J.Crew designers lose their minds.

OK, this is a totally off-topic post, and I love J.Crew and all (and would very much like them to send me free samples), but could you please tell me WHO WOULD EVER WEAR THIS OUTFIT?
I mean, look at it. Seriously. Shorts, frilly shirt, cardigan AND a blazer. With all the layers she's wearing, can this woman even move her arms? In what crazy climate can she possibly live? Is she going to school? PTA meeting? Work? Yes, I know the air conditioning tends to be set on high in office buildings, but who wears shorts to work? And yet her look says, "I'm so pretty, I dare you to make fun of my outfit." Blecch, I say. Blecch. One big overturned wine glass to this ensemble.

Sex News Roundup - Week of June 29, 2009

It's time to launch a new feature on The Mind Reels.

Every week*, I'll give you a roundup of notable--or notably wacky--news about all things sex-related. (I thought of starting a Worst Parent of the Week feature, but realized I'd get too depressed.) Now, normally I'd start a feature such as this on a Saturday, so I could use the "for the week ending July 4, 2009" designation, but today's news offered me two nuggets I couldn't pass up.

This Recession is So Bad that not Even Sex Sells.
That's the depressing headline on an article in this morning's San Jose Mercury News Business section, which reported on the annual Cybernet Expo conference in San Francisco. I'm not sure what was more interesting to me: the fact that times are tough in the "pay-per-view" sex industry, or that this conference didn't sound that much different from your average high-tech event, down to the breakout sessions on social media and the late-afternoon cocktails.

Man Demands Sex in Exchange for Lost Dog.
A convicted sex offender in the Los Angeles area demanded that a teenager give him cash or sex in exchange for the return of her lost dog Pineapple, a cocker-spaniel-toy poodle mix. And yet he's only been charged with "attempted extortion." Whaaaaa????

Got a good sex news tidbit for me? Send it on. Oh, and many thanks to Great White Snark, for giving me the idea for this feature.

* Note: "Every week" should be roughly translated as "hopefully every month" or "whenever I feel like it."

Micro-Mini Movie Review: The Women

The. Worst. Movie. Ever.

Read Anthony Lane's review in The New Yorker until I calm down enough to write mine.

Boston Globe's Ellen Goodman on the globalization of surrogacy.

I'm not just a little offended by Ellen Goodman's tone in her April 11 Boston Globe essay, "The globalization of babymaking."

It would have been nice if she had actually talked to some couples who turned to surrogacy. I can assure you that no infertile couple travels halfway around the world, and gives up their dream of biological children, "in search of lower-cost ways to fill the family business."

I can assure that by the time a couple gets to this point, they've probably exhausted all other options. No one chooses voluntarily to "outsource" conception to egg donors and sperm donors.

She say she doesn't "make light of infertility." Then she does exactly that.

The unfairness doctrine.

One of the most frequent, and most heartbreaking, complaints you'll hear from anyone suffering from infertility goes something like this: "It's not fair that [insert name here] gets to have children, and I don't."

And by "[insert name here]," I don't mean that we begrudge our families or friends their pregnancies, even though there's always a pang when you hear on the day of a negative pregnancy test that your cousin-in-law, say, is pregnant with her third.

I'm talking about the people who abuse or neglect their kids. Who abuse or neglect themselves, when they have kids. Here, a certain fallen pop star is often mentioned. Example: After the failure of our most recent, and final, attempt to get pregnant, I whined to Dr. R something along the lines of, "It's not fair that Britney Spears gets to have two kids, and I don't." He chuckled sympathetically. "A lot of my patients are mad at Britney right now," he said.

Every day, it seems like I read or hear about some horrible thing some parent has done to their child. Just today, I read a news story about a Dallas woman who threw her two sons off a freeway overpass. Miraculously, they all survived, but I can't tell you how many similar stories I've read recently where the poor kids didn't. In fact, I could make a weekly feature of candidates for "World's Worst Parents." It's enough to make me start a self-imposed news embargo.

I'll tell you this now: I haven't met ONE infertile couple that wouldn't make great parents. These are the people who really want to have a child. They want to shower a child with love and affection. And for those of you who are going to say, "Well, you/they can adopt": yes, infertile people can adopt. But that doesn't take away the pain of infertility. And it doesn't take away the pain of hearing about people who abuse their kids, when you want one so, so badly.

It just doesn't seem fair, and I still haven't heard anything to make me feel better about it.

And now, a word from the grammar police.

This has nothing to do with any of my so-called themes, but I don't care. While there are many things that annoy me (like insurance companies), almost nothing irritates me as much as the misuse of the apostrophe.

Thanks to my friend Mark for sending me this cartoon.