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Millions of girls undergo FGM and cultures won't talk about it.

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How do language taboos arise? What do they say about our society? And how can we avoid behaving impossibly in a strange culture? Professor Andreas Musolff of the University of East Anglia in Norwich explains.

Mr Musolff, "Taboo" doesn't sound like a typical German word. What is the origin of the term?

The word "taboo" was brought back from the expeditions of the eighteenth century and introduced into the English and German languages by people like Captain Cook and Adalbert von Chamisso. It was used in one of the languages of the South Sea Islands and designated certain prohibitions ascribed to religion: these prohibitions regulated, for example, who was allowed to sit with whom, who was allowed to touch whom, who was allowed to eat what and that the names of holy persons and gods were forbidden to be pronounced. In the Western world taboo was initially investigated as a form of superstition, and then as an interesting, exotic phenomenon. Later the term was adopted in the common parlance. And today we know there are taboos in all societies - some of a religious nature (the naming of God's name, for example, is rigorously regulated in Orthodox Judaism), some having to do with other issues such as sexuality, excrement, death and social hierarchies.

Political and social taboos

What is the role of linguistic taboos in our society today, which rather aims at getting rid of taboos?

Since the Enlightenment, people have been trying to portray themselves as more developed and cultivated by saying that they break taboos or have fewer taboos than other people. This is often nothing more than a rhetorical trick - for example, when politicians present themselves on talk shows as taboo breakers. Our society too has its taboos, which we handle more or less subtly or ingeniously - for instance, under the heading of "political correctness". Consider, as another example, that the military mission in Afghanistan a few years ago was not allowed, under any circumstances, to be called a war. Politicians in the Bundestag had an almost magical, obsessive fear of the reactions that the word "war" could trigger in the public. They therefore spoke rather of a "policing action", of "reconstruction measures" or of "peace assistance". And another example: when an editor of a left-wing newspaper wrote of a concert that the hall was gaskammervoll, that is, as full as a gas chamber, he was unceremoniously sacked. This sort of pseudo-humorous reference to the Holocaust is rightly looked upon as inadmissible.

So, while old language taboos are falling away, quite new ones are arising. What do these taboos say about our society?

Language here is a mirror of society. These taboos concern social rules that are more or less constitutive of society and are therefore deemed to be important. When they arise, we develop terms in language so as to use a wide variety of words in a wide variety of situations for a certain taboo subjects. Thus, for example, the word geil has gone through some remarkable changes: it already had various meanings before it came to be used as a taboo word for sexual arousal about fifty to a hundred years ago. Then, because social conditions again changed, the word took on a new meaning by becoming a synonym for super or toll (i.e., great). As such, it has been established in the language of young people for thirty years now. Today nobody cares two hoots if the word geil is used.

You can certainly avoid breaking taboos

So taboos are a mirror of society. That explains why there are different language taboos in different language groups and cultures ...

Yes, and there are countless examples of this. When in German, for example, I refrain from using the polite forms of address such as Sie [the formal "you"], this can lead to my being de facto excluded from certain social circles. In English usage, on the other hand, this plays no role whatsoever and, unlike in German, first names are also used more frequently in formal situations. All codes of politeness are culturally conditioned and can be seen as precautionary measures against violation of taboos. Another example: in German you can perfectly well say of someone that he "ist gestorben". In English, on the other hand, the literal translation of this, "he died", would be looked upon as offensive, and so one says instead something like "he passed away". This is easy to understand for Germans because the subjects of dying and death are also hedged about by taboos here: in most cases people would find it insulting if someone said he had "ins Gras gebissen" [bit the dust] or "verreckt" [kicked the bucket].

How should we handle our own and others' taboos in inter-cultural contact situations?

There are so many possibilities of breaking taboos that no one can predict them one hundred per cent. But if you have certain information, you can certainly avoid breaking taboos. For example, many Europeans have difficulties correctly pronouncing Chinese first names and produce instead, quite unawares, a word that in Chinese has a grotesque or insulting meaning. My Chinese students in Great Britain tell me that, in order to avoid such involuntary taboos violations, they give themselves English substitute names. Similarly, you can also avoid certain subjects so that a possible breaking of a taboo is no longer relevant at all: if I don't want to hurt the feelings of my interlocutor, I wouldn't discuss with a convinced Catholic the Virgin Birth of Mary. Learners of a foreign language, as also translators, should get to know not only the language but also the socio-cultural rules of usage in the target region. Otherwise inadvertent violations of taboos are unavoidable.

