Bailouts for Porn!

Via CNN:

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.

“The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three,” said Owen Moogan, spokesman for Larry Flynt. “The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion.”

When the investment companies asked for it, it was sad.

When the auto-makers asked for it, it was ballsy… but still sad.

When the porn industry asks for it, I laugh my fucking ass off.

I honestly don’t know if I want this to be real or not. Does the comedy value outweight the price tag? Does 5 billion dollars even matter any more, since we’ve already well-and-thoroughly bankrupted the next generation (or two)?

Virginity Pledges Don’t Work

From Effect Measure:

A study published in the journal Pediatrics followed 289 teenagers who said in 1996 they took a virginity pledge and compared them with 645 non-pledgers, taking into account religious beliefs and attitudes to sex and birth control…

Five years after taking the pledge:

• 82% of pledgers denied ever having taken the pledge
• Pledgers and matched non-pledgers did not differ in rates of premarital sex, sexually transmitted disease, and oral and anal sex behaviors
• Pledgers had 0.1 fewer sexual partners in the past year but did not differ from non-pledgers in the number of lifetime sexual partners and the age of first sex (Jennifer Warner, WebMD News)

There was one significant difference between the pledge and non-pledge group, however. They were less likely to use condoms or any form of birth control when they did have sex.

You can’t blame them. No one told them how.

(Emphasis mine.)

Abstinence-only sex education is one of our worst social failures. It’s a terribly short-sighted “solution” to what is only perceived as a “problem” by [predominantly religious] social conservatives. Its stated purpose is to prevent kids from having sex before marriage. That’s all well and good, but even then, what happens after marriage? Was anyone ever planning on teaching these kids — now adults — how sex actually works? How to enjoy sex safely and practically, without the looming specters of STDs and unplanned pregnancies?

Married couples have as much use for condoms and contraceptives as unmarried, even non-exclusive sex partners. Perhaps not so much with respect to health and safety concerns — after all, one of the chief benefits of sexual exclusivity is a drastic reduction in risk of exposure to STDs — but certainly with respect to birth control.

Or are we to assume even marriage does not confer the right to have sex for pleasure?

I’ve been a supporter of comprehensive sex education in public schools ever since I, myself, was still attending one. I recall raising the topic one day during a high school health class; it was the day they started peddling their abstinence-only bullcrap. The details elude me (it’s been seven or eight years now) but I do remember the general thrust of the counter-argument was that comprehensive sex education would lead to more teenagers having sex.

That’s probably true. And if so, we’d still be better off. Isn’t it better for 100 teens to have safe, responsible sex, than for even one teen to contract an STD or start (and be forced to follow through with) an unplanned pregnancy simply because they were denied this education?

That’s what our social conservatives are peddling: STDs and unwanted pregnancies (and God forbid you even mention an abortion) for many our nation’s youth, because their parents, community leaders, and state and federal governments are all too immature to discuss sex like adults. Instead, they’d rather insult the intelligence of our youth with childish games like virginity pledges, then bury their heads in the sand and ignore the damage their own immaturity is doing to society.

Birth Control = Abortion?

January 20th can’t come soon enough. Via Planned Parenthood:

And, in these waning days, President Bush seems eager to leave his mark — any which way he can.

One of those ways is an unacceptable and dangerous Department of Health and Human Services rule that would limit the rights of patients to receive complete and accurate health information and services. Even worse, this rule would open the door to individual health care providers being able to redefine abortion to include many forms of birth control.

(Emphasis mine.)

Haven’t these clowns fucked this country up enough? Please, guys, just shut the hell up and exit stage left.

It never ceases to amaze me how people can complain (legitimately) about high teen pregnancy rates, then turn around and deny those teens access to birth control and comprehensive sex education. You know, things that would actually solve the problem.

Backwards Thinking

Ok, someone really needs to explain this country’s [the U.S.] ongoing adversity toward sexuality to me. I realize we were established from Puritan roots, but that was well over 200 years ago. Isn’t it about time we grew up?

Here’s what’s tripped today’s tirade. Earlier today, I was browsing some forums for an upcoming video game. There has been speculation as to whether the game’s ESRB rating will be T or M. I came across this post:

“i hope its not Teen, teen means no blood no swearing, which means its almost fake”

That’s all fine and dandy, aside from the question of why blood and swearing are so important, but I’ll get to that in a moment. The thing that pissed me off was this reply to the above:

“Yeah thats true. i just hope it goes M with swearing and blood but no sexual stuff. I really will not buy any game that has a lot of sexual **bleep** in it.”

There is a very serious issue with this response: the fact that the guy actively desires blood (and general violence, by implication), but wants nothing to do with sexual content.

Are we so fucked up that we prefer human suffering to human pleasure?

Let’s consider a few case studies. Last summer, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was re-rated to AO and pulled from some store shelves over a poorly-detailed, tongue-in-cheek sex mini-game. A few months later, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was re-rated from T to M after the release of an end-user mod that allowed female characters in the game to appear topless. Both received significant [negative] media coverage, and both triggered the predictable critical rhetoric.

Contrast that with the recently-released film Hostel, which contains intensely detailed and graphic depictions of violence, torture, gore, and general human suffering. The film is rated R, and rightfully so. But there’s no political backlash. I certainly don’t hear soccer moms blaming the collapse of society on this film.

How about this:

• Sex is about pleasure, while violence is about suffering.
• We have sex with people we love (or at least like), and we’re violent with people we hate.
• People generally feel good and content after sex, but feel stressed and frightened after committing an act of violence.
• Sex is associated with comfort and happiness, while violence is associated with pain and fear.
• Sex is rejuvenating, but violence is destructive.

Seeing a pattern here?

I’d really like to hear a good reason why we accept brutality but demonize eroticism. Anyone?