NAVIGATING THE RAINBOW

Posted on March 3, 2020March 3, 2020 by vlaw759

The following is an excerpt from the March 2, 2020 issue of The New Yorker, in a letter to the editor, headed “Fifty Shades of Gay.”

As a temperamentally conservative white Christian man, Buttigieg is as palatable as gay people get—a fact that makes this moment in queer history anticlimactic for the nonwhite, non-cisgender, non-male individuals who don’t relate to the queerness that America is most comfortable with. … our political system, which is so concerned with the emotional equilibrium of the white cis-het majority…”

In order to understand this letter, I had to go online. It turns out that non-cisgender means someone whose gender identity doesn’t match the sex recorded on his/her birth certificate. Cis-het means someone whose gender identity matches the birth certificate and who is heterosexual.

Note to writers: if you are writing contemporary fiction, know the current jargon. For your edification (perhaps), here is a dictionary of some terms that might come in handy. Bear in mind that the following terms may have different meanings or connotations in different societies, and a term that is used with pride in one community may be an insult in another.

abrosexual – adj. : being fluid in sexuality. This means a sexuality that changes very often and fluctuates among several sexual orientations.

agender – adj. : a person with no (or very little) connection to the traditional system of gender, no personal alignment with the concepts of either man or woman, and/or someone who sees themselves as existing without gender. Sometimes called gender neutrois, gender neutral, or genderless.

androgyny /“an-jrah-jun-ee”/ (androgynous) – 1 noun. : a gender expression that has elements of both masculinity and femininity; 2 adj. : occasionally used in place of “intersex” to describe a person with both female and male anatomy, generally in the form “androgyne.”

androsexual / androphilic – adj. : being primarily sexually, romantically and/or emotionally attracted to men, males, and/or masculinity.

aromantic /”ay-ro-man-tic”/ – adj. : experiencing little or no romantic attraction to others and/or has a lack of interest in romantic relationships/behavior. Aromanticism exists on a continuum from people who experience no romantic attraction or have any desire for romantic activities, to those who experience low levels, or romantic attraction only under specific conditions. Many of these different places on the continuum have their own identity labels (see demiromantic). Sometimes abbreviated to “aro” (pronounced like “arrow”). For insight on writing aromantic characters, I recommend this guide by Bran Lindy Ayres.

asexual – adj. : experiencing little or no sexual attraction to others and/or a lack of interest in sexual relationships/behavior. Asexuality exists on a continuum from people who experience no sexual attraction or have any desire for sex, to those who experience low levels, or sexual attraction only under specific conditions. Many of these different places on the continuum have their own identity labels (see demisexual). Sometimes abbreviated to “ace.” For insight on writing asexual characters, I recommend this guide by Bran Lindy Ayres.

bicurious – adj. : characterized by an openness to or curiosity about having sexual relations with a person whose sex differs from that of one’s usual sexual partners : curious about exploring or experimenting with bisexuality

bigender – adj. : a person who fluctuates between traditionally “woman” and “man” gender-based behavior and identities, identifying with both genders (or sometimes identifying with either man or woman, as well as a third, different gender).

binder – noun : an undergarment used to alter or reduce the appearance of one’s breasts (worn similarly to how one wears a sports bra). Binding – adj. : the (sometimes daily) process of wearing a binder. Binding is often used to change the way other’s read/perceive one’s anatomical sex characteristics, and/or as a form of gender expression.

biological sex – noun : a medical term used to refer to the chromosomal, hormonal, and anatomical characteristics that are used to classify an individual as female or male or intersex. Often referred to as simply “sex,” “physical sex,” “anatomical sex,” or specifically as “sex assigned at birth.”

biphobia – noun : a range of negative attitudes (e.g., fear, anger, intolerance, invisibility, resentment, erasure, or discomfort) that one may have or express toward bisexual individuals. Biphobia can come from and be seen within the LGBTQ community as well as straight society. Biphobic – adj. : a word used to describe actions, behaviors, or individuals who demonstrate elements of this range of negative attitudes toward bisexual people.

bisexual – 1 noun & adj. : a person who experiences attraction to some men and women. 2 adj. : a person who experiences attraction to some people of their gender and another gender. Bisexual attraction does not have to be equally split, or indicate a level of interest that is the same across the genders an individual may be attracted to. Often used interchangeably with “pansexual”.

butch – noun & adj. : a person who identifies themselves as masculine, whether it be physically, mentally, or emotionally. ‘Butch’ is sometimes used as a derogatory term for lesbians, but can also be claimed as an affirmative identity label.

cisgender /“siss-jendur”/ – adj. : a gender description for when someone’s sex assigned at birth and gender identity are the same (e.g., someone who was assigned male at birth, and identifies as a man). A simple way to think about it is if a person is not transgender, they are cisgender. The word cisgender can also be shortened to “cis.”

cisnormativity – noun : the assumption, in individuals and in institutions, that everyone is cisgender, and that cisgender identities are superior to trans* identities and people. Leads to invisibility of non-cisgender identities.

cissexism – noun : behavior that grants preferential treatment to cisgender people, reinforces the idea that being cisgender is somehow better or more “right” than being transgender, and/or makes other genders invisible.

constellation – noun : a way to describe the arrangement or structure of a polyamorous relationship.

*One variation of the Demiromantic Pride Flag*

demiromantic – adj. : little or no capacity to experience romantic attraction until a strong sexual connection is formed with someone, often within a sexual relationship.

demisexual – adj. : little or no capacity to experience sexual attraction until a strong romantic connection is formed with someone, often within a romantic relationship.

*Racism in the gay community is particularly prevalent and visible on online dating apps.*

down low – adj. : typically referring to men who identify as straight but who secretly have sex with men. Down low (or DL) originated in, and is most commonly used by, communities of color.

dyke – noun : referring to a masculine presenting lesbian. While often used derogatorily, it is also reclaimed affirmatively by some lesbians and gay women as a positive self identity term.

Erin Davies drove her “Fagbug” around to film reactions to anti-LGBTQ vandalism for five years.

fag(got) – noun : derogatory term referring to a gay person, or someone perceived as queer. While often used derogatorily, it is also used/reclaimed by some gay people (often gay men) as a positive in-group term.

feminine-of-center; masculine-of-center – adj. : a phrase that indicates a range in terms of gender identity and expression for people who present, understand themselves, and/or relate to others in a generally more feminine/masculine way, but don’t necessarily identify as women or men. Feminine-of-center individuals may also identify as “femme,” “submissive,” “transfeminine,” etc.; masculine-of-center individuals may also often identify as “butch,” “stud,” “aggressive,” “boi,” “transmasculine,” etc.

feminine-presenting; masculine-presenting – adj. : a way to describe someone who expresses gender in a more feminine/masculine way. Often confused with feminine-of-center/masculine-of-center, which generally include a focus on identity as well as expression.

femme – noun & adj. : someone who identifies themselves as feminine, whether it be physically, mentally or emotionally. Often used to refer to a feminine-presenting queer woman or people.

fluid(ity) – adj. : generally with another term attached, like gender-fluid or fluid-sexuality, fluid(ity) describes an identity that may change or shift over time between or within the mix of the options available (e.g., man and woman, bi and straight).

FtM / F2M; MtF / M2F – abbr. : female-to-male transgender or transsexual person; male-to-female transgender or transsexual person.

gender binary – noun : the idea that there are only two genders and that every person is one of those two.

gender expression – noun : the external display of one’s gender, through a combination of clothing, grooming, demeanor, social behavior, and other factors, generally made sense of on scales of masculinity and femininity. Also referred to as “gender presentation.”

gender fluid – adj. : a gender identity best described as a dynamic mix of boy and girl. A person who is gender fluid may always feel like a mix of the two traditional genders, but may feel more man some days, and more woman other days. Ashley Lauren Rogers provides a range of references for writing characters with a different gender identity.

gender identity – noun : the internal perception of an one’s gender, and how they label themselves, based on how much they align or don’t align with what they understand their options for gender to be. Often conflated with biological sex, or sex assigned at birth.

gender neutrois – adj. : see agender.

gender non-conforming – 1 adj. : a gender expression descriptor that indicates a non-traditional gender presentation (masculine woman or feminine man). 2 adj. : a gender identity label that indicates a person who identifies outside of the gender binary. Often abbreviated as “GNC.”

gender normative / gender straight – adj. : someone whose gender presentation, whether by nature or by choice, aligns with society’s gender-based expectations.

genderqueer – 1 adj. : a gender identity label often used by people who do not identify with the binary of man/woman. 2 adj. : an umbrella term for many gender non-conforming or non-binary identities (e.g., agender, bigender, genderfluid).

gender variant – adj. : someone who either by nature or by choice does not conform to gender-based expectations of society (e.g. transgender, transsexual, intersex, genderqueer, cross-dresser, etc).

gray asexual – noun : a person who is somewhere between being asexual and sexual. They might only experience sexual attraction on very rare occasions, feel sexual attraction but not desire sexual relationships, or experience a feeling somewhere in between platonic and sexual.

gynesexual / gynephilic /“guy-nuh-seks-shu-uhl”/ – adj. : being primarily sexually, romantically and/or emotionally attracted to woman, females, and/or femininity.

*Rebis, a Medieval alchemical hermaphroditic principle*

hermaphrodite – noun : an outdated medical term previously used to refer to someone who was born with some combination of typically-male and typically-female sex characteristics. It’s considered stigmatizing and inaccurate. See intersex. (The word comes from the Greek myth of Hermaphroditos, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite.)

heteronormativity – noun : the assumption, in individuals and/or in institutions, that everyone is heterosexual and that heterosexuality is superior to all other sexualities. Heteronormativity also leads us to assume that only masculine men and feminine women are straight. Leads to invisibility and stigmatizing of other sexualities: when learning a woman is married, asking her what her husband’s name is.

heterosexism – noun : behavior that grants preferential treatment to heterosexual people, reinforces the idea that heterosexuality is somehow better or more “right” than queerness, and/or makes other sexualities invisible.

heterosexual/straight – adj. : experiencing attraction solely (or primarily) to some members of a different gender.

