OMG. Bible Belt Blogger took a look at Surgeon General nominee Dr. James Holsinger’s infamous 1991 anti-gay paper, “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality,” and it will be one swinging confirmation hearing when a Senator reads this passage aloud when inquiring about Holsinger’s views on what he calls the dangers of “anal eroticism.” This was prepared for the Committee to Study Homosexuality of the United Methodist Church.
Gay sex, he warned, can lead to “lacerations, perforations and deaths…The anatomic and physiologic facts of alimentation and reproduction simply do not change based on any cultural setting. In fact, the logical complementarity of the human sexes has been so recognized in our culture that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming various pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other. When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur as noted above.”Hmmm. The tired “parts fitting” argument again. I think any emergency room doctor has probably seen a ton of straight folks who put items in various orifices for sexual pleasure that went terribly wrong, yet Holsinger pontificates that “anal eroticism” is almost a strictly homosexual act.
How about this nugget of confusion?
More after the jump.
Holsinger, who endorses ex-gay therapy (”We see that as an issue not of orientation but a lifestyle,” Calhoun said. “We have people who seek to walk out of that lifestyle.”), has views far outside the mainstream.
From Truth Wins Out:
A new Gallup poll shows that Holsinger is at odds with the majority of Americans. Accoring to the poll, 42 percent of Americans believe that homosexuality is innate, compared to 13 percent in 1977. And the percentage of Americans who believe homosexuality is due to factors such as upbringing and environment declined from 56 percent in 1977 to only 35 percent today. Things have reversed so completely, that even the Southern Baptist Convention?s Albert Mohler recently suggested on his website that there is the possibility of a biological basis for homosexuality.As HRC’s Joe Solmonese noted in the organization’d condemnation of this nominee, “Dr. Holsinger has a record that is unworthy of America’s doctor. His writings suggest a scientific view rooted in anti-gay beliefs that are incompatible with the job of serving the medical health of all Americans. It is essential that America’s top doctor value sound science over anti-gay ideology.”Last week, the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) issued its first statement opposing “conversion therapy.” According to the new policy:
“The American Academy of Physician Assistants opposes any psychiatric treatment directed specifically at changing sexual orientation, such as ‘conversion’ or ‘reparative’ therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her sexual orientation.”
Read more on Holsinger by surfing over to Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin.
Related:
* Bush’s homophobic Surgeon General nominee garners more slams
* Bush nominates promoter of ex-gayism for Surgeon General
78 Responses to “Bush’s Surgeon General nom: gay sex is hazardous to your health”
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What kills me about people who make the assumption that there are certain sex practices that only gays do is that they have to be completely ignorant of mainsteam porn. Honestly, it’s damn hard to find non-special interest straight porn that doesn’t involve a helluva lot of fellatio and/or anal sex. Seriously, other than say, docking, is there anything that’s considered “gay” that isn’t regularly done by lots of straights? How many of the “gay sex is icky!” crowd have even heard of the acts that only gays can do? That’s the only example that easily comes to mind, and not even all gay couples can do it.
Hell, if oral and anal are so terribly hazardous, since they’re sometimes used as a “poor man’s” form of birth control, wouldn’t that imply that a good way to reduce their frequency in the straight populace is to make other forms of birth control more widely available?
I realize that’s not his point, but I sure hope that he gets called on this dumb assumption, and is forced to admit that he just has a problem with the fact that gay people exist. I just want to see some senator ask, “Have you ever heard of Hustler magazine? How about Backdoor Sluts 9?” But, if he wants to push for better workplace standards for women involved in straight porn, since they have to do things much more extreme than the average couple, gay or straight, would ever consider, I wouldn’t make fun of him for it.
When some homophobe comes up with the “pipe fitter/complementarity” argument, it makes me think of that B. Kliban cartoon “Genitalia of the Universe,” showing alien genitals in bizarre configurations that look like electrical outlets. The point (I think) being, if God had really intended to make homosexual sex so difficult, he could have designed us a lot more effectively.
(For those who don’t know the late B. Kliban, he’s a cartoonist who, in terms of weirdness, makes Gary Larson look like the Family Circus guy. Click here for a good selection of his cartoons, although not the one I’m referring to, unfortunately.)
I have to ask.
What is docking?
