We've been here before

Do women walk around naked in women's restrooms? Are there no doors on the stalls? Do you just sit side by side, chatting with your neighbor?

Indecent exposure is still a crime. Nothing about transgender policy would change that. So what's the problem?

Now, in a men's room, there are urinals. But for some reason, we don't hear about the problem of women standing beside a man at one of those. (Admittedly, I probably wouldn't notice, because I don't look at the people peeing beside me, let alone at their genitals!)

As Trevor Noah points out, we've been here before. We've been here when racists were outraged about the idea of sharing a restroom with a black person. We've been here when homophobes were outraged at the idea of sharing a restroom - or a shower - with a gay person. It's the same thing.

Well, not quite, because transgender people are a tiny fraction of the population. If you're not one of them, chances are good that you will never have a problem or even anything that you could imagine as a problem. Indeed, they've always existed, and we've never had a problem before now. Do you routinely inspect the genitals of every person you share a restroom with?

For transgender people, this is a problem. It's a problem they face every day. But for the rest of us, it's not. For the rest of us, it's just bigotry or acceptance.

PS. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend this video. Transgender rights haven't been on the radar for most of us for very long. Ignorance is understandable, but can - and should - be corrected.

Angel

(BBC)

OK, this is weird:

Indonesian police have confiscated a sex toy from a remote village after its inhabitants and some on social media mistook it for an "angel".

The doll was found in March floating in the sea by a fisherman in the Banggai islands in Sulawesi province.

His family took care of the doll, and pictures soon spread online along with claims it was an angel.

Police investigated amid fears the rumours would cause unrest, and found it was in fact an inflatable sex doll.

Indonesian news portal Detik said photos of the doll dressed demurely and wearing a hijab spread on social media shortly after its discovery.

Rumours then began to spread that it was a "bidadari" [angel] along with unverified stories about how it was found "stranded and crying", prompting the police investigation.

OK, as the local police chief noted, "They have no internet." No doubt they find the whole concept of an inflatable sex toy to be bizarre. So do I. But it's the 21st Century, and they still believe in angels?

Well, so do most Americans, I suspect. It's crazy, but it's not limited to primitive people in Indonesia. (I do think it's funny that the doll was dressed "demurely" and wearing a hijab, but it was probably dressed that way by the villagers, don't you think?)

Furthermore, the belief in this "angel" did spread on social media, apparently. It wasn't just poor fishermen, not at all.

But you know what's most interesting to me? Stories were already spreading about how this angel was found "stranded and crying." But according to Christians, we're supposed to believe the magical stories spread by primitive, superstitious people 2,000 years ago?

This doesn't just show how superstitious people can be when they don't understand something. It also shows how people make up and spread stories about the supernatural. And this is the 21st Century, with widespread literacy even in Indonesia and far better access to news and information than existed in biblical times.

Well, I thought this was both interesting and instructive. And quite funny, too. :)

Non-binary gender/sex

I'm not a young guy, but there are still a lot of things I'm learning for the first time. (And I'm grateful for that.)

Maybe kids learn this stuff in school these days - if they're lucky enough to have a good school - but we didn't even have sex education when I was a kid. (That's what recess was for.) And I took just one biology class in college.

Luckily, it wasn't a problem for me. I'm lucky enough to be a straight white man in a society where straight white men have enormous advantages. But what kind of society would we have if we didn't care about other people?

To be perfectly selfish, it would affect me if we turned into the hateful, bigoted, xenophobic kind of nation the right-wing has been pushing us towards. We would all do worse in that kind of society.

Inside Amy Schumer: Dr. Congress

Inside Amy Schumer

This is funny because it's true.

The party of sexual repression and hypocrisy

The news about Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, really brings back the hypocrisy of the 1990's Republican Party, doesn't it? Josh Marshall reminds us about all of that, here:

Denny Hastert, the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House in history, second in the line to the presidency for eight years, was a serial pedophile who preyed on adolescent boys in his charge when he was a high school wrestling coach before entering electoral politics. What is worth remembering is that Hastert's improbable rise to the pinnacle of political power in Washington was a direct consequence of Republican party efforts to exploit and eventually criminalize Bill Clinton's extramarital sex life in order to overturn the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. The chain of events is clear and straightforward. ...