*Original flag design by Gilbert Baker in 1978*

homosexual – adj. & noun : a person primarily emotionally, physically, and/or sexually attracted to members of the same sex/gender. This [medical] term is considered stigmatizing (particularly as a noun) due to its history as a category of mental illness, and is discouraged for common use (use gay or lesbian instead).

intersex – adj. : term for a combination of chromosomes, gonads, hormones, internal sex organs, and genitals that differs from the two expected patterns of male or female. Formerly known as hermaphrodite (or hermaphroditic), but these terms are now outdated and derogatory.

lesbian – noun & adj. : women who are primarily attracted romantically, erotically, and/or emotionally to other women.

LGBTQ; GSM; DSG – abbr. : shorthand or umbrella terms for all folks who have a non-normative (or queer) gender or sexuality, there are many different initialisms people prefer. LGBTQ is Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Queer and/or Questioning (sometimes people add A + AT the end in an effort to be more inclusive); GSM is Gender and Sexual Minorities; DSG is Diverse Sexualities and Genders. Other options include the initialism GLBT or LGBT and the acronym QUILTBAG (Queer [or Questioning] Undecided Intersex Lesbian Trans* Bisexual Asexual [or Allied] and Gay [or Genderqueer]).

lipstick lesbian – noun : usually refers to a lesbian with a feminine gender expression. Can be used in a positive or a derogatory way. Is sometimes also used to refer to a lesbian who is assumed to be (or passes for) straight.

metrosexual – adj. : a man with a strong aesthetic sense who spends more time, energy, or money on his appearance and grooming than is considered gender normative.

MSM / WSW – abbr. : men who have sex with men or women who have sex with women, to distinguish sexual behaviors from sexual identities: because a man is straight, it doesn’t mean he’s not having sex with men. Often used in the field of HIV/Aids education, prevention, and treatment.

Mx. / “mix” or “schwa” / – noun : an honorific (e.g. Mr., Ms., Mrs., etc.) that is gender neutral. It is often the option of choice for folks who do not identify within the gender binary: Mx. Smith is a great teacher.

neutrois – noun : an umbrella term for neutral genders (includes agender). Sometimes, it refers to genderlessness, sometimes a neutral combination of male and female.

novosexual – noun : someone who does not know what their sexuality is. This is different from questioning, however, as they know they are a different sexuality (from heterosexual/straight), but that sexuality keeps changing and they can’t pinpoint which one it is.

pansexual – adj. : a person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions. Often shortened to “pan.”

passing – 1 adj. & verb : trans* people being accepted as, or able to “pass for,” a member of their self-identified gender identity (regardless of sex assigned at birth) without being identified as trans*. 2 adj. : an LGB/queer individual who is believed to be or perceived as straight.

PGPs – abbr. : preferred gender pronouns. Often used during introductions, becoming more common as a standard practice. Many suggest removing the “preferred,” because it indicates flexibility and/or the power for the speaker to decide which pronouns to use for someone else.

polyamory (polyamorous) – noun : refers to the practice of, desire for, or orientation toward having ethical, honest, and consensual non-monogamous relationships (i.e., relationships that may include multiple partners). Often shortened to “poly.”

polysexual – noun : the attraction to multiple genders. Bisexuality and pansexuality are forms of polysexuality. Polysexuality generally rejects the idea of a gender binary rather than a spectrum of genders. Polysexuals do not necessarily engage in or support polyamory.

queer – 1 adj. : an umbrella term to describe individuals who don’t identify as straight and/or cisgender. 2 noun : a slur used to refer to someone who isn’t straight and/or cisgender. Due to its historical use as a derogatory term, and how it is still used as a slur in many communities, it is not embraced or used by all LGBTQ people. The term “queer” can often be used interchangeably with LGBTQ (e.g., “queer people” instead of “LGBTQ people”).

questioning – verb, adj. : an individual who or time when someone is unsure about or exploring their own sexual orientation or gender identity.

*Progress Pride Flag: includes PoC, Trans, Ace, Nonbinary, and HIV/ AIDS awareness*

QPOC / QTPOC – abbr. : initialisms that stand for queer people of color and queer and/or trans people of color.

Bawabu, the symbol used for same-gender loving movement in the 1990s

same gender loving (SGL) – adj. : sometimes used by some members of the African-American or Black community to express a non-straight sexual orientation without relying on terms and symbols of European descent.

sexual orientation – noun : the type of sexual, romantic, and emotional/spiritual attraction one has the capacity to feel for some others, generally labeled based on the gender relationship between the person and the people they are attracted to. Often confused with sexual preference.

*Linda Ikeji, before and after transitioning*

sex reassignment surgery (SRS) – noun : used by some medical professionals to refer to a group of surgical options that alter a person’s biological sex. “Gender confirmation surgery” is considered by many to be a more affirming term. In most cases, one or multiple surgeries are required to achieve legal recognition of gender variance. Some refer to different surgical procedures as “top” surgery and “bottom” surgery to discuss what type of surgery they are having without having to be more explicit.

skoliosexual – adj. : being primarily sexually, romantically and/or emotionally attracted to some genderqueer, transgender, transsexual, and/or non-binary people.

spornosexual – adj. : a man concerned with personal appearance, but who places more emphasis on having a fit, toned, virile body than on grooming or fashion. Spornosexuals are said to be on the quest for the ultimate body so they can show if off on social media, preferably shirtless, not to be confused with a metrosexual.

stealth – adj. : a trans person who is not “out” as trans*, and is perceived/known by others as cisgender.

straight ally – noun : a heterosexual and cisgender person who supports equal civil rights, gender equality, LGBT social movements, and challenges homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Also known as a heterosexual ally.

stud – noun : most commonly used to indicate a Black/African-American and/or Latina masculine lesbian/queer woman. Also known as ‘butch’ or ‘aggressive’.

third gender – noun : for a person who does not identify with either man or woman, but identifies with another gender. This gender category is used by societies that recognize three or more genders, both contemporary and historic, and is also a conceptual term meaning different things to different people who use it, as a way to move beyond the gender binary. Many cultures have a separate word for members of this third gender.

India – – hijra
Mexico – – Muxe can be defined as persons who were born with male genitalia and choose to live or dress as a woman
Thailand – – Kathoeys
Tahiti – mahu or RaeRae
Samoa – fa’afafine
Nepal – metis
- anya is any transgendered person in Nepal
Pakistan – khwaja siras
Japan – wakashu
Indonesia – Waria

top surgery – noun : this term refers to surgery for the construction of a male-type chest or breast augmentation for a female-type chest.

transgender – 1 adj. : a gender description for someone who has transitioned (or is transitioning) from living as one gender to another. 2 adj. : an umbrella term for anyone whose sex assigned at birth and gender identity do not correspond in the expected way (e.g., someone who was assigned male at birth, but does not identify as a man).

Black Transmen Inc
Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice

transman; transwoman – 1 noun : an identity label sometimes adopted by female-to-male transgender people or transsexuals to signify that they are men while still affirming their history as assigned female sex at birth (sometimes referred to as transguy) 2 noun : identity label sometimes adopted by male-to-female transsexuals or transgender people to signify that they are women while still affirming their history as assigned male sex at birth.

transphobia – noun : the fear of, discrimination against, or hatred of trans* people, the trans* community, or gender ambiguity. Transphobia can be seen within the queer community, as well as in general society.

transphobic – adj. : a word used to describe an individual who harbors some elements of this range of negative attitudes, thoughts, intents, towards trans* people.

**Chevalier D’Eon**, *recently confirmed to be a painting of a transvestite*

transvestite – noun : a person who dresses as the binary opposite gender expression (“cross-dresses”) for any one of many reasons, including relaxation, fun, and sexual gratification (often called a “cross-dresser,” and should not be confused with transsexual).

two-spirit – noun : is an umbrella term traditionally within Native American communities to recognize individuals who possess qualities or fulfill roles of both genders.

ze / zir / “zee”, “zerr” or “zeer”/ – alternate pronouns that are gender neutral and preferred by some trans* people. They replace “he” and “she” and “his” and “hers” respectively. Alternatively, some people who are not comfortable/do not embrace he/she use the plural pronoun “they/their” as a gender neutral singular pronoun.

Suicide and mental illness rates among LGBTQIA people, especially young people, are more than twice as high as those among the general population.
Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues in Counseling

HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW

Posted on February 25, 2020May 19, 2020 by vlaw759

My oldest daughter was born bald as a billiard ball and stayed that way for more than three months. My cousin left the hospital with his black hair combed into an Elvis Presley pompadour, but after several weeks he began to lose it. Head hair goes through three stages: growth, resting, and shedding, in that order. At birth, babies’ hair is in the “resting” stage while bodily resources are devoted to more vital functions, like lung development and temperature regulation. After the resting phase, hair sheds. It goes into a growth phase again after three to seven months. From then till puberty, it’s a matter of gaining more head hair. Hair color and/or texture often goes through many changes in the first several month or years.

Bottom line for writers: Your young characters’ hair is pretty much up for grabs; except for the stage of “baby-fine,” hair tells us little about age or health of young children.

Puberty

Males start growing body hair: face, underarms, chest, arms and legs, public area. This can be any time between 9 and 14.
Females grow hair in adult female patterns: underarms, legs, genital area. Usually starts between 8 and 13.
Following puberty, hair growth patterns are fairly steady for the next couple of decades.

Bottom line for writers: Hair can be used in a number of ways, but between puberty and 30 or so it isn’t an age marker.

*Hair Sculptor Laetitia Ky from Ivory Coast*
.

Adults shed hair regularly, perhaps 80-100 hairs a day. Shedding hair is not the same as thinning hair or going bald. Babies are born with all the hair follicles they will ever have. When hair follicles shut down, thinning hair or baldness result. And why would writers care?

