Sex
Another "Sex Offender" Violates Inanimate Object
posted by Dan Savage on November 15 at 10:45 AM
We've Slogged about this poor bastard before--now apparently known as "Bike Sex Man"--but he's made the news again:
Bike sex man placed on probation
A man caught trying to have sex with his bicycle has been sentenced to three years on probation. Robert Stewart, 51, admitted a sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex.
Sheriff Colin Miller also placed Stewart on the Sex Offenders Register for three years.
Mr Stewart was caught in the act with his bicycle by cleaners in his bedroom at the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr. Gail Davidson, prosecuting, told Ayr Sheriff Court: "They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply. "They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white t-shirt, naked from the waist down.
"The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex."
Both cleaners, who were "extremely shocked", told the hostel manager who called police.
What the fuck? He was alone, behind a locked door, in his own room--his own private room, not a shared room. And he didn't answer the door because he was having a wank. How was he supposed to know the FUCKING MORONS on the other side of the door had a key and were about let themselves in?
And for this offense--for beating off on a bike--this poor bastard lands on a sex offender registry. Because he's a danger to the public? No, because his sexual interests--assuming he's actually attracted to bikes, and wasn't just seeking new and different friction--make people uncomfortable. Check this quote out:
Sheriff Colin Miller told Stewart: "In almost four decades in the law I thought I had come across every perversion known to mankind, but this is a new one on me. I have never heard of a 'cycle-sexualist'."
Yeah, and you never would have, Sheriff Preening Douchebag, if Stewart's privacy hadn't been violated by a couple of prissy cleaning women, an idiotic hostel manager, and a police officers with way too much time on its hands. Christ!
After a decade's worth of abstinence education--a billion dollar's worth--should we really be reading headlines like this one:
U.S. sets record in sexual disease cases
More than 1 million cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year--the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, federal health officials said Tuesday. "A new U.S. record," said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr. of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More bad news: Gonorrhea rates are jumping again after hitting a record low, and an increasing number of cases are caused by a "superbug" version resistant to common antibiotics, federal officials said Tuesday.
Man. That's depressing news. But there's a silver lining:
Syphilis is rising, too. The rate of congenital syphilis--which can deform or kill babies--rose for the first time in 15 years.
Abstinence education kills babies! Just like abortion, RU-846, Plan B, the morning after pill, and swallowing! Quick! Someone tell the American Taliban!
If you have sex with a mannequin--or "simulate sex" with a mannequin--behind a closed door, all by yourself, all by your lonesome, and a guard walks in and finds you humping that mannequin but doesn't actually see your genitals, only you "adjusting yourself," are you guilty of "indecent exposure"? Should you be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of your life?
A magistrate in South Dakota thought so and found Michael James Plenty Horse guilty of indecent exposure. A circuit court upheld the conviction. But today the South Dakota State Supreme Court ruled that Plenty Horse, though plenty kinky (sorry), wasn't guilty of indecent exposure, which "criminalizes sexual gratification by displaying or showing one's genitals in public," and overturned Plenty Horse's conviction.
If the court hadn't have tossed out his conviction, the "offender," who was just 19 at the time of the "crime," would have had to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life--which would have made it impossible for Plenty Horse to find a place to live or a job for the rest of his life.
The abuse of sex offender registries is an outrage. Originally created to alert people to the presence of dangerous sexual predators, sex offender registries increasingly sweep up people only "guilty" of being a little bit kinky, a little bit crazy, or a little bit of both--but not a danger to anyone. To be placed on a sex offender registry is to be suffer a social execution. And unless someone is a sexual predator and actually a danger to others--other human beings, thank you--placing him or her on a sex offender registry has to amount to an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.
Will abstinence educators--beloved by hypocritical Republicans, coddled by cowardly Democrats--stop citing a study linking teen sex with juvenile delinquency now that it has been debunked?
