Monday, January 07, 2013

IT'S GOOD FOR YOU.

My old friend Martin Downs, M.P.H. Dartmouth, has embarked on a very interesting project:  "a full picture of sexual health in the United States" based on an index of 26 measures of sexual health. (Full report here.) The fun part of the project is the resulting Sexual Health Rankings™, which finds Vermont, Connecticut, and New Hampshire the most sexually healthy states, and Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas the least healthy. Lots of opportunity for mean regionalist jokes there!

But it's also a sign of where public health's going in general, and how it breaks against cultural tides. The indicators include the expected relative incidence of STDs and rape but, taking off from the World Health Organization's idea of sexual health as "not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity," but also "a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence," they also consider access to contraception and abortion, sex education in schools, gender equality (partly measured by "proportion of seats held by women in state legislatures"), and "sexual satisfaction" measured by the "proxy indicators" of percent of population married or partnered, and general good health ("numerous studies show that self-reported health is positively associated with sexual satisfaction, and that worse self-reported health is a strong predictor of sexual dysfunction").

You may quibble with some of the metrics; I'm not sure how well you can track sexual satisfaction in the aggregate, short of a Masters and Johnson version of Nielsen Ratings or a test panel made of these. But I like the idea of defining sexual health more humanely than would, say, medical authorities at an Army induction center. Old-fashioned as I am, I still tend to think of public health as reactive, eradicating abnormalities clearly identified as disease -- as in, hmm, people in this village are dying of cholera, let's see if we can stop it. But in some communities, the appearance of such agents of death was once so commonplace as to be considered the norm; it's only when somebody began to think that it didn't have to be that way, and that it could be changed by something other than prayers and mumbo-jumbo, that human health progressed.

Now we see folks turning this approach to conditions no one considered public health issues before -- obesity, for example. Because our general fatty-fat-fatness doesn't look like cholera, and can't be fixed by replacing the town water pump, we are slow to identify it as disease. There's also a better reason: Because the nobs then might determine that we must be saved from ourselves, and try to keep us from having eating barbecue potato chips and onion dip because we must not know what we're doing to ourselves.  Lord knows I've felt resistance myself in the face of Mayor Bloomberg's nannying on the soda tax and all that.

Maybe the problem there is that we're Americans, and everything having to do with pleasure confuses us. Maybe we stuff ourselves with junk because we're missing something in our lives, and our leaders try to take these palliatives away from us without any genuine concern for us except as cogs in their machine and reflections of their own enlightenment, and offer us nothing in return except good citizenship medals.

But with this sex thing I don't see a downside. Gender equality?  Access to women's health services? "Pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence"?  That doesn't sound like health nazidom to me. Maybe that's because it's about giving access to more choices instead of fewer, and normalizing pleasure instead of restricting it. In any event, I'd sure rather have that than a healthy snack.

76 comments:

  1. Another Kiwi9:53 PM

    . Maybe we stuff ourselves with junk because we're missing something in our lives
    I think that this is correct. Well done.

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  2. Spaghetti Lee10:01 PM

    Well, good sex burns calories, so it's win-win there.

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  3. Last word in sexual health care as a human right. Some asshole in England has decided that the reason he can't get laid is that he has cerebral palsy and ms. He wants the national health to pay for him to see prostitutes. Because his human rights. Are being violated because he thinks sex is something you get from other people, rather than a relationship with other people. If he is capable of receiving pleasure he's capable of giving it, of course. But he thinks he shouldn't have to put in any work actually trying to appeal to anyone emotionally or sexually. It's kind of the last word in entitlement spending.

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  4. It's as if somewhere, Michel Foucault is proved right every single day.

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  5. jimbo31610:05 PM

    I was raised as an RC in an immigrant family but growing up in the 1960s, the family evolved. There was no question about gender equality. I actually saw a regression in gender relations from the1970s to the 1990s in some ways that is only now reversing now.

