Three organizations for self-loathing Gays have decided to band together to collectively lower the IQs of children across Maryland by petitioning the school board to keep the Education part of Sex Education out of public schools. Specifically, they seem to be objecting mainly to the idea that will be floated past Baltimore 8th and 10th graders – that gay people are human beings worthy of the same rights, respect, and dignity afforded to straight people.
But they have a problem with condoms, too, of course. Just so the straights don’t feel totally left out, I suppose.
But flea, you cry, your title seems a bit inflammatory – just because they want to keep Americans sexually ignorant, broke, and so desperate that fighting in an endless war seems like a good idea if it allows us to provide health insurance for the too many children we’re forced to have, doesn’t mean…no, wait, you’re right. Never mind.
See? I knew you’d come around.
And it’s Baltimore! Baltimore! I splutter with rage at the missed opportunity to have the single greatest sex educator ever teach Baltimore’s youth about sex. I mean, he lives right there, and he’s being ignored? Get the fuck out of here!
I can assure you, if I ruled the world, this oversight never would have happened.
We need to stop being so incredibly stupid. I’ve reached the point where I’ve become completely inarticulate with frustration and have taking to just flailing my arms around the room and spluttering. How low do we have to go before people realize how pervasive the damage religious fundamentalism is when it horns its way into politics and forces its unique brand of misery on the rest of us?
Jillian, a frequent commenter over at Sadly, No pointed out that really, what it all comes down to is class. The fundies in charge don’t live by the rules they exact and they have no intention of doing so. The Alpha women will keep shaming poorer women to keep them housebound, railing away at the evil of the 19th Amendment from their spacious offices in Washington, and the Alpha men will keep blowing each other, and only the rest of us who are living hand to mouth are going to chafe under legislated stupidity.
Our government isn’t going to help educate us stay safe and healthy as far as sex goes. They’re just not . They’ll pet and coddle their tokens that are sufficiently deluded enough to help them*, but the rest of us are on our own.
Just as an example of how the endless War on Sex tears apart safety issues on every level, consider this link that was sent to me today by Camera Obscura.
Called “When Sex Toys Turn Green,” the article addresses the safety issues surrounding jelly vibrators.
Because the fundies won’t tell you, I will: Throw away your jelly vibrator and spring for one made out of silicone. The cute little pixie at your local sex toy store was telling you the truth – silicone really is a better material for sex toys. Jellies, while very soft and flexible, are also very porous. Very, very porous. The pores in the material easily trap bacteria that can be difficult to remove. Don’t you ever, ever share a jelly vibrator, and if you’re doing it now, please stop. Or at the very least, put a condom on it. Silicone is virtually pore-free, making it very easy to sanitize. And dildos made from 100% silicone can be put in the top rack of your dishwasher, assuming you live in the kind of household where you won’t have any ‘splaining to do. You can also sterilize silicone toys. Toys don’t have to be sterilized prior to insertion into the Magic Kingdom, your underpants aren’t sterile, after all, and they’re pressed up against your dainty bits all day. (tampons aren’t sterile either. I know. It’s true, though.) But if you’re polyamorous or just like to be on the safe side, silicone rules. Best, many silicone toys are made in the U.S.A., and you can buy comfortably knowing the products are made with non-exploitative labor. And silicone doesn’t have phthalates, the plastic that makes jellies, and shower curtains, and lots of stuff you haven’t thought about but evidently it’s so ubiquitous we’re peeing out phthalates because we’ve been breathing the shit in. Enjoy that new car smell, kids!
We don’t know what longterm damage phthalates do, if any, and we’ll never see a law passed regulating the kinds of materials sex toys can be made of – hell, you can make a dildo out of Froot Loops and batshit, and the government won’t care. Why? Because sex toys aren’t supposed to be used as sex toys, just like condoms aren’t supposed to be used as condoms, because sex toys are “novelties” only. Just for a tee-hee at Spencer’s Gifts, is all. If you have the inclination and the social consciousness and the curiosity, the information is out there. But for the overwhelming majority, they won’t even bother to investigate, because there’s no political future in encouraging sexual awareness and education, so the information has no consistent advocate. Therefore, most people just don’t think it’s important.
