The author of this vivid and urgent book has published it anonymously precisely because she fears that if her employers and colleagues heard her unwelcome views, they would judge her negatively–and punish her, personally and professionally.

Or maybe she has to be anonymous because if her patients knew she was judging them and blaming all of their mental health issues on their sluttiness, they’d request an appointment with one of the campus counseling center’s other shrinks.

That’s the conflict, and the conflict is making her unhappy.

Amen. And the very idea that this conflict is always gendered this way is not my experience. I’ve been in similiar situations with the roles reversed, with the guy wanting more than I was willing to give. And that’s not really fun, either. It sucks to hurt someone’s feelings.

Well, since the risk of being a promiscuous, outed gay man with AIDs include being beaten to death, I’d say there’s at least an argument to be made for handling the situation gingerly.

Actually, psychiatrists are medical doctors who can write prescriptions, diagnose, etc. Psychologists are the ones that we normally think of when we think of someone going to therapy, but they can’t, for instance, prescribe an antidepressant. They have to refer their client to a psychiatrist. So Crittenden is not being entirely disingenuous in how she describes Anonymous’ profession. Likely “Heather” went to student counseling services for her depression and was referred to Anonymous for a prescription. Anonymous, afflicted with Doctor-God Complex, decided to use her God Counseling Skills (in which psychiatrists get one or two classes at most) to ascertain the True Reason that “Heather” was unhappy.

When the author treats Brian, a young homosexual man who is engaged in “high-risk behavior with multiple people,” she discovers that, by policy, she cannot insist that he be tested for HIV.

And once again Dr. Vague gives us no indication of whether there would be a legit medical reason for her to be freaking out over this patient’s reluctance to take an HIV test. High-risk behaviour with multiple people could mean anything from barebacking and meth use to lots of sexual partners but condoms everywhere. And there are a lot of points along that continuum. Normally I’d assume she was talking about the kind of sexual behaviours public health experts classify as high-risk, but the haziness and lack of any medical precision in the other excerpts makes me suspicious.

Could be “Bryan” is risking what his shrink thinks is eternal damnation by having protected sex with lots of partners. Sounds like it’s the promiscuity that’s bugging her, not the genuine health risks. I mean, she doesn’t mention whether Heather and her fuck buddy are using condoms. There are all kinds of nasty bugs out there which *aren’t* HIV, and many of them are extremely prevalent among young, sexually active heteros. Chlamydia or gonorrhea are unlikely to kill you, but thye’re getting more and more common.

Also, not a word about whether Heather is using birth control to avoid pregnancy. Just rattling on about Heather the Slut’s fragile self-esteem, which would probably be fixed by dumping the asshole and finding a ‘friends’ with benefits’ guy who actually wants some friendship. Or spending some quality time with her vibrator while she looks around for a new guy (hey, at least that way she won’t fall into bed with the first jerk who asks her, just because she’s sexually frustrated. She can be picky).

So I wonder just how high-risk young Bryan’s sexual behaviour is,a nd how much of his shrink’s concern is rooted in genuine medical reasoning, as opposed to annoyance that he’s having lots of sex with lots of people and doesn’t hate himself for it. Yet.

College students, generally being over the age of 18, are adults. Colleges no longer act in loco parentis. But for Crittenden and her ilk, college students are children — particularly the women “girls” — who must be guided, protected, controlled, their actions supervised and shadowed. And children, in their view, don’t have free will and aren’t responsible enough to make their own decisions, especially when they might make choices (or, “choices”) that their parents don’t like.

I teach at a university, and I can understand why anyone who works for one might mistake some of the students for children. They often look, sound and behave like children. However, if the educators, doctors and other employees of the university treat them like children, we will prepare a generation to be helpless, obnoxious brats rather than thoughtful adults who can take care of themselves and think critically.

Anonymous also cites evidence that sexually active teen females experience more depression and suicide attempts than inactive girls, and that romantic involvement hurts young females more than it hurts males.

That’s strange, because from what I remember about college, not getting laid was what made me want to kill myself.

In Ontario, if one gets a positive HIV result the patient has signed a waiver saying that they agree to disclose this information to past partners. Almost all testing sites will offer to call past partners and tell them that someone they’ve slept with has contracted HIV and they need to get tested (this is also done anonymously). Seems like a fair shake to me to give people a head’s up, but why would HIV results need to be reported to the health department?

The author of this vivid and urgent book has published it anonymously precisely because she fears that if her employers and colleagues heard her unwelcome views, they would judge her negatively–and punish her, personally and professionally. The anonymity, however understandable, is a shame: Her cause could use a visible and vocal crusader.

This neatly sums up a large portion of the “campus conservative” M.O. They claim that when they speak their views in a college setting, everyone around them shames and punishes them for having different ideas. The reality is often (though by no means always) that their ideas haven’t been put under intense scrutiny before and they can’t handle it. Rather than listen and argue and try to reason with the points that others bring up, they see bias against them everywhere.

I’m generalizing a lot based on the few excerpts in this post, but:

She fears being fired because she believes her thoughts are “double-plus ungood” and violate some imaginary PC code. In reality, her ideas are just plain wrong and could seriously impair her ability to help the students who see her. To her, if you’re wrong or reasoning poorly and someone points it out, they’re biased and out to get you.

In Ontario, if one gets a positive HIV result the patient has signed a waiver saying that they agree to disclose this information to past partners. Almost all testing sites will offer to call past partners and tell them that someone they’ve slept with has contracted HIV and they need to get tested (this is also done anonymously). Seems like a fair shake to me to give people a head’s up, but why would HIV results need to be reported to the health department?

