Part-Time Pundit

DI Guest Column Up: Rush to judgment only perpetuates VT tragedy

I have a guest column up at the Daily Illini on the Virginia Tech massacre on the insane push to “do something” in the wake of these tragedies. If we stopped at the “shock and sympathy phase” and just had candle-lit vigils, we could credit it to a good and healthy society… it’s the insanity that follows in the press and halls of policy-makers in the wake of these incidents that show an ugly and stupid side of our society.

I had a brief debate with the editor about “enculturate” vs “inculturate” and the editor of course wins those debates.

On Business Law Matters

Make sure to have legal issues judged properly and hir a corporate lawyer to handle any large business claims. Having a business lawyer on your side can be a huge advantage in legal proceedings. So find a commercial lawyer who works for your business.

April 30th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Chambana, Columns, DailyIllini | no comments

Column: Sex Out Loud - Celebrating Tragedy as Triumph

The following appeared as a guest column in today’s Daily Illini:

Sexuality, by its very nature, is a vulnerable thing. It involves letting someone share the deepest parts of one’s body, heart, and soul. It has pride of place as an expression of romantic love. In its natural form, there is no better practice of intimacy.

March 14th will be the annual Sex Out Loud fair put on by the Feminist Majority. The general point of this fair, falsely dubbed a “sexual health fair”, is that as long as the physical consequences of sex can be controlled, nothing else matters. If it [physically] feels good, do it. But sex isn’t solely a physical matter and by treating it as such, grave harm is done to women particularly.

“Control”, “safe”, “protection”, these are the words that the “sexual health” groups use for sex. These attitudes are usually solely directed at controlling the physical aspects of sex.

The problem is that our sexuality cuts across all dimensions of our personhood. We are physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. Sexuality embraces all of these dimensions. By shrinking sexuality to a merely physical act and then bringing the full weight of science to control the physical consequences, we’ve adopted a sexual mentality based on impenetrability.

With the mainstreaming of contraception in the early part of the 20th century and the invention of the pill in the 60s, sexuality began to be divorced from the natural consequences of sex. With the “consequence” of conception out of the way, people were “free” to be with anyone they wanted.

Women were supposed to be empowered to finally love as equals and have sex with as much disregard as men supposedly did. Women were now free to be with anyone, yet get close to no one. The result is that the sexual revolution has delivered grave harm to women. A “revolution” that began in hedonism has bred a generation of cynics.

Instead of vulnerability, people approach sex trying to protect themselves. Instead of an experience of a person at their deepest levels, it’s an experience of mere gratification. “Protected sex” is sex that satiates but does not satisfy. The human wreckage from this idea is vast and is felt most by women.

Since men are brought up in the “bottle it up” school of emotional development, they are better equipped to handle the isolation that is a result of this sexual pathology. Women, on the other hand, are unable to escape the inevitable loneliness, depression, and isolation that results from this disconnected sex.

One only needs to look at adultery to see the emotional consequences that can result from sex. Even in a “free sex” world, something about cheating on a partner still registers as one of the greatest betrayals possible.

After having experienced the empty promises of sexual freedom for two generations, people are rediscovering chastity and the promises it holds. Chastity isn’t a new concept, it is what we already know in our hearts but refuse to acknowledge with our lips. We want to be fully and deeply accepted by another person on all levels of our being and that is only possible be reserving oneself for that “special someone.”

In books such as “The Thrill of the Chaste” by Dawn Eden, women retell their conversion from “sexually liberated” to “chaste” and show through their own experience that “protected sex” does not lead to the fulfillment we really desire. In embracing the true meaning of our sexual desires, we are free to approach others in a way where we can truly be connected and not objectified. It requires vulnerability not impenetrability.

The voices of chastity are increasing as more and more people see the broken marriages, broken homes, and broken hearts that are a result of “liberated sexuality”. Only in vulnerability and chastity can we truly find sexual fulfillment and the intimacy our hearts desire.

Author Dawn Eden will be giving a talk at 7:30pm, March 13th in Newman Hall’s Lewis Lounge. She will also be at the chastity booth during Sex Out Loud on March 14th.

March 12th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, DailyIllini, Sex | 3 comments

My views on the Chief

Because I’m in the Daily Illini today with a soundbite, I’m going to clarify my views on the Chief matter. My views have largely not changed since I said retire the Chief in 2003. However, I would not consider myself Anti-Chief. The Peoria, the descendants of the Illini Confederation, have asked us to retire the Chief. Since it represents them, I think they and only they have a say here. Not the Lakota, not the Sioux, not the Cherokee, or any other tribe. Hundreds of years ago they spent time kililng each other and it is stupid to lump all of those very disparate cultures under one umbrella as “Native American” and then say they are all the same. That would be like saying the Irish and Italian are of the same culture… European.