As is par for w’s course, the nomination is inappropriate for multiple reasons. I don’t even know what to say, more than that, except that the Dems should filibuster everything, and we should all vote in 2 years.
Oh jeebus, the “parts fitting” argument again. Are these people still virgins? It’s not like a penis and vagina just magically slip together with ease the first few times, either.
Man, I just had to look up “docking” in the Urban Dictionary……..
Okay, I admit I never would have thought that possible. It is a wonder all the new inventions we come up with these days.
Yeah. Female and male parts are so “compatible”. That’s why the #1 cause for cervical cancer is HPV from MALE partners, vaginosis is commonly associated with multiple MALE sex partners, irritation of the urethra is a common complaint of heterosexually active women, etc. Plus every other STD on the planet. Sex is not without risks, regardless who is doing it. I would even go so far as to say the least risky sex is probably GAY sex between female partners.
But that doesn’t fit the wingnut agenda. My bad.
*sigh* This kind of stuff just makes me tired. My hat is off to all gay/bisexual people everywhere. If it is so exasperating to me (I’m hetero), I can only imagine how bad it is for the “targets” of such asshattery.
I meant to add that it’s only because we are so ingrained with the idea of sex being for baby-making (heteronormativity, I guess) that we automatically think of male and female parts “fitting” despite nearly universal evidence to the contrary.
I followed the General’s lead and looked it up… OH! My. Hunh. … Really? *scritch* Ok.
It’s really just another version of the repeated conservative argument that risks in sex have to be mitigated far beyond those in every other activity.
You know, cooking is unnatural - every other animal and our ancestors in traditional times (before the artificial cultural decay caused by fire) ate their meat and vegetables raw. Also, fourfty percent of Americans have burned themselves trying to cook. Ban it, I say!
While I’m awaiting an earlier comment to come out of moderation, I thought I’d continue ranting.
I know it shouldn’t, but it continues to amaze me how Bush absolutely refuses to buy a clue. You’d think any normal person would notice the toilet bowl level ratings, the overturn of Congress, the general dissatisfaction, and try, try, just a little, to do something that reflects the wishes of the majority of Americans. But instead he digs even deeper into wingnut territory to nominate this mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger. He’s not pandering, he’s just a “True Believer”, which is what’s really scary. YOu wouldn’t keep doing this stuff unless you honest-to-disco-ball thought it was true. Remind me again why we can’t impeach him?
Complimentarity? New one on me.
Yeah, like I said, it’s a fairly obscure sex practice, but the only one that comes to mind as not having a hetero-analogue. Didn’t want to define it, even though from an “ewwww” perspective it strikes me as being down there with, say, titty-fucking, just because I figured I was dangerously close to triggering the auto-mod-bot as it was. And, well, we all have access to google.
And to add to Neko’s list of the dangers inherent in straight-sex, the biggie of course is pregnancy and childbirth, which of course has led to the deaths of how many millions (billions, maybe even?) of women throughout human history? Better ban PiV sex right away!
Love the cooking example, Yuri!
Let’s not fail to mention the lousy grasp of history on the part of the right wingnuts. Anal sex between males and FEmales has a pronounced history because it rapidly became known as the sex you could have that did NOT result in procreation. But of course, I am forgetting that these folks think sex IS only for making babies….silly me.
Obviously, this man is in desperate need of a vigorous prostate massage.
None of these men have large penises. I am a woman and have sex with at least one man who didn’t “fit.”
YuriK-
I don’t know if your creative statistic “fourfty percent of Americans have burned themselves trying to cook” was intentional, but that totally cracked me up. “Fourfty”! Bogus logic and so a bogus number. Awesome.
I think any emergency room doctor has probably seen a ton of straight folks who put items in various orifices for sexual pleasure
Makes me want to call the guy up and ask “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
As a reminder people, always use something with a base. It helps to prevent things going all the way in and getting stuck.
Your PSA for the day.
Well, now I have even more guilt to suffer about how I raised my children. When I explained the birds and the bees thing to the little nippers, I left out the part about the pipe fittings, which are threaded connectors after all. Who can enjoy sex with all the pressure of “is it righty-tighty, or lefty…oh rats, I should have paid more attention to the instructions” going through your head? And the wasted time and money on sex therapy with doctors, when a call to a plumber would have set things aright!
Alas, JW, it’s a Simpsons reference, like nearly everything else clever I say. Lousy 18-year-show-running-my-entire-childhood-adolescene-ever-since.
