Tag Archives: sex

controversies, lessons learned, marriage, narcissists, politics, religion, sex, sexism, slut shamers

Is he really like a male version of Monica Lewinsky?

A few days ago, I started reading Giancarlo Granda’s book, Off the Deep End: Jerry and Becki Falwell and the Collapse of an Evangelical Dynasty. For those who don’t know, Giancarlo Granda was the infamous “pool boy” who had a rather kinky affair with Becki Falwell, while Jerry Falwell, Jr. sat by and watched. The affair, which began in 2012, was in the news during the height of the pandemic. People were buzzing about how this powerful couple, supposedly evangelical Christians leading a very famous Baptist university in Virginia, were drinking, partying, and having wild sex with a young guy from Miami.

I’m nowhere near finished reading the book now, but I don’t think it’ll take too long to get through it. It started off kind of slow, but then jumped into high gear. Just this morning over breakfast, I got a couple of chapters further into the sordid saga. I read aloud to Bill and we talked about Granda’s story, as well as his excuses.

There’s also a Hulu documentary about this… Maybe I’ll watch it.

As I read about how the Falwells lured the handsome 20 year old man (circa 2012) into their world, I feel a strange mixture of disgust, shock, amazement, and basic empathy for Granda. He admits early on that he was fascinated with business and the idea of making a lot of money. He was a good looking, ambitious, and somewhat naive guy, looking to break in with the high rollers of Miami, and he took steps to make that idea come to fruition. That’s why he was working as a “pool boy” at the Fontainebleau, a luxury hotel in Miami, where rich and famous people hang out to relax and make business deals.

Granda didn’t know much at all about the Falwells when he was approached by Becki, an attractive brunette with brown eyes who was, at that time, in her late 40s. He just knew that anyone staying at the Fontainebleau had lots of money… enough to rent a daybed for $150, run up four or five figure restaurant and bar tabs and tip accordingly. Becki was fit and attractive, and Granda was a young man in his sexual prime. So when she invited him to meet her at a Days Inn, he agreed– even though she added that her husband wanted to watch them together.

I suppose he figured this was a one in a lifetime opportunity, one of life’s little adventures that can only come up for the young and daring. Maybe it would lead to a lucrative business deal. Like a lot of young folks who work in hospitality, Granda was focused on making money and connections. I’m sure the prospect of having sex with an older woman also appealed to him, even if Granda wasn’t too keen on the idea of her 50 year old husband watching them and jerking off in the shadows.

According to Granda, Becki quickly attached herself to him… and in a weird way, so did her husband. The two did all they could to stroke Granda’s ego, to get him to continue having the affair. Later, they invited Granda into their business dealings, and were it not for the inevitable implosion of the relationship, he might be a high ranking executive at Liberty University today. But there was a big scandal, which caused Jerry Falwell, Jr. and his wife to fall very publicly from grace.

As I was reading Granda’s book this morning, I remembered the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which happened in the late 1990s. Lewinsky, for those who don’t know, was an ambitious White House intern from California. She wasn’t exactly an innocent, blushing virgin when she encountered then President Bill Clinton. In 2ooo, Lewinsky was a guest on Larry King Live, and she admitted that when she was barely out of high school, she had an affair with a 40 year old married man. So, although she was a very young woman when she served as an unpaid White House intern in the 1990s, Monica had some experience. And she knew damned well Bill Clinton was, and still is, a married man when she engaged in oral sex with him in the Oval Office.

Still… I will concede that it was probably difficult for her to consider not giving Clinton what he wanted. It’s not like she didn’t have prior experience. She had big dreams and lofty goals, and Clinton was the President of the United States! I’m sure, in her mind, blowing the Commander in Chief might lead to good things for her future. Talk about landing a big fish! In that way, she and Giancarlo had something in common, I guess.