Why Hair Follicles Shut Down

Age: Both males and females typically notice some thinning or loss of scalp hair as they age, usually starting in the 50s and progressing in 60s, 70s, and 80s.
- A good way to show rather than tell that a character is a “mature” adult
Genetics: Both thinning and pattern badness tend to run in families for both females and males.
- An unacknowledged family connection could be inferred by similar patterns and ages of onset

Alopecia: An autoimmune condition that attacks hair follicles leading to hair loss on the scalp as well as other parts of the body. Symptoms usually start in childhood.
- Good for adding stress and tension.
Side effects of medication/treatment: Think chemotherapy, but also vitamin deficiencies, some antibiotic, some antidepressants (4 to 6 months after starting treatment), some anticonvulsants for epileptics (dose dependent). Hair usually regrows when/if the treatment ends.
- A clue to unacknowledged/undiagnosed medical issues
- Maybe someone introducing unneeded treatment in order to produce the side effects of hair loss/thinning

Hormonal changes: For women, pregnancy and/or menopause; high cortisol levels and thyroid imbalance for both women and men, insulin resistance and estrogen dominance. Deficiencies in vitamin B12, biotin, and zinc can worsen hormone based hair loss.
- Maybe the hair changes/losses create emotional stress during pregnancy or menopause
- Maybe a character is so upset that a major life goal is to find a “cure” through hormone and/or nutritional therapy
- A good hairstylist may notice an illness or pregnancy before the patient simply by observing changing hair
Certain hairstyles: High ponytails, cornrows, braids, and pigtails if they are too tight and these styles are worn too long.
- Consider a character whose self-concept and/or identity is connected to hairstyle and appearance

How Hair Changes Over Time

Growth: Scalp hair grows an average of half an inch a month. And a single hair can last up to six years. Consider hair length as an indicator of age.

Color: Chances are, when you think of an old person’s hair, you first think gray. Graying hair can be brought on or accelerated by stress, and unhealthy diet, lack of sleep, or serious illness.
- Generally, the lighter your skin, the sooner your hair will turn gray. Caucasians usually start to turn gray in their early 30s, those with darker skin generally start to go gray in their 40s.
- Hair often grays first at the temples; sometimes it’s throughout the head hair.
- Body hair usually turns gray later, but sometimes not at all.
- When eyebrows gray, the individual brow hairs are long and coarse.
- Is your character embracing gray, or fighting it every step of the way?
- What is your character willing to do to hide gray hair?
- And N.B.: there are far more than 50 shades of gray. Be precise when you describe your character. Think silver, iron, lead, clouds, snow—or that old standby, salt-and-pepper.

Thickness and texture: Over time, hair becomes rougher and more prone to break, and each hair itself becomes thinner and smaller. Give more depth to your descriptions of old hair, perhaps through touch.
Thinning hair and baldness by sex:
- By age 60, two-thirds of males exhibit male-pattern baldness. Hair loss occurs first on the top or at the temples.
- Female-pattern baldness is typically exhibited as thin hair and visible scalp.
- Consider a man who shaves his entire head rather than exhibit graying hair and balding.
- What might a woman with thinning hair experience? Feel? Do?

*Some women can create rather impressive facial hair.*
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Facial and body hair: In general, facial and body hair also change with greater age. Women and men have less hair on arms, legs, underarms, chest, stomach, and in the genital area
- Women’s remaining hair may get courser, usually around the lips and on the chin.
- Men are likely to grow ear and nose hair.
- Both men and women are likely to lose hair on the outer third of the eyebrows and to get long, coarse eyebrow hairs.
- Older women may grow too much hair, hirsutism, showing hair in places usually associated with male bodies (face, neck, chest, thighs, back).

Using Hair To Distinguish Your Character

Face it, many people spend time on hair in one way or another. Except for haircuts, and maybe hair color, these are activities that tend to happen in private if not in secret. What your character does, how, and how often gives your reader a private, intimate view of your character.

Women
- Changing hair color, either DYI or at a salon
- Removing hair
- Underarm, leg, eyebrow, face, genital area, around nipples
- Via tweezing, depilatory, waxing, or shaving

Men
- Changing hair color (scalp or facial)
- Shaving
  - How often?
  - Using what instrument?
  - Beard?
  - What length?
- Remove, trim, or shape body hair
Aging Athletes
- Those who removed all hair to improve performance: swimmers, cyclists, runners, etc. Do they continue their old habits?
- Female athletes who train intensely throughout puberty often stop mentstruating temporarily, which can have a long-term effect on hair growth, texture, and color.

Hair Politics

Hair is so closely connected to personal identity and image that controversy is more or less inevitable. For more specifics on these issues, I advise you to visit the resources linked.

Religious direction at odds with uniform or dress standards
- Royal Canadian Mounted Police recently changed their facial hair requirements, allowing Sikhs, Muslims, and members of other religions to serve as officers.
- The US Air Force has made similar changes.
  - (Unrelated but still really cool – the Air Force has also started making uniform shirts that allow women to breastfeed while in uniform!)
- British Royal Navy uniform regulations now allow Rastafarians to maintain their long hair and beards so long as safety (such as face mask seals) is not compromised. Uniform regulations may be adjusted further to allow turbans.
- Many private religious schools in the US require specific hair lengths for boys and girls; boys cannot have long hair, and girls cannot have short hair.
- Similarly, many schools have specific regulations forbidding cornrows, dreadlocks, box braids, and other hairstyles primarily worn by students of African descent.

Opposing cultural pressures on women (and men) to change the length, color, texture, or style of their hair
- Society defines the ideal of beautiful hair ideal is silky smooth, blond or brunette, and as soft and fine as a baby’s – in essence, Caucasian.
  - Many of the products used to achieve these results are extremely caustic if not toxic.
- Women who relax, color, heat, and style their hair to meet this ideal sometimes face push-back from within their own communities.
- Military regulations, school dress codes, athletic associations, etc. often prohibit hair styles favored by women of African descent as well as “natural” hair styles; effectively, this forces women to cut their hair very short or use extreme treatments to mimic Caucasian hair. It is still legal in the United States to fire or refuse to hire an employee who has deadlocks, even if they are not a safety concern.
- Both men and women are pushed to remove all traces of gray from their hair, along with masking crows feet, laugh lines, age spots, and so on from skin.
- Men with long hair are told that only short hair is sufficiently manly.
- Women with short hair are told that only long hair is sufficiently feminine.
  - Historically (and currently, in some parts of the world), women have been punished for various transgressions by having their hair cut very short.
- Hair texture and color has been used as a marker on the scale of race differentiation in apartheid South Africa, by Adolph Hitler to determine Jewish ancestry, discriminating against “Catholic” redheads during the Great Famine in Ireland, while separating Aboriginal families in Australia, and in many other periods of history.
  - Czar Peter the Great of Russia decided that long beards were old-fashioned and not Western enough and forbade them in his court, going so far as forcibly cutting off the beards of his courtiers.

The dubious world of hair extensions
- Hair extensions are primarily marketed to women trying to achieve the ideal set by society and hair product companies.
- The hair to make the extensions is often sourced from women in dire situations.
  - Venezualan women have created a black market selling their hair and breast milk, which is the only way many of them can afford food.
  - Rural Indian women, whose long hair is often a traditional class or culture marker, have their hair forcibly shaved off by men in their families desperate for income.
  - Khmer women sometimes have their extremely long hair cut off by police as punishment for dubious charges or by family members desperate for food.
  - Northern Russian women with blond hair are particularly prized by buyers because of the versatility of naturally light hair. Several buyers make routine circuits through isolated areas and pressure women (and young girls) to sell their hair repeatedly, paying only a few dollars for hair they sell for hundreds of dollars.

Miscellaneous Hair Facts That May or May Not Be Useful to Writers

Regardless of location on the body, hair goes through the stages of growing, resting, and shedding.
Trimming does not affect the growth cycle of hair.
Head hair can continue to grow for 3-7 years for each follicle, at the rate of 6 inches per month.
Chest hair doesn’t grow beyond a certain length, often about 1 inch.
Armpit hair can be longer than chest hair and may grow outside the bounds of the armpit.
Pubic hair is often trimmed, shaped, or completely removed.
Eyebrow hairs stop at about 1 centimeter until they go rogue during older age, sometimes reaching an inch or more untrimmed.

Bottom bottom line for writers: Use hair more in your characterizations and plots. It is less common and will make your work fresher.

How Touching!

Posted on February 21, 2020February 21, 2020 by vlaw759

Skin is the largest sense organ in the human body—and it is the most developed sensory function in infants. Matthew Hertenstein is a big name in touch research, and he has characterized touch communications in three categories:

Universal
- Anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, and sympathy
Prosocial
- Surprise, happiness, and sadness
Self-focused
- Embarrassment envy, and pride

Numerous researchers have attempted to define how much information is communicated between humans through touch alone. In a practical sense, touch is seldom communicated without other verbal or nonverbal cues, so Hertenstein developed a series of controlled experiments. Pairs of participants were placed in a very artificial situation: the two sat on opposite sides of a curtain. The encoder would try to express a specific emotion by touching the decoder’s forearm with no visual or verbal cues; the decoder would then select the emotion received.

Bottom line: Human beings are surprisingly successful at this! Romantic partners were more successful than strangers.

Romantic partners were accurate:
- 53% of universal emotions
- 60% of prosocial emotions
- 39% of self-focused emotions
Strangers were accurate:
- 39% of universal emotions
- 56% of prosocial emotions
- 17% of self-focused emotions

But there is more than one way to group emotions. Klare Heston (LCSW) discusses ways to convey specific positive emotions in real-life situations. Writers can expand these narrow groupings to fit a wide variety of situations and communication needs.

Using Touch to Convey Positive Emotions
- (Always determine whether it is appropriate to touch the other person.)
- Offer congratulations and praise with a pat.
- Show love with hugs and kisses.
- Flirt with a person.
- Welcome a person warmly according to cultural norms (rub noses, etc.).
- Say thank you.
- Convey sympathy.
Expressing other Emotions with Touch
- Gain a person’s attention.
- Let a person know you’re in charge.
- Reveal surprise.
- Disclose fear.
- Indicate anger.

Bottom line for writers here: As evident in the previously cited research, any given act—e.g., touching the forearm—can support, emphasize, or outright convey many emotions.

Touch is strongly dependent on culture and context. Do you want your reader to be clear on the meaning of a touch or keep them guessing?

The Impact Of Touching Behavior on Everyday Health focuses on the impact of touching.

Touch is absolutely necessary for normal child development, especially the ability of children to handle stress. The touch bond between mother and fetus begins in the womb. Human babies struggle to survive without a sense of touch, even if they retain sight and hearing.

