It’s About Making Babies!

Twitter

Twitter is a neat function. You get 140 characters to blurt out what you are doing. Chores, shopping, visiting a friend. Etc. Very much etc.

Etsy is a craft web site, a very prominent gathering of handmade craft vendors from about the world, and a place to generally find craft type stuff. Also very prominent, a few minutes ago, punching out twits on Twitter.com adertising, in 140 characters or less, each and every “shop”. I guess it isn’t Twitter spam, exactly. Commercial twits have been annoying.

- The front door, an analogy

I can remember when houses had a front door so that you could go out and chop wood for the fire, take care of the livestock chores, and let in a breeze, in season. Then friends started using the door when they visited.

Ever hear of the Fuller Brush man? A traveling salesman that brought his brushes and stuff, packed the load of samples from his car to your door, and introduced all the doodads and geegaws your hear – and bundle of pin money – could stand. There was the Watkins man – black pepper and other spices, a syrup that Kool-aid eventually drove out of the market on price, and usually not on taste. My cousin (a retired tax attorney) sold encyclopedias door to door.

Now that same door that lets in the neighbor kids out trick-or-treating gets fewer door-to-door sales pitches – except for the school and band and church fundraisers. (“Oh, good! We can teach our children to beg and take money for “a good cause” and not be responsible for repaying the donor what the money is worth.”) Maybe the odd Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon youth on their mandatory Missionary journey.

- Back to Twitter

Twitter is still at the traveling sales pitch stage.

I followed one link to CasaSugar for a post about a photographer to follow, Kari Herer. Ms. Herer does commercial, pet, children, product, and other photography. Her infant pictures are astonishing, and she supports a “Picture Me Well” project, benefitting ill children. Kari Herer is a great find, and a bright joy for me this morning.

So CasaSugar “Home sweet Home” must be a great find. I appreciate the link to photographer Kari Herer, I do. Yet the ads? All fashion, all “sexy” and mildly provocative. And I found myself with a single observation – a question. Does this make better babies?

What is a woman?

Is a woman a creature meant, as Adam and Eve are explained in the Genesis book of the Bible, to engage with the male of the species? I mean, if that is the case, then cosmetics and provocative moves and actions and toys and clothes and habits are all spot-on. If the purpose of woman is to engage in sex, then anything that attracts a (willing?) partner transforms the woman into uber-woman.

But, the babies?

Without modern pharmacology and science, without modern technology, sexually active women would be armpit-deep in babies, many of them. Because babies are begun as the male fluids generated during intercourse contain bits of living tissue that actually combine with a woman’s egg cell to become the composite cell that develops, over 3/4ths of a year, into a baby. More intercourse, barring technology, means more babies.

That same science that suppresses the fertility of a mating couple, that reduces the chances at any moment that a sex act will result in a baby, tells us about genetics.

Genetics

Genetics. The way that a group of genes influence people, and other living things. If your parents are both blonde haired and blue eyed, you are more than likely to have blonde hair and blue eyes. If you want a black haired, brown eyed child, find a daddy or mommy with black hair and brown eyes, and you have a better chance at a black haired, brown eyed child. Want a skilled or talented baby? Pick a mate that complements your own skills and talents.

Environment

Take a woman addicted to drugs, smoking, alcohol, or other stressing life condition. Make that a pregnant woman, giving birth. That child will be affected by the life Mom lived. Perhaps there is genetic damage from drugs or experiences that compromised Mom’s genetic material. Perhaps the infant is only addicted to the substances that Mom’s body no longer shares with that baby, as it did while the baby developed.

Flip side of making a baby

Take a woman, active in her life, with a good bit of strength and stamina. Take this woman, slightly under weight and gaining weight modestly at the time she conceives. This condition improves fertility and strength of the child. Let this woman continue her active life almost without change, right up until the pregnancy, the burgeoning child, provides awkardness and additional work to balance restrictions in Mom’s daily work. With healthy guidance our mother to be has been exercising, focusing on muscles involved in pregnancy and delivery and beyond, and on a steady heartbeat and good circulation, lots of water to drink and appropriate balance of food types and amounts. During the wonder of growing her child, she has been talking, patting and massaging, and generally communicating and encouraging the growth of her child.

There are important things that make a better baby.

