What I’m Reading, March 19, 2014

Posted on March 19, 2014 by wellsdc

By John Martinez Pavliga from Berkeley, USA (Contemporary American Auto Dealer) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons What Do Car Dealers Do? Gerard Magliocca, Concurring Opinions, March 17, 2014

What is the public purpose behind a statute or regulation that says that you can only buy new cars through a dealer? I’ll grant that the dealership model has been around for a long time, and dealers are a powerful lobby, but is there anything else to this regulation? For example, can you say that car dealers do a better job at protecting consumer safety or welfare than a store owned by the manufacturer? I find that hard to believe. I’m not sure these dealership statutes are constitutionally irrational, but they are ridiculous.

Continue reading →

Nice Guys(TM) and the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Posted on February 27, 2014 by wellsdc

A post at the Cringepics Subreddit displays a highly-awkward attempt by a “fedorabeard” (a term I am totally stealing) to flirt with Kitty, a Hot Topic employee that suits his highly-superficial fancy. Of course, he couldn’t just ask for her number or social media info directly—after the smackdown she gives to fedorabeard, the person who gave him her info should probably run for the hills. Here’s a highlight, and the whole Imgur album is below:

Listen, buddy, you don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me, and from the obliviousness I’ve witnessed here I doubt you’d know your ass from a hole in the ground. I’m not your Felicia Day, I’m not your Ramona Flowers. I’m not your manic pixie dream girl. I’m an actual, real live human being and you’ve had a single five minute conversation with me. You can take your little nerd-girl fantasies you’ve so thoughtfully projected on me and shove them right back into the box of tired, worn out Hollywood tropes you pulled them out of.

***

And one last thing to leave you with, bucko. If you have to tell somebody you’re a nice guy, you’re doing something wrong. Or you’re not actually a nice guy, you’re a pushy fucking creep living in a fantasy world where girls fit whatever cute little mold you decide they should. You ever wanna buy your collectibles in my store again, deal with another associate or find it within yourself to treat me with the respect and distance you’d afford to a stranger whose pants you DON’T wanna get into. Creep.

There is no one specific moment when the guy blew it, but among the myriad things he should not have done, comparing Kitty to “a real life version of Felicia Day or Chloe Dykstra,” followed by the acknowledgment that they are real people but that he’ll never meet them, has to be among the dumbest things anyone has ever said to anyone.

By Genevieve (DSC_8024) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

This is Chloe Dykstra playing a character. She’s probably not like this outside of Comic-Con.

This particular archetype of the geek girl does not actually exist in real life, and manic pixie dream girls only exist as supporting characters in movies with male main characters. The trope does damage to the women perceived as manic pixie dream girls, and the men who hang their hopes on a spunky Natalie Portman lookalike swooping in and showing them how to savor life. Continue reading →

Porn and Prejudice: Rule 34 Goes Zero-G

Posted on February 23, 2014 by wellsdc

We have achieved yet another zenith in human scientific and technological achievement with Kate Upton’s zero-g photoshoot for Sports Illustrated.

With GIFs. Continue reading →

Get Your Mind Back in the Gutter

Posted on February 18, 2014 by wellsdc

"Free Sugar Baby Puppy Dog and Pink Rose Petals" by Pink Sherbet Photography [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr

Try this: Whenever you think you’re about to start thinking of gay stuff, picture this puppy covered in rose petals instead. Feel better?

According to at least some people, growing tolerance of LGBTQ individuals and issues (this really only applies to the “G” part, I guess) is due to the fact that people just aren’t thinking about gay sex, and about how icky it is, nearly enough. If people could just get an image of anal intercourse back into their minds, then, uh, things would improve or something.

Alicia Colon, who writes for the American Thinker, really thinks we should be thinking about rectums and poo more often. Roy Edroso at alicublog quotes her as saying:

Those lovable characters in the sitcoms are robustly healthy and affluent, cuddly folks who never even hint at any of the negative consequences that follow on a lifetime of practicing anal intercourse. Nobody wears Depends, nobody deals with feces-borne diseases, and the devastation of AIDS is left for a few feature films that generate sympathy for the victims without addressing the behavioral component of the disease vector.

He goes on to add:

Colon obviously missed that very special Will & Grace episode, “Giardia is Not a River in Italy.” Colon does approve of gay Catholics who do not have anal intercourse, and hopes a book her friend is writing about them “may enlighten others and be helpful to Catholic gays as Bill W’s book was for alcoholics.”