Research indicates that for adults, touch can change the way bodies function, e.g., lower blood pressure and heart rate. Depression and eating disorders have been linked to touch deprivation in adults, and it is more common for men than women because of the stronger social prohibitions against same-sex touch for adult males.

This article cites five areas of touch in typical nonverbal communication:

Functional/ Professional
- Besides doctors and others whose work requires touching, touching in the workplace can have both positive and negative effects. Everyone knows the “power handshake,” that those who are dominant shake harder and longer. Bone crushing is generally considered to be bad. Also, superiors feel freer to touch subordinates than vice versa, whether pats on the back or touches on the forearm. Touching stresses how important a message is and the dominance of the toucher.

Social/Polite.
- Different areas of the body are appropriate to touch in different social situations. Women are freer being touched by a member of the same sex. Men are more comfortable being touched by a female stranger than women are with being touched by a male stranger. Holding a handshakes longer than two seconds will result stop the verbal communication.

Friendship/Warmth.
- Women are more likely to express friendship or warmth through a hug; men shake hands. Within families, women are more likely to touch; but also same sex family members are more likely to touch than opposite sex family members.

Love/Intimacy.
- Men are more likely to make the initial moves on intimate touches. Holding hands or an arm across the shoulder is a territorial marker. Touch is more important to women than to men.
- Touching between married couples seems to help maintain good health. University of Virginia psychologist Jim Coan found that women under stress were immediately relieved by merely holding their husbands’ hands.
- Violence in intimate relationships falls into two categories:
  - Intimate terrorism involves a need to control or dominate, escalates over time in terms of frequency and severity.
  - “Common couple violence” comes in episodes and doesn’t escalate over time.

Sexual/Arousal.
- First touch often involves a neutral body part and seems “accidental.”
  - Hugging. Intention to touch, e.g., extending a hand across a table.
  - Kissing. The final case, love-making, may include kissing, nuzzling, gentle massage, and other foreplay.

Alternatively, wikipedia.org lists seven categories of touch meanings.

Positive affect
- Support, appreciation, inclusion, sexual, affection
Playful
- Can be affection or aggression, tend to lighten the interaction
Control
- Compliance, attention-getting, encouraging a response
Ritualistic
- Mostly greetings and departures, but also includes the chest bumps, etc., shared among athletes (related to wins) and the ritual handshakes at games end
Hybrid
- Greeting/affection; departure/affection
- Couldn’t the hybrid be negative?
Task-related
- Everything from hairdressers to dance/ yoga instructors to emergency responders
Accidental
- Consist mostly of brushes, but results in better tips for wait staff, fosters cooperation, and even makes people feel better about libraries (!)

the1thing.com points out that the U.S. is a low-touch culture. They go on to suggest five ways people can communicate more effectively by using touch.

Accompany praise with a pat on the back
Build cooperative relations by starting discussions with touch
Make business handshakes more effective by extending it for a beat
Give and get massages to strengthen and deepen bonds
Consider location when you touch (i.e., private or public)

Depending on situation, touch can be perceived as threatening or creepy, especially if it’s prolonged. To be safe, keep touch brief and keep to the arm, shoulder, hand.

The most important things we reveal through touch are degree of dominance and degree of intimacy.

Bottom line for writers: We often touch with little or no planning, and perceive the communication of touch without conscious thought. Given context, your reader will know the meaning of a touch. And consider that touch is often the fastest means of communication. A touch can communicate stop, fear, affection, etc.

SALT

Posted on February 11, 2020May 19, 2020 by vlaw759

It’s everywhere! And surely anything as ubiquitous as salt has a place in your writing. The English language is sprinkled liberally with salt. The following phrases are so common that they are clichés, and writers note: as such these may have a place in dialogue but seldom, if at all, in narrative. No doubt most if not all of these are familiar, so take this as a nudge to use them.

*Basamaci Restaurant in Shiraz is made entirely of salt.*

*Wieliczka-Zwiedzanie Salt Mine in Krakow, Poland*

Rub salt into the wound: make a painful experience worse
Salt a mine: bring in ore or something else to make the source seem rich
Salt the books: inflate receipts to falsely show more money
Salt of the earth: a really good person
Salting the earth: victors sowed salt to prevent the growth of plants on enemy land
Worth one’s salt (or not): has earned his money (or not)
Take something with a pinch/grain of salt: view skeptically, think something is exaggerated
Salt away: save for the future
Old salt: old seaman
Above/below the salt: above is closer to the seat of power, indicating the diners’ relative status
Salt mine: figuratively, work, especially a difficult job or task
Salty language: somewhat rude or shocking

Writers: Consider building a scene or a plot around one of these

Salt in Religion

As valuable as salt has been, finding it used in religious ceremonies is only to be expected.

*Different types of salt can make a rainbow of flames*

In Hittite rituals, during Semite and Greek festivals at the time of the new moon, salt was thrown into fire where it popped and crackled.
Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans made offerings of salt and water to their gods.
- Some historians think this may have been the origin of Holy Water in Christian rituals.
In Aztec tradition, the fertility goddess (Huixtocihuatl) presided over salt and salt water.
Hindus consider salt auspicious and use it in weddings and house-warmings.
Devotees of Jainism lay an offering of raw rice with a bit of salt before a deity to symbolize devotion.
- Salt is sprinkled on cremains before they are buried.
Mahayana Buddhists use salt to ward off evil spirits.
- After a funeral, a pinch of salt is thrown over the left shoulder to prevent evil spirits from entering the house, a practice that is also copied by superstitious people of many cultures.

In Shinto Buddhism, salt is used for ritual purification (people and places).
- Small piles of salt are placed at the entrances of shrines to ward off evil and attract patron spirits.
In Judaism, salted bread is recommended for passing around the table after the Kiddush.
- Sabbath bread is dipped in salt, as are the bitter herbs at Passover.
Both Jewish and Muslim dietary laws require removing blood from freshly slaughtered meat; salt and brine are used for the purpose.
In Wicca, salt is symbolic of the element Earth; it cleanses harmful or negative energy. A dish of salt and one of water are nearly always present on an altar, and salt is used in many rituals and ceremonies.

What if a character not of a particular culture or religion learned something about the rituals and decided to practice them?

When most people think “salt” they think of seasoning food. In fact, only 6% of salt is consumed by people. Even so, gourmets identify at least 12 salts used in food preparation. Also, salty is one of the five basic tastes (along with sweet, bitter, sour, and umami). In addition, salt releases food molecules into the air, giving food an aroma. And FYI, apart from the basic tastes, almost all other tastes are actually smell. In small amounts, salt curbs bitterness and enhances sweet, sour, and umami. In higher amounts, it reduces sweetness and enhances umami, great for savor and meat dishes.

Table salt: most common, from underground deposits, highly refined and finely ground, usually treated with an anti-caking age. Often iodine is added to prevent goiter.
Kosher salt: flakier and coarser grained than table salt, good for sprinkling on food and cooking. Does not have additives. Not kosher itself, it’s used in the koshering process
Sea salt: from evaporated sea water, usually unrefined and coarser grained than table salt. Contains minerals (e.g., zinc, potassium, iron) and flavor from where harvested.
Himalayan pink salt: purest salt in the world. It contains the 84 elements found in the human body.
Celtic sea salt (gray salt): harvest off the coast of France, mineral rich, chunky grains.

Fluer de sel (flower of salt):delicate, paper-thin crystals, harvested by hand with wooden rakes, the most expensive of all food salts
Kala namak (black salt): it’s Himalayan, with a faint sulfur aroma that goes tofu (for example) the taste of eggs
Flake salt: harvested by boiling sea water, thin irregular crystals, very low mineral content
Black and red Hawaiian salt: both coarse-grained and crunchy, great with seafood and meat.
Smoked salt: slow smoked up to two weeks over a wood fire (e.g., hickory, mesquite, apple, oak, alder); varies in flavor
Pickling salt: used for pickling and brining, no added iodine or anti-caking agents, not many base minerals

Consider a character who has 5 or 6 types of salt on hand: which kinds and why?

Myriad Uses for Salt

In researching this topic, I read that there are more than 14,000 uses for salt. Searching online for uses for salt turns up lists of all sorts of lengths—6, 12, 20, 55—more than enough to establish salt’s place in the life of your character. Is your character thrifty, and thus finds salt a less expensive alternative to cleaning, medical, or beauty products? Does your character strive for simplicity, and want to purge as many products as possible? Here are a few examples. Each bigger topic could be researched separately.

Around the home
- Keep wicker looking new
- Put out a fire
- Deodorize shoes
- Prevent new towels from fading in the wash
Health and beauty
- Alternative to mouthwash
- Exfoliate your skin
- Dandruff treatment
- Gargle saltwater for sore throat
Cleaning with salt
- Remove tea and coffee stains from mugs and carafes
- Clean a dirty room
- Refresh chopping boards
- Get rid of watermarks on wood furniture

Salt in the kitchen
- Quick and easy nut shelling
- Test the freshness of an egg
- Extend the life of cheese
- Whip egg whites and heavy quicker
- Keep sliced apples and potatoes from browning
Salt outside
- Keep car windshield frost-free in winter
- Pain relief from a bee sting
- Keep stains from setting in clothing

Importance of Salt—Past and Present

*Or you could go to a salt cave in Minneapolis and sit*

It is essential for human and other animal life.
- At the same time, excessive salt consumption is related to high blood pressure and other cardiovascular diseases.
Salting food is one of the oldest methods of preservation, along with drying and smoking, dating to at least 6050 BCE in Bulgaria, 5400 BCE in Romania, and 6000 BCE in China. It’s still used as a preservative in processed foods.
Other uses include water conditioning (12%)
- De-icing highways (8%)
- 68% of world-wide salt production is used for manufacturing and industrial processing (PVC, plastics, paper pulp, aluminum, soaps, glycerine, synthetic rubber, and firing pottery, drilling, to fix color in dying textiles, tanning hides)

Salt was used for barter pretty much world-wide:
- Moorish merchants in the 6th century traded salt for gold, weight for weight.
- Salt was traded like gold or silk everywhere along the Silk Road and throughout Europe.
Salt has been used as money in Ethiopia, other parts of Africa, and Tibet.
- An allowance of salt was made to officers and soldiers in the Roman Army.