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"There is no language community without taboos"

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How do language taboos arise? What do they say about our society? And how can we avoid behaving impossibly in a strange culture? Professor Andreas Musolff of the University of East Anglia in Norwich explains. Mr Musolff, "Taboo" doesn't sound like a typical German word. What is the origin of the term?

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joyner lucas' 'i'm not racist' is the brutal conversation on race nobody wants to have - cnn

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'I'm Not Racist' is the brutal race conversation nobody wants to have

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The Joyner Lucas song is a really, really raw conversation on race, and just how far apart blacks and whites are in how they see things in this country right now.

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Exclusive: Eminem Responds to 'Rap God' Homophobia Accusations

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"I think people know my personal stance on things and the personas that I create in my music"

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50 Cent Responds To YouTube Comments Left On His “Candy Shop” Music Video

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50 Cent Responds To YouTube Comments Left On His “Candy Shop” Music Video

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Teacher Fed Up With Students Swearing, Stealing, And Destroying Property Speaks Out

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The nominees to receive the most prestigious awards in the music industry, the Grammy Awards, were just announced. Among the five nominees for Record of the Year is a song titled "F- You," with the F-word, of course, spelled out and pronounced.

Here are the song's opening lyrics:

"I see you driving 'round town

With the girl I love and I'm like,

F- you!

Oo, oo, ooo

I guess the change in my pocket

Wasn't enough, I'm like,

F- you!

And f- her, too!"

The next lyrics add the S-word:

"I said, if I was richer, I'd still be with ya

Ha, now ain't that some s-t? (ain't that some s-t?)

And although there's pain in my chest

I still wish you the best with a

F- you!

Oo, oo, ooo."

And shortly thereafter, the N-word:

"I pity the fool that falls in love with you

(oh, s-t, she's a gold digger)

Well

(just thought you should know, n--)

Ooooooh."

It is also worth noting that the video of this song includes children who appear to be under 12 years of age and all the performers are black - a point I will address later.

I have long believed that MTV has done more damage to America's young people than any other single institution. I am referring to the music videos, in which most images or scenes are shown for less than two seconds and thereby numb kids' minds, and to the sexual imagery and sex talk that permeate the music videos and much of the rest of MTV programming.

But while MTV should be singled out for the damage it has done to America, the music industry in general has been equally guilty.

How does a song replete with expletives, whose very title is "F- You," get nominated for a Grammy Award as Record of the Year?

The answer is that the music industry, from producers to artists, is largely populated by people who regard social and cultural norms as stifling. Their professional lives are dedicated to lowering that which is elevated, destroying that which uplifts, and to profaning that which is held sacred.

There is no better explanation for "F- You" being nominated as Record of the Year. It has little, if any, redeeming moral, social or artistic (to the extent that this word retains its original meaning) value. The lyrics are as vapid as they are obscene; the video further degrades that part of black life that is already too lacking in elevation; and there is the participation of children in a profanity-filled video.

For most of American history, a child who used such words was punished by his parents, and society instinctively knew how important it was not to expose children to obscenities. Today, adults in the music industry reward children for participating in videos laced with obscenities.

Nor is the nomination of "F- You" as Song of the Year an aberration. Two of the other four nominees are rap "songs" whose lyrics are also vile.

Here are typical lyrics from the Eminem's nominated "Love the Way You Lie:"

"And I love it the more that I suffer

I suffocate

And right before I'm about to drown

She resuscitates me

She f-ing hates me

And I love it."

And later on:

"If she ever tries to f-ing leave again

I'ma tie her to the bed

And set the house on fire."

The third nominee is an ode to New York City, "Empire State of Mind," performed by black rapper Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, and which also contains the N-word. It is worth recalling that when white radio-show host Laura Schlessinger used this word solely in order to condemn its use in inner-city black life, society's elite poured such wrath on her that it forced many of her sponsors to abandon her, and she decided to leave radio. But when Jay-Z uses it, he is rewarded with the nomination for the highest award in the music industry.

Two examples of the N-word use:

"Say what's up to Ty-Ty, still sippin' mai tais

sittin' courtside, Knicks and Nets give me high five

N--, I be Spike'd out, I could trip a referee

Tell by my attitude that I'm most definitely from. ...

You should know I bleed blue, but I ain't a Crip, though

but I got a gang of niggas walkin' with my clique though. . . ."

For the record, the fourth nominee, B.o.B's "Nothin' on You," is another rap song with something of a melody behind it. This song has a decent message of a young black man who, though tempted by other women, only wants his woman. And the fifth nominee was a lovely song, "Need You Now," by the country music group Lady Antebellum.

How deep is the decay in the music industry?

According to the Los Angeles Times, these Grammy nominees were "decided on by about 12,000 voting members of the Recording Academy."

