Catholic church's procreation problem

By Frank Moraes

I read this morning over at the Bilerico Project, Top Papal Candidate Blames Child Sex Abuse Scandal on Gays. In it, John Becker quotes Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson as claiming that there are unlikely to be many pedophilia cases in Africa because the culture there just doesn't countenance homosexuality. This is offensive in all kinds of ways, but let me start by naming two of the minor ways. First, I would think that someone from Ghana would not make the American mistake of thinking Africa is one homogeneous entity. Second, it is the most ignorant of people who think that by making homosexuality taboo a society will limit it.

What is most offensive about the comment, of course, is the old canard that pedophiles are homosexual. It turns out that generally what makes one a pedophile is not having developed a mature sex drive. Thus, they aren't interested in adults as sexual objects at all. Of those who do, it seems to be a wash: statistically they are like the rest of the population. Now let us think: what is a good way to stunt someone's sex drive? I can think of one way: dogmatic religious doctrine requiring priests to be celibate.

This got me wondering why Catholics are so anti-gay when in some ways they are fairly enlightened. Only part of it is the Bible, and I think they could get past that. The big anti-gay writings are in the Old Testament. The anti-gay passages in the New Testament were all written by Paul who seems to have had a hard on regarding the issue. In Romans 1:27, he's downright pornographic, "And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." Jesus, of course, was silent on the subject. And no one at that time could have imagined the nice same-sex couples we have today with their very boring jobs, kids, and music tastes. On this issue, I think the church has to ask, "Are we really going to continue to base our theology of the bigotry of people 2000 years ago?"

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Thoughts on Osama bin Laden's porn stash and American freedom

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So pornography has been found on those computers taken from Osama bin Laden's hideout. Does this prove his hypocrisy? Yes, if it was his, but, even if it was, I'm not sure it's such a shocking revelation. Would we really be surprised to learn that Osama didn't always live up to his extremist ideals?

Sure, he criticized the West for its lax morals and open sexuality, but hypocrisy aside, was he wrong? Consider, without prejudice (if possible), what he once wrote to the American people:

Your nation exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools, calling upon customers to purchase them. You plaster your naked daughters across billboards in order to sell a product without any shame. You have brainwashed your daughters into believing they are liberated by wearing revealing clothes, yet in reality all they have liberated is your sexual desire.

I realize it's not a popular to defend anything about the man, but was he wrong about this? I remain committed to liberal principles and to a liberal way of life, including the liberation of sexual desire and freedom to express ourselves however we please, but I am also troubled by the exploitation of women and sexualization of children that are polluting our culture and interfering with the mature, reasoned expression of our liberty.

This is a far more important issue than Osama's alleged hypocrisy. But try telling that to the media, which prefer titillation to any sort of mature, rational discussion of sexuality and, more broadly, of American and Western culture.

"Human Sexuality" class at Northwestern includes after-class session on BDSM, complete with dildo penetration and orgasm

By Michael J.W. Stickings

No, I'm not kidding:

More than 100 Northwestern University students watched as a naked 25-year-old woman was penetrated by a sex toy wielded by her fiancee during an after-class session of the school's popular "Human Sexuality" class.

*****

The optional, non-credit demo followed psychology Prof. John Michael Bailey's sexuality class. Nearly 600 students are in Bailey's class this quarter, and most didn't stick around for the after-class show, which featured four members of Chicago's fetish community describing "BDSM," or bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism.

Conservatives like Michelle Malkin are jumping up and down in disgust, but then they're generally opposed to both education and sexuality, so this, to them, was doubly bad. And it was indeed educational:

"I didn't expect to see a live sex show," said Justin Smith, 21, a senior economics and political science major who was in the after-class session. "We were told we were going to have some people talk to us about the fetish world and kink."

Smith said it took him awhile to process what happened, but he doesn't object to the way the material was presented.

"It was for me academic like everything else," he said.

Professor Bailey was hesitant to agree to it but couldn't really "come up with a legitimate reason why students should not be able to watch such a demonstration. Was it obscene? Only if you think such normal aspects of human sexuality are obscene -- and, yes, I mean normal, which fetishes (and female orgasm) very much are, and exhibitionism is hardly a "weird" one. Besides, everyone present was an adult and the whole situation was fully consensual. The woman, Faith Kroll, "said she was not coerced in any way and students were repeatedly warned it was going to get graphic."