Of course, Monica in the wake of her scandal with Bill Clinton, wound up being the butt of jokes for years. People had no respect for her, and she was relentlessly slut shamed and lambasted for her inappropriate relations with Bill Clinton. By contrast, I don’t remember a lot of people being quite as harsh regarding the Clintons.

Sure, many Republicans were deriding Bill Clinton for being immoral and unfaithful. Curiously, a lot of those same people have few issues with Donald Trump’s disgusting philandering behaviors. But, I didn’t hear a lot of people hurling shame at Clinton for accepting sexual favors from a woman young enough to be his daughter. That attitude certainly didn’t come from people who voted for him. I remember a lot of them saying that Clinton’s sex life was irrelevant, as they ridiculed Lewinsky for sullying their hero’s reputation.

Eventually the whole Clinton/Lewinsky sex scandal thing… blew over (see what I did there?). We don’t talk that much about Monica Lewinsky now. She’s 50 years old and living in California. But Giancarlo Granda brought up her name in his book, and I couldn’t help but kind of nod… as I’d thought of her, too, as he related his story about how he got trapped in an extremely inappropriate sexual relationship with the wife of the now former president of a huge evangelical university in my home state of Virginia.

But then I thought about the situation some more. I determined that Granda’s situation with the Falwells actually wasn’t that much like Lewinsky’s with the Clintons. First of all, Granda didn’t really know much about the Falwells when he ran into them at his job in Miami. Monica Lewinsky, by contrast, certainly knew who Bill Clinton was. He was the very obviously married President of the United States.

While the Falwells are also married, Becki invited Granda to engage in sexual acts with her with her husband’s cooperation and express encouragement. Indeed, Jerry Falwell, Jr. actually watched the two of them doing their business. Hillary, on the other hand, didn’t consent to Monica’s affair with Bill Clinton.

Secondly, the relationship Monica Lewinsky had with Bill Clinton was relatively short lived. There were nine encounters between November 1995 and March 1997, none of which involved sexual intercourse. Granda writes that he never had intercourse with Becki Falwell, but there was everything else, and the relationship didn’t end when the sex part was over. Granda was involved in the Falwell’s business dealings, and continued an emotional relationship with them.

And finally… while I don’t condone rich, powerful people taking advantage of others who are much younger and ambitious, there is a difference between how men and women are viewed in these situations. I know a lot of people are trying to work toward gender equality in the United States, but the truth is, there’s still a powerful force trying to keep women down. A woman who has an affair with a married man is still often considered a homewrecking whore. A man who has an affair with a “cougar” is often considered a lucky guy. And a lot of people, looking at what Granda got out of the deal, would say that he was lucky. This was a young, handsome, healthy, ambitious man who was looking for a way into the rich and fabulous lifestyle. He found a way through the Falwells… and all he had to do was stroke Becki Falwell’s ego and keep her entertained.

Lest anyone misunderstand me– I’m not saying I think Granda is lucky, because I don’t. I’m saying other people– those who are a lot more cynical than I am– would say he was. I do think the Falwells took advantage of Granda and even victimized him on some level, but in fairness to the Falwells, Granda was an adult at age 20. He knew Becki Falwell was a guest at the hotel where he was working. He knew she was married. Like a lot of people, he let his desire for money, power, and sexual gratification override his common sense. Yes, he was young and naive, and the Falwells were rich and powerful, but he had to know that on some level, what he was doing was wrong, and could potentially to lead to disaster. The Falwells actually brought Granda into their family and treated him like a son– which is, in its own way, especially gross. If he was like a son to them, that would make Becki like his “mom”. Eew.

Monica Lewinsky certainly wasn’t innocent in her situation, either. But she got a hell of a lot more flak for what she did than Granda ever could. The only reason people are talking about Granda today is because he wrote a bombshell book. It’s not even a super popular book, from what I can tell. People were making trashy Monica Lewinsky jokes years after her affair with the former POTUS was revealed. When she resurfaced a few years ago to give a TED Talk, the jokes and criticisms began anew. While her notoriety helped her in some ways, it also significantly hindered her, particularly when she wanted to be hired for certain jobs in communications and marketing.

