Changing the Way People, Politics & the Media Look at Sex

‘sex and technology’

Porn Addict or Selfish Bastard? Life Is More Complicated Than That

by on ·Pornography & Porn Addiction, Sexual Intelligence Blog

I’m seeing an epidemic of “porn addiction” in my office. Not of porn addiction, but of “porn addiction.” Here’s how it looks: Wife/girlfriend somehow assumes that husband/boyfriend does not watch porn (guess that’s what she means by “he’s one in a million”). One day, his porn watching comes to her attention (he leaves something on the screen, she searches his website history, he gets an email or bill from some friendly porn site, etc.). She freaks. She decides what his porn watching “means”: * He doesn’t care for her * He’s been faking sexual desire or enjoyment * He’d rather…

Continue Reading →
0 Comments

Those Wonderful Librarians

by on ·Sex & Culture, Sexual Intelligence Blog

I’m recently back from Austin, where I spoke at the annual meeting of the Texas Library Association. My topic was America’s War On Sex, Libraries, & Librarians. I’m pleased to say I was warmly received. And I sure learned plenty from them—some of it heartening, some of it scary. And some of what they said was sadly familiar. Just a few notes: * A small number of people can cause a lot of trouble. In almost every community, some people feel terrified that people—young or otherwise—are being exposed to immoral, inappropriate, unpatriotic, or dangerous material in the library. One might…

Continue Reading →
0 Comments

Arizona Outlaws Non-Existent Abortions

by on ·Making Sex Better, Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

The Arizona legislature, to its eternal frustration, can’t simply make abortion illegal. Its phony “conservative” Republicans want to shrink “Big Government” just small enough to fit under people’s bedroom doors. But the state is still part of America, however much they—or we—might regret this. Arizona can, of course, make the experience of a simple abortion as miserable as possible for residents who have the nerve to pursue a legal medical procedure. And the state can throw a fit and just invent reasons that people can’t have abortions. One imagines them criminalizing abortions taking place on February 30; banning abortions if…

Continue Reading →
0 Comments

What Kind of a Sick Mind Calls This Child Porn?

by on ·Sex & Culture, Sexual Intelligence Blog

The internet has given anti-sex lawmakers the opportunity to create entire new classes of crime. Predictably, petty bureaucrats are seizing these laws to go after an assortment of “perpetrators,” no matter how trivial, petty, or pointless their “crime.” America has always aspired to have laws which punish the actual harming of actual people. Admittedly, we haven’t always attained this ideal; examples include criminalizing interracial marriage, arresting people who burn the flag, and banning grocery stores from operating on Sundays. But the biggest legal bonanza of digital technology is that it offers a virtual world in which activity that doesn’t harm…

Continue Reading →
0 Comments

America’s War On Sex: Second Edition?

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

You may have read my most recent book, America’s War On Sex. It’s won a couple of awards, and I’ve lectured on the subject in dozens of cities. I’m pretty proud of it. The publisher (Praeger) has asked me about doing a second edition—updating it and perhaps adding other material. In some ways, it would be more complicated than just writing a whole new book. So I’ve been thinking about how to do it. How’s the War on Sex been going since the book was published? My initial answer is: “mixed.” Here’s the initial scorecard for the four years since…

Continue Reading →
0 Comments

The Myth of “Racist Pornography”

by on ·Pornography & Porn Addiction, Sexual Intelligence Blog

In our continuing commitment to being timely, today we honor Black History Month—by discussing the question of racism in pornography. The criticism that pornography is racist comes from the Left—from publications like Ms., university departments of Women’s Studies, and groups who believe that all sex work is male violence against women. Their current champion is author Gail Dines, whose recent book “Pornland” blames every one of America’s evils (except the Social Security mess) on pornography. In the chapter titled “Racy Sex, Sexy Racism!” she makes the nonsensical assertion that porn “racializes the bodies and sexual behavior of the performer” by…

Continue Reading →
0 Comments