In 1995, it is true, the Chief of the Peoria said they were honored by Cheif Illiniwek and they wanted him to stay. The controversy should have died there. In 2000, they had a private vote without comment and changed their position. Regardless of their reasons, it is their heritage and they can do with it as they want. If Bertie Ahern called up Notre Dame and wanted them to drop the Fighting Irish, I think they should do it too.

That said, I am more opposed to the Anti-Chief movement than I think the Chief should be retired. It’s obvious the Peoria know they have bigger problems. I think the Chief would have been retired years ago if it weren’t for the obnoxious, stupid, and sometimes violent activities of the Pro-Chief movement. Making this a “Native American” thing is beyond stupid and exposes the absurdity of the racist claim. They don’t even know the basics about the race they are talking about. How the Chief dance metaphysically creates an oppressive environment for minorities, I have no idea. Of course, the overt hostitilty towards conservatives and Christians actually in the classroom is not only unimportant, it’s “the way things are supposed to be.” Likely, if the Anti-Chief movement would have likely approached the Board in a constructive way, I have full confidence that they would have retired the Chief awhile ago. Instead, it took the NCAA having to pay off the University. And while that is my conjecture, based on the timing and the letters, it is a reasonable conclusion that the NCAA has given the University something to do this. Which leads me to my last point.

The Open Meetings Act requires business to be done in the open. No backroom votes, no secret deals, nothing. The law is VERY clear on this point. There are only very narrow exceptions to the Open Meetings Act, and not only do none apply, but if Eppley wants to claim one he had to do it in a public announcement before the fact. If it was truly urgent, and it is hard to see why an issue that has been going on for 15 years suddenly became urgent, he could have declared an emergency meeting of the Board. The law allows for that. However, dealing with this under a shroud secrecy has clearly violated the Open Meetings Act, is apparently a Class C Misdemeanor, and the decision could be voided in a court of law by anyone who wanted to file suit.

The University, the public, and the alumni deserved for this decision to be made in public. This is the biggest decision the Board has made in decades. It deserved to be made legally.

February 19th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Chambana, DailyIllini, Law / Legal Issues, University of Illinois | one comment

Column: You are More than Your Vagina

(Note: Published in Daily Illini as guest column)

Throughout history one of the main dynamics that has influenced relationships between men and women is what can be called the “vagina monopoly.” Men want them and only women have them. In fact, the world’s oldest profession was one that was originally only capable of being performed by women. That profession was the “renting” of women to men for sex. Most of the pathological aspects in male-female relationships revolve around the objectification of women as objects of sexual gratification.

Originally, feminism was about changing attitudes, particularly that women are of equal dignity as men. Women can be just as capable to become doctors, lawyers, CEOs or politicians. Far from being merely sperm receptacles, they are people entitled to the full balance of human dignity. The rallying call of these feminists was “love me for my mind, not just my body.”

Those days are long gone. Enter groups such as the Feminist Majority at the University of Illinois. The motto of this group and those like it can be described as “love me for my body … PLEASE!” The slogans they chose to put on their T-shirts revolve around sex toys and genitalia. In psychology this would be called a “fixation.”

Women traditionally have been looked upon as sexual objects. So what do these neofeminists do? Celebrate and proclaim liberation in being a sex object, of course. Frat boys on campus look at these poor girls as a vagina on two legs and they want to slap that idea on a T-shirt and sell it. They’ve gone one step further from the prostitution of women to preaching harlotry. The difference between a prostitute and a harlot is that the prostitute at least has enough self respect to demand payment for services rendered.

What the “patriarchy” has tried to establish for centuries is whole-heartedly embraced and celebrated, ironically, by self-styled icons of feminism. The results of such puerile notions have been nothing short of tragic.

Every study on the subject has shown that women who buy into the inner-slut mentality of neofeminism are devastated. They suffer from depression, low self-esteem, STDs, single motherhood and they generally feel rejected in life. They grow into jaded women who think that the path to fulfillment is in imitating the worst men among us.

College-aged women can entertain notions of promiscuity-as-fulfillment because society has always lusted after the young woman. However, as they age they find fewer and fewer partners. They’ve become “cold product” and are discarded in favor of “younger models.”

It has lead to the rejection of the biggest trait distinctive of women - motherhood. The senseless slaughter of children for the sake of sexual convenience (about 99 95 percent of all abortions according to the Guttmacher Institute) ranks first among the horrors in the history of humanity. More children have been murdered through abortion than any other genocide in human history. Abortion makes the Holocaust look like a petty crime in comparison.

It is time for a thorough re-evaluation of neofeminism in the light of the human wreckage strewn in its wake. Luckily there are women out there who are discovering that the path to fulfillment does not lie in the inner-slut myth.