Clinton's mind-bogglingly reckless and impulsive relationship with Lewinsky did come to light in early 1998. And after it became clear that the mere revelation was not enough to drive Clinton from office, congressional Republicans grew increasingly determined to find a way to fashion it into a crime which would justify Clinton's impeachment. (It is worth remembering that Clinton's vaunted second term approval ratings only truly hit their highs after the Lewinsky scandal broke.) And that they did. ...

What we would learn only later was that while driving the country toward impeachment Gingrich was himself carrying on an affair with a twenty-something congressional aide named Callista Bisek. Gingrich would later divorce his wife Marianne and marry Bisek - they remain married - just as he had years before married Marianne after carrying on an affair with her while married to his first wife. ...

Meanwhile, the Republican conference quickly settled on Rep. Bob Livingston as Speaker Designate for the next Congress and de facto leader as the House moved toward impeaching the president. But then news broke that Hustler's Larry Flynt (yes, it was all really weird) was preparing an article on affairs conducted by Livingston and other members of Congress. This pushed Livingston to admit his own history of adultery and then - the very day the House passed articles of impeachment - in effect resign the Speakership even though he had not actually become Speaker.

Livingston resigned from the House and was succeeded by David Vitter, who would continuing paying for sex with prostitutes after moving to Washington to take his seat in the House and later in the Senate. In 2007, Vitter's phone number emerged from a published list of the phone records of "DC Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Vitter nonetheless survived the prostitution scandal and was releected to the Senate in 2010. He failed in his bid to become Governor of Louisiana in 2015. Palfrey later committed suicide, aged 52, shortly after being convicted of money laundering tied to running the prostitution ring. ...

Various names were at first mooted to succeed Livingston. But consensus quickly formed around a man little known even in Washington, let alone in the nation at large: Dennis J. Hastert.

Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, David Vitter, Denny Hastert - all Republican 'family values' hypocrites who pushed to impeach Bill Clinton for sexual infidelity. (And they are far from the only ones, too. Remember Larry Craig? Mark Foley? Mark Souder? The list goes on and on.)

Republicans aren't the only people to cheat on their spouses. (For the record, what Hastert did was far, far worse than that. I certainly don't mean to trivialize pedophilia.) But they take the world record for being hypocrites about it, don't you think?

So, it's not the stork, then?

(Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

That poor little kid is going to need a lot of counseling later in life, don't you think? :)

Nude selfie gets teen charged with child porn

Could we get any more hysterical about sex in this country?

Here's the story in the North Carolina newspaper:

After a 16-year-old Fayetteville girl made a sexually explicit nude photo of herself for her boyfriend last fall, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office concluded that she committed two felony sex crimes against herself and arrested her in February.

The girl was listed on a warrant as both the adult perpetrator and the minor victim of two counts of sexual exploitation of minor - second-degree exploitation for making her photo and third-degree exploitation for having her photo in her possession.

A conviction could have put the girl in prison and would have required her to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life.

Get that? She's being considered a child victim, but simultaneously an adult criminal, for the same incident: taking a picture of herself.

As the 16-year-old 'adult,' she's considered a sex offender for taking a picture of herself, for taking advantage of herself, as a crime against herself as a 16-year-old child. Crazy, isn't it? Even in the South, how could they be this insane?

Her boyfriend, who was also 16 at the time, also faces charges, "possible prison time and the requirement to register as a sex offender if convicted." For having the picture in his possession that she sent him!

You want to know what's even weirder? The age of consent is 16 in North Carolina - and younger than that for teens who are less than four years apart in age - so it would be perfectly legal if they were having sex.

But this young woman can't even take a picture of herself without being considered a sex offender! She's considered a child when it comes to sex and an adult when it comes to criminal activity, even when that 'criminal activity' is just taking a picture of herself!

Also, keep in mind that, according to the Sheriff, these pictures weren't being shown to anyone else. This was entirely a private matter between two sixteen-year-olds.

Jebus! And I thought the Janet Jackson nip slip incident had been hysterically blown out of proportion. That's nothing compared to this. America, huh?

Bristol Palin and the failure of abstinence

Why do I care that Bristol Palin is pregnant again? Normally, I wouldn't care anything about Bristol Palin - or any other 'celebrity.'