(I still get tickled at thinking of the half-off book rack at Hastings a while back. The book on breastfeeding, “So that is what they are for” got me to thinking – there must be a *lot* of guys disappointed to find out what role in life breasts fill for the newborn and toddler.)

Back to the mate, mate.

Fashion plays several roles in society. Fashion is almost always used as conspicuous consumption – spending unnecessarily to boast of assets and resources.

In more “primitive” cultures one might dress differently, pick specific adornments to alert those around – one is available as a mate-prospect. Courting attire is intended to attract a “good” mate, one that will enhance their mate and their community.

One measure of decadence is using sex for social recreation, using sex partners for displays of conspicuous consumption. For using courting displays – fashion – for “fun” or attracting partners-of-the-moment.

Fashion Ads at CasaSugar

And that is where I come away shaking my head at CasaSugar. The ads for a pair of jeans that highlight a slim woman’s crotch – to advertise how attractive she would be as a sex partner. Or the blouse that emphasizes a woman’s breasts as what makes her beautiful, or paint for the face.

Because I can not shake the feeling – this does not make better babies.

If you attract a dude chasing the latest commercial scent, the latest peekaboo blouse, the latest push up bra – he will continue to chase those accoutrement when other women use them. Set an image, an illusion, between you and a prospective partner, and you blind yourself and your partner to the realities of why people get together in intimate homes.

The reason for couples.

We are here because, in the past, people got together and made babies. Sex may be the end of what partners-of-the-moment consider, but people set up homes with someone to help raise a family.

Picking someone that will stick to a promise, that will be honest and honorable, someone that will pass their character on to their children, assures the community and family of a successful home.

Using bars and clubs, hot or sexy clothes, cosmetics and scents to find a companion makes finding a good companion a crap shoot. The risk that you grab a partner-for-the-moment instead of a mate is vastly greater, when you go looking using bait favored by partners-for-the-moment and look in places that partners-for-the-moment gather.

And picking a partner that doesn’t have any character cannot raise a child with character.

My beef with fashion.

I find that fashion tends to increase the amount of unplanned, spontaneous sex between people together for only casual reasons. And that leads to more unwanted babies, babies that lack parents chosen for their ability to raise a family.

Fashion does not make better babies.

Cathouse Teri welcomes spring with Sweet Cherry Wine at The Road Lester Traveled.

But spring is often the season that scares women. We’ve been able to hide our bodies under layers of thick clothing for months. Now we’re afraid that our flesh is..

And we all know how the fears go. But should this be an annual, lifelong fear?

Who needs this?

At the end of Angel and the Bad Man, John Wayne drops his gun in the street, rides off into the sunset with his sweetie “I’m a farmer!” he tells the Sheriff.

The Sheriff comments, “Only a man that carries one, needs a gun.”

I think this is true of much of fashion and cosmetics and advertising (sex) gimmicks are horrible. Worse than drugs or booze, or sexual violence, they destroy the ability for most people to live and enjoy their lives. According to the ads, I need an iPhone, an iPod, six or seven new cars, my face pierced, pills and devices to make my stomach smaller and enlarge my .. ahem.

Like the barn cats care. They get their cat food twice a day, and I don’t see them around.

Is it too strong to say, for most women, only one that wears a brassiere, needs one? In some neighborhoods you might not have a choice.

Wearing a bra most often will emphasize the sexual experience characteristics of a woman’s breasts. Does the absence of a bra also signify sexually active and desirable? In a skin-tight t-shirt it does. What about while nursing? Usually the baby, and the mother’s care and joy capture my thoughts.

Is it too strong to say, if you don’t live like a sex object, you are free to live like a happy person without rating your body (parts) on sex appeal? Except the smile. The smile is critical, in my opinion, in getting to know good people.

I mean, if a guy follows a shapely or tanned butt or legs home – what makes you think that he won’t follow another one home in a month or a year? Wouldn’t you rather have a spouse-candidate that knows and appreciates who you are – and respects you, not your tan lines or leg size?

So, Cathouse Teri and all those with mixed feelings about exposure – enjoy the sun and breeze. Figure anyone that matters to you won’t care about how your parts measure on a sex appeal scale. Let them gawk or not. It isn’t your problem.

Peace!