I applaud the university for supporting Bailey, the course, liberal education, and academic freedom:

"Northwestern University faculty members engage in teaching and research on a wide variety of topics, some of them controversial and at the leading edge of their respective disciplines," said Alan K. Cubbage, vice president for University Relations. "The University supports the efforts of its faculty to further the advancement of knowledge."

I realize that conservatives don't get that -- the advancement of knowledge, that is -- but there is so much more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in their repressive right-wing ideology.

As for me, I just wonder why I missed out. I don't remember anything like that ever occurring at Tufts. At least not in a classroom.

Craziest Republican of the Day: Christine O'Donnell

By Michael J.W. Stickings

TPM has the sordid details (read the whole post for even more craziness):

Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell has a robust evangelical outreach program, and she's appealed to these voters in her Republican primary bid in part with her old-fashioned views about sex.

O'Donnell has said, for example, that masturbation is wrong, and that looking at pornography is equivalent to cheating on your spouse. She outlined her views in a November 1998 article titled "The Case for Chastity" for Cultural Dissident.

Abstinence, apparently, isn't good enough. What is needed is the near-complete denial of human sexuality, and human nature, the repression, presumably enforced where possible by repressive theocracy, of every individual's sexual freedom and sexuality generally.

O'Donnell has a pretty face, to be sure, but it's also the face of Christian extremism. Her views aren't just "old-fashioned," they're dangerously ignorant.

I mean, seriously, what's wrong with taking your talents to South Beach now and then? And if it helps to watch some of whatever it is you happen to be into, as long as it's legal, so what?

I'd tell O'Donnell to go fuck herself, but obviously she never would. Right?

Headline of the Day (Pope Benedict XVI edition)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I couldn't help but chuckle when I read this one at the BBC today:

Gay groups angry at Pope remarks

Really. You don't say.

Now, these "gay groups" have good reason to be angry not just at the pope's remarks but at the pope himself:

Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the environment.

The comments were "irresponsible and unacceptable", the UK's Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) said.

Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender former Italian MP, called his words "hurtful".

What Pope Benedict said -- and the BBC has the "key extracts" here -- was that any blurring of the man/woman "order," including any efforts at "human auto-emancipation from creation and from the Creator" (whereby humans make themselves on their own), is "against the truth." It seems to me that this has more to do with transsexualism than with homsexualism, but the pope's point is clear: In nature, and by God, there are men and there are women and there is an order to gender and sexuality, namely, that gender is fixed (or ought to be) and that, sexually, only a man and a woman ought to copulate (and reproduce), each according to his natural, God-given purpose.

Now, I'm with the "gay groups" on this, more or less, whatever my concerns about humanity's efforts to conquer, by overcoming, nature. We are all little Nietzscheans now, perhaps, but that's not necessarily a good thing. What I recognize, unlike the pope, is that nature is flexible and that it is part of our nature, as rational creatures, to seek to shape it according to our desires. And the fact is, gender and sexuality are rather complex. (I'll defer to our co-blogger LindaBeth on this.) There aren't just men and women and we aren't all straight.

But here's why I couldn't help but chuckle: What did these "gay groups and activists" expect? This is the Roman Catholic Church we're talking about. It may be more "modern" than it used to be, but it's not exactly a bastion of progressive thinking on anything, let alone on gender and sexuality. And the head of the Church is Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, hardly a liberal. (Even the liberals in the Church are pretty conservative on such matters.) It's a wonder his remarks weren't much harsher.

So, fine, they're angry. I suppose they have a right to be, and I suppose I applaud their efforts to protest what is the Church's (and the pope's) "irresponsible and unacceptable" positions. Maybe one day, if it still exists, genuine liberals will take over the Church and bring it forward into Enlightenment. In the meantime, all we're going to get is more of the same from the same old narrow-minded fools and bigots (sorry, "true believers"). They're far too influential to ignore, but they're also far too ridiculous to take too seriously.