A lot of people were snarking about this when it first came out… and had very little empathy for Monica’s plight.

I don’t know what leads some people to have sexual relationships with people much older than they are. Monica was 18 years old when she got involved with the 40 year old man. What did they have in common? My guess is that she was looking for someone mature who could provide emotional and financial security of some kind. While it was legal for her to be with a man that age, my guess is that the guy manipulated her. Later, when she had a chance to do sexual favors for Clinton, it probably didn’t seem that wrong or inappropriate to her. Again, it wasn’t like she didn’t have any prior experience.

Granda writes that he was manipulated, groomed, and victimized, too. But he freely admits that his motivation was making money and getting an inroad into the high level real estate business world. In both cases, I think the young people involved were left with significant regrets. Granda claims he was “used”, but I would submit that he used the Falwells, too. He saw them as a ticket to financial success in the business world, even though they were a married couple and in charge of a huge Christian university.

I hope to be reviewing Granda’s book soon. I just wanted to write about this theme while it was fresh in my head. Granda does bring up Lewinsky and compares his situation to hers. There are some similarities, but I think the lingering effects of Monica’s case were much more serious in the long run. She’s a woman who got involved with one of the most recognizable and respected people on the planet. Clinton never made her part of his family, or brought her into the family business. When it was over between them, she was branded a homewrecker, while Clinton’s reputation wasn’t damaged that much at all. In fact, check out this sympathetic song…

Eric Schwartz says Clinton got a blow job… which is not so “bad” in the grand scheme of things. If Giancarlo Granda had been a woman who had sex with Jerry Falwell, Jr., I’d pretty much guarantee the people of Liberty University would be calling Granda a “slut” and forgiving Falwell.

Granda is a man who didn’t even really know much about the Falwells before he fell into their trap. My guess is that even before this scandal happened, Jerry Falwell, Jr. had far fewer admirers than either Bill or Hillary Clinton still have. And some of us– myself included– had never even heard of Becki Falwell before this situation came to light. But this story is just a reminder that a lot of people in high places are probably folks you wouldn’t actually want to know… because so many of them got to where they are by doing yucky, hypocritical, immoral things.

The Bible even tells us this…

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Matthew 19:24

I’m not a particularly religious person myself, and clearly neither are the Falwells. But they sure had no problem using the God fearing to fly the Liberty University corporate jet to get to the Fontainebleau, where they met “poor”, “hapless” Giancarlo, looking for a ticket to get to where they were. It makes me glad I decided to go to a “godless” public university, where I had the complete freedom to do as I chose, and my tuition dollars didn’t go toward satisfying the former university president’s exotic and bizarre sexual desires. Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s conduct sure doesn’t seem like very Christlike behavior to me.

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blog news, book reviews, business

Why reposts can really pay off handsomely…

Reposts can really pay off handsomely… I know this to be true. I’m sure some readers wonder why I recycle content. In fact, I’m reminded of Sting, one of my favorite musicians, who is quite adept at the rehash. Listen to his songs– often, you’ll find snippets of older songs within them. Sometimes, he reuses lyrics from another song, or maybe a riff. He’s also been known to completely redo his songs, even bonafide hits like “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.”

“Don’t Stand So Close to Me” circa 1981…
Rehashed and revamped in 1986…
And yet another revamp… totally different.

It can be a good idea to revamp and rehash. Yesterday, I was reminded why, as I looked at my Amazon.com SiteStripe, not expecting any surprises. I have been an Amazon Associate since 2004. After all of those years, I don’t think I’ve so much as made $200 in commissions. I tend to get $10 payments every few months. My purpose in blogging isn’t to sell things, so it doesn’t bother me that I don’t make much money. However, it is nice when making money happens.