It’s almost charming that such people still exist; they’re like bigot Shakers. I wonder if they ever perceive the irony of the likelihood that the carriers of the Gay Plague will outlast them.

Seriously, what is it with people and their obsession with same-sex sex? Specifically, gay sex, because no one ever quite seems to get so perturbed by thoughts of Sapphic lovemaking (or at least they don’t embarrass themselves in public about it as much.)

I like the way Allen Clifton put it when speaking of that Duck Dynasty guy and his apparent inability not to think of gay people primarily in terms of appendages and orifices:

When I read Phil Robertson’s comments, I wasn’t mad – I felt sorry for him. I couldn’t imagine feeling such disdain toward so many people based on who they love – something that has zero impact on my life. I can’t even wrap my mind around what it must be like to obsess so much about man on man anal sex to the point that it would bother me. To be honest, I never think about it. But then again, I’m straight and don’t care what other people do in their own bedroom – so why would I think about it?

Photo credit: “Free Sugar Baby Puppy Dog and Pink Rose Petals” by Pink Sherbet Photography [CC-BY-2.0], via Flickr.

Here’s Something for Your Valentine’s Day Angst, with Fluffy Bunnies

Posted on February 14, 2014 by wellsdc

I’ve posted this video before, but I thought I’d offer it again for anyone experiencing any anxiety or angst about Valentine’s Day.

The song is, obviously, “Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me” by the Australian band TISM.

My favorite part comes right after the bridge:

Our lives have to die
Of that there’s no help
My favourite way to end them
Is the orb-weaver spider’s whose pedipalp
Enters the female pudendum.

Then dies on the spot
His corpse there still stuck,
Left for his rivals to curse at.
He would rather die than not get to f^ck
Personally I reckon it’s worth it.

That’s, uh, bleak.

Now that we have the angst out of the way, I recommend following The Oatmeal’s advice:

In that spirit, here’s a good sexy rumpus song. Sort of.

In case you’re wondering, the dwarf mime is not Peter Dinklage.

To Each Their Own, I Suppose

Posted on February 12, 2014 by wellsdc

Some conservatives appear to have views on sex that are almost impossible to satirize (h/t Jason):

The original post on the Facebook page Hot Liberals includes a link to the source, a YouTube video I’d rather not watch.

The most common response to this guy’s remarks seem to be along the lines of “He must not be doing it right,” or, perhaps more crudely, “He just needs good BJ.” For my part, I don’t care one tiny bit what this guy personally thinks about sex. I only care that he’s trying to push one narrow view of sex onto everybody.

If a person doesn’t want to have sex except to procreate, that’s their thing, and no one except maybe their partner has any say in the decision. If someone doesn’t want to have sex at all, same deal. Being positive about sex does not mean making it mandatory in some way. Sex is awesome and joyful and magical and painful and terrifying and so on and so forth, and we still can’t seem to bring it up without making snickering quips about it.

To Jerome Corsi, I therefore say this: If this works for you, more power to you, but you don’t speak for everybody, and certainly not me.

To everyone else, please lay off the “he just needs to get laid” jokes. For one thing, they’re not helping. For another, by making jokes like that, you’re missing the opportunity to mine the gold that is Monty Python:

Texas Can’t Get Too Smug Over Russia

Posted on February 12, 2014 by wellsdc

In the midst of everyone’s rush to give Putin’s Russia (much deserved) grief over the country’s law banning “homosexual propaganda” or whatever, the Washington Post published an article identifying eight U.S. states with laws that, while nowhere near the Russian law in letter, might seem close to it in spirit. The U.S. state laws, commonly known as “no promo homo” laws, presumably by people who never expect to have to say that out loud, apply specifically to public education regarding teh gayz. Unlike Russia’s law, they do not include provisions for incarceration and whatnot.

The Texas statute is worth examining, provided that any such examination is followed by peals of derisive laughter and ruthless mockery at our backwards legislators. Texas Health & Safety Code § 163.002(8) provides as follows:

Course materials and instruction relating to sexual education or sexually transmitted diseases should include…emphasis, provided in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under Section 21.06, Penal Code.

