It’s not because they work (please, let’s not go there).  It’s the economy.  When a recession walks in the door, the networks hike up their skirts.  These ads would have never aired when the economy was good.  

In the past, CNN and the upper-tier cable networks, especially the news networks, consistently refused to air ads like Enzyte because they know they’re selling packaged lies.  But when advertising from established companies with legitimate products dries up, you’ve got to fill up the ad space with something.  

Enzyte is particularly savvy at using the media.  First,   they’ve made a supplement look like a drug.  Under FDA rules drug companies have to list their chemical compositions.  For example, Viagra’s got to print “Sildenafil Citrate” under its brand name, usually in parentheses.

Well, Enzyte lists their chemical composition, too.  “Suffragium Asotas.”  Only problem is, there’s no such chemical. In fact, Suffragium is Latin for “Applause.”  Perfect, for a company trying to give us a standing ovation.

You’d think there’d be stiff penalties for mounting an ad campaign of this sort.  But Enzyte isn’t a drug so the FDA can’t touch it.  

Enzyte’s marketing is brilliant.  They’re not in sleazy tabloids.  They’re in legitimate magazines like Business Week.  They’re not on raunchy TV shows like Maury Povich.  They’re on serious cable channels like CNN and MSNBC.

It’s pure genius.  While the rest of the male enhancement industry is spamming our email with big promises, Enzyte is doing what a lot of dot.commers did in the mid-nineties:  “borrowing” legitimacy from the media.  Remember all those million dollar Super Bowl ads from companies that couldn’t meet payroll?

Men have always had a preoccupation with growing a certain body part.   But it’s always been held in check by the absurdity of the proposition.  Deep down, we know we might as well try to grow our livers.  

A while ago a search engine reported that Enzyte was close to passing Viagra in its “most frequent” search logs. I wish every time a man used a search engine and typed “supplement” they’d get back a response that said, Did You Mean to Type “Swindle?”

I know that many of you can’t shake a sense of déjà vu since your vote—you know, that feeling that you’ve witnessed or been part of something before.  Certainly, your vote had an eerie metaphorical familiarity—someone standing at the doorway of a great institution, protecting it from people who shouldn’t  be there.  But if the rest seems a little fuzzy it’s probably because you’re confused about the role you played.  

See, you thought you were God’s warrior defending the institution of marriage from gay people.  But really, you were George Wallace blocking the entrance to the University of Alabama.  

In 1963, Governor George Wallace stood at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in a symbolic attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling at the school.  He used the same arguments to keep you out of school that you used to keep us out of marriage.  He used the same logic.  He even used the same language.

I’m sure many of you are looking for a way to shake that awful feeling you’ve revisited a shameful part of history.  I think there is, but it requires going further into that awful feeling, further into that history.  

As many of you know, George Wallace, one of the biggest racists who ever lived, at some point, stopped, and saw your humanity.   At some point he stopped and thought, “I have no right to take your rights away.”  At some point he stopped and said, “I’m sorry.  I was wrong.” And devoted his life to undoing his deeds.

My guess is that if you want that unsettling feeling to go away, you probably need to complete your experience of deja vu and act more like the guy who once stood in the doorway of a great institution to stop you from coming in.

Sincerely,

Everyone Who’s Been Locked Out for No Good Reason

WTF?  

Why would women who love women watch sex between two men?   It’s a head-scratcher but the phenomenon is true.  Ask any lesbian and she’ll tell you, if she doesn’t watch gay porn she knows a lesbian who does.  

Here’s my take on it:  Most lesbians have a heightened awareness of how men have oppressed women and straight porn is often Exhibit A in that exploitation.  In gay porn, the bottoms (traditionally like women, receivers) are often just as ‘powerful’ as tops (traditionally, like men, givers).  So while it’s still male-on-male sex, there’s a power dynamic at work that appeals to lesbian political and personal sensibilities.  They’re not so much looking at the “players” in the play, but the roles they’re playing.  

Then there’s the impatience angle.  Lesbian porn takes FOREVER to get to the sex.  All that crap about love, intimacy and emotional connections takes up half the DVD.  As one lesbian fan of gay porn told me:

“I like gay porn because the actors having sex are unencumbered by a U-Haul.  It all boils down to different philosophies.  Men:  Fuck it or kill it.  Lesbians:  Take it to the vet or adopt it.” 

