Britain's anti-clitoris crime wave

Prepare to be completely creeped out:

Hundreds of British schoolgirls are facing the terrifying prospect of female genital mutilation (FGM) over the Christmas holidays as experts warn the practice continues to flourish across the country. Parents typically take their daughters back to their country of origin for FGM during school holidays, but The Independent on Sunday has been told that "cutters" are being flown to the UK to carry out the mutilation at "parties" involving up to 20 girls to save money.
The police face growing criticism for failing to prosecute a single person for carrying out FGM in 25 years; new legislation from 2003 which prohibits taking a girl overseas for FGM has also failed to secure a conviction. . . .

"Cultural sensitivity" vs. the good kind of sensitivity? No need to tell you which side of that issue I'm on.

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugged is also adamantly pro-clitoris. Perhaps President Obama will appoint a Clitoris Czar to lead U.S. efforts against genital mutilation. I hereby nominate Mark Steyn.

(Via Memeorandum.)

UPDATE: Commenter Elizabeth:

Who honestly thinks that this would be tolerated if someone was mutilating the genitals of little white girls?

Indeed. The Independent notes:

An estimated 70,000 women living in the UK have undergone FGM, and 20,000 girls remain at risk, according to Forward. The practice is common in 28 African countries, including Somalia, Sudan and Nigeria, as well as some Middle Eastern and Asian countries such as Malaysia and Yemen.

This is one of those situations whre "cultural sensitivity" becomes a synonym for racism.

Oh, boy! 'Fistgate' on Fox!

Sean Hannity just announced that Michelle Malkin's going to be on after the commercial to talk about every middle-schooler's favorite subject!

Don't try this at home, kids!

UPDATE: The Boss gives big props to Gateway Pundit! Attagirl, Michelle!

UPDATE II: Michelle and Hannity made a point about the kind of sexually explicit stuff that is being pushed on kids in the name of "tolerance" -- you can't quote most of it on TV, or in a mainstream newspaper. And the advocates of "tolerance" know this.

If the average taxpayer or the average parent were to see the worst of this stuff, there would be a riot.. And if they understood the psychological influence of "comprehensive sexuality education" -- or saw what goes on in the classrooms where kids are taught this stuff -- they'd be urging that the instigators of such programs be fired. Ten years ago, I interviewed Wendy Shalit:

Her conflict with a sexually explicit culture actually began years earlier when, as a fourth-grader, her complaints about a sex-education class led her parents to request that she be excused from the classes. She spent those hours in the library.
"I was glad to be in the library, because the other girls got teased, and I would just pretend like I didn't know what they were talking about," she recalls. "And in a lot of cases, I didn't, and I was glad not to, frankly."
Sex education in public schools should be "completely abolished," Miss Shalit says. “At best, it's redundant, because kids do not learn the facts from sex education. They know it already."
But Miss Shalit also says sex education hurts girls -- "and boys, too" -- by eroding natural modesty. "The problem is that we have it so early now, we really don't allow people to develop their personalities before their sexual identity," she says.

Wendy's book is A Return to Modesty.

Her Daily Beastliness

No such thing as bad publicity, they say in show business, and certainly Little Miss Overprivileged shows a flair for exploitating her horrid notoriety:

On Wednesday, I posted a hastily taken self-portrait on Twitter—which I thought was funny and silly—and within a few hours I had caused a minor media scandal. . . .
So why all this Sturm und Drang?
Could it be it's because I have breasts? . . .

Yada, yada, yada. "Everybody feel sorry for me! I'm a woman and I'm a victim!"

Being the first conservative blogger to comment in depth on my idiot cousin's self-inflicted controversy, allow me to reiterate the obvious: It was not Meghan's possession of large breasts, nor her display thereof, which has been the object of criticism. Rather, it was her childish online tantrum -- "getting the f**k off Twitter," she whined -- in reaction to online rudeness that enhanced her laughingstock status. As I wrote at The American Spectator:

Ironically, her egoistic episode began when Miss Meghan posted a photo of herself holding a book about Andy Warhol, the pop artist whose best-known aphorism was, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Meghan's 15 minutes have long since expired and if she is stupid enough to follow through on last night's impulsive threat to quit Twittering -- 50,000 subscribers is an enviable readership for online promotion -- the world will have another laugh at her expense.

She personifies the phony victimhood of the Oprah Age, where the affluent and comfortable seek fame by boo-hooing about the trivial misfortunes of their spectacularly easy lives. Let's hear from Jenn Q. Public:

No one is forcing Meghan McCain to endure the trials and tribulations of fame. . . .There's no invisible rider on the First Amendment that promises to protect the thin-skinned from vile and demeaning criticism.

Meghan's Twitter feed is full of "motherf**king sh*t," as is her otherwise empty skull. That one hears ugly rumors about her from Young Republican types -- well, "sources say" many things, none of them flattering, but perhaps they have malicious motives.

Certainly, it would be libelous if someone were to state as a fact that Meghan is a pushover after four margaritas (and that she never stops at three). Yet my attorney assures me that for purely humorous purposes, there would be nothing actionable were anyone were to react to Ms. McCain's column title, "Don't Call Me a Slut," by quoting Elizabethan literature.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
-- Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2

One blogger described me as having made "vicious and mean attacks." Heh. I'm just making jokes. Or rather, Meghan McCain is a joke, and I'm just pointing it out.

And remember: NO FAT JOKES!

Even worse than fake boobies or . . .

. . . how do you say "ick" in Arabic?

If you're a woman in a conservative Muslim country, you had better bleed on your wedding night. If you don't, your husband or his family will know you aren't a virgin. For that, you could be beaten or killed. . . .
The Artificial Virginity Hymen kit, distributed by the Chinese company Gigimo, costs about $30. It is intended to help newly married women fool their husbands into believing they are virgins—culturally important in a conservative Middle East where sex before marriage is considered by many to be illicit. . . . .

Via Instapundit and there's sickeningly more at from the L.A. Times and the Associated Press. Every blogger and his brother has already commented on this, and there's probably not much more I could say. Yet I feel that I must, even though I'm running late for an appointment in D.C. Perhaps the commenters can further elaborate on the wrongness of this situation.

Innocence is a wonderful thing, but deceit is heinous. Who is the worse fool here?

• The man whose obsession with bridal chastity is so extreme that he would kill his own wife if he learned she was not a virgin?

or

• The woman who would perpetrate an elaborate ruse in order to be considered acceptable by such a buffoon?

Is not honesty a virtue equal or superior to chastity? And what virtue shall we praise more than mercy? For even if society condemns fornication -- as well it should -- it would be a most cruel thing to seek a woman's hand in marriage under such terms as to require her to engage in a horrid deceit, lest she suffer death for being honest.

If this is genuinely the state of society in some places, then there is only one proper and honorable course of conduct for any woman who, for whatever reason, may have fear of this particular custom: Let her reject the proposed marriage.

Her would-be husband, if he genuinely wants her, ought to be willing to accept her as she is, however she is. Should the woman's suitor or her family demand to know the reason for her refusal, the woman is not obligated to incriminate herself by any confession of fault. Her adamant rejection could inspire suspicion that she hides a secret sin, or it might be supposed that she is merely excessively proud, and unwilling to accept a suitor she deems beneath her.

Either way, no woman should ever be compelled to accept marriage on dishonest terms.

Kentucky Killing: More Sparkman theories

BTW, I've seen the fax that contains this theory and figured it was from a complete nut, but JSH at Unusual Kentucky decides to fisk it anyway:

Things just keep getting weirder in the case of Bill Sparkman, a U.S. Census worker whose corpse was found tied, naked and asphyxiated by a rope in Clay County's Hoskins Cemetery.
The Times-Tribune is reporting that they've received a fax regarding Sparkman titled "I Did It" which seems to state that he was killed because he was working for the Federal Government. The fax has been turned over to the FBI. . . .
Fascinating as it sounds, I really can't buy the theory that Sparkman was romping around naked in cemeteries performing acts of Carradine-style sexual self-asphyxiation. . . .

