I *heart* Amanda

Finally, Mom and Pop sexual implements shops will be able to flourish. P.S. David Cross said on the commentary that it really hurt when he got bonked on the head with a big black dild* (asterisk inserted to prevent unwanted searches).

Heartness all around. Which is to say right back at ya’, babe.

Well, I’m glad Amanda explained it, finally.

And here I was thinking they’d prefer fake penises to real ones, since, you know, the real ones make *the babies* and everything.

See, I never understand this stuff. I need Cliff notes all the time.

You all have no idea how much I needed to read this thread at this moment!

I am sending it off to my sister and friends right now!!!!

But Jill, I think we have a LONG history of white men inserting penises into non-white women. As long as the white men don’t take responsibility for the babies that may result in such a pairing, white men can stick it where they want.

Having babies is magic, once you are all sleep deprived and covered in spit-up, you won’t want a penis anymore and your husband is free to generously share his penis with others.

Go, Amanda!!

This is funny enough, although it’s considerably clearer that the original post is satirical than that some of the people leaving comments have understood it as satire. And to whatever extent that’s been missed, I think it’s rhetorically disingenuous to present this as anybody’s real argument against sex toys and masturbation.

There *are* coherent reasons, that reasonable enough people might have, for wanting to restrict the sales of sex toys — we can reject these ideas as wrong, or as oppressive, or a great many other nasty things, but do you not have to wonder if there’s a point at which this kind of caricature (based, so far as we can tell, on nothing but imagination) is more alienating, and thus restrictive of winning people over, than helpful?

Putting it another way – does this sort of use of time and blogospace have any function other than to entertain? And if not, is that entertainment worth the alienation of reasonable people who might well be converted into allies of the cause?

Cara,

I guess my point is that blogs have impact outside themselves, and this kind of participating in ridiculing those who disagree lowers the general level of debate in a really unhelpful way. I suppose we can ignore the people who read Pandagon (or more to the point, this site) directly, if we assume that they all agree with us – but the very fact that entire states have bans on sex toys shows that there is a significant population who (1) either support such bans, or (2) don’t care enough to fight them – and my doubt is whether characterising the people in group (1) as ‘the wingnuttiest of the wingnuts’ will help the people in group (2) see this wingnuttiness, or will make them think that you’re not participating in the discussion fairly, if it all.

And I think that’s especially the case when religion is part of the satirical treatment here. Assuming that there are a number of Christians who think sex toys are fine, and who have persuasive reasons for this belief that stem from their Christianity – and there are these people, and they do have these reasons – then maybe appealing to these sorts of reasons could be effective (in a state like Texas, where presumably the objections are largely theological) far beyond the effectiveness of ridiculing religion tout court – which does seem to be the tenor of this thread, doesn’t it?

As for coherent reasons – I think some Roman Catholic concerns on the matter are coherent and intelligent, and even winsome, even if I have to reject them eventually. And I don’t expect most or indeed any readers of this thread to find them persuasive, but for the sake of argument I’ll try to flesh them out a bit – the teaching that sex is meant to be pro-creative as well as creative has, as its best, been tied to a holistic view of the body as a part of the universe, which asserts that whatever pleasure one person has is enriched and enlarged by participation in sharing that pleasure with another person, and by the same principle that the pleasure that two people can have together is greater when it participates in the universe’s greater pleasure in a creative selving-forth – so that to make something new is to have the highest sort of sex, the sort of sex that flowers enjoy.

Whenever that ‘making something new’ is completely reduced to ‘making a baby’, there’s a gross reduction of Christian teaching on sexual pleasure – which is, I think, a great failure of the church. And it’s a further mistake to forbid all other kinds of sex in favour of celebrating one.

But my point is, if the reasons that people give for banning sex toys (or banning homosexuality, or banning birth control – they’re all basically the same point) are specifically religious, it’d be better to appeal to a deeper, more intelligent form of their religion than to mock it.

You are showing that instinct, I think, when you point out that there’s no biblical support for a sex-toy ban – for certain protestants, that should be enough to convince them on their own terms. And that’s the whole point – Rhetoric 101 teaches us to know our audiences, because it’s going to help us achieve what we want to achieve if we can meet people where they’re at. But the moment you give up hope that they can be reasoned with, you dehumanise them, and it becomes a shouting match, a power struggle, an unproductive section on Fox News.

But.. but… when we don’t laugh we’re humorless feminists… I guess we’re only allowed to laugh at jokes that ridicule women.

Zuzu,

Thanks for engaging with what I said. Your points are taken – although somebody seems to have voted these legislators into office. So the struggle to legalise sex toys could be achieved indirectly by changing the minds and the priorities of the citizens of Texas – or at least that could be one way of going about things; I don’t deny that legal activism is helpful too. But neither does legal or political activism have to take on this tone.

I also think there is room to protest the ‘troll’ label, as I am on your side here – all I’m asking is whether, given our common aims, we’re making the best decisions in order to reach those aims.

Astraea,

I guess I would hope there would be a conception of humor that isn’t based on ridiculing people.

The point of my comment is that this is a ridiculous idea that exactly nobody has – but fair enough, fair enough.

Restrict the sale of sex toys and your e asking for more trouble cause if you cant buy then youll make one and trust me i doubt that cutting up the handle of the broom stick is as safe or clean as a store bought mini vibe