My husband says that the x-ray is really funny when the thing is still vibrating. Last patient with this problem was a straight married guy. I think it would make a great Energiser battery commercial.
One does not have to imagine how it feels to be a target. One can participate, say hand out free cake for the Pride month kick off, as I did today. We have a pretty strict tolerance policy where I work, but I don’t know of any other group that ever had free cake left over. No one was outright hostile, but the double-takes and vering off from the table were eye opening.
Boston’s big to-do is Saturday (parade et al). I wasn’t planning to go. I may have changed my mind.
As I recall, recent studies have shown that one of the byproducts of Abstinence only education is a significant increase in both anal and oral sexual practices among teens. It seems to me that the current administration’s health policies are aimed at closing the anal sex gap — as it were. . . . .
I came in here to say what other people already said.
Male and female “pipe fittings” vary a lot and don’t always fit perfectly well together. and that’s just talking the physical aspect, it gets a lot hairier when you take into account the owners of the pipe fittings.
My brother and his boyfriend have been together for 30 years — no lacerations that I’ve heard of, and not so much as a hospital stay for either of ‘em in three decades.
They’re on an anniversary tour of Italy now — yup, 30 year anniversary, although their state (Florida) refuses them marriage.
Which does have actual medical consequences: My brother’s business gives him fairly good health insurance with fairly good coverage, his boyfriend’s employer offers fairly lousy coverage.
My brother’s firm is Canadian-based, where it also covers domestic partnerships.
However, Florida also refuses to recognize domestic partnerships, so my brother’s good insurance can’t cover his boyfriend, with the lousy plan.
They’ve got their fingers crossed that nothing serious happens to the boyfriend, who is also nine years older than my brother and starting to face the natural health problems that come with age.
And the wasted time and money on sex therapy with doctors, when a call to a plumber would have set things aright!
Then what’s up with all the plumber’s crack?
Wow, thank you. This has always baffled me, too.
I read once that the exact same percentage of gay men and straight people have anal sex “somewhat regularly” (or “on occasion,” or something). It was in the 40%-ish zone. Just as an example for your point. Anal sex is not a gay thing to do. At all. And when a quarter of women can’t come from vaginal intercourse alone, it’s even more obvious that oral sex isn’t, either.
You’ve just gotta wonder how bad sex must be for these people. What a chore, an awkward, frantic, racing-heart experience; instead of the sweet liberation and tenderness we know.
Human sexuality is so vastly complex. And these people have no idea.
“What kills me about people who make the assumption that there are certain sex practices that only gays do is that they have to be completely ignorant of mainsteam porn.”
It’s just more of that Gilead stuff.
They don’t think ANYBODY should have any sex other than procreative, no BC, PIV, missionary position, 1-male + 1-female, married to each other, same race, same religion, and only as often as needed to keep the quiver full.
Sounds kind of restrictive to me…
“What a chore, an awkward, frantic, racing-heart experience”
You forgot to mention the overwhelming feelings of guilt afterwards…
Kyle:
Nod. I have a feeling that if that information was more widely spread, that, alone, would lead to a large decrease in homophobia (I normally use the term “heterosexism”, but in this case, I think homophobia is a more apt description).
Gay folks have mouths and hands, and it’s not like they have any question about how to produce an orgasm. (Well, okay, there must be some guys who haven’t ever been able to masturbate successfully, but they’re probably rare.)
As Ted Haggard ad nauseum have shown, I suspect they are, in fact, hypcritoverts who can only acheive release when it contradicts their stated morals. For them sex is only potent when it is not only dirty, but makes their entire belief system a lie. If they aren’t actively engaging it, they are getting off on self-denial. For the truly kinky, being exposed as a liar is part of the fetish. Alas, not enough of them reach this point. When they express remorse, it is partially perverse glee, partially sublimated contempt for those who didn’t catch on to the double standard.I mean, when I see “At our Boston meeting, we spent some time discussing the complementarity of the human sexes…” I read “…and once done with the human sexes, we had a big circle jerk to donkey porn.”
You know it’s true.
Missionary position. With the lights out. Quietly.
MikeEss: They don’t think ANYBODY should have any sex other than procreative, no BC, PIV, missionary position, 1-male + 1-female, married to each other, same race, same religion, and only as often as needed to keep the quiver full.