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  6. Spaghetti Lee10:27 PM

    As far as the whole indulgence-vs-nannyism argument goes, I'm of two minds. I'm always confused by people who say that Americans are afraid of enjoying themselves: I've always thought we do that pretty well. I think the disconnect comes from the people who are supposedly afraid of pleasure get their pleasure from things that their critics simply don't find pleasurable, or find actively distasteful: fast food, trash tv, guns, working on cars, etc. Now maybe there's an argument that sex is a natural pleasure and TV or fast food is unnaturally induced by corporate culture, and I don't entirely disagree, but I think that only goes so far before you have to admit that some of it is about taste: pleasure is a sensation more than an intellectual thing, and people get it from different sources and don't have complete control over what those sources are.


    Is it unhealthy to not care that much about sex? I don't know. It does seem like the way people here and elsewhere talk sometimes, every right-wing hang-up is based on how they didn't have sex in high school and it's made them bitter and angry. I mean it's mostly all in good fun, but isn't it kind of reductive? At the risk of oversharing, I've never cared much about sex and never did much to seek it out, and thus I'm still a virgin at 22. I don't dwell on it too much, and when I do get all sad about it, it's mostly because of some social pressure rather than a deep internal need that my body feels is going unmet. So when I hear people from the sex-positive crowd (nice people, mostly) talk about how sex is an expression of personal fulfillment and how people who don't like it have some sort of problem, it doesn't really connect. I mean, I feel fulfilled more often than not. But then again, I guess I don't have a basis for comparison, do I?


    I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that pleasure-seeking as a progressive political act has, at the very least, limitations. A working liberal society needs more than just that to function. People can have sex however they please (SSC, of course) as far as I'm concerned. What I don't like is this idea that sex itself is some sort of foundational societal act, something that by itself leads to a better world, moreso than other personal pleasures. Someone who has sex and someone who sits down and eats a bag of chips, and they both enjoy it, well, they're both doing what they enjoy right? The only difference is taste and preference, and you can't rank personal preference objectively for very long without running into the 'nannying' Roy's talking about.

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  7. I'm with you there, Spag. There are lots of dystopian gags (one of them in an early Firesign Theatre routine, I believe) about people being coerced into whatever the hip thing is. Only this really seems to be the opposite of that. Also, I want sex and potato chips, right now.

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  8. MyPetGloat11:17 PM

    I take it Steubenville ranked low on the health scale.

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  9. Halloween_Jack11:32 PM

    Hopefully not together; those sharp little crumbs... Really, sex and ice cream are your go-to joint vices.

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  10. smut clyde11:32 PM

    I'd sure rather have that than a healthy snack


    Umm we don't have to choose one or the other, do we?

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  11. Halloween_Jack11:33 PM

    You're talking about cucumbers, aren't you?

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  12. smut clyde11:36 PM

    Chocolate. And bacon.

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  13. Halloween_Jack11:54 PM

    Lots of opportunity for mean regionalist jokes there!


    Not joking at all, there's something to that. A big part of the conservative identity deals specifically and explicitly with sexual repression, which seems to be the antithesis of sexual health as defined here. There seems to be a real fear among the wingnuts that if people of any gender and persuasion are allowed the free and open exercise of their sexuality and with it the responsibility both to respect others' sexual agency and to deal with their own, then their mojo will vanish. Whether the anticipated end result is the conquest of America by Islamofascism or a full-blown apocalypse (which many of them seem to want anyway), they see the upshot of sexual health as an irreversible moral decay. Not only are the views of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock representative of what they believe, but those men's defeat in November cemented the real true believers' belief that such decay is already underway.



    I don't see this idea of sexual health as constituting anything like an individual mandate to get sexually healthy, which is a huge relief to me, not that I want to be sexually unhealthy, mind you, but that at my age can't imagine any possible advantage to be gained by the swallowing-up (heh) of sexuality under the "wellness" umbrella. Get your freak on, or not, as you please, but it should be your choice and not something ostensibly mandated or forbidden by the Angry Sky King.

