Yes, Yes, Oh God, Yes

Having an orgasm leads to an altered state of consciousness. This will probably not come as much as a surprise if you have had sex or masturbated to the point of ejaculation. But, just so you know, your suspicions have been confirmed by new scientific research, according to an article by Kayt Sukel in the New Scientist. What is interesting is what neuroscience tells us about the parts of the brain that are involved in sex and orgasms.

The neuroscientific research shows that it is the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain for “aspects of consciousness such as self-evaluation and considering something from another person’s perspective” that is active at the time of orgasm following self-stimulation masturbation. However, it also showed that a specific part of the prefrontal cortex, the left orbitofrontal cortex, appeared to switch off when orgasm followed partner-stimulated masturbation.

The pre-frontal cortex happens to be the part of the brain responsible for self-control, organisation of thoughts, creation of narrative and ultimately finding a reason or purpose for things. The researchers, Barry Komisaruk (Rutgers University, US) and Janniko Georgiadis (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) surmised that self-stimulation required greater mental effort to create a fantasy or image to take the place of a partner, whose presence would make it easier to let go. If someone else is stimulating us, there’s not that much we need to do. So a part of the prefrontal cortex turns off – the altered state of consciousness. This is perhaps why the ‘Yes, Yes, Oh God, Yes’ moment is more pronounced during sex. But I think that that expression is more than a figure of speech in the throes of passion.

But if the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that creates purpose and organisation, then atheists will say that God is simply notion of the prefrontal cortex. I don’t think this disproves the existence of God. On the contrary, if there is an external God and he does communicate with us directly, He is most likely to communicate with us through the prefrontal cortex. That is how he would relate to us.

I can’t speak for other faiths out of ignorance, but Christianity is meant to be about how God wants to have a relationship with us. In the Bible, this relationship is often described metaphorically as the marriage between a bride and bridegroom. Perhaps this isn’t as metaphorical as we might think. Perhaps the orgasm we get from sex is meant to be God’s way of giving us a temporary experience of what it’s like to be in an (eternal) relationship with Him in Heaven. He’s telling us, ‘If you like sex and orgasm, then you are going to love being with me’.

Obviously the above research is not conclusive but Komisaruk and Georgiadis suggested that there are many valid reasons why we don’t have orgasms during sex but ultimately it’s down to not letting go and giving up control to let someone else pleasure and satisfy us. In the same way, the only way that we can experience this erotic relationship with God is if we completely submit to Him and let Him pleasure and satisfy us. Perhaps in heaven, our left orbitofrontal cortex will be completely turned off and we will be in constant state of sexual orgasm. (Perhaps the experience of the Fall described in Genesis, when we are supposed to have turned our backs on God, is when the left orbitofrontal cortex became switched on. Maybe that’s why the whole of humanity became infected with ‘sin’; there was actually a physiological change in our thinking.) Orgasm following from masturbation, on the other hand, does point to this relationship but is only a shadow because we are still in control.

Apparently, it’s also possible for women and children to have orgasms while being raped or abused. Now, rape and sexual abuse is a horrible act so this understandably creates confusion. I’m not expert so this paragraph should be taken with a pinch of salt. But perhaps the victim, either consciously or subconsciously, gets to the point where they realise that the abuser is going to do it to them whether they resist or not. So they just wait for it be over, essentially giving up.

This blog post does raise an interesting issue about certain controversial narratives about Jesus, such as in The Last Temptation of Christ or the Da Vinci Code. Though this is not in the Bible, Mary Magdalene has historically been portrayed the physical lover of Christ. Christians have traditionally rejected this but in light of the above research I wonder whether, actually, the Mary Magdalene-as-lover narrative is just another way of talking about being in relationship with God. Mary gave herself, submitted herself, completely to Christ (God) and allowed him to satisfy her. (I am not suggesting that she actually did have sex with him. But, when one thinks of the Hegelian dialectic between contradictory ideas, perhaps that’s what we have here.) Theresa of Avila has described a perfect union with God as ‘devotion of ecstasy’.