Researchers at Ohio State University garnered little attention in February when they found that youngsters who lose their virginity earlier than their peers are more likely to become juvenile delinquents. So obvious and well established was the contribution of early sex to later delinquency that the idea was already part of the required curriculum for federal "abstinence only" programs.
There was just one problem: It is probably not true. Other things being equal, a more probing study has found, youngsters who have consensual sex in their early-teen or even preteen years are, if anything, less likely to engage in delinquent behavior later on.
A jury Friday convicted state Rep. Bob Allen of soliciting prostitution from an undercover male officer in July.
Allen faces up to 60 days in county jail and a $500 fine for the second-degree misdemeanor. The Merritt Island Republican was accused of peering over a stall in a men’s public park restroom, then agreeing to pay $20 to perform oral sex on Titusville officer Danny Kavanaugh.
The jury deliberated three hours and 20 minutes.
Second, Wendy Cortez, a former prostitute, dishes her frequent client U.S. Senator David Vitter. Nothing about diapers, sadly, but her rather cruel commentary isn't going to bolster Vitter's family values cred.
This isn’t about the personal religious beliefs of a pharmacist. This is about enforcing a religious code that governs the behavior of individuals. Women who want to avoid pregnancy use Plan B to avoid having to make the choice of abortion later. But that’s not good enough, apparently.
I have heard stories from women who go to the drug store to get Plan B. They tell me that the pharmacist has told them that they’re a “whore,” or that they need to find Jesus. This isn’t about a pharmacist’s personal beliefs governing their own actions. It’s about their personal beliefs governing yours.
Doctors have long argued about the health effects of coffee, but its reputation seems likely to receive a boost thanks to a flavoured condom that aims to encourage safer sex in Ethiopia. Around 300,000 of the coffee condoms were sold in a week when they were launched in September, according to the US charity DKT International.
It hopes to tap into Ethiopia's coffee mania as a means to tackle high rates of HIV in the country, which is said to have invented the drink.
The dark brown condoms are made to smell like Ethiopia's popular macchiato, an espresso with a generous amount of cream and sugar.
"It is about time to use an Ethiopian flavour for beautiful Ethiopian girls," said Dereje Alemu, 19, a university student.
Sex
Why Can't Congressional Democrats Abstain From Stupidity?
posted by Dan Savage on November 7 at 2:30 PM
You would have thought that this April headline would have shamed the president and Congress out of pouring money into abstinence "education." No such luck. Well, another study is out, this one from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, and they're telling us something we already know: abstinence-only sex-ed doesn't work.
Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior, although they are eligible for tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce teen pregnancies.
"At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners" among teenagers, the study concluded.
The study found that while abstinence-only efforts appear to have little positive impact, more comprehensive sex education programs were having "positive outcomes" including teenagers "delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use."
So bullshit, religious-indoctination masquerading as sex-ed doesn't stop or slow teenage sexual activity. But comprehensive, realistic sex-ed does--and it increases the use of contraceptives, which means fewer abortions. We shouldn't expect the religious wackadoodles to accept reality--not while evolution and an "old" earth are still keep them up nights--but surely Democrats, who criticized abstinence education as an expensive waste before taking power in '06, aren't having it.
Right?
Wrong. Congressional Dems are preparing to throw more money at abstinence-only sex-ed--more money than George W. Bush asked for.
A spending bill before Congress for the Department of Health and Human Services would provide $141 million in assistance for community-based, abstinence-only sex education programs, $4 million more than what President Bush had requested.
We really do need a third party in this country--a real one, not one that exists solely to milk Ralph Nader's prostate once every four years.
The poster, a parody of the Last Supper, promoted the Folsom Street Fair, which features exhibits on sexual practices. The company also said it has taken action to avoid future incidents.
The New York-based Catholic League rejected the apology and called for a continued boycott off Miller products. The league says the entire Folsom Street Fair is anti-Catholic and wants Miller to not sponsor future fairs.
A man has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle.
On Wednesday Mr Stewart admitted to sexual breach of the peace in Ayr Sheriff Court, where depute fiscal Gail Davidson described how he had been found by the hostel workers. She said: "They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply. "They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist down.
