Posts by Agustínfuentes

If there is no joy, should there be sex? There are two types of ads for sexual dysfunction. For males (here, here and here) the images are of horses running, a man driving a truck pulling a trailer, or men with women in bathtubs, playing sports, having drinks, walking on the beach or boating on the ocean, sails at…

For better and worse religiousness is integral to the human experience Humans take religion seriously. -Today, an Islamic offshoot fundamentalist group calling themselves the Islamic State is battling with scores of nations in the border regions between Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. -A leading presidential candidate in the USA demands we ban Muslims from entering the…

Compassion plays a key role in human evolution. With the recent spate of school shootings, terrorist beheadings, and presidential candidates arguing for increased xenophobia and a naturalness for sexual violence, the world does not feel like a very compassionate place. But it is. Or better put, we are. The emergence and frequency of terrorism, warfare, and belligerence…

Myths of gender and race are not made on the screen, but are reinforced there Four months ago I wrote a blog post about the movie industry’s massive bias against women and used data from the Media, Diversity, & Social Change (MDSC) initiative at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, particularly the work from projects headed up by Dr. Stacy…

Engage race and racism or more people will die and many will continue to suffer While nine Americans lay dead on the floor of a famous church in Charleston, South Carolina, thousands of Americans were making racist jokes, crossing the street to avoid a young black man, bemoaning how governmental handouts favored minorities, and/or assuming…

Ignorance underlies most claims about the conflict between science and religion Christians are against evolution, scientists are against God (or gods), and the worlds of science and religion are locked in battle. Right? Wrong.  Even a small bit of homework shows that there is no inherent conflict between most religions and science, but that does not stop some…

Film & TV media sell females short Boys will be boys and girls will be girls, right? Not exactly. There is a wide range of ways to do gender right, to be successfully female and male, but this knowledge does not prevent much of society from forcing restrictive gender stereotypes on us ad nauseum. What young boys and girls…

It’s not entirely, or even mostly, about the evolution of the species. We’re often told that how or why we have sex is the result of an evolved strategy. Such assertions seek to inform us of the real reason why we have sex the way we do—and most people equate “evolved” with “natural.” This is…

Are racism, rage, and violence inevitable? What happened in Ferguson is not a surprise. It was predictable and some would argue inevitable. But these events are not just about what happened between Darren Wilson and Michael Brown. They are not just about being Black or White. And they are not due to something innate in our…