But Palin was the highly-paid spokesperson for abstinence-only sex education even when she'd had one unplanned child out of wedlock. She's still unmarried, and this is her second accidental pregnancy. She should be the spokesperson for the complete and utter failure of abstinence-only sex education.

Of course, that wouldn't pay so well, huh? And it wouldn't fit in with right-wing dogma, which is never fazed by reality.

Still, can you imagine if this had been one of President Obama's daughters? Can you imagine the talk on Fox 'News'? Can you imagine how right-wing pundits would be condemning Obama - and 'black culture' in general? Why no obsession about 'white culture' here?

Even in the 2008 election, with Republicans celebrating the Palin family, including this unmarried mother who was supposedly going to marry the baby's father (which never happened), I thought the contrast was incredible. This was a white, right-wing Christian family, so of course it was fine. And, of course, it would never shake their faith in abstinence-only sex education. Reality doesn't matter to these people.

And then Bristol Palin was hired by Candie's Foundation as a highly-paid 'ambassador' for abstinence. (Did I say "highly-paid"? Apparently, she was paid $262,000 in 2009 alone! Not your typical unwed mother, huh?) Somehow, she'd become a celebrity herself. And somehow, she was supposed to be an expert on teen-pregnancy. Somehow, this was supposed to promote abstinence-only sex education.

Well, now she's pregnant again. Again, it was an accident. Of course, she's still unmarried. But she's still white, too, in a right-wing Christian family. Again, can you imagine if this were one of Barack Obama's daughters?

I'm with Cenk here. If Bristol Palin would admit that she'd been wrong to push abstinence, that would be different. If she came out as a strong supporter of comprehensive sex education, a strong advocate of making birth control easily available to all women, condemning abstinence for failing in real-life experiences, that would be different.

But as far as I can tell, she's not. She's still a well-paid celebrity, for some bizarre reason. This won't stop that. If anything, it will just enhance her as a celebrity. She probably won't change her mind about abstinence. Her parents certainly won't. Right-wing Palin fans certainly won't.

This is faith-based thinking. You don't change your dogma just because it's been demonstrated to be wrong - not even when that's demonstrated over and over again.

But can we just recognize how very, very different this would be if she had been one of Barack Obama's daughters, instead of Sarah Palin's?

We humans are special

(Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

I thought this was absolutely hilarious. But then, I've got a weird sense of humor. :)

What makes it rape?

Here's a great post by Amanda Marcotte at TPM:

Having a glass of wine (or three) on a date and then retiring to the bedroom for some consensual sexing is not unknown in the liberal, feminist circles long-derided by the conservative media. So imagine my confusion when I read National Review writer and self-appointed expert on what “feminists” think, A.J. Delgado, argue that feminists “define rape as including any sexual activity in which the woman is not sober, claiming that consent is never truly given if one has had a few drinks.”

So sure is she of this assertion that she fails to cite any of the “prominent scholars and activists” that have offered this definition. I want to know who they are, so I can avoid drinking with them.

Nice start, huh? But she continues:

It is true that “radical feminists” such as the Department of Justice have argued that rapists often use drugs and alcohol to facilitate rape. Partially, they believe this because rapists themselves admit to it. Delgado seems to assume that there’s a lot of drunken sex that the man believes was consensual, but is later told that he’s being charged with rape. But researcher David Lisak found the opposite was true: Rapists deliberately seek out very drunk women or deliberately get women very drunk in order to rape them.

Surveying over 2,000 men on college campuses about their sexual history, Lisak found that about 1 in 16 of them admitted to raping someone (so long as you didn’t call it rape). Most of the admitted rapists said yes to this question: “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated [on alcohol or drugs] to resist your sexual advances?” (Emphasis mine.)

In other words, it’s not the drugs or alcohol that made it rape. It’s the lack of consent. Women aren’t being brainwashed into thinking they were raped. They are being educated about the fact that the guy who forced himself on them while they were too drunk to fight back really meant it.

Delgado proudly explains that she is not an outsider to the world of either sex or alcohol, smugly writing, “I am fairly certain that a statistically significant amount of sex — including very enjoyable sex — happens under the influence of alcohol.” As a hands-on expert, then, she should know that there’s a big difference between having had a few and being too wasted to express yourself, fight back, or even understand what’s going on. (It’s not just rapists either. Other criminals, such as muggers, know drunk people make easy marks because they can’t fight back.)

