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Readers, readers!

Aunt Pythia rarely does this, and really has never ever made up a question, but she absolutely needs to share a couple of things that nobody even came close to asking about this week. And yes, they’re about sex, or at least about genitals. Please skip this next section, and possibly all Aunt Pythia columns ever, if you are not interested in vulgar discussions of dirty topics. And yes, she’s taking this as an excuse to use the plural forms.

Clitorides

First, it might not surprise people to learn that Aunt Pythia talks about sex with her girlfriends. A lot. And she’s noticed a pattern in those conversations: some women can orgasm during intercourse, others cannot. And when I say cannot, I don’t mean cannot without help from, say, hands or a toy (Aunt Pythia does not often meet women who are in the alleged 15% of the population who cannot orgasm). I mean women who cannot through intercourse alone, with only a partner’s pelvic bone as tool.

Such an intriguing and natural categorization of women does not leave Aunt Pythia cold! She wants to get to the bottom of this! Why is this not one of the most basic conundrums of human existence, she wonders? Well, it is, and it has been (possibly! hopefully!) solved, in this article. It’s all about measuring distances, and once you say it like that, it makes perfect sense. Mystery revealed.

Penes

Aunt Pythia has been thinking a lot about objectification lately, and wondering why it happens so much more to women. One slightly philosophical approach to this question is understanding the extent to which men’s genitals are, to put it delicately, ripe for objectification versus, say, women’s breasts.

And the thing is, dear readers, they are not. Not as a general rule. And that is why, in my opinion, this video is so deeply radical. Warning! Please do not watch this video unless you are ready to have your mind blown! And please don’t say I didn’t warn you about this video.

Addendum: I feel like there should be a phrase invented for that video. Something like, hey man, don’t make me robocop your dick, or hey dude, don’t robocop your own dick. Suggestions welcome.

Back to our regularly scheduled advice column

After enjoying (or not!) today’s Aunt Pythia post and advice:

think of something to ask Aunt Pythia at the bottom of the page!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell Aunt Pythia is talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

Inspired by the PDF Hackathon, I was wondering if anyone has scraped any of the sites where things like NECAP and MCAS scores are posted ala Wikileaks. Are these things publicly available, and I just haven’t looked in the right places?.

I’m working on a letter to the chair of a committee in the state legislature that is considering a bill that would exempt teachers rated “highly effective” or “effective” from being evaluated the next three years. The link you posted to the six articles on VAM in New York have provided me with a lot of material. Mandatory inclusion of test scores in teacher evaluations is scheduled to be implemented this year in RI and I’m hoping that if we can drag our feet in RI until the negative effects in early adoption states become widely known maybe we can avoid making some of those mistakes. Unfortunately our education commissioner is one of Jeb Bush’s infamous “chiefs for change” and has a lot of clout.

Confused in RI

Dear Confused,

First, I feel your pain. And I’m not sure which link of mine you were referring to but it might as well be Eugene Stern’s guest post on his fears of a VAM-like model being implemented in New Jersey, which he wrote about a year ago, when it was being pushed by Chris Christie (I wonder what happened to that initiative? Eugene?). In fact please feel free to write your letter with many of the same points Eugene was making.

Second, there’s no way we want student test scores leaked ever, and for this purposes especially. The models themselves are secret, and the amount of details and information necessary to reconstitute even one teacher’s VAM score would expose many innocent people to scrutiny that they don’t deserve and is outright illegal and rightly so.

I’m afraid you will have to play this out politically, not using data. The whole point of it is that they control the data and are using the model as an opaque and threatening weapon.

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

My best friend and I used to talk often on the phone (like once a week for an hour, over the course of 5 years) but gradually over the past year, the frequency and length has declined, and also now she never initiates the calls or texts. She’s pretty busy – she is overworked at a job she hates, and has had various boyfriends, and recently moved in with one, and hangs out with friends who live close to her (I don’t). A few times lately she has failed to return my phone calls.

I am a really lonely guy … I have tried basically the kitchen sink at finding a girlfriend, but haven’t been successful yet and so she is who I typically turn to for emotional support. Anyways, I love talking with her, but often times lately I have been feeling sad because I feel so ignored by her, and I kind of feel that I am not valued as a friend. Do you think I should I stop initiating calls and texts? Not because I want to stop being friends with her, but because it’s a bit unfair of me to ask for so much support from her, and I should try to finding an actual girlfriend instead?

Lonely in New York(?!)

Dear Lonely,

I love it when my job is easy and the tough answer has already been provided. Yes, you need to go find your own girlfriend and stop asking one friend for that much support and love. She probably loves you and knows you need to disconnect from her in order to connect with others. Once you have a real live woman to talk to in New York I bet she’ll be psyched for you and more willing to return your (less frequent and less pathetic) calls.

Plus, according to this interactive love map created by Jonathan Soma, you should count your statistically lucky stars that there are 5 extra single women per 100 single men in New York.

And by the way, you definitely should start hanging out with friends first. Making friends is easier than finding a girlfriend and often helps.

Auntie P

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’m an undergraduate woman at a well-regarded (and presumably well-endowed) university in the South, in fact it once had the winning Putnam team and the winning NCAA basketball team in the same year, or some such nonsense.

Tuition is exorbitant, and in order to afford it, I have turned to some financially rewarding but controversial, um, artistic endeavors, let’s say, in which I exhibit my natural beauty and enhance my acting skills.

Some say these gigs are demeaning to or objectify women, others say they are a freedom of expression of things our culture tends to repress. Anyways, what would your advice to me be? Should I stay in the industry?

BK

Dear BK,

Let’s think about this pragmatically and long-term. Besides the risk of STD’s, which I assume you’re taking care of, I think the main question is the extent to which you are putting your future goals at risk by taking these gigs now, rather than a more standard, presumably lower-paying evening job.

So, how easily identifiable will you be to later potential employers? And what kind of employment are you interested in? In the extreme case, where you want to be a politician and you’re a huge internet porn star, I think we have a problem. On the other extreme, where you want to be a lab scientist and you are stripping at a local bar with no recordings, I don’t think there’s a major risk.

Your actual case is probably in the middle, and although I don’t know what it is, I’d venture to guess that you also don’t know exactly what it is, because you’re probably 19 or 20 or so and don’t know exactly what you’re doing with your life.

So my advice for staying or leaving hinges on this concern, that your options are being at least somewhat narrowed without you really knowing it. Or even if your options are not explicitly being narrowed, I’m hoping you gird yourself for assholes and assumptions, and I hope you can push back.

And when I say that, I’m also saying “fuck this society” under my breath. We are super prudish in the best of times and at less good time we are freaky and hostile towards women. That’s not your fault.

As to whether the industry is demeaning and objectifying, I’d say it’s objectifying almost by definition, and whether it’s demeaning is probably something you will not be able to fully answer until you live with the ramifications of having been in it. So get back to me in 10 years and tell me what you think.

Good luck,

Aunt Pythia

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Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!