SPECIAL REPORT: Death in Clay County, Part I

Question: Why do people treat you badly?

Answer: Because you let them.

Not long ago, at a social event in D.C., I found myself talking to a very intelligent, funny, attractive woman who is 31 years old and not married. She had just ended a "relationship" with a guy, and I was sort of amazed.

Why was she still single? And why would this guy date her and dump her? Surely, if he had any appreciation of her wonderful qualities -- some qualities evident to the eye, and others that might be learned in a brief conversation -- he would have spent all he had to buy her a diamond ring, fallen on his knees and, with tears streaming down his face, begged for her hand in marriage.

He had not done this, however. Rather, he treated her like Just Another Woman, not as Someone Special, and so they drifted along for a while and then parted company. As always in such cases, I advised the young lady how to avoid a repetition of her painful disappointment.

Update: (Smitty) An alternative answer would be: "They have the permissions and you can't stop them." This interruption brought to you while issuing a party foul for saying:

"You know the old story about free milk and a cow? Make up your mind to keep the cow in the barn."

How do you not embed the Georgia Satellites?

(There. Fixed that for ya. Back to the original post.)

Tactics, Strategy and Nookie
Excuse me if that sounds simplistic and old-fashioned, but it works. I'm not saying that women should be uptight, Victorian prudes about sex. And, rather than argue about "tithing mint and cumin," I'll take an agnostic stance on the wisdom and morality of engaging in what we might call minor premarital intimacies.

Still, if it is a husband that a woman is seeking, rather than just another in an endless series of going-nowhere "relationships," her negotiating posture in the marriage market is greatly enhanced if she avoids giving up the nookie -- humping, screwing, fornicating, making the beast with two backs, call it what you will -- until she can entrap her prey and drag him to the altar.

Ladies, please note that this is strategic advice. You don't have to be a Christian or a conservative or a pure-as-driven-snow virgin -- although it would be better if you were all three -- to benefit by putting your vajajay off-limits until you can persuade some horny fool respectable gentleman to make the pledge of "forsaking all others 'til death do you part."

Making the decision to keep your britches on henceforth does not require you to make a moral judgment about your sexual past. Even if you spent your teenage years slutting around like Meghan McCain after four margaritas, this doesn't necessarily make you a bad person -- unless you start writing ill-informed RINO political commentary for Tina Brown's Daily Beast, in which case, you're a total whore with pustulent chancres.

Habit, Behavior, Identity
It is important to understand, in this regard, how sexual habit can become sexual identity in such a way that people effectively trap themselves into self-defeating patterns. The largest and most vital sexual organ is your brain, and a lot of what is nowadays is described as sexual "orientation" or sexual "preference" is actually a matter of mental habit.

By repeated thoughts and actions, people's minds become accustomed to one sort of behavior, one sort of sexual ideation. The nature of the human mind is such that our minds can be trained to respond to stimuli in a patterned way, which is true not only in sex, but in eating, writing, talking, etc. If a certain Daily Beast columnist has a habit of slugging down tequila and then wandering off with any man who shows the slightest interest, this is a learned pattern of behavior. She wasn't "born that way."

Once well-established, these mental patterns and their associated behavioral habits are difficult to unlearn, no matter how unsatisfactory or harmful the results. In this sense, people with unfortunate sexual habits are kind of like people who keep voting for Democrats no matter how badly the Democrats screw them over. It's a matter of personal identity: Being a Democrat is who they are.

And so, for some women, being a "party girl" becomes a matter not only of mental habit and behavior pattern, but also a source of self-identification. One sometimes encounters a woman so far gone in this kind of hardened whorishness that, like Naomi Wolf, she scoffs at the very idea that chastity might be considered more virtuous than promiscuity. And if you try to defend the concept of chastity in argument with such a person, you'll quickly find yourself accused of misogyny or being "anti-sex."

Hypocrisy and the Damage Done
Anyone who's known me for more than five minutes would laugh to think that I might ever be accused of being "anti-sex." If you don't consider my 20-year marriage and six children sufficient proof of my pro-sex bona fides, perhaps you ought to inquire among friends who knew me before I met my wife, when I was a extremely wicked person.

"Well, see there?" says the scoffer. "You're such a hypocrite! You slutted around until you were 29, but you expect other people not to do that."

Oh, if only you knew what harm I did -- to myself and others -- during my days of heedless wickedness. We are talking about harm that cannot be undone, lives that cannot be repaired, dreams left shattered like glass. Had it not been for grace, and the persistent prayers of those who cared about me, who knows where I might have ended up? And who knows what further harm has befalled innocent others because of the ripple effects of evil I did more than two decades ago?

"Judge not lest ye be judged" is one of those passages of the Bible that always gets twisted around to mean something quite different than what it actually supposed to mean. Jesus never hesitated to call sin by its right name.

In fact, in one of the most famous incidents of the ministry of Christ, when he saved the life of the woman caught in adultery -- "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" -- after telling the woman that he did not condemn her, Jesus then commanded her, "Go, and sin no more." Having extended grace and mercy, he asked in return her repentance from the sins for which he had refused to let her die. And who can doubt, from that moment forward, this woman lived a life of extraordinary virtue?

The Vajayjay Gospel
Sometimes I'm amazed at how superficial and judgmental professed Christians can be, and how they insist that everyone engage in a pharisaical pretense of sinlessness, not even acknowledging the sin they see everywhere around them, except to condemn it in the stereotypical fashion of Official Church Talk. To these "churchy" people, it is abhorrent to speak to a sinner in terms the sinner can relate to -- and what am I, but a sinner myself? -- as if writing humorously about "nookie" and "vajayjay" might lead someone astray.

Let's go back now to that 31-year-old lovelorn lady whom I advised to keep the cow in the barn. She was raised in a religious home, and would almost certainly like to live a life that her parents and grandparents could admire. "Churchy" people are effectively telling that woman she only has two choices. She can either (a) be all uptight and churchy like them, or else (b) keep on fornicating like a two-bit floozy.

Excuse me if I consider that a false dilemma. If you live long enough to see a few miracles worked in people's lives, you know that many decent, respectable Christians -- the finest pillars of their community and exemplars of moral conduct -- were once the most horribly shameless of reprobate sinners. And even today, the redeemed may face terrible struggles and temptations as they strive to live up to the repentance that was asked as the only price of their priceless salvation: "Go and sin no more."

When I talk to young people (and some not-so-young people) about developing their careers and initiating projects -- whether in politics, business or anything else -- I like to say, "If you can conceive it and believe it, you can achieve it." To explain what I mean:

• Conceive it -- Anything we accomplish in life begins with a concept, some idea we have of something we wish to do, whether it's starting a rock band or organizing a petition drive. We may alter our plans along the way, improvising and revising by the process of trial and error, but we must begin by coming up with an idea -- conceiving -- of something we wish to do.
• Believe it -- There is something almost magical about the enthusiasm and confidence of someone who truly believes in what they're doing. At CPAC '08, a month before I started blogging full-time in March 2008, one of my earliest endorsements came from Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs: "The most enthusiastic blogger I have yet to meet." Although I only got 6,000 visits that first full-time month, I knew in my heart that if I worked as hard as I could at it, using what I'd learned in my journalism career and what I'd picked up from studying the work of successful bloggers, I could make it work. Every small success therefore was welcomed as affirmation that I was doing the right thing, and every disappointment shrugged off as an obstacle to be overcome, rather than an insuperable barrier to success.
• Achieve it - What could possibly be more enjoyable than succeeding at something where no one ever expected you to succeed? Imagine the satisfaction of seeing all those naysayers and detractors eat their words when you accomplish something they told you couldn't be done. You've earned it, you sweated for it, you kept plugging away no matter how often you failed and despite all the criticism of those who called you crazy for even trying. Now you're the freakin' big dog, baby, and those critics look like fools for having ever doubted you.

William Jacobson just crossed the million-hit threshold and if you'll look around, you'll notice all kinds of people achieving things that people told them couldn't be done. Andrew Breitbart was once a slacker with ADD, and Glenn Beck was once a washed-up alcoholic DJ.