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F- You from the Music Industry - The Dennis Prager Show

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The nominees to receive the most prestigious awards in the music industry, the Grammy Awards, were just announced. Among the five nominees for Record of the Year is a song titled "F- You," with the F-word, of course, spelled out and pronounced.

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The Internet Had a Lot to Say About Kanye West's "Famous" Music Video

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The internet had a whole lot to say about Kanye West's most recent foray into filmmaking for his "Famous" video.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/09/04/people-are-destroying-their-nike-gear-protest-colin-kaepernicks-just-do-it-campaign/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2bbc76495f4f

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I always seasoned my vocabulary with as many four-letter words as 50-cent ones, at least until my first child was born two years ago. That's when I found myself - and I'm almost embarrassed to admit it - watching my language. Something deep in my subconscious told me that profanity might harm him in some way, that even a fleeting expletive, like a curse word uttered while stumbling over a child gate, could do lasting damage.

Because I was not only a new parent but also a cognitive scientist specializing in language, I decided to investigate the issue.

And I'm happy to report that, nowadays, if I drop an f-bomb in front of my kid, I don't sweat it.

My deep-seated concern about profanity was the product of social conditioning. Through instruction and occasional punishment, we learn the lesson that certain words are bad for young minds. Our institutions reinforce that message. The Federal Communications Commission bans profanity on television and radio between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The Motion Picture Assn. of America considers "strong language" when it rates new films.

Although police officers rarely enforce legal codes that prohibit public obscenity, adults caught swearing in front of children may find themselves in trouble. A woman named Danielle Wolf, for example, was arrested in a South Carolina supermarket for telling her husband, "Stop squishing the [obscenity] bread!" in front of her children. UC Riverside graduate student Elizabeth Venable was cited for using the same word (not "bread") in front of families with small children at John Wayne Airport.

I've heard several theories for why swearing around kids is wrong. (I should be clear that I'm not talking about swearing at kids; verbal abuse is known to be psychologically damaging.) And these explanations don't all revolve around etiquette or social norms. Some, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, argue that exposure to profanity is actually dangerous because it encourages aggression or will numb a child's normal emotional reactions.

As far as I know, scientists have never conducted a controlled experiment aimed at uncovering the consequences of swearing in front of children; you can't ethically justify exposing 5-year-olds to heavy cussing if there's even the slightest risk of harm. But college students are another story. And we can extrapolate to children from experimental research conducted with adults.

The only profane words that demonstrably cause trouble are slurs. A 2014 study exposed 52 university students (average age: 21 years) to either a slur for homosexuals or a neutral term. Those who saw the slur subsequently thought that less money should go towards AIDS-HIV prevention efforts for "high risk groups." In another, 61 participants (average age: 23) saw either a homosexual slur or a neutral label. The ones who saw the slur positioned their chairs physically farther away from a person they believed to be homosexual by an average of more than 10 centimeters.

Slurs may have similar or greater effects in children, who are less developed socially and cognitively. Indeed, correlational studies suggest as much. For instance, a study that followed 143 middle school students found that those who reported more exposure to homophobic slurs tended to report feeling less connected to their school lives. They also exhibited symptoms of anxiety and depression.

There's no [scientific] proof that exposure to ordinary profanity - four-letter words - causes any sort of direct harm.

But there's no similar proof that exposure to ordinary profanity - four-letter words - causes any sort of direct harm: no increased aggression, stunted vocabulary, numbed emotions or anything else.

Of course, parents aren't holding their tongues solely because they think hearing a bad word will turn their kid into a criminal. They also worry that the kid will turn around and use it. And yet the largest observational study - again we don't have controlled experiments - found that childhood swearing is largely innocuous. Scientists documented children ages 1 to 12 naturally producing thousands of taboo utterances, and only rarely witnessed negative repercussions. On no occasion did swearing lead to physical violence. Instead, taboo words were used mostly for positive reasons, for instance humor, and mostly were not produced out of anger.

Still, I understand that, science aside, many adults simply don't like the thought of children using profanity; they think it's inappropriate, or unseemly or a sign of poor family values. After all, that's how these adults were indoctrinated as children. A child who uses strong language may therefore risk punishment, among other negative reactions, at the hands of adults who don't tolerate it.

So here's the dilemma. Although there's no evidence that either hearing or using run-of-the-mill profane words causes harm to children, a child who wanders out into the world with a mouth like a sailor could still cause harm to his reputation - and that of his parents.

