The recent Supreme Court decision suspending Roe v Wade exercised so much gravitational pull on our collective attention that two equally devastating court decisions escaped most people’s notice.
They both concern the expansion of privileges Americans can now claim if they cry “religious freedom.” One requires…
Encouraged by his parents and his parents’ church, Juan had made a deal with God when he was 12: he’d stay a virgin until he married. In return he’d get a wonderful virgin wife, and they’d love each other and have a glorious sex life with God’s blessing.
It only partly worked.
The “First Amendment Defense Act”—who could quarrel with that? I do. Maybe you do, too. HR2802 prohibits the federal government from acting against anyone who “believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief” that gays shouldn’t marry or that sex belongs only in heterosexual marriage. Under this law, the feds couldn’t withhold tax exemptions, contracts, or loans from people or corporations defying federal laws prohibiting discrimination against GLBT people. The bill would protect a business denying time off for a gay employee to care for a sick spouse. It would protect a private school refusing a child just because…
As the California primary beckons, bringing the season to a climax, the would-be candidates have been asked questions about practically everything. I suppose we should be grateful that Hillary hasn’t been asked about the size of her hands. As usual, there have been almost no questions regarding sexually-oriented policy. In our continuing effort to educate the media and politicians along with the public, here are 10 questions that serious candidates should answer: * Will you encourage states to have a humane policy about sexting by minors? Especially if a state has an age of consent under 18 (half the states…
Rule 34: If it exists, or you can imagine it, there is porn of it. No exceptions. Rule 34 summarizes everything about sexuality. It says that human sexual fantasy is limitless. It says that anything can be eroticized, can be arousing, can be life-affirming. It reminds us that any ideas we have about what’s normal sex are about us, not about sex. I’m always telling patients “don’t blame sex for your ideas about sex.” Rule 34 reminds us exactly what pornography is: a library of human eroticism. Pornography is a celebration of how humans can stretch their erotic imagination—sometimes in ways…
Two weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking at NECSS—the Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism. I was surrounded by world-class scientists, including Yale Med School neurologist Steve Novella, Stanford physicist Deborah Berebichez, Oxford neuroscientist Heather Berlin, and even Bill Nye The Science Guy. It was glorious—no explaining why science is important to everything we do or touch or think. Every one of the 600 attendees “believes” in gravity, evolution, and the Scientific Method. I started each of the conference’s three days in a wonderful bubble. But each day, news from the outside world was an ugly intruder—which, in…