God loves to make the impossible happen, just to remind us that he's still in the business of miracles. And when I see someone like that 31-year-old lady -- smart, funny, attractive -- feeling lonely, unloved and unloveable, I want to share with them the idea that it doesn't have to be that way. All you've got to do is to conceive it and believe it, and you can achieve it.

Trust me. As the Rule 5 guru, I'm a good judge of what guys like, and this girl's definitely got it. She must merely learn to negotiate from a position of strength -- keep the cow in the barn, honey, and don't let guys treat you like Just Another Woman -- and she'll have 'em begging for it.

That's why I remind you of the motto of The McCain Institute: Good nookie is a terrible thing to waste.

Update: (Smitty)

Bride of Rove links and ponders this post.

Update II (Smitty)
Further linkage from:

• Little Miss Attila and
• Villainous Company

Ask Dr. Stacy

As the author of Know Your Vajayjay: An Expert Guide to What's Up Down There and founder of the McCain Institute for Advanced Vaginology, Dr. R.S. McCain, M.D., OB-GYN, IYKWIMAITYD, is often asked by esteemed colleagues to share his expertise in all matters vaginological for the benefit of those coping with nookie-related issues.

While most of these consultations are handled privately, it is occasionally helpful to share with the general public certain case studies submitted as comments, to wit:

Dr. Stacy:
A friend of mine has a question...
My wife and I were not having sex before I began to blog; since I've been blogging, we're not having sex more. Is this a bad thing? Should I be concerned? Should I worry that she's started saying our 85 year old neighbor is 'kinda cute'?
-- Dr. Bob Belvedere, M.D., TCOTS

While this may appear to the untrained eye to be just another case of Lackanookie Syndrome -- the raging pandemic continues unabated, as researches frantically seek some means of controlling an illness that self-evidently cannot be cured -- Dr. Belvedere's friend is most likely suffering from a disease which has similar symptoms, but a different cause.

Analeptic Nookie Neglect is largely psychosomatic, one of the various maladies categorized as Blogger Mood Disorder by our eminent colleague Professor William Jacobson, the Blogospheric Neologian.

The addictive qualities of blogging provide such powerful neurostimulatory effects that, by compulsively seeking the orgasmic thrill of an Instalanche, the patient's limbic system response becomes so oriented toward online stimuli that not even the most overt signal of the availability of the world's finest nookie -- e.g., the blogger's wife bringing him, at 9 p.m. on a rainy Friday evening, a chocolate milk shake from Dairy Queen -- can lure him away from his keyboard duties.

Most symptoms of Analeptic Nookie Neglect occur as frequent repetition of certain telltale phrases:

• "Not now, Meine Frau, I've got to finish the FMJRA and the clone-bots aren't cooperating."
• "I'll be up in a minute, I swear. Just let me finish making fun of Charles Johnson."
• "Would you stop bugging me, for crying out loud? I'm trying to put a trackback on this Hot Air post, and Simpletracks keeps giving me that ****ing Unknown Error Occurred message."
• "Wow, yeah. That white silk bustier and thong ensemble is nice, dear. Check out this new Charles Johnson 'Downfall' video . . ."

In the case of Dr. Belvedere's friend, as with 95% of patients treated for Analeptic Nookie Neglect at the McCain Institute, there is little danger that his wife will actually begin an affair with the neighbor. In fact, ANN usually has a positive correlation with marital fidelity, as bloggers and their wives are the only category of human pair-bonds whose mastubatory fantasies are exclusively focused on their spouses.

Just ask Dr. Helen.

So the real question for Dr. Belevedere's friend is whether he actually wants treatment for his problem. Unless his wife begins showing symptoms of Delaneymania -- wearing low-cut dresses to blogger parties in hopes of stimulating linkage to her husband's site by his concupiscent peers -- there is no particular reason to seek treatment. No matter what my daughter's boyfriend tries to tell her, the fact remains that no man has ever died from a lack of nookie, although specialists believe that onanistic side effects are a major cause of acute neurasthenia, myopia and male pattern baldness (a clustering of symptoms caused by the brooksianius gergenia virus, leading to the disease that world-renowned vaginologist Dr. Moe Lane has identified as Gerson-Wehner Complex).

So, Dr. Belvedere, the prescribed treatment is simple: Your friend can cure his ANN any time he wants, merely by deciding to step away from the computer, shave, shower, brush his teeth and put on some of that Geoffrey Beene Gray Flannel eau de cologne his wife buys him every year for Christmas. Remember our motto at the Institute:

Good Nookie Is a Terrible Thing to Waste!

Your esteemed colleague,
Dr. Robert Stacy McCain, M.D.
Director of Research and author of Know Your Vajayjay: An Expert Guide to What's Up Down There

TOTALLY UNNECESSARY DISCLAIMER: This case study has been offered as a public service by the McCain Institute for Advanced Vaginology, but cannot be considered as professional therapeutic advice. Standards of the International Vaginological Society prohibit such practices, except in such cases where a licensed clinician can provide direct examination of the patient's nookie. Your generous contributions to support the Institute's advanced research in vaginology are neither tax-deductible nor charitable, and may be used as the Institute and its creditors see fit.

Planned Parenthood: 'Hey, your daughter's a tramp, so make sure she's a safe tramp!'

Well, they don't put it quite so bluntly:

If you could give your teenage daughter a vaccination that would prevent her from contracting a sexually transmitted disease that could lead to cancer, would you do it? . . .
While many parents don't want to think about their young daughters becoming sexually active, most will eventually.

"Sexually active" = screwing around, putting out, humping, fornicating, doing everything in sight like Meghan McCain after her fourth margarita.

Do we really need mandatory, universal, taxpayer-funded vaccination for human papillomavirus to keep your daughter safe from cancer-causing HPV? Judie Brown of American Life League has her doubts:

Planned Parenthood also wants you to know that the vaccine has come under attack by -- you guessed it -- those damnable "conservatives who contend it encourages promiscuity."
But your friends at Planned Parenthood want to assure you of one thing: "Obviously, we're not giving the shot to a 16-year-old and telling them to go out and have sex. It’s not even about becoming sexually active now. You are really vaccinating them against their future.”
Isn't that special? No, not really. . . .
I have to ask, how many teenagers have died from chastity? How many have been institutionalized for drug abuse because they saved themselves until marriage? How many have had to go into therapy because their self-esteem was high and their desire for promiscuous activity low?
Planned Parenthood is not only barking up the wrong tree, it and its fellow sex advocates are destroying souls, debilitating perfectly healthy young people, killing preborn babies and making a literal killing. Take a look at their profit margin sometime!
The ideology of death is viral. We must strive to correct this course by infusing the antidote of moral principle into the public discourse at every opportunity.

That's from the American Life League, an excellent source for news on these sorts of issues.

UPDATE: Unlike one of the commenters below, Doug at Daley Gator can take a (blonde) joke: "Hmmm, I wonder if Meghan McCain knows that I do make the best maragritas evah?"

Safe sex not so safe after all

Ah, you can't fool Mother Nature!

The oral contraceptives Yaz and Yasmin are the top-selling pharmaceutical line for Bayer HealthCare, largely as a result of marketing that presents them as much more than mere pregnancy prevention.
Yaz, in particular, the top-selling birth control pill in the United States, owes much of its popularity to multimillion-dollar ad campaigns that have promoted the drug as a quality-of-life treatment to combat acne and severe premenstrual depression. . . .
But recently, the Yaz line’s image has been clouded by concerns from some researchers, health advocates and plaintiffs’ lawyers. They say that the drugs put women at higher risk for blood clots, strokes and other health problems than some other birth control pills do. . . .

(Hmmm. Pro-choice fanatics vs. the tort bar. Kind of like Freddy vs. Jason there.)

Bayer said that the company had been served with 74 lawsuits brought by women who charge that they developed health problems after taking Yaz or Yasmin. . . .
Birth control pills work by altering a woman’s hormone levels. Researchers have long known that taking a combination hormone birth control pill -- which contains estrogen and a progestin hormone -- can increase the risk of stroke and blood clots in the legs and lungs. . . .