Yes, it's not drugs or alcohol - or even violence - that makes it rape. It's the lack of consent. Furthermore, the woman doesn't have to say no. It's the not-saying-yes part that makes it rape.

Not long ago, I read about a teacher who discovered, to her astonishment, that her high school students didn't understand that. It wasn't just the boys, but the girls, too, who thought that it couldn't be rape if the woman was unconscious, because she couldn't say no.

Is that "No is No" campaign really so confusing? No is no, but no isn't required. It's yes that's required. It's the lack of consent which makes it rape, and you can't give your consent if you're unconscious or otherwise incapacitated.

That doesn't mean you have to be stone cold sober. Of course not! But you don't have to fight off an attacker. The onus isn't on you to stop someone else's advances. That's blaming the victim, and it's turning the whole thing around. It's the lack of consent that makes it rape.

What were you wearing?

From The Root:

Twitter user @Steenfox—real name Christine Fox—was still reeling Wednesday evening from an earlier online debate with a follower who insisted that women's revealing attire could be a contributing factor to sexual assault.

"I was trying to make him understand that it absolutely does not make a difference, and that the responsibility does not lie on women," she told The Root.

So she asked her twitter followers to report what they'd been wearing, if they'd been sexually assaulted:

The response was overwhelming. Within two hours, Fox says, she had received several hundred replies, pouring in faster than she could retweet them. ...

@steenfox I was wearing a Grumpy Carebear Tshirt, with jean shorts...it was a male relative...(okay to RT)

@steenfox Assaulted twice. At age 15: jean capris, loose red baby tee, flip flops. At age 18: jeans, university t-shirt, sneakers. Can RT.

@steenfox I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, baggy jeans and a cap advertising the Beatles. You can RT

@steenfox I was wearing a brown Garanimals-type shirt w/green frogs on it, a brown fringe jacket, Wranglers and B. Brown loafers. 6. OKRT

@steenfox The first time? I was 8. I had on a sweater and jeans. The 2nd, work clothes: dress pants and a button up blouse

@steenfox 1st of multiple times by the same family member was at 7...wearing pajamas. 2nd time I was 12...sweatpants and tee...youth pastor

@steenfox 10 wearing pjs molested by a "family friend"....16 wearing jeans, black hoody, and nikes

@steenfox Terry bicolor short set. It was my favorite. I had matching jellies. There were two of them. The oldest was 12. I was 6. RT away.

@steenfox 8yrs old at after school tutoring sessions so in school uniform - below-the-knee short sleeved dress. You can RT

"I really hope that this opens people's minds that what you are wearing has absolutely nothing to do with whether you are assaulted," said Fox.

Note that those are just a small fraction of the tweets she received, even in the first two hours. As Kay Steiger at TPM puts it:

This serves to simultaneously destroy two myths about rape, first that it is rare and that you probably don't know anyone who has suffered assault -- too many of the tweets related clothing that they were wearing as children and that the perpetrators were relatives or family friends. The second is that what a victim is wearing matters at all. This is one of the hardest things for many who haven't been victimized to understand about rape: it isn't about sex; it's about power.

___

This isn't the same thing, but it's not too far off, either:



A woman on YouTube must withstand the kinds of threats and vile, degrading personal attacks that a man just doesn't face. It must be frightening, but also incredibly depressing. Heck, I get depressed just reading the comments Rebecca Watson gets (and those aren't the worst of what she has to put up with, not by a long shot).

As a man, I need to recognize what women go through. I've never in my entire life worried about the possibility of being raped. I'm a big guy, and here in Lincoln, I've felt free to go anywhere at any time of the day or night, without ever worrying about my personal safety.

Sure, men are victims of crime, too, but I don't have to worry that all my doors are locked and my windows won't open far enough to let an intruder get in - not while I'm home, certainly. (When I bought this house, from a single woman, the windows had all been blocked from opening more than a few inches. Hey, that was just a prudent safety measure for her.)

It makes me angry that women do have to worry about these things. But it makes me angrier that women who are victims have to face accusations that they were at fault. That's ridiculous! It's not just that what you're wearing has nothing to do with rape. It's even more than that. The victim is never at fault here! It's the rapist who's entirely to blame.

