Starshine Roshell's Open Salon Blog

One Tyke, One Teen

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:05:49 -0400

It’s the most irksome and indubitable law of the universe: Fate favors The Planner. The gal with the foresight to research preschools while she’s pregnant. Or to begin funding a 529 plan before her child can even gurgle the word “college.” Or to know what the frack she’s serving her family for dinner before she gets home from work at 6:22 p.m. and announces, yet again, “Umm … exciting news, everyone: It’s soup night! Grab your favorite can!”

By the time I emerged from the disorienting fog of baby care into the dense haze of toddler care and then, well, into the light but still unpleasantly wet mist of 1st-grader care (okay, I’m easily overwhelmed), it was too late to have children who would ever want to ride the same rides at Disneyland much less be able to attend the same school.In life — and in parenting, especially — she who wings it regrets it. But that’s exactly how I wound up having my kids seven years apart. When the other moms in my baby group were plotting their second and even third children, citing anecdotes about brotherly bonding and quoting stats about the effect of sibling spacing on each child’s health, intelligence, and self-esteem … I was busy trying to distinguish Boudreaux’s Butt Paste from Motherlove Nipple Cream, clawing my way out from beneath daily heaps of burp cloths and wondering if I’d accidentally stuffed my once-vigorous mojo into the Diaper Genie during a bleary-eyed late-night changing.

But what could I do? That’s when I finally felt it: The call of the sibling. That’s when I realized that nothing I had ever done, or dreamed of doing, made me feel as significant and fortunate as exchanging my mojo for motherhood and escorting my baby into boyhood. Now that he was entering a new stage — that of Big Kid — I realized I still had babying to do … and no one left to do it to.

So we queued up for Round Two, late to the party — and having long since purged our home of crib, high chair, and stroller.

Seven years is a long time. Longer than World War II. Longer than Demi and Ashton’s marriage. “We skipped the middle kid,” my husband often jokes, to curb the not-quite-polite questions that the span inevitably sparks. My boys are too far apart in age to reap all the benefits of siblinghood and too close to glean all the perks of only-childhood.

There are drawbacks on the parenting side, too: I’ve chased a crawling infant across a karate studio and an intrepid toddler around a soccer field. I’ve heard my kindergartner say, “She’s hot,” and seen my 5′10″ child engage in — and even launch — “he hit me first”/“did not”/“did, too” arguments.

Had I planned it better — had I planned it at all — perhaps we could have avoided these awkward moments. But then I would have never discovered this one enchanting advantage of our unusual family dynamic:

Even as my firstborn enters a new stage yet again — that of Churlish Teen — my second born still wants to snuggle. While the oldest pulls steadily away, increasingly mortified by my very existence, the youngest begs for kisses and bursts into grins when he sees me at school. It’s a miracle I don’t take for granted, a slice of serendipity so scrumptious that I have to wonder if “planning” isn’t actually, ultimately overrated.

Tonight the big one shuffled through the room and stopped to hug the little one. Seeing them pressed together, their relative ages juxtaposed, the broad reach of childhood represented in their various states of being, I felt a familiar pang: My second baby will soon slip away, too.

And there’s nothing to be done but plan on it.

Indecent Exposure - Today’s Kids Born to Porn

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:05:40 -0400

I hate things that make me sound like I’m 90 years old. And that’s what online porn is doing. Beckoning our teenagers from their laptops, iPhones, and tablets, X-rated Web sites are causing me to curse technology and pine for the good old days when smut knew its place: on the pages of a shrink-wrapped girlie magazine on the periodicals shelf of your neighborhood 7-Eleven.

Back in my day, we pored over dog-eared Playboys, passed aroundPenthouse letters, and stared agog at warbly VHS tapes of Deep Throat — all lifted from our parents’ stash. Or our friends’ parents’ stash. Or our parents’ friends’ stash.

