Meanwhile… a prominent homophobe has been caught returning from a European vacation with a male sex worker, hired from RentBoy.com [link is to the site's statement on the outing]. The outed homophobe claims he was just trying to share the “good news of Jesus Christ” with [...]]]> And, happy birthday to the Pill! Here’s Loretta Lynn’s ode.

Meanwhile… a prominent homophobe has been caught returning from a European vacation with a male sex worker, hired from RentBoy.com [link is to the site's statement on the outing]. The outed homophobe claims he was just trying to share the “good news of Jesus Christ” with the sex worker. [A second sex worker has come out saying he, ah, performed services for Rekers.] This is especially hilarious in light of just who this homophobe is–not a garden variety preacher or “family values” politician, but George Rekers, a founder of the Family Research Council and member of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. Rekers has received government money to defend anti-gay Florida adoption laws–and was so homophobic they didn’t even accept his testimony. Rekers also preaches the usual sex-negative crap to teens on his site.

Why does it seem closeted gays are the main ones spearheading homophobic movements? Rachel Maddow also has a response:

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It’s quite plain, all in all: gayness can’t be “cured,” and we shouldn’t wish for a cure anyway; sexual shaming just can’t always overcome human nature; and, frankly, the sex-negative are people who’ve internalized the sexual shaming.

Meanwhile, homophobia still gets prominent play in Uganda.

One of the worst symptoms of sex-negativity is its pretense that women are simply less sexual than men–and, usually, religious sex-addiction programs are designed for men. However, some are “ministering” to “sex-addicted” women. Excerpt:

To the wide array of programs offered by evangelical megachurches like Westside, the group adds what Ms. Renaud says is something long overdue. While churches have addressed pornography use among the men in their congregations and among the clergy, a group for women who say they are addicted to pornography is new territory, she said.

“In the Christian culture, women are supposed to be the nonsexual ones,” said Ms. Renaud, who also runs an Internet site called Dirty Girls Ministries, choosing the name to attract people searching for pornography. “It’s an injustice that the church is not more open about physical sexuality. God created sex. But the enemy has twisted it.”

Ms. Renaud, who is taking a DVD course in sexual addiction counseling from the American Association of Christian Counselors, said she started the group and the Web site based on her own experiences. She became interested in pornography at age 10 after finding a magazine in her brother’s bathroom. After that, she said, “I wasn’t able to get enough of it.”

“At school I wanted to go home and look at it more,” she said. “Then I went online. I’d stay late at the library to look at it. Eventually I got into masturbation, phone sex, cybersex.” She also cracked the code on the family’s satellite television service, she said. “That was my life for eight years.” Then, she said, she met a Christian woman who helped her stop.

It is profoundly sad to us to see women taught that their desires are “addictions”–look at some what some of the women in the group had to say:

Michele L. H., 27, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used out of respect for her husband and son, said Ms. Renaud’s group had helped her stay in her marriage. When she was young, she said, relatives sexually abused her and made her look at pornography as instruction in how to behave. As an adult she needed pornography to be aroused with her husband, she said.

“I’m learning the correct way of intimacy and bonds,” she said of the group. “It’s learning what your spouse wants, his needs.” In her first weeks, she recalled, she struggled to avoid masturbation.

…

Kelsie, the 17-year-old, also agreed to speak on the condition that her full name not be used. She said that she had been taught secular views about masturbation, but that Ms. Renaud’s way made more sense.

She added: “You have to take into consideration what’s best for the one you’re going to be with. Say someday I’m married and my husband can’t please me as much as I please myself. That’d be terrible.”

The very real issue of abuse for Michele is plainly left untreated, while Kelsie has been so brainwashed she thinks it would be “terrible” to get more pleasure out of masturbation than sex. Too bad if she’s one of those many women who don’t orgasm from intercourse, huh? Here’s some description of the graduation ceremony:

For the graduation ceremony, Ms. Renaud passed out balloons and asked the group to write down the things they were giving up. Out came the bad stuff: Porn, Masturbation, Lustful Thinking, Cutting, Feeling Useless, Dad’s Bad Choices, Self-Gratification, Self-Mutilation, Unhealthy Thoughts.

Think about that, dear readers–masturbation and lustful thinking are equated with self-mutilation, “Dad’s Bad Choices,” and unhealthy thoughts. This is the worldview trying to ban porn from brick-and-mortar stores and healthy sex ed from schools. It is not harmless.

Anyway… a new study shows many women are easily aroused, too, and enjoy hooking up.

The ACLU says our own EMW is one of the most-harrassed abortion clinics in the country. Your intrepid Webmistress went down last Saturday, and between being another friendly face for the patients, was told she had a “cold dead atheist heart” like the other “Deathscorts” by this high-volume sermonizing anti-choicer, John Heuglin of New Bethel Church [who, according to his other YouTube videos, doesn't believe in evolution, either--how surprising], and was screamed at in the face by multiple protesters. I also heard a couple sermons, a Mass, plus arguments from one idiot about how archaeology can’t disprove the Bible and the usual “You’re going to hell, God will judge you” nonsense. Immanuel Baptist is another significant fundie presence, seeming to be behind the “life escort” vests, designed to be confused with the “clinic escort” vests.

All in all, the usual hate, judgmentalness, and lies one expects from the sex-negative.

A new Guttmacher study says abortion has become more concentrated among low-income women.

Hm… do “family values” weaken families? Yes!

Oh, look: another deluded parent stealing a library book so the precious children won’t be corrupted. ROCK likes this tactic; what book is next? What encyclopedia content?

Make your gay relationship [or gay-friendliness] known in the Census.

The Obama administration has now banned bias over gender identity.

About the Prop 8 lawsuit, which will be televised.