Third, a lot of lesbians are turned on by masculinity, so they get off on hot male bodies.  Not because they want to have sex with them but because they internalize and then express the masculinity they see onscreen (Comic Lea Delaria has a hilarious line about that: “It’s not that lesbians don’t like dick; it’s that we don’t like them on men!”).  

And finally, there’s my strap-on dildo theory.  Lots of lesbians use them.  They have to learn how and if straight porn isn’t going to show it and lesbian porn is too boring, then what’s left to show them how to use a tool they weren’t born with?

Sex is so interesting.  What makes no sense to you makes perfect sense to somebody else.    I’m like most people–when it comes to porn, I only want to see who I want to shtup.  Period, end of stroke.

I figured churches and other religious and conservative organizations know a lot about saving marriages because they deal with so much divorce.  Knowing that these good folks would not spend over $25 million to change California’s State Constitution to prevent gay people from marrying unless it truly threatened the institution of marriage, I figured they made a list of the Top 10 reasons couples get divorced and it looked something like this:

1.  Some guy they don’t know, who lives in a city they’ve never been to, marries a guy they’ve never met.

2.  Infidelity

3.  Domestic Abuse

4.  Financial issues

5.  Child rearing differences

6.  Substance Abuse

7.  Sexual Incompatibility

8.  Religious and cultural conflicts

9.  Lack of Communication

10.  Boredom

So, you see, spending $25 million on Proposition 8 makes sense.  A whole lot more than spending it on counseling centers that offer programs to deal with the bottom nine on this list.  

I mean, you gotta start at the top and work your way down, right?

History unfolded before us last night. And I’m proud to say that my vote was one of the snowflakes that created the avalanche.

Obama will be good for the country but will he be good for sex?  I think so.  We’re going to go from Recession Sex (doing it to get over something) to Recovery Sex (doing it to get under something).

Like most of Obama’s approaches, I’m sure his plan for our sexual recovery will be as well-thought out as his plan for our economic recovery.  My guess is he’s going to use a modified 12-step program:

Step 1: Admit we are powerless; that our lives have become unmanageable.

(We have to admit we had too much meaningless sex and it left us spent, unable to move forward.  Or back. And a little to the side)

Step 2:  Believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.

(Better Obama than that dildo with the kick-start.)

Step 3:  Turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

(Well, we did that when we pulled the lever).

Step 4  Make a fearless moral inventory of ourselves

(Wall Street made us realize that investing without oversight is like sex without condoms. . . we got infected with something Lysol can’t spray away).

Step 5:  Admit to God, to ourselves and to another human beings the exact nature of our wrongs

(”Honey, I really do watch as much porn as you think”)

Step 6:  Be ready to have God remove all these defects of character

(Do it, Obama! That’s why we elected you)

Step 7:  Humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings

(Although the Republicans can still filibuster)

Step 8:  Make a list of all persons we’ve harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all

(If we start now we’ll be done by his first term)

Step 9:  Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others

(Hedge Fund managers, being the exception)

 
Step 10:  Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it

(Especially when we make our partners the third wheel in the three way.)

Step 11:   Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand God.

(”Please God, let the hottie pick me!)

Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

(especially the marital ones)

Welcome to “Recovery Sex” everyone!   Don’t fall off the wagon…unless there’s a bed to break your fall.

“Are we actually voting to take away other people’s rights?  Turning the American Constitution into American Idol?  Letting the contestants stay as long as they amuse us?” 

On November 4, Californians will vote to amend the State Constitution, which currently allows the right of same-sex couples to marry. 

There will be no winners in this referendum.  Whether the proposition succeeds or fails, we’ll all be diminished by it.  That always happens when one group of people has the authority to take rights away from another. 

In California, gay couples have a right to marry.  Prop 8 isn’t about preventing people from enjoying that right, it’s going to the unprecedented step of  taking it away.  It’s the equivalent of voting to take away a woman’s right to vote.  

It’s too bad we can’t get online and pull up a moral Mapquest.  We could input the starting location (the corner of Rule and Law) and the ending location (the corner of Playing and God).  We’d click the “Get Directions” button and see the quickest route:  Proposition 8.   

