Category Archives: sex & sexuality

Coathanger lobby update: the Obama administration, redux.

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obamalogocoathanger

Hahaha. I crack myself up.

Loyal Readers™ may recall that in 2011, Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, overrode the FDA’s recommendation that Plan B One-Step — the so-called “morning after pill” that prevents pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse —be made available over-the-counter without a prescription for women and girls of all ages. The move was completely unprecedented in the history of the agency. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D., said at the time:

The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) completed its review of the Plan B One-Step application and laid out its scientific determination. CDER carefully considered whether younger females were able to understand how to use Plan B One-Step.  Based on the information submitted to the agency, CDER determined that the product was safe and effective in adolescent females, that adolescent females understood the product was not for routine use, and that the product would not protect them against sexually transmitted diseases. Additionally, the data supported a finding that adolescent females could use Plan B One-Step properly without the intervention of a healthcare provider.

It is our responsibility at FDA to approve drugs that are safe and effective for their intended use based on the scientific evidence…Our decision-making reflects a body of scientific findings, input from external scientific advisory committees, and data contained in the application that included studies designed specifically to address the regulatory standards for nonprescription drugs.  CDER experts, including obstetrician/gynecologists and pediatricians, reviewed the totality of the data and agreed that it met the regulatory standard for a nonprescription drug and that Plan B One-Step should be approved for all females of child-bearing potential.

Despite FDA’s recommendations based entirely on sound scientific evidence, Secretary Sebelius hung her hat on the fact that ten percent of girls in the U.S. reach puberty by the age of 11.1 years, and noted that “the product would be available, without a prescription or other point-of-sale restrictions, even to the youngest girls of reproductive age.” (pdf.) For some reason she said that like it’s a bad thing, when it is, of course, the very point of eliminating age restrictions and other barriers to access in the first place. The Washington Post summarized her position this way:

Sebelius said she reversed the FDA’s decision because she had concluded that data submitted by the drug’s maker did not “conclusively establish” that Plan B could be used safely by the youngest girls.

I wrote at the time:

To which I can only retort:  hey Secretary Sebelius, do you know what cannot be used safely by the youngest girls?  The birthing process.  However, young girls need neither a prescription nor parental consent for that.

Flash forward to April of this year: in ruling on a lawsuit brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, federal Judge Edward Korman called Sebelius’s decision “politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent,” and ordered the agency to make Plan B One-Step available over-the-counter without restriction.

Late yesterday, the administration appealed that decision. In the meantime, on Tuesday the Obama administration approved over-the-counter sales of Plan B One-Step for those age 15 and above — in defiance of Judge Korman’s order. In a noxious bit of lawyering befitting the sleaziest of the profession (and that is saying something, my friends), the administration relied on its brand new 15+ approval rule to argue in its appeal that the case is moot because the plaintiffs — who happened to be 15 or older —”now have access without a prescription and without significant point-of-sale restrictions to at least one form of emergency contraceptive…”

It’s bad enough that this leaves girls 14 and under to their coathangers and friendly neighborhood Gosnells, but it isn’t even true. 15 year olds — particularly urban and/or poor 15 year olds — typically have no drivers licenses or access to other forms of state ID, and thus will not be able to purchase Plan B. FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said in an interview, “If a 15-year-old is unable to verify their age, they will not be able to purchase Plan B One-Step.”

Let us briefly consider some facts:

Adolescent pregnancy is associated with higher rates of illness and death for both the mother and infant.

Death from violence is the second leading cause of death during pregnancy for teens, and is higher in teens than in any other group.

Pregnant teens are at much higher risk of having serious medical complications such as:

It is also worth noting that here in the Greatest Ever Country Ever in the World Ever, 10-year olds give birth. (pdf.)

The Palace stands by and hereby reiterates its previous pronouncement on this matter:

IF A YOUNG GIRL HAS THE GOOD SENSE TO SEEK OUT
EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION WHEN SHE NEEDS IT,
WE SHOULD FUCKING GIVE IT TO HER.
(FOR FREE.)

The Palace also stands by and hereby reiterates its theory on the Obama administration’s otherwise inexplicable actions in this matter:

obamarepublican

Barack Obama: “NOW can I be a Republican? PLEASE?? Aww, come on guys!”