What good is "choice," if you're dead? The very idea that women would voluntarily dose themselves with synthetic hormones, which have the effect of preventing their bodies from doing what nature meant their bodies to do . . .?

Look, when I was in college, I had a buddy who was into weightlifting. He scored some Dynabol (a popular steroid) and asked me to read through the enclosed warning -- an 11-by-14-inch sheet filled with tiny print on both side -- about the side effects. (He was good at weightlifting. Reading scientific literature? Not so much.)

When I got to the part about testicular atrophy -- hey, that was all I needed to read to know that I was never going to use that stuff. (Whatever happened to my weightlifting buddy? I don't know. But if he kept shooting that Dynabol . . . raisins.)

Putting fake hormones into your body is a bad idea, to be avoided except as a medical necessity. If a woman is bound and determined not to have babies -- well, tell your husband to start a blog, which tends to lower your risk of having sex. (To my wife: That was a joke, honey.)

When the Pill was first introduced, a lot of people didn't think about the potential for long-term side effects. It was Science, after all, and Science is never wrong.

Lots of girls in the Baby Boom generation started on the Pill when they were still teenagers and stayed on it year after year until, finally, they got married and said, "OK, I'm ready to have babies now."

Shockah! Science had figured out a cheap and easy way to turn fertility off, but turning it back on? Not so much.

Lots of 50-something women out there with no kids, thanks to Science. Although they didn't expect it when they started taking the Pill, birth control ended up being permanent for them. Turns out "choice" meant not really having a choice.

And then there those other side effects -- well, we don't know for certain that they were actually side effects, because determining direct causation can be difficult when you're talking long term consequences. It's kind of weird, as you get to be in your 40s, you start hearing about these girls you knew from high school dying from weird cancers, or developing strange, lingering ailments that doctors can't really find a way to treat effectively.

My wife and I have six kids, and maybe you don't want to have that many. Fine. But don't think you can fool Mother Nature forever.

Sometimes, Mother Nature is a bitch.

A 9-year-old transsexual?

From the Department of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot:

A boy of nine has returned to school as a girl in what is believed to be Britain's youngest gender swap.
Children at the school in southern England were told the child had left and been replaced by a female pupil.
The child came dressed in girls' uniform with long hair tied in a pink ribbon.
The case comes after it was revealed yesterday that a 12-year-old boy had started his first term at secondary school in southern England as a girl.
Some parents at the school have criticised staff for not informing them before telling children about the gender change at a special assembly. . . .

Via Blogmocracy. Exactly how soon this child will begin hormone therapy, castration, etc., is unknown, but the mind boggles at the idea. Next on Oprah: "Shemales in Elementary School"!

Remember earlier this year, it was reported that a German boy, Tim Petras, who had begun hormone treatment at age 12 and, at age 16, underwent sex-change surgery to become the world's youngest post-operative transsexual, Kim Petras. We had been warned by Judith Reisman about this trend toward pre-teen transsexuals (???) in January, at which time I responded:

Mister Huxley! Paging Mister Huxley! Mister Aldous Huxley, please pick up the courtesy phone . . .

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. However, The Apocalypse Will Be Blogged.

Experts get me off the hook

Vindication, at last! Mrs. Other McCain will be pleased to see the latest scientific study proving that most women have never had sex with me.

(Hat-tip: NewsAlert.)

UPDATE: A not entirely unrelated development: Who is Dita Von Teese, and why is she nearly naked?

UPDATE II: More scientific experts:

[W]omen have sex for many reasons but romance and passion come rather low on the list, a new book has revealed.
"Research has shown most men find most women at least somewhat sexually attractive, whereas most women do not find most men sexually attractive at all," Why Women Have Sex authors Cindy Meston and David Buss said.
One said she did it for a spiritual experience, proclaiming: "It's the closest thing to God."

That was my wife's answer . . .

Hat-tip to Allah, who is an atheist. What does an atheist woman scream during the throes of passion?

"Oh, science!"

What's missing from the biography of Fox 'Sexpert' Yvonne K. Fulbright?

Yeah, all the publications, the degrees from hither and yon, blah, blah, blah.

Is she married? If so, how long has she been married? Does she have any children?

I point this out because I was just looking at the sidebar feeds at NTCNews.com -- a good source of fresh blog-fodder -- and happened to notice the headline of her latest column, clicked over, and thought . . . hmmmm.

Adultery has payoffs for a woman. For example, having someone else interested in her means more resources.

So I'm thinking that this sort of morally-neutral anthropological attitude toward adultery doesn't make her a Girl Just Like The Girl Who Married Dear Old Dad, y'know? If the "sexpert" happens to be single, my hunch is she's likely to stay that way.

Maybe some of you bachelors out here can spot me on this. Maybe attitudes have changed, but I'd suspect guys would be more interested in marrying a woman who expressed horror and repugnance at even the slightest suggestion that she would ever cheat on her mate. "Oh, no -- I'm strictly a one-man woman!"

On the other hand, if Fulbright is married, why does my cynical mind leap to the conclusion that her professional insights into the anthropological incentives of adultery for women aren't merely professional insights?

As to my curiosity about whether Fulbright has any children, that was prompted by reading her bio and seeing the title of her most recent book:

Your Orgasmic Pregnancy: Little Sex Secrets Every Hot Mama Should Know

Really? Here's where I need some of the lady readers to spot me, because I'm thinking that this isn't really one of the mother-to-be's top priorities.

In general, I have an especial scorn for the How-To-Have-Better-Orgasms genre of women's literature, seeing as how endless variations on this theme appear on the cover of Cosmo every freaking month.

By comparison, no man has ever read a magazine article to find out how to have a better orgasm, because no such article has ever been published in a magazine for men. There may be, somewhere among the 3 billion males on this planet, one who didn't figured out the orgasm thing before his 14th birthday. But they certainly don't seem to be seeking magazine advice on the subject, eh?

What's up with this? Women I've spoken to say that they read women's magazines mainly for fashion, hair and make-up ideas. I've never heard a woman admit to seeking out the How-To-Have-Better-Orgasms articles in these magazines. But maybe they're just embarrassed to admit it.

CULTURAL APOCALYPSE WATCH:The Pole-Dancer Doll for Girls

God owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology:

It rotates. It has blinking lights, a disco ball, and a pole. And it's probably one of the wrongest toys you can give to any girl.

"Probably"? One hesitates to ask what could possibly be worse. I'm sure the manufacturers will soon be offering a stripper accessory kit -- tramp-stamp tattoo stickers, clip-on belly-button ring, garter with play-money, mint-flavored candy Newports -- but then again, there's always the nipple-tassle T-shirt for girls.

Last year, we had the reality-TV video of Kim Kardashian's pre-teen sisters -- age 9 and 11 -- getting pole-dancing lessons. Earlier this month, there was video of Miley Cyrus's 9-year-old sister Noah pole-dancing -- in black boots and red skirt -- at a pre-party for the Teen Choice Awards.

Today's cultural forecast: Raging epidemics of abuse, perversion, disease and addiction, with a 40% chance of widely scattered fire and brimstone.

UPDATE: Jay at Stop the ACLU:

It is so sad society is going down the toilet and dragging the innocence of our youth along with it.

This story's getting a "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" reaction on Twitter. Last night I blogged about evidence for the existence of God. And that's about the only hope left.

UPDATE II: Fisherville Mike says, "Glad I have boys." Yeah, Mike, but what if your son brings one of these tramps home? Meanwhile, Cranky Cons says:

Reason #287585783 we’re thinking of raising our children Amish

Oh, and guess what the big question is when Kendra Wilkinson, 24, (Hef's ex-girlfriend, who got married at the Playboy Mansion in June) and Kourtney Kardashian, 30 (celebrity party girl, still unmarried) both discover they're expecting?

Despite having breast implants, both Kendra Wilkinson and Kourtney Kardashian still want to breastfeed, the moms-to-be tell the new issue of Us Weekly . . .

Fake boobs. Real trash.