Voting to take people’s rights away circumvents the rule of law.  Actually, it does more than that—it transforms the law into a tool for persecution. Which may sound fine, if you believe the persecuted pose a danger.  But who gets to decide that?  You?  Me?  What if we disagree?  Majority rule?  But what if you’re not in the majority?

Here’s the exact wording on Proposition 8:  “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

The problem with “letting the voters decide” on that simple sentence is that once we get used to deciding who deserves a right and who doesn’t, once we get a taste of that kind of power, we’ll want to exercise it again and again.  Where would we stop?  Imagine if you will, a Proposition 80:

“Only marriage between a Christian man and a Christian woman is valid or recognized in California.”

 . . . 

Part of the reason so many can’t see the folly of Prop 8 is the belief that the vote is about preserving the sanctity of marriage.  It’s not.  Imagine yourself at the entrance of a dying man’s hospital room.  He doesn’t want to die alone.  His lover is in the room.  You’re voting on the right to throw him out.

Part of the folly is the belief by so many that the vote is about stopping two women from getting a marriage license or two men from registering at Bloomingdale’s.  It’s not.  Imagine yourself at an orphanage with an eight-year old girl nobody wants.  She found a couple who’ll love and take care of her.  The papers are signed.  You’re voting on the right to leave her in the orphanage.

Part of the folly is the belief by so many that the vote is about stopping two women from entering into a committed relationship or two men from filing joint tax returns.  It’s not.  Imagine a lonely 70-year-old woman who can stay in her home because she’s receiving spousal death benefits.  You’re voting on the right to cancel her checks.  

Is that what being an American is about? Voting to take away other people’s rights?  Are we going to turn the American Constitution into American Idol?  As long as the contestants amuse us we’ll give them another chance?  

This isn’t just about gay marriage.  It’s about codifying the ability of one group of people to punish another by taking away their rights.  That’s why it’s imperative that this amendment fail– so it doesn’t continue as an option to be used against others.  Vote No on 8.  Not because you’re for gay marriage, but because you don’t believe you have the right to stand in the entrance of that hospital room and reverse a dying man’s decision, because you don’t believe you have the right to keep that little girl from loving parents, because you don’t believe you have the right to cancel a widower’s checks.

But most of all, vote no because you don’t believe other people should have the power to take away your own rights.

                                             Liar, Liar.

The New York Times had a great article on the latest study of infidelity.  Though the real news, as editors saw it, was the rise of infidelity among women over the past few years, I couldn’t get past the overall number:

Married men who cheat in a given year:           12%

Married women who cheat in a given year:      7%

Men who cheat over their lifetime:                28%  

Women who cheat over their lifetime:        15%

Please.  These numbers are so low they could walk under a closed door.  With a hat.  Almost all studies tend to have what are called “statistical outliers” — Numbers that are so off the average they suggest they’re part of a different population or that the sample is weak.  These infidelity figures are so low, I’d like to suggest a new term for the study of infidelity:  Statistical Outliars.  

With the divorce rate hovering at 50% and infidelity cited as one of the top three reasons for splitting up, how the hell can you believe a study that shows such low numbers?  The article acknowledges the difficulty in getting people to fess up to strangers, but it doesn’t go far enough.  Yes, the numbers are extremely low when face to face studies are conducted.  And they shoot up when it’s done on the internet because it provides a lot more anonymity.  

But still, what kind of idiot do you have to be to tell a stranger that you’re boinking somebody who isn’t your spouse?  The fear of that information getting out would make a lot, if not most of us, go into truthiness overdrive. 

And let’s not forget the ever-expanding capacity for people, especially men, to rationalize their behavior so that they can lie and feel like they’re telling the truth.  

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman” anybody?

Or “It depends on what your meaning of ‘is’ is?”

I’m always amazed by letters I get from people who don’t consider sleeping around cheating because they didn’t stick it in the right orifice.  Right.  Is a test any less of a test because it was an oral exam?

My point is that it’s ridiculous to ask somebody a question that makes them admit to others a behavior they don’t admit to themselves.   You know why the Centers for Disease Control does not use the word “Gay” when reporting HIV infections?  When they ask somebody if they’re gay the answer is a WHOLE LOT LOWER than if they ask them if they’ve had sex with another man.  So they tag it MSM (men having sex with men) rather than gay.