**The Road** (2009) from the novel by Cormac McCarthy

Writers: Consider an apocalyptic story in which the basic necessity of salt returns.

The Lasting Stamp of Salt

In many places, in many forms, the historical significance of salt continues to reverberate today.

Naming rights:
- One of the oldest roads in Italy is Via Salaria, salt route
- The river Salzach in Austria translates to salt river
- Salzburg means salt castle
The Roman allowance of salt turned into a monetary allowance to buy salt, and this salarium gave rise to the English word salary
- In Japan, a person who works a M-F office job is often referred to as a salaryman (サラリーマン )

*Gandhi led people on a march to the sea to distill salt after British salt laws were imposed.*

Salting the Dead—and Not Dead

*Somehow, I don’t think salt water is going to help alleviate torture…*

Salt accelerates the process of decomposition of the body.
It helps to prevent bad odor from leaking out of the soil where the corpse is buried, so dogs and other predators don’t dig up the body.
If someone is buried in salt up to his/her neck: the salt would start to draw water out of the body slowly. The skin starts wrinkling and drying as time goes by, mouth becomes parched and eyes become irritated because of the loss of moisture. It becomes harder to breathe as water leaves the body and the blood becomes thicker and more coagulated. The terrible thing is that unlike being buried alive, the person would likely remain conscious and eventually delirious before dying a long time later. The corpse would be dehydrated and preserved by the salt and thus become a mummy.

Writers: consider the dark possibilities of torture and/or murder.

*Cristal Samana Salt Hotel in Uyumi, Bolivia*

Bottom line for writers: sprinkled throughout!

*No discussion of salt is complete without mentioning legendary musicians Salt N Pepa!*

SEEING THINGS

Posted on February 7, 2020May 19, 2020 by vlaw759

Yep. I’m into body parts. I’ve blogged about feet, hands, handedness, hair, etc. Today, it’s eyes. Eyes stare, wink, and roll, among other things. For many people, eyes are the first thing they notice. They communicate all the time. But what are they saying? I’m talking about the U.S. But be aware that the meaning of eye contact varies between societies, with religious and social differences.

*I think these eyes are saying, “I’m going to steal this firetruck!”*

Those Lying Eyes

It’s a truism that a liar can’t look you in the eye, that people look away when lying or trying to deceive. What does the research say?

Introverts struggle to maintain eye contact when lying
Extrovert liars tend to engage in more eye contact as a way of asserting innocence
In many cultures, eye aversion is a sign of respect for the speaker
We look away when we are comfortable
We look away when we retrieve facts from our memory
We look away when we contemplate the future
We look down, move our eyes side to side, hold still, or even close our eyes as we process information
People with autistic disorders or social anxieties find eye contact particularly unsettling

Those Truthful Eyes

Squinting or narrowing the eyes indicates discomfort, stress, or anger, i.e., nothing good
When nervous or troubled, blink rate increases five times or more over the base rate
People make more eye contact with people or things they like, indicating attraction, attentiveness, interest
People look away from things/people found distasteful
Eyes can convey six basic emotions: sadness, disgust, anger, joy, fear, and surprise
Direction of gaze indicates where one’s attention lies
Eye contact is an important element of flirting
In many crowded cities (New York, London), strangers in close proximity avoid eye contact to help maintain privacy

Consider Problem Eyes

Although looking at a speaker indicates respect and/or shows you are listening, too much of a good thing might signal an effort to assert dominance.
A condition like chronic dry eye, which is accompanied by redness, watering eyes, rubbing itchy or burning eyes send negative messages, such as lack of interest, fatigue, disagreement, or disbelief.

FYI: Studies suggest that eye contact has a positive impact on the retention and recall of information—i.e., it facilitates learning.

Colorful Considerations

*Eye color is genetic. Blue, green, and grey eyes are a result of recessive genes.*

There is some evidence that the color of a person’s irises has some effect on personality or physical health. Though the science on that is still a bit nebulous, multiple studies have shown that eye color affects the way a person is perceived. Of course, every person is different and perceptions vary among cultures, there are some stereotypes that are more common than others.

Brown eyes
- Compassionate
- Humble
- Warm and friendly
- Outgoing, vivacious, extroverted
- Fabulous kissers, fabulous lovers
- Energetic
- Willing to take risks

Blue eyes
- Insincere, untrustworthy
- Self-absorbed
- Intelligent
- Excelling at strategy, academic sciences (left-brained!)
Studies have shown that men with blue eyes are more likely to choose romantic partners who also have blue eyes. Men with other eye colors did not demonstrate any consistent preference.
Babies are born with blue eyes, which usually darken to other colors as melanin in the iris increases.

Hazel eyes
- Determined, strong in the face of adversity
- Imaginative and creative
- Fall in love quickly and intensely
- Self-centered

Green eyes
- Self-sufficient
- Confident
- Emotionally restrained
- Love fun and laughing
- Initially reserved but ultimately quite talkative

Grey eyes
- Conformist
- Quiet
- Sensitive, empathic
- Mystical and wise
- Deceptive

Bottom line for writers: Eyes are a powerful tool, but to be clear, eyes have to be interpreted in context.

*Don’t discount the appeal of puppy eyes!*

*And then there are those times when no eyes can be seen…*

TALKING HANDS

Posted on February 4, 2020May 19, 2020 by vlaw759

*Finger* *Hands* *made* by *Archie* *McPhee*

The first thought to come to mind is probably American Sign Language. Important as it is, that isn’t a big part of this blog, primarily because I know next to nothing about it. For information from experts in Sign Language and Deaf culture, check out these other sources:

Instead, I am going to take a look at the hand language that people pick up without really thinking about it. In spite of humans developing amazing verbal language, we still engage our hands to enhance communication of our emotions, thoughts, and meaning. Think of how hands are used by effective speakers (e.g., Hitler), magicians, and orchestra conductors, for example.

Talking Hands are a Gift for Writers!

Use hands to show rather than tell how a person is feeling, whether anxious, scared, frustrated, or confident. Mismatching words and hand movements are invaluable for indicating dishonesty, lies, or at the least a situation undermining trust.

Hand slang is culture-bound. By hand slang, I mean gestures that convey a specific meaning in a particular culture. For example, in the United States, the following gestures are generally understood:

Rubbing palms together: anticipation, positive expectation; rubbing faster is more positive
Tubbing thumb against index finger or fingers: financial gain, expectation
Fist pump: victory, win
Fist bump: congratulations, casual greeting
Closed fist, middle finger extended: f*ck you, up yours
Closed fist, index and middle fingers extended: peace, accent for photos
Thumb to nose, fingers waggling: mocking, distain
Thumbs to ears, tongue sticking out: a childish gesture of disdain or insult
Hand over heart: sincerity, believe me
Right hand raised, elbow bent: believe me, I swear; stop
Clenched fist: anger, irritation, or tension
Crooking the index finger: come here, sometimes used flirtatiously

Hand slang often changes in meaning over time, even within the same culture:

Historically, thumbs down means death; now, disapproval or disagreement
Thumb up: historically, let the combatant live; now, okay, good job
Index finger curled to touch the thumb: historically, this meant “okay”; recently, this gesture has become a symbol that the wielder is a white supremacist.

Writers note: The same gesture often has different meanings in different cultures. Use the confusion your advantage when there is a cross-cultural element to your story. Touching the index finger to the thumb means different things all over the world:

You’re a zero – France and Belgium
Money – Japan
@sshole – southern Italy
Sexual invitation – Greece and Turkey

President Nixon caused a scandal in Brazil when he deplaned with both hands overhead in the American peace sign, which in Brazil is equivalent to flipping someone the bird.

Gendered Gestures

By middle school/early adolescence, gender differences in the use of gestures emerge. Some gestures are used equally by both males and females.

Thumbs protruding from pockets: dominance and self-assuredness
Gesturing/pointing to someone with the thumb: dismissive, disrespectful, ridiculing
- Women more likely to use this gesture with people they dislike

Males
- Give “the finger”
- Give the finger with an upward arm more to convey “up yours”
- Pound the table
- Pound a fist into the opposite hand
- Display clenched fists
- Use expansive, powerful hand movements
- Use adaptors less frequently (see below)
- Holding jacket lapel with thumbs exposed: dominant and self-assuredness

Females
- Put their hands in their laps or on their hips
- Tap their hands on the table or on their leg
- Pull in their gestures as if their elbows are attached to their waists
- Use more “bonding” gestures, such as hands and arms outstretched toward another person
- Be more expressive, more animated in their use of gestures
- Use low steepled finger position (see below)
- Place one hand over the other and rest her chin on top, drawing attention to the face

Writers portraying a person of the other sex heed this: getting body language wrong—in this case hand talk—makes your character come across as unreal or unbelievable.

Professional Gestures

Several professions require conveying information through hand gestures that fall outside the structure of a formalized language. People in these professions tend to remain cognizant of their hand movements and position even when not working. Some make an effort to minimize or completely still their hands, while others are especially prone to enhance their communication with conscious hand gestures.

Musical conductors often subconsciously cue other speakers even when off the stage. Conductors are trained to use their left and right hands simultaneously to make completely independent movements, signalling the tempo and style with the right hand and controlling musicians’ entrances and overall tone with the left.

Classical dance traditions in India, Bali, Japan, and many other regions include a “vocabulary” of hand signs. These signs are not a formalized language like ASL, but they are used in combination with the music to create a message or tell a story physically embodied by the movements of the entire body.

Romani dancers have a much less formal dance style, and it is common for individual dancers or families to create or adjust their own lexicon of hand movements. These gestures often reflect activities in daily life. Unlike Indian or Balinese dancers, Romani dancers’ footwork and figures tends to be relatively simple.

Ballet, and many offshoot lyrical dance styles, uses hand gestures either to extend the movement of their arms or to communicate story elements via pantomime.

Gestures as Adaptors

Adaptors are almost always learned in childhood, typically involving touching oneself, for the purpose of self-soothing. Often people exhibit only one such behavior/habit, but an individual could have multiples. For example, pulling on an ear, tapping toes, smoothing eyebrows, touching nose or chin, bouncing a knee, twisting fingers, picking at one’s nails, twirling hair, and brushing hair back. Adaptors can include adjusting clothing (e.g., pulling on/straightening a tie), fiddling with jewelry, pocket change, or a pencil, and drumming one’s fingers.