Indeed, the whole Christian faith is based on a sexual act – the Holy Spirit of God coming into Jesus’ mother Mary. Mary entered that altered state of consciousness, she went to Heaven and back. In John’s gospel, the writer always describes himself the ‘disciple that Jesus loved’. Luke’s gospel and his Acts of the Apostles is written in the form of a letter from the writer to Theophilius, which is Greek for ‘lover of God’. There’s even a whole book in the Bible, The Song of Songs, which is erotic love song between newlyweds and is also taken to be an allegory for the divine relationship between us and God.

Right, I’m off to my room to pray…

 

 

The Devil Wears Prada: Le Voir Venir

Anne Hathaway shooting on 'The Devil Wears Prada'

I’ve just watched ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ for the umpteenth time tonight. I love it when I find films or TV series that I just want to watch over and over again. What I find fascinating is that every time I watch I pick up on something I didn’t notice the first time or something that didn’t seem significant before stands out. I also find that the first time I watch something I tend to focus more on the plot because I don’t know the story. But afterwards, because I know the story and what’s going to happen, I can actually appreciate more the writing and the characters and the backgrounds and so on.

For those of you who haven’t seen the Devil Wears Prada (why not?), Andrea (played by Anne Hathaway, the best thing about the film) has recently graduated from journalism school. Her dream is to write serious journalism like the New Yorker or for a newspaper. But she decides to apply for and take a job at Runway magazine, the top fashion magazine, even though she has no interest or knowledge in fashion because it would look good on her CV. Apparently both Runway and the editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly (played by Meryl Streep) have a fair amount of kudos not only in fashion but also journalism.  After a shaky start, she actually begins to succeed to the point that she is invited to join Miranda at Paris Fashion Week. The problem is that her success seems to be at the expense of who she is.

There are many themes that come up in this film but what I saw tonight was – appropriately for a film about a fashion magazine – what the French philosopher Catherine Malabou called le voir venir. Malabou translates it as ‘To see (what is) coming’, that moment where you stop, look back from where you have come and look forward and anticipate where you are going and decide what to do. It reflects, again appropriately for a fashion magazine, the plasticity of the Hegelian dialectic between resistance and change. (Plastic being something that can be moulded and then, once moulded, resists deformation, with an explosive element).

When Andrea first starts at Runway, she makes it pretty clear she is just there to get the experience before moving on, that it’s not what she’s into and so on. But she works hard. She holds onto her sense of fashion and she pokes fun at the ‘Runway girls’ with her friends. Then, after a particularly harsh telling off, she thinks it so unfair. It is brought to her attention that actually she hasn’t trying that hard at all…she’s not really adapting to the work environment, so why should the work environment adapt to her. At that moment, she experiences le voir venir. She decides to drop her sense of fashion and seeks help. She looks back and looks forward and decides to jump. However, that moment of le voir venir was like an explosion, it didn’t just push her a little forward, it pushed a lot. And continually there is tension between the ‘old Andrea’ and ‘new Andrea’. Indeed, there were lots of moments of le voir venir.

But as she seems to be leaving her old friends behind and making new ones, she still resists losing her values. As Miranda shows more and more faith in her, she shows loyalty to Miranda. So, when she finds out from Christian Thomson, her favourite writer with whom she has just slept with, about a move to push Miranda out of Runway, she is frantically trying to warn her of what’s happening. She is then absolutely devastated when Miranda resolves the situation and protects Miranda’s career by what she considers an act of disloyalty to the creative director of Runway, Nigel. But this is what succeeding in fashion and fashion journalism is all about…continually adapting and moving forward even if it means leaving behind those to whom you are connected. (Indeed, the whole fashion industry is about what’s new not what’s old hat, so to speak.) And that is Andrea’s final moment of le voir venir in the film. But this time, Andrea resists the forward momentum in her career and turns her back on a career at Runway. In essence, she turns back from becoming more like Miranda.