I don't care if you walk down the street naked, at midnight. It's not your fault if you're attacked. I don't care if you had too much to drink. I've had too much to drink on occasion, and I've never had to worry about sexual assault. A woman shouldn't have to go through life worrying not just about strangers, but even about casual friends and acquaintances.

When men commit crimes, it's their fault. Don't get me wrong, it's not my fault, because I don't do things like that. But it is my fault if I fail to recognized the problems women face, just because they're women.

Men's vs women's health care

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

Funny, isn't it? Federally-funded penis pumps, but no birth control for women? Viagra, sure. Cialis, of course. But no birth control pills for women, heaven forbid! (Literally, heaven forbids it.)

You'd think if men were getting penis pumps, then dildos would also be covered, wouldn't you? But can you imagine conservative heads exploding about that? (Actually, that would be pretty funny. I'd love to see it!)

The crazy thing - well, one of the crazy things - is that these right-wingers are also dead set against abortion. But if they really cared about abortion, instead of about controlling women, then effective birth control would be their top priority.

Here's another video, not so funny, on the subject of women's health care:



Old white men tend to look at things from the perspective of old white men. And since old white men controlled our country - and still do, largely - that was the perspective of our laws and regulations. In fact, that perspective tended to be just an implicit assumption.

Now, things are changing. There are a record number of women in Congress (though still only 18.8% of the total membership), and women tend to look at some of these things differently.

Of course, they were still raised in a patriarchal society and almost all belong to a patriarchal religion, so their attitudes aren't necessarily going to be different. But it's a start.

No such thing as porn addiction?

Does porn addiction even exist? From Religion Dispatches:

“Transgression as Addiction: Religiosity and Moral Disapproval as Predictors of Perceived Addiction to Pornography,” published February 12, 2014 by Archives of Sexual Behavior, concludes essentially that people diagnose themselves as addicted to porn and suffer from the belief that they are addicted, even when they are not, because their churches so pathologize porn consumption.

As the report puts it:

“religiosity and moral disapproval of pornography use were robust predictors of perceived addiction to Internet pornography while being unrelated to actual levels of use among pornography consumers.”

Joshua Grubbs, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in psychology at Case Western University, “became interested in the topic after observing fellow students in distress because they thought something was terribly wrong with them after watching online pornography.”

Another study, “The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Review of the ‘Pornography Addiction’ Model,” which appears this month in Current Sexual Health Reports, suggests that there is no such thing as porn addiction—despite “a large, lucrative industry [that] has promised treatments for pornography addiction.” It also “found very little evidence – if any at all — to support some of the purported negative side effects of porn ‘addiction.’”

Get that? The reason people self-identify as porn addicts is because religion makes them feel so bad about getting aroused by pornography that they think there must be something wrong with them - even when they don't actually watch a lot of pornography and it doesn't cause them any problems.

But this is very typical of religion, isn't it? Religions tend to hold people to unrealistic standards of behavior, especially when it comes to sex - premarital sex, masturbation, homosexuality, pornography, etc.  So when their members violate those standards - as they all do - they feel guilty. They feel like they've sinned, so they think they need the church even more.

It's a nice racket for the church, manufacturing guilt over things that no one should feel guilty about, just to wrap the chains a little tighter. But it just one of the techniques religion has used so successfully to dominate human societies worldwide.

___
PS. If you think that's bad, check out this article about sexual assault at a Christian college. A few excerpts:

When Claire Spear arrived at Patrick Henry as a freshman in 2009, she, like all new PHC students, affirmed a statement of faith saying the devil is real, the Bible is without error, and “Jesus Christ literally will come to earth again in the Second Advent.” It was a great comfort to both Claire and her parents knowing PHC was a bubble unto its own: On campus, only good, moral Christians would be found—their kind of people, people they could trust.

“I figured nothing bad could happen to me,” Claire says. ...

[Michael] Farris [the founder of Patrick Henry College] has said a main drive behind the founding of PHC was the demand from homeschooling parents for a college that promoted courtship culture, in which male students ask female students’ fathers for permission to “court” with marriage in mind. About 85 percent of PHC students have been homeschooled, and all students pledge to “reserve sexual activity for marriage, shun sexually explicit material, and seek parental counsel when pursuing a romantic relationship,” according to the PHC student handbook. ...

