When Sex Toys are Legal and Contraceptives are Free, Are We not Doomed?
Issue date: 27/02/08
Is it a good day in America? Is it a good time to be in this broke, disgraced, sexually bewildered country when the lumbering and lost state of Texas finally crawls, lurching and sputtering and blinking hard, into the 19th century as it finally, against its will, is forced by the courts to allow sex toys to be sold to adults, thus leaving only Alabama and a bit of Georgia to stare into the void of their own unused genitalia and scream in abject terror?
Is it, furthermore, a better and brighter day for all Americakind when the lumbering and lost Federal Communications Commission still wants to fine ABC Television $1.4 million for showing a glimpse of a naked female butt on an episode of the now-defunct "NYPD Blue" five years ago, even though all the little kids who were ostensibly traumatized by said ass are now about 12 years old and into ultraviolent video games and hooking up on MySpace and choking each other to death, and the FCC's move is not considered a distressing, dire prediction of oppressive things to come, but rather a forgettable trifle, a shrug, a silly little footnote?
Is it not, finally, good to know that you now can, when in New York City, stroll into any number of bars or fine urban locales and grab yourself a free, official NYC condom or five, and also a nice packet of lubricant, all on the city's dime?
And what's more, not only are they complimentary and available citywide, and not only is there an impressive accompanying ad campaign for the second year of the groundbreaking program (TV, print, subway billboards, Web site) hawking said latex fun-sheaths and encouraging you to "get some," but the packaging is actually created by a semi-famous industrial designer (Yves Béhar) and the campaign itself actually isn't insulting or shy or demeaning as it dares to suggest that young adult Americans might actually enjoy sex and therefore, oh my God, wouldn't it be fun to get some today? The horror.
I am here to say yes, yes indeed, it is all quite good, refreshing, even a little promising, even if you don't really notice, even if it all seems minor and insignificant, overshadowed by looming recessions and lost wars and the bleak, bleak, bleak BushCo End of Days.
See, there was a time, just a handful of miserable years ago, when it all felt dour and sad and pathetic, when John "anoint my feet in oil" Ashcroft ruled the porn-obsessed Justice Department and worthless abstinence education was being forced down the throat of the educational system and the fundamentalist Christians were stabbing at the culture like unhappy vultures tearing at a carcass.
It was a time when major media was eating its own tail in fear of getting fined for allowing the slightest illicit or sexually suggestive infraction, as Michael Powell's Bush-controlled FCC went on the warpath, behaving like some sort of gnarled sexually uptight Megatron who hated women and never masturbated, desperate to crack down on the slightest naughty infraction, from Bono saying "f-" at the Golden Globes to Howard Stern talking dirty to porn stars for the benefit of his audience of overweight frat guys and lonely cab drivers.
Source : http://www.sfgate.com/