Until enough of us decide that it’s offensive to insist on sexual ignorance, not just of children and teens, but of adults, too, it’s not going to get any better.
Stupidity never helped anybody.
And apropos of nothing, I really miss Divine.
_________________
*No seriously, you need to read this week’s Savage Love if you haven’t already. Savage’s answer to the second question, where he flays 18-year-old Tyler Whitney, a GOP activist working as a webmaster for fiercely antigay Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, and who heads up an organization called, “Go Back Into the Closet!”, turns out to be gay himself. What gets me is the wagging finger of Bay Buchanan, tut tuting us because his sexuality “is a personal matter” that has “nothing to do with the campaign.” I really wasn’t just being crass when I said the religious right thinks it’s okay for the male Alpha fundies to blow each other.
“…because sex toys are “novelties” only…”
I worked for a mail-order sex toy catalog for years, and while this is true, the reason isn’t what you might expect. I always thought the reasons sex toys were sold as “novelties” was to get around local blue laws. “It’s not for sex! Really!”
But that’s not the reason. The reason is that if you say your product will help people reach orgasm, that’s a medical/health claim. And if you’re making a medical/health claim, you have to get your product approved by the FDA — a procedure that can take years.
If memory serves, there are a couple of sex toys that have gone through the process and gotten FDA approval. (I can’t remember which ones now, alas.) But overwhelmingly, companies either don’t want to, or can’t afford to, take their product(s) off the market while they go through that process.
I’d like to know the long term effects of trying to PRONOUNCE “phthalates.” Looks like something Daffy Duck could say rather easily, thinking about it (which is the kind of thinking one should be doing at work, definitely).
Thanks Bun. I laughed so hard picturing that that — oh no, you don’t want to know. Seriously, you don’t. Now I’ll have the image stuck in my head all day, that of Daffy, or Sylvester, doing a commercial, holding up a dildo (much like Hamlet with the skull), and trying to pronounce that word, tongue hanging out one corner of his mouth, and fpit flying at the viewer.
Also, the jellies, *I did some bitty research cause I had this goo oozing out of a few I had* They OOZE.. and this OOZE is um, radio active. Atleast from the websites I visited it was, and that it is not bio degradeable.
Let me see if I can find the link now, Yes I found it Here
Very toxic, and you shouldn’t even use it with a condom. I threw mine out. They are radioactive!!! *whimper* You can guess what that can do to your nether bits, eh?
Oki I am squicked out, later.
The fundies in charge don’t live by the rules they exact and they have no intention of doing so.
Yup. Just look at the Cheneys’ attitude regarding Mary.
my hometown! um..awesome. heh.
oddly enough, my name is spraypainted on divines grave [which is in towson?? correct me if im wrong] but i definatly didnt do it! and its spelled kayleigh whereas mine doesnt have a y in it. still weird!
Oh, good! Now, all males will have to educate themselves about sexuality is conditionining themselves to those lovely images in porn of rape, torture, and mutilation (that’s mainstream, by the way). Sexual ignorance plus ultra-violent hate equals joy.
Minor problem: the news outlet is in fact from Baltimore, but this filing is actually happening in Montgomery County, which contains mainly suburbs of DC and is, incidentally, one of the richest counties in the United States.
There’s been a weird emergence of fundies in MD in the past few years, but we are a pretty liberal state, so I’m doubtful this will actually produce any results.
I’m sorry, Jackie, but I really, really needed to put John Waters in there. Montgomery County is just going to have to be Baltimore today.
I’m left wondering why I should care? I pay no attention to them and no heed to what they say, so why does it upset others?
I love it when people take sex education seriously – especially because I’m an educator, and I get to see it taken halfassedly most of the time. Good sex is subversive: it subverts the capitalist way of life, because it’s a wonderfully fun and exciting form of entertainment that you can enjoy without spending any money (or practically none), and it subverts sexism, because when a straight couple are both participating in and enjoying sex equally, all of those stupid models of male dominance go right out the window (even if the good sex is BDSM sex – negotiated dominance does not need to be equivalent to enforced dominance). And it’s true – the folks at the top have NO intention of living by the standards they intend to force on us. This idea is at the heart of the writings of one of the intellectual fathers of the neoconservative movement – Leo Strauss.
