Sex Toys and Celebrities
Celebrities endorse sex toys. Why is this even a story? Would “Celebrities endorse toothpaste” be as newsworthy? This story would be remotely interesting only if there were a big portion of the population against sex toys. But outside of Sunday school, who’s opposed to sex toys? There are basically two kinds of sex toys:…
Read MoreMyths About Massage and Prostitution
“Well, duh!” is my response to shocker stories about massage schools enabling prostitution. The problem is, why should anyone care? State regulation of massage is based on two premises: (1) that prostitution is bad and (2) that massage requires skills so specialized that the state must protect the public by ensuring that applicants have them.…
Read MoreDecriminalizing Prostitution in Maine
Maine may decriminalize prostitution. What is good news in all this is that a number of prosecutors at the state level are no longer pursuing prostitution as a criminal matter. This should have happened about 200 years ago, but Jonathan Edwards (the New England religious fanatic) got in the way. Still, better late than never.…
Read MoreJeff Toobin Is Back After Zoom Masturbation Drama
The Jeff Toobin story: Just when we thought we’d reached the acme of simpering political righteousness, a new challenge appears: Toobin’s reinstatement! With the same faux-earnestness the media displays in covering the latest he-touched-her-arm story (remember Al Franken, anyone?), the correctoids of the WaPo now light upon CNN for its supposed indifference to the norms…
Read MoreTreatment-Resistant Depression Does Not Need Nitrous Oxide
That nitrous oxide shows some efficacy in “treatment-resistant” depression is not a big surprise, nor is it a particularly welcome one. Several points: “Treatment-resistant depression” merely means depressions that have been inadequately treated. Most “depression pills,” Prozac and its cousins, would fall into the category of inadequate treatments, because they simply are not very effective…
Read MoreYearbook Photos and Hypocrisy in Johns County, Florida
Once again, what Baltimore editor H. L. Mencken called the “American boobsie” takes command, but this time in St. Johns County, Florida. “Indecent exposure.” As Yelena Dzhanova reports, a bit of cleavage is showing in the yearbook photos. But in Trumpland, we mandate none at all. These ninth-grade girls are just growing and getting accustomed…
Read MoreVariety Is the Key to Good Sex
In her article, “The No. 1 Barrier To Good Sex For Women Over 50 — And How To Overcome It,” Tracey Cox makes the mistake — easy enough to do in the “body positivity” literature — of pandering to women. “Just feel good about yourself and everything will fall into place,” she advises. What Men…
Read MoreThe Problem With Polyamory
Well, polyamory, hey! This is what the industry refers to as ggb (girl-girl-boy), or bbg (boy-boy-girl), and it has been a staple in adult films for decades. But now the real world is catching up. No one can criticize Willow Smith for making a perfectly valid lifestyle choice. She doesn’t like having sex as…
Read MoreMormon Morality Is Complicated
Stories like this have the effect of portraying the Mormon Church as some kind of moral dinosaur. The story is a bit more complicated than that. Natasha Helfer was much criticized within the Latter Day Saints for espousing positions that were directly in conflict with Church teachings, such as okaying masturbation for her clients, or…
Read MoreColton Underwood Illustrates What’s Wrong With “The Bachelor”
The Colton Underwood story illustrates perfectly why the “Bachelor” television show franchise has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world. They go on the assumption that there is such a thing as a “gay” look — and they don’t want it. This assumption goes back to somewhere around the beginning of time…
Read More