Friday, April 09, 2010

Nursing bras

Twelve years ago I opened up a Hanes catalog, found 2 nursing bras, and ordered the one without underwire. I am still wearing that bra. I bought nursing bras when I was pregnant with Tommy, two of them, and they suck.
One was almost a sports bra style which was fine, but when you unhook one side, the other side shifts and pulls the nursing pad off center. Not great when feeding on one side causes letdown on the other. Also, the stitching at the bottom was decorative and scalloped and when you're wearing the thing 24 hours a day scalloped stitching is like a saw blade digging in.
The second was a sleep bra that I still sometimes wear, but it was the thinnest cotton (like granny panties) so it offered no support. And it was a cross over style so when I lied on my side the top boob all but fell out the middle.
Why is it so hard to find a wire-free nursing bra that isn't sexy (I need comfort, not looks), has support, will hold a nursing pad, and doesn't shift or lose support when you open it? If I'm going to wear this thing to sleep, it has to be comfortable. It can be as sexy and cute as it wants to be; nursing pads and milk stains will kill the effect. I want a bra where the whole cup doesn't come away, just a panel over a cup with a whole. I want a bra with support (no seamless t-shirt bras) but without wire. And I want one that stays put and doesn't dig in. I don't care if it's hideous, I need it for function. Demi bras and sport bras and lace and push up and padded and plunge front and satin dome no good. Cotton/lycra, one hand cup hooks, support, comfort. That's all I ask. WHich is probably why I'm wearing a discontinued 12 year old bra. Ugh.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

My personal theory on why the Catholic church keeps having child molestation scandals

It used to be that a man went into the priesthood when he felt a 'calling'. I'm sure for some it was a desire to serve the Lord with lifelong devotion, but I think for others the calling manifested itself as an aversion to marriage, manual labor, or military, which were the only options for men for a long time. But then came more options, like office work and other not-so-manual types of labor, and the priesthood lost it's lazier population. And then about 30 or so years ago, it became okay, in certain areas of the world, to stay unmarried. No, I'm not saying that all priests were gay, only that a job requiring one to never have any romantic or physical contact with woman might attract some self-loathing gays. Especially if one's confessor framed such circumstances not as an attraction to men but rather as a distinct lack of attraction to women, and then declared the lack of attraction to women to be "the calling". But once it became okay to be gay (as is increasingly the case every day), gay men no longer needed so desperately to defend and explain their lack of attraction to women. But there are other let's call them preferences, that do need to be explained away. And to those men who also feel no attraction for adult women, come the desperate need to hear "the calling".
I am making no direct correlation between pedophilia and the Catholic Church. I do not think the Church condones pedophilia. But I do think that simply praying and denying can only work for so long. And even if it works for 40 years, you still have some pedophile molesting a kid every 40 years. And I think that when you have a career path that combines an absolute ban on adult romantic interactions, you are going to attract applicants who feel no need to engage in adult romantic interactions. In a perfect world, this would mean only devout asexual men would ever join the priesthood. But this is not a perfect world. And when you add to that job requirement the fringe benefit that no matter what you ever do to anybody anywhere ever, you can be forgiven entirely, you attract a bad sort.
Two main facets of the priesthood are that 1) you cannot have 'normal' adult reproductive urges*, at least not with normal strength, and 2) you have an unlimited number of get out of hell free cards. That's a bad combination no matter how you spell it.




*I don't consider gay urges or homosexuality to be abnormal, so don't think that's what I meant when I said "normal" reproductive urges. I do, however, like to think that gay Catholics have options other than the priesthood these days. I want to believe that rather than going out to be a priest, they could just go out to be gay. Pedophiles don't have that option, and there is really nowhere to go if you're a pedophile who wants to be good. I mean, what would happen if you just came out and told someone "Hey, I dream about diddling kids and it totally gets me hot, but I'll never do it because I know it's wrong"? How long until you've got a squad car outside your house and a neighborhood mob of pitchfork wielding parents hounding you out of town? If you like kids and you don't want to, and you're a Catholic, I suppose you'd pray a lot, confess your impure thoughts, and jump at the opportunity to believe that it's not a sick perversion but rather a misinterpreted 'calling".

Cougars

I don't understand cougars. Or sugar daddies, or whatever term means middle aged people dating kids (not pedophilia, just the 18-25 crowd). Tell me how on Earth you feel any younger than you are while lying naked, wrinkles, sags, and paunches exposed, next to a tireless and taut example of youth. How does it make you feel younger or sexier or smarter to see yourself in such stark contrast to what you seem to want to be? And cougars especially confound me. Women are supposed to want wisdom, and maturity, and sophistication. I see that a lot more in Richard Gere than in Jared Leto. And I'm sorry, but Madonna is in her 50s and dating men in their 20s and she doesn't look young or hip or hot, just old and laughable. I suppose I can understand middle aged men wanting 22 year old women. Men are dumb and think with the only body part to actually lose wrinkles when aroused. But I expect more from women. I expect taste and intelligence. I expect too much.