Commercial critique: Guitar Hero World Tour

By LindaBeth

I was initially pretty pleased at the Guitar Hero World Tour commercials. I liked that the first one, at least, showed a group of guys hanging out in comfy, even kinda sexy, clothing, rocking out like dorks. Typically representations of masculinity perform "boundary maintenance" (see "Fraternal Bonding," which interestingly enough specifically talks about athletes), which is about displaying masculinity through sexism and homophobia; so often in commercials, the "cool guys" are the womanizing-objectifying type (not that the first GH didn't have at least one of those in there), not the male bonding through semi-sexy fun type. So the initial commercial, at least, thwarted my expectation by not giving into the the sexist-homophobic construction of masculinity typically seen. The first one featured several male athletes (Phelps, A-Rod, Tony Hawk, Kobe Bryant) rocking it out in someone's living room à la Risky Business, and several more have followed including American Idol stars David Archuleta and David Cook, High School Musical singer/actor Corbin Blue, and most recently model Heidi Klum. Except they're not really à la Risky Business.

In Risky Business, Cruise dances around the living room in a long-sleeved button-down t-shirt, barely long enough to cover his ass, and nothing else is visible until the end when you see he has skimpy tighty whities on. In the GH commercials, the guys are dancing around in replica dress shirts and long, white boxers. Not 100% authentic, but I didn't think anything of it because it's a daytime commercial, and I figured they probably didn't want it too seductive. That logic only held until I saw the Klum ad, where she wears (big surprise!) only the barely long enough dress shirt--no white shorts.

Why the discrepancy? Does this go back to the idea that sexualizing women's bodies is acceptable for general consumption, but men's bodies are (generally) off limits? What's especially interesting to me here is that the original context of the parody was the sexual one -- it's not like they changed the commercial to make the one with the woman more sexual; rather they specifically desexualized the men's commercials, and in doing so, deviated from its original context. It doesn't bother me that they deviated; it's that they deviated from, and desexualized, only the ones with the men.

But wait--it gets better. Because they actually did make the women's one more sexual. The version of Klum's commercial aired during Monday Night Football featured Klum with the button-down shirt unbuttoned, displaying black lingerie underneath. During her GH "performance", she strips her shirt off, gyrating around, shakes her boobs while leaning back -- all very stripper-like moves; again, this version is way off from the original they are supposed to be parodying. Celebrity Smack has this characterization of the commercial:

Close-ups of her ass and her boobs come next, followed by Heidi jumping down on the couch and holding the guitar between her legs as though it were a 2-foot long sex toy.

It is indeed a very sexualized commercial. Klum is turned into a quasi-porn star and the guitar seems more like a phallus than a fake guitar. This still is particularly telling:

Before anyone points out that "it's not that bad," the point is that for a series of commercials that are supposed to be citing a famous film scene, the ad makers go out of their way to increase the sexualization of the one commercial featuring a woman, and decrease the sexualization of the many commercials featuring a man or men. The only ad they made that is an accurate representation of the film is the "family-friendly" Klum ad. And until now, I haven't even pointed out the 3:1 male:female ratio of the ads, nor the vocations of the genders represented (athletes and musicians: supermodel, how original!).

Let me point out, that there have been more "successful" replications of the Risky Business scene. Exhibit A: one of my favorite shows, Scrubs, had a JD fantasy sequence with the guys imitating Cruise. Now they don't go through and dance--the fantasy is cut short--and the scene is much more goofy than sexy, but there we had 4 guys on non-cable TV early prime-time (and syndicated now during the day) with the same shirt and some much Cruise-like skimpier undies. No reason GH couldn't follow suit.

But maybe our only women's-bodies-should-be-objectified/men-looking-at-men's-bodies-makes-you-gay society can't handle the swooning that would ensue if we were able to see as much of A-Rod, Phelps, and Kobe's athletic physiques as we see of JD, Turk, Dr. Cox, and The Todd. For a game that appeals quite equally to female as well as male players, GH sure didn't aim to give men and women equal ad time and representation.

(For other posts in this series, click here.)

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)

Entertainment and 'choice'

By LindaBeth

Some recent thoughts I had on entertainment and choosing:

We all like (need?) to be entertained: all genders, sexualities, races, etc.

The sad truth is, we have to choose from what is out there. Sometimes people of progressive sensibilities have to “overlook” things in entertainment that are problematic in order to be able to relax and, well, be entertained.