At the end of the film, it appears as if Andrea has gone back completely to how she was at the start of the film. But I think that the reason why she was able to go as far as she did at Runway was because she was interested in a career in serious journalism; she was ambitious. Miranda makes the point early on that girls who knew a lot more about fashion, thinner and better dressed, gave up a lot sooner. I think this was, for those girls, about fashion rather than about publishing. For Andrea, where she came from provided the reason for going forward. She had her resume of student journalism and was heading to serious journalism. Runway was not just a blip as the editor at the New York Mirror suggested at the end, even though Andrea tried to play down her time there. It was always part of her plan. She did what she needed to do to get the experience and when she felt she had gone far enough, she left. I think this was why Miranda took her on in the first place: because she saw someone with a sense of ambition who she knew would try hard, as opposed to the usual assistants who were just about the fashion. This is why Miranda says she sees much of herself in Andrea. Of course Andrea disagrees, but Miranda was talking about her ambition and she was right; Andrea was ambitious enough to get ahead at the expense of Emily who was far more into Paris Fashion Week. So yes, on the one hand, Andrea did change and move forward at Runway; On the other hand, she resisted change and held onto her dreams and her ambition.

What’s in a Name? (Leader of the Wise Men)

Our names are recorded on our birth certificates

Names are amazing and beautiful. They are relatively small, just a handful of letters, but they are our very first label. They form the basis of our identity and yet are probably the only part of our identity that we do not have any control over. Well, that and our genes, but people won’t generally be asking for a blood test as a matter of course.

This post was inspired by a conversation on Twitter with @rellypops, otherwise known as Narelle. I hope I don’t embarrass her by saying that I thought her name was very beautiful. The funny thing is that if she had not contributed a post to my other blog, I would be thinking she was a guy, based on our earlier conversations. Although on hindsight, Narelle doesn’t sound like a guy’s name.

So, as I was saying, I generally find names to be amazing. In my view, they are the second gift to us from our parents (the first being life). But whatever the reason our parents chose our names, I think God was inspiring them somehow because our names are an indication of our destiny. Of course, with a name like Pravin, I might be a bit biased.

The story of how my parents decided on my name is, er, interesting. Actually, it’s quite mundane. My mum was flicking through some of my dad’s professional membership magazines (he was an engineer). Apparently, she saw the name Pravin in one of the magazines. The story became more interesting when I asked what my name meant. (Actually, I’m not sure whether I asked or whether they just told me.) Apparently, according to them, my name means ‘Leader of the Wise Men’. Talk about ego booster.  Of course, this may have been a little poetic licence, because when I googled my name years later, all I could find for a meaning was ‘expert’, although it could be argued that an expert is a leader of wise men in a way. (Ok, yes, I am biased.)

I have to be honest the meaning of my name did have an influence on me. I did focus more time on academic study, as opposed to social relations, because I wanted to live up to my name. (My academics at school and degree level perhaps didn’t make me leader.) But I also started creating my own narrative. I remembered how, when I was younger, whenever I played a role in the nativity at school, I was always one the wise men (usually the one who brought myrrh). In a another school play, I was a grand vizier. When I played Vashistha in the Ramayana for a tamil community association play, it was not lost of me that Vashistha was the leader of the wise men. Then, from my shortlived career as a journalist to my current role as a PhD student and blogger, perhaps that thought of being some kind of an expert is there, subconsciously.

Hegel - Leader of the Wise Men?

Perhaps its partly why I am drawn to the dialectical philosophy of Hegel. In The End of Human Rights, Costas Douzinas describes as a totalising philosophy that is meant to encompass all philosophies, a sort of theory of everything or logos. Hegel himself was very much an interdiscplinary scholar. In the introduction to J B Baillie’s's of The Phenomenology of Spirit, Baillie said that Hegel sought to incorporate all the philosophical theories of the past by “giving logical continuity to what in appearance was mere historical sequence, and by showing that his own distinctive principle of synthesis was at once the presuppositions, the outcomes and the completion of his predecessors”. He saw that his principle of synthesis could only be vindicated completely if it contained “every fundamental type of experience in which mind had been historically realised”. In a sense, one could argue that Hegel sought to be a ‘leader of wise men’, although it is up to us to decide whether he was or not. But what’s interesting is that being the leader didn’t mean coming up with his own thing from scratch but humbly recognising the work of others and building on that. The leader is, not the first in line but the last or the follower and is no-one without those who have gone before or standing underneath. It’s like Isaac Newton saying that he was standing on the shoulder of giants.