"The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex."
Both witnesses, who were extremely shocked, notified the hotel manager, who in turn alerted the police.
Mr Stewart was placed on the sex offenders’ register but his sentence was deferred until next month.
This is appalling. Not Stewart's actions, but the actions of the cleaners, the hotel manager, the police, and the courts. It seems clear that Stewart didn't answer the door because he was rubbing one out and didn't want to be disturbed. And if someone wants to hump an inanimate object in private--behind a locked door!--who is harmed? How is it a "sex offense" to hump a bike--or a mattress or a pillow or a ATV--in private? Or does some jerk taking offense transform a harmless solo sex act--a sex act being enjoyed in complete privacy!--into sex offense that can land someone on a sex offender's registry?
Stewart isn't the first man in the UK busted for having a "sex offense" involving an inanimate object.
Karl Watkins, an electrician, was jailed for having sex with pavements in Redditch, Worcs, in 1993.
The reason that women outlive men by an average of around five years is due to sex, harems and violence in the Stone Age, according to a study published today.
Scientists have struggled to understand why men only tend to live to an average age of 75 while women live to an average of 80.
Now it seems that the reason is that our prehistoric male ancestors kept female harems and fought over them to procreate: because male life was nasty, brutish and short, evolutionary forces focused on making males big and strong, rather than long lived.
Sex
Required Reading: Slate on Laws We're Allowed to Break
posted by Dan Savage on October 17 at 1:50 PM
In the Unites States, using a computer to download obscenity is a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison. Federal law makes it a crime to use "a computer service" to transport over state lines "any obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy book, pamphlet, picture, motion-picture film, paper, letter, writing, print, or other matter of indecent character."
In a revealing study, University of New Mexico researchers (three altruistic guys) recruited 18 subjects (scantily clad women dancers) to log their work shifts, earnings and menstrual cycles (phone numbers, too?) on a Web site for two months, or about 5,300 lap dances. The naked truth: participants scored $335 per five-hour shift while ovulating compared with $260 per shift during the luteal phase after ovulation and $185 while menstruating. The dancers' scientifically gyrating pelvises provided the first direct evidence for human estrus—the equivalent of a baboon's bright red rump—the group reported in Evolution & Human Behavior.
Like, oh, 95% of absolutely everyone? Well, then you can't be a success--because success only comes to kids who wait. The latest abstinence education campaign courtesy of the Bush administration:
So you can't get an education, have a family, or find happiness if you've had premarital sex. Speaking as someone that can only have pre-marital sex--and I've had plenty of it, thanks--I find this message insulting. And I trust that the same kids that see through the lies the feds tell 'em about pot--marijuana will turn you into a crazy terrorist rapist loser!--will see right through the lies the feds are telling 'em about premarital sex.
Abstinence education, like the war in Iraq, has been a complete failure--but the Bush administration keeps pouring money into both just the same.
Andy Bookwalter complained for years about people having sex in the restrooms at the Georgetown Playfield near his house. But the situation peaked in September, when somebody actually started advertising on Craigslist.
"Looking for fun in Georgetown," the post was titled. "Looking for someplace fun to get off with other men? Georgetown park bathroom between 11:00 a.m. and 1 p.m. is a great place. Hit me up if you would like to pick a time."
Andy Bookwalter, who lives near the Georgetown Playfield and restrooms, which are at Padilla Place South and South Homer Street, has complained to Seattle Parks and Recreation and to the police about sexual activity in the park.
Another personal ad on a gay cruising Web site recommends the brick men's room at the playfield, which is at the end of Bookwalter's tree-lined street.
It's not the kind of thing he wants his two young sons--3 and 1--to walk in on someday.
Hm. When my son was three years old I didn't let him wander into public restrooms unaccompanied.* Still, I'd be annoyed too if this were happening on my block.