It’s Time to Smite Two Religion-Based Impositions on American Liberties

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What Robert Green Ingersoll said of the Bible (About the Holy Bible, 1894) applies as well to the Christian religion that promotes it, namely, it imprisons the brain and corrupts the heart.

While many examples could be cited, what clearer illustration of this reality could be found than in the positions advanced by religionists on the two issues now before the U.S. Supreme Court, namely, DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage?

Religious dogma leads otherwise decent people to deny certain basic human rights to others that affect them in no way whatsoever. In the case at hand, dogma has motivated Christians to oppose marriage equality. Why? Because Christian faith beliefs persuade followers that if others are allowed to do what they find sinful, namely allow marriage equality for gays and lesbians, this will be a  violation of their religious liberties .

How convoluted is that? Is intolerance a Christian virtue?

Gays and lesbians are not seeking to compel any churches or religions to do anything they don’t want to do. At present, gays or lesbians can marry without any involvement of religious officials, though some Christian ministers are supportive of such marriages and will perform such ceremonies in states where same sex unions are recognized.

Secularists and Christians and other religiously-oriented Americans who support freedom are wise to join in common cause to protect basic human rights and oppose religious encroachments on our laws and public policies.

Besides DOMA and Prop 8, other issues can be identified where liberties and personal freedoms are compromised, distorted, restricted or otherwise constrained by religion-inspired repression?

*  Restrictions on sexual conduct, including but not limited to same-sex relations between consenting adults.

*  Overt discrimination in the military. Only in the past year has the infamous don’t ask, don’t tell policy, which banned openly gay or bisexual from serving in the military, been overturned.

*  The status of women, who until the twentieth century were viewed as subordinate to men, lacking a full capacity for reason and dependent on husbands and other males. Not entirely but to a considerable extent, this prejudice was religiously inspired via holy books and suppressive elements of dogma and religious authority.

How odd that many still associate religions with the teaching of ethics when it fact religious policies and practices often are unethical. Freethinkers base their ethics not on ancient texts or the pontifications of pontiffs and other religious authorities but on reason and evidence. Religious dogma, usually vague and filled with you better the hell not threats, seems a sorry basis for ethics or public policies.

Who knows for sure that there is a God or, if one wants to believe there is, what his or her factual position is on freedoms and human rights?

There is only one reliable source for identifying the nature of human rights – us. We, the members of a given society, determine the nature of the rights we get to enjoy. In most Western nations, we rely on democratic processes to identify desired human rights based on our sense of desirable conditions under which we wish to live peacefully and productively with others with shared values. This is how we came up with what humanists call common decencies. We do not need religions to know that it is in our interest not to kill, steal, injure or plunder, break agreements, tell lies, ignore commitments, fail to assist others and so on.

Do you need a god or a religion to know these things? If someone is unlikely to refrain from doing such things save for fear of a god who will water-board him, hang him upside down and  burn him forevermore in some future life-after-death hellhole, would you want to associate with such a fiend?

Do you think this after-life form of justice motivates Christians who choose to oppose gay marriage?

Most of us accept the secular codes of conduct and common decencies of a positive nature even though we sometimes fail to function accordingly. (Self interest, temptations of varied kinds, special circumstances and so on lead us imperfect humans astray, some more often than others.) We accept these purely secular core norms, though often religionists give their faith traditions credit for their good, ethical behavior.

In this country and many others, we also embrace a variety of quite secular liberties for ourselves and others, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom to pursue an education and so on. For those who take their freedoms seriously, such liberties extend to sexual freedoms, though this is an area that brings conflict with those under the influence of religion.

Which brings me back to DOMA and Proposition 8. In the current issue of Free Inquiry Magazine (March 25, 2013), Ronald A. Lindsay has an article entitled, “Humanism, LGBT Equality and Human Rights. It concludes with this summary:

The freedom to marry is different from other fundamental liberties. To speak freely, to exercise your religion freely, and to have intimate relations with the partner of your choice, government just needs to stay out of the way. Marriage, however, is a State-run institution. One cannot get married without State support and approval. But these facts do not change our analysis significantly. If the State supports an institution such as marriage, which allows couples to obtain certain benefits by legally solemnizing their union, then all individuals should have the same right to take advantage of this institution. Denying same-sex couples the right to marry makes no more sense than denying women the right to vote or African Americans the right to attend integrated schools.