I've come up with a compromise solution. I don't censor myself because I know my child won't suffer cognitive or emotional damage; and I don't try to stop him from parroting me, in large part because I'm not delusional enough to think that would work. But when I happen to swear around my kid, I provide some coaching. I engage him in an honest dialogue about why some words are OK in some places, but not others. Even a 2-year-old can understand that the f-word can be muttered consequence-free at home but might lead to a negative reaction when screamed in the supermarket.

Although my son might not achieve lapse-free tailoring of his language right away, context-sensitivity is not beyond a child's reach. He's already learning that some activities are appropriate in the bathroom or the doctor's office, but not the schoolyard or classroom. Through coaching, parents can help children develop a healthy relationship with their native tongue, including the parts that allow them to communicate their strongest emotions.

Benjamin Bergen is a professor of cognitive science at UC San Diego. He is the author most recently of "What the F: What Swearing Reveals About our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves."

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I always seasoned my vocabulary with as many four-letter words as 50-cent ones, at least until my first child was born two years ago. That's when I found myself - and I'm almost embarrassed to admit it - watching my language.

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I swear at my kids.

Yes, I said it and I meant it. Each and every day, I swear at them.

I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Our kids can be assholes. Tell me your child hasn't ever deserved to be cursed at and I'll call you a liar.

I'll even go so far as to say that I believe that swearing at my children makes me a better parent.

I'm not talking curse words like "dammit" and "hell." Oh, no. I pull out the big guns. Those four letter ones of which I am such a big fan.

Now, I would never actually shout obscenities directly at my offspring. Obviously.

But, when Lily is screaming that I ruined her life by taking away the hot pink hair dye which came with her new Moxie Doll that was staining the entire first floor of my house, I may just have seen the ords "shut the fuck up" float over her head in my imaginary commentary of the scene. And it may just have kept me from really losing it with her.

When Even is thrashing on the floor because I didn't let him have a third bag of Goldfish before lunch, singing a little ditty that goes "Shut the fuck up, you pain in my ass. Shut the fuck up, my dear." in my head, somehow, makes the moment more bearable.

And, Ben's incessant whining can be blocked out by my asking "are you ever going to shut your little fucking mouth, you annoying child?" in my head. Logically, I know the answer is "not likely," but just asking always makes me feel better.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Just fucking shoot me now."

"Fuck off, sweetheart."

Does saying these things mean that I love my children any less than a non-swearing mother? No. Does it make me a bad parent or role model? No, I don't think so.

Because, by thinking these awful things, I keep myself from actually saying anything terrible to them. Which, I argue, would be far worse.

It's a coping mechanism, of sorts. A tool to survive motherhood.

So, next time your child is screaming at the top of his lungs that he doesn't want that shower or need to brush his teeth or that no, he will not stop taunting his sibling despite a hundred and three warnings, flip him off in your head.

I know he deserved it.

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I swear at my kids. Yes, I said it and I meant it. Each and every day, I swear at them. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Our kids can be assholes. Tell me your child hasn't ever deserved to be cursed at and I'll call you a liar.

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CLOSE

Kanye West, continuing his controversy tour of 2018, spoke Tuesday to TMZ Live about slavery, free thought and his love for President Trump.

On the first topic, he said slavery "sounds like a choice."

He added, "When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... like, you was there for 400 years and it's all of y'all?! It's like we're mentally in prison."

After that comment, TMZ's Van Lathan interjected.

"I think what you're doing right now is actually the absence of thought," Lathan said. "And while you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you've earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives. We have to deal with the marginalization that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a choice."

West later took to Twitter to defend himself.

"Of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will," he tweeted. "My point is for us to have stayed in that position even though the numbers were on our side means that we were mentally enslaved."

He added: "They cut our tongues so we couldn't communicate to each other. I will not allow my tongue to be cut ... they can no longer stop our voice."

West's original remarks did not sit will with singer Chris Brown, who tore the rapper to shreds in an lengthy, NSFW Instagram post Wednesday.

"THIS IS JUST ENTERTAINMENT TO YALL... THIS MAN IS A CLOWN!" he wrote in all caps. "WAKE THE HELL UP KANYE.... PLEASE. SLAVERY WAS A CHOICE???????? Whattttttt??????"

"PLEASE BLACK PEOPLE... DO NOT FOLLOW (West) ON HIS PATH TO DESTRUCTION! WHATEVER HELP U THINK I NEED.... GET IT FOR HIM ASAP," he continued, seeming to reference his own controversial past of assault against his ex-girlfriend Rihanna.

Brown was featured on West's 2016 track Waves, which focused on love and relationships, but that didn't stop the singer from bashing West.

"OUR SONG JUST WENT PLATINUM BUT (expletive) THAT," he added.

Will.i.am said West's words were crushing on Good Morning Britain Wednesday.