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  14. parsec12:41 AM

    Pshaw. Every true American knows that sex is a commodity to be sold at the best price, bought at the lowest price, bartered, or stolen. This all happens in the most heavily fenced-in, machine-gun-towered, informant-laced, rule-ridden market exchange in society.

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  15. hmm, people in this village are dying of cholera, let's see if we can stop it.



    Love in the time of cholera.

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  16. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard1:38 AM

    That doesn't sound like health nazidom to me. Maybe that's because it's about giving access to more choices instead of fewer, and normalizing pleasure instead of restricting it
    Patriarchal authoritarians claim it's a violation of religious freedom in 3... 2... 1...

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  17. DocAmazing1:57 AM

    Chilly! Try mashed potatoes and gravy.

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  18. DocAmazing1:59 AM

    Just lately, I'm less worried about STDs than about carpal tunnel syndrome.

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  19. This is one of those your mileage-may-definitely vary metrics. (California is so large and diverse it's more useful to talk about counties.) Nationally, there is that whole Puritan tradition, the hangups of the Catholic Church, and the social conservative ideology that sex ed should be "Just say no," which results in more teen pregnancies. And some of the shame traditions can spill onto those who think they're pretty free of them.

    Years ago I heard an anthropology prof, Carol Vance, give a talk and slideshow on the Meese Commission hearings in the 80s, which she attended. It was fascinating. At one point, the 'opposition' was going to present a happily-married couple who could testify about their positive experiences with porn – but they backed out because they realized they didn't want to be publicized as porn users. Despite their own experiences, they were worried about the stigma. It definitely can depend on one's circles, and there's the issue of the private vs. the public. But Americans can act more prudish than their actual values because of how they think others think and will judge them. In the same vein, they claim they go to church and read the Bible more than they do, and claim they drink less and watch less porn than they do. (Oh, the social sciences provide some fun research!) And remember the freakout over Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders' comments on masturbation?

    Per Spaghetti Lee's comment, as always, consent and choice are key – ridiculing someone who's content not being sexual isn't cool anymore than "slut-shaming" is. The thing is with someone like K-Lo, where even some of the National Review writers mock her for trying to make friends at work, is she seems to be very unhappy. And she's decidedly not content within herself; she wants to inflict her messed-up authoritarianism on everybody else. There's plenty there to pity, but the theocratic and forced-birth movements still need to be opposed. Here's to "pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence." (Sorta like the culture wars, just enjoying some of the good things in life strikes a blow for freedom, eh, comrades?)

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  20. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:10 AM

    It does seem like the way people here and elsewhere talk sometimes, every right-wing hang-up is based on how they didn't have sex in high school and it's made them bitter and angry

    I've never really read the "anti-sex league" like that. I've always believed that most of them have outré sexual desires (like sex with mules and watermelons) which they find simultaneously alluring and horrifying and project those desires on everyone. It's always projection! Therefore, we have a moral scold like Rick Santorum decrying mutually consenting same-sex relationships because it makes him think of literally screwing the pooch

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  21. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:12 AM

    In the same vein, we have Maggie Gallagher, unwed single mother who is fighting to "save" marriage from gay people. She wants you to pay for her mistakes.

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  22. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:14 AM

    There seems to be a real fear among the wingnuts that if people of any gender and persuasion are allowed the free and open exercise of their sexuality and with it the responsibility both to respect others' sexual agency and to deal with their own, then their mojo will vanish. Whether the anticipated end result is the conquest of America by Islamofascism or a full-blown apocalypse
    Islamofascism will sneak into America through the back door.

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  23. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard2:16 AM

    We stuff ourselves with junk because we're not stuffing someone with our junk!

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  24. Odder2:29 AM

    If pleasure is normalized, only normals will have pleasure. That's why I always roll concealed-fairy.