Let’s support a society wherein everyone enjoys fundamental human rights. Let’s recognize that religion is often no friend of liberty, though many Christians either have already or will come to favor human rights over dogma if the issues of freedom are communicated effectively.

Americans have a great stake in the current battle to gain equal rights for LGBT citizens. The right to marry based on reason and this nation’s commitment to liberty should trump the tenets of ancient religious texts.

I’m proud to be associated with the American Humanist Association, the Center for Free Inquiry, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and a diverse coalition of many other secular and humanist organizations that are leading the fight to have the Supreme Court strike down these two infamous, religion-inspired constraints on everyone’s liberty. Let’s hope that the religionists on the court decide the cases not so much in accord with the make-believe better angels of their nature but in concert with their training in law and passion for justice. If so, we should expect their support for what we secularists believe is the best interpretations of liberty of, by and for the people.

My next vacation destination: the Icelandic Phallological Museum.

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Icelandic_Phallological_Museum_logoIn case you missed it, Wikipedia’s featured article yesterday was about the Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavík.  I have long wanted to visit Iceland.  But a museum that houses the world’s largest collection of penises?  This totally seals the deal.

The museum’s aim is to obtain penis specimens from every mammal in Iceland, including humans.  So far, the collection contains 280 specimens from 93 species.  It finally obtained its first human penis in July 2011.  Unfortunately, things did not quite work out as originally envisioned:

Its detachment from the donor’s body did not go according to plan and it was reduced to a greyish-brown shrivelled mass pickled in a jar of formalin. The museum continues to search for “a younger and a bigger and better one.”

If you are wondering exactly what sort of person would donate his penis to the Icelandic Phallological Museum, there are currently four, including the Icelandic owner of the aforementioned greyish-brown shriveled mass.  A purported womanizer in his younger days, he donated his penis to the museum to ensure his “eternal fame.”  When he died at the ripe old age of 95 he was said to still be active, “both vertically and horizontally.”

Then there’s an American d00d:

Canadian film-maker Zach Math comments that the American “is an ordinary guy but he has this quirk where he thinks of his penis as a separate entity from his body — Elmo. He has this dream that he wants it to be the most famous penis in the world.” According to [the museum's owner], the American donor “wanted to have his penis cut off even during his lifetime and then visit the museum.” The American sent a cast of his penis to serve as a substitute in the meantime, along with photographs of it dressed up as Santa Claus and Abraham Lincoln. The donor also tattooed his penis with the Stars and Stripes to make it look more attractive.

Of course.

There is also a German donor and a Brit, but the Wiki article doesn’t tell us anything about them.

A collection of penises from mink whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata).Wellington Grey (2008)

A collection of penises from mink whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata).
Wellington Grey (2008)

The largest penis in the collection is that of a blue whale: it measures 67 inches (170 cm) in length and weighs 150 lbs. (70 kg).  If you think that’s impressive, consider that the specimen is only the tip of the whale boner.  When it was intact it would have been about 16 feet (5 m) long and weighed about 770–990 lbs. (350–450 kilograms).  The Iceland Review dubbed it “a real Moby Dick”.  Hahaha.

The smallest penis in the collection at only 0.08 inches (2 mm) long belonged to a hamster.  A magnifying glass is required to see it.  I’m guessing it probably looks something like this:  -

Inside the Icelandic Phallological Museum. The lamps are made from bull scrotums.

Inside the Icelandic Phallological Museum. The lamps are made from bull scrotums.
ThomasWF (2012)

Iris can haz peenis muzeeum nao plz?

It’s Sunday — and we are totally worshiping the Lord!

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shivalinga2

Linga (symbol of god Shiva) in the Meenakshi temple of Madurai
Hector Garcia (2006)

Now here’s a religious ritual I think at least a few of us can really get behind:  tonight is Maha Shiva ratri, the yearly Hindu festival celebrating Lord Shiva.  Long time Loyal Readers™ will recall that we have long been partial to Vishnu, but as it turns out Vishnu’s got some, *ahem*, stiff competition:  Lord Shiva is represented in the form of a penis.

