Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Chris Christie -- New Jersey governor, Romney pal, bullying misogynist -- calls women stupid cocksuckers


Slate's Torie Bosch:

On Sunday, Jan. 8., New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was speaking at a Romney for President rally in New Hampshire when he was interrupted by some female hecklers. It's difficult to make out exactly what Christie's critics were yelling, but it's something to do with jobs going down. Ever the class act, Christie's response: "You know, something may be going down tonight, but it ain't going to be jobs, sweetheart." He then goes on to insult the women by saying that if they were from Jersey, they wouldn't be so silly as to think that his policies don't support job creation.

That's right, he makes an aggressive oral sex remark, as if the women are nothing better than cocksuckers (to put it bluntly) who should submit to the force of his dominant manliness, and then calls them stupid. This is the sort of thing that you expect to hear in a good deal of the hardcore porn that men like Christie consume with such enthusiasm -- "Suck it, you stupid bitch!" -- and that, given the mainstreamization of such porn in recent years, contributes to the ongoing social oppression of women, specifically as objects for men to use and abuse at their leisure, too stupid to do anything other than serve, and sexually satisfy, their male overlords.

Think I'm over-reacting? Think I'm making too much of it? Read again what he said (or watch it below -- the New Jersey GOP put up the clip itself, apparently proud of Christie's response "rather than recognizing it as flagrantly demeaning, even misogynistic," as Bosch writes).

Here's the governor of New Jersey, a leading national political figure and one of Mitt Romney's key surrogates, dismissing women -- hecklers, but still women -- by telling them to suck his dick and then insulting them. He's not just a bully, as we've seen so many times before, he's a sexual thug who apparently treats women like shit.

Nothing surprising there, perhaps, but what of Romney? Shouldn't we judge people by the company they keep? Shouldn't we hold his good pal Christie against him? There he is, right behind Christie, yukking it up, smiling happily at Christie's sexist retort, playing right along, apparently in agreement. Judge him accordingly.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Just how crazy is Christine O'Donnell? (2)


So crazy, and so removed from human nature, and so extreme in her theocratic views, that she once actually indicated that she wanted to stop everyone from having sex.

I. Kid. You. Not.

Here's part of a revealing exchange O'Donnell had with Eric Nies of the Moment of Hope foundation on Scarborough Country in 2003. At the time, she was with the right-wing Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The topic under discussion was what to tell young people about safe sex (if anything at all):

NIES: I tell them to be careful. You have to wear a condom. You have to protect yourself when you're going to have sex, because they're having it anyway.

NIES: There's nothing that you or me can do about it.

O'DONNELL: The sad reality is -- yes, there is something you can do about it. And the sad reality, to tell them slap on a condom is not --

NIES: You're going to stop the whole country from having sex?

O'DONNELL: Yeah. Yeah!

NIES: You're living on a prayer if you think that's going to happen.

O'DONNELL: That's not true. I'm a young woman in my thirties and I remain chaste.

Really? She was still "chaste" in her thirties? Whatever.

This whole exchange shows just how utterly ignorant and brainwashed and self-denying she was -- and remains to this day.

Here's the clip:

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Masturbation rules


At Slate yesterday, Joel Stein offered a hilarious, and startlingly perceptive, take on Christine O'Donnell's ridiculous anti-masturbation campaign. Read the whole thing -- "The Masturbation Lobby" -- but here's a great part:

After giving it a lot of thought, I don't think I'm going to stop masturbating. I mean, I will while I'm typing this column, but that's about it. And I don't think Christine O'Donnell should be a senator even of a completely made-up state like Delaware. But she and the rest of the far-right movement do play an important role in my life. If we listen to them instead of reflexively mocking them -- which is very difficult to do, especially when they dabble in witchcraft -- they can force us to consider the downside of progress. By which I mean lots and lots of porn.

But there is another kind of progress: It's undeniably better for kids not to grow up ashamed of their bodies and sexual desires, which led some of them to suicide, self-flagellation, and the priesthood. Conservatives like O'Donnell argue that social norms formed by millions of people over thousands of years have a wisdom that must be weighed against progress. All improvements have downsides, and we might want to make sure our virtual sex lives don't consume our real ones. Even if they are much, much, much better. I've got to go.

Right. On.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Do witches masturbate?


