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Month: March 2018

Speaking with the Enemy?

Published by Starshine Roshell on March 10, 2018

Chatting Up Christian Gun Owners ‘The Benham Bros.’

Much has been sermonized about the incivility of modern American discourse: We’re too polarized, too entrenched in our own viewpoints. If we spent less time ranting and more time actually listening to our ideological opponents, this might be a less hatey, less shooty place to live. And heck, (say it with me now) we “might even discover that we’re not as different as we think.”

So this week I reached out to a pair of Jesus-preaching, evolution-denying, gun-owning abortion opponents to see if we could find common ground. And guess what? We’re precisely as different as we think. 

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Rooting Against Your Kids

Published by Starshine Roshell on March 10, 2018

Yes, Sometimes We Do Want Them to Fail

There’s tough-love parenting, and then there’s just “tough luck, kid!” Wisconsin GOPSenate candidate Kevin Nicholson got a heaping helping of the latter last week when his Democrat parents each donated $2,700 — the maximum amount allowed by law — to support his opponent’s campaign. Which is bound to make Easter dinner exceptionally awkward.

But it got me thinking about the times I’ve rooted against my own kids, and whether it was the right thing to do. Since, you know, they’re not even Republicans.

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This Is Not Your Parents’ Sex

Published by Starshine Roshell on March 10, 2018

Women Share Stories About Sex After 50

Nobody wants to think about their parents having sex. Or their parents’ friends. Or, really, anyone their parents’ age. Because old-people sex is not hot.

We know this because countless magazine covers, soda commercials, music videos, and romance flicks tout taut-skinned hardbodies and shiny newness as indisputable turn-ons. Society is very clear: Gray hair ain’t no aphrodisiac … unless it’s on a guy … who’s charming a significantly younger woman … in a Viagra ad … as nature intended.

But then something freaky happens while you’re busy worshipping at the Church of Titillating Youth: You suddenly become your parents’ age. Gray hairs and all. And you realize that while you and your somewhat slack-skinned softbody are not likely to nude up in a music video anytime soon, you’re still fiendishly hot ​— ​and have oodles of sexin’ left to do.

So you write about it.

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#Me … NotSoMuch?

Published by Starshine Roshell on March 10, 2018

Confessions of a Last-Wave Feminist

Ladies, I gotta come clean. From the first time I saw it on a social media post, #metoo has rubbed me the wrong way. And I don’t mean, like, in a #metoo way.

The first wave of confessions was powerful — a silent but staggering wail that exposed the shocking pervasiveness of sexual assault and oppressive harassment in a nation that regularly applauds itself for equality.

For me, though, the hashtag became a maimed meme when women began tossing unsolicited ass pats and insufferable catcalls into the mix along with the egregious, menacing affronts. Though these may all be evidence of men treating us like property, it feels both insensitive and overly fragile to lump together the rapiest of rape with the old man saying, “Hey, how about a smile, sweetheart?”

Then came the naming and shaming, the firing and blacklisting and the systematic picking apart of each public apology like flesh from a carcass. That’s when my hackles went on high alert — and for a couple of good reasons:

Continue reading#Me … NotSoMuch?
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