According to Hindu legend, the god Shiva’s peen was cursed by some sages (?!) whereupon it fell to the earth, and — get this — it was so hawt that everything in front of it would become instantly engulfed in flames!  So Lord Shiva’s wife, the goddess Parvati, transformed herself into a vagina (a “yoni”) and she calmed that flamethrowin’ bad boy right down by holding it inside her.  (Way to take one for the team, Parvati!)  Tonight’s Maha Shiva ratri is the ritual commemoration of this blessed event:

The phallus symbol representing Shiva is called the lingam. It is usually made of granite, soapstone, quartz, marble or metal, and has a ‘yoni’ or vagina as its base representing the union of organs.

Shivalinga

Shivalinga.

Devotees of Lord Shiva circle around the lingam and worship it all night.

That’s right: all night.

It is bathed every three hours with the 5 sacred offerings of a cow, called the ‘panchagavya’ – milk, sour milk, cow dung, cow urine, butter.

You know, I think we can skip that step.

Then the 5 foods of immortality – milk, clarified butter, curd, honey and sugar are placed before the lingam.

Okay, we can definitely work with this.  Perhaps the vegans can substitute olive oil?

All through the day the devotees keep severe fast, chant the sacred Panchakshara mantra “Om Namah Shivaya”, make offerings of flowers and incense to the Lord amidst ringing of temple bells.

VanessaDaou-ZIP-CD-CoverWe are going to have to make a few minor modifications to the traditional ceremony.  First, no fasting.  I’ve already had breakfast, so that’s a non-starter.  Second, instead of chanting “Om Namah Shivaya” we will be substituting the mantra “Oh god, oh god, oh god.”  Frankly we would be chanting this anyway, only from now on please note that we will be referring specifically to Lord Shiva when we do.  Third, flowers are fine but I detest incense, so scented beeswax candles will have to suffice.  And for chrissakes who can concentrate with all those infernal bells ringing?  I’ll be spinning Vanessa Daou’s Zipless.

Praise the Lord.

[h/t Taslima Nasreen]

Handy retorts to godbags.

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A correspondent was annoyed when someone started off a discussion in a professional industry chat area on LinkedIn with this bit of scripture:

Phil 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

In reply, my godless correspondent went on a righteous rant about “superstitious tripe,” what an evil @$$hole the god of the bible is, and how professionals need not appeal to a genocidal figment of the imagination for anything.  Then came a response from another godbag so utterly typical in such contexts that one could easily predict every word of it:  calling my correspondent angry at god, announcing that a bunch of Christians are now praying for his immortal soul, and winding up with the most tedious finish ever, “God bless you” — followed, of course, by yet another banal line of scripture.

Yawn.

This only irked my correspondent further.  And why would it not?  It is just so dreary and dull to be accused of being angry at a god that one does not believe exists.  (How does that even work, anyway?)  But by giving a perfectly rational, fact-based reply to the godbag, my correspondent missed a golden opportunity for some great fun.  After all, if reason or reality could sway such people, well, they wouldn’t be godbags in the first place, would they.  It is also well-established that nonbelievers know more about religion than its professed adherents do.  And I am here to tell you, Loyal Readers™, there is much joy and satisfaction to be had in quoting scripture back at scripture-quoting godbags.  For example:

There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.  -Ezekiel 23:20

Awesome.  Amirite?  Or how about this one:

My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.  -Song of Solomon 5:4

Hahaha.  That one usually gets ‘em pretty torqued up.

I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.  -Song of Solomon 2:3

The LORD approves of enthusiastic blowjobs.  (Duh. He’s a d00d.)

The LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD.  -Isaiah 23:17-18

The LORD loves this fornicating whore.  Neat!  And here’s something special just for the ladies:

Come … blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.”   -Song of Solomon 4:16

The reason I recommend deploying these scraps of scripture in particular is because by and large the Christians I’ve encountered who post bible quotes on the web tend to hold seriously unhealthy views about sex and sexuality.  Like most social conservatives, they seem obsessed with “purity,” and particularly with the perverse concept of sexual purity.  And nothing — nothing — riles them up more than the thought of kinky, dirty, wanton sex co-mingled in the very pages of their pure, holy book.

Much of the bible is morally repellant (that god character does not come off well at all). however many godbags have apologetics at the ready for the more well-known absurdities.  But no matter:  there is just so much utterly bizarre stuff in the bible to choose from it’s nearly impossible to pick a favorite verse.  Here’s another good one:

You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.  -Leviticus 26:29

And here I thought only we atheists ate BBQ babies.  Huh.

