Quickies

Skepchick Quickies 6.28

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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26 Comments

  1. Amanda,

    Why do so many men find women Mud wrestling arousing? I’m a guy and I don’t. For one thing, mud is filthy.

        1. So I guess those men find humiliation arousing.

          I don’t think the sexual arousal is it. I think it’s much more about being part of a group of “manly” men and the humiliation is done to satisfy their ego about being manly.

    1. Mud isn’t necessarily “filthy”, people take mud baths after all. But that’s neither here or there. I guess for me the idea of lots of slippery woman skin rubbing around all gooey and stuff is a bit titillating.

      Still, that link is to a prime example of douchebro behavior. I think the fact that jello wresting may or may not fit the fetishes of consenting adults and demeaning ones fellow Olympians in service of ones own titillation are very separate issues.

        1. That is why a conscientious facility will have a place to get hosed down afterwards. Also like a mudbath…;)

      1. re: mudwrestling

        Well what I notice at events where women are a sexual display piece is that it’s all about the bro culture. All the guys are egging you on to get into it and be a real dude-man-bro just like them. But sometimes I wonder how much of that is genuine attraction to the women on display and how much of it is just societal groupthink.

        Personally, I think sexism often results from groupthink. Men very often find themselves in environments with lots of other men who egg each other on to have a certain perception of women and that line of thought sinks in. Rarely is the typical guy challenged to think any differently, so they don’t.

        1. “But sometimes I wonder how much of that is genuine attraction to the women on display and how much of it is just societal groupthink.”

          And that’s why I think it’s degrading. Because it’s not really about pleasure. It’s juts about hootin’ and hollerin’ at women like they are cattle.

          1. I believe I’m going to start an educational video series called “how not to be stupid fucktard” to address this problem.

    1. My first, instinctive reaction was: Send the two women sprinters to the Olympics and leave the guy home. But that would be against the rules, I guess.

      1. Or maybe just send a female wrestler to give him a nice mouthful of mud himself.

  2. I have actually been wondering about the Lyme vaccine thing ever since I found out I could vaccinate my dog for it (which I have of course, and will keep getting him boosters). I couldn’t figure out why they would have a canine vaccine and no human one. I really appreciate the link, even though the reason makes me so angry.

  3. Wow, seriously? I had no idea that there was a vaccine for Lyme disease. Even with all of the media hype around it in the past few years as it spreads to my area (my mother’s always tut-tutting me with some new horror story she’s read about, convinced that I’m tempting fate through all of the hiking I do). I’d have thought the climate for a vaccine would be much different.

  4. I’m happy to here there is a chance of a vaccine in the future. I’ll be getting it the first day I can. One of my good friends in high school caught it while out with his family and went undiagnosed for three years. Dude was absolutely brilliant and wanted to work for NASA and become another Feynman or Sagan. Unfortunately the long term effects of the disease included psychological consequences and he stopped studying physics and math suddenly in college. He also took a lot of time off to physically recover once he got a diagnoses. He will do great in any field he applies himself to but it is so sad to think about what science missed because he got sick… from something that was totally preventable.

  5. If you ever get your dog vaccinated against lyme, make sure it’s Merial and not that cheap Ft. Dodge stuff. The last time I checked, the latter could cause a false positive lyme test.

    1. I’m a vet and I just wanted to clarify some things. Fort Dodge was purchased by Pfizer, which was already in the vaccine game, so FD is kaput. There are anecdotes that Fort Dodge had a higher reaction rate, but no actual studies of which I am aware.

      Any vaccine can make your dog test lyme positive, because there is no universal lyme test. I.e. it is more a function of the test than of the vaccine brand. The two most common lyme tests are ELISA and C6.

      ELISA-based antibody tests detect whole-cell antibodies. Vaccines and natural infection both produce antibodies, so they cannot differentiate between vaccine and natural infection.

      C6 tests detect antibodies to the C6 protein, which is not present in vaccine, only in natural infection, so the test shouldn’t come up positive with vaccine alone.

  6. Is Jell-O wrestling even an event at the London Olympics? You’d think the British would use custard instead.

    And I’m not up on olympic rules but don’t olympic disciplines have to have both men’s and women’s events?

    It would be kind of amusing to hear an announcer say the words “we’re live now at the Men’s Medium-Weight Custard Wrestling event and there’s a huge turnout…”

    (Also: How many people is the US fielding in the Being Eaten by a Crocodile event?)

  7. I’m not surprised by that German ruling over circumcision, the procedure doesn’t seem to be as popular over in Europe as it is here in the states. But I am a little stunned by some of the remarks left in the comments.

    Some of the top voted comments center around the idea that since a baby can’t remember what happened to him, then that makes it okay for him to be circumcised.

    Correct me if I’m wrong but using that line of thinking, can’t you then apply that to other other incidents of abuse. What about when a baby is sexually abused, the baby is too young to remember it right? so does that make it okay?

    You know what, I should just learn to stop reading the comments section for news articles like that, it’s a sure fire way of discovering just how stupid people can be.

  8. From the Lyme article:
    “ ‘I’m personally aware of individuals, who in desperation have gone to veterinarians and remarkably convinced the veterinarian to inject them with the canine vaccine,’ he says.”

    Yeah, don’t do that.

    And finally, lyme isn’t the only tick-borne disease, so use a tick preventative on your dog (Frontline, Vectra 3D, K9 Advantix, Preventic collars) and something human-safe for yourself.

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