and/or may have physical limitations or disabilities that limit fitness endeavors. Metabolic measures are frequently influenced by genetics, so that “health” is not entirely within our control. But those influences can result in good metabolic health or poor metabolic health independently of physical fitness, which takes action and training to achieve.

Physical fitness can influence metabolic health, as metabolic health can influence physical fitness. If a person has naturally high blood pressure, it might not be safe for them to undertake an intense exercise regimen in pursuit of physical fitness. However, researchers have found that “even low levels of physical activity have a beneficial effect on metabolic fitness and the overall health of the individual.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub...)

Many doctors erroneously mistake weight/BMI as a proxy for health. From the article “Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift”:

• Yet using BMI as a proxy for health may be more costly than addressing health directly. Consider, for example, the findings of a study which examined the "healthy obese" and the "unhealthy normal weight" populations . The study identified six different risk factors for cardiometabolic health and included subjects in the "unhealthy" group if they had two or more risk factors, making it a more stringent threshold of health than that used in categorizing metabolic syndrome or diabetes. The study found a substantial proportion of the overweight and obese population, at every age, who were healthy and a substantial proportion of the "normal weight" group who were unhealthy.
• Psychologist Deb Burgard examined the costs of overlooking the normal weight people who need treatment and over-treating the obese people who do not. She found that BMI profiling overlooks 16.3 million "normal weight" individuals who are not healthy and identifies 55.4 million overweight and obese people who are not ill as being in need of treatment. When the total population is considered, this means that 31 percent of the population is mis-identified when BMI is used as a proxy for health.

So athleticism, metabolic health, and body size are all different variables, and while any one of them can influence another, none definitely determines or defines another. A person can be healthy and not fit. A person can be fit and have poor metabolic health. And a person can be either of these at any size or weight.

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