Another favorite bible story comes from Genesis 19, wherein two angels are sent to the city of Sodom to visit Lot, a “just and righteous man” according to the god.  Apparently, these two angel d00ds are gorgeous hotties, and the pervy Sodomites surround Lot’s house and demand that he hand the angels over to them so they can, you know, have their way with them.  Lot refuses.  Instead, he offers up to the mob his own two virgin daughters, saying “do unto them as is good in your eyes.”  Gee thanks, dad!  So they rape Lot’s daughters all night long and somehow manage not to kill them.  I guess they are good at this.  Anyway, then the god kills everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah, but he lets Lot and his daughters escape and they camp out in a cave for a while.  There the daughters get their father drunk, then they each rape him in order to get pregnant and bear his sons.  (Sons. Of course.)  Now are those some just and righteous family values or what!

The timeline isn’t entirely clear to me, so I don’t understand how everyone can be so sure that the children were conceived with Lot and not one of those angel raping horndogs.  But hey, it says so right there in the bible, so it must be true.

Deploy.  And enjoy.

Redecorated Palace Bedroom.

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bedroom2

Once upon a time, the Palace bedroom walls were mostly bare, and there were only a few forlorn items lying around.  Since then, we have spared no expense filling it with links to sex-positive writers and reality-based resources.

There are now discrete areas for:

—BLOGS & ADVICE.
—GENDER & SEXUAL ORIENTATION.
—KINK.
—SEXUAL HEALTH & EDUCATION RESOURCES.
—SCIENCE OF SEX.

PLEASE NOTE:  You must be 18+ to hang out in the Bedroom.
NSFW.

I did (and still do) consider the Bedroom a work in progress.  It is by no means intended to be an exhaustive catalog of sexuality-oriented sites on the web (as if…), but more a portal to explore and celebrate the extraordinary diversity, power and vibrancy of human sexuality.  By the same token, while it is neither intended nor possible to capture every facet of human sexuality on a web page, I have attempted to ensure that the Bedroom is inclusive and respectful in its content and language.  Where I fall short in this regard, I would be grateful for criticism and/or suggestions for additional links and resources.

There are presently no discrete sections for porn/erotica, sex work, or books, although such sections are contemplated for the future.

As I mention at the entry to the Bedroom by way of introduction, the Palace holds that providing factual, interesting, informative and useful information about sex and sexuality is a worthy public service in its own right.  But in addition, providing factual, interesting, informative and useful information about sex and sexuality makes conservatives apoplectic—so obviously it’s just FULL OF WIN.

In summary:  if you are over 18 (and not at work), please feel free to explore the newly redecorated Palace Bedroom any time, 24/7/365.

Ask Iris: is there any gay porn with decent dialogue?

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[CONTENT NOTE:  NSFW.  This post contains images and discussion in connection with gay pornography, as well as links to sexually explicit material on other websites.  If you are under 18 or you find this subject matter offensive, please go away.  Like, right now.]

WordPress recently informed me that a search term that brought people through the Palace gates was this one:

is there any gay porn with decent dialogue?

Try as I might, I cannot for the life of me figure out how this blog turned up in that search. Unfortunately for our new readers, gay porn is not our area of expertise (that would be mocking conservatives).  But as our Many Tens of Loyal Readers™ well know, the Palace has many resources at its disposal, among them an Official Gay Porn Consultant™.  He was happy to recommend the following titles for the Palace’s new discerning gay-porn-with-decent-dialog aficionados:

Score. (Catalina Video)

ScoreThe title refers to a musical score (sure it does…) as the story revolves around a big budget film production.  Score features plenty of dramatic plot twists (including a murder) and finishes with a romantic ending.  You can view a hardcore trailer here.  A blow-by-blow (yes, literally) description is here.

One reviewer noted:

“Score” is an exceptional video with an outstanding cast. The video is well worth checking out, especially for the adorable Harley, notably in his pairing with Branch, the horny Rambo, and the always-enjoyable Harper. When was the last time you can remember seeing a porn video that held your attention — I mean, really held your attention — all the way to the end? If you like your videos to have more than just hot guys getting off, if you like a plot too, then go “Score.”

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. (Titan Media)

DADTWinner of the 2001 GayVN Awards for
Best Oral Scene (Tuck Johnson & Thom Barron).