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  25. Odder2:39 AM

    Speaking in a jocularly inclusive yet resolutely heterosexual mode, of course. So far. Just keep Johnny Depp away from me and I'll be fine.

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  26. Frankly, a lot of what you're talking about is due to cheap gags. Sexuality is easy to joke about, especially when the targets are perceived as being "repressed" in some way. And yes, it does come across as a fixation, but that's society as much as anything.


    Aside from that, though, I think there's a tendency within liberalism to elevate that which is denigrated within conservatism. Once social conservatives took up the mantle of sexual purity, there was a certain subset of the left that sought to turn sexual libertinism into a sort of sacrament. It's the same group of "non-judgmental" types who do look down on people who enjoy, say, fast food and car shows, who cast such people as "white trash" and dismiss them out of hand.


    It's more a matter of culture than politics, though, as I've seen similar behavior among non-political subgroups that are obsessed with inclusion. Once you make a big point of "rejecting rejection," it becomes surprisingly easy to judge those who fall outside of the group as ignorant. Ironic, but true.

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  27. Haystack4:05 AM

    I've heard keeping a bag of Cheetohs nearby helps break up the repetitive strain.

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  28. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard5:49 AM

    How about putting the "putain" in "poutine", if you want to mix sex and tubers... Oddly enough, the U.S. "erotic potato" winner was Larry Craig, but he lost first prize to the UK contestant.

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  29. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard5:53 AM

    Because it reminds one of Doughbob and removes any "urge"?

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  30. Sorry you've felt a bit of collateral damage from the funsies aimed at the fundies. As a generational southerner, I've also been the victim of friendly fire, so I definitely get where you're coming from about choice of pleasures.

    That said, sex is fundamentally different from eating junk food. Although they absolutely have narrow blinders on, the fundies are correct in that sex has been the vital element in procreation, it has been generally heterosexual, and it has a biological imperative common to practically all life forms on Earth. Because of this, the control of sex and who can have sex with whom has been the biggest tool of authoritarians throughout human history. In my humble opinion, even more often used than religion. (You can have sexual control without including religion, but you cannot have religious control without controlling sex.)

    Sex, or more precisely, sexual traditions and taboos, are very, very central to the development and governance of society. One might argue it is pretty much the root reason for anyone doing pretty much anything--it goes to the core of the human condition: domination, survival of the self, survival of the species, security of the group, and so on.

    As Gandhi once said to a cabbie, "Who controls the sex, controls the universe."

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  31. "Now we see folks turning this approach to conditions no one considered public health issues before -- obesity, for example. Because our general fatty-fat-fatness doesn't look like cholera, and can't be fixed by replacing the town water pump, we are slow to identify it as disease."

    Do you want to start a blog-war with lawyers, gun and money?

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  32. What do you expect of town named after a homo?

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  33. Sgaile-beairt7:38 AM

    OT but you might be interested to know, Kim du toit is back out there, commenting, on the blog of a writer even more bonkers than he, as discussed here.....

    http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4137255.html?thread=77731367#t77731367

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  34. Halloween_Jack7:42 AM

    More like with Paul Campos specifically, who's already been called out in comments there for (among other things) implying that he's more of a feminist than Lindsay Beyerstein. Paul likes to get on his hobby horses and doesn't seem to know when to get off.

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  35. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard7:50 AM

    Although they absolutely have narrow blinders on, the fundies are correct in that sex has been the vital element in procreation; it has been generally heterosexual; and it has a biological imperative common to practically all life forms on Earth

    Considering the fact that the majority of life on the planet consists of microorganisms that reproduce by fission, the pedant in me wants to take you to task for your "animal/plant/fungi" bias, but your last sentence convinces me to eschew pedantry.

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  36. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard7:54 AM

    Uh, the pedant's pedant in me wants to take myself to task for not pointing out that asexual reproduction does take place among animals, plants, and fungi, but that way lies madness.