Now I haven’t really had any wider discussions with many other people about their names, usually because they don’t know. But my dad’s name, which in Tamil culture is my surname, means ‘King of Victory’. Out of respect, I don’t want to go into to many details but I can see how that is an appropriate name for him. Indeed, names must mean something when even God places a value on the names we are given. The first woman was called Eve because ‘she would be become the mother of all life’ and it is our mothers who give us life by carrying us in the womb, giving birth, breastfeeding and nurturing us. (If we think about the use of ‘eve’ now, it refers to the day before, just as our mothers came before us.) God renamed Abram as Abraham (Hebrew for father of many) because he would be ‘a father of many nations’. And then of course, there is Joshua and Jesus, Hebrew and Greek respectively for ‘God saves’, and both them did end up saving people. The irony is that, at the time of the Roman Empire, Jesus was a pretty popular name in Palestine (understandably) – the man who was freed by Pontius Pilate in place of Jesus – was Jesus Barabbas, a convicted murderer. This suggests that a lot of people perhaps do not live up to their (God-given) names.

So what would it mean for me to live up to my name of ‘expert’ or ‘leader of the wise men’. From Hegel’s example, to be a leader means to be a follower and to recognise that you cannot do things on your own, that you need other people.  Certainly, this is what Jesus told his disciples – the first shall be last and the last shall be first. But what does it mean to be wise. Was Hegel a ‘leader of wise men’ or just a very knowledgeable one? After all, a philosopher is Greek for wise man. Is it presumptuous of me to think that it is God’s will for me to be a the leader/follower of philosophers? This is a really difficult. This is the first time I’ve really sat down and thought about the meaning of my name and what it means. Perhaps God told me right from the very beginning what he wanted me to do. I remember being asked at the age of six what I wanted to be  when I grew up and I said that I wanted to be scientist that invents a machine that converts grass to spaghetti (hey, I was six). However, since my degree, I have not gone down the science route. Or have I? If one thinks of the original meaning of science as ‘knowledge’, then surely a student and journalist are both seekers of knowledge, i.e. scientists. And, according to the Book of Proverbs (in the Bible), the beginning of knowledge is the fear/reverence of the Lord. In other words, taking my name in full, my destiny is to be ‘a follower of God’ and ‘Jesus’ (who is the King of Victory). It was never my intention that this post would end like this but I think I can actually say ‘I found my destiny’. Now, I just need to see it through to the end.

Did I not say that names are amazing?

Reblog: Wicked Wizards or What @sarathesheepu and I learnt from Oz

What does the Wizard of Oz mean to you? For me it was a cheery musical about a girl trying to find her way home. With catchy tunes. Then I saw the West End musical, Wicked, which is arguably much darker. It made me question the positivity of the classic 1939 film with Judy Garland. I discussed this with @sarahthesheepu, aka Dr Sarah-Louise Quinnell, during the Christmas break and she invited me to contribute to a post on the Oz narratives as political critique. It was really good fun, and quite surreal. We even managed a Hegelian/Nietzschean reading.

 

 

Ring in the new, keep up the old

Well, it’s 2012. I’ve just realised how ironic it is that I always mark the start of a new year by looking to the past. For some reason, my family have developed our new year traditions.

On the days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, we start clearing out the rubbish and tidying up the house. The idea is that everything is tidy by New Years Eve. After dinner, we’ll have a shower and change into some fresh clothes and wait, probably watching TV. When the New Years Eve programme on BBC1 starts on, we have our respective drinks balanced on our knee (metaphorically speaking). Then, when Big Ben starts striking, we’ll stand up with our drinks. When it strikes 12 and the fireworks go off on the TV, we’ll raise our glasses and do the hug and kiss thing. Then we watch the rest of the fireworks and start going to bed.

'Om', the basic symbol of Hinduism, in Tamil

On New Years Day, my mum and I will be the first to wake up, as we will go for an early communion service. (On a normal Sunday, I usually go to a different church, which is less traditional and younger age range.) When we get home, we all go to Hindu temple (as the rest of the family is Hindu). You’re probably wondering why, as a professing Christian, I would go to temple. I don’t believe in the Hindu gods as such, but I go for the family and for cultural reason. It doesn’t feel like a good idea to be divided at the start of the year (call me sentimental). I don’t pray there but I hope I act respectfully. After all, it’s what in your heart that counts. God can see my motivations. Anyway, I personally believe that the various Hindu gods a representations of the one true God. For example, Amman, the goddess of justice, represents the aspect of a single God who loves justice.