Winner of the Seventh Annual Hard Choice Award for Best Screenplay (Tony Alizzi).

The plot revolves around a military court martial and features a closeted Colonel loosely based on Jack Nicholson’s character from A Few Good Men.  An explicit review is here.

Unfortunately (or maybe not) I can only find it for sale as part of a “Manplay Double Pack” bundled with At Large. 

You’re welcome, new discerning gay-porn-with-decent-dialog aficionados!

Wut up.

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I find myself staring at a smattering of open browser tabs, each a reminder of a subject I had intended to write about this week.  Some of these tabs have been open so long now, I get the distinct impression they are purposefully mocking me and daring me to do something about it: you know, like, actually write something.  But when I reviewed them this morning, I realized the sources speak perfectly well for themselves.  There really is no need for some smart-ass blogger to pretend she has anything to contribute whatsoever.  So without further ado, I bring you:

IRIS’S OPEN BROWSER TABS.

A Frontline report, The Untouchables, investigates why there have been no prosecutions of Wall Street criminals.

__________

The Truth About the Deficit : It’s Not Very Big, And There’s Only One Way To Close It.  (See also: Deficit Hawks Down, a good piece by Paul Krugman.)

__________

UN launches inquiry into drone killings:

The inquiry will assess the extent of civilian casualties, the identity of militants targeted and the legality of strikes where there is no UN recognition of a conflict.

…

Some kinds of drone attacks – in particular “double tap” strikes where rescuers attending a first blast become victims of a second – could constitute a war crime…

__________

A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year: Hate Crimes in America (and Elsewhere).  I have a love/hate relationship with Rebecca Solnit’s writing.  For example, words cannot express the depth of my contempt for her grotesquely ill-informed condescension to lefties who do not partake of the Obama/Democratic Party KoolAid.  But this piece is outstanding, and deserves the widest possible audience.

__________

This piece by Julian Assange is from late November, but I had not seen it until recently.  It details quite explicitly the machinations of the U.S. government, as revealed by the State Department cables allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning and published by Wikileaks over the last two years.  Assange:

It is the case that WikiLeaks’ publications can and have changed the world, but that change has clearly been for the better. Two years on, no claim of individual harm has been presented, and the examples above clearly show precisely who has blood on their hands.

Indeed.  When U.S. foreign policy routinely includes war crimes, cover-ups, lies to the citizenry both here and abroad, support for death squads and brutal anti-democratic regimes, corruption, rendition for torture, and the deaths of untold numbers of civilians and children — to say nothing of dead, maimed, and psychologically destroyed American soldiers — the American public should damn well know the truth.  As you read it, consider whose interests U.S. foreign policy serves.  (SPOILER ALERT:  It is not We the People.)

__________

On a somewhat related note, here is a good Citizen Radio interview of former CIA officer John Kiriakou.  He has just been sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison for blowing the whistle on CIA torture, the latest casualty of President Obama’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers.  To date, no one who created, directed or participated in the U.S. torture regime has been charged by the DOJ with any crime.

__________

My WordPress stats page (which I cannot link you to) helpfully informs me that one of the week’s top search terms that brought people to the Palace is this:

it’s large phallus thrust deep into her virgin womb

I don’t really know what to say about that, except to point out for the sake of accuracy that a womb is a uterus, where no phallus should be found thrusting.  Like, EVAR.

__________

Finally, tomorrow is a travel day for me: I will be heading to London for a week.  Longtime Loyal Readers™ may recall my last trip to that lovely city, and the resulting groundbreaking journalism for which the Palace is deservedly renowned.  Our fearless and intrepid investigation into the pie-facing of Rupert Murdoch and the British government’s strategic response thereto still stands to this day as one of our proudest accomplishments.  Look for upcoming London dispatches — well, assuming the hotel wifi doesn’t suck.

The Slut Vote.

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[Cross-posted at The Political Junkies for Progressive Democracy.]

Much hay has been made, both before and after the recent election, about the right’s “War on Women.”  If conservative policies with respect to abortion and birth control were not so deadly the whole thing could have been scripted as a comic farce set in the 12th century, the era to which conservatives apparently long for civilization to return.

There was Rush Limbaugh calling college student Sandra Fluke a slut for advancing the outrageous idea that oral contraception is basic health care.  In a tour de force of delusionary ranting entirely untethered from reality, Limbaugh said:

What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.

