hello, I'm yet another visitor via Dr. Bitch

thanatologist is a word? that's wonderful, it's times like this I adore academia all the more.

I'd by lying if I said I didn't have a dreadful fear of death, but something I'm fascinated by is the idea that your death is the only thing that you are is truly alone for (rather the opposite of birth, really). So I suppose this way the idea of death is both universal and entirely personal.

here I thought I'd be the first poster and the trolls beat me to it, to bad...

A friend of mine lost her mother a couple of years ago and she feels the same way you do about Mother's day. My Mom has had a rough year and I'm really going out of my way for her this year. I have no children myself, but I enjoy making it a nice day for my Mom and sister-in-law.

BTW- your boobs caused a furor and they are REAL. How about THAT!

Who thinks men don't die? I'm a man, and I think I'm going to die one day. I don't think only women and gays are going to die. I don't know any other men theat think they are immortal. Do you know any men that believe they are immortal? Please provide an example.

I assume you've watched 6 Feet Under? There were a lot of dead men shown there. (But that was HBO.)

I've never been afraid of death. When I was a little girl, I had a series of recurring dreams about death, all of which were comforting, none of which had much of an afterlife, and have since never bought the whole afterlife thing nor feared death.

In fact, on reflection, the people I know that fear death the most tend to have very firm beliefs on the afterlife. Hm.

Janelle, you are right that we see men represented as dead on our many--many--current television programs depicting corpses that have died violently. You will find, though, if you watch as an analyst, these narratives tend to depict those who have died as somehow different than "normal." The white men, for example, will be shown as "sex perverts" or poor. As to the billions of female corpses on t.v. every day, well we are not considered "normal" in this culture. Hence the impetus to connect us, rather than men, with mortality.

"...thin, young, white, blonde women posed as dead bodies in order to sell stuff. They don't represent men as dead bodies in advertising,..."

It is the movement of pornorgraphic imagery (which is really all about death) to pedophilila. Younger and younger, thinner and thinner. The vulnerable, controllable, child-like image.

Women are too hard for men to handle. If they can't force us to take it up the ass and degrade ourselves in the various pornographic ways that are supposed to be so "freeing" they'll turn to children.

I'm a hospice nurse/PhD student (with a focus on family caregivers at end of life), who also made my way over here from Bitch PhD.

Yes, in some ways we die more alone than we are born (as in there is not another person participating in the same act the way a mother and child are) but really, one of the crimes (in my mind) of our modern U.S. world is the number of people who die alone. It doesn’t have to happen that way, and can be a moving and transformative experience.

There's a lot more parallels between birth and death than not -- including that they are both natural processes that have been overmedicalized, that they are events that we do not have control over (without intervention), that they represent the two greatest life transitions but tend to be hidden/misunderstood (and often depicted as a lot neater and tidier than the reality is). There's a reason a number of midwives/labor & delivery nurses move into end of life work.

People regularly ask me how I can do such "depressing" work--actually, it's not depressing at all. Emotionally charged, yes, sad at times, yes, but not depressing. It is such an honor to be part of one of life's great transitions -- to midwife the process. It can be a time of such intimacy, and always, always, always, a learning experience. That which we fear we, as a culture tend to either hide away or distort. If we embraced death as part of life, I think we’d have a much saner culture—life is, after all, terminal.

there's really nothing else going on with me lately--unless of course you count the furor my tits have caused, but since none of that is my business, I don't.

I was pointed here by someone who sent me the "don't rape her" post, and I read from there. I haven't gone and looked at the pictures, and I won't, because I'd rather think of you as a fine mind than as a boob (or two). Can we leave the titty thing now?

On this post's topic: I've always said that I'm not afraid of dying; I'm afraid of suffering. I believe that when I die, I'll be dead — and so I won't care. Perhaps there'll be a few people still alive who'll be sad about it, or, at least, I like to think so. It's not death that disturbs my mind, but the process leading to it.

I'm going to have to read your post at least a couple of times more to really digest it, and then maybe there'll be more to say....

Janelle raises an interesting point with regard to Six Feet Under. I would argue that the first character to die in that series was the father, who regularly re-appeared as an afterlife vision to his wife and children. It's kind of like when men are dead, they're not really dead. It's similar to the voice over from the dead man in American Beauty (same writer).

Often in television shows there's a visual emphasis on dead women's bodies - corpses - with much greater frequency than that of dead men's bodies. If you look at the first five minutes of any CSI or Law & Order episode (just two of the many shows Diana referred to) you can see it quite readily.

The message from popular media is that women, children, people of color, non-heterosexuals die more and more violently than straight white men... and their corpses are worth looking at.