So, like, all you "gay" cruisers**? You can use Craigslist and CruisingForSex.com to turn your own bathrooms into cruisy public toilets. No need to alarm the good people of Georgetown.
* Commenters have pointed out that Bookwalter doesn't let his son wander into toilets today, at three years of age, but "someday," when he's old enough, presumably, to wander into toilets. So that crack is withdrawn. And, again, I'd be annoyed if this was happening on my block.
** Lots of the "gay cruisers" in Georgetown--and Minneapolis, Florida, and elsewhere--are straight-identified married men. Just wanted to get that on the record again.
Another conservative Republican--this time a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana--gets busted cruising toilets. Twice. Naturally he's straight-identified, married with children, and a strong defender of "conservative values." You know, like the closet.
Damn it. It always unnerves me when I find myself in agreement with right-wing shrieker Michelle Malkin but, uh, she's got a point: Why would anyone bring his kids to the Folsom Street Fair? As a parent and a homo, I don't think this is appropriate for kids. I wouldn't want my child to see straight people behaving so shamelessly in public.
Malkin links to this story in the Bay Area publication [X]Press about parents that bring their kids to Folsom. She neglects to include the headline ("Folsom Street Fair Not For Children"), or quote any of the precautions that organizers take to warn parents away from the BDSM/leather/fetish street festival:
Every year unsuspecting tourists and families stroll into the Folsom Street Fair. Some turn away at the gates after being warned by security officials about the event's graphic sadomasochistic nature, while others saunter in with baby strollers and young children.
Instead Malkin quotes a section of the story about a gay couple that brought their twin girls to Folsom.
Two-year-olds Zola and Veronica Kruschel waddled through Folsom Street Fair amidst strangers in fishnets and leather crotch pouches, semi and fully nude men. The twin girls who were also dressed for the event wore identical lace blouses, floral bonnets and black leather collars purchased from a pet store.
Fathers Gary Beuschel and John Kruse watched over them closely. They were proud to show the twins off.
“They will see more than the kids with moms and dads in Iowa,” said Beuschel, who wanted to expose his children to San Francisco's diverse community. “Every parent has to decide for themselves what is right for them. And I respect that. And we decided that this is right for our children.”
Personally, as a parent, I'm appalled by Gary Beuschel and John Kruse's decision to take their little girls to Folsom--and in itty-bitty fetish wear no less. I wouldn't take my kid to Folsom--at nine he's too young to understand that BDSM is play, cops and robbers for grownups. And, again, I wouldn't want to have to explain this to him. But I have taken him to gay pride festivals where, yes, the occasional naked person strolls down the street. He thought it was a crazy party.
That said, I think Malkin and the rest of the right-wing shriekers are being a bit hypocritical on this score. Who do we usually hear things like this from: "Every parent has to decide for themselves what is right for [their children]." Conservatives!
Conservatives are always screaming about the divine right of parents to raise their kids however they see fit. Malkin thinks it's not okay to take a two-year to a one-day kinky street fair--and I don't think it's okay either--but I'll bet you thinks it's a fine and noble thing when parents opt to "homeschool" their children to "protect" them secular schools teaching their kids facts that conflict with the crap in mommy and daddy's bible. Where's the outrage from conservatives when racist parents pound hate into their kids heads? Where's the outrage over polygamist Morman sects bringing up girls to swap and boys to discard?
Conservatives don't have a problem with parents that expose their children to harmful, toxic garbage--so long as their motives are religious. If your God demands that you isolate, lie to, and generally terrorize their children twenty four hours a day, 365 days a year about all the people God hates and the coming apocalypse, well, that's your right. But conservatives will raise their voices in protest when a couple takes a kid to a kinky street fair for a few hours--which, again, is a dumb thing to do, in my opinion, and I wouldn't take my kid to Folsom. But I don't want anyone--certainly not Malkin--telling me and my boyfriend or Gary or John how to raise our kids, where to take them, or what to teach them.
Finally, be sure to watch Malkin lose her shit here. It has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but it's always a delight to watch.
