for 24 April 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Naked Eye

Verily, the shame is the
hottest part! I remember the
hours of will-steeling (and
willy steeling, I suppose)
that led up to a trip to the
local Max's Milk store (it's
a Canadian Thing) in seach of
Penthouse Canada. The more
taboo porn becomes, the more
necessary it grows to the
minds and groins of our
youth. It seems that even
those of the female
persuasion are (finally!)
discovering the guilty
pleasures on the
print-and-flesh combo. Right
on, sisters!

Your story did make me think
of a particular episode
related me by a friend (let's
call him Sam). One day, at
some point during his
undergraduate career at
Columbia, the topic of
discussion in his Women's
Study class turned to
pornography. After the
discussion had gone on for
some time, Sam raised his
hand to make what he felt had
become a much-needed point of
clarification. When called
upon, he stood and said:
"What some of you may not
know, or may not fully
understand, is that all men
love porn. They like to read
it, they like to look at it.
Gay or straight, we enjoy
looking at naked pictures of
whichever kind of body turns
us on. Despite our
understanding that porn can
and does objectify both men
and women, we like to read
about them doing things with
others, and we like to see
pictures of them doing things
to themselves. Yet some of us
avoid porn. Note: this is not
because we do not like it. It
is because, for one reason or
another, we simply choose not
to read it."

Sam made it out of the
classroom alive, that day ( I
did say Columbia, not
Barnard). Needless to say, he
remains one of my heroes to
this day.

Suck on.

Noah Tepperman
<thirdson@interport.net>

Penthouse Canada? What the
hell could that possibly look
like? ("Ah, geez, guys, you
see the racy flannels on this
honey? And get a gander at
them sassy mittens!") Gives a
whole new meaning to the
common teen-boy term "wet
bea--." Oh, never mind.

Is there still such a thing,
now that Canada has been
MacKinnoned?

And it sounds like Sam's
missing out on the shame. As
his friend, you should
probably take him aside and
explain things for him.

Thanks for the Columbia
story.

Ambrose Beers

I'm not going to get deeply
involved in this debate,
since I profoundly don't
care. I've seen a woman.
(What play was it - Butley? -
in which the title character
says "I'm a one-woman man,
and I've had mine, thank
God." But I digress.) I've
also seen Times Square in the
late 1970s, so I'm not
totally without sympathy for
those who argue that maybe
too much is enough. Anyway.
Let me just suggest you
broaden your geographic
horizens a little:

My lady is about to lead a
tour group to Iran. She is
currently going through her
closet trying to find
something to wear. (She had a
chador, once; it got
stolen(!) the last time she
was in Iran, and she's not
getting another one.) We're
busy having reverse fashion
shows, in which I'm asked
"does this hide enough of
me?" and "does this make me
sufficiently unattractive?"
and "can you notice any of my
body in this outfit?" As she
does this she becomes more
and more angry; she better
leave on this tour soon or
somebody is going to get
killed. The reason she's
going through this idiocy is
that the Islamic state
requires it. Fair enough;
it's their country. Why do
they require it? Because, it
would seem, the very sight of
a strange woman COMPELS men
to feats of sexual violence.
It appears that the very
existence of women, even
perfectly respectable women
in perfectly respectable
clothing, is too much for the
weak male flesh to deal with;
best it be entirely hidden,
lest bad things ensue.

Recall that Persian culture
is ancient and complex and
that this fundamentalism is
filtered through a
complicated strata; Iranian
women are sophisticated,
educated, in the work force,
have the vote, and are
capable of dealing with all
manner of idiocy, Persian men
included. And despite this,
the fear of sexual arousal is
so great that an entire
society has stood its dress
codes and much of its
behavioral code on its head
to be sure that the site of a
woman's hair does not result
in rape in the streets. Of
course, the situation in
Afghanistan is markedly
worse. There are a LOT of
people who believe we must be
protected from ourselves.

I bring this to your
attention simply to point out
that the idiotic anti-sex
practices you cite are not,
as one might innocently
believe, the product of some
uniquely Yankee puritanism.
Rather, they reflect what is
surely a widely
(universally?) held fear of
the power of sexuality. As we
laugh at this fear, perhaps
we might ponder if such a
fear is necessarily
inappropriate. Sex and Death,
Eros and Chaos ... the
linkages are real. The
Greeks, and the Elizabethans,
just to mention our own
immediate cultural ancestors,
treated love and lust as
either comic or dangerous,
the enemies of order and
family. Only a fool in love
could say "the world well
lost for love." Maybe they
were on to something.

Alan Kornheiser
The Doctor Is
IN

Alan,

Not sure about these other
cultures, but I will just say
this: My roommates are
constantly telling me to "put
on some pants."

Why is she going to Iran? Are
you dating a government
assassin of some kind?

Ambrose Beers

I liked it. only what does
"(sic)" mean?

Matthew Manor

It means "buy a dictionary."

Oh, okay: It means that the
misspelled or agrammatic (a
word I think I just made up)
word or words immediately
preceding the "(sic)" are
taken intact from a direct
quote, and so the error isn't
ours. It means, you know,
that we're not stupid or
something.

Now you probably want to know
what a meme is.

Ambrose Beers

Making The Fish

FYI:

When you run your Web page
through Babelfish to French
then back to English, "a
fish, a barrel, and a smoking
gun" becomes "a fish, a barrel,
and a gun of nicotinism"

Hey, this is like my 11th
letter to y'all. It'd be nice
to make Fish sometimes.

Tom Ballard
<wtb3@bellsouth.net>

Making The Fish. A dubious
accolade to be sure.

You have way too much time on
your hands, mister. A real
accolade. Congratulations.

Now think about spending it
doing something more
constructive. Like smoking.

Your Gun of Nicotinism,
Sucksters

Naked Eye

Laugh out loud funny -- what
more could you ask for. I
guess if you motivated me to
go out and protest uptight
moral majoritarians, that
would be better, but you'll
have to settle for my
laughter.

Ted Sturk
<ted@light.on.ca>

No, no: Protest. Only better
that you should protest by
way of your daily actions,
laughter being just one tool
in the box. You know what to
do.

Ambrose Beers

Once again, you've hit the
nail on the head, and the
nail is called,
"responsibility." As in, "I
don't want to take any, so
I'm going to place it all in
the hands of a higher ruling
body." The War on Sex, like
the War on Drugs, is based in
the notion that people can't
control themselves and
extends from that notion ...
that everyone must be
penalized for the lack of
self-control on the part of a
few. The attitude is like
that of a second grade
teacher: "Little Jimmy was
bad, so none of you can go
out to recess."

Most often, those who propose
restrictions on "morally
objectionable" things are the
ones most prone to lose
control and abuse them. Maybe
if these politicians and
religious figures would
actually loosen up and jack
off from time to time, they
wouldn't be so wound up. Or
hey, most of them are pretty
rich (how'd that
happen? hmmm
... ); they can afford
hookers or trophy spouses.

And maybe that's part of the
plan, to once again target
the poor and the single.
Those of us not blessed with
six- or seven-figure incomes
or an (inter)active sex life
are once again being targeted
by the elite class and being
denied a source of our own
possible gratification.

Just a thought,
Tom
<lmaddox@tigger1.nado.hp.com>

Amen, brother. Quite the
second grade culture, out
there. And let's do stop for
a moment to try and picture
Ken Starr jacking off, shall
we?

There. That was nice.

Ambrose Beers