Important things about using/exhibiting adaptors:

They attract attention, detracting from the verbal communication and/or annoying others
They are often interpreted as signs of anxiety
They make the exhibitor less persuasive

Writers note: There are lots of ways to show anxiety or nervousness without telling the reader that is what is being felt.

What the hands say is often louder than words. Research by Joe Navarro’s and others supports this conclusion.

When people hide their hands (for example, under a table or desk) they are perceived as less open and less honest.
How we touch someone reveals how we feel about them: full touch with the palm is warm and affectionate; touching with fingertips shows less affection.
When people feel comfortable and strong, fingers are spread out more, making hands more territorial.
When feeling insecure, people’s fingers are closer, sometimes thumbs tucked into palms.
Steepled fingers: when held high, feeling confident; low steepled fingers signal the person is listening, attending.
When feeling confident, thumbs rise more as the person speaks, especially if fingers are intertwined.
Two gestures express extreme stress: the Teepee Finger rub (palms facing, fingers interlaced and held stiff or rubbed slowly back and forth; and fingers intertwined palms facing up.
When adults’ words don’t match their gestures they are seen as less trustworthy.
Hands clenched together: scared, nervous, or holding back a strong negative emotion.

Position is important: in front of face, on desk or lap, in front of genitals when standing; in general, the higher the clenched fists, the stronger the negative emotion.

Hand behind the back, one hand gripped in the other: superiority and confidence.
Arms back, one hand gripping wrist: holding back frustration, a gesture of self-control.

Get a grip on yourself?—Arms back, one hand gripping the other arm: the higher up the hand grips the opposite arm, the more frustrated or angry the person is likely to be.

Writers be aware: mismatching words and hand movements is a powerful tool.

Pay attention to handshakes. Because a handshake is often the first touch between people, it shapes first impressions.

No one likes vice-like grips, which convey aggressiveness, perhaps an attempt to intimidate or establish dominance.
A limp handshake does not denote femininity, but rather weakness.
Body language experts suggest mirroring the other person’s handshake, with good eye contact.
NB: In some cultures a hug or cheek-kissing might be more in order.

Talking With One’s Hands Isn’t a Bad Thing

An analysis of TED talks found that the most popular speakers used nearly twice as many hand gestures as the least popular speakers.
People who talk with their hands tend to be viewed as warm, agreeable and energetic.
People who use their hands less are seen as logical, cold and analytical.
According to Kinsey Gorman, “Gesturing can help people form clearer thoughts, speak in tighter sentences, and use more declarative language.”
Hand gestures often tell others the strength of our emotions and motivations.
Young children (age 5 or 6) using more hand gestures predicts a strong vocabulary as well ask sills related to sentence structure and storytelling later.

Bottom line for writers: Hand movements and gestures allow you to convey so much information to your readers:

Show not tell emotions and attitudes
Add depth to your character
Add power to your dialogue
Break up big chunks of narrative or dialogue in meaningful ways

SINISTER DEXTERITY

Posted on January 31, 2020May 19, 2020 by vlaw759

All writers should seriously consider including one or more lefties among their cast of characters – think of the possibilities! Let’s begin with ways being left-handed in and of itself creates obstacles for the leftie.

By definition, a left-handed person is in the minority: with no overt effort to control handedness, lefties make up only 10% of the population today (9% of females, 11% of males). There is evidence that 500,000 year ago, neanderthals were characterized by this 90/10 split. Simply living in a right-handed world is a challenge. Consider the number of things that are made to be used right-handed, from scissors to guitars to golf clubs. Yes, special implements are available, but that is just the point—they are “special,” and often more expensive. In some places, and at some times, special accommodations aren’t even available.

Writers Note: Any right-handed implement being used by a leftie could make a nice scene, and the way the leftie copes would clearly illuminate the leftie’s character.

Biases Against Lefties

“Right” phrases for positive things (such as right answer, right-hand man) vs. “left” phrases for things that are clumsy or bad (e.g., two left feet or a left-handed compliment).
Because the left hemisphere of the brain (which controls the right side of the body) is responsible for words, in almost every language the words for the right side of the body are positive and for the left side are negative.
- In English, the direction “right” also means correct or proper.
- In languages derived from Latin, left also means unlucky; sinister means evil.
- In French, gauche means left, awkward, and clumsy; droit(e) means right, straight, as well as law.
In Ghana, a person can’t point with a left hand because the left hand is reserved for dirty things.
In some Islamic cultures, people are said to step into the mosque with the right foot, into the toilet with the left.

Only the right hand can be used for eating in most cultures where eating with bare hands is the norm.
Across cultures, words with more letters on the right side of the keyboard are rated more positively than average; words with more left side letters were rated more negatively. Since 1990, names with more right-side letters are wildly more popular.
Most religions have a strong bias for the right hand, particularly in Christian cultures:
- The faithful sit at the Right Hand of God.
- Black magic and Satanism are often referred to as the Left-Hand Path.
- “And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left.” Matthew 25: 32–33
When asked to judge two alien creatures side-by-side on the page, right-handers attributed more positive to the one on the right, while lefties were more positive toward the one on the left (attribution of honest, intelligent, attractiveness).
Lefties can learn to behave like right-handed people, and some cultures and periods in history have pushed strongly to suppress left-handedness.

*Left-handed children were forced to use their non-dominant hand in school well into the 20th Century in the US.*

Writer questions: How does your leftie cope with these biases on a daily basis? What if a leftie from a more accepting culture finds him/ herself in a stricter culture, and had to learn to write right-handed, and not hand anything to someone with the left hand?

*Most people have a dominant foot as well as a dominant hand, and they don’t always line up. This can have a huge effect on the performance and injury rates for athletes and dancers.*

The Downside of Left-Handedness

Mental illness is more common in left-handed people.
- Lefties have a higher risk of psychosis. Lefties make up 20% or more of people diagnosed.
- Lefties make up 40% of people diagnosed as schizophrenic.
- Scientists have also found an increased risk for autism, ADHD, and dyslexia.
- Lefties are more affected by fear, often showing subtle behaviors like people with PTSD.
- Lefties are more prone to having negative emotions, such as anger.
- Lefties seem to have a harder time processing their feelings.
- Lefties report feeling more inhibited, shy, and embarrassed.
- For mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disease, lefties make up 11%, close to their proportion in the general population.

*During certain time periods, being left handed was enough to be convicted of witchcraft.*

Left-handedness is positively correlated with lower-birth-weight and complications.
40% of children with cerebral palsy were left-handed.
Lefties are more likely to break bones.
Lefties are more likely to have heart disease and to die earlier as a result.
For women
- Left-handedness is associated with a 62% increased risk for Parkinson’s disease.
- A higher risk of developing multiple sclerosis.
- Lefties have a higher risk of breast cancer, especially in post-menopausal women.
Paraphiliacs (exhibiting atypical sexual interests, typically involving extreme or dangerous activities) have a higher rate of left-handedness.
Greater rates of left-handedness have been documented for pedophiles.
Overall lefties salaries are 10% lower on average than right-handers. (Among the college educated, lefties earned 10-15% more than their right-handed colleagues.)

Writers: choose the psychological or health issue your leftie has(to) overcome.

*Several members of the British Royal Family are left-handed.*

The Upside of Left-Handedness

Lefties are more likely to develop some measure of dexterity in their non-dominant hand, most likely a result of years using tools designed for righties.
Lefties have a lower rate of arthritis.
Lefties have a lower rate of ulcers.
Lefties are better at divergent thinking, which generating ideas that explores many possible solutions.
Lefties tend to be drawn to careers in the arts, music, sports, and information-technology fields, and are often successful.
A slightly larger proportion of lefties are especially gifted in music and math.

**Link** from **Legend of Zelda** Is one of the few canonically left-handed video game characters.

Lefties have an advantage in hand-to-hand combat, analogous to throwing a curveball.
Lefties have an advantage in sports that involve aiming at a target, and are over-represented in baseball, tennis, table tennis, badminton, fencing, cricket, and boxing.
Some cultures have historically accepted or even revered left-handed individuals:
- The Incas positively regarded left-handed individuals as people who possessed special spiritual abilities.
- In Buddhism, the natural persuasion to use the left hand implied wisdom, according to it’s teachings.
- In early Russia, “levsha” (left-hander) became a common noun for a skilled craftsman of status.
Women who hold their infants in their right arm (presumably to leave their left hand free for fine-motor skills) are less likely to suffer from post-partum depression.

Writers: At last! Ways your leftie might thrive.

Also Related to Handedness—or Not

Immune system disorders are not more common for lefties.
The research on handedness and homosexuality is not consistent.
A child’s dominant hand is clear by age 3 or 4.
Genetic males with female gender identities were more than twice as likely to be left handed than the control group
Lefties drink more
- But they are no more prone to alcoholism.
How speech is heard:
- Right-handed people like rapidly-changing sounds like consonants;
- Lefties hear slowly-changing sounds like syllables or intonation better.
People use their non-dominant hand for negative gestures
Handedness is a combination of genetics, biology, and environment; although left-handedness does tend to run in families, but a left-handed identical twin’s twin is right-handed about 30% of the time.
Overall, people gesture more with their dominant hand, especially when saying something positive.

Castles were built with clockwise spiral staircases to provide an advantage to defenders coming down the stairs.

People attack with their dominant hands, defend with the other.
Lefties are biased in favor of candidates on the left side of the ballot. (Everyone is biased in favor of people listed near the top of the ballot.)
Four of the last seven U.S. presidents were left-handed (Obama, Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ford); earlier, Garfield and Truman were lefties, and maybe Reagan was born a leftie but made into a right-hander. Info isn’t available for earlier presidents due to widespread efforts to suppress left-handedness.

Writers: Some of this info might help your hero/ine leftie in a fight, or it could just make for and interesting behavioral quirk.

*Left-handed Chinese fencer Li Na again South Korean Shin A-lam*

Not addressed in this blog: There is a lot of research on handedness and brain lateralization which I haven’t touched on. I focused instead on observables and emotions that might be useful to writers.