Sex
Okay, Who's the Fag Taking Pictures for the Catholic League?
posted by Dan Savage on October 1 at 12:12 PM
Bill Donohue's Catholic League launched a boycott of Miller Brewing Company last week over the beer company's sponsorship of the Folsom Street Fair, part of the fallout over Folsom Street Fair's "Last Supper" poster. Along with a big statement announcing of the boycott, the Catholic League posted three pages worth of shocking--disturbing! horrifying! disgusting!--photos taken at the Folsom Street Fair between 2003-2006.
Here's one pic the Catholic League posted to its website...
Wow. Hot fucking dude. Here's another dude from the Catholic League's website...
Hot. Nice abs. And here's another dude from the Catholic League's collection of Folsom Street Fair snaps...
Man. Crazyass goats-eye contact lenses, but great tits and shoulders. So many hot, conventionally attractive dudes--what are the odds?
Pretty long, as it turns out.
Stranger columnist Mistress Matisse attended Folsom Street Fair 2007--which took place yesterday, with Miller staying on as sponsor despite Donohue's boycott--and sent me a mess of pictures she took. I was struck by how different Matisse's pics were from the ones posted on the Catholic League's website. Matisse's got some pics of conventionally attractive kinksters enjoying Folsom...
...but Matisse's pics also included a lot of un-conventionally attractive people--and lots of straight people--enjoying themselves at San Francisco's leather/BDSM/fetish street party. You know, all the people absent from the Catholic League's website. People like this opposite-sex couple. Or these guys with their imperfect bodies. Or guys that are just a little too hairy
Hm. Based on what the Catholic League chose to show us about Folsom, it would seem that the Catholic League's photographer--or Bill Donohue himself, or whoever chose the photos for the Catholic League's website--has a thing for jocks and beefy guys with hairy tits. I mean, check out the hot guys here , here, and here--all from the Catholic League's website. Whoever was choosing photos for the Catholic League's website doesn't just like firm, hairy man tit, but firm, hairy man ass too.
There are tons of conventionally hot homos at Folsom. But hot homos aren't the only folks at Folsom--after all, hot, straight bi Matisse was there. Yet conventionally hot guys--and a few conventionally hot girls--are pretty much the only thing the Catholic League wanted to show us. Why do you suppose that is?
Could it be that a homo with a taste for hairy muscular men has infiltrated the Catholic League? Or is it true what they say about groups like the Catholic League--that they show up at gay and sex-positive events and take "shocking" pictures on behalf of their frustrated, closeted, and deeply jealous members?
I know. You met on the Internet and he understands you. And everyone else your age is so immature. The good news is, girls mature a lot faster than boys. So you should start dating girls.
...
You may think you're pretty cool for having an older boyfriend. But what you have to remember is, he's not cool for dating you. He's a loser.
...
Questions to ask your older boyfriend: Why aren't you dating someone closer to your own age? Have you ever been arrested? Why do you still live with your mom? How much do you pay in child support? And why do you smell like my grandpa?
This undated handout image from the University of Colorado shows a leopard frog with two extra deformed hind legs caused by infection by a type of parasitic worm. Nitrogen and phosphorus stemming from farming and ranching activities seeps into lakes and ponds, triggering a cascade of events that causes horrific deformities....
So guys into four-legged dudes should move to rural areas with a lot of farming and ranching activities and bide their time.
...comes to life--except that this time the couple is getting divorced, not rediscovering their love.
A married couple who didn't realise they were chatting each other up on the internet are divorcing. Sana Klaric and husband Adnan, who used the names "Sweetie" and "Prince of Joy" in an online chatroom, spent hours telling each other about their marriage troubles, Metro.co.uk reported.
The truth emerged when the two turned up for a date. Now the pair, from Zenica in central Bosnia, are divorcing after accusing each other of being unfaithful.
"I was suddenly in love. It was amazing. We seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriage. How right that turned out to be," Sana, 27, said.
Remember the Loofahtorio I wrote about back in January?