"That broke my heart, because I thought about my grandma, who was born in 1920, and her connection with her mom who raised her, who was born in the (late) 1800s, and my grandmother's grandma, who was a slave," said Will.i.am, who was born William James Adams Jr. "When you're a slave, you're owned. You don't choose if you're owned. When you're a slave, you're deprived of education. That's not choice, that's by force."

"I understand the need to have free thought, but if your thoughts aren't researched, that is just going to hurt those that are still in conditions where it's not choice that when they go down the street there's a liquor store and fast food restaurants, and your education is not being funded the same way it is in Calabasas," he continued.

"That statement was one of the most ignorant statements that anybody that came from the hood could ever say about their ancestors, that slavery is a choice," Will.i.am added.

Twitter also had opinions about West's words.

Jimmy Kimmel called the entire TMZ appearance "wild."

Feminist writer Roxane Gay tweeted, "I don't have the energy for nonsense but Kanye ... is a free moron who doesn't read."

"What in the Andy Kaufman is going on here?" asked Questlove, invoking the late comedian with a reputation for being erratic.

"It all makes sense now," actor Jon Cryer joked, in response to West's slavery comments.

Journalist Phili Mwaniki tweeted in support of Lathan: "Years from now," people will ask, "Where were you when this dude shut Kanye up?"

Writer Oliver Willis joked his "congratulations" to new Fox News hire Kanye.

Mat Johnson likened West to Samuel L Jackson's character Stephen from Django Unchained, a twisted slave who sees himself as above other people of color.

Filmmaker Matthew Cherry thanked Lathan for stepping in.
Contributing: Erin Jensen, Sara Moniuszko
More: Kanye West: I was 'drugged out' on opioids leading up to 2016 hospitalization

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Chris Brown tears Kanye West to shreds over slavery comments: 'This man is a clown!'

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CLOSE Kanye West, continuing his controversy tour of 2018, spoke Tuesday to TMZ Live about slavery, free thought and his love for President Trump. On the first topic, he said slavery "sounds like a choice." He added, "When you hear about slavery for 400 years ...

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The Inside Story of Jocelyn Flores, the Tragic Teen Who Inspired XXXTentacion’s Hit

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The Inside Story of Jocelyn Flores, the Tragic Teen Who Inspired XXXTentacion’s Hit

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-inside-story-of-jocelyn-flores-the-tragic-teen-who-inspired-xxxtentacions-hit

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Following his calls to "stay woke!" on his biggest hit to date, Redbone, the musician, actor, writer, director and comedian Childish Gambino - AKA Donald Glover, has doubled his efforts on his new track This Is America. Its video amassed 10m views in only 24 hours and has been celebrated by Erykah Badu, Janelle Monáe, Trent Reznor and others as one of 2018's best: a brilliantly choreographed bit of theatre in a vast warehouse, as Glover dances around an escalating riot, ending up with a complex dissection of gun violence and American racism. Theories about what it all means have started stacking up.

He's playing Jim Crow

In the opening scenes, Glover uses grotesque smiles and exaggerated poses, with some on Twitter suggesting this is an invocation of the racial caricature Jim Crow. Another suggested Glover was accusing black performers - even himself - of "coonery", or saying they are still made to feel like minstrels when they go out to perform their "black" music. One of the lyrics is "Grandma told me: get your money, black man". Commenters on the lyric annotation site Genius have asked whether Glover feels that he has to take on stereotypically black performance roles (rapper, soul singer, comedian) to be able to earn money. His gunning down of the gospel choir singing the lyric suggests that he's tired of the pressure to accumulate wealth, to be performatively black, and stay spiritually uplifted in an age of gun violence.

He's duping us with dance

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Don't be distracted: the use of attention-grabbing dance moves seems to be making a point about what society focuses on. Photograph: RCA Records

A little like that video where you're told to follow a basketball being passed around, and you miss the moonwalking bear in the background, Glover and co's moves - doing YouTube dance crazes such as the hopping, kicking "shoot" - mask the riots happening behind them. The video's choreographer, Sherrie Silver, retweeted a comment, perhaps in agreement, from someone who argued: "Childish Gambino's dance moves distracted all of us from the craziness that was happening in the background of the video & that's exactly the point he's trying to make."