This is why I am really sick of the following defense/excuse for systematic problematic representations and constructions of “otherness” (non-white/male/middle-class/heterosexual) in entertainment or simply of certain titles in entertainment:

“[insert marginalized group here] watch it/play it/buy it/read it therefore:

• there’s no problem with the ideology perpetuated
• it accurately represents what said people want
• said people enjoy it every aspect of the entertainment”

The bottom line is that we can only be entertained from what’s out there, and what we like and want is heavily informed by what already exists. If every movie I saw was problem-free, I would rarely go to the movies. Just because people consume entertainment doesn’t absolve their -Isms.** I often decline from supporting and entertainment that is even a bit sexist/heterosexist/racist, etc., and I am fine with giving it up but many other people don’t make that sacrifice and that is 100% their prerogative. But that cannot be interpreted to mean that all entertainment consumed by marginalized individuals is not in any way offensive or problematic. Not to mention that oftentimes the problematic nature of some entertainment isn’t known until after spending the money; thus, when commercial success=implied condoning, the damage is often already done, which makes public critique our primary way of making our disgust known.

Example: this especially applies to hetero women and porn, of women having resources for sexualized men. women want erotic imagery but the vast majority of images and films are targeted for heterosexual men, and often involve ideologies that progressive women find objectionable. More and more there are non-sexist, non-racist material available, but they are often hard-to-find and are almost never “free” (whereas men wanting “traditional” material have very easy and free access to material that is quite suitable for them). Therefore, many women (or prog-men), who want to satisfy their desire for erotic material, “settle” for traditional material and try to “look over” the deficiencies. Or many cope by occupying the male observer’s standpoint, and sexualize the female involved, thus they may be consuming and enjoying mainstream erotic imagery, but are deprived sexualized male bodies. In other words: when it comes to porn, women who want and enjoy porn as a category have to simply choose between the options they are given, which may or may not actually be 100% what they want. It’s just what’s easily (or freely) available.

Back to entertainment “in general”: These assumptions are further problematic:

• Sexism/racism/homophobia/xenophobia/heteronormativity in entertainment is appropriate because it simply reflects the “truth” of what an identity group “wants” (i.e. sexism is ok because these games are “for men.”): -Isms are not just a “personal preference.
• “Got a problem with it? Don’t buy it/play it/watch it!”: see above and also **above.
• These are the kinds of entertainment that sell: ever think to question how much money and other resources goes into developing entertainment that is non sexist/racist/heteronormative etc? Or how such entertainment is marketed?

Entertainment for guys (read: straight guys) is only defined as such because of the sexism/heterosexism involved. There is no reason why women and gay men can’t enjoy certain entertainment, and they shouldn’t have to put up with BS hetero/sexism to do so. Take games for example. Games that would appeal to guys do not need objectification and homophobia. That is not the reason why guys play these games. Instead, they function to outline the proper audience for these games and to reaffirm hetero-masculine identity. And the fact that women play these games serves as “evidence” that women don’t mind or that women enjoy the roles they are given in these games. As I’ve been trying to show in this post, these are misguided conclusions/assumptions. But since women do choose to play these games (since there are little if any sexism-free equivalent alternatives) there is no incentive to make their games differently since it clearly isn’t affecting their bottom line. But women and queer gamers do voice their dissatisfaction. And the solution is not to make some second-class, underdeveloped alternatives that rely on pathetic tropes and stereotypical marketing (see this Broadsheet article that in part prompted me to write this post today). For example: if women only have the choice between lame-assed girl-games and more complex and interesting games with implicit or overt sexism, women choosing the former does not necessarily mean that’s what “women want” (they may in fact be so sick of the sexism in most games) or that their choosing the latter means that the sexism is acceptable to them.

Bottom line: what we “choose” is not always what we want. It’s just what we have to choose from. And what we want for the most part comes from somewhere-it is shaped by what’s available.

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me)

More than the sum of her parts: AfterEllen's "Hot 100" list

By LindaBeth

I hate "Hot Lists." I hate the idea of them. Someday I will rant on them. Not today.

AfterEllen.com, a website about lesbian and bisexual women in entertainment, publishes an annual Hot List. When I first started reading their site, I had noticed they had one. I checked it out, hoping that it would not just be a replication of the uni-dimensional hot-at-the-moment-until-they're-prego-or-passe' of most Hot Lists. It was not. I was pleased.

So let me qualify my first sentence:

I hate (most) Hot Lists, especially the one's put out by lad-mags and their ilk. I hate the idea of them, which not only sees 'hot' in the narrowest of senses, but also they're 'hot' because these women are overwhelmingly (with token exceptions) the flavor of the moment, and it also seems to favor women who participate in the culture of 'posing.'