The self-policing that courtship culture requires, however, is not egalitarian. Responsibility falls disproportionately to women, who are taught to protect their “purity” and to never “tempt” their brothers in Christ to “stumble” with immodest behavior. “The lack of men’s responsibility or culpability for their own actions and the acceptance of male ‘urges’ as irresistible forces of nature is the understructure of Christian modesty movements and their secular counterpart,” the journalist Kathryn Joyce wrote in Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. These movements, she noted, see “women’s bodies as almost supernaturally perverse and corrupting.” ...

Last September, the school chose Dr. Stephen Baskerville, a professor of government, to deliver a speech that the entire student body was required to attend. He argued that feminism and liberalism have transformed the government into “a matriarchal leviathan.” The result, he said, according to a copy of the speech, was a society plagued by politically motivated “witch hunts” against men—while “the seductress who lures men into a ‘honeytrap’ ” was really to blame. “Recreational sex in the evening turns into accusations of ‘rape’ in the morning, even when it was entirely consensual,” Baskerville explained. “This is especially rampant on college campuses.” ...

Researchers estimate that one in five American women is sexually assaulted in college, and Patrick Henry College’s unique campus culture has not insulated the school from sexual violence. In fact, it puts female students, like Claire Spear, in a particular bind: How do you report sexual assault at a place where authorities seem skeptical that such a thing even exists?

Yeah, it's that kind of article. It's pretty sad. And then there's this:

With just more than 320 current students and 590 graduates to date, Patrick Henry is a tiny school with an outsized influence as a training ground for the religious right and a pipeline to conservative jobs in Washington. The Bush-era White House had about as many interns from PHC as Georgetown, the journalist Hanna Rosin wrote in her 2007 book, God’s Harvard. Students in the school’s Strategic Intelligence Program can graduate with security clearances from their summer internships, making PHC a feeder school for the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, various branches of the military, and intelligence contractors.

Protecting men from themselves

(Jesus and Mo)

Apparently, this is a repeat from 2007. I just wish this re-run had come out a few days earlier, since it would have been a perfect illustration for this post.

Oh, well, I'll just post it now. :)

Protecting our daughters?

I don't have any daughters, so I can only imagine how angry this video would make me if I did. Heck, I'm angry enough, already.

Now, you might think it perfectly natural for fathers to worry about their daughters, and so it is. Indeed, parents (men and women) worry about their children (daughters and sons). But to "Fix the Family" (Catholic, of course) it's the man who leads. What his wife thinks about anything,... well, who cares?

On the other hand, sons can't be expected to control themselves, right? "Very few men can restrain themselves or control themselves with a woman." (Um, if men can't control themselves, but women can, why isn't it the wife who should lead the family?)

Just think about that. That's what the Taliban thinks. That's why they make their women wear burqas. Men can't be expected to control themselves when they see an attractive woman, so women have to cover themselves. (Why don't they make the men wear blindfolds, instead? It's their problem, isn't it?)

So, of course, if a woman is raped, it's not really the rapist's fault. Men simply can't control themselves. Even when it comes to consensual sex, men can't be expected to behave rationally, right? (Heck, even if you don't care about your daughters, think about what you're teaching your sons.)

When it comes to sexual matters, this guy is implying that women are to blame no matter what. If men can't be expected to restrain themselves, then it's the woman's responsibility for... everything.

Nice, isn't it? This lets us men completely off the hook, just because we're men. We simply can't control ourselves. Poor us! But women,... oh, women can control themselves, so whatever happens, it must be their fault.

You might think he has a point about "dressing with dignity," but fashions are merely cultural artifacts. A burqa is considered proper in some cultures. Anything less than that would be considered immodest. This guy wouldn't go that far, I suspect, but why not? The principle is the same. Either way, you shouldn't expect your daughters today to dress as women did in some arbitrary time and place of the past.

He just goes on and on. No dancing. No sports ("revealing clothes and posture"). No college. "Is the loss of our daughter's purity worth them getting a degree they're probably not going to use?"

Right, what use would a woman have for a college degree? After all, she's just going to stay home cooking and cleaning for her man, right? So the only thing she really needs to know is that her husband is boss.