Christine O'Donnell. We know the type, don't we? Once a "sinner," now a moralist. Something at some point must have gone wrong for her, just as it usually does for those who end up seeking religious redemption in the form of born-again fundamentalism. (O'Donnell is Roman Catholic, but she exhibits all the signs of evangelical Protestant fundamentalism.) Maybe it was an overwhelming sense of guilt that finally got to her, guilt implanted through her Catholic upbringing. Maybe she found herself alone and without purpose, unable to cope, longing desperately to belong. This is how cults, including organized religions, find their followers. Maybe it was a guy who dumped her. Whatever the case, something turned her into what she is now, a Christian theocrat who, as many of her kind do, obsesses about masturbation and pornography, wallowing in the "sin" she abhors. (What strikes me about these moralists is how they seem to be fascinated by, and perhaps turned on by, the details of "sin." They traffic in stories of redemption and conversion, but those stories depend on detailed accounts of the "sin" that is being left behind. This, I would argue, is their pornography, just as much as the blood sacrifice that is the core of Christianity.)

Anyway, we should hardly be surprised that O'Donnell's past is, well... colourful. For example...

As Think Progress is reporting, last night on HBO's Real Time, host Bill Maher played a previously unaired clip of O'Donnell from the October 29, 1999 episode of his former show, Politically Incorrect (on which O'Donnell was a frequent guest). Let's just say the clip was rather revealing:

I dabbled into witchcraft -- I never joined a coven. But I did, I did... I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. [...]

One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that... We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.

Now, do I care that she "dabbled" in witchcraft when she was younger? No, not really. It might bother me if she were a witch now, but people do all sorts of things when they're young, some of them quite stupid. But I find it interesting that this anti-sex Christian extremist, who is now all about self-control (but really self-denial, the denial of human nature) dabbled in just the sort of "sin" she now condemns. This doesn't make her special. I suspect that many such moralists were rather adventurous in their pre-moralistic days. But it does make you realize that her whole campaign against sex (other than the procreative sex authorized by the Vatican) is really about herself, about her guilt and about doing everything she can to avoid slipping back into the "sin" of which she partook. It's about denying who she really is as a human being (and denying her nature, which, I suspect, would very much like to pleasure itself) and lying to herself about right and wrong. This is what all religion is, of course. With her, it's just so obvious.

**********

And it's no wonder she's running for cover, backing out of scheduled TV appearances tomorrow, on CBS's Face the Nation and even Fox News.

One suspects her campaign didn't have withcraft-related talking points ready.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Stuff to Read (4/8/10): porn stars, condoms, oysters, and health care


I'm fairly busy with other things this morning, but let me alert you to a few interesting articles over at Slate:

-- "That's a Wrap: The case for bringing condoms to adult films," by Kent Sepkowitz. I'm not sure the porn industry should be regulated like this, but I suppose it's important to humanize porn stars a bit, not merely to maintain them in our fantasies. And the reality is that people do learn a lot from porn and might benefit from seeing the "talent" wrapped up.

-- "Consider the Oyster: Why even strict vegans should feel comfortable eating oysters by the boatload," by Christopher Cox. Cox is a vegan. Personally, I describe myself as a flexitarian, insofar as I'm not an absolutist when it comes to food (even though I generally don't eat pork and red meat). And I love oysters, preferably raw and naked, preferably from Prince Edward Island. But while I eat them anyway, it's good to know that even a firm vegan can make such a strong case: oyster farming doesn't harm the environment, there's no real risk of overfarming, and oysters don't have central nervous systems.

-- "Unchanged Minds: A majority of Americans still believe the uninsured are doing just fine," by Timothy Noah. A majority of Americans, it seems, are, to put it nicely, deeply ignorant -- and, to put it less nicely, appallingly stupid. It's not really much of a majority, when you delve through the survey questions into the numbers, but there is still a great deal of insensitivity among the public, again to put it nicely.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Hot horny girls will do anything Republicans want


To put it mildly, it hasn't been a good week for the RNC -- but is it ever, with the perpetually foot-in-mouth Michael Steele as chair?

First it was the lesbian bondage club scandal, then it was leading conservative Tony Perkins telling donors not to give money to the RNC, now it's this little embarrassment:

The Republican National Committee inadvertently sent a fundraising mail piece earlier this month with a return number that leads to a phone sex line offering to connect callers with "hot horny girls... students, housewives, and working girls from all over the country."

"We love nasty talk as much as you do," says a woman's voice on the sex-line's audio recording.

Doug Heye, the RNC’s communications director, said that the mail piece was produced by Burch Munford Direct, a direct-mail firm frequently used by the RNC.

According to Heye, the firm "will not be used for the foreseeable future."

No, really?

Heye said that the mix-up happened when the direct mail firm replaced the RNC's "202" area code with an "800" area code.

So, instead of directing callers to the RNC's main line (which is 202-863-8500), the mailer incorrectly identified the RNC's phone number as 800-863-8500.

If you call 800-863-8500, it directs you to call a second number -- 800-454-5400 -- which is the sex line offering to connect callers with live women who will do "anything you want" for $2.99 per minute.