Books such as Dawn Eden’s “Thrill of the Chaste,” Wendy Shalit’s “A Return to Modesty,” and others are reexamining the role of sexuality in a woman’s life and are finding that a sequence of unfulfilling anonymous sexual encounters are not at all empowering.

The case for sexual fidelity has never been stronger. Women are finding that sexual fulfillment isn’t found in anonymous sexual encounters or relationships that generate only from physically satisfying sexual escapades, but is found from the lifelong, permanent and complete union of marriage.

Being free from the Friday-night quests to the local syphilis buffet for Mr. Right Now means that women are free to pursue being doctors, lawyers, and being all-around great women. You know … all those opportunities that feminism was supposed to create.

UPDATE: Because so many people wanted sources here are a few.

From Guttmacher, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, you can read that rape is less than .5% of the most important causes for abortion, health of the mother is 4%. Now I don’t regard “health” of the mother as particularly indicative of anything because pregnancy is, by definition, a HUGE factor for the health of the mother and comes with no small share of risk. It’s used flippantly in debates and I have no reason to see the same crowd doesn’t use it flippantly in research. However, even assuming those are serious health considerations (a statement that no one is in any position to say one way or the other), that means 95.5% of abortions are for reasons of convenience. Ok, so here’s your correct, it’s not 99% (I was using old data), it’s 95%. I’m man enough to post corrections, are my critics?

As far as links to say depression on sex (particularly teen sex), see here, here, here, and there is plenty of good ones coming out of the hopper for adults as we speak. That was from a quick web search, I can find more. In fact, there was some interesting studyins on depression and anal sex, depression and gay sex, and so forth. But there are studies, including one that was in the very paper I was writing for not more than a month before.

November 30th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | DailyIllini, Politics, Religion, Sex | 7 comments

Sex on Campus: Not as Fulfilling as you Think

A recent study in the Journal of Sex Research links depression in women to casual sex. This flies in direct contrast to a campus culture that tries to celebrate “uncommitted sex.” The problem is it flies in the face of our internal nature, and is the case in most emotional matters, comes down hardest on women.

Like most campuses, the University of Illinois hosts an annual celebration of uncommitted sex called “Sex Out Loud.” It presents a generally one-sided account of sex which doesn’t represent reality. Sex has consequences and those consequences are felt mostly by women.

One interesting feature of the study shows that it is more typical for uncommitted sexual encounters to take place between friends instead of strangers. What this indicates to me is that women and men have a hard time in this society relating to each other in non-sexual ways. “Friends with benefits” used to be a joke a decade ago when I was an undergrad, now it’s a sad reality.

The study shows what many on the right (particularly religious) have always known, that sex has meaning beyond the physical. People long to be in an intimate relationship and meaningless sex does nothing but break down those relationships. Women begin to feel like little more than objects instead of people to who deserve to be cherished.

Likely this story will be ignored on campus and the general media but it’s another statement that the sexual revolution got it wrong. Those who surfer most from that error is women.

November 9th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | DailyIllini, Pro-Life, Religion, University of Illinois | 6 comments

The End of an Era: I Have Left the Daily Illini

The rumors are true, yesterday was my last day with the Daily Illini. I’ll have audio from my time on WPGU tomorrow hopefully. As much as I’d like to stir controversy, there is nothing invidious. One, personal life is getting hectic due to a new addition around Christmas and I’m working on moving on to other things (more on that later). That, and after securing the Eric Naing endorsement for governor, I have achieved the heights no other columnist has! (His endorsement was much more amusing than mine, sorry Eric.)

Eric Naing, columnist
For Illinois Governor:

John Bambenek. Blagojevich is corrupt, Topinka is (for lack of a better description) a Republican and you have no idea who Rich Whitney is. What’s a voter to do? Write in John Bambenek for governor of course!
The son of a Mongolian goat herder, Bambenek single-handedly ended Communism and escaped to America where he now works to provide AIDS orphans in Africa with an education, seriously (well, at least the last part). The only way to fix Illinois is to vote for the only man who ever beat Abraham Lincoln at arm wrestling. This Tuesday, write in Bambenek for Governor, otherwise we’ll all die.

It’s been extremely (and surprisingly) fun to work for the DI and I enjoyed it greatly. Thanks Jenette, Yoshi, and Vince.

November 8th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Chambana, DailyIllini, Misc | one comment

I will be on WPGU 107.1 FM Tonight at 11pm

I will be on WPGU tonight (Tuesday) at 11pm discussing negative campaigning and this election cycle. You can listen in C-U at 107.1 FM or online at the WPGU website. I don’t know if calls can be taken, but the number is 217-337-1071.

November 7th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Chambana, DailyIllini, Elections, Politics | no comments