We question the denouncement of Weiner, speculate about the nature of the "arrangement" or "understanding" between Huma and Anthony (and Bill and Hillary), and compare the wrongness of sexting to pornography, adultery, and prostitution:
Showing posts with label prostitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prostitution. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 August 2013
Monday, 29 July 2013
"Then how about this caption: 'Staci Zaretsky — get a sex-change operation already. You're embarrassing the rest of us!'"
Wow! What a sexist screwup at Above the Law.
I noticed that today, as Zaretsky had to deem somebody the winner of what was an embarrassing-from-the-start caption contest. Here's the photo that was supposed to inspire hilarity:
This reminds me of the blind judging I did back in 2008, when Above the Law had a contest to determine who would replace David Lat as the chief writer at the blog. I criticized one contestant for racism, and the contestant — Elie Mystal, who won — turned out to be black. He thought I'd be embarrassed to have said that, because ha ha he's black:
Wow! What a sexist screwup at Above the Law.
I noticed that today, as Zaretsky had to deem somebody the winner of what was an embarrassing-from-the-start caption contest. Here's the photo that was supposed to inspire hilarity:
This reminds me of the blind judging I did back in 2008, when Above the Law had a contest to determine who would replace David Lat as the chief writer at the blog. I criticized one contestant for racism, and the contestant — Elie Mystal, who won — turned out to be black. He thought I'd be embarrassed to have said that, because ha ha he's black:
I’m male. I’m liberal. I’m Catholic (of the “a la carte” variety). I believe in evolution and global warming. I’m happily married. I’m African-American (Althouse. “Racism alert.” What does that even mean? Go jump in a Great Lake)....Note the similar defense made by Staci Zaretsky, in her apology here:
Old stereotypes persist within the legal profession, and as Above the Law’s sole female editor, even I am guilty of propagating them, for which I sincerely apologize (some of the resulting entries in our recent caption contest were despicable)....
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
I asked in yesterday's post about about "The developing status of sexual surrogates for the disabled, as part of a right to health and well-being." Reader MDT (who can email me if she wants her full name on the front page) writes:
But this is a problem with all "positive rights." If you have a right to shelter, then someone else has a duty to supply you with shelter. If you have a right to food, then someone else has a duty to grow it and supply it to you. If you have a right to health care, then someone has a duty to treat you. Contrast with the rights in (say) the Bill of Rights, which are almost entirely concerned with what the government can't do to you. (The Sixth and Seventh Amendments, dealing as they do with jury trials, do involve compelling other people to act in order to secure the right.)
If there is, in crude terms, a "right to get off," I don't see how it could rationally be confined to the disabled.
Even if it were limited to people suffering from named medical conditions, erectile dysfunction is one such, and therefore Viagra, Levitra, and the like would be a patient's right. And, outside the medical sphere entirely, there are any number of people who simply find it difficult to get laid. What to do about them? More surrogates? Maybe a government-employed squadron of them?
And I agree that Hamblin's conflation of love and sex is idiotic. There are people who are physically incapable of having sex who are loved. Lots of them.
So Laetitia Rebord wants to be a blonde dominatrix. She will never be that now, whether the French Government decided to spot her a gigolo or not. That is what fantasies are for.
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
"Surrogacy involves paying a professional who engages in intimate contact (broadly defined, though certainly not always intercourse) with a patient."
The public will be drawn in with empathy for people like the young virgin Laetitia Rebord, who will be like the emaciated, elderly cancer patients who were the face of the medical marijuana movement. Once you define a category of persons who may partake of the forbidden activity, others will cadge their way into the category. It will involve so much stretching and lying that pragmatic, flexible folk will cave in and say: It would be better to legalize it for everyone.
But as long as we stay in the medical framework, as we talk about legalization, we're also talking about health insurance coverage. Will we be paying for the select group of medical marijuana users and disabled consumers of sex services? The pragmatic, flexible folk may say: All the more reason to legalize it for everyone, so that it's not a health care service, just something people with the cash are able to buy. But that step is crazy — unless your agenda all along is to legalize marijuana and prostitution — because the most sympathetic consumers are least likely to have the money to buy the product/service. What's the point of using the Laetitia Rebords of this world to leverage policy change only to leave them unable to benefit from the new policy?
That's the practical problem, in my view. I don't want to pay for prostitutes for everyone with a medical condition — obesity?! depression?! — that impedes the pursuit of sexual activity.
Oh! But I'm saying "prostitutes." Was I supposed to say "surrogates"? But why, really? More from the link — which goes to a piece by The Atlantic's health editor James Hamblin:
And why are we prompted to use the term "real love" to mean sex with someone you are in love with? I think it's because we're being lured into thinking that disabled people are denied something more than sex. They are denied love. Give them professional sex, because they are denied love and sex. They are denied a "right to health and well-being." That's supposed to make sense to you.