Right now, you might begin to suspect that this video is a parody, but it isn't. This is really what "Fix the Family" is all about. Purity? Purity? Could you focus on anything less important than that?

There's prudence, yes. Teach your daughters (and your sons) about making smart choices. Teach them that they're in control (your sons, too). Warn them about potential dangers, absolutely. But purity? This isn't the Dark Ages. There's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying your youth, enjoying your health, enjoying your sexuality.

This guy is just creepy as hell, isn't he? Jezebel has a pretty good reply to this video, especially this part:

Dear good Catholic daughters, and daughters in general, and anyone who has ever come into contact with the teachings of a kookooroo like Raylan Alleman:

1. You do not have to obey.

It's okay if you don't believe me right now—I'm just going to keep hammering this one point over and over again for the rest of my life, just to do my part to ensure the message is there, steadfast and unequivocal, any time someone needs it. Contrary to what people might have told you, your life is yours—not your father's, not your husband's, not the Pope's, not some radical internet creep's. People who come at you with shit like this are liars with their own best interests in mind, not yours:

My personal impression is that the day-to-day grind of a job is below the dignity of women. In a way, it is like being a hired hand, as result of the fall and the penalty for original sin.

The "personal impressions" of Raylan Alleman, self-appointed internet lady-wrangler, are irrelevant to your life. You get to do whatever the fuck you want, within legal boundaries. You can still hold yourself to the moral code of your choice, immerse yourself in the church of your choice, marry someone whose faith you respect, and so on, but your church's jurisdiction over your life ends where your personal liberty begins. "Obedience" is part of the lexicon of slavery, and that is precisely how Raylan Alleman is using it. Your purpose is to stay home, stay tethered, stay ignorant, and stay harmless. Have more babies! Clean some stuff! Avoid critical thinking—it isn't your place (besides, we wouldn't want you getting critical of your husband and your life). Avoid going outside and making a mark on the world with your radiant brain and agency—that's your husband's place.

Well, fuck that. It is your place. Every place is your place. You are a human being and you have just as much a right to thrive and grow in any place you choose as some man who didn't do anything exceptional except be born. These places were built on your back too. You were born too and this is your life and you can do what you want with it. Obey yourself.

Jezebel - Lindy - has much more to say. (Here's another great line: "That's why you shouldn't take economic advice from people who were home-schooled by people who were home-schooled by people who think college is just one big Marxist jizz fountain.")

But Raylan Alleman has more to say, too - like "What's with all the Angry Women" and "Feminist Lie #4 - All Girls Need to go to College." Frankly, I don't know if it's all this crazy, because there was a limit on how much bullshit I could take.

America comes out of the closet

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In Texas, it's OK to murder a hooker who won't have sex with you

Do you think Tennessee is bad? (Sorry, Jim.) Check this out:

It’s hard to imagine, without knowing the story, how someone could shoot a woman in the back of the head and then, quite literally, get away with murder. Actually, it’s pretty hard to believe when you do know the story because that is what has just happened in Texas.

Ezekiel Gilbert hired a woman from Craigslist to be his escort and, after having spent the time he paid for in his apartment with him, she left. But they hadn’t had sex, so Gilbert wanted his money back. Instead, the woman got into her car and he shot her multiple times. She was paralyzed and ultimately died from her wounds and he was charged with the murder.

His defense said that it is perfectly legal because of the “nighttime theft” rule in Texas which states that it’s OK “to use deadly force to recover property during a nighttime theft.” Now, he’d paid the woman she claimed for the time and he claimed for the sex, so it was really a dispute over whether he was getting what he paid for. But instead of, say, suing or claiming fraud, he decided to shoot a woman with no weapons in the back because he didn’t get what he wanted from her escorting. And he got away with it.

Incredible, isn't it? He hired an 'escort.' He got an escort. What he didn't get was sex, which his 'escort' was willing to do, but wanted more money.

So he shot her in the back of the neck. He shot an unarmed woman, who was no threat to him whatsoever, multiple times in her back and neck. Yet he walks free. Heck, I'm sure Texas won't even take his gun away!

That's perfectly reasonable in Texas, apparently. After all, what's the point of having all those guns if you don't use them to settle disputes? And she was only a hooker, right? No more than a convenient target for Texas men...