He's taking on the police

Masked spectators are shown documenting the riot that plays out in the background of 'This is America'. Source: RCA Records

The line "this a celly / that's a tool" has a powerful double meaning. Fans have pointed out that on the one hand it refers to the case of Stephon Clark, shot dead just weeks ago by Sacramento police, who assumed he was armed, but only had an iPhone on him. Glover distils the distorting way black men are seen by police with "tool", meaning gun. In the video, the camera pans up to black men filming the chaos on their phones. As other commenters on Genius have pointed out, Glover could also be saying that phones can be actual tools for documentation.
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This is America: theories behind Childish Gambino's satirical masterpiece

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Following his calls to "stay woke!" on his biggest hit to date, Redbone, the musician, actor, writer, director and comedian Childish Gambino - AKA Donald Glover, has doubled his efforts on his new track This Is America.

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Robin Thicke's recent song "Blurred Lines" has generated controversy due to its rape-y lyrics and demeaning music video. Women all over the country have been up in arms over the objectifying nature of the song. Now, Melinda Hughes, a girl power comedienne from LA, has created a new parody video sharing feminist responses to Thicke's controversial song.

As a woman sympathetic to all victims of sexual abuse, I felt a tremendous amount of pain watching the "Blurred Lines" music video. Although the models are hot and the goat is cute, the undeniable popularity of this negative message has shot up some serious red flags.

Sexual abuse often leaves the victim feeling powerless. The "I know you want it" lyrics seem to perpetuate these victim-blaming reactions that leave many of us feeling powerless long after the abusive incident.

Unfortunately, there's a "douchebag" percentage of the population that listens to music like this and takes it at face value. Certain members of our society may listen to this song and watch this video and think, "Hey, I deserve to have the hottest girl in the bar. She's here for my amusement." One in six American women have experienced a rape or attempted rape. The vast majority of rape is committed by someone the victim already knew. This assumption that women's purpose is to serve a man's fantasies, reinforced by violent male dominance, has been termed "rape culture." This video strives to combat rape culture and set an example. Women are funny, intelligent, and clever, and need to be represented as such!

My big question is... how did the majority of the American audience miss the song's intention, as Thicke himself was quoted, "to degrade women as much as possible." Are we that hypnotized by three pairs of beautiful breasts? Or is that how commonplace the degradation of women is in our society - so common we don't even recognize or notice when the artist goes out of his way to offend as much as possible? And even more perplexing, why was the intention of "Blurred Lines" to degrade women? This song does not play as a satire or a parody or a social commentary on a current issue. The song plays as just another R&B song, so why was it funny to the performers to make a joke on the shoulders of rape culture?

In the video, the men are given all the power and control. The models dance around with vacant expressions. The three fully-clothed men touch and gawk at them in whichever way they choose, without any reaction from the women. As a result, the women seem more like sex dolls for the amusement of the men than actual women. The women are not celebrated for their wit, their intelligence, their creativity, their loving nature, their ability to give life, or even their individual beauties. They are celebrated as sexual objects. Not only are the models stripped of their clothing, they are stripped of their voices, stripped of their individualities, stripped of everything. I think many women are tired of being represented in such a limited way.

When the value of women is continuously contingent on whether a woman fits the ideal of sexual beauty and whether she fulfills what we expect from her sexually, we create a society in which the goal of a woman is to be sexually appealing. The feminine contribution to society is reduced to looking sexy or being sexy. This view of women and their opportunities and roles in our society is something that needs to change.

Instead of seeing a rise in plastic surgery, I would like to see a rise in a feeling of self-worth in who we are as people from the inside out.

Instead of seeing a rise in eating disorders, I would like to see a rise in women business owners.

Instead of seeing a rise in music videos like "Blurred Lines," I would like to see more videos like our parody that show women as smart, sassy, sexy, empowered, and equal.

Share Melinda Hughes "Blurred Lines" Parody! #Douche @MelindaHug

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Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" Gets the Feminist Response It Deserves

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Robin Thicke's recent song "Blurred Lines" has generated controversy due to its rape-y lyrics and demeaning music video. Women all over the country have been up in arms over the objectifying nature of the song. Now, Melinda Hughes, a girl power comedienne from LA, has created a new parody video sharing feminist responses to Thicke's controversial song.

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I was chatting with my wife, Mel, about a news story where Facebook censored the image of a child breastfeeding. I wanted to know her opinion. We were in our bedroom.

I was sent a clip of the story by Amy Garneran, an author at the New Orleans Moms Blog, and the subject of the controversy. Garneran wrote about breastfeeding during World Breastfeeding Week. She paid to have a graphic designed, a tight shot of a baby nursing and the side of his mother's breast, and then paid to have the image marketed to specific demographics of Facebook users. However, Facebook rejected the image, stating that its policies "disallows overly sexual images, suggestive nudity, showing a lot of skin or cleavage, or focusing unnecessarily on specific body parts."

Mel and I were looking at the image on my phone.

"This is ridiculous," Mel said. "How is that sexual?"