Our teens — and, in some cases, ick, our preteens — are looking at this stuff. It’s not a question of if or when. They. Are. Looking. And how can you blame them? It’s a fascinating alien world. A big-box toy store. A freshly stocked cookie jar. I think it’s healthy for teens to explore their sexuality, and at least on-screen you can’t catch anything. Or create anyone.We had to work hard to see porn, and I’m not complaining; we had quite the work ethic. But today’s teens have to work hard not to see it. It’s free, it’s abundant, and it’s a single click away. Most of it is explicit, and much of it (what? I conducted a study) is so in-your-face graphic that you have to wonder if it’s intended to turn off the viewer.

But here’s my beef with porn: It’s not real sex. It doesn’t look or sound anything like intercourse between consenting human adults. And it’s not supposed to depict real sex, because it’s made to entertain adults who know better — the way action movies are stupidly entertaining or fast-food burgers are crazy-delicious but, if consumed in large quantities, will mess you up.

For young people who lack personal points of reference, porn can only skew their notions of sexuality and intimacy. Have you seen this stuff? How can it not launch kids onto their own sexual journeys believing that “safe sex” is a figment of their health teacher’s imagination, and that all women are hairless, spherical-breasted nymphos who make cool death-wail noises when you tug their pigtails?

“What do teens learn from porn?” says Sam Black, an Internet safety expert. “More partners are better. Stable relationships must be boring. Novelty provides greater satisfaction. Over time the brain that feeds on erotic media is trained to equate sexual excitement with the novelty and variety of pornography.”

Add what we know about the compulsive properties of porn, and the fact that many sex offenders were exposed to it at an early age — and I’m 90 again, ranting that the Internet is a plague on human decency and that Google is Satan’s search engine.

But clinical psychologist Nancy Irwin assures me that peeking at porn won’t topple our society — or corrupt our kids.

“If the child has already learned the basics of sex, has reached puberty, and if the sexual partners are treating each other with respect and sensuality and fun, it might be okay,” says Irwin, who has worked with both sex offenders and sex addicts. If you discover your kid’s been watching it, don’t react with shame, she says. “This is the time to ask what their feelings and questions are about sex and porn. Take this time to share your own beliefs. Empower the child to make his or her own choice about it.”

Back in my day, the birds-and-bees talk didn’t include the words “fetish” or “bondage,” but today’s parents have no choice. If we can spark an honest dialogue about a subject that for generations has been secretly, silently stowed between the mattress and the box spring, then maybe our kids have a shot at a normal, healthy sex life after all.

But they’d better stay out of my stash.

Mommy Porn: Fifty Shades of Bad Writing

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:04:10 -0400

It’s being called “mommy porn” by even the soberest of news media — so naturally I had to check it out. E.L. James’s erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey began as Twilight fan fiction, meaning the characters and a few plot points bear striking similarities to Stephenie Meyer’s girl-meets-vampire love story. But James, a British first-time author, reenvisions the story with a bookish young virgin who falls for a hunky self-made billionaire who’s perfect in every way. Except that he wants — nay, needs — for her to be his kinky sex slave.

Studded with more steamy sex scenes than you can shake a riding crop at, the book’s buzz among undersexed suburban housewives has driven it to the top of Amazon’s “Hot New Releases” list. The Fifty Shades trilogy, including sequelsFifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, occupies numbers one, two, and three on the New York Times best-seller list for ebook fiction. Hollywood studios are flogging each other for the movie rights.

I read Fifty Shades of Grey to see what all the fuss was about, and here’s what this mommy can tell you unequivocally: It’s a dozen shades of awful. Centering around the frustrating push and pull of a naïf who longs to be loved and a sicko who insists on being obeyed, the book is so absurd it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cringe. There’s the juvenile first-person narrative. The stupefying repetition of the phrase “my inner goddess.” And the too-silly-for-soap-opera names: Christian Grey is the moody and mysterious control freak. Anastasia Steele is the tougher-than-she-looks lit major who has never pleasured herself but — it turns out, what splendid luck — will climax if you look at her funny. Break out the bondage gear and gag me.