How is it possible for a man who has been married four times and has no children to hold the incomprehensibly ignorant notion that birth control pills are taken each time one engages in heterosexual intercourse?  Sandra Fluke’s congressional testimony, of course, only concerned her friend who requires oral contraception strictly for medical reasons, but was denied coverage by those compassionate Christians who run the Catholic university of Georgetown.  But never mind those pesky facts.  The next day Limbaugh doubled down:

So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.

As it turned out, Rush Limbaugh had nothing against sluts after all — provided they were willing to service his infantile sexual pathology.

99% of American women of reproductive age who have had sex have used birth control.  The figure is 98% for Catholic women.  Gosh, that sure seems like a whole lot of sluts.

Then there were the mandatory rape laws enacted in several states, requiring that medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasounds be performed upon women before abortions.  (Virginia State Senator Janet Howell proposed an amendment to such a law that would have required men seeking erectile dysfunction medication to first have a medically unnecessary rectal exam.  Strangely, her amendment failed.)  The state of Arizona enacted a law whereby a doctor can now lie to a pregnant woman about serious fetal abnormalities in order to prevent her from terminating, and not be sued for the unconscionable devastation that results.

There was the hideous parade of Republican rape apologists running for office: Rick “accept what God has given to you” Santorum; Todd “legitimate rape” Akin; John “uh, the rape thing…how does it make it better by killing a child?” Koster; Joe “there is no such exception as life of the mother” Walsh; and Richard “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen” Mourdock.

But the uproar over the no-copay birth control mandate in the Affordable Care Act really put the right’s derangement on vivid display for all to see.  One poor fellow from The Christian Men’s Defense Network (?!) had this to say in the wake of Romney’s loss:

Democrats tried to make this election about a single issue:

The right to slut.

Or more precisely, the right to slut without the responsibility of consequences.  The famous “gender gap” isn’t really a gap based on gender.  The right overwhelmingly wins older and married women.  The “gender gap” should more accurately be called the slut vote.

Okay, then.  The slut vote it is.  If by “slut” we mean “sexually active woman responsibly preventing pregnancy,” I and at least 98% of American women will be quite happy to embrace the label.  All those “older and married women” on the right?  Sluts, the lot of ‘em.  As a matter of fact, it’s a pretty safe bet that all of these guys’ wives are sluts, too.  Well, all of them except for Karen Santorum.  She has given birth to eight children.

Anyway, this whole War on Women thing?  Even if you are not a Vagina-American — i.e., a slut — you still might want to pay attention.  This has not been happening in a vacuum:  it is part of the larger conservative war on Social Security.  Unions.  The environment.  Education.  Food and water.  Immigrants.  Cancer patients.  Muslims.  The poor.  Gay and trans people.  The oceans.  Palestinians.  The middle class.  Black people.  Brown people.  The young.  The elderly.  The disabled.  Science.  The Earth.  The godless.  History.

For it seems that to whatever extent conservative policy is unleashed in one arena, it invariably inflicts its many miseries in other areas, too.  As go women’s reproductive rights, so go civil rights, and ultimately human rights.  And let us not overstate the enlightened liberalism of the Democratic Party on these issues, either.  Both parties have drifted rightward over the years and there are plenty of Democrats who are conservative, not just on reproductive rights but on a whole host of social and fiscal issues.  Those who would posit that Democrats in general or Barack Obama in particular have been unrelenting champions of reproductive rights will need to explain the administration’s overruling of FDA scientists on over-the-counter access to Plan B contraceptives, and the party’s cynical strategy of raising funds on the pretext of “holding Republicans accountable” for viciously misogynist legislation when those funds would be put to use reelecting Democrats who voted for exactly the same bills.

In fact, I think it’s probably fair to say that it was the right asserting their long-held, backward views with such unapologetic brio that benefited the Democrats in the election more than anything that they actively did on these issues themselves.  It came in the form of the slut voter backlash against the right’s medieval views of women.  In light of this, the Democrats would be wise to do some serious housecleaning.  They can stop promoting and supporting anti-choice candidates like Senators Harry Reid and Bob Casey, and start actively pushing forward on reproductive rights instead of compromising with the enemies of women — who are, not coincidentally, the enemies of humanity.

We sluts are paying attention.  There are a whole lot of us.  And we vote.