UPDATE III: Oh, look! Kendra's got a blog:

Hi everyone! Check out my Us Weekly cover and feature with Kourtney Kardashian. Find out all the details about our pregnancies . . . from cravings, to body changes to feelings about our deliveries!!!!!
It was such a fun shoot to do, especially since Kourtney is going through all the same changes as I am. We’re due only two days apart!

What do we call this genre? "Trashosphere"? "Bimbosphere"? At any rate, in addition to the grammatical evidence of mental deficiency -- five, count 'em, five exclamation marks -- Kendra also ends her blog post with a smiley face :D

Oh, Kendra is the one who's actually married, so you can insult her all you want. But not Courtney -- no, she's a single mom and, as Ann Coulter has explained, we are not allowed to criticize the mothers of bastards. And here's a touching story for baby's scrapbook:

"I definitely thought about it long and hard, about if I wanted to keep the baby or not . . . I do think every woman should have the right to do what they want, but I don't think it's talked through enough. I can't even tell you how many people just say, 'Oh, get an abortion.' Like it's not a big deal." Scott Disick, the baby's 26-year-old father, was supportive either way. . . . "He said, 'I really want you to keep it, but I will support you whatever you decide to do.'"

Some advice for Courtney:

1. If you're hanging out with people who casually recommend abortion, you're hanging around bad people.
2. Speaking of bad people, the kind of guy who considers it a coin toss whether you abort his child (a) is a scumbag and (b) doesn't actually love you anyway.

Please see the Koestler quote at the top of the page.

UPDATE IV: Welcome readers of Michelle Malkin, who says:

Thought I’d seen it all.

That's just it. you see. I'm always afraid to say, "It can't get worse than that," because it always does. Because, as you see, "Girls Gone Wild" grow up to be trashy "Moms Gone Wild," and their daughters aspire to follow mom's 4-inch-heeled footsteps down the strip-club runway. (Q. What does a trailer-trash girl get for her 18th birthday? A: Chlamydia!)

In 1998, when Kendra Wilkinson was in eighth grade, parents were being forced to explain the Monica Lewinsky news to their children. And now . . .

Once the Hugh Hefner lifestyle becomes a reality-TV series, and once every no-talent bimbo in the world is trying to get her own reality-TV series . . . well, we're probably just a few years away from Nickelodeon spinning off its own "adult" cable channel featuring the hit series, "The Girls of North Las Vegas Middle School."

UPDATE V: Thanks to commenter Tate for reading far enough into that People magazine interview with Courtney Kardashian to find that the mother-to-be would have been another woman victimized by abortion if she hadn't found some pro-life Web sites:

"I was just sitting there crying, thinking, 'I can’t do that,'" she says. "And I felt in my body, this is meant to be. God does things for a reason, and I just felt like it was the right thing that was happening in my life." (Emphasis added.)

OK, that's enough to soften the heart of McCain The Merciless. And Ms. Kardashian is entirely correct. There are no accidents. And, despite the odds, it's possible that God may even be able to do something with that scumbag boyfriend. (After all, I used to be a Democrat.)

Remember what Jesus said to the women caught in adultery, after he'd saved her life from the accusers who would have stoned her: "Go, and sin no more." Some people, eager to lecture us about not being "judgmental," always seem to forget that last part.

THE GRYPHEN FILES: GIVE JESSE ENOUGH ROPE

WARNING: This post contains content from the Immoral Minority blog, written by "Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, who has been a kindergarten teaching assistant in Anchorage.

"[T]he school has done extensive background checks on me and I am squeaky clean."
-- "Gryphen," A/K/A, Jesse Griffin, Aug. 4, 2009

"You know the reason that many people enjoy adult movies is that it is sexy to watch people making love. . . . I think that this trend toward real people having real sex is definitely the way to go. I always had a little guilt watching an adult movie and wondering if the female performer was a drug addict, or victim of molestation, just prostituting herself to make a buck. I am not Jewish, so guilt and sex don't really go together for me. But when you see a video of an amateur couple having sex you can tell that they are simply doing it for the sheer excitement of sharing their passion with a bunch of middle aged pervs who are going to wank off to their sexual exploits. Well great here comes that guilt again."
-- "Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, June 3, 2007

"Yes I DO work in a Kindergarten class during the school year. My main job affords me some time during the day and I have chosen to use it teaching children to read, and helping them to become more independent."
-- "Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, Aug. 2, 2009

"Having somebody reveal your "secret identity" can be a little unsettling . . ."
-- "Gryphen," A/K/A, Jesse Griffin, Aug. 4, 2009

"What is morality? Who decides? Are we in charge of our own destiny? What is right? And what is wrong? Are these questions which can be answered? You betcha."
-- banner sllogan at Immoral Minority blog (changed after Aug. 2, 2009)

"All of the fun of sex is drained by making all of these rules and labels. If sex is not naughty then it is almost not worth doing. I love kids, but in my opinion they are just a side effect of a healthy sex life."
-- Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, June 14, 2007

"But just where did Trig Palin come from? As of today, as of this minute, and after over a month of searching I cannot tell you. I simply do not know for certain. I do know however where he did not come from. He did not issue forth from Sarah Palin. . . . He was not conceived in her uterus. On that one fact I have absolutely no doubt."
-- "Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, June 6, 2009

"And your penis will respond more readily if you take it out and put it through its paces more often. Duh! So the next time your girlfriend/wife/mother bust you for watching porn on your computer, simply tell her that you are exercising and you would appreciate some privacy."
-- "Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, July 7, 2008

"That's right I am promoting self pleasure. Does that really surprise anybody?" -- Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, Oct. 17, 2007

"I do it because it brings me joy to work with these children and I believe, and have been told, that I am very good at it . . .
"[Y]ou now know my dirty little secret. I am an assistant teacher in a room full of five year old children. . . ."
-- Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, Aug. 2, 2009

"I am teaching my boys to wear dresses and swish when they walk because being ignorant or drug addicted is no longer a guarantee of being passed over. If your not willing to suck cock then pack up your going to Iraq."
-- "Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, June 10, 2005

"[A]s of right now I have every confidence that I will be vindicated."
-- Gryphen," a/k/a Jesse Griffin, Aug. 2, 2009

RELATED ARTICLES BY DAN RIEHL

• 8/4: Jesse Griffin: Troubling Revelations
• 8/5: Jesse Griffin's Been Lying To His Friends, Too?

MORE TO COME AT RIEHL WORLD VIEW

The Cosmo Syndrome

(BUMPED; UPDATED) Dylan Sauders has a brilliant takedown of Cosmopolitan's sex-marketing scam:

The four prompts are 1) Sex headline 2) Smiling face showing approval of sex 3) A desirable bust-line 4) Second sex headline. . . .
These four prompts are enough to make your subconscious feel healthy, attractive and sexual - just like the girl on the cover. Cosmo found that they sold the most magazines by taking advantage of the natural eye pattern your eyes take accross a magazine cover and putting these four prompts in their path.

You should read the whole thing. (H/T: Conservative Grapevine.)

It must be noted that Sauders is a self-made "expert" on seduction, which will cause a lot of female readers to snort in derision. But since this is National Offend A Feminist Week, his article offers a good talking-point to discuss the degree to which "feminism" is an ideology advanced via brainwashing and propaganda methods.

My grievance against Cosmo (and Glamour, etc.) is one of long standing. In 2000, I wrote a Washington Times column about it:

It seems impossible to go through a supermarket checkout line without being confronted by magazine covers like the January 2000 Cosmopolitan, offering "Sex Tricks Only Cosmo Would Know: 20 Earth-Quaking Moves That Will Make Him Plead for Mercy -- and Beg for More."
The Kroger grocery chain has, thankfully, decided to install racks that conceal such lurid stuff from general viewing. Perhaps someday it will be safe again to take our daughters to the grocery store.
What is the point of schools and parents telling girls that they can be valued for their character, their intellectual abilities and their personal achievements, when the newsstands are full of magazines displaying near-naked supermodels and telling girls that their true worth is their ability to master "earth-quaking moves"?
Scarcely had my daughter learned to read than I found myself troubled by what she was seeing on women's magazine covers at the checkout lines. A child with a knowledge of phonics can figure out what "s-e-x" spells and -- according to Cosmo, Glamour and the other major women's magazines -- "s-e-x" and "d-i-e-t" are the most important things in a woman's life. . . .

