Sexualized Saturdays: Sex is Magic! …Or Not: Teen Wolf’s Surprisingly Low-Key Take on Sex

Let’s talk about sex. Sure, it’s magical, but sometimes it’s literally magical. One of my favorite things about speculative fiction is its ability take something ordinary and add a supernatural level to it, creating thought-provoking analogies and metaphors about various aspects of the human condition. Sex is one example of an arena sci-fi/fantasy media can explore in this way. Unfortunately, this is also an aspect that can lead to some pretty uncool tropes, from mystical pregnancies to magical virgins and everything in between. Imagine my surprise, that while watching Teen Wolf, I saw a show where characters’ sex lives were separate from their supernatural lives.

Are they gonna just lie in bed and talk all night? Maybe!

Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: Religious Purity

I don’t think there are enough white things in this painting.

Happy Lent to my fellow Christians! Although I’m not entirely sure if “happy” is the appropriate sentiment. Lent is the Christian season of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving (giving money to charity) that comprises the forty days before Easter, not including Sundays. Catholics, Orthodox, and plenty of Protestants participate in this period of spiritual preparation for Christianity’s most important holy day. There’s an element of spiritual purification to the season. But most people today have really strange ideas about purity, and these ideas have infected our popular culture. Snow White follows all of the “rules” for female purity, and still gets punished. On the other hand, the story of King Arthur thoroughly exploits the near-total ambiguity of male purity.