(Not for nothing, but the exposure-no pun intended-that women with little professional accomplishment are able to garner in the media by simply being young and pretty and thin is incredible! They are paraded around for having a nice face and/or body-and being willing to display it-but having little talent. This happens in a way completely unlike men who are in the same position-those small time accomplishments or poor acting ability but are incredibly good looking. Men definitely have it harder in this way. But women pay for our quick and easy value as eye candy with appallingly few strong female roles, and with the near-impossible task of being a successful actress or performer without participating in posing culture. I couldn't even make a men's parallel list to Maxim's 100 even if I tried!)

So AfterEllen just released their Hot 100 of 2008:

A few non-surprises? The woman who made Maxim's 100th spot, Tila Tequila, wasn't even close to making our list, and their number-one choice, swimsuit model Marisa Miller, barely received any votes from AfterEllen.com readers. In fact, just like last year, only two of Maxim's top 10 showed up anywhere on our list.
[...]
Other stats about this year's list? There are 18 women of color — a definite improvement over last year — and 21 openly gay/bi women on the list (seven of whom are AfterEllen.com vloggers), which is more than double the number on last year's list.
[...]
Our list includes women from all over the world — from countries as diverse as Canada, England, France, India, Mexico, Norway, and Spain — and women who vary in age from 18 to 57 years old. Although the vast majority of women on the list are actors or TV personalities, there are some musicians this year, as well as a few writers, a chef, and an athlete.

Diversity is valued, age isn't a barrier, and when you look at the kind of women that queer women find hot, you'll quickly understand why there are few cross-overs with the lad-mags. Queer women clearly value flat, physical beauty (although their idea of beauty is not the narrow version purported by most lad-mags). But they also value talent, wit, humor, intelligence, success, not as separate from but as part of what makes women hot. It's a little different from another counter-hot list: the excellent non-celebrity The Real Hot 100, where smart=hot and physical beauty has nothing to do with it. AfterEllen's list seems to embrace physical beauty, alongside and equal to other aspects of women's personhood. Beauty is part of being human, but unlike other Hot Lists, AfterEllen readers seem less apt to value women who are only beautiful but as people seem less-than-interesting. And I find this really fascinating.

I also love the photos they use to illustrate their list -- no lingerie here!

And I love this part:

The following pages provide photos for all 100 women in ascending order according to your votes, with some further details provided about the first 25. We've also linked each woman's name to other articles about her on AfterEllen.com, in case you want to do some more reading about them, and we've listed each woman's rank on the 2007 list below her name.

Imagine that! "Hot" women aren't just for looking at-their 'hotness' isn't simply based on their measurements, so they're actually people you would want to read up on!

The thing is, I think beauty is wonderful. But a hell of a lot of women are beautiful, celebrities and peers alike. Honestly, I don't think beauty alone is all that 'special.' Put most of the women I know on the cover of a magazine with the kind of lights, makeup, and photoshopping that goes into a celeb or model photo shoot (and especially add in personal training and wealth needed for complicated beauty regiments), and they're just as 'hot' as the women on there each month. Hot lists that are only about physical hotness are pointless and are more about selling magazines by reiterating the importance of the people (well, really women)-of-the moment.

AfterEllen's list? There's more going on here and I'm liking their idea of "hot" and the context they view it in.

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)

Sexualized ads become "obscene" when guys are the objects

By LindaBeth

So this video and news issue is a wee bit old, but the idea it raises isn't at all.

Apparently an in-store Abercrombie ad campaign (see video below) received complaints for being too sexual/obscene. Abercrombie has been doing this for years, for example, depicting cartoons of topless girls (yeah, they looked awful young) in pools and having threesomes in their catalog back when I worked in the mall 10 years ago. And in this day and age of hypersexualization of women's bodies and the general pornification of everyday life, you would think these ads must be awfully revealing to be so scandalous.

The thing is, the ads aren't that revealing. Not by far, and especially not compared to most ads we see everywhere. we. look.

Except that most sexualized ads we see are of women's bodies (I said most-I am well aware of the sexual and homoerotic tones of several cologne ads). However, the Abercrombie campaign includes some sexy images... of guys. And the marketing target is upper-middle class, heterosexual teens, both female and male.

via msnbc.com:

This is the part that struck me most:

"there's half naked guys running around -- it's obscenity -- is Playboy able to hang naked pictures in their store?"