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  37. I did lump all forms of sexual reproduction together for the admittedly simplistic point I was failing to make. I tend to presume too much, making the proverbial Pres out of U and Me. (wait...did I get that right?)

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  38. Halloween_Jack8:55 AM

    I don't know about him being less bonkers; she's just going on about how Agatha Christie and Heinlein don't get respect from liberals (about the same post you could expect from just about any Baen Books hack), but du Toit, despite his alleged financial straits, is boasting about hoarding ammo, and says that ".22 ammo isn’t ammunition, but a household staple like flour or sugar." Still crazy after all these years, in other words.

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  39. edroso8:59 AM

    Du Toit discussing modernism with Sarah Hoyt! It's like Hell's own podcast.

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  40. I'm not sure how well you can track sexual satisfaction in the
    aggregate, short of a Masters and Johnson version of Nielsen Ratings or a
    test panel made of these.


    This is the greatest country in the history of the universe! Shirley we can come up with something...

    http://www.amazon.com/Hutzler-5717-571-Banana-Slicer/dp/B0047E0EII/?tag=eschaton-20


    (Check the product reviews, and don't forget to tip your watron.)
    ~

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  41. BigHank539:22 AM

    Denigrating things your opponent likes is simple tribalism: a quick and dirty method of enforcing in-group status. After the Cuban Revolution, jazz clubs were forced to close: jazz music is inherently bourgeois. It's just another flavor of authoritarianism.


    This isn't to say that one shouldn't examine what your opponents approve of. For example, back before the 2000 primaries I learned that Maverick McCain's voting record had a 100% approval rating from both the Cristian Coalition and Focus on the Family, and I realized I could safely ignore whatever nonsense came out of his pie-hole: he was going to be a hard-line conservative.

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  42. Aimai9:33 AM

    Yeah. Being called out by campos as an anti fatty feminazi whose grandfather would be ashamed of her is why I gave up reading and posting there. Campos is nearly certifiable on this one point. I mean, I found him unreadable on a bunch of things but on fat and/ or health issues he is actually kind of abusive. I found his attitude towards me and anyone else he designates as an enemy on this topic disturbing. Having a different opinion on weight issues in America--is it really the moral equivalent of supporting pedophile cannibalism?

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  43. Aimai9:35 AM

    Love you bbbb

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  44. Halloween_Jack9:46 AM

    Better than Play-Doh and bacon, tell you what.

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  45. The Dark Avenger10:05 AM

    Campos doesn't deal with the problem that is also part of the obesity epidemic, that is the lack of exercise in the American lifestyle.

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  46. Duncan195110:24 AM

    Balderdash. Sex (and ever more, reproduction) has always been a commodity. Read yer Bible, look at the history of marriage. It's the idea that it isn't a commodity that's universally weird.

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  47. Rugosa10:29 AM

    Even bacteria, although they reproduce asexually, exchange genes.

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  48. OK, now y'all are in *my* wheelhouse--the reason sex is controlled, and has always been controlled, is that since the dawn of time children have either been a burden (when we were nomads) or a work force (once we became agriculturalists). When family labor is the first form of labor then who gets to build their own labor force, and how the labor force is controlled, is going to be the main focus of social organization. The first little kingdoms, in a sense, were patriarchies and the first serfs were junior men, women, and children.


    In the modern era, post feminism, consensual sex, companionate marriage (or refusal to marry), sex without reproduction and small families are all a kind of rebuke to the hierarchical, authoritarian, patriarchal family which--coincidentally--has also lost its economic function. You still see families in which children and children's labor or their produtive value (in the form of child tax credits or SSI) are exploited by parents (fathers and mothers but especially mothers) and you still see families in which control over the lives of adult children and grandchildren are the only payoff for a lifetime of meaningless work or self repression. Its the families of people who were forced to get married early because of unintended pregnancies and the families of people who had to suppress their own heteronormative sexual identities who are most determined that everyone else should pay for their suffering.


