Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

So anti-feminist darling Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post just won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

The editors at The American Prospect blog TAPPED posted a reminiscence of Parker by TAP’s Kerry Howley from last November’s print issue. (Emphasis mine.)

Save the Males, Kathleen Parker’s 2008 polemic on sexual permissiveness and libertinism, contains the following euphemisms for vagina: “inner sanctum,” “familiars,” “you know what,” “very private parlor,” “sacred vessel,” “vestal vestibule,” and “hirsute abyss of God’s little oven.” We will be, laments Parker in her obligatory chapter on Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, so “awash in vaginaism,” that we are nothing beyond “vaginas on the plain seeking out other vaginas with which to hold hands and gaze unlongingly into the silky night of a manless moon.” We have abandoned a better, gentler America, a place where women were “above this sort of thing,” a nation where men did not “talk about vaginas in public.”

Read the quotes in context here

Funny. Just yesterday a friend asked me about unusual vaginal discharge and I told her what I knew about it. Worse (from Kathleen Parker’s perspective, I suppose) I grabbed a couple of medical reference books, did some follow-up research on Google, and we talked about that too.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Because I’ve been in intimate relationships with women for a number of decades, and therefore I’m relatively familiar with different kinds of discharges, I briefly considered suggesting I take a quick look at her vagina. I balked, however, because in order to do that I’d have seen her vulva as well. We’re not on those sort of terms, however, and so I don’t think either of us would have been comfortable with that.

While I feel Parker should feel reassured by my reservations I have a feeling she wouldn’t be. I expect she’d be appalled that I’m familiar enough with “inner sanctums,” “familars,” “you know whats,” “hirstute abyss of God’s little ovens” (though statistics suggest these days they’re actually hirsute only about half the time), and “down theres” that I can distinguish vaginas from vulvas.

Meanwhile I’m embarrassed that Parker doesn’t make the distinction.

And speaking of distinctions, what’s the difference between “talking about vaginas in public” and writing about them, disparagingly no less, in the pages of the Washington Post?

In a news-roundup item BarbinMD of Daily Kos says

Republicans are “quietly asking” if John Ensign (R-NV) can serve effectively in the wake of his sex scandal. You’d think the “family values” crowd would be shouting it from the rooftops … which of course they would be if Ensign was a Democrat.

She said it here.

Remember it’s not so much that it’s ok if you are a Republican (IOKIYAR), it’s that it’s just not news when a Republican does it (IJNNWACDU.) Might as well write stories about dogs biting humans. Pretty much by definition nobody expects morality from conservatives so journalists mostly don’t bother making a big deal out of it when they do.

In principle there’s nothing wrong with sex with another person. Or, particularly, about bragging about it. Not even if you’re married, assuming your marriage partner is ok with it. Not even if your sex partner(s) are married, assuming it’s ok with their partners. There’s even nothing wrong with it even if you’re a California State Assemblyman.

Yeah, it gets a little iffier if you’re a California State Assemblyman with a 100% approval rating for “family values” voting from a subsidiary of the right-wing Focus on the Family, although it might not sit well with FoF to learn you’re actually an adulterous braggart.

There is a problem, however, if you’re a California State Assemblyman, and the chair of the Utilities and Commerce committee and your sex partners are paid lobbyists for an energy company your committee regulates! That’s the real story in the following video clip.

The real scandal? “The Assembly Legislative Ethics Committee is looking into the reports about Duvall’s alleged relationship with the lobbyist, a source close to the committee said this morning. “

Now we’re getting somewhere! People have sex. Sex is messy. Some people think messy sex is sexy. Other people think their way of doing sex is great and everyone else’s is gross. That’s not going anywhere.

What does need to go somewhere, though, is that he was doing these things with lobbyists. Because even if Duvall’s marital partner knew and approved, and even if his sex partner’s husbands knew and approved, it would still be a scandal that he was having sex with lobbyists for a company his committee has jurisdiction over.

It wouldn’t just be scandalous in terms of exchange of favors (which is how a lot of people seem to be reading it with their “little more than prostitutes” quips.) It would also be scandalous in terms of sexual-harassment-type power differentials between people seeking changes in legislation and someone in a position to make those changes.

Meanwhile people around the web seem to be focusing on the sex part. And the Focus-on-the-Family hypocrisy part.

But yes, by all means, go all knee-squeezy because someone had sex. Gag and heave all you like about his explicit language. And yes, definitely, absolutely take him to task for being the slimy hypocrite he is. But first put this man out of his chairmanship, off the committee, out of the Assembly, and, if possible, in jail for the real scandal of being that intimate with lobbyists or allowing them to be that intimate with him.

Those of us on the left are even more likely than those on the right to stop at twittery about sex at the expense of substance.

Update: According to the L.A. Times Duvall is resigning (emphasis mine)

“I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly, who are working hard on the very serious problems facing our state,” he said in a statement posted on his website. “I have come to the conclusion that it would not be fair to my family, my constituents or to my friends on both sides of the aisle to remain in office. Therefore, I have decided to resign my office, effective immediately, so that the Assembly can get back to work.”

Read the quote in context here.

No, he’s not deeply saddened about his comments. He’s instead deeply hoping that knee-squeezing twittery about having sex with another decision-capable adult will trump the substance of potential criminal wrongdoing of a decidedly non-sexual nature. It’s not his inappropriate comments, or the specific sexual activities he was describing when he made those comments. It’s that he was literally in bed with lobbyists for an energy company his committee is supposed to be regulating.

Oh, and while I was Googling around for a post I’m writing up at my place I found a note at SF Gate that the energy company may have instead hired the lobbyists specifically because of her prior sexual access to him. In which case not only should he face trial and jail, so should the lobbyists and the corporate staff that hired them.

(I first found out about the Duvall story from Pam Spaulding.)

Image by XKCD.

Y’know how those “Million and One Sex Positions” manuals (all inevitably hetero) you see all over the place? The ones with either highly-stylized stick figures (some with translucent overlays) or else even more highly-stylized photographs of recruiting-poster-perfect people with model-blank expressions and static-figure positions? You know how they give you the impression this is All Serious Business because they’re just so stick-up-the-butt… well… All Serious Business?

Jayme Waxman of Sex Matters sets us straight in a nifty, off-the-cuff video post.

After overdosing on a slew of sex positions, here’s a random thought about why you would even try some of the most ridiculous of positions…

Sex Positions: It’s all about the smile from Jamye Waxman on Vimeo.

She said it here.

It’s startling sometimes just how entrenched the whole “for purposes of reproduction only” theory of sex is. Even when there’s no intention… or (since not all sex involves interlocking between fertile heterosexuals) no possibility of reproduction.

And I think, in the west at least, and it looks like a couple of the other major world cultures, it’s got a lot to do with philosophical or religious wariness of pleasure in the corporeal world. With the result that when it is discussed publicly it’s discussed soberly, non-salaciously, with an eye towards reproduction… or prevention thereof… for purposes of health… or prevention of disease… or more egalitarian allocation of “marital bliss.” And, most ‘specially, for purposes of education. Without which UR Duin it Wrong!

With the further result that the idea that some positions when someone says “are they serious” the correct answer might be “actually… no.” :-)