Um, sorry dude, but the half naked men shown in Abercrombie ads is not the same as fully naked Playboy pictures. Like, at all. It's more like Victoria's Secret ads (and even then not quite the same there either)... and oh yeah, they are able to show those, and not only in their stores, but on billboards, the sides of buses, every f*cking magazine you pick up, not to mention, the goddamn TV!!

The ads are only 'scandalous' because guys are being (mildly) depicted as erotic objects of heterosexual desire. And this just doesn't happen. Even when there's male (frontal) nudity in movies, it's typically either goofy or is not eroticized. Women as sexual objects, as seen as serving a sexual function for men (being sexually desirable rather than having sexual desire) have functioned in a particular way in western patriarchy, along with wife/mother, to produce female ideals whose value relies on seeing women in terms of how they function for men's benefit. This is the very definition of objectification--defining (a person) in terms of how you already see them to be, in how they're useful for you, rather than seeing them on their own terms. Men are really only able to objectify women in this way because such narrow and all-defining judgment is never returned to them; they are rarely, if ever, made the objects of female-centered desire. It's awfully hard to objectify someone when you recognize they have their own desire -- and that you might not be up to their standard.

I'm getting a bit off track, and I'll continue to blog about that in the future, but getting back to the anxious guy... his comments are screaming male privilege. The fact that these images bother him so much can be attributed to him rarely having to be faced with the eroticization of his own body, even in the mild Abercrombie images of guys in jeans showing a little buttcrack. What's fascinating is that he is so bothered by it. I'd like to say that he's finally getting a small taste of what women go through, but that's not even close to the truth: he has the luxury of being able to avoid dealing with the images by walking out of the store. These kinds of images (and so much more) are simply unavoidable for women--we can never just walk away, because they're there whenever we turn around.

Another fascinating thing about his comment was his analogy of these images to Playboy images. On an obvious level, he's so wrong, because, um, come on, they're nowhere near close: they're not the same degree of nudity, not the same degree of sexualization (there's little about the Abercrombie poses that are seductive or vulnerable), and not the same intent. On another level, they are similar, because sexualized women's bodies are so commonplace these days, that we wouldn't even blink an eye if we were to replace the guy in the Abercrombie ad with a woman. We probably wouldn't even think it was racy, or even that sexual. So his analogy, in a way, speaks very much to the ubiquitous sexualized female body and the rarely eroticized male body.

Finally, what I'm also quite interested in regarding this video news story, is that the campaign included images of girls, depicted in much the same way as the guys are...yet he never mentioned being bothered by the "obscenity" of those! When we take this reaction, and think about the male anxiety around male nudity in general, and especially gay male sexuality (but, of course, not lesbian sexuality), it it very clear that, in popular culture, sexuality becomes "obscene" when it does not reinforce heteronormative masculinity. Images are only seen as improperly sexualized when it's the male body on display for a (presumed) het-female audience.

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)

Texas: where strip clubs with underage dancers don't get shut down, but where you can't buy a damn vibrator

By LindaBeth

First, some old-ish news: Texas's law (check out this YouTube vid) against the sale or "promotion" of sex toys was ruled unconstitutional in February, but in March the State Attorney General Greg Abbott (whose views do not necessarily reflect those of the Texas population) has requested that the circuit court of appeals to rehear the case:

Under Texas law it is illegal to sell, advertise, give or lend obscene devices, defined as a device used primarily for sexual stimulation. Anyone in possession of six or more sexual devices is considered to be promoting them. (via Austin American-Statesman).

Um... six devices? Considering the wide variety of sex toys and their uses for women, men, and couples, this turns an awful lot of people who enjoy sex and sexual variety into criminals. But isn't this really the point? When an exploration of sexuality beyond procreative purposes and methods is called "obscene" and those who practice become "criminals," the effort is to return sex back to it's "real" purpose-procreation. Oh yeah, and male-centered, both in who should receive pleasure and how a woman "ought to" achieve pleasure: the good ol' penis-in-vagina way. It's pretty clear that this primarily impacts women, who probably benefit the greatest from sex toys-from being able to understand their own bodies and pleasures, to being able to experience those pleasures with a partner (23% of couples use 'em). Think I'm stretching it? Check this out, again from the Statesman:

The state also argued in a brief that Texas has legitimate "morality based" reasons for the laws, which include "discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex and the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation."