BOTTOM LINE FOR WRITERS: a left-handed character could be a gold mine. Start prospecting!

AND LEFTIES HAVE THEIR OWN DAY: AUGUST 13 IS INTERNATIONAL LEFT-HANDERS DAY. Since 1992, it is a celebration of sinistrality—i.e., left-handedness! Mark your calendar for 2020.

PAIN IS GOOD

Posted on January 28, 2020January 28, 2020 by vlaw759

*Well… Perhaps not **good**, but certainly **useful** for writers!*

If you are a writer, you don’t have to be a masochist to appreciate pain. It’s a great tool for plot, tension, and character traits. I won’t bother defining pain. We all know it when we feel it. Instead, I’ll focus on types, implications, and uses.

Three Pain Anomalies

Any of these can twist the action of your story.

Experiencing pain in response to a stimulus that is normally painless (allodynia). It has no protective biological function.
Feeling pain in a part of the body that has been amputated (phantom pain). Actually not so anomalous: it’s experienced by 82%of upper limb and 54% of lower limb amputees.
Insensitivity to pain stimuli (asymbolia). Indifference to pain present from birth. These people don’t avoid situations/activities that cause pain and bodily damage. Some die before adulthood, all have a reduced life expectancy.

Temporary (Acute) vs. Long-term (Chronic)

Sometimes, the effects aren’t all that different.

Behavioral deficits caused by being in pain: attention/focus, working memory, mental flexibility, problem solving, and information processing speed
- Use the deficits to ramp up the tension when your hero/ine is trying to achieve a goal
- Use success in spite of these deficits to make your character come across as stronger, more resourceful, more reliable
Intensified negative emotions of depression, anxiety, fear, and anger, when in pain
- Use any of these to create tension between characters
- Use any of these as challenges for the hero/ine to overcome and remain functional
Following an acute pain episode, people reported feeling better than people who hadn’t been in pain. It feels so good when it stops?

Chronic pain is associated with several long-term negative side effects:
- Weight gain or loss associated with medications (steroids, nerve pain drugs, opioids) and decreased exercise and activity
- Unpredictable mood swings and increases in scores on tests of hysteria, depression, and hypochondriasis
- Decrease in patience
- Grief for the person s/he once was
- Lifestyle changes:
  - Unable to work or provide for family
  - Need help to function (get dressed, bathe, eat)
  - Loss of prior skill (e.g., can’t play the harp any more)
- Skin, hair and nails can take a beating: increased sensitivity, intermittent spots on face, hair loss
- Intimacy often suffers:
  - Sex may be painful
  - Ill person may be less energized in finding what works and adapting
- Financial hardship adds to stress, which makes things worth; money goes to medications, lotions and potions, treatments, travel to and from appointments

How to Show Pain When the Character Isn’t Telling

Sometimes, people/characters try to hide their pain. Other times, s/he isn’t able to communicate it. Using these behaviors, you can let the reader or another character know the person is in pain.

Facial grimacing
Guarding (trying to protect a body part from being bumped or touched)
Increase in vocalizations such as sighs or moans
Changing routines
Decreased range of motion
Appearing withdrawn, anxious, depressed, or fearful
Decrease in social activities
Decreased appetite
Increases in confusion or display of aggression or agitation
Decline in self-care
Side effects from hidden medication
- Over-the-counter pain medication often causes stomach irritation and nausea; people taking these medications may uncharacteristically refuse alcohol
- Prescription pain medication, even when taken responsibly, often cause random itching, slowed breathing, constipation, and nausea; drowsiness and confused thinking (agitation, euphoria, etc.) are probably the most noticeable side effects

Why Would Someone Want to Hide Pain?

Don’t want to look weak
Showing pain is impolite
Showing pain is shameful
Pain is seen as a deserved punishment
Pain was self-inflicted as a maladaptive coping mechanism
To avoid treatments against one’s religious beliefs
Afraid it means death is near
To avoid treatment that might lead to addiction
Don’t want to admit needing help
To avoid being disqualified from certain careers or activities
To shield another character from the knowledge
Showing pain would lead to more pain being inflicted

Gender and Pain

Socially and culturally, acknowledging pain is more acceptable for women than for me. Women are expected to be emotional, men stoic.
Female pain is often stigmatized, leading to less urgent treatment, longer wait times in emergency rooms, and doubting the accuracy of women’s reports of pain.
Statistically, women are more likely to be prescribed sedatives for pain; men are more likely to be prescribed actual painkillers.
Study shows men more prone to hypersensitivity when exposed to an environment in which they remembered feeling pain.

Beauty Knows No Pain

Many activities require some amount of pain, if only at the beginning. Lifting weights, running, bicycling, and other workout routines can cause severe soreness and muscle aches the first few times a character exercises. What would make a character get up and do it again? Training to compete in a sport is likely to cause some pain as the human body is pushed beyond its previous limit. How much is too much, enough to make a character quit?

Developing the callouses necessary for manual labor, martial arts, playing stringed instruments, some types of dancing, etc. almost always involves blisters and bleeding along the way. Some activities always involve some level of pain, such as dancing en pointe, Tough Mudder runs, or boxing. What might make a character work past the pain to perform any of these? How might characters convince themselves to repeat the necessary movements, knowing how much they will hurt?

Beauty and fashion often come with pain of their own: tattoos, corsets, high heels, neckties, piercings, trendy clothes too hot or too cold for the environment… Why? Consider the different standards of beauty at different time periods or in various cultures; how much pain would a character be willing to undergo to achieve these standards?

Describing Pain More Vividly

Be precise about location, intensity, whether it’s continuous or intermittent, whether it’s burning, sharp, deep or superficial, diffuse or focused. In a medical environment, patients are often asked whether their pain is new (acute) or ongoing (chronic). There is a difference between shooting pain and stabbing pain; there is a difference between a stomachache and a pressure ache in the upper, right abdomen. Pain in ligaments, tendons, bones, blood vessels, fasciae, and muscles is dull, aching, poorly-localized. For example, sprains and broken bones are felt as deep pains. Minor wounds and burns are superficial. Is this pain burning, tingling, electrical, stabbing, pins-and-needles? Further examples of pain descriptors can be found here or here.

Give That Baby Sugar?

Fun tidbit: sugar taken by mouth reduces pain in newborns resulting from lancing of the heel, venipuncture, and intramuscular injections. It does not remove pain of circumcision. The reduced pain of injections might last till age 12 months. Mary Poppins was right: a spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down!

Bottom line for writers: pain is incredibly useful in numerous ways.

*It’s lucky for us that pain is so easily treated! Even for children!*

VERY MARRIED – OR NOT SO MUCH

Posted on January 14, 2020May 19, 2020 by vlaw759

Decades ago, the title of this book first brought that phrase to my awareness. Legally, of course, very married is nonsense—as are a little bit or sort of married. Legally, either you are or you aren’t. Is being married for a long time the equivalent of being very married? Many seem to think so. Marie Hartwell-Walker wrote “How To Beat the Odds: Tips from the Very Married” and featured a single photo of an elderly couple. Her article lists 13 tips from “long-married couples.”

I’ve paraphrased these tips below.

Commit to the commitment, and don’t even consider divorce
Give it all you’ve got, 100% from both partners
Bring a whole person to the marriage, not someone who expects the partner to make him/her whole
Make time for each other
Be a team (in duties, responsibilities, and decisions)
Learn to engage in friendly fighting: stick to the issues, be respectful, no name-calling, etc.
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Do sweat the small stuff if it’s going to fester and grow big
Follow the golden rule
Be each other’s greatest fan, especially in public
Make yourself appealing
Respect each other’s families
Make special days special

Becky Whetstone (15 Things the Very Married Have That You Probably Don’t) makes many of the same points. But she also estimates that 12% or fewer of married couples are truly happy. Although neither of these lists specifically mention politics or religion, the Pew Research Center has data indicating that the former is more important than the latter:

Among those married since 2010, 39% have a spouse who belongs to a different religious group.
However, a 2016 survey found that 77% of both Republicas and Democrats who were married or cohabiting say their partner was in the same party.

Many of these tips, in one form or another, are included in Katherine Willis Pershey’s Very Married: Field Notes on Love and Fidelity. As the title indicates, she highlights another factor often presumed to characterize the very married: sexual fidelity. Many presume—and common sense would tell us—that sexual infidelity will harm a marriage.

Sean Illing’s article “A Divorce Lawyer’s Guide to Staying Together” is an interview with James J. Sexton, author of If You’re in My Office, It’s Already Too Late. Sexton says couples come to his office for “big reasons like infidelity or financial improprieties.” But he also says that people fall in love quickly but fall out of love slowly, so there are lots of little things that precede the big reasons.

At one point, Sexton says Facebook is an infidelity-generating machine. “It’s a huge factor now, and it’s getting worse every day. I can’t remember the last time I had a case where social media was not either a root cause or implicated in some way.” He says, further, that “…Facebook creates these very plausibly deniable reasons for you to be connecting with people emotionally in ways that are toxic to marriages.” So, he’s affirming that sexual fidelity isn’t the only issue.

Indeed, Jenny Block wrote a whole book praising sexually open marriage. In her opinion, sex isn’t the issue so much as the secrecy and deception that usually accompany a sexual liaison with someone other than the spouse.

That philosophy was shared by a high school friend of mine who, in adulthood, was a sexual free spirit. He was very open with his wife, who gave her permission for him to make booty calls and have f*ck buddies. At one point, she helped him write a personal ad seeking a “girlfriend” and interviewed the candidates with him. They had been married 25 years when he died.

So, sometimes couples set their own rules. Ours is a second marriage both for me and for my husband of many, many years. Before marriage, we agreed to two things: if either of us got sexually or emotionally involved with someone else but it didn’t threaten the marriage, don’t tell; and, if the marriage is threatened, for any reason, we would seek counseling before taking any other action. I realized that I felt very married when I stopped tracking our finances separately, calculating my financial status if the marriage ended.

A different version of very married is presented in COUPLES IN THE EMPTY NEST: VERY SEPARATE MARRIED LIVES (susanorfant.com). The thesis is that empty nesters have three choices: learn how to be a couple again, divorce, or stay married but lead very separate lives in terms of friends, activities, etc.