Most disappointing of all is the language: banal, artless, and choked with clichés like “moth to a flame,” “heart in my throat,” and even (yes, she did) “go, girl!” Here’s one that did me in: “My legs are suddenly the consistency of Jell-O. I’m so glad I decided to wear my best jeans this morning.” (Did I mention that I foundTwilight utterly unreadable?)

The sex scenes are pulse-quickening, to be sure. James is surprisingly deft at conjuring the feelings — both emotional and physical — of first lust. But then she kills the mood by having Anastasia gape at her pervy, pantless Adonis and utter (I swear), “Holy cow.”

Other turnoffs include the disturbing demands that menacing and mercurial Grey makes on his doting puppy of a girlfriend. He can’t be passed off as merely “adventurous in the sack”; he’s an emotionally damaged man-child who threatens and frightens our heroine. And the fact that it turns her on only further turned me off.

A friend of mine, who loved the whole trilogy, swears that deep down it’s a gripping love story. “As you read,” she says, “the crazy sex becomes secondary, and you just fall in love with Christian falling in love. It’s a (sort of) fairy tale about how this woman changed this man — something we’ve all tried at one point or another, yes?”

I can respect that. I can even see how, when viewed as pure fantasy, the idea of being told what to wear, what to eat, and, erm, when to kneel might appeal to mommies who spend all day, every day, taking care of others and wondering what the hell happened to their mojo.

A warning, though: The end of Fifty Shades of Grey is surprising and all but dares you not to dive into the second and third books. I won’t be reading them. You’d have to tie me up and spank me.

Good-Bye, Private Parts

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:04:57 -0400

Have you ever been skinny-dipping? It’s just about the best feeling in the world: fretless, grin-in-your-skin freedom.

I was 11 years old and taking a bare dip in my backyard pool when I heard rustling in the neighbors’ tree and realized their pre-teen son was spying on me. Outraged and embarrassed, I skittered inside to tell my mother. I’ve never forgotten what she said:

“Eh, let him look. Why should he stop you from being at ease in your own yard? Don’t give him that power.”

The notion was radical — that I could simply choose not to feel violated by such an invasion of privacy. That I could disregard the peeping perv and refuse to waste energy guarding the confidential information his little eyeballs were gathering for who-knows-what degenerate purpose.

I’ve summoned that outlook countless times since then — when the tampon drops from my purse during a business lunch, the pharmacy clerk loudly inquires about my rash, and the neighbors hear me yelling at my kids. Eh, I think. Let ’em look.

But it’s harder than it used to be.

From the auto-fill feature in our Web browsers to the cameras installed at stoplights, our privacy is receding faster than a naked girl can scramble from the deep end of an exposed swimming pool into the folds of a blessed towel. And there’s more at stake than just a pre-adolescent fanny flash.

The New York Times recently ran a story explaining how Target analyzes its customers’ purchasing trends to predict when they’re pregnant, then sends them coupons for baby items — sometimes before they’ve even told their own family members the good news.

Creepy … or convenient?

Certainly, such personalized advertising enhances our shopping experience, just as Google makes our Web-surfing experience easier by tracking our browsing histories and offering up ads tailored to our interests. It’s almost like … we’re being appreciated as unique individuals!

“I love when Hulu says, ‘Wendy, we have a new show that you will like,’” admits a friend of mine.

But spying-for-the-sake-of-selling can be unnerving — like when the ads on my Facebook page flip from shoes and swimwear toWicked tickets and “Best of Broadway” CDs a mere moments after I type “West Side Story” in my status.

“I don’t want anybody making decisions for me, not even the ads I choose to read,” says another friend. “It makes me feel like a lamb being led to slaughter. Where does it stop? How much do they know?”

A lot, it seems. Your cell phone GPS makes your whereabouts trackable. Your purchases are monitored via supermarket loyalty cards and digital coupons. And aerial drones may soon be able to peer into your, ahem, backyard pool.

“People really don’t understand how serious it is,” says an only slightly paranoid but exceedingly well-informed friend who reads up on this stuff. (Want to freak yourself out? Visitcollusion.toolness.org to see — in real time — the companies tracking your personal movement across the Web.) “Basically, privacy is gone. It’s over, and there’s no getting it back.”

