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Sex & Politics

Adults Continue Criminalizing Childhood

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

Two 13-year-old Oregon boys have been jailed for playfully smacking the butts of a few female classmates. Jailed. Now out on bail but banned from school, they face possible 10-year sentences and lifelong registration as sex offenders. Ten years. Sex offenders. Yanked out of school in handcuffs, refused contact with their parents for 48 hours, jailed with actual criminals, these children have been permanently damaged. They could have been your kids. How many more lives will be destroyed by America’s obsession with sex? By its terror of male and female bodies? By its rage that children can’t be protected in…

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Frank Rich: President’s “War Against Sex”

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

New York Times columnist Frank Rich is a wonderful writer with a terrific nose for selfish, hypocritical politicians who abuse their power. He’s written frequently about the dangers of letting one group of people define “morality,” “decency,” and “family values” for the nation. Today Rich wrote about Senator Vitter’s recently-exposed sexual transgressions, which Vitter pursued even while damning the morality of a substantial part of the nation. Rich used this as a hook to write 1,000 words on the President’s failed “war against sex.” He notes various draconian public policies that for six years have championed abstinence for the unmarried,…

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“America’s War On Sex” Wins Award

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

America’s War On Sex: The Attack on Law, Lust, & Liberty has won the prestigious “Sexuality Book of the Year” award from AASECT—the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists. The book’s foreword is written by Nadine Strossen, President of the ACLU. In it, she says the book “shines a welcome spotlight on the many public policies today that continue to stifle full and equal freedom of choice for all mature individuals in the essential arena of sexuality.” She adds that “All of us who share the inspiring vision of Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter about “the heart of…

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Teens As A Sexually-Repressed Minority

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

What do you call it when the government singles out a group and denies them: * information * health care services * the right to consensual sexual activity Sounds like discrimination, doesn’t it? In fact, American teenagers are a sexually repressed minority. In half of America’s schools, teachers are not allowed to answer simple questions about the clitoris or anal sex. Teens are discouraged from using condoms through a combination of government lies and government-funded lies (see faith-based funding of socials services). In many states, teens are prevented from getting healthcare, including abortions. And worst of all, teens are jailed…

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Ohio Proves It Cares About Its Young

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

Ohio is the latest state to refuse federal funds for abstinence-only sex “education.” Five other states have announced the end of their participation: Wisconsin, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Montana and New Jersey. California, Pennsylvania, and Maine already don’t participate. The reasons for refusing the federal money are simple: the money can only be used under extremely narrow circumstances–e.g., no mention of condoms or of contraception’s success rate; programs with these criteria don’t work to substantially reduce teen pregnancy or STDs–according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office; the required matching state funds can be put to better use, enhancing teen sexual health…

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Gay Or Irish? Parade Organizers Force Choice

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

“Buy some corned beef,” my local butcher smiled this morning. “Today, everybody’s Irish.” Well, apparently not everybody. In New York City–home to 2 million Irish-Americans, half as many as in all of Ireland–organizers of the huge Fifth Avenue parade have once again banned Irish-American gay groups from marching. And so the city’s most powerful Irish-American politician, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, is boycotting the parade. As every Irish person, gay and straight, should. Unless, of course, hatred, exclusion, and obsession with others’ private lives is truly what it means to be Irish. How anti-Irish is being gay? Last year, John…

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