I shrugged "It's not."

We talked about how breastfeeding is not shameful. How it's natural and shouldn't be censored. We circled around the issue. And as we spoke, I thought about all the times I'd seen Mel hide in a hot car, or sneak away into a public restroom in order to privately feed one of our three children. I don't know why society has come down so hard on breastfeeding mothers, but what I do know is that Facebook censoring the photo didn't surprise me.

"Does what Facebook did surprise you?" I asked.

Mel thought about it for a moment. Then she said, "No. It doesn't."

"That's the really scary part," I said.

I can think of few things more natural than a mother breastfeeding her child. And yet, there are a lot of people who see breastfeeding about as socially acceptable as public urination.

If Facebook had censored Budweiser for using side boob to sell beer, or Victoria Secret for using cleavage to sell underwear, that might have gotten me out of my seat. But an image of a mother being censored for using her breasts for their intended purpose didn't surprise me at all.

Its sad, really, that we as as society (America mostly) have reached a stage where the expectations of breasts are so twisted and sideways that we don't bat an eye when breasts are used to sell a car, but their real, natural, beautiful, intended purpose, has been shoved so deep into the shadows that we can't stand to look at it, so we censor it. We shove mothers into bathrooms, and cram children under blankets to keep breast from appearing too practical.

But to me, as a father, I can think of few things more beautiful than my wife feeding our children. I am in awe that her body can grow human life. Give birth to it. And then, sustain it. It's remarkable and makes my body seem about as useful as an artificial plant. When I watch my wife breastfeed, I don't think about sex. I think about love and compassion. I think about a mother physically and emotionally caring for her child.

People aren't used to that when it comes to breasts, because they have become a ubiquity on the sides of freeways and buses. Boobs are used to catch attention like a carrot on a stick, luring in shoppers.

But breastfeeding doesn't use sex to accomplish something. It's pure and wonderful, and I think it's that the conflict that makes it confusing to those who view it. And when I think about that, I realize that the real problem isn't breastfeeding, or boobs, or sex, but the fact that breasts as an image have been so twisted and manipulated by the media that anything as asexual as breastfeeding is considered untranslatable, suspicious and in need of censorship.

And honestly, I'm not sure how to fix that. Or if I can fix it, or should. I'm just some dad, sitting in a coffee shop, writing on my laptop. Perhaps it doesn't need fixing. Perhaps this is the societal norm, and it's best for us to accept it rather than try and change it, just like Facebook did when they censored that image.

What I do know, though, is that I find all of this unsettling. And I think that you should too. I think that breastfeeding shouldn't be seen as bad or good, wrong or right, but rather as essential and natural. It is something that has always been. It isn't shameful, but marvelous, and the next time you see an image of a mother feeding her child, don't shun it, or censor it. Respect it. Accept it. And maybe, together, we can change our mindset.

Clint Edwards is the author of No Idea What I'm Doing: A Daddy Blog. He lives in Oregon. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

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Facebook Censored Breastfeeding. Sadly, I Wasn't Surprised.

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I was chatting with my wife, Mel, about a news story where Facebook censored the image of a child breastfeeding. I wanted to know her opinion. We were in our bedroom. I was sent a clip of the story by Amy Garneran, an author at the New Orleans Moms Blog, and the subject of the controversy.

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But when the White House director of communications uses language like, well, you know, to describe the president's inner circle, it's in the public interest to know exactly what was said. (The Atlantic quoted Scaramucci, too, by the way.) The Times didn't immediately grant my request to speak with an editor Thursday night, but a spokesperson did direct me to comments by the paper's deputy managing editor, which he'd published to Twitter.

The Times published Scaramucci's profanity only after top editors, including the executive editor Dean Baquet, "discussed whether it was proper," Clifford Levy wrote. "We concluded that it was newsworthy that a top Trump aide used such language. And we didn't want our readers to have to search elsewhere to find out what Scaramucci said." Given what the newspaper has had to navigate before, it's likely the vulgar reference to Bannon was the most difficult call among the three. Indeed, wrote one of the top editors at the Times, Sam Dolnick, the debate was "one for the ages."

"A couple of years ago I got in trouble for 'hand job.' In a quote," tweeted Emily Bazelon, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. In fact, Bazelon's reference to hand jobs, at least the reference that appears in her 2014 magazine story about college romance, was not a direct quote but a line she paraphrased.

Either way, it's not like the Times never prints vulgar language.

There was the Access Hollywood tape last fall, which featured Trump bragging about being able to grab women without their consent. The Times repeatedly printed the vulgar terms he used. It also published an offensive term -uh, rhymes with "blunt"-that a Trump adviser had used to describe Hillary Clinton, only to remove the word from an op-ed after the fact with a brief editor's note flagging the change.