Do you know what the best part of this is? (I'm using 'best' ironically, I assure you!)

Outside the courtroom, Gilbert thanked God...

Yeah, he's a Christian, of course. And 'God' thinks it's OK to shoot hookers, too. I think it's in the Bible somewhere, isn't it?

Kaitlyn Hunt's dilemma

Crazy, isn't it? Sexual predator laws are a good thing, but high school kids dating each other is not an example of child abuse. How did we Americans become so insane as to think otherwise?

And you know what else is insane? 'Men's rights' lunatics are commenting on this video clip, whining about being the real victims here, because no one would care if this weren't two women. Jesus they're embarrassing!

If they even bothered to watch the video, both Cenk and Ana spoke up about how boys have also faced this kind of situation, when a parent didn't like who their daughter was dating. How could they make it any plainer that this isn't about the sex of the accused?

Abstinence-only sex education teaches rape victims they're worthless, dirty, filthy

(Elizabeth Smart)

Remember Elizabeth Smart?  Kidnapped from her home when she was just 14, forced into a polygamous 'marriage,' chained up and raped for nine months?

It was very good news when she was discovered and returned to her family, and, thankfully, it didn't take ten years or more, as it did with those three young women recently rescued in Cleveland (originally 14, 16, and 20 when they were abducted).

But there's better news than that, since Elizabeth Smart is really making something of her life, as she runs a foundation which helps educate children about sex crimes. And she knows what she's talking about, wouldn't you say?

From Think Progress:

She explained that some human trafficking victims don’t run away because they feel worthless after being raped, particularly if they have been raised in conservative cultures that push abstinence-only education and emphasize sexual purity:

Smart said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped by her captor, and she understands why someone wouldn’t run “because of that alone.”

Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”

Now in her mid-twenties, Smart runs a foundation to help educate children about sexual crimes. She now believes that children should grow up learning that “you will always have value and nothing can change that.”

Social psychologists and sexual abuse counselors agree that comprehensive sex education can help prevent sexual crimes. Teaching children about their bodies gives them the tools to describe acts of abuse without feeling as embarrassed or uncomfortable, and it also helps elevate their self-confidence and sense of bodily autonomy. A shame-based approach to genitalia and sexuality, on the other hand, sends kids the message that they can’t discuss or ask questions about any of those issues.

There are a couple of things I want to add about this. The first is that many religious groups and right-wing political figures are still pushing a shame-based approach to sex education. They're still pushing abstinence-only sex education, despite abundant evidence that it doesn't work. Many even refuse to let their daughters get a vaccination which can protect them from cancer, just because sex is all about shame with them.

Well, here's one more reason to oppose that primitive, superstitious approach. If, the gods forbid, your daughter gets abducted, she needs to know that being a victim doesn't make her worthless. It's the rapist who's worthless, not the victim. It's the rapist who should feel intense shame, not the victim. Your daughters need to know that.

And they need to know that consensual sex isn't shameful to either party. It might not be the smart thing to do, depending on the circumstances, but it's not dirty, it's not filthy, it's not shameful. Teaching kids to be smart will be a whole lot more effective than teaching them to hate themselves.

But the other reason I wanted to post this is because it's good news, don't you think? Elizabeth Smart hasn't forgotten her ordeal, but she seems to be a real survivor, doesn't she? She's making something of her life. She can be very proud of that.

I read these news stories, and I'm always happy when abducted women are recovered alive,... but I can't actually be happy when I think of how they must have suffered. And I know that experiences like that don't just go away. Even Elizabeth Smart is famous for having been a victim. How would that make you feel?

But what does make me happy is to see her rise above that. She's using her personal experience, tragic as it was, to make the world a better place. She's 25 now, she's been to college, she got married, and she's running the Elizabeth Smart Foundation to help others.

That is good news, don't you think?

Five stupid things about the men's rights movement

As a man, I find the "men's rights movement" horribly embarrassing, for exactly these reasons. Plus, I can't stand the incessant whining.

Christ, man up, why don't you? Whining about how much of a victim you are, when men control governments, businesses, and religious institutions worldwide is a little much, don't you think?

And as a man, I've never had to worry about violence from women, while nearly every woman must be careful about the reverse possibility for pretty much her entire life.