Anything we want? Like, how about some hot lesbian housewives tying up Tony Perkins and punishing him until he breaks down, soils himself, and submits to the tyrannical genius of Michael Steele?

Okay, okay, it was an easy mistake, and I suppose no harm was done. But shouldn't there have been some fact-checking and copy editing, just to make sure the mailing was, er, kosher?

And shouldn't Republicans, if they know what's good for them -- which is debatable -- give Steele the boot he so richly deserves?

Not that I care, mind you. I happen to like this seemingly bottomless reservoir of amusement at the GOP's expense.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Nancy Elliott's anal fixation


(Sorry, I meant to post this several days ago, but, well, the weekend got in the way.)

New Hampshire legalized same-sex marriage in June 2009, but its opponents -- and the opponents of gay rights, not to mention homosexuality generally -- continue to push back. Take state Rep. Nancy Elliott, for example -- a Republican, of course -- who during a recent state House Judiciary Committee hearing (as it was considering repeal of the law, which it ultimately rejected) spoke out against... anal sex:

We're talking about taking the penis of a man and putting it in the rectum of another man and wriggling it around in excrement. And you have to think, would I want that to be done to me?

Yes, she seems to be against anal sex regardless of sex and regardless of orientation. She just doesn't like it. The whole idea freaks her out.

Watch the clip below. It's hilarious. Check out the people on either side of her, both of whom seem totally unphased by what she's saying. Check out her hand gestures (especially when she gets to "wriggling"). Check out the oh-so-serious look on her face when she asks, rhetorically, if she would want that done to her. Check out how she doesn't let up even when told to keep the discussion "directly to the bill."

Now, it's really not worth pushing back against Elliott's stupid comments. The fact that she equates same-sex marriage with anal sex, and presumably homosexuality generally with anal sex, shows her ignorance. The fact that she's such a prude shows her to be a fool. And the whole episode, including her ridiculous remark about schoolchildren learning how to do anal, shows her to be just the sort of terrified, angry right-wing bigot we've come to expect in the Republican Party.

Maybe she needs... no, I won't go there. Just use your imagination.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The pornography of John Edwards


Great. A John Edwards sex tape? Maybe so, according to Gawker, maybe so:

Sources have told us that, in the throes of their affair, John Edwards and Rielle Hunter made a sex tape that contains "several sex acts." And that his aide, Andrew Young found it on an unmarked DVD.

The tape, say both our sources, is explicit and reveals that Edwards "is physically very striking, in a certain area. Everyone who sees it says 'whoa'. She's behind the camera at first."

Whoa? Well, he may have a lot going for him, "in a certain area," but he certainly screwed up his life by screwing.

You know, it was a great opportunity, but I'm increasingly embarrassed to admit that I was once a featured blogger, and a regular one, at Edwards's now-defunct One America Committee. (I wrote about that here, but the links are dead, just like the political career of this once-admirable and once-near-mighty figure. Alas.)

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Spay and neuter your porn stars


I have mixed feelings about PETA. On the one hand, I tend to agree with them on issues like fur (which is, in my view, indefensible, unless you live where there are no alternatives, or unless you just can't live without it, in which case it's not fashion fur but necessity fur -- big difference). On the other hand, I do consume some animal products, and I find some of their advocacy both overly aggressive and misguided.

(Though it's odd that PETA's website currently features an anti-fur campaign with notorious gun-toter Gilbert Arenas -- who is, I think, being unfairly scapegoated by the NBA. Good for Arenas, but the optics aren't exactly great at the moment.)

And their in-your-face, sometimes over-the-top ad campaigns? Well, I generally don't mind them. Take Alicia Silverstone's famous naked vegetarian PSA, for example. Very effective. And it helps that she's very attractive.

What about the new naked Sasha Grey spaying/neutering ad? Has PETA finally "jumped the shark," as Jonathan Chait alleges? Is it exploitation, manipulation? And is there any link between a hot naked porn star and spaying/neutering your pets?

Chait is right that the link is "particularly tenuous," but isn't all advertising, to some extent, exploitation and manipulation? After all, if the intention is to attract attention to a serious issue, I think PETA has succeeded. And I suppose there actually is a link between "too much sex" for humans and too much "sex" for your pets, the latter of which can result in a population explosion. So why not go the porn route? (Although, how is too much sex bad for Sasha Grey? How is too much sex with her bad? I don't get it.)

Maybe it could have been a bit less in-your-face, though I'm not sure what's wrong with having the gorgeous Ms. Grey, Soderbergh actress and adult film starlet (from what I understand -- I wouldn't know, of course) in your face. She looks unbelievably incredible here, does she not? (Much better than usual. You know. She's usually much more, well, bland.)

So it's a stretch, yes... but enjoy.