    That being said sexual licence, serial monogamy, and other out of control pleasures like sex addiction, drug addiction, alcoholism can be both a form of rebellion and a new slavery for people. Humans, like animals, are wired for pleasure but anything can be overdone.


    aimai

    aimai

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  49. And have a hell of a time doing it, or so *they* say.

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  50. That's better than when sex just... burns.

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  51. Origami_Isopod11:52 AM

    Could you elaborate? I grew up in the '70s. While there was certainly the backlash written about by Faludi, ISTM that the most serious period of regression has been over the last decade or so. (For women, that is. For GLBT people things seem to have been steadily getting better, though improvement is still needed.)

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  52. Origami_Isopod12:17 PM

    Yeast Infection City.

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  53. Origami_Isopod12:32 PM

    Too many anti-obesity regulations seem oblivious to issues of socioeconomic class. This thread from last summer about Bloomberg's ban on extra-large sodas in some places provides a lot of good arguments. Venti frappuccinos and similarly expensive drinks are exempt, because lawyers and hipsters need their caffeine-and-sugar boost. It's more cost-effective to buy a 32-oz. bottle than two 16-oz. bottles, and if you're really struggling, that small change can make a big difference. (It also means less plastic manufactured, meaning less environmental impact.) There doesn't seem to be much interest in regulating HFCS or in subsidizing healthier -- and more expensive -- foods. And, when you're poor and stressed out, you can't afford healthy luxuries to help you cope, so what do you do? You buy the cheap ones.

    Also...I don't want to drag last week's LG&M shitfest here, but, yes, our society is hella shaming if you're fat, especially if you're a woman. The stress and low self-esteem that result are not good for one's health, either.



    I'm not entirely on board with Campos, in that I think he gives short shrift to quality-of-life issues, but I think he's correct in that it would be better to enable everybody to eat more healthily and to be more active, regardless of body type. Consider reed-thin teenagers with volcano-like metabolisms; they're going to need to lay down good habits now so that they can cope with metabolic slowdown as they age. I'd love to see gym classes that teach kids of all body types to enjoy movement, not glorify athleticism and turn fat kids off of exercise for life. Et cetera.



    /$0.02

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  54. Origami_Isopod12:47 PM

    Great comment.


    Sex is certainly political, for reasons described by Cole and especially Aimai. I think what you're getting at is people assuming that the personal is all there is to the political. I'd ascribe that to how U.S. society has become less collective and more individualistic over the last 40 years or so, which has both upsides and downsides.

    I see a lot of discussion of asexuality on the 'nets these days. It's not impossible that some of the people who describe themselves as asexual have various issues that are getting in the way of sexual satisfaction, but there are others who, clearly, are just not interested in sex. I don't see a problem with this, but other people seem unable to wrap their heads around it, and some find it downright threatening.

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  55. Origami_Isopod12:53 PM

    See also this.

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  56. Another Kiwi1:13 PM

    Have a care Sir, The Love Boat was actually pretty hetero!

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  57. Origami_Isopod1:17 PM

    The good captain's name was Stubing, not Steuben.

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  58. Origami_Isopod1:19 PM

    s/"sex"/"women". It's only sex from the het male point of view that's been commodified.

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  59. Origami_Isopod1:21 PM

    I'd like to make a date with this comment for Man Love Thursday.

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  60. Another Kiwi1:21 PM

    This is why I failed Sit-com 101.

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  61. Or as the British call it, "bangers and mash."

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  62. which finds Vermont, Connecticut, and New Hampshire the most sexually healthy states


    Booyeah! In your faces, everyone else!


    Wait, that didn't come out right ... Uh, I mean ... Oh, fuck it.

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  63. aimai2:20 PM

    "Oh, fuck it?" What, do you come from Vermont, Ct. or New Hampshire?