And you can read the whole thing, if you'd like. Having been excoriated recently for criticizing Carrie Prejean's decision to get breast implants, and having long baffled female readers by my relentless jihad against feminism, this is as good a time as any to point out what should have been obvious: I hate feminism, I hate breast implants, and I hate Cosmo for the same reason -- because I love women and want them to be happy.

You cannot have a happy life built on lies, and Cosmo is selling you lies. People want to give me a hard time because I occasionally blog about boobies, but my readership averages about 6,000 visits a day. If my readers are not all adults, they are at least old enough to operate a computer and care about politics. Whereas Cosmo's leering come-ons are displayed on thousands of magazine racks all over the country and, as Sauder says, they reach a readership of some 39 million women.

Cosmo sells a lie, namely that sex and beauty are the sum of a woman's value. And this evil propaganda is conveyed effectively (that is to say, women accept the lie) because of the perception that this is "woman to woman," that these messages are being related by other women -- and glamorous, sophisticated women, at that.

There is a basic factor of communications psychology called the "halo effect." If someone has certain attributes that you consider positive, you will tend to generalize this into an overall positive perception about that person, often giving them credit for personal qualities like being smart, kind, honest -- attributes for which you have no direct evidence at all.

Parable of the Glen-Plaid Suit
Being physically attractive is one of the most powerful factors in the "halo effect," which is why magazine ads feature attractive models. The positive perception created by the model's good looks is psychologically transferred -- generalized -- to the manufacturer's product. Let me tell you the story about my glen-plaid suit.

Back in the day, after I'd graduated college and was a bachelor on the hunt, I was something of a clothes horse. I had always desired to be a well-dressed man -- to look sharp -- but now I had a little more disposable income to devote to fashion than I'd ever had before.

GQ and Esquire were required monthly reading for me. In the summer of 1986, you might have seen me bopping around Atlanta in robin's-egg blue slacks (triple-pleated, cuffed), a pleated-front pink tuxedo shirt, a robin's-egg blue bowtie, and a sport coat that was striped in pink, robin's-egg blue and white. (I'd bought the coat first, then bought the rest of my ensemble to match.) Buddy, I was styling, and the ladies loved it.

So, one day I saw a fashion layout in GQ featuring a guy in a double-breasted gray glen-plaid suit, wearing a red bow tie. Man, that dude looked sharp. I resolved that on the next payday, I'd get me one of those suits and a red bow tie like that. So I did, and got myself slicked up for a night on the town with my buds. And when I showed up at the club, one of my buddies said: "Look, it's Pee-Wee Herman!"

Indeed, this was exactly the wardrobe that the absurdist comedian Pee-Wee Herman had made his trademark. But I hadn't been thinking about that. I had been looking at that ruggedly handsome model in the magazine -- briefcase in hand, standing with Manhattan skyscrapers in the background, the very epitome of a smart young businessman. But I was not a ruggedly handsome model and this was not Manhattan.

The money I'd spent on that suit had been spent in an attempt to purchase the perception conveyed by the magazine display. I wanted to feel like a smart young businessman. I wanted to look ruggedly handsome. But this suit did not magically transform me. I was still the same goofy guy I'd been before I bought the suit, and even goofier for inadvertantly dressing like Pee-Wee Herman.

Well, the money wasn't entirely wasted. I seldom wore that suit again, but I'd learned a valuable lesson.

Marketing and Manipulation
One of the fundamentals of marketing psychology is the concept of how role models affect our perceptions. Because of the "halo effect," we have positive reactions to attractive people, but we have the strongest positive reactions to attractive people who resemble us in some way. Such people can be said to represent our idealized perception of ourselves.

Thus, the smiling woman on the Cosmo cover represents an ideal -- she is what women want to be, the aspirational self. And Cosmo uses this aspirational self to tell women that diet, fashion and sex -- sex! sex! sex! -- are the secrets of happiness. Oh, one other secret: Buying the products advertised in Cosmo.

William F. Buckley Jr. said that the hallmark of successful indoctrination is that the subject doesn't realize he's been indoctrinated. In fact, if you try to tell him he has been indoctrinated, if you point out the means and methods of his indoctrination, and cite evidence of the fallacious nature of his ideas, the indoctrinee will become angry. He will not only defend the indoctrinated beliefs as self-evidently true, but he will vehemently insist that he arrived at these beliefs by independent thought.

So it is with the 20-something "Cosmo girl," who has been reading these trashy magazines every month since she was in middle school. She has a closet full of clothes and 42 pairs of shoes. She has enough cosmetics to equip the road company of Les Miserables for their North American tour. She has mastered every one of the "99 Sure-Fire Sex Secrets" and has been through two dozen boyfriends.

And she is desperately unhappy.

By the time the "Cosmo girl" has been consuming this propaganda for a good 10 years, complete de-indoctrination is almost impossible. She has internalized the belief system so deeply that it has become part of her identity. She will interpret criticism of her Cosmo beliefs as a personal attack. To question whether her mastery of "Earth-Quaking Moves" is beneficial or necessary is to criticize who she is.

Debunking the sexual mythology of Cosmo is as simple as getting a guy to talk honestly about women. Back in the day when I was sporting around in my pink-and-blue sport coat, a stylin' babe-magnet with the cool Patrick Swayze mullet and the lean, tanned Speedo-worthy physique, I was scarcely an exemplar of the Christian ideal of chastity. Or any other Christian ideal, for that matter. (Hey, I was also a Democrat back then.)

What Matters?
Let us ask this question, then: When a young man is out there on the hunt, looking to "score," how does he evaluate his conquests? That is to say, what is it about the chick he picks up that makes him want to brag about it the next day, and perhaps call the chick for another date?

Two things: Looks and enthusiasm.

The first factor is obvious enough. Among his various conquests, the fellow who rides the romantic rodeo circuit will tend to have the most favorable opinion of the drop-dead beauty with the bitchin' bod. That's just how guys are. But the stuff that Cosmo is selling -- the clothes, the shoes, the jewelry, the cosmetics -- has very little impact on this evaluation. Ask any guy.

A really sexy girl is sexy even when she's in sweats and an oversized T-shirt, shopping for groceries. And women's near-universal embrace of the cosmetics/fashion industry is kind of like escalation in the Cold War arms race: At some point, everybody's got enough nukes to destroy the entire planet, and the argument for additional nukes is attenuated by the problem of diminishing returns. If every girl's made-up like a fashion model, a little extra skill in applying make-up isn't really going to gain you any advantage.

Somewhere in Pennsylvania today, there is at least one beautiful 19-year-old Amish girl who has never worn make-up, never worked out in a gym, never read Cosmo. And that girl, in her homemade plain dress, is more truly beautiful than any of the styled-up, decked-out hotties hanging around the most fashionable nightspot in Hollywood. Like I said, ask any guy.

So much for looks. Ceteris paribus, the better-looking girl is the more desireable pickup, the one the guy will brag about and ask for a second date. However, what about the sex itself? It may be -- consider this a hypothetical, if you wish -- that a young man on the prowl will score with lots of good-looking girls over the course of his prowling. Insofar as the performance of the sex act itself makes any difference in his evaluation of his conquests, what is the key factor?

Enthusiasm. The guy likes the girl who is not only "into" sex, but is evidently and unabashedly "into" him. She's kissing him passionately, can't keep her hands off him, she's saying his name and telling him how crazy she is about him and -- Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! Yes! YES!

And here, ladies, is exposed the cruel lie of all those "sex secrets" they push in Cosmo. They want you to believe that a guy will evaluate you, sexually, based on your mastery of specific sexual techniques.

Think about this for a minute, ladies. However limited or extensive your sexual experience with men, ask yourself: Is a guy's workmanlike mastery of sexual technique really what turns you on?