And speaking of those who are not-so-very-married: Hartwell-Walker (above) reports that 41% of first marriages, 60% of second marriages, and 73% of third marriages end in divorce. According to “8 Facts About Love and Marriage in America” (pewresearch.org) although the marriage rate has declined, between 1990 and 2015 the divorce rate among adults ages 50 and older doubled, and among those 65 and older, the divorce rate roughly tripled. Although the Pew report just mentioned found that only 23% of the general population consider legal rights and benefits a very important reason to get married, Sexton (above) emphasizes that marriage is a legal contract, and that few people examine that ahead of time.

I can speak to that. Only after I married in New York State did I learn that my husband had the right of domicile—i.e., determining where we would live. If he wanted to move and I refused, he could divorce me on the grounds of desertion. When I took a job and moved elsewhere, we had a commuter marriage only because he did not divorce me on the grounds of desertion!

Note to writers: know the rights and responsibilities that are included in the marriage contract, because they vary widely by state.

Despite everyone’s best efforts, life can throw all sorts of obstacles in the way of a lifetime of wedded bliss. If one partner develops Alzheimer’s and forgets the marriage entirely, what is the spouse’s obligation or possible response?

If one partner suffers an accident that makes physical affection impossible, is the spouse entitled to seek affection elsewhere? How can a couple keep their marriage healthy and strong if they are separated through geography, incarceration, military deployment, deportation, or some other element out of their control? After two people have been happily married for decades, is the widow/ widower still committed to the marriage when their spouse dies?

Bottom line for writers: there are many potential elements for being very married, but the one absolute is the commitment to remaining married. Consider all the ways you could show your characters’ strong or weak commitment to a marriage/relationship.

CASE STUDIES IN ADOPTION

Posted on January 10, 2020January 10, 2020 by vlaw759

Note: Unless otherwise specified, the photographs below are for illustration purposes only and are not connected to the case studies provided. Examples and links to specific adoption agencies are provided for reference and not as an endorsement or condemnation of any particular agency.

The concept of adoption has a generally positive aura. Indeed, it’s easy to find articles like Why Adopt? 23 Reasons to Adopt a Child (amerianadoptions.com). But frankly my experience of adoptions via family and friends is a mixed bag.

The good news for writers: good, bad, or unclear outcome, adoptions are fertile ground for characters and plots.

Case 1: Desire to Adopt a Stepchild

When my husband and I married, he was a widower with a three-year-old daughter. I (foolishly) thought that by that marriage, I became his daughter’s mother. Wrong! To be her legal parent, I had to adopt her. We lived in Upstate New York, and at the time a child with a living biological parent could be adopted only if the biological parent gave up his/her parental rights. The upshot was that my hubs signed away his parental rights and then we both adopted her!

This was an incredibly successful adoption. I told my parents, my husband’s parents, AND our daughter’s maternal grandmother that any and all of our children had to be treated equally. We subsequently had two more daughters. Words like step-mother, half-sister, etc., never crossed anyone’s lips—and I don’t think crossed anyone’s mind. When her elementary school class made family trees, hers had three branches: her biological mother, her father, and me.

Writers note: consider such a case that did not go so well.

Case 2 A, B & C: Desire to Help a Friend or Family Member Who Isn’t in a Position to Raise a Child

2A – the biological mother of two children was murdered, and neither of the fathers was known. The maternal grandmother and her husband adopted the grandchildren. Although a financial burden, no one seemed to regret the decision.

2B – the biological parents of the child were drug addicts. The paternal grandmother went to court to get custody and eventually adopted the grandson, who grew up to be an admirable and ambitious young man.

2C – the biological parents were unmarried teenagers, not financially viable, and not psychologically well balanced enough to care for a special needs child. The paternal grandmother first won custody and then adopted her. The adopted daughter struggled through special education classes, therapy, and at age eighteen, vocational training for a sheltered work environment. The child/young adult was a constant and severe stress on the paternal grandmother and her husband’s marriage.

Writers note: consider that a biological father came forward in A; consider how the relationship between the biological parent and the grandparent might evolve in cases B & C.

Case 3 A & B: Desire to Give a Child Born in Another Country a Chance to Thrive

3A – the adoptive father had been a U.S. soldier who served in Viet Nam. He and his wife had three children (sons) but wanted to adopt a Vietnamese orphan. In the event, the Vietnamese orphans were so weak and sickly that the international agencies weren’t placing them. They suggested adopting a Korean orphan, and that is what they did. As adults, the children have good relationships. Although differing in political perspectives, the adoptive parents and daughter are emotionally close.

3B – the parents decided to adopt a child from a country where the majority of the population is of a different race, practices a different religion, and speaks a different language. The boy was four years old when he was adopted. The relationship between the parents and the child never settled into a comfortable family pattern. When he turned eighteen, the adopted child returned to the country of his birth and changed his name back to the one he’d had in the orphanage. The parents have not seen him since and have only occasional online contact.

Case 4 A & B: Desire to Choose the Child’s Gender

4A – a Caucasian couple had two sons. Wishing for a daughter, they conceived several times over the years but all of those pregnancies ended in miscarriages. They chose to adopt a mixed race (Irish and African American) baby daughter. The adoption was simply a part of the family structure. The child and her biological mother saw each other occasionally. The birth mother being known, there was quite a bit of info available about health issues, for example. The adoptive parents made a conscious effort to expose their daughter to African American culture and experiences.

Writers note: count the ways this might go awry as the adopted daughter goes through teenage rebellion, or is the only non-white face at family gatherings. What if one or both sons marry women who are more or less racist?

4B – a couple had two daughters. After eight years of repeated pregnancies and miscarriages, the wife had a medically necessary hysterectomy. The husband wanted a son “to carry on the family name.” They didn’t want to wait two years to adopt an infant and so applied to adopt a ten-year-old boy. A month younger than the elder daughter, he was in the same class in school as the younger daughter because his biological parents had never enrolled him in school. There was a “trial year” before the adoption could be finalized. It quickly became apparent that the boy shared no interests with the husband, nor his need for achievement. The wife resented the burden of a third child while her health was so fragile, and was fearful that the boy would replace the daughters in her husband’s affection. The daughters acted to protect the boy from their mother. The boy’s attitude was “hunker down and get by,” because the home he’d been adopted into was much better than his previous situation. At the end of the year, both the couple and the boy agreed to finalize the adoption. In the meantime, the boy had been in school for a year under his birth name. When the husband asked whether the boy wanted to change his name, the boy said he didn’t care, that he wouldn’t be any more a member of the family one way than the other. His name wasn’t changed.

Writers note: what are the long-term implications???

Case 5 A & B: Due to Infertility or Other Reasons, a Parent Cannot Have a Biological Child

5A – After several years of marriage and extensive fertility treatments, a couple was unable to conceive. They decided to adopt. The adoption wasn’t easy because of the adoptive parents’ ages. They decided to adopt a brother and a sister together, although they’d been told that the children were developmentally behind their ages. The adoptive mother was a psychologist and attributed that developmental lag to their early lives. As the children grew, the boy appeared to be average or a little below in intelligence. The girl suffered microcephaly. The marriage failed. The children remained with the adoptive mother. As the boy developed, she couldn’t handle him and ended up paying a lot of money to enroll him in a military school. As the girl grew, she became ever more aggressive and defiant and was expelled from school. The mother tried therapy, including residential therapy. The girl was living in a residential facility and was on her way to see a psychiatrist (as she had requested), when she said she didn’t want to go to that hospital, jumped from the back of the van, broke her neck and died immediately. The boy married and had a child and had a relationship better than ever with the adoptive mother.

5B – the adoptive mother was a single woman who wanted a child but had no desire to give birth or to involve an unnecessary man. She adopted an infant from South America and raised the girl to be Catholic, fluent in Spanish, and knowledgeable of her native country’s history and culture, in accordance with the biological mother’s wishes. The girl grew up surrounded and supported by her adopted mother’s parents and siblings. She did well at home and in school until about halfway through high school. Then, she got involved with drugs, was in and out of abusive relationships, had three children by unknown fathers, and is now serving time while her adoptive mother has custody of the children.

Writers note: where/how might these events have developed differently?

Case 6 A & B: The Couple “Just Wants To”

These two will be treated together because they are related. The women are sisters, the twelfth and thirteenth children in the family. They were exceptionally close growing up. For unknown reasons, neither had a child and they and their husbands each adopted a son. The older sister’s adoption was a great success. The son thrived, both academically and professionally, married and had a daughter they named after his adoptive mother. The younger sister’s adopted son was a ne’er-do-well. He was sporadically employed, had many brushes with the law, driver’s license revoked, time in jail, drank heavily, tapped his mother for financial support, and in the view of the extended family, exploited her financially to her detriment. She never rejected him. And that was a source of tension and distance between the formerly close sisters.

Writers note: fertile ground here! Throw in Parkinson’s or some equally debilitating disease? Why not have children of their own, when all their older sisters had done so?

Adoption Process

The actual process of adoption varies widely among agencies and countries. However, there are some fairly consistent requirements:

The adoptive parent(s) must demonstrate financial stability, a permanent home, psychological maturity, etc.
If the adopting parents are married, there is usually a minimum amount of time they must have been married before being allowed to adopt.
If there are other children in the home, there is sometimes a requirement that a minimum number of years separate the biological children from the adopted children.
- Many adoption agencies recommend not adopting a child who is older than the oldest biological child so that birth order is not disrupted.
- The youngest child in the home is often required to be at least two or three years old before the adopted child will be placed.
Parent(s) must be at least eighteen years older than the adopted child.
Most adoption agencies perform home visits and individual interviews with each member of the family. Some require character references from friends or employers.
Because of the different needs of adopted children, especially older adopted children, many agencies require prospective adoptive families to attend training seminars.
Guides for raising adopted children and helping them adjust can be also be found online.

Summary: in my experience, adoption typically isn’t about helping a mother who (for whatever reason) must give up a child. Nor is it about giving a loving home to a child (stranger) who needs it. As a writer, consider the motives of the the adult(s) seeking to adopt. And consider all the ways those motives might be frustrated.