I’m a little embarrassed about feeling like such a one-trick pony with all my blather about class issues, but I do feel it’s something that has gotten lost in the shuffle of the overwhelming number of issues those who care about progressive issues face anymore. There’s a commonality that underlies all the crap out there, and that commonality stems from the fact that money is power, and those who have power are interested in keeping it. I do see other issues as contingent upon the basic issue of economic inequality (I don’t think racism and sexism would generally persist if they weren’t profitable), but I don’t see that contingency as making them any less important. In order to understand why, say, women are made to feel like they can’t appear in public unless they look a certain way, you have to understand whose pockets are getting lined by that feeling. But also, if you really want ALL people to understand what’s wrong with our current economic model, you need to get men to understand (and women to realize) the specific harms it does to women (and gays and nonwhites) – harms that those who perpetuate our current ways of doing business might not have ever thought about, because they are not directly affected by those harms. It’s a complicated picture, and the answer to the question “cui bono?” is often difficult to tease out – but a good bet is always to follow the money.
And if you want the best evidence ever about how the policy makers will NEVER be policy followers, just realize that Pat Robertson himself had sex with his wife before he married her. It’s not about morality – it’s never about morality. It’s about control.
[...] YT article. DovBear sounds off on “tznius stupidity” in his community. Flea at Feministe rails against religious [...]
I used to live off of Patterson Park (which you can see quickly in the background as Tracie and her mom step off the bus) and know the storefront from “Hairspray” well. Can’t wait to see how Travolta stacks up (HA!) to Devine…
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2171
Whoopsie, I meant Divine… one of my fave newspaper columnists is a Devine…
David – Should you care about two men having sex with each other? No. Should you care about two men having sex with each other in their free time while passing legislation criminalizing that exact behavior during their working hours? Yes. Why? Staggering hypocrisy aside, it’s because it causes direct harm to decent people who deserve to have the same rights as everybody else.
By the way, I love how my inflammatory title and long ranting post has garnered only the mildest of interest, while my commentary free photo of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s boob has 78 comments and counting.
Preverts.
Waters is also one hell of an interior decorator. I wish I could remember the volume and number of the issue of Nest where they toured his house. He’s more of a restrained traditionalist than you’d expect.
I heard Terri Gross interview with him some years back. He has a natural comic sensibility that is completely prepossessing.
By the way, I love how my inflammatory title and long ranting post has garnered only the mildest of interest, while my commentary free photo of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s boob has 78 comments and counting.
flea – see “please don’t say you hate babies”, over 700 posts. Add the babies and public thoughts thereof in, and the hits keep coming. Now, rework this post to include the dangers if your toddler manages to find and start teething on the jelly vibe instead of the silicone and what would happen if you showed up in the ER with a toddler with jelly vibe poisoning, and watch the comments soar.
Why? Staggering hypocrisy aside, it’s because it causes direct harm to decent people who deserve to have the same rights as everybody else.
If they want to outlaw themselves, then I think they should. As far as “rights” go, there is no right to fuck.
Who’s Maggie Gyllenhall?
Seriously, flea, THANKS for PSA- I always “ewwwed” the jelly stuff when toy shopping and have gone for the silicone funstuff, because it just seemed more appealing and is very easy to clean after playtime. Nice to know the instincts were right!
But oh, that’s right- SEX isn’t supposed to be fun and safe and only the business of myself and my partner/s in this country- it’s supposedly to be LEGISLATED… silly me!
(this and other topics I can discuss with pals, my husband and even a fave aunt, but never my MOM)
“No right to fuck”?
Seriously? Somebody better get that memo to the Supreme Court, stat. They’ve been granting us the right to fuck in a series of progressively more liberal decisions for forty years now.
“granting us the right” Q.E.D.
The Supreme Court has broadened and extended the privilege to fuck in various decisions in recent decades.