Of course not. If a guy is really "into" you -- that is to say, if he has the necessary sexual enthusiasm -- he'll eventually figure out what you like. That eager-to-please attitude where you are so crazy about your partner that you're actually asking them what they like, and doing it exactly the way they like it -- it's that fundamental enthusiasm, you see, that makes all the difference in the world. Ask any woman.

But don't let the ladies kid you, guys. Being tall, handsome, muscular and wealthy kind of helps, too. The Pee-Wee Herman suit has nothing to do with it.

The Myth of 'Sex Ed'
What this all means is that, even if a woman's desire is to "spread it around" and be that chick that guys pick up in bars, Cosmo doesn't tell her anything useful. Reading "sex secrets" in Cosmo is not going to make you more erotically attractive, or make your sexual performance more memorable. The idea of sexual "success" as being a function of technical expertise is a myth and a lie.

This relates to my disagreement with the proponents of "sex education." It is a remarkable thing that mankind has, through sexual reproduction, flourished to the tune of 6 billion people on the planet and yet "sex education" wasn't invented until the 20th century. If you buy into the sex-ed mentality, this means that for at least 92% of recorded human history, people had no clue what they were doing.

Furthermore, the sex-ed proponents would have us believe, unless sex is taught to children in classrooms -- in a government school by a government-certified teacher using government-approved curricula -- there is no possibility that kids will ever learn the basics of sex.

That these assertions of the sex-ed enthusiasts are self-evidently untrue. Sex is not rocket science or brain surgery, and untutored human beings have throughout history figured out the basic "Insert Tab A into Slot B" of sexuality without textbooks or classroom instruction. Three random thoughts:

• Given the alarming failure of the government education system to teach math and reading, what kind of fool would trust a public-school teacher to instruct his children about sex? (Hello, Mary Kay LeTourneau!)
• In the information age, surely mere facts and data about sex is not hard to find. But the religion of Educationism is based on the false belief that no one can learn anything without going to school to learn it. (Fact: Jimi Hendrix never took a single guitar lesson.)
• What is the real value of knowing the Latin names of the genitalia? Never let it be said that public schools no longer teach Latin -- every sixth-grader in America is now required to memorize such terms as labia, clitoris, urethra and vas deferens, and to identify these items correctly on an anatomical chart.

Such are the transparent fallacies of this perverse ideology. There are 501(c) non-profit foundations dedicated specifically to the purpose of promoting sex-education in public schools, without anyone ever questioning the false premises involved in their "philanthropic" mission.

Insightful readers immediately recognize the connection between sex-ed in schools and Cosmo on the magazine stand. Not only are they are both promoting the same ideology, but perhaps more importantly, they are promoting the same attitude. This attitude -- of sex as a matter of technique to be studied and mastered, in which a superiority of knowledge and skill is the ultimate objective -- is central to the sexual worldview into which the elite desire to indoctrinate the masses. And it is a monstrous lie.

Whether in gushy Cosmo "sex secrets" features or in the Educationist terminology of a middle-school sex-ed textbook, this attitude toward sex presumes that all sexual problems are the result of a lack of information. If you're not getting off, or if your partner is not getting off, or if you're both getting off but neither one of you is really happy, then what you need is more data.

My goodness, what did people do in the Dark Ages, before every middle-school child was required to study anatomical cross-section diagrams of the pelvis, learning to identify (by the proper medical terms) the prostate gland and the uterus? Pity poor Romeo and Juliet, who knew not the joy of the anatomical cross-section!

American young people today have more sexual information than at least 90 percent of the human beings who ever lived. Yet out-of-wedlock births, abortions, sexually-transmitted diseases and divorce are more rampant than ever. Somehow studying those cross-section charts, memorizing the Latin names of the genitalia and practicing how to put a condom on a banana have not prevented the skyrocketing levels of romantic misery.

We don't suffer from lack of information. Instead, we suffer from a lack of virtue.

Good luck trying to locate "virtue" on the anatomical charts. God knows you won't find it in Cosmo.

* * * * *

Well, I've been working on this for few hours and have reached a stopping point, but not the end point I had in mind when I started writing. If you'd like me to finish out this essay, just leave a comment, sharing your thoughts and requesting more, and I'll come back and write more. But first, I need a nap. Ah, the joys of blogging. (Please hit the tip jar!)

And to Cassandra, in the famous words of Ulysses S. Grant: "I intend to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

* * * * *

The comments -- and correction, thank you -- are piling up, leading to the conclusion that I must lead on to the conclusion of the matter. Thanks to the commenter who pointed out that when, in May 1864, Grant vowed to "fight it out . . . if it takes all summer," he actually ended up fighting nearly another 11 months. And, in fact, he did not continue fighting on the same line, but maneuvered to his left in the famous campaign that brought him finally to besiege Lee's army at Petersburg.

Yet it was his dogged determination, his unrelenting commitment to take the fight to the foe, that made Grant victorious. "I cannot spare this man. He fights," Lincoln said and, while I am not in the habit of quoting Lincoln to make a point, in this he was entirely right.

Having had (not much of) a nap, I now remind you that we began this examination of The Cosmo Syndrome with a mention that it is National Offend A Feminist Week. I have found myself recently chastised for (a) criticizing Carrie Prejean for having breast implants, and (b) employing the words "slut" and "whore." Ah, nothing gets 'em like plain English, eh? Well, then -- forward!

* * * * *

Virtue, Vice and 'Civility'
Virtue shiould always be praised, never derogated or dimissed as irrelevant. Virtue may be its own reward, but the natural human desire for esteem in society provides an incentive toward virtuous behavior, at least insofar as society esteems virtue.

When we praise the courage of heroes -- the firefighters who went into the inferno of the WTC on 9/11, for example -- we thus incite others to emulate such brave men, in the expectation that they might also merit praise. If we praise diligence and honesty, we likewise encourage people to be diligent and honest. Whatever society esteems, whatever is commonly praised and celebrated, it enshrines as a goal that attracts the eyes of the young and ambitious.

By the same principle, vice should always be condemned. Deceit, sloth, cowardice -- if such traits and behaviors do not elicit scorn from society, if we tolerate and refuse to be "judgmental" about vice, then we may expect vice to flourish. Think about the "gangsta" rap culture, with its celebration of violent drug dealers and pimps, its lyrics boasting of drive-by shootings and rape, its costumes of garish "bling" -- Bill Cosby is surely right that this perverse phenomenon has badly damaged the black community.

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil . . ."
-- Isaiah 5:20, KJV

To celebrate vice, to mock virtue -- these are cursed behaviors. And thus we must recall our discussion of Jessica Valenti, the feminist whose book is called The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women.

Is chastity not a virtue? Premarital chastity is the dress rehearsal for the main performance that is marital fidelity. It is a natural presumption (though one seldom voiced in our increasingly unnatural society) that the ability to restrain one's passions in youth -- to resist temptation -- would be a reliable predictor of the ability to be faithful in maturity. We might further reflect that habit is a great force in human behavior and that the habit of adventurously sleeping around, acquired early in life, would later make it difficult to adjust to the monogamous routine of marriage.

These are not merely philosophical speculations, but sociological fact that can be teased out of the available data if one is statistically minded. However, I need neither statistics or philosophy to know the truth, because I am a fool.

"Experience is a hard school, but a fool will learn in no other."
-- Benjamin Franklin

Yesterday, in mock-Victorian mode, I declared that "years of youthful association with companions of low character have irretrievably corrupted me, rendering me permanently unfit for polite society." You see, I had been condemned for demonstrating a lack of "civility" in my description of Valenti's philosophy:

A perverse non-judgmentalism, that refuses to praise virtue or condemn vice, is moral nihilism. Valenti goes beyond this, to celebrate whoredom and condemn chastity.

If that was uncivil, what would they say if I started telling tales of my own experiences, about the things a young rebel does, and the things he sees, when he's riding on that Highway to Hell? And if, by grace, I somehow managed to survive the ride, is it not my obligation to the memories of those who died on that road, to warn others against taking that wrong turn? If I see others making the same mistakes I made, or the mistakes that led others to an early grave, shouldn't I tell them to turn back before it's too late?