I see four glaring problems here:

“Emphasis, provided in a factual manner.” The absurdity of this provision should become clear once it is demonstrated that nothing following it in the statute is in any way factual.
“From a public health perspective.” Similarly, this really does not apply to either of the assertions that follow.
“Homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public.” This might have been sort of true in 1991, when the Legislature passed this particular statute, but times have undoubtedly changed and continue to change, and it was never really the public’s business anyway. What happened to liberty, Texas Legislature? I guess that only applies to things you don’t personally find icky, right?
“Homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under Section 21.06, Penal Code.” This was certainly true in 1991, but it hasn’t been true since 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that specific statute in Lawrence v. Texas. The fact that the Legislature hasn’t bothered to take it off the books in the subsequent decade is pretty embarrassing. Not as embarrassing, of course, as the law mandating that schools continue to teach kids that a statute ten years in its constitutional grave still has legal force.

EDIT (02/13/2014): Edited to correct a spelling error – “times have undoubtedly change” should say “times have undoubtedly changed.”

Alabama’s Bold Legal Stand

Posted on February 10, 2014 by wellsdc

[Trigger warning: Well, sort of. I shall allude to sexual assault and animal abuse in this post, but will also generally discuss things that some people might find inappropriate in polite company.]

Whatever feelings you have about this picture, please keep them to yourself.

Alabama’s state senate took a bold stand against bestiality last month, passing a bill that would make it illegal.

Wait, it wasn’t already illegal?

Nope. And it’s not in Texas, either—at least not expressly so.

Only 14 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have statutes specifically prohibiting sexual contact with animals. I’m of two minds on this, really. On the one hand, I am all for protecting animals, who, as far as any of us know, cannot consent to sexual activity with a human. On the other hand, do we actually need another law?

One state where it is expressly illegal is Louisiana, where a man was arrested last summer for alleged sex with livestock. He has been charged with four counts of “crime against nature.” I do not like the sound of that statute. Continue reading →

The Super Bowl is Today, So It’s Time for Another Round of Moral Panic

Posted on February 2, 2014 by wellsdc

"Super Bowl XLVIII Preparations at MetLife Stadium January 31, 2014" by Anthony Quintano [CC BY 2.0, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr Everybody knows that the Super Bowl is the single biggest day of the year for human sex trafficking in the United States. Well, everybody who doesn’t do any research about it at all, anyway.

In all seriousness, I really shouldn’t have to say either of the following two statements, but here goes:

People who engage in human trafficking of any kind, be it for sex work, agricultural work, textile work, and so forth, are the scum of the earth and deserve to be thrown into a very dark pit full of spiders.
No evidence exists to support assertions that the [Super Bowl, World Cup, Olympics, etc.] draws a massive influx of trafficking victims (which seems to have become synonymous at times with sex trafficking victims.)

In 2011, when Dallas hosted the Super Bowl, people predicted that tens of thousands of children, “some as young as 12 years old,” would be in the city specifically for the Super Bowl. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott even managed to get in a dig at Mexico: “Super Bowl XLV on Sunday in Cowboys Stadium is of particular concern because of Texas’ 1,200-mile border with Mexico, which makes the state a bigger target for international rings, says Abbott, the attorney general.” Here’s the thing, though: there was no evidence to support those predictions, and no evidence that such a massive influx of traffickers and trafficking victims actually took place. It happened, no doubt, but it is unlikely that it happened at any greater rate than during other weekends.

This is an odd issue, because it is one of the few where some people on the right and left are united, in a sense, albeit for different reasons. On the right, you have the usual squeamishness about sex, women, and so forth. It doesn’t surprise me when right-wing news sources parrot the conventional, albeit unsupported, wisdom. On the left, you have obviously valid concern over people’s well-being, but it is often taken to an extent far, far beyond the evidence.

Several serious problems present themselves with this particular myth. For one, little to no effort is made to differentiate people who are forced into sex work against their will from people who engage in it voluntarily, whether from economic necessity or actual enjoyment. (For my part, I think consensual sex work by adults should be decriminalized (PDF file), but that’s an issue for another blog post.)

Second, the rhetoric places almost exclusive emphasis on juvenile female sex workers, to the exclusion of male and transgender sex trafficking victims and victims of trafficking in any other area. This makes the work of stopping actual trafficking more difficult, but don’t take my word for it. Rachel Lloyd from Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS) offers three reasons why the Super Bowl myth harms the effort to help trafficking victims: credibility (the claim gets so overblown that it obscures the truth), false alarms (see “The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf”), and limited resources (if you throw everything into Super Bowl weekend, you have little left for the rest of the year.)

You want an example of misuse of limited resources? How about this: Continue reading →

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Category Archives: Sex