When we get back home, we carry out a ceremony called ‘Kai Viyalum’, which involves the exchange of money between us – we have to give something that is goldish (pound coin), silverish (50p, 20p, etc) and bronzeish (1p or 2p) and, if feasible, a note. The tradition is this exchange of money must be first time we touch money in the New Year and before exchanging, we pray to God to bless it. The key thing is that this money is not meant for just spending, but for saving for a while. It’s probably pretty obvious why I participate in this tradition. After ‘Kai Viyalum’, we have a lunch of milk rice (essentially rice cooked with coconut milk) with various curries. I think milk – as it comes from the cow – is considered in Hinduism to be a life-giving substance, but milk rice is also quite nice with certain curries.

Whilst I don’t call myself a Hindu and don’t believe in it, it is a part of my roots and culture and, to be honest, there is vibrancy in Asian and Hindu culture that is absent from European culture and Christian worship. Don’t get me wrong, I attend a conservative evangelical church and the atmosphere is vibrant and it is a community but not like Asian communities. Anyway, as a British Tamil,  I am constantly straddling two cultures which do at times clash. They key is to reconcile the two. I think Christians certainly can learn a thing or two from the way Hindus worship and vice versa.

If I was to think about this in a Hegelian sense, I guess there is a dialectic between my Christian faith and Hindu roots. The two are contradictory like thesis and antithesis but they can shape and be shaped by each other in synthesis. I can’t cut off my Hindu roots because it is a part of me, so I might as well adapt it to worship Jesus. Catherine Malabou would probably call this le voir venir, that she translates as ‘to see (what is) coming’. I interpret that to mean pausing to reflect, looking back at what went before and thinking how to proceed to deal with what’s coming. In a sense, New Year’s Day is a moment of  le voir venir and certainly I look to tradition to celebrate the new. But actually my whole life has been like that, both looking at tradition and looking forward and thinking whether the two can be combined. I can’t cut off my Hindu roots but I can’t go back to being Hindu having discovered Christ. I am in 2012, so I can’t go back to 2011 or before but I can’t forget what’s happened because that’s how I got here.

Poem: A Revolutionary Year

My New Year’s gift to you

The Revolutionary Year

Protests in Morocco as part of Arab Spring

 

This year, a revolution happened.

A revolution.

360 degrees.

Full circle.

We’re back where we started.

It only took a circumference to get here.

360 degrees in a revolution.

365 days in a year.

Every day, the clocks turned,

From midnight to midnight.

Every day, the wheels turned,

Getting us from A to B.

Every day, a little different from the last.

Every year, the world turned, spherical,

From Greenwich meridian to Greenwich meridian,

Around the sun, around the centre of the Milky Way.

Every year, a little different from the last.

The revolution started a long time ago,

And will keep going long after we’ve left.

This year, a revolution happened.

This year was a revolution.

Just like it always is.

Revolution is life.

(C) 2011 Pravin Jeya

Not A PhD Thesis Review of 2011 – Part 1

It’s that time of year when the media is full of reviews of the year, looking back at what made the news in 2011. It certainly cannot be disputed that 2011 was definitely a very interesting year. So, in the current zeitgeist, I have decided to offer my own review, the first part of which is a run down of my ten most popular blog posts.

The Arab Spring makes an appearance at number 10, with Revolting Arabs good for the environment, commenting on government ministerial suggestions that the protests in the Middle East could help to tackle climate change.

One of the things I have enjoyed about this year is procrastinating on YouTube. Bizarrely, at number 9, is a post on my favourite and most inspirational YouTube video, of a Coca Cola ad to the theme tune of “Whatever” by Oasis showing how for all the bad in the world, there is much to be hopeful for.

At number 8, ‘Just because it’s traditional, doesn’t mean you have to follow it‘, a post on irrationality of ritual, with specific reference to the Tamil coming of age ceremony for girls. In essence I argued that maybe some of the traditional ideas about women and sex in Asian culture was a factor in a large number of Asian men being arrested and prosecuted for grooming and abusing white girls.