What a strange conception of "civility," that would rob civilization of its natural defense, the social disapproval that is rightly heaped upon the coward, the liar, the sluggard, the whore. In the name of "civility," we are supposed to allow Jessica Valenti to argue that chastity is a "myth" without fear of rebuke, lest we damage the fragile self-esteem of tramps, floozies and strumpets!
Next thing you know, your daughter will encounter some clever user -- perhaps a practiced player of Dylan Sauders' "game" -- who'll spring "the Cosmo routine" on her, and you may be sure that the upshot of this experience won't be an increase in her self-esteem. Do you really think that Valenti and Sauders and the editors of Cosmo, who preach a religion of unabashed promiscuity, deserve to be protected by the cloak of "civility"?

Cosmo is read by 39 million women and Valenti promotes her book on the "Today" show, but somehow my right-wing "incivility" is the real menace? Come now, Cassandra -- whatever my faults and failures, I think you're taking aim at the wrong target.

It's National Offend A Feminist Week, you see, and the ridiculous insistence that no man should be permitted to call a slut a slut is a byproduct of feminist ideology. It's all about The Sisterhood, an Us-vs.-Them mentality in which even conservative women are supposed to align themselves in sheltering Jessica Valenti from the thorough condemnation she deserves.

Remember what Buckley said about successful indoctrination? Conservatives who instinctively invoke feminist concepts -- e.g., non-judgmentalism toward promiscuity -- might want to contemplate Buckley's observation in silence, and stop superficially criticizing those of us who have already spent many years examining the ideological infrastructure of the Left. Just because you don't know what I'm doing doesn't mean that I don't know what I'm doing.

And if anybody wants to hit the tip jar, now would be a good time to do it. Being "openly shameless" can be a tough row to hoe.

No pun intended.

Whorism

(BUMPED; UPDATES BELOW.) Cassy Fiano has this video of Feministing's Jessica Valenti promoting her new book, The Purity Myth, on the "Today" show last week:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Why does Jessica Valenti derogate virginity? An excerpt from her book explains it all:

I was once that teenage girl struggling with the meaning behind my sexuality . . . I was the cruelly labeled slut . . .

Which is to say, It's about her. Remember my rant about Bill Maher, who seems stuck in a phase of eighth-grade rebellion? Jessica Valenti is his distaff analog.

Valenti's mislabeled "pro-sex feminism," like Maher's childish atheism, is merely an unresolved adolescent emotional issue carried forward into adulthood by immature personalities. Unable to accept and adjust to their own failures to live up to traditional ideals, they manufacture their own counter-ideals, which naturally compel them to scoff and sneer at tradition.

Yet, as Cassy Fiano points out, the consequences of anti-traditionalism are disastrous: Despite all the prophylactic propaganda, diseases like herpes, chlamydia and HPV are pandemic, and despite the easy availability of contraception, we have more than a million abortions a year in the United States, in addition to a record level of bastardy.

Given the self-evident wrongness of Valenti's whorism -- we cannot call it "feminism," since it has nothing to do with equality of political or economic rights -- why would anyone endorse it? Why would the producers of NBC's "Today" show give publicity to an author advocating moral nihilism and (at least tacitly) endorsing teen promsicuity?

Valenti's book carries the absurdly misguided subtitle, "How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women." Is it not rather the case that an obsession with sex is the source of the problem? Were it not for the sexualization of popular culture, virginity -- the default condition of youth, whose abandonment requires willful action -- would be taken for granted. It is only because fornication has become a high-school ritual (the median age of first intercourse is 16 or 17, according to various studies) that it is now "conservative" to think that teenagers can or should be chaste.

So we see that NBC has a political excuse to promote Valenti's whorism. By making adolescent fornication a political issue, liberals can now demand that "both sides of the issue" get a hearing. And yet this is not enough for them. Cassy Fiano points out that Valenti's readers are complaining that abstinence advocate Lakita Garth got equal time on the "Today" show. Just as with the same-sex marriage controversy -- where opposition to the gay-radical agenda has become stigmatized as "hate" -- soon it will be considered a species of bigotry merely to disagree with Valenti.

Valenti's perverse ideology makes sense only if you ignore everything we know about human nature. Liberals erupted in outrage at my assertion that selling Plan B over the counter to 17-year-olds would serve only to make teenage girls more vulnerable to male predation. But who has more insight into the habits and attitudes of the typical 17-year-old boy? Me or Andrew Sullivan? (Who, by his own admission, was never typical.)

Common-sense observations about human nature are now politicized as "conservative," so that every knocked-up 15-year-old can be said to be engaged in liberal activism and her baby-daddy is a "community organizer" of sorts. One imagines that nowadays the high-school Lothario, encountering resistance as he tries to get to second base with his would-be conquest, chides his prey: "What are you? Some kind of Republican?"

UPDATE: With cross-posting privleges hither and yon, some of my observations are nowadays promiscuously scattered abroad. At Hot Air's Green Room:

Let’s face it, if Valenti’s ideology is embraced by liberals, this will certainly make matters simple for horny teenage boys looking for an easy score. How can you tell which girls put out? They’re the ones whose moms have Obama stickers on their minivan bumpers.

Ba-da-boom! And at Taki's Magazine:

Back in the late Sixties, some distaff radical declared, "Feminism is the theory. Lesbianism is the practice," which is at least teleologically coherent. . . . Valenti can be said to postulate a corollary to the original syllogism: "Feminism is the theory. Whorism is the practice."

Dishonest writers like Valenti seek mainstream acceptance of their ideology by expressing it in mild language that won't offend the soccer moms. The critic who distills their argument to its radical essence -- as is my wont -- will naturally be denounced as an extremist. Which I suppose is true in the sense that it takes one to know one. But one cannot be moderate in the discussion of virtue, which allows no compromise.

One is virtuous or one is not, and while I have never claimed to be a paragon of virtue, I can at least distinguish between virtue and vice. And must, lest I incur the ancient curse:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil . . .
-- Isaiah 5:20 KJV

A perverse non-judgmentalism, that refuses to praise virtue or condemn vice, is moral nihilism. Valenti goes beyond this, to celebrate whoredom and condemn chastity.

UPDATE II: Over at Right Wing News, I illustrate a quote with this neoclassical artwork:

Of course, Phryne was the 4th-century Greek prostitute whose acquittal by the Aeropagus might be construed as evidence of the decadence of paganism in the Hellenistic age. In our own decadent age, we have seen the divine grace of Jesus toward the woman caught in adultery perverted into an imbecile non-judgmentalism, forgetting entirely Christ's parting commandment to the woman who owed him her life:

"Go, and sin no more."
-- John 8:11 KJV

Christ offered mercy to sinners, but never pretended that sin was not sin, as do today's acolytes in the temple of non-judgmentalism.

UPDATE III: Over at my friend Russ Smith's Splice Today, Zach Kaufmann numbers me among the "fascist womanizing prigs." This is rather an oxymoronic appellation. Can a womanizer also be a prig? Does my long marriage not at least exempt me from the accusation of womanizing? Since I am self-evidently not priggish -- frank discussion of sexuality does not shock me in the least -- what exactly does Kauffman intend to denote? And how does fascism figure into this, except as a simple-minded slur?

Really, Russ: We're in a buyer's market for content providers. Can you not afford better help than these impudent young liberal idiots? And as for Kaufmann's title -- "Hey, Robert, Is Your Daughter Single?" -- the answer is: Single, lovely, redheaded, 19, and so far out of your league it ain't even the same game, punk.

UPDATE IV: Note how Pandagon accuses Mark Regnerus of attempting to relegate women to "chattel" status, merely for advocating marriage. (Via Memeorandum.) The Left well knows that its perverse "Progress" requires the annihilation of all traditions, even the tradition of young love. I'll have more to say about Regnerus later, but now must attempt some actual paying work.

UPDATE V: Linked at Conservative Grapevine. Thanks. Please also see "Amanda Marcotte: Feminism as Paranoia."