Ah yes, but since he’s trying to claim that gay sex is a public health problem because
Gay sex, he warned, can lead to “lacerations, perforations and deaths…
As a doctor, he should be aware that procreative sex is even MORE likely to lead to lacerations, perforations, and deaths. Like, off the top of my head, episiotomies, hymen destruction, and maternal deaths are all directly caused by PiV sex, even in their ideal little circumstances, and they certainly can be described as “lacerations, perforations, and deaths”. And only the first of those is considered unnatural. Whether he considers these to be BAD things, since those 3 by definition only happen to women, I don’t know. I’ll be generous and assume that he thinks maternal deaths are bad and should be reduced, but I wouldn’t be surprised if to find out he supports policies that lead to higher maternal mortality. Fetishing the laceration of the hymen is pretty standard among this sort of busy-body.
Not that I disagree w/you, just laughing at this sort of person only caring about such painful medical complications when it can be used to demonize the Other.
Djinna, if you die as a result of having “proper sex” - complications of pregnancy, child birth, etc. - then you are held up as an example to other women. (If you’re Catholic, you might even be canonized…) So the complications are really god’s blessing.
If you’re just a “slut”, then those complications become god’s punishment.
Same complications, different results…
(I don’t have the capacity for doublethink required to hold both of those beliefs as simultaneously true, so I may have to seek treatment after typing this…)
My prediction is that this will cause a surge in sexual experimentation.
After all, if gay sex is bad for you, doesn’t that mean it’s AWESOME? Because everything else that’s bad for me is.
Ahem.
Attention wingnuts. Concerning gay sex. The parts. Do. Fit. If they don’t. You’re doing it. Wrong.
For them sex is only potent when it is not only dirty, but makes their entire belief system a lie.
I agree. They’re like people who not only think it’s lame to cry at movies, but actually can’t cry at them. They distance themselves so automatically from feelings of vulnerability that they wouldn’t be able to actually feel vulnerable if they wanted to.
I know the intent of this part of the post, but “straight folks get hurt doing it too” doesn’t really seem the right way to go with the argument. The real point is how many folks, gay and straight, fit together just fine, thanks. (I know the point was to have documentable proof that straight people get kinky, and it does serve as that.)
The other, usually completely overlooked counter to the “parts fitting” argument is that even with pipes or electrical connections, it is only the connector itself that is classed as male or female, not the complete object it is a part of.
After all, a pipe with a female connector at one end and a male connector at the other end isn’t a “bisexual pipe” - it is a pipe with one male fitting and one female fitting.
Similarly, even if the thingie at the end of your television power cord plug fits into the wall socket, that doesn’t mean you have a male TV and a female wall (or house). Just that the plug is classified as male and the socket as female. Clearly the anus is a “female fitting” no matter who it is installed on.
So even if the analogy IS held up as a valid one (phooey), all it means is that men have one “male fitting” and at least two “female fittings”, while women have at least three “female fittings” And if we add fingers as insertable items, the numbers skew even more. (Does a tongue count?) Oh my.
Not to mention the guys I know who enjoy using their “male fitting” as a recieving orifice, but that gets into some of that advanced stuff.
And as for the morons who try to say that the anus is meant for elimination, not sexual pleasure, and therefore using it for sex is unnatural, what the hell do they pee out of? Their dicks are “meant” for elimination, too, but that doesn’t seem to make them think that using them for sex is unnatural.
I think Holsinger should take a look at this. (NSFW).
Wait a minute, I thought that lacerations, perforations and deaths were good things - oh no, never mind, that’s only when they’re caused by abortions…
Sorry folks! My bad.
[/snark]
My girlfriend was raised super-Catholic, and went to Catholic schools her whole childhood. She and her boyfriend in high school truly believed they were being “chaste” and “good Catholics” by avoiding actual PiV sex, even though they were engaged in a wide variety of other sexual activities. She even gave “Chastity Talks” to younger teens, and saw no contradiction at the time. I’ve taught at a Catholic university and am astonished at how common this attitude is — I’m baffled by the logic; like if god were really as anti-premarital-sex as the priests say, you’d get out of hell on a technicality or something, b/c you only had buttsex and gave blowjobs!
For my girlfriend, coming to terms with her attractions to other women was what made her really start to logically examine the bizarre sexual messages of her youth. And, eventually, reject them in favor of full-fledged lesbianism!