There have been other instances in which obscenities found their way into the Times. F-bombs are sprinkled throughout book excerpts, for example, and in web-only extras-quoting the poet Allen Ginsberg, in the case of a 2007 blog post. The word "fuck" also appeared in the full text of the Starr Report, which detailed President Bill Clinton's sexual relationship with a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and which the Times printed in 1998. The report included, for instance, a quote from Lewinsky saying she wished the president would "acknowledge ... that he helped fuck up my life." In a separate story that day, the paper described how the graphic language in the report was making things challenging for newscasters, in particular. "On CBS, Bob Schieffer looked profoundly embarrassed as he read cold from the report," the Times wrote. Another Clinton-era curse word that made it into the paper? "Dumb-ass," which Rolling Stone had mistakenly quoted Clinton as having said, a dispute that the Times covered.

It isn't so easy to track the vulgarities the Times has printed, however, in part because it has used text-reading software to digitize much of its archival material. On one hand, this is why the newspaper's archival presentation is so impressive. But it's also why a search for any given curse word is liable to turn up a ton of false positives. To a computer, for instance, the 1975 headline "Court Shift on Sanity Debated" scans as "Court Shit on Sanity Debated." Which is funny, sure, but not actually what the paper printed at the time. The Times online archive is full of this sort of thing.

The newspaper's reporters have not infrequently written themselves into contortions to avoid foul language. "Barnyard expletive" is a favorite cop-out. (Personally, I prefer "baloney" if you want to get cute about it, but maybe that's just me.) Mostly, they end up describing unsavory words in vague terms like " a vulgarity that refers to part of the male anatomy" or " a vulgarism for a part of the female anatomy." Countless Times articles about George Carlin, the comedian who was famous for his bit about the "seven words you can never say on television," dutifully avoided printing them. (A blessing, perhaps, in the YouTube age, as they're best delivered by Carlin himself.) "A Master of Words, Including Some You Can't Use in a Headline," one article's headline cheekily acknowledged.

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Trump Tests the F-Bomb Policy at The New York Times

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But when the White House director of communications uses language like, well, you know, to describe the president's inner circle, it's in the public interest to know exactly what was said. (The Atlantic quoted Scaramucci, too, by the way.)

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Updated December 04, 2017 17:33:58

Billy Bush has said it was indeed Donald Trump's voice captured on a 2005 Access Hollywood tape talking about fame enabling him to grope and try to have sex with women.

The tape, released during the 2016 presidential campaign, revealed the now-infamous "grab them by the pussy" comments made by Mr Trump that led several major Republican figures to withdraw their support for the candidate.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Bush said: "Of course he said it."

Mr Trump was sitting with Bush, who at the time was an Access Hollywood host, when he bragged in detail about trying to pursue an unnamed married woman, then turned his attention to an actress on the set.

"You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them," Mr Trump said.

"It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait.

"And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything.

"Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

In Bush's op-ed, he said everyone nearby at the time thought they were listening to "a crass stand-up act."

Bush said he felt the need to write the piece following reports Mr Trump had recently suggested in private the tape was not authentic.

"President Trump is currently indulging in some revisionist history," Bush wrote.

Bush, who was an NBC television host until he was fired due to his enabling role in the Access Hollywood video, said the story "has hit a raw nerve."

"I can only imagine how it has reopened the wounds of the women who came forward with their stories about him, and did not receive enough attention."

The tape's release prompted more than a dozen women to come forward to say Mr Trump had sexually assaulted or harassed them.

Mr Trump and his administration deny the allegations.

In the wake of recent sexual assault allegations against prominent news media and entertainment figures, such Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Kevin Spacey, and Louis CK, Bush said he hopes the hard work of exposing such injustices is over.

Bush also detailed the allegations made by two women, Jill Harth and Kristin Anderson, who accused the US President of sexual assault.

Bush is the first cousin of former US President George W Bush, and said he believes Ms Harth and Ms Anderson are telling the truth.

At the time of the tape's release, Mr Trump's wife Melania said he had been, "egged on" by Bush to, "say dirty and bad stuff".

AP
Topics: government-and-politics, sexual-offences, women, arts-and-entertainment, donald-trump, united-states

First posted December 04, 2017 16:56:55

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Billy Bush says infamous 'grab them by the p***y' comments came from Trump

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Updated December 04, 2017 17:33:58 Billy Bush has said it was indeed Donald Trump's voice captured on a 2005 Access Hollywood tape talking about fame enabling him to grope and try to have sex with women.