The infidelity study I’d like to see would have the following question.  I think you’d get a more accurate number, if not a more interesting one:

“Do you think your partner has ever cheated on you?”

Yo, Mike!
I’m 24 and have not really had a proper long-term relationship.  I’ve never had much trouble getting guys into bed, so there’s normally a decent amount of sex flying around.  The problem is I’m a bit of a hypocrite.  If a guy likes me for “more than sex” straight off the bat, I kinda lose interest, even if I’m attracted to him.   I tend to fall for the guys that I sort of like at first, but who then don’t reciprocate.  It’s like their lack of interest just rocks my world.

Normally, I hate playing “the game” (acting hard to get, feigning disinterest, etc), so if I like someone, they will know it.  But when I get the same treatment from other guys, I find it…. boring?

Is this normal? Should I just hang around till the right balance between him liking me, and me liking him comes along?  Or am I a rejection junky?

-  Screwed

Dear Screwed,

You’re not a rejection junkie; you’re a new meat junkie.   Big difference.  Oh, and that bullshit about not liking the game?  Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.  You love the game –as long as you’re the dealer and not the dealt with.  Here’s why you’re chasing your tail and how you can stop:

1.  The Hunt is More Exciting For You Than the Catch.

The pursuit is giving you something that being pursued does not:  Anticipation, excitement, spontaneity, conquest and drama.  OH GOD, THE DRAMA!  And of course, that New Dick Smell.   

The solution:  Trade in the fruits of the pursuit for the benefits of a boyfriend.  That means accepting less of what you’re getting plenty of-excitement and drama, in return for what you’re getting none of-intimacy and bonding.  How do you do that?  By knowing what you don’t know.  And what you don’t know is the excitement of being with someone you truly love.   What you don’t know is how intimacy creates mind-blowing sex.  Be curious.  Find out. 

You also need to exercise a little impulse control.   Don’t ‘mancan’ a guy after a week or two.  Wait a month.  You might be kicking the love of your life to the curb without knowing it. Dating isn’t just about giving your dick a new career; it’s also about discovering qualities in a guy that aren’t immediately noticeable.   I’ve had two “tricks” that turned into long-term boyfriends-thank God I didn’t do then what you’re doing now. 

2)  You’ve Confused Sexual Conquest with Self-Acceptance.

You’re an acceptance vampire, hungering for warm, life-giving dick.   Once you’ve buried your fangs in somebody they’re of no use to you anymore.   You need a constant supply of fresh acceptance or you’ll die.  Or rather, your ego will.

The solution:   Put a stake through the heart of your ego.  You’re convinced that your self-worth is based on how many guys you can get to like you, making it impossible to be in a relationship.  There are great reasons to be a whore; a lack of self-esteem ain’t one of them.   Read Eckhart Tolle’s book, The New Earth.  It’ll give you a great understanding of how your ego keeps you from getting what you want and how you can stop it. 

I’m not going to pump sunshine up your ass and tell you any of this is easy to do.  But if you don’t change direction you’re going to end up where you’re headed-a love life defined by a single word:  “Next!”

Russell Brand, the English comedian who hosted this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, said this on the Graham Norton show last night:

                YOUR ODDS.  ——->

You chatted online or talked on the phone almost every night for weeks.  You really fell for him even though you never physically met.  Then suddenly he stops all contact.  He won’t return your emails, texts or calls.   You’re crushed, and you just can’t rest until you know why he ended it.  How bad is it to ask for closure from someone you’ve never met?  If you’re talking every night for weeks doesn’t the other guy owe you something?

He owes you nothing.  N-O-T-H-I-N-G.   How can somebody you’ve never met owe you for something that never happened?   Besides, what if he’s hideous?  What if he’s a toxic waste dump who disguised himself as oceanfront property?  You’d end up getting closure from a foreclosure.

Yes, you’re hurt.  Who wouldn’t be?  But you’re the one who allowed it to happen.  The point of online dating is to hook up or date-not to have endless phone conversations and weave chat threads into adorable little sweaters.  The next time you meet somebody online cut to the chase.  Tell them you’re not here to type; you’re here to meet.   If he’s dodging all your invitations he ain’t just hinting that something ain’t right-he’s skywriting it.