Oh, and spay and neuter your pets. Please. It's important.


Monday, January 11, 2010

Sign of the Apocalypse #70: Sex robots


(For more SOTAs, see here.)

Don't get me wrong, the prospect of, er, alternative forms of sex and sexuality is not without its appeal -- say, sex in some Star Trek-like holodeck program -- but this, well, this leaves something to be desired, it seems to me:

Billed as a world first, Roxxxy the sex robot made here debut in front of adoring fans at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.

The life-size robotic girlfriend comes complete with complete with artificial intelligence and flesh-like synthetic skin.

"She can't vacuum, she can't cook but she can do almost anything else if you know what I mean," TrueCompanion's Douglas Hines said while introducing AFP to Roxxxy.

"She's a companion. She has a personality. She hears you. She listens to you. She speaks. She feels your touch. She goes to sleep. We are trying to replicate a personality of a person."

Roxxxy stands five feet, seven inches tall, weighs 120 pounds, "has a full C cup and is ready for action," according to Hines, who was an artificial intelligence engineer at Bell Labs before starting TrueCompanion.

The anatomically-correct robot has an articulated skeleton that can move like a person but can't walk or independently move its limbs.

Robotic movement is built into "the three inputs" and a mechanical heart that powers a liquid cooling system.

Roxxxy comes with five personalities. Wild Wendy is outgoing and adventurous, while Frigid Farrah is reserved and shy.

There is a young naive personality along with a Mature Martha that Hines described as having a "matriarchal kind of caring." S & M Susan is geared for more adventurous types.

Aspiring partners can customize Roxxxy features, including race, hair color and breast size. A male sex robot named "Rocky" is in development.

A "companion"? Really? I get that there's a future in this, and probably an extremely lucrative one, and that human sexuality, including with "human" beings, will continue to evolve, but let's not overdo it.

Besides, is it really a good thing that one day we'll all be able to have essentially servile human "companions" customized to our liking?

It's one thing to have sex with a technologically-advanced toy, which is what this is, quite another to let such toys replace real and meaningful human interaction. And I fear that may be where we're headed.

**********

Although, I must admit, if TrueCompanion, the manufacturer of Roxxxy, wishes to send me a "robot" to check out, and review, well, er, that'd be fine with me. Whether it'd be fine with my real human companion is another matter, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Wild Wendy sounds good.

Am I serious about this? Ummm... maybe.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Condoms as metaphor

By Carl

It's taken thirty years, countless dead and infected, and a worldwide push, but it looks as though the very tricky and difficult
HIV virus may be giving up its secrets to science:

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- An experimental vaccine prevented HIV infections for the first time, a breakthrough that has eluded scientists for a quarter century.

A U.S.-funded study involving more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand found that a combination of ALVAC, made by Paris- based Sanofi-Aventis SA, and AIDSVAX, from VaxGen Inc., of South San Francisco, cut infections by 31.2 percent in the people who received it compared with those on a placebo, scientists said today in Bangkok. Neither vaccine had stopped the virus that causes AIDS when tested separately in previous studies.

The finding represents a revival in a campaign that appeared to stall just two years ago when use of Merck & Co.’s experimental Ad5 vaccine boosted some people’s chances of infection in a study. The latest result will transform future research, said Mitchell Warren, director of the New York-based AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition.

31.2% is something, certainly nothing to sneeze at, but it means there's clues in there for a truly preventative vaccine or combination of vaccines.

I'm old enough to remember when sex could be had without any ill effects except maybe guilt. Syphillis and gonorrhea both seemed to be curable, and AIDS and herpes were on a distant horizon.

I've often wondered if the spread of AIDS, HIV, and even herpes was responsible, in part, for the rise of conservatism in this country. After all, when we could ball freely, we tended to be a little more open to new ideas as well as new experiences.

Once sex was clamped down upon, it seemed like everyone's rectums got a little more retentive, a little more conservative. Wearing a condom became a metaphor as well as a reality, forcing people to think back inside the box (um, pun not intended. Mostly.) because outside, alone, naked, was scary and a little dangerous.

Freedom became something negotiable, to an extent. You could be free, but you had to be ultravigilant, and once you had to be ultravigilant, that required an effort and efforts mean people will look for easy ways out.

Like the fox and the grapes, people began to look at sex as if it wasn't important, that sex was OK if it was readily accessible but to actually go out and pursue it became a matter of work. And who wants to work at sex?

So we saw a rise in monogamous relationships, but we also saw a rise in values that hearkened back to the Fifties, to a time when, yes, people had sex, lots of it, but no one talked about it, so everyone assumed no one else was getting any.

I dunno... just a thought.

(Cross-posted to
Simply Left Behind.)