At number 7 is a compilation post featuring a number of sites of interest to single people on Valentine’s Day.

I have been influenced quite a bit by conversations with people on Twitter and the post at number 6, From Tweet to Thesis, was, if you like, a crowdsourcing for feedback on a conference that brought together academia and Twitter. While the feedback was positive, I have gone down a different route by starting a blog for own personal research project into the origins of phd topics from a tweet in the imagination.

At number 5, my redefinition of ‘ecoterrorism’, based on a summary of my reading of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk and in particular his essay ‘Airquakes’ on how an attack against the environment hurts us.

And so, what were my top four most popular blog posts?

One of the most popular keyword searches was ‘real life incest’, which perhaps gives an indication as to the sort of people who visit my blog. As a result, at number four, is ‘From adoption to incest‘, triggered by a chat show episode on real life incest, which made wonder about the legitimacy of adoption as a child protection measure.

At number 3, I was surprised to see a lot of people interested in Chinese Walls.  It was not about China but about the fear of a conflict of interests resulting from proposed NHS reforms.

At number 2, Bin Laden proved to be very popular this year, with a lot of people interested in my blog post on his death at the hands of US special forces. I question whether it was such a good idea to kill him instead of putting him on trial.

Which brings me to my most popular blog post? Maybe it was the ‘Royal Wedding’ effect but I found that a link to the Royal Family is always a good way to drive traffic to your site. At number 1, I wrote about the title of the Duchy of Cambridge and why this might not have been the best wedding present for the Queen to give to William and Kate.

The second part of my Review of 2011, focusing on what I saw as the most important moments of the year, will be posted tomorrow.

Boxing Day: A Day of Rememberance

I was surprised yesterday by how many people continued to tweet. I thought that like many things in the UK, Twitter might come to a standstill for the day as well. But, everyone – or at least all of my followers – was live tweeting about their own Christmas Day celebrations. I woke up this morning and Twitter and pretty much got back to normal, which was a shame. But I couldn’t help thinking that everyone, everywhere, no matter their spiritual persuasion, was celebrating and remembering (or not) the day that God’s Saviour Jesus Christ came into the world. For a day,  Twitter provided a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.

Then, it was back to today, Boxing Day, the day when the Christmas sales start (although with the internet and the recession, this seems to have got earlier).  It is believed that Christmas Day represents the positive message of Christmas, while Boxing Day is now a manifestation of the dark side, commercialism. The truth is more complicated. On the one hand, Boxing Day was traditionally a day that involved giving to the poor and those who served us (public sector and the low-paid service sector). On the other hand, the name ‘Boxing Day’ came from a tradition of tradesmen to collect Christmas boxes as a thanks for the good service they provided. So, the commercialism of the Boxing Day sales may seem crass but actually it is about helping those companies and employees and saying thank you for giving us what we want. And one could argue, particularly in the current economic crisis, public sector workers, service workers and retailers need all the help and thanks we can give.

But, of course, there is another group of people we need to remember – people who are persecuted for the faith all over the world. Yesterday, for example, churches were bombed in Nigeria. On Christmas Day, we remember the birth of Jesus Christ. One thing that Jesus said was that it won’t be easy being a Christian, that often we will face hostility. Of course, unfortunately, Christians have also been the source of persecution. Furthermore, other faith groups have been the giver and/or receiver of persecution for their faith. Why should we particularly remember them on 26th December? It is the Day of the Feast of St Stephen (St Stephen’s Day), who has become known as the first Christian ever Christian martyr and whose stoning triggered a mass persecution of Christians by Saul before he became the Apostle Paul.

But you don’t need to be Christian or religious to feel sad or outraged that people are persecuted for their faith. That’s why I  feel it is appropriate we should remember the words of Martin Niemoller famous words, which I first read at the age of 12 and it had a profound impact on my thinking:

First they came for the Communists but I did not speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews but I did not speak up because I wasn’t a Jew

Then they came for the trade unionists but I did not speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics but I did not speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me but by that time no one was left to speak up.”