“Gay sex, he warned, can lead to “lacerations, perforations and deaths…”
I’ll give him that actually. My ex-husband, performing a ‘gay’ act on me (sodomy) caused a tear that later on, during the birth of my second child (different father) became a life threatening category 4 tear and required surgery to repair before I bled to death. The fact that he raped me in order to do said gay act was part of the reason why he is ex-husband. That said, sodomy is much more pleasant and safe when the partners are willing participants.
Peter, excellent points, esp. about the pipe fittings. However, since he seemed to be arguing that gay sex is bad because it’s dangerous, pointing out that straight sex (even married, procreative) sex is also dangerous does seem to me to be a valid counterargument.
Kyle, the point that straight people have tons of anal sex is only relevant if you don’t believe that boy butts are magically different from girl butts. (I assume those numbers aren’t entirely from pegging.) Because wingnuts don’t care if women get lacerated, perforated and dead.
Speaking of parts fitting, first time I had sex my foreskin tore. We were a little confused as to who’s blood it was (not a conversation you want to have, believe me).
Not likely to have caused my death, but if it had become infected things could have gotten bad. I still have the scar.
If the FSM really hated teh buttseks, she’d have made penises wider or bumholes tighter. I bet a fair fraction of the AmTaliban Curia look in the bowl after taking a dump and subconsiously compare the width of their turds to the width of their dong.
Perhaps he means “complimentary” as in: “Hello Ms. Vagina, you’re looking nice today” - “Thank you, Mr. Penis, you’re quite attractive yourself.”
Alternatively, maybe he visits places where they give you a free set of wabbly bits with your dinner or something like that.
Heh. Learning the meaning of dockers helped me understand a line from a Libby Gelman Waxner column I read 10 years ago. The power of the internets at work!
The anatomic and physiologic facts of alimentation and reproduction simply do not change based on any cultural setting.
I also just can’t stand it when they pull out (heh) the reproduction v. excretory functions argument as a reason that anal sex is bad. You’re not supposed to mix alimentation and reproduction, people!!! Oh, except that the penis does exactly that all by itself. Rather than saying that men shouldn’t put their reproduction organ where waste is supposed to come out, I’d say men had better keep their little excretory organ away from my reproductive parts, thank you.
[…] Pamdagon points out that James Holsinger, Bush’s nominee for Surgeon General, believes that homosexuality is physically harmful. He bases his argument on the assumption that vaginal sex is innately safer than oral and anal sex, and he seems unaware of the fact that non-vaginal sex is quite common among heterosexuals. […]
Amy Dolphin:
I am sorry that you were raped.
Both vaginal and anal penetration are likely to cause injury if the person being penetrated is not a willing participant. In rape trials, evidence of women’s injuries during vaginal rape is admitted. Like vaginal sex, anal sex is not likely to cause tearing if the receiving partner is willing (i.e., relaxed) and the penetrating partner takes appropriate care (lube, understanding of “hey, can you stop, that doesn’t feel so good”).
junk science wrote:
Attention wingnuts. Concerning gay sex. The parts. Do. Fit. If they don’t. You’re doing it. Wrong.
Okay, now I have this image of a lolcats picture (see icanhascheezburger.com) captioned, “Buttsecks! You’re doing it wrong.” Thanks a lot.
Irene
I hear some people upthread saying essentially
There’s an argument for the ages.
I will confess that homosexuality and the question “why do gays exist” is a mystery to me. I apologize in advance to those readers who will be undoubtedly be troubled by my heteronormal position. I am willing to accept, in the absence of concrete evidence, society’s verdict that being gay is innate and involuntary. I hold it because if everybody worked from this position, it would lead to less cruelty than believing being gay is a choice.
I still maintain my call that the causes of the development of human sexuality should be scientifically investigated. We should not ignore this issue just because some people are afraid there might actually be a cause. But perhaps this can wait until we have a more open and fair society.
But I do think this fundie ex-gay movement is tantamount to psychological violence, doesn’t really work, and none of its adherents should occupy the Surg. General post.
You can construct ideas of normal, natural and healthy, versus abnormal, unnatural and unhealthy literally any way you want. The entire history of medicine and sexology in the 19th and 20th century should make that clear.