Lately, I’ve written more fresh book reviews. However, since I moved my blog from Blogger to WordPress, I’ve been reposting old stuff. Old book reviews are very interesting to some people. Lately many people are hitting my review of Going My Own Way, a 1983 book written by Bing Crosby’s son, Gary. Some have also read my reviews of Debby Boone’s 1981 memoir, So Far, and Debby’s sister Cherry’s book, Starving for Attention.

The biggest surprise, though, was revealed yesterday. Within the past couple of days, someone visited my review of Dian Hanson’s 2011 book, The Big Book of Pussy. The person who visited used my Amazon.com link to purchase a copy of the book. Provided they keep the book (and I’m not holding my breath), I’ll get a $22 commission in March. That’s pretty cool!

I bought The Big Book of Pussy completely whimsically about ten years ago. It’s one of a trio of books I own by Hanson. I first noticed Hanson’s 3D photography book, The Big Book of Breasts, in 2009. It was when we lived in Germany the first time, and I was on a day trip to Munich. I was walking past a bookstore when I noticed Hanson’s book in the window. When I moved back to the States, I ordered it from Amazon.

This book isn’t as scandalous as it seems…

Amazon was doing its usual “suggestive selling”, and they also recommended The Big Book of Pussy and The Big Butt Book. Since I was ordering anyway, I decided to get those books, too. Then, I reviewed all three of them for the now defunct product review site, Epinions.com. Hanson also wrote books about legs and penises, but I decided not to order those. When we moved back to Germany in 2014, I left most of my books in storage. Dian Hanson’s books are big coffee table affairs, and we had limited funds for shipping our household items. Three big books that I don’t look at often would have taken up valuable space and weight.

At some point, Hanson’s artsy body part books went out of print, even though people are clearly still interested in them. I see that reasonably priced and sized “little” versions are available of her books, but not the big ones like I own. Now, I kind of wish I’d brought them with me, because there’s obviously a market for them. In fact, sometimes I catch myself missing other items I have in storage. I wish we had our curio/china cabinet, for instance. I also wish I had my karaoke disc collection, my photo albums, and my mom’s piano. Of course, mom’s piano is extremely heavy, and I don’t play well at all. But I could learn!

I know that sooner or later, we’ll eventually reunite with the rest of our belongings. I just don’t know when that will be. Right now, Bill wants to buy a house in Europe somewhere and settle here. If we do that, it will mean going to the States temporarily to settle our affairs. If we don’t, we’ll just move back home somewhere.

I do appreciate it when people make purchases through my Amazon links. I don’t expect people to do that, but it’s really nice when it happens. It’s a great feeling when someone finds one of my posts useful, especially when it’s a review. I wanted to share this news on Facebook but, given the recently draconian bot discipline over there, I thought better of it. I’m afraid someone might report me for being too “suggestive” when I crow about selling a rare copy of The Big Book of Pussy. Story of my life… I can’t be completely transparent to most people about exactly where I met Bill, either. 😉

Anyway, if you’ve made a purchase through my blog, thank you very much. Especially if you’re the one who bought Hanson’s rare book, which is going for a lot more than I think it’s worth. I hope the book turns out to be all you hope it will be! And if it doesn’t, and you return the book, I’ll understand. Still, I’ve definitely learned that reposts can pay off handsomely. Oh… and sex sells!

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controversies, nostalgia, slut shamers, social media

Partial repost: Let’s keep ’em closed (and covered up), people…

Today’s entry is a partial repost, some of which I originally composed on September 5, 2015. I am reposting part of my blog today, because I feel like being kind of funny, and I’m not in the mood to write about Kevin McCarthy’s ridiculous Speaker of the House vote. I also don’t follow football, so I can’t opine about Dahmer Hamlin. And I’m not quite done with Jamie Lynn’s book… so here goes.