I’m in Ontario. They do report it to the health department, at least in my city, because they need to keep track of such things. You know, outbreaks, blood donations, etc. Matters of public health. I believe there was also a man in Toronto a couple of years ago convicted of having unprotected sex with women without informing them of his HIV+ status. Scary stuff, but irrelevant.

When I first started university, I was incredibly depressed. I didn’t really drink or do drugs; my vice was promiscuous sex. So I technically did fit into her “depressed sexually active teenagers” statistics, but it’s completely backwards. I wasn’t depressed because I was having sex and in some sort of bullshit oxytocin withdrawal. I was having sex because I was depressed and making out with some guy made me forget about it for a little while. The depression had to do with culture shock, a fear of failure, homesickness, and was exacerbated by the fact that i was 17 and needed permission from my parents (who were in another country and worried a lot) before I could be treated. I actually felt guilty about all the sex because I thought I had proved that I was a terrible feminist and needed male approval to feel worthy, a far cry from being taught by feminists to be, like, a total whore.

During that time, I had a ‘friends with benefits.’ We didn’t really go out and do much stuff together, but we spent a lot of time talking and making each other laugh. I probably wouldn’t have been so ok with it if he’d thrown me out everytime we were done. I probably would have felt a little used, actually… like Heather.

The whole thing ended when this guy told me he didn’t go down on women but expected me to go down on him. That was when the righteous feminist in me reared up and said, “No more!” I gave up all the idiots, and eventually met a great guy whose biggest fears are that I’ll sink into the depression again, or that I’ll lose my ability to think independently.

And then we have the line about how upsetting it is that Anonymous can’t make judgments about the students’ sex lives. That’s all the good doctor wants to do. Make students feel guilty about their choices, because it’s so upsetting that they might go around not feeling ashamed all the time. It’s not enough that the students who come to Anonymous are swallowing their pride and seeking psychiatric help. It’s not enough that it’s incredibly hard to tell your doctor about all the self-destructive behaviour you’re putting yourself through. It’s not even enough that with the wrong dose of the wrong medication, Anonymous could send someone over the edge into suicide. This doctor has such a God complex that total control is required. How DARE Anonymous violate their trust to judge them and act anything less than compassionately?!

Lastly, I read an article on New Scientist’s page today that says that rat pups have an oxytocin surge at birth, and that it apparently protects their brains. If this applies to humans, then ALL of us born through vaginal delivery are in oxytocin withdrawal from birth. (There’s some quibbling over whether this is detrimental to c-section babies, as it might aid brain development.)

According to this couple, a psychiatrist and psychologist who wrote a book called “The Myth of Monogamy”, males and females both release oxytocin during orgasm:

And oxytocin is really like Love Potion No. 9. It’s a brain chemical that’s released in females when they’re nursing, but interestingly it’s released in both sexes during orgasm, during touch, and in females during communication. If you give oxytocin to male guinea pigs, for example, instead of fighting with each other they sit around and groom each other. It makes them relaxed and happy. And so if two people make love and have orgasms, they get this great inner surge of oxytocin, and some of that is a “whither thou goest I will follow also” sensation.

I dunno. I do know that, like Amanda, I’ve frequently been the one that didn’t want more, and in my experience the guys who aren’t actively trying to prove something through sex often get attached.

And the rest of the drivel leads me to believe that the author is no real doc at all, but possibly an attendant, a nurse or better yet a bored wingnut eager to make a point and a buck too.

That’s pretty mch what I was thinking, Kate.

feh. i remember too well the self-righteous nurses, shrinks and doctors who were horrified that i had sex with someone who was not my boyfriend.

because if an 18 year old freshman gets drunk and gets played by some upperclassmen, has to do the walk of shame in torn pantyhose, never hears from him again, finds something wrong down there and has to seek medical attention, the most psychiatrically sound decision would be to shame her and make her feel like a whore. right? right. because god knows, this is her fault. this is totally how she planned it.

Hmm. Funny how no one ever suggests that maybe those girls are having a lot of sex BECAUSE they are depressed. Most people aren’t that naturally “friendly.” Healthy people tend to have a smallish pool of people with whom they’d like to go to bed: unless I am encased in a bubble filled with nothing but charming, witty and wildly intelligent men (all wearing smart-looking glasses), a different guy every night suggests that there is an already existing problem that probably has nothing to do with sex.

Didn’t this Crittenden write some stupid book about how women get raped because they’re not modest enough, or something? Or am I thinking of Katie Rolphe (sp?).

I’m a primary care doc who has taught about behavior change, and both Crittenden and Anonymous are way off about how to effectively help people change behavior. The most effective thing to do is *withhold* judgement and enter into a supporting and accepting relationship. Then - and only then - can the person really think about changing. Fear and shame don’t motivate real shame.

So even if you accept that it’s my job to help people forgo “irresponsible” sex (and I don’t accept that), judging them is not the way to go about it.

And there’s no way I can insist that anyone have any kind of blood test, or a mammogram, or anything else. Colleges aren’t in loco parentis anymore, and neither are docs.

Inky,

It amused me, too. Where did the idea for your Regender Engine come from?

Fumento is a quack. If he told me the sun rises in the East, I would demand double-blind studies.

The doctor presses her to think of possible causes

A psychiatrist who diagnoses “depression” and then tries to find a cause in a patient’s behavior, rather than in her brain chemistry, is a really bad psychiatrist. On par with all those recovered memory of satanic abuse people, or the alien abduction people.