Well, if he’s so concerned about anal injuries, he’d better talk to the company that makes Preparation H suppositories. They have a warning about removing the foil wrapper before applying. My assumption is that they had enough reports of people who didn’t remove the foil, to, er, well anyway. The point being that lacerations can result from many, many more things than this guy imagines.
Actually, straight folks often lose items Up There. Most gays are sophisticated enough to use butt plugs (flanged dildos) if they want to use toys. Just an observation from the emergency room records.
Worst one was a small light bulb. Which broke.
Truthfully, I find the ‘what causes people to be gay’ discussion to be so very boring. Who cares if its a choice or an inborn thing? What’s important is that something as personal and intimate as an individual’s love/sex life shouldn’t be fodder for public debate.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the natural vs. learned debate has been ongoing around me since I was in high school, but it seems like such a meaningless mental exercise. If someone chooses to be gay, well, what’s wrong with that? It might mystify you, but then again, no one expects you to fully understand the inner workings of every other person on the planet. It’s okay to be mystified, really.
Being straight IS normal. No argument. But so is being gay. Etc.
Just like being right-handed is normal, but so is, for an admittedly smaller part of the population, being left-handed, or ambidextrous.
The trick is getting over the idea that there is by definition only one right way to be.
The other trick is to learn to think (and as an advanced version, to say) “That doesn’t match my experience, so I may not understand it, but that doesn’t automatically mean that it invalidates yours.”
If you are straight, you are perfectly allowed not to have a clue what being gay is like. Just stop telling other people what experience we are supposed to have, and we’ll get along fine.
Michael T, I wish you’d do us a favor and not pollute more threads with your sexual hangups. Many, many people enjoy sex that is not procreative. You don’t. That’s fine. Now please get over it.
I will confess that homosexuality and the question “why do gays exist� is a mystery to me.
Good FSM were you born yesterday FFS?
All this wide-eyed “Gee, Beave!” crap has gotten tiresome.
As has the constant troll tendancy (trolls - they’re like cockroaches - kill one and four more show up to take its place) to repeat arguments, verbatim [and on virtually every. other. intertubes discussion I (used to be) interested in reading], I’ve heard since the 70s from these newbie neo-con knickerbocker-wearin’ knuckle-draggers in their early 20s. Folks, y’all didn’t invent conservative arguments on SSM, abortion, gay rights, women’s rights, Affirmative Action, fiscal policy, oh, you know, all that other crap y’all spout. Seriously. Bring some new stuff to the table. And FFS read something. Learn about real people. Real people don’t exist in some rarified political theory. Real people have real lives and real problems that need real solutions.
—–
Sarah in Chicago, I have made my determination. Color me: Queen of Hearts.
If this guy thinks anal sex even in extremely excessive amounts will kill you, he obviously has never seen Goatse. I think someone needs to show him.
Gay sex, he warned, can lead to “lacerations, perforations and deaths…
Doesn’t that depend on whether you’re the “top” or the “bottom” ?
Republican priorities make no sense!
They don’t want to regulate meat-packing…
but they do want to regulate fudge-packing??
It only “depends” if you don’t give a fllp about your partner(s).
“I still maintain my call that the causes of the development of human sexuality should be scientifically investigated.”
Why, exactly? I’m all for knowledge in general and I don’t have any dogmatic belief one way or the other, although I think the testimony of most gays that they always felt different is sorta the baseline you’d start from.
I guess the question boils down to ‘Are you trying to find out that gay is caused by mothers wearing pink shirts during pregnancy so you can get them into some fetching teal and make the problem you have gay people go away forever?”
If the answer is one some level yes, then I’m going to go ahead and say you’re not a nice person.
I will confess that homosexuality and the question “why do gays exist� is a mystery to me.
If you want a religious explanation, Gays Exist because the Lord and all His Creation works in Mysterious Ways mere mortal humans cannot fathom.
p.s. we don’t need to scientifically determine whether or not a person has human rights. End.
Can I get two cheers for all-by-yourself masturbation?
Huckabee and Yglesias: Sometimes the Evolution ‘Controversy’ Is About the Science…
I like much of Matt Yglesias’ writing. But he still doesn’t appreciate how science and evolution affect public policy issues.
Sometimes the scientific particulars do matter–if the cornerstone of modern biology can be called a ‘particular’. Som…
I will confess that the amount of time straigh people spend focusing on this is more than a mystery to me. It freaks me the hell out.