It is interesting that Martin Niemoller talks about persecution across the board, whether religious, political, racial and socioeconomic.

So today what are you doing today? If you are fortunate like me to live in the West, be thankful that we are not persecuted for our beliefs, then spare a thought for those who are, maybe do some research on the internet to see what you can do. Give some money to charity. Then go out and shop, shop, shop, giving thanks for all those people who are working today and throughout the year so that you can live and do as you want.

Oh, and if you like this blog post and you are on Twitter, please retweet using #ststephensday and #boxingday hashtags.

Poem: My Christmas Party

Well, it’s that time of year, Christmas, and to say to thanks to my followers, both on WordPress and Twitter, here’s a Christmas present. Hope you enjoy!

I’m not that keen on turkey, since I went all-veg,

But, sitting around the table, pulling crackers, making jokes,

And my mum’s cooking makes it feel complete.

I worry about the carbon dioxide from all the fairy lights ,

But they bear witness to man’s imagination and ability to beautify.

Sometimes presents can be disappointing, if you dream of an Xbox,

But it really is the thought that counts not how much is costs.

Like wine, the Queen’s speech is a tradition that get’s better with age,

And I’m not that great at making toasts,

So with a nod to the past and glimpse at the future, I’ll just say:

‘To the children of our parents,

and the parents of our children,

and everyone in between.’

But let’s not forget the birthday boy, without whom this party makes no sense,

Let’s lift our glasses, say thanks for his gift and promise we’ll keep in touch.

(C) 2011 Pravin Jeya

Military Wives: Great Song, Great Cause and Sexist Drivel

I don’t listen much to the radio these days and I don’t watch X-factor so my awareness of the UK music scene is virtually non-existent. Occasionally it will rise up to let me know something but otherwise it’s as if we are in completely different universes. So, until two days ago, I had never heard of ‘Military Wives’; through some news item I learned that they were number 1. Anyway, after watching another news item on Channel 4 about them and hearing snippets of the song, I thought I better go onto YouTube to check it out.

Would it be cheesy to say I like it? Because, actually, I kinda do. I can imagine it growing on me too. Plus the lyrics are flexible enough to mean something both specifically to military wives and to more generally to all of us. And it is a perfect single for Christmas, even if it’s not a Christmas song.

However, whilst I  think the song is great and the charities for which it raises funds worthy, I sort of object to the notion of ‘Military Wives’ because it is a bit sexist. It does pander to a traditional image of the soldiers and their spouses and of the family – man goes of to war/work, woman stays at home. ‘Military Wives’ might be visually appealing and it’s great that those who have been in the background have found their voice (although maybe they always had it and no one was listening). But as I watched the video, the big elephant in the recording studio were the ‘Military Husbands’.

There is no definitive image of what a military husband is; we all know what the image of the military wife is. And, the support groups for spouses are dominated by civilian women, so the activities and functions are going to be geared toward this demographic. Husbands of female soldiers have minimal social outlets, and so it becomes difficult for some of them to truly understand their wives’ duties and responsibilities.” (Pamela Stokes Eggleston, ‘Are Military Divorce Rates Really Rising?‘, Blogger News Network, 16 June 2008)

I don’t know how many ‘Military Husbands’ there are but we know they exist, such as Carl Bryant, the widower of Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first British female soldier to die in Afghanistan. Now maybe women in general have been particularly oppressed compared to men. I was horrified to hear one of the women in ‘Military Wives’ refer to a joke about Army babymakers. But one only has to read Carl’s funeral speech to know that being a Military Spouse is an experience that is not about gender.

I also noted in from the music video that it was very much about heterosexual spousal relationships. There didn’t appear to be any reference to civil partnerships. Furthermore, what about all the unmarried officers? Surely their parents and siblings, or long term partners, must be like Military Spouses in a sense.

Now I get that this song is the result of a BBC TV programme and that brings its own limitations. However, I would think that British state television, funded by the taxpayer, would seek to be more representative in its output.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that the above criticism should be a disincentive to buying the single. It is a good song and it does raise money for a worthwhile cause. But it perhaps raises questions about how we treat the military and their families and also how far we’ve really come in terms of sexual equality.