Memo to Congress: STOP LISTENING TO IDIOTS, IDIOTS.
When they came for the gays and bisexuals, I said nothing, because I'm straight. When they came for the smokers, I said nothing, because I don't smoke. When they came for the fast food, I said nothing, because, well, I really should stop eating that shit anyway. But when they came for the porn, nobody was left to speak for me except all the other skinny straight folks with good lungs, but none of them would say anything 'cause they were too busy spanking it.
In case you thought that perhaps the replacing of John Ashcroft with Alberto "I Heart Torture" Gonzalez might see the drapes covering Blind Justice's titty removed and replaced with a bit of leather bondage gear or a black hood, you will be sorely disappointed. Ashcroft's career's corpse (which he also lost an election to - funny story) was barely cold when, two Thursdays ago, Congress was learning that porn was worse than crack.
When I heard this, at first, I wanted to think this was the result of confusion. Perhaps they meant that porn contained a lot of crack, ass and otherwise, and also contained other, non-crack stuff. But no, the crazy people advising YOUR lawmakers meant that porn caused an addiction far worse than crack cocaine.
Who were these medical geniuses, bringing their carefully researched findings to our contemplative legislative body? Well, we do have Mary Anne Layden, from the University of Pennsylvania sexual trauma and psychopathology program. That sounds reasonably legitimate, plus, her name has "lay" in it, allowing for puerile comedy opportunities. But then it gets, as the kids say, freaky-deaky.
There's Jeffery Satinover, who works to CURE HOMOSEXUALITY. Much like creationists and people who use the word "islamofascist" seriously, anyone who claims to work in the field of curing our friends from Team Selfish Hedonism immediately forfeits their right to be taken seriously about anything ever. All they do is create a bunch more frustrated, pissed-off, closeted faux-straights, which we have a generous surpus of already, thanks.
And then there's Judith Reisman of the California Protective Parents Association, a group that's long been at odds with the California Just Leave The Little Bastards In The Car Foundation. Actually, the CPPA's agenda is preventing incest and rape, which is tough to argue with, but anyone who uses the word "erototoxins" to describe porn does not strike me as the kind of reasoned, sane face you want to use to represent your organization. "Erototoxins"? It sounds like the kind of thing you'd see in a Trek slashfic where Kirk fucks some kind of plant-woman. And then Spock has to suck the erototoxins out of Kirk to save his life.
Reisman also suggested that pornography be countered by advertisements on buses that say fucking children is wrong. Great idea, but if the bus ads we have NOW worked at all, I'd be so busy trying to listen to every different radio station in the Twin Cities metro that I wouldn't have the TIME to fuck children.
But it's Satinover who really takes the cake. We're all healthy, rational adults here, so without revealing any personal information, quietly compare your own personal experience with the following quote, and see how close they match up. It's ACTUAL WANKER QUOTE TIME!
"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance. That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect.
First of all, he said "most perfect", which is stupid, and is a construction that drives me up the fucking wall semantically, but besides that - masturbation releases the PERFECT addictive substance? Please. Most people hooked on heroin can't hold down steady jobs, and slowly decline into Requiem for a Dream territory. I guarantee there are a LOT more masturbators out there than there are heroin addicts, and if masturbation were that addictive, we wouldn't have the energy to produce the porn that would be entirely superfluous ANYWAY. We'd have died out as a species centuries ago, either from starvation or mass drowning.
But fear not! Your government is hard at work attempting to wipe the scourge of porn out with the hand towel of justice. Those pesky 9/11 recommendations can wait, there's MASTURBATING to stop!