Of course, Texas isn't the only state in the union to have these bans. In October, the state court of appeals refused to hear a challenge to Alabama's 10-year old law. One community activist supports the law by associating sex toy sales with "sexual-oriented crime". Not sure what he means by that... unless he's referring to the laws againsts procreative sex still on the books (which were made illegal by the Supreme Court in 2003). Mississippi and Virginia also have similar laws banning sex toy sales.

But jump to the last few days: A Dallas strip club was found to have a 12-year old (yes, that's not a typo) stripping there. She was a runaway, and likely had been sexually abuse, and was aided by a female club employee and an adult man. In January, the same club was found to have a 17 year-old stripping. But its license is not being revoked:

The 23-page city ordinance does allow revocation of a club's license if, for example, the club knowingly allows prostitution, the sale or use of drugs at the club, or if there are two convictions for sex-related crimes at the club within a 12-month period.

I know I don't have to connect the dots for you. Selling sex toys that have greatly aided individual's pleasure, especially for women (40% of women say they use vibrators), was illegal up until recently, and is under review, but a club that is irresponsible enough to have allowed two underage girls to perform for male sexual pleasure and profit cannot have its license revoked. (And this is to say nothing about the kind of culture that produces 12-year olds as desirable sex objects and encourages their desire to be a sex object.)

And this isn't the only example of Texas law shielding businesses that exploit young women:

Earlier this week, we also told you about Club Metroplois, where Dallas police found 13-year-old prostitutes. That nightspot operates as a bar, so the city says it has to treat it like any other business and has to prove a pattern of crime before it can be closed -- unless they find a loophole.

The great state of Texas my ass.

Sign of the Apocalypse #47: Olfactory politics

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Okay, okay, I realize this isn't a big deal. And it may say more about one particular news personality, Alina Cho, than about the corrupted culture of media and politics more generally. Still. What is the point of pointing out, regardless of whether or not it is true, that Mitt Romney "looks great, sounds great, smells great"? -- especially the last of those (how does she know?). It's akin to Chris Matthews's man-crush on Fred Thompson, just not quite as explicit (or as disturbing).

Of course, it's now all-too-common to point out that the news, and particularly cable news, is more entertainment than anything else. Entertainment, infotainment -- call it what you want. There has been a broad debasement of public discourse in the United States, as elsewhere (the U.S. is not as exceptional as some imagine in this regard), and it is this debasement that allows for the cult of celebrity that turns Paris Hilton into a megastar whose pathetic incarceration dominates the news over a period of days, if not longer, and provides the fertile ground upon which someone like Alina Cho -- and I don't mean to pick on her; there are far worse than her out there (see Fox News or MSNBC at any time of the day) -- can spew this sort of pointless banter instead of acting (and speaking) like a serious news personality.

Kennedy looked better than Nixon in 1960, and -- yadda yadda yadda -- you all know what happened after that. Does it matter in 2007 that Romney apparently "looks great, sounds great, smells great"? Yes, probably. Superficial qualities matter, perhaps more so than ever before. Voters may take such qualities into account -- they always have, to varying degrees (even with a great leader like Lincoln -- he may not have been attractive in a telegenic sort of way, but he sure gave good speeches) -- but what is of greater concern is that the media are proving increasingly incapable of providing the citizenry with what it needs to make reasoned choices, that is, of providing a forum for public discourse (and even for the presentation of serious news) at a level that democracy requires in order not to descend into the quagmire of demagoguery. For what is politics now but a game of demagoguery? It's all about who looks better, who sounds better, and, apparently, who smells better. And the media are to blame for much of what it has become -- they and their "consumers," the "people," who co-exist with their political leaders in a mutualistic relationship of self-narcotization.

No, Alina Cho's not the problem. She's just part of it -- a small part. But her pointless remarks point to a much deeper disease at the core of American public life. And one wonders if a cure will ever be found.

Chris Matthews's man-crush on Fred Thompson

By Michael J.W. Stickings

How else to describe it? It's a homoerotic man-crush with blatant Freudian undertones. Glenn Greenwald explains.

(It's why Giuliani is still so popular with Republicans despite his social liberalism, and why there's so much buzz surrounding Thompson. Republicans need a father figure -- and a man whose authoritarian virility they can admire from their knees.)