Do men really die less than women? No, but since we don't gaze at the object of the male body in life, why start in death?

That's why I'm going to start looking at skunk corpses.

My gay friends always complain that gays end up murdered or at least dead in every film. The message has always been to them, gay = tragic death.

Let's see, for Mother's Day, you'd like to talk about dead women, and how awful things are for men?

So, do you sympathize with the slave masters instead of the slaves? And sympathize with the Nazis instead of the Jews? Oh gee, if we just would've sympathized with these poor, poor white boys and understood them and loved them just a little bit more and not expected them to be so perfect, maybe they wouldn't have been such assholes?

Oh my gosh, why haven't we thought of this new and innovating idea before now?!

Oh, puh-lease, Dr. Blaine. Where did you get your PhD? In a cracker jack box? Or are you hoping if you kiss these boys ass enough, they'll spare yours?

Give me a break, doc. The problem is the exact opposite of what you state.

Since when have men ever been expected to be perfect? There has never been any pressure on men to do much of anything, let alone be perfect. For crying out loud, they're congratulated and given kudos for picking up the toilet seat!

In short, you have everything half-assed, backwards, doc.

The problem is men are too loved, cherished, valued and worshipped, paid more than they're worth and always excused for their behavior. Why do you think they call it patriarchy?

Yeah, I know, I know. The patriarchs pay your paycheck. And the only thing that does sell is misogyny and the worshipping of the phallocracy. You know which side of the bread it's buttered on.

But let's tell the truth and shame the devil. 80% of the casualties in war are women and children. But let's support the troops? Let's feel oh so bad for the poor, poor, armed-to-the-teeth strutting soldiers that kill unarmed women and children? I don't call that brave. I call that cowardly.

But your little rant about Bush and his cronies is a pretty slick diversion to divert the boys from what the real problem is. Themselves. They don't need your help in blaming others. Boys learn to do that from the day they learn to speak. They're never held accountable for their behavior. It's always someone else's fault.

As far as masculinity goes, it is men who created this farce. Femininity as well. They are both male creations and 2 faces of the same male god. Your focus is on the masculine Apollo model. As if the feminine Dionysus model is any better. One destroys violently and the other destroys through assimilation. The end is still the same. The means is just different.

Yes, all men die. But here's the kicker. They don't need to be born. Unless women say so. Men were created for the amusment of women. Not vice versa. Somewhere along the line, men forgot that.

I think women should step up to the plate and start taking responsibility for the life they create. Because life is currently hanging in the balance because men are irresponsible with power. Not just human life. But all life on the planet.

The only love I think is in order here is tough love. If men can't clean their messes and their act up (and no one can clean it up BUT them), then women need to just stop creating them. It's as simple as that.

No worries. 99% of men could be eliminated and life wouldn't skip a beat. They are totally insignificant and unnecessary. Which is why they created patriarchy in the first place. To convince us that they were really, really important. They're not. In fact the males in many species have already disappeared from the planet. Human males are not exempt. The Y chromosome is progressively degenerating from it's already degenerative state. Scientists already know what will be men's eventual fate. Extinction. So even if women won't take responsibility for the life they create, Mother Nature will.

I know this is harsh. But men have pushed the envelope too far. My sympathies are not with men. It is for the life they are destroying. The life that females so painstakenly create. That males so totally disrespect because they are not the ones who create it. Even Mother Nature herself, has had about enough of it.

P.S. Happy Mother's Day

A rhetorical masterpiece Lucky Nickel.

Brava.

lucky nickel must be a reeley important person thare not maney pepel who have the authoritey to speek for mother nature and what is strangerest of all is i wold have be thenk that almost everytheng she saed is wrong....hum come to thenk about it i still thenk almost everytheng she saed is wrong...i gess is a good theng for man that her kind will never be in charge of aneytheng.

Posted by Mohummedshahirikiri;

gess is a good theng for man that her kind will never be in charge of aneytheng

OK Mo, may I call you Mo?

OK, Moho sweetheart, my jihadist of love, my fatwa of erotic delight...I'll put this in pigeon arabic for you...

Yu no foole nobode. We kknoow U fak aarab moroon. Plese to cese beeing Kamels smeely eeshole. Goe eway & bee big boil on someones elses buttuk.

my oh my seaneen but what a teribel speller you have become...you shold lern bester than this and then who knows be may then you will finaley get tenure.