But in the spirit of my mother’s advice, I have to ask: Must we really care? If you’re not 1) seriously depraved, or 2) in the Witness Protection Program, then what’s really lost when privacy as we know it comes to an end?

There’s the possibility that our once-private data will be used against us in hiring situations, child-custody cases, or by insurance companies denying us coverage based on our repeated Google searches for “chest pains.”

I think the greatest loss, though, is that feeling of fretless freedom. Of being self-contained, unguarded, and — every once in a while, just for a few minutes — utterly lost to the world. If you’ve never been skinny-dipping, I suggest you do it now. And do it quick. Before the rustling starts.

‘Om’ Em Gee: I Did Naked Yoga

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:04:17 -0400

I don’t love yoga. But I’m supposed to. Women my age, in my town (and let’s just say it, with my name) are supposed to swear by the practice’s tush-tightening, mind-loosening properties. I’ve been to a dozen yoga classes in as many years—the sweaty kind, the meditative kind, the pregnant kind—hoping to tap into that puzzling peace-through-pain bliss that yoga fans endure, er, adore.

But yoga mostly makes me … uncomfortable. From the hissing ujjayi breath to the groin-punishing poses to the inscrutable, translated-from-Elvish instructions (“release any stale energy and breath through your scalp”), the classes always leave me feeling physically and psychologically awkward.

But what if discomfort is sort of the point? What if I’d failed to appreciate yoga because I hadn’t been uncomfortable … enough? Were my unbelievably cute yoga top and super-flattering yoga pants a moisture-wicking but Zen-preventing barrier to yogic understanding? If I stripped away my hold-it-all-in outfit, could I truly let go? Could I blast, birthday-suited, straight through the awkward to bask in the awesome just beyond?When I received an invitation recently to view a new DVD called Yoga, Undressed (yogaundressed.com), I realized there was really only one way to make yoga more uncomfortable: Do it naked.

So I tried it. I did it because the DVD promised that yoga in my “most pure and natural state” (minus my smartphone and Diet Coke) would awaken my spirit, honor my inner goddess, and unleash the fullness of my thighs. Sorry! No, the fullness of my potential is what it said. “Let go and give way to the ultimate self-expression, to your most primal, powerful, sacred, sensual self…” (Also, I did it because “I did naked yoga” is a ridiculously good headline.)

I ran into some trouble, though, while watching the demo on my computer one night. My husband wandered in to find a stunningly beautiful young woman on my screen wearing nothing but a smile and bending through sun salutations lit by 50 flickering candles.

Narrator: Your kundalini energy lies tightly coiled at the base of the spine. We will unleash this coiled snake of energy…

Husband: I’ll unleash my coiled snake of energy, heh heh.

Narrator: You’ll feel more empowered, energized, and beautiful with every new asana you learn …

Husband: She does have a nice asana.

When it was my turn to try it, my family ran screaming from the house. I locked the doors and vacuumed the rug because—just because eww. I put out some fake LED candles (couldn’t risk my chakras bursting into flames) and took my place on the floor in the altogether.

It was cold, but only briefly, because soon the chi was flowing and I was glowing. Naked yoga feels … well, it feels very much like doing yoga naked. I’ll say this: nudity gives new meaning to the awkward chair pose, butterfly was unpleasant at best, and I kept knocking into my own boobs. But it’s hard not to feel Amazon-princess-magnificent doing radiant warrior in the buff.

The naked truth: I felt great for hours afterwards. I can’t say if it was the disrobed downward-facing dog (did I mention not to do this near a mirror?) or utter delirium at having been nude—and alone!—in my living room on a sunny Saturday afternoon, which is an almost salacious fantasy to anyone with children.

I found myself wondering, during my kickboxing class later that week, what an uppercut punch and roundhouse kick would look like au naturel. But I doubt I’ll be bending over backward to do naked yoga again. Not sure I need it. For one thing, my asana’s tighter than I thought (at one pretzelly point, I think I saw it). For another — hey, I did naked yoga. How much looser does a gal’s mind need to be?

Namaste.