My column this week chuckles a bit at a Republican senator's Chief of staff, who told an audience that "pornography makes you gay" and was not kidding. Whatever your thoughts about pornography, surely you'll agree that it's a kind of goofy thing to suggest. But it's just one more strange piece of the puzzle that is Americans' attitudes toward sex in general. Sorting out the Puritan heritage of shame from the capitalist efforts to commodify the body can be difficult for anyone (even a highly placed Republican staffer, I suppose):
Derisive news outlets jumped with relish onto the statements of Sen. Tom Coburn's chief of staff Michael Schwartz who, taking his lead from the sexual insecurity of ten-year old boys, declared that, "All pornography is homosexual pornography, because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards" and the best way to scare boys away from it was to tell them that porn makes you gay: "if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants!"
You have to admire a man so focused on time management that he wants to instill homophobia and body shame all in the same moment [you can watch his earnest declaration on YouTube].
Read the rest over at BitchBuzz.
5 comments:
As Jon Stewart was quick to note, what's the one thing a backward young boy dislikes more than homosexuality? Girls.
One way or another, however, porn will make you sleepy.
LOL -- I need to catch up on my Daily Show watching! I guess you're not too sleepy to watch Jon Stewart ;-)
Ah, well, one has to take in Something other than porn, at least for an hour or so as a libido cleanser. (Actually, of late I mostly listen to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert the next day at work via Hulu or the Comedy Central sites.)
I haven't seen either in ages, a combination of busyness and not getting the channel. I only pop over and watch bits when somebody posts a link on Facebook.
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