All Worked Up About Dirty Laundry
by J.T. Benjamin

Sheesh! Take one month off and the excrement really slams into the rotary cooling device! So many topics!

For the past two months, I’ve been scanning the net, printing articles, taking notes, and muttering to myself about the current state of affairs. "Oooh, that’s a good one! That’ll make a great column! No, wait! This is better! I’ll do this one first! Hold on! This one’s even better! No, I’ll do this one first! No, this one! Aaarrrgggh!"

In some good news, the FDA has approved that vaccine for cervical cancer I ranted about a few months ago, the one that the Family Research Council actually disapproved of because it might encourage unmarried woman to go ahead and have sex. To their credit, the FRC kept their big mouths shut as the FDA’s news was announced, which just goes to show they’re not stupid assholes. Just assholes.

The Federal Communications Commission has multiplied obscenity fines by a factor of ten, making sure broadcast America is made even more safe from Janet Jackson’s nipples.

According to the Harvard School of Public Health, most young people who take "virginity" pledges to stay celibate until marriage actually break those pledges and even deny having taken them in the first place. In other news, more studies have been released showing that abstinence-only sex ed seems to actually encourage more teen sex, more unprotected teen sex, and more teen pregnancies than conventional sex ed programs.

A woman, Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, was chosen to head the U.S. Episcopalian Church and she promptly did a very un-religious-leader type thing by stating on the record that homosexuality isn’t a sin. Supposedly, Pat Robertson is scrambling to get Bishop Jefferts Schori baptized in his church just so he can excommunicate her.

Thirty-three years after the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental disorder, it turns out the Pentagon didn’t get the memo, still equating being gay with mental retardation.

The U.S. Senate decided that the crappy economy, the huge budget and trade deficits, global warming, the Iraq debacle and Congressional corruption scandals aren’t the most pressing issues facing America today. No, the Senate’s top priority these past two months was yet another attempt to ban gay marriages by amending the Constitution. The measure got one fewer vote than it did last time, and Senate Republicans all but admitted they were trying to whore themselves out to their Holy Terror base of voters. They’re still claiming homosexuality is anti-Bible, but hypocrisy has been given the green light.

And speaking of hypocrites, Mary Cheney, the admittedly lesbian daughter of our erstwhile Vice-President, published a book called, "Now It’s My Turn." In the book, she lambastes John Kerry and John Edwards for making her sexual orientation an issue during the 2004 Presidential campaign. How dare they credit the Cheney family for being tolerant and understanding instead of scrambling to shove her back into the closet?

Not to mention all the other times the Powers That Be and their pimps, the Holy Terrors, have made war against all things fun about sex in the past couple of months; the homophobic statements, the legislative measures to ban contraceptives, sex ed, and anything remotely explicit or even risqué when it comes to sexually oriented writings, music or images.

And oh, yeah! Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had their baby, hanging out in Namibia for the last month of Angelina’s pregnancy, relatively free from the prying eyes of the papparazi. I really don’t give a whit about this one, except I’m amazed that 1) "Brangelina" had to flee to another CONTINENT to escape the media’s attention and 2) the story was STILL the biggest news of the past two months.

Whew! Where to begin? So much to rant about, so little time.

I suppose the place to start is actually bringing things around full circle; back to President Bill and New York Senator Hillary Clinton. In May, Patrick Healy wrote a front-page article for the New York Times that speculated on the state of the Clintons marriage. Healy’s article reads like it belongs more in the New York Post or the National Enquirer than the Times, counting how many days these two busy people spend together in a month, and quoting several anonymous sources. This isn’t just a puff piece trying to take space away from the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie baby watch. The article was a warning shot across the bow of Senator Hillary Clinton’s hopes for re-election this fall, and for her possible Presidential aspirations in 2008. The mainstream media is serving notice that once again, Bill and Hillary’s private life will be fair game for the punditocracy to pounce upon like a pack of hyenas on a wounded zebra.

I’d normally respond to all this hyper-intense examination of the Clintons’ sex life with my usual mantra; Mind Your Own Business. However, the Mainstream Media’s response to my response is the same as the one they gave to Brad and Angelina’s request for privacy as they awaited the birth of their daughter.

Yeah, right! Respect your privacy? Suuuuuure we will!"

(Damn! That’s the third reference I’ve made to Brangelina in four paragraphs. I guess it was a big story).

I’ve therefore decided to take a different tack. Simply put, why should the Clintons have all the fun? If our elected officials feel it necessary to legislate their way into Americans' bedrooms, they should be prepared to be subject to the same examination of their own sex lives. After all, politicians have to be ready to make financial and ethical disclosures, why not make sexual disclosures as well?

I propose that we ask our elected officials and candidates for public office a simple ten point questionnaire. After all, we need to ensure that our leaders are fine, morally upright individuals if they’re going to run the country. Dear (Fill in the name of your favorite candidate here)

1. Have you ever engaged in pre-marital sex? Or do you subscribe to the old saw, "It’s not pre-marital sex if you don’t plan to get married?"

2. Have you ever used birth control?

3. Have you ever committed sodomy? (either heterosexual or homosexual anal or oral sex)

4. How many times have you masturbated in, oh…the last ten years? The last ten minutes?

5. Have you ever committed adultery? (sex with someone other than your spouse OR simply looked at a woman to lust after her, according to Matthew 5:27-32)

6. Have you ever been divorced or married a divorced person? (That's adultery too, according to Matthew).

7. Have you ever read or viewed pornographic materials? Got a Playboy magazine stashed in your desk? Ever read Henry Miller or D.H. Lawrence? Do you get Cinemax and/or pay-per-view softcore porn? Got your cable bill handy? Can we take a look at the bookmarks on your computers?

8. Have you ever used sex toys? Vibrators? Lubricants? Velvet-lined handcuffs? Scented candles?

9. Have you ever indulged in other "deviant" sexual behavior including but not limited to BDSM, spanking, master/slave games, role-playing, watersports, threesomes, swinging and/or voyeurism?

10. Please provide a complete history of your sexual partners, including frequency of sex acts, number of orgasms, length of foreplay, and positions used.

I’m REALLY looking forward to the Republicans’ answers to Numbers 5 and 6. Washington Monthly writer Steven Benen has pointed out that no fewer than three possible GOP candidates for President (John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich) have actually ADMITTED breaking the Seventh Commandment. Hell, Newt got busted back while he was actually in the middle of impeaching President Clinton.

Ideally, the politicians will make these disclosures honestly and forthrightly and show themselves not to be the homophobic, pandering, hypocrictical whores of the Religious Right they seem to be. More likely, they'll do the same thing they did when the FBI raided Congressman William Jefferson's office and simply have a shitfit.

How about it, Congressman/Senator/Governor? Shall we fight dirty laundry with dirty laundry, or is this more a case of MYOB?

I thought so.

J.T. Benjamin
July 2006
jtbenjamin.blogspot

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"All Worked Up" © 2006 J.T. Benjamin. All rights reserved.

About the Author:  J.T.Benjamin says, "I'm a generalist. I write about what interests me, which is just about everything." His resume reflects the diversity of his interests. He's been a disk jockey, insurance salesman, private investigator, journalist, college professor, child advocate, political activist, truckdriver, thief,...doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief. He's currently trying to start a hippie commune in the Denver/Boulder area.
Email:  J.T. Benjamin

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