You're being softened up. Have you noticed... are are you so squishy for Laetitia you're too numb to tell?
In March, the French National Ethics Committee decided that sexual surrogacy was an "unethical use of the human body for commercial purposes."Anne-Marie Dickelé of the National Ethics Committee justified it to Rousselle: "The sexuality of the disabled cannot be considered a right."How can you have a right to something that would require another human being to do something with his/her body, when the other human being has a right over his/her body? I suppose you could frame it as a right against criminalizing the activities of sex service providers who restrict their business to the disabled. This reminds me of medical marijuana as a leading edge in the movement to legalize marijuana. It seems like a steppingstone to the legalization of prostitution for anyone who wants to buy it, because who will count as disabled enough for the authorization to buy what is criminalized for everyone else?
But some French people like Laetitia Rebord, who is confined to a wheelchair due to spinal muscular atrophy, are campaigning passionately against the committee's decision. She's 31, a virgin, and wants to have sex -- "In her sexual fantasies, she is a fit and impetuous blonde who dominates her male partners." As she told Rousselle, "Eventually, one has to address the issue and understand why we are demanding this. I can't move. I can't masturbate."...
As the world increasingly sees health care to be a human right -- Kathleen Sebelius and Barack Obama understand health care to be "not some earned privilege, it is a right'' -- it might seem a leap to not only fail to address sexuality in caring for people with conditions like Rousselle's, but to go the additional step of precluding them from procuring it for themselves. Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, and Germany agree.
The public will be drawn in with empathy for people like the young virgin Laetitia Rebord, who will be like the emaciated, elderly cancer patients who were the face of the medical marijuana movement. Once you define a category of persons who may partake of the forbidden activity, others will cadge their way into the category. It will involve so much stretching and lying that pragmatic, flexible folk will cave in and say: It would be better to legalize it for everyone.
But as long as we stay in the medical framework, as we talk about legalization, we're also talking about health insurance coverage. Will we be paying for the select group of medical marijuana users and disabled consumers of sex services? The pragmatic, flexible folk may say: All the more reason to legalize it for everyone, so that it's not a health care service, just something people with the cash are able to buy. But that step is crazy — unless your agenda all along is to legalize marijuana and prostitution — because the most sympathetic consumers are least likely to have the money to buy the product/service. What's the point of using the Laetitia Rebords of this world to leverage policy change only to leave them unable to benefit from the new policy?
That's the practical problem, in my view. I don't want to pay for prostitutes for everyone with a medical condition — obesity?! depression?! — that impedes the pursuit of sexual activity.
Oh! But I'm saying "prostitutes." Was I supposed to say "surrogates"? But why, really? More from the link — which goes to a piece by The Atlantic's health editor James Hamblin:
Surrogacy does not replace a loving relationship, and it should't [sic] be expected to. We don't refuse the help of a physical therapist because it won't be as good as having never gotten hit by a bus to begin with. When real love is on the table, take it. When the table is missing, or someone's axed the legs, then there are surrogates.Axed the legs... What a harsh metaphor! And right when you're trying to teach us to say "surrogate" and not "prostitution." And are prostitutes/surrogates really the alternative to "real love," deserving of the presumption that anyone who could get real love would surely go for the real love? People opt for prostitutes over real love all the time.
And why are we prompted to use the term "real love" to mean sex with someone you are in love with? I think it's because we're being lured into thinking that disabled people are denied something more than sex. They are denied love. Give them professional sex, because they are denied love and sex. They are denied a "right to health and well-being." That's supposed to make sense to you.
You're being softened up. Have you noticed... are are you so squishy for Laetitia you're too numb to tell?
Monday, 8 July 2013
“You betrayed your constituents. You abandoned your wife. You betrayed everybody!”
“This is about power. You just want power, man. If you want public service go volunteer somewhere!”
“Did you leave your black socks on?”
“This is what I look forward to — dealing with the public,” said Spitzer. “This is New York. You know when we go to a ballpark we heckle the pitcher who throws one bad pitch. We have a little bit of the heckler in each one of us. At a certain point it passes the line of decorum, but this is New York. This is politics. I’m game for it. I have skin as thick as a rhinoceros.”
A rhinoceros in black socks?
“This is about power. You just want power, man. If you want public service go volunteer somewhere!”
“Did you leave your black socks on?”
“This is what I look forward to — dealing with the public,” said Spitzer. “This is New York. You know when we go to a ballpark we heckle the pitcher who throws one bad pitch. We have a little bit of the heckler in each one of us. At a certain point it passes the line of decorum, but this is New York. This is politics. I’m game for it. I have skin as thick as a rhinoceros.”
A rhinoceros in black socks?
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