New Jersey rejected gay marriage [...]]]> The Courier-Journal drama with Archbishop Kurtz continues to unfold in reader letters, more reader letters, and even more reader letters. And the comments were many.

Make your gay relationship [or gay-friendliness] known in the Census.

The Obama administration has now banned bias over gender identity.

About the Prop 8 lawsuit, which will be televised.

New Jersey rejected gay marriage this week, but the whole country of Portugal legalized it.

The Kill the Gays Bill saga in Uganda gained publicity when the New York Times covered it. More here, and about how evangelicals are trying to distance themselves here. Frankly, this should become the PR disaster for evangelicals that pedophile priests were for the Catholic church.

The AIDS/HIV travel ban has finally been lifted.

The sex addiction model isn’t harmless.

Revisiting purity balls, and yes, they’re still creepy and awful. And a new poll says most parents think their kids are “model citizens.”

Absurd: carrying three condoms in DC could get you arrested for prostitution.

A new study says guilt may lower women’s sex drives. Meanwhile, Amplify points out that when sex is normal, normal people talk about sex.

Did you know some of Toronto’s mental health professionals are painfully sex-negative? Kenneth Zucker is leading the transphobic wing of psychiatry, and the definition of paraphilia may expand so much that everyone is included.

January is Cervical Health Awareness Month.

Why do we forget that abortion is a fundamental right? Here’s Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards on reproductive justice around the world.

At our own EMW Women’s Clinic, the anti-choice protesters are now wearing orange “life escort” vests. Also picked up on Feministing.

Guess what? Abby Johnson , the former Planned Parenthood employee scared anti-choice by watching an abortion, is a big LIAR.

Catholic bishops have embraced anti-choice terrorists.

No shit: study says more frequent sex increases chance of pregnancy. Another study reminds us that sex is good for your health.

Alan Moore has just released a paean to erotic history.

Remember how no federal dollars can go to abortion? This includes military hospitals. More here.

Takes on the [necessary for the 60th vote] abortion clause in the healthcare bill from Feministe, Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards, Cynthia Nixon, and a participant in the National Day of Action opposing Stupak-Pitts. Unsurprisingly on all [...]]]> … and it’s a big one.

Remember how no federal dollars can go to abortion? This includes military hospitals. More here.

Takes on the [necessary for the 60th vote] abortion clause in the healthcare bill from Feministe, Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards, Cynthia Nixon, and a participant in the National Day of Action opposing Stupak-Pitts. Unsurprisingly on all fronts, the bill limits abortions where they are most common—red states. Speaking of red state nonsensicality, Chuck Norris thinks that if the Virgin Mary had abortion access, Jesus would have never been born. *headdesk* is about all we can say for that one. Also, what about healthcare reform’s impact on STI diagnosis?

And here’s a guide to discussing healthcare reform and reproductive rights. Updated guide here.

On the lie of “pro-life” and anti-choicers’ sensitive consciences.

Update on Oklahoma abortion rights. More here.

Hillary Clinton affirms US stance FOR reproductive health. Meanwhile, Spain is making progress. Lastly in the abortion section, something cool: a pro-choice license plate in Virginia!

Embarrassingly, Louisville’s Archbishop Kurtz is fighting hard against gay rights. Courier editorial here, letters to the editor here, and political cartoon here [all have comments, some of which are true reminders of the red state in which we live]. Meanwhile, more churches threaten to cut homeless charity to stand tall for homophobia. Disgusting.

The NY Times profiled the evangelical “big thinker”, Robert P. George. We’d feel bad for someone so sexually repressed if he weren’t working so hard to make sure everyone else is. George’s bullshit debunked here.

Happily, Mexico City is moving to legalize gay marriage, but elsewhere around the world gay rights continue to be horrifyingly nonexistent. Here’s a story about a Ugandan lesbian fighting back against the Kill the Gays Bill.

The awesome poster for season two of RuPaul’s drag race:

Did you know there’s a National Porn Sunday? We bet it was nice and sex-negative.

Dealing with porn in relationships, and from a feminist stance.

Fun: design NYC condom wrappers!

This week saw the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. More here. Over in India, a male movement seeks to save lady sex workers by marrying them.

A provocative church-sponsored ad in New Zealand.

Is sex addiction real? We tend to think anything in life can be abused, sex included, and real treatment gets at the underlying problem. Here’s the story of a man fresh from Dr. Drew’s sex rehab show.

A new study says sexting isn’t that common, while another says casual sex won’t ruin your life. Big surprise…

Fetish art objects, and ballistic duck penises. Duck genitals are more interesting than you think!

Lastly, something optimistic: we are making progress, and we’ll probably win the war… it’s just taking longer than we’d like, is all.

A silly guest blog post about recognizing sex addicts at work. Hard to say where the statistics cited are pulled from. [...]]]> A sex-negative organization likens porn to cigarette smoking and asks Olmsted, MN hotels not to offer adult movies. Thankfully Professor Eli Coleman reminds us that porn has never been linked to rape or violent behavior.

A silly guest blog post about recognizing sex addicts at work. Hard to say where the statistics cited are pulled from. It’s also worth asking what other reasons one might have for workplace porn consumption—is something preventing porn consumption at home?

Candie’s has launched an “Abstinence is Sexy” campaign. Unsurprisingly, it is slut-shaming and heteronormative.

New scientific study shows that women tend to underestimate their bosses’ opinion of their work.

Why ignore misogyny?, a post at Feministing. Has some important thoughts on the killer George Sodini and the culture that bred him.

New Gallup poll shows Americans are evenly split on abortion.

Scientists are at work on a new “molecular” condom that will reduce HIV/AIDS transmission.