Re: Lucky Nickel's comment:

I have to say, this is the first time - in the years i've been lucky enough to have known Dr. Blaine - that i've heard her accused of "misogyny and the worshipping of the phallocracy." Really? Do you think she's making any apologies for male behavior? (Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't!)
But I do not think that's what's happening here. I think the point of this particular post was about how we DO view women as mortal, as abnormal, as substandard, and how we see men as immortal, the norm, the standard. And to further the point, she points out that yes, schockingly enough, men die too - and not just when they fail the societal masculinity test.

Men "are totally insignificant and unnecessary." Do you really think feminism is going to get anywhere with this? One of my favorite quotes from author belle hooks says that Feminism is the "radical notion that women are people too." It does not imply that men are not. Men are people, and feminism can be libertaing for those with Y chromosomes as well. That is not to say that they, unlike the ones depicted as dead - women, non-heterosexuals, children, people of color, the poor - won't have to lose something for it. And it's definitely not to say that they shouldn't. They have a world of privilege and power to give up on, and they will have to take responsibility for the power structure they've created. But part of the beauty of feminism is that one day we might all share equally in the proverbial pie; it's not necessarily a zero-sum game. And when we do get there, women will not be the ones apologizing. I don't, however, think we need to obliterate all the men to get to that end.

Calling men out on their mortality does not further the goal of patriarchy. It does, however, show a common physical inevitably that women and men all share. And Dr. Blaine astutely points out that feminist goals may let us admit that, and that men may want that freedom as well. But in no way was this an apology for the atrocities perpetuated in war or the structure of our sexist, racist, heterosexist society.

Men "are totally insignificant and unnecessary."

Look around you: The male of the species (with one or two iffy exceptions) is unnecessary except for propagation.

Lucky Nickel isn't the author of this. Mother Nature is.

I've re-re-read, and digested, and I've little further comment on the "death" topic. My mother is long dead, but I have the fortune to have another, who's been dear to me for most of my life. When she goes, I'll still have her sons, my brothers. As we die, life and memories carry on. Why need we fear that? Why do we fear it?

I have more to say here:

It's time to stop pressuring men to be perfect: inviolable, immortal, infallible, invulnerable and independent.
[...]
Today in the United States though we tend to celebrate the coyboy, the killer

I'm not sure I see how accepting our mortality will help here. I'd rather see less testosterone running things. How can so many countries have elected women leaders — including some where women are not otherwise treated particularly well, by our standards — and yet we've yet to have even a viable candidate? If Ireland, the UK, Germany, Israel, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines (and, too briefly, Canada and France) can do it, why can't the United States?

"As to the billions of female corpses on t.v. every day, well we are not considered "normal" in this culture."

Quite the opposite. Woman in our rape culture--thin, vulnerable, childlike, heroin chic and yes corpses, with artificial breasts and buttocks (no-one who weighs 98 lbs has size 36DDD breasts) looking if not actually being no older than 16-18, *is* the norm, as defined by our misogynistic patriarchal culture. This is the message: you are reviled as you are.

This constructed woman, modeled in every aspect of our culture not only the media, is the *normal*.

If she were not, you'd not have gone to Burning Man with the purpose you did.

"He just fucks her pain away..."

"Ne-Yo’s narrator tells his irate receptacle that he takes her seriously, but we know this is a horndog lie, because does he say, “What’s bothering you, honey? Let me get you a glass of sherry and rub your feet while you tell me all about it.”? No. Instead, he swiftly and dismissively informs her that she’s “the cutest thing” and “so damn sexy” when she’s mad, and that her “attitude” is wholly responsible for the inevitable blue-veined swaybacked throbber with which he has no choice but to “blow [her] out” during the “angry sex.” He also admits to a preference for this scenario. What modern girl could resist the winning combination of infantilization, appeals to her vanity, and rape? He just fucks her pain away, I guess."

blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com

Take away the art works and literature created by males and what would be left?

Wake up, men fight wars on behalf of women, as well as for themselves.
Without men women would war against each other anyway, they do it already.
Your sort of daft nonsense is destructive, that's all. No use to anyone.

PhD's must be cheap in America.

Reminds me of the great HimALayas debate

How exciting is this do you think? I�m really not sure.

�I will not.� Suzanne replied, her face red with embarrassment.

i stood there in my bra, my limbs tied, my mouth taped, my clothes taped, and i waited with more than a passing interest to see what would happen next.

I acknowledge that bagels are comparatively rare outside the U.S. and Canada, but if you can get them that will make the experience even better.

The rain begin suddenly all over the roof,

At breakfast I showed the kids the worldsocialism card which meant I had to explain to them what capitalism is.

he eventually made his way to safety, and clung to the wall, looking at me, glaring, demanding apology.