SACHA BLACK

morals

The Dexter Effect – How to use your inner 'Psycho' to write better – The Crafting Characters Series #5

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My aim here, is to see if I can convince you to get up close and personal with your own inner psycho…

Have you ever watched Dexter? If you haven’t, you should. It’s great, Wiki says:

‘Dexter is an American television drama series. Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a blood spatter pattern analyst for Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a serial killer, hunting down criminals who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system.’  [Read more…] about The Dexter Effect – How to use your inner 'Psycho' to write better – The Crafting Characters Series #5

The Abomination That is Disney!

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The wife has always had a penchant for Disney. I on the other hand barely watched them as a child, preferring to have my head stuck firmly in the pages of dusty old books. Disney came up in conversation again recently – having pushed a small human out – and the fact she wanted to have a large collection of disney films ready for the boy to watch. Sky had a few on demand over Christmas, so we sat down and stuck The Little Mermaid (TLM) on.

I sat, aghast for the entire film. How has disney been able to produce films that are quite simply an abomination. People – and by people I refer to the murky world of ‘parents’ – seem to rave about disney and how good their films are…. Good?

Good – sure, if you count a hideously antifeminist, despicably amoral story that has nothing even remotely like the ethics or values I want my son to grow up with.

I hate to be a mermaid basher so I will start with a positive. Race equality – TLM is a great story about how love is equal across any race, Mermaid loves a human, different races, love conquers all blah, blah, blah, Great – this is a moral I can not only live with, but as a lesbian, actively promote and encourage. I want my child to know they can love whoever they want, no matter their race, creed, gender or otherwise.

The Film:

Issue 1: Ariel falls in love with the prince. – So wrong. She spontaneously falls in love with someone she has never spoken to and mostly just perved on, in a fairly stalkerish way from afar.

Would you encourage your kid to do this? I doubt it. I can already see the injunctions and restraining orders being slapped all over him, because a stupid film told him real love happens by stalking someone for two days. Ok, I am being facetious but you see my point. I would also like to point out I am not suggesting that I don’t believe in love at first sight. More that you need to have a reality check in real life, even if you do fall for someone instantly.
Issue 2: Ariel wants to change herself to be with him.

I hate to go all feminist ranty on you. Actually, I don’t hate it, I love a good feminist rant. In fact, any sort of rant. I digress – BUT don’t we have enough antifeminist-bullshit pressure to conform to the ultra skinny, rib protruding, size of a seven year old, bulimic-anorexic, vomit inducing ‘celebrity look’ society the media loves, without having it force-fed subconsciously to our infants. UGH. No woman…. Actually no man either, should ever have to change themselves to be with someone. Is it just me? Or do we spend hours of our lives giving advice to our perpetually confused friends on their relationships, and why it’s not ok for them to allow their partner to nag them into suppression?

Issue 3: The prince starts to fall for Ariel but then deserts her instantly for a disguised Ursula over something so shallow as her voice! He decides to marry Ursula immediately having spent all of no time getting to know her…

Where do I even start with this. It is not ok to teach my child that they can desert a woman (or man) based solely on a characteristic. Thats akin to suggesting it’s ok to leave their partner if they get fat, or a scar, or a disability. I mean SERIOUSLY. And then to marry the other woman because of that same characteristic, after what 2.5 milliseconds of time spent with said woman… sure thats an outstanding idea. I am positive all parents would approve of their kids doing this.

Issue 4: Instead of Ariel taking her pride and moving on she pandas to the prince and chases after him. 

This makes me want to claw my face off in frustration and resort to excessive amounts of alcohol. How low must her self confidence be to chase after a guy who only likes her because of her voice and will desert her as quickly as he met her for another woman simply because she lost that characteristic.

Issue 5: After all that the prince goes back to Ariel dumping Ursula and THEN kills Ursula just for good measure.

Now I just feel awkward. No one wants to date a psychopath, and lets be honest, the prince is looking more and more like a psychopath; with emotions unnecessarily fickle, and an assumption that it’s ok to off your ex…

Despite the fact I am resolute in knowing TLM is morally wrong, it’s not like theres anything better on the market. I think I may have to go investigate the other films!

Three parent families… Genetically

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I wrote this post on QueerLandia yesterday hoping that it would generate some discussion, but it hasn’t so I thought I would blog it here, and add some more too it as well, in the hope it generates more discussion.

I saw this in the news a couple of weeks ago, and have been meaning to blog about it for a little while. I am hoping it generates a discussion….

The news reported that some scientific trials to make three parent embryos have taken place, and the UK has now launched a consultation on the matter.

The trials have been coined ‘three-parent in vitro fertilisation’ (IVF) because the offspring would have genes from a mother, a father and from a female donor, who donates some of her DNA.

The original purpose is to prevent some genetic diseases from being passed on. In particular mitochondrial diseases that are passed on genetically through the maternal line and are incurable. So they take out the culprit DNA and replace it with the female donors DNA.

One reporter poses the following questions about this:

how is a child born from this sort of technique might feel?; whether the child should be told?; whether their sense of identity might be affected?; what the rights of the female donor might be?; whether the donation of mitochondrial DNA should be viewed as similar to egg or sperm donation, or more like blood or tissue donation?; and who should decide who can access the treatments?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/three-parent-embryos-unnerve-ethicists/article4553114/ 

They claim it raises ethical issues because it is the first step to creating designer babies. I am not sure how I feel about that.

Having recently got married, babies are  definitely on my radar, I have been to a fertility show recently and the options are vast.  We both went in thinking we wanted to do it a certain way, and came out totally confused and completely unsure of how we wanted to conceive. Like did you know that a heterosexual couple only has a 10-14% of getting pregnant at any one time. Therefore the same chances can be applied to IUI (intrauterine insemination) if you do it without drugs that is. With the aid of drugs some clinics claim their chances of getting you pregnant are as high as 40%. I have to say I left feeling pretty pessimistic and naive about the whole affair. I had gone thinking it wouldn’t be a walk in the park, and would cost a lot but I certainly didn’t have any concept of how slim the chances are in relation to how much it would cost. Because its either low chances of fertility or you need to remortgage your house in order to afford it.

ANYWAY

I will be the carrier, my wife has no interest in carrying, BUT, I am desperate to have a child that is genetically both of ours. At the moment that cannot happen, or so I thought. This is why when I saw this article and heard it on the news, my ears immediately pricked up. For me the question isn’t so much about designer babies, but about the opportunities this brings to homosexual people. Does this mean that my wife and I could both parent a child??

Could two men both genetically parent a child??

Is that right? Is it ethical? Is it moral?

I want the answer to be yes, but maybe I am being selfish and only thinking about how desperate I am to carry both mine and my wifes genetic child. Is that right, should I be thinking that way? To me, it doesn’t seem like an ethical problem but a gift, and a miracle.

I would be very interested in what everyone else thought……???????