Well, Seattle composer Igor Keller's baroque oratorio based on the sexual-harassment suit that Andrea Mackris brought against Bill O'Reilly has hit YouTube, which will never be quite the same.
God bless baritone Charles Robert Stephens, who really goes for it in declaring Mackris's "boobs" "spectacular."
Stop by the Mackris v. O'Reilly online store, where a recording of the entire oratorio is for sale, as well as several T-shirts, including these:
Sex
From the Savage Love Archives: Advice to a 15-Year Old
posted by Amy Kate Horn on September 20 at 4:44 PM
Some of you may remember this letter to Savage Love from "Fifteen and Gay" back in 2003:
I'm a gay high school sophomore, and I've had no luck finding other guys. I turned to the Internet and met a really nice guy who wants to help me live out my dreams of being another dude's sex slave. He offered to pick me up after school and take me to his house. The only problem is, he's 38 and I'm 15. My parents don't know about any of this. Should I say sure to this plan, or should I go to the cops?
Fifteen and Gay
This newly resurrected page contains a pile of letters bearing advice for the kid. The original column is here.
I'm not saying that hitting on 14 year-olds is cool or right or anything other than fucked up and pathetic and creepy. And offering 14 year-olds booze and pot for any reason is definitely not okay. All I'm saying is that sleeping with fourteen year-olds isn't a crime in Canada. Which means a three-hour drive could've saved this guy a lot of prison time. So he's creepy and dumb--and going to jail.
Some fifth-graders at Glenn Dale Elementary School in Prince George's County thought they were going to watch "Star Wars" on DVD, but instead, they got a glimpse of a pornographic movie.
County schools spokesman John White says a music teacher put the "Star Wars" DVD in a laptop Monday morning, but the projector showed a clip from an adult film. The teacher immediately ejected the DVD, but the image of two naked adults remained frozen on the screen for about 10 seconds until the projector was switched off.
posted by Charles Mudede on September 11 at 3:48 PM
Thick? If so, what exactly is wrong with being thick like this: For once, a famous woman who looks like a woman and not an elongated alien who is the negative of precisely those features that shape a woman--the curves, the hips, the universal tummy.
Madonna was spotted leaving a London hotel with her husband, director Guy Ritchie. Madonna was carrying a see-through shopping bag, and in the shopping bag was... a Purple Penetrator, a.k.a. a strap-on dildo.
The Daily Mail, a reliably trashy UK tab, concludes that Madonna "really does wear the trousers in her relationship," because a little pegging, per the Mail, is emasculating--permanently emasculating, not just for the duration of the pegging. Please make a note of it.
There's no evidence that Ritchie was pegged at all--the PP is still in the box, and may have been unused, and Madonna might just be lugging it around to get her name in the papers. Madonna's like that.
From the Purple Penetrator the Mail then pivots into a discussion of Madonna and Ritchie's efforts to adopt that little Malawi boy. Because, you know, if you're kinky... you're unfit to adopt. Or something.
Some people find certain spaces inexplicably arousing. I used to have a predictable--and wholly unwelcome--response whenever I rode in the back of one of those big, ol' Yellow Cabs. (There was something about the wide, flat leather seats, I guess.) Some people are turned by elevators, some are turned on by examination rooms, some are turned on by airplane cabins--and some are turned on in public bathrooms. Now I don't get that--I can't think of anything less arousing than the fwap and splash of other men taking dumps. But, hey, to each his own.
As we've seen with the Larry Craig scandal, however, a public restroom isn't the safest space to rub one out--unless you're in Idaho, Craig's home state, and you're rubbing one out solo.
In 1990, the Idaho Court of Appeals, in State v. Limberhand, ruled that (solo) masturbation within an enclosed restroom stall was constitutionally protected behavior as the individual within the stall had a reasonable expectation of privacy within the stall.
Me love you long 
For once, a famous woman who looks like a woman and not an elongated alien who is the negative of precisely those features that shape a woman--the curves, the hips, the universal tummy. 