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  64. aimai2:27 PM

    I guess what I remember thinking at the time about Campos's approach is that it is just as punitive and angry and shaming as anyone else's--just that he's arrogated to himself the right to determine who gets attacked. People are obese. People do have extremely unhealthy, stressful, junk food filled lives just as they have unhealthy, stressful, alcohol and drug filled lives. It ought to be obvious to anyone that people are self medicating through food *and dieting* and that the body is not really very elastic--we should be no more surprised that people can't easily take off weight once gained than we are that people who stop smoking still get cancer. But having said that we don't say that Cancer isn't a problem. Its not a moral issue, true, but there remain, epidimeologically speaking, things individuals and communities can do to reduce their risk of life threatening obesity in younger and younger children and/or in their population as a whole.


    Dealing with walkability, car culture, subsidization of HFCS, poor school meals, more gym classes, free dance classes, density of buildings, fighting suburban sprawl, mandatory rest periods in factories, free and reduced cost health care, wellness programs, education about nutrition and stress--these are all things we can and should be doing for all our population not just for/because of obese people. But Campos tends to see all discussions of these things as part of fat shaming instead of part of real world concerns about real world people's health.


    The more we know about fat and the body the more we know that modern lifestlyes are geared towards creating extremely fat people who are progressively unable to excercise. While there are no clear health/death risks for people in their middle years you really can't tell me that its not horibly debilitating to a child to have diabetes or for an eldelry person to deal with carrying an extra 50-200 pounds around on a five foot frame. There is a problem. Campos's insistence on manspaining to all us women (and, in my case, mother of an overweight girl) about how we are some kind of race traitors for trying to deal with fat issues sanely is as insulting as any other kind of fanatic pushing his childhood trauma on your practical issue. Sometimes I just want to ask him what frightened his granny in the woodshed?


    aimai

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  65. If everybody had access to sex without "coercion, discrimination and violence", how would conservatives ever get off?

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  66. smut clyde2:36 PM

    I would be very sad if Agatha Christie was taken over as a marker of right-wing identity.

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  67. smut clyde2:37 PM

    Also on the menu: Toad-in-the-Hole.

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  68. Do I ever.

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  69. smut clyde2:52 PM

    Plenty of room for pedantry with fungus multi-gendered reproduction.

    http://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2010/06/02/a-fungus-walks-into-a-singles-bar/

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  70. The Dark Avenger2:52 PM

    The other thing is that recent research has demonstrated that you don't have to start training for a marathon in order to have an effective exercise regime. The benefits appear to kick in at 150 minutes a week, which translates to 20 something minutes a day on average, walking or light exercise is all that one has to do.

    It's a pity that he's nutty on the subject.

    Here's a review of his book about the Obesity Myth.

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  71. Tom M3:59 PM

    One of the things about ancient Ireland to be most regretted in its absence is the matriarchal society that existed then. See the Tain Bo tale of Cuchulain.
    The Vikings, Normans and especially the English, with a heaping helping from St. Patrick (all 3 of him) messed up a really good thing.
    Is there a place on earth that English providentialism hasn't fucked? I mean that in a partly nonsexual way.

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  72. Sgaile-beairt6:39 PM

    yes. Yes it is.

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  73. Sgaile-beairt6:39 PM

    its kind of a cumulative thing....james nicoll s been featuring her from time to time & the stupid, it burns like 1000s of tiny suns....kind of the mcardle of genre there, where dutoit is, well, the OTT mra gold standard, guess they just go well together!!

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  74. Sgaile-beairt7:24 PM

    they will (try to) take over anything popular, the only way to stop them is to threaten, with the copyright cops.

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  75. Irrelephant1:45 PM

    I can only respond with this oldish but classic cartoon.

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  76. TheSailor3:19 PM

    I would think the palsy might help with the self gratification.
    (And yes, I do know I'm going to hell.;-)

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