Why stop at two!
I will confess that the amount of time straigh people spend focusing on this is more than a mystery to me. It freaks me the hell out.
Hell, I identify as straight, and it freaks me out.
Three cheers for “Mind your own fucking business!”
Can we just admit, once and for all, that dragging out the “gays = anal sex, and anal sex = grody grody bad bad” is basically nothing more than dragging 3rd grade myths about sex out of the playground and onto the political stage? Anyone who tries to do these equations should be roundly laughed at, because:
- studies show that straight people have around as much anal sex as gay people do, which is to say “more straight people than is usually assumed, and fewer gay people.” And yet there’s this crazy assumption that every gay man is doing it in the butt, all the time, all night long, etc.
- even if some other studies were to show that there’s more anal sex amongst some kinds of partners, to some extent that’s undoubtedly because of these stereotypes that anal sex is something certain people do and others don’t;
- anal sex isn’t inherently unhealthy any more than any other kind of sex. Safe sex, which includes more than just protection from STDs, but also things like “don’t mess up your partner’s insides” is a good idea for everyone.
Speaking as someone who enjoys and has actively engaged in some of the riskier behaviors the doctor mentions, albeit in a heterosexual relationship, I have to say that it’s distressing to see it claimed that these behaviors do not pose any elevated risk. They do. And while any attempt to ban them will be met with (deserved) hoots and jeers, not to mention failure, no one should be spreading the false idea that there is no increased risk of injury and/or disease from them.
From the King County (Seattle) Department of Public Health:
Recently, cases of gonorrhea among gay and bisexual men in King County more than doubled from 1997 through 2000, and chlamydia cases increased by at least 50 percent. The rate of gonorrhea in gay and bisexual men in King County now is at least 10 times higher than in heterosexuals.
Even more dramatically, the rate of syphilis infection in the gay population has skyrocketed, from virtually no cases in 1995 and 1996 to 80 or more cases per year at present. The rate of syphilis in gay and bisexual men in King County now is 150 times greater than for the heterosexual population.
Can we just admit, once and for all, that dragging out the “gays = anal sex, and anal sex = grody grody bad bad� is basically nothing more than dragging 3rd grade myths about sex out of the playground and onto the political stage?
It’s not “grody” but it would be pointless to deny that it is kind of… “smelly”.
Perhaps every stereotype contains a grain of truth — I’m willing to acknowledge that much.
But beyond that — I don’t see the problem.
Even PIV sex, where the “parts fit” (ha!) can be dangerous. I am one of those women who gets a bladder infection (very very painful!!) EVERYTIME i have PIV sex. I have to take an anti-biotic EVERYTIME afterwards. I don’t let guys ejaculate in me because i get a yeast infection if they do. I have received two strains of HPV even though i use condoms.
Yet, anal and oral sex has never caused me any problems.
BYU, that stuff you quoted talks about gay and bisexual men, but doesn’t mention anything about “risky” kinds of sex or anything so i really don’t see how it has anything to do w/ your point.
Casey,
Amen!
STD’s are not transmitted by gay sex. They are transmitted by having sex with an infected partner in such a way as to allow that transmission. Period.
JunkScience,
If it’s so clear to you that the ‘parts fit’ just the same in gay and straight sex, perhaps you have some insights into the much higher incidence of anal cancer in gay men who have anal sex? http://aids.about.com/od/otherconditions/a/analca.htm
Casey and the others who are insinuating that vaginal sex is just as dangerous to women as anal sex is to male and female recipients, you have to know how ridiculous those claims are, don’t you? Vaginal sex between two people who are not carriers of HPV or other viruses is statistically IMMENSELY less dangerous than anal sex between two clean people–the simple mechanics involved make this so. The very fact that human-made lubricants are needed for anal sex is an indicator that the ‘parts do not fit’ (how long before someone makes the same goofy exceptionalist argument that Casey makes above and goes ‘but what about the women who need lubricant for vaginal sex?’–do you not understand the difference between ‘very few women need lube for vaginal sex’ and ‘ALL anal sex recipients need lube’?).
The ability of people to ignore facts as large as the iceberg that sunk the Titanic when their simplistic ideologies are at stake continues to amaze and confound. Let’s try to *think* first, then ideologize with the facts in mind.