Before I repost what I wrote in 2015, here’s a brief briefing. The repost was based on a 2013 era viral blog post that was written by an Austin, Texas based mom, Kim Hall, who complained about teenaged girls posting pictures of themselves in various stages of undress. It went viral, with many people sharing it, and quite a few people writing snarky rebuttals, about what they considered “slut shaming”. This morning, I’m struck by how innocent we were in 2013, when so many of us were up in arms about pictures of scantily clad girls on Facebook and Instagram. Kim Hall wanted teenaged girls to cover up their bodies if they were going to share photos and videos on social media that her sons might see. Little did she know that a few years later, people would want them to cover up their faces, too. She had no way of knowing about the challenges that teens would face when a novel virus came to town. It’s almost comical…

Anyway, below is my 2015 post. It’s relatively brief by my standards, and most of the links still work.

***Two years ago (in 2013), a woman’s blog post about “slutty” looking teenagers went viral.  The post was called “FYI– If you’re a teenage girl…”  Why am I remembering this?  Because I checked Facebook’s “On this day” app and noticed that I had posted a link to a blogger’s funny rebuttal (I highly recommend reading the snarky rebuttal, which is still up. It’s hilarious!).  The post that had spawned the rebuttal was removed, but not before it was viewed millions of times and shared all over the place.  Indeed, I even responded to the post myself– but my rebuttal is on the old blog… maybe I’ll repost my rebuttal. Why not? 

A couple of days ago, another blogger wrote a post about an entirely different teen related topic.  Her post obliquely referenced the FYI post that has now been deleted but still exists all over the Internet.  Christine Organ writes:

Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be one of those letters. You know the kind. Some well-intentioned and wise adult writes with a just-trying-to-be-helpful shrug about how you should stop doing this or change that. Usually it has something to do with your clothing choices or selfie-taking habits or flirting protocols. Believe me, I’m just as sick of those “letters” as you are.  

Two years later, I’m remembering that post and how it caused such a stir.  An Austin, Texas mom named Kim Hall wrote somewhat eloquently about how she was going to block girls who post inappropriate photos and YouTube videos from her sons’ Facebook pages, because she didn’t want her boys seeing girls in their pajamas without bras, or wrapped in just a towel.  She didn’t want her boys to be unable to “unsee” the sexy teens in their midst, and think of them in a sexual way.  I’ve never been a teenaged boy, but my guess is that it matters little how girls are dressed when boys are at a certain age.  A good stiff breeze can make them think of sex. (I remember Mrs. Hall got in some hot water, too, because her post was originally littered with pictures of her shirtless sons, flexing their muscles in their swimming trunks. People thought that was very hypocritical, and it was! She later reposted it with the boys in street clothes, did some creative editing and rephrasing, and then took the post down altogether.)    

For the record, I don’t necessarily disagree with all of Mrs. Hall’s points.  I don’t like looking at scantily clad girls, either.  However, I think it’s pretty hard (heh heh… I wrote “hard”) to prevent people from seeing those images.  Humans are naturally curious beings and they like to see the forbidden.  So even if Mom scours her sons’ Facebook pages every day, they will probably still see some stuff she doesn’t want them to see.  They may end up with hardened dicks, too.  Perish the thought.

What amazes me is that I had totally forgotten about this incident and was suddenly reminded of it due to another blogger’s oblique mention of it.  I don’t know if she wrote her post about teenaged girls at the swimming pool almost exactly two years later on purpose, but it does seem kind of strange.  

I also wonder if Kim Hall knew that her blog post would take off like it did.  I mean, when she wrote her “open letter” to girls two years ago, did she know that it would be the subject of so many blog rebuttals, Facebook arguments, videos, and online magazine articles?  I wonder why she took it down, too.  It made her kind of famous.  Her blog is still up and was recently updated.  My guess is that she got tired of the attention.  Taking the post down was kind of like closing the barn door after the horse has already gone… but hell, it probably made her feel better.

The overwhelming message I got was that people should keep their legs closed… and their minds closed.  Because sex is bad.  Thinking about sex is bad.  And teenagers in towels are bad.  Especially on Facebook and Instagram.

My thoughts are a little scattered this morning.***

Now, on to my fresh post…

This morning, I noticed that someone in Alabama hit a post I wrote in late June 2020. It was about face masks and the totally nuts– over-the-top– reaction a lot of people on social media were having to COVID-19. At the time I wrote that post, I was feeling overwhelmed, depressed, and hopeless about the future. I was giving serious thought to getting rid of Facebook… a notion I’ve had a bunch of times over the years. It was mainly because I felt inundated with the prospect of a bleak, dystopian world, post COVID. I was tired of all of the annoying, sanctimonious preaching being done by all of the Google experts on social media. In 2020, COVID was very scary, but so was the public’s polarized reaction to it. I was genuinely feeling a bit crazed by it. I’m sure I wasn’t alone.

In the post someone hit today, I noted that I expected face masks to be a temporary measure. Fortunately, my predictions and expectations regarding the pandemic have mostly come to pass. Even here in uptight, but stoic, Germany, people have calmed down a lot about COVID. I was afraid that we would all be forced back into masks this winter, but that hasn’t come to pass. Masks are still required on most buses and trains, although Bavaria– which had the strictest regulations for a long time– recently dispensed with them on local trains. The masks are no longer needed on flights. They are still required in any medical office, including veterinary offices. But, I suspect, they will eventually be phased out, even though COVID is still a problem and there are new mutations. Life has mostly gotten back to normal, and that is a really good thing. Thank GOD.

I guess the one message I take from reading my post about face masks, before reading about a mom who was concerned about her sons seeing girls in towels and braless in pajamas on social media, is that our battles have a way of changing. There was a time, not so long ago, that people were all upset about a woman admonishing girls about being too “sexy” online and asking them to cover their bodies. That was what a whole lot of people were thinking and talking about, blissfully unaware that they would soon be angry about people not wanting to cover their faces. And there was a time, not so long ago, when the topic of the day was face masks, and how we not only needed to cover our bodies, but we also needed to cover our faces… forever. How very depressing. I’m glad most of us have moved on from that idea, at least for now.

In 2015, Donald Trump was still just a very rich and famous guy talking about running for office. No one had ever heard of COVID-19. The idea of wearing a face mask in public was just for germ avoidant freaks. In 2023, we’re all older, wiser, and wearier. I’d say most of us lost some innocence.

Just for shits and giggles, I went to see if Kim Hall is still blogging. It looks like she still is. Her blog was updated within the past few months, anyway. It appears that she’s a dedicated conservative Christian, and lately, her posts seem to be about the evils of allowing transgender teenagers to access treatment that would allow them to transition. She writes about how devastating it is when some of these folks wind up “de-transitioning”. To be honest, I don’t know much about how many people decide to de-transition. It’s not a subject I spend a lot of time researching. Apparently, Kim Hall is upset about it. I see in the summer of 2020, she posted about the “hysteria” over COVID, and how God has “lovingly” numbered our days. So we all might as well simmer down… those were not her actual words, but I think it was kind of the attitude she imparted. I don’t think we were in disagreement about that, based on what I wrote in 2020, although my reasoning has a lot less to do with God’s plan and more to do with how extreme reactions often do more harm than good.

Anyway… Kim Hall is probably better at blogging than I am. She has a Facebook following of about 11,000, while I recently took down my Facebook page for this blog. So what do I know? 😉 Looks like her kids are pretty much grown now, too, so that means she doesn’t have to concern herself with what they see on Facebook anymore. See? Battles change all the time!

And, what the hell… I think I’ll repost my 2013 commentary about Kim Hall’s post. Stay tuned.

 

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Duggars, holidays, mental health, religion, sex, silliness

Repost: I’m grateful for orgasms…

I am reposting this article I wrote for my original blog back on November 22, 2013. It’s not that I don’t have another topic in mind for today. I just saw this in my Facebook memories and realized that yes, nine years later, I am STILL very grateful for orgasms. And I just wanted to spread the news.

As it’s November and the month of Thanksgiving, there have been a number of Facebook posts recently about gratitude.  Many people post something they are grateful for every day in November.  In the spirit of gratitude, I too have been posting things I am thankful for.  I try to keep my thanks upbeat and light-hearted, though.  I figure there are enough schmaltzy posts about being grateful for good health and happiness or a supportive family.  I like to give other things their due.

So I am grateful for odd things like clean underwear, modern plumbing, and Jagger’s swagger.  And yesterday, I was grateful for orgasms.  I posted that thought and was amazed by how many “likes” it got.  Some people thought it was funny.  Some thought it was shocking.  Some people, who know me, thought it was typical.  But yes, a lot of people apparently appreciate the ability to have an orgasm.  And you know, it’s something that many of us probably take for granted.  I’m aware that a lot of people thought my post on Facebook was funny, but when you think about it, the ability to have and enjoy an orgasm is really a much more serious subject than meets the eye.

Back in the late 1990s, I took Prozac for awhile.  It wasn’t the best drug for me and pretty much killed my ability to have an orgasm, not that I had a sex life at the time.  I just remember that even when I was in the mood for a little self abuse, it took forever.  It was very frustrating.  I remember thinking of Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Welcome To The Monkey House“, a story about overpopulation and indecency and how people of the future were ordered to take a drug that took all pleasure out of sex.  In the story, a druggist had taken his family to the zoo and was appalled when they saw monkeys masturbating.  He came up with “ethical birth control”,  a drug which didn’t actually render anyone sterile, but just made sex unappealing.  Because the world was overpopulated, everyone was required to take the druggist’s birth control pill. 

The story was also about how people were encouraged to visit “ethical suicide parlors”, where beautiful, tall, virginal women would help people voluntarily kill themselves as an effort to keep the world population of 17 billion people stable.  There was a group of rebels who refused to take the birth control and therefore were able to enjoy sex.  And indeed, they did enjoy it frequently.  One of the characters kidnaps a “suicide hostess” who is very much in favor of the laws.  The characters force the woman to allow the birth control to wear off… which, of course, gives her the ability to know what she had been missing.

I have always liked the story, but after taking Prozac, it became very profound to me.  It’s been years since I read it, but I do remember Vonnegut describing what the ethical birth control did to people and how it made them feel… kind of numb in the sexual regions.  And that’s how Prozac made me feel, too.

But at least I had the ability to stop taking the drug.  I eventually switched to Wellbutrin, which was a much better antidepressant for me.  My nether regions came back to life and my depression finally lifted.  I was able to make decisions.  Later that year, I met Bill online and the rest is history.  You might say Wellbutrin actually helped me finally get a sex life, though it took a few years.

I am very grateful not to have been raised in a belief system that thinks of sex as a dirty thing.  It’s bad enough that we have a number of religions that discourage masturbation and subject members to humiliating interviews about their “habits” and refer to masturbation as “self abuse”.  There are also belief systems that promote the idea that enjoying sex is a sin and that it should only be done for the purpose of procreation. 

There are a number of religions that forbid members from admiring others, even to the point of forcing young men to look away when a pretty woman walks by or worse, forcing young women to wear shapeless garments that obscure their figures and veils that cover their hair and face.  This is all done in the name of avoiding lust or, heaven forbid, immorality caused by an orgasm.  An early episode of the fundamentalist Christian Duggar family’s reality show featured someone shouting “Nike!” when a pretty but “inappropriately dressed” young woman walked by.  It was a code to get the boys to lower their eyes, lest they be “defrauded”– that is, driven to lust by the tempting appearance of a beautiful woman.  Can’t have those young men having boners, can we?  Not until their wedding nights to women who are hand-picked by daddy… and may or may not be all that attractive or interesting. (ETA in 2022– oh, how innocent we were about the Duggar family in 2013!)

There are also a lot of women who, unfortunately, can’t have orgasms because they have been subjected to female circumcision.  Female circumcision is a horrible misogynistic custom practiced in certain countries around the world.  It’s considered