A little footnote to my previous rant about the government’s expansion of abstinence-only education: although the people making the policies may be idiots and prudes (not necessarily in that order), the American people are not. According to a study recently done by the University of Pennsylvania, 80.4 percent of American adults prefer a balanced “abstinence-plus” approach to sex education. Also, according to the study:
- 91.6 percent of liberals, 86.4 percent of moderates, and 70 percent of conservatives support comprehensive (abstinence-plus) programs, while 19 percent of conservatives, 5.3 percent of moderates, and 3.7 percent of liberals oppose such programs.
- 47 percent of conservatives support abstinence-only programs, while 67 percent of liberals, 50.4 percent of moderates, and 39.9 percent of conservatives oppose this approach to sex education.
- 37.5 percent of conservatives, 13.4 percent of moderates, and 9.1 percent of liberals oppose condom instruction, while 51.2 percent of conservatives support it.
- Among all respondents, 57 percent disagree that condom instruction encourages teens to have sex.
- Of the respondents who never attend religious services: 87.4 percent support comprehensive sex education and 57.9 percent oppose abstinence-only programs.
- Among those who attend religious services more than once a week: 60.3 percent support abstinence-only programs; 60.3 percent support abstinence-plus programs; 52.6 percent oppose and 37.9 percent support condom instruction; 31.3 percent oppose abstinence-only instruction.
In short, Americans aren’t as easily fooled as the puritan bureaucrats would want us to be. I’m cautiously optimistic about the election results, but hopefully, between statistics like these and the backlash against the Republicans, the government will have to stop pretending that sex is something that you can just sweep under the rug.
More good news: congratulations to the people of Spokane, Washington, who ousted Brad Benson, the Republican State Senator who claimed earlier this year that Planned Parenthood deliberately distributes condoms with an 80% failure rate because “they have an interest in the follow-up product.“
Literate Perversions 
The world is dissolving into a Republican inspired morass; The legally elected dictator of one country is up for hanging while the generals and ‘ethnic cleansers of Europe are still driving Benzes. Nobody seems outraged by the US cold war on Venezuela; instead you are concerned with other people’s genitalia!
CONCEPT: Offer US$5 billion for al Qaieda or bin laden (come on, we know you can afford it and it still worth less that a soldier’s life) and simply wait for Saudi and Pakistan to do the dirty work with no silly retentions. It is their duty as well.
And get your minds out out teenager’s beds or knickers. That is private territory, as any pervert will tell you.
To expand on this Chris; the federal government has extended the abstinence only message (and federal funds i.e. Tax Dollars) to now include unmarried adults up to the age of 29 years old. Seems to me that these so called social conservatives have a lot of time on their hands if this is what they worry about.
I still recall the shock I felt when I learned that the Bush administration forced the CDC to remove information about the effectiveness of condoms in preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases from its website soon after it came to power in 2001. Nothing could be more dangerously irresponsible than to deny the facts from a sexually active populace.
Now the fundamental question is; “Why Don’t Republicans Want Us To Fuck?” or, “Why Do Republicans Only Want Us To Fuck If We’re Married? “
My question is, “Why do they care who a 20 something year old is fucking?”
I too am encouraged by the election results, but what I think it really means is that the country has decided that the scary tilt to the right just comes with too high a price and it really isn’t what they signed up for. Most people, including most conservatives I know, really don’t want Uncle Sam in their bedrooms and they don’t want their god and their politics between the same sheets.
Hopefully with independent voices and sites such as this, my own, and a few others; a real sex positive healthy lifestyle message will get out there. Americans may be slow and a bit sloth like, but they do know when they’ve been bullshitted. Thanks for this post. Lots of good information here.
– nina aoki
It seems your Republicans are determined to take the fun out of sex and make it grubby again, as it was when you suffered under Ms Herbert Hoover (now there’s a name for a blow hard!).
Do you really expect to have virginal 20 year old children? Why? Does self-amusement amuse your ‘Christian’ Legislators? Fairly sick territory chaps. We need more people like Selina Raven and fewer like her more craven clients.
Nina, your thoughts are all excellent. As far as this:
I think the answer lies in the fact that their worldview is essentially an authoritarian one, and if you want to control someone, the first thing you do is control their sexuality. Magnus Hirschfeld was one of the first to observe this and to address it in depth. And he was certainly one who should have known, especially after the Nazis burned his library. You just don’t find authoritarian regimes that encourage people to fuck freely and pleasurably. That’s because the sexual imagination is a very fluid and ambivalent part of us, and authoritarianism, by its nature, deals with absolutes. In sexual fantasy, the master may become slave; the man may become woman, and that’s destructive to the strict polarities of authoritarian thought.
Christopher:
I heartily agree that we need more people like Selina, in the sex-positive community and otherwise, but I disagree about her clients. None of the pro-dommes I know — and this is certainly true of Selina — would accept a client that they considered “craven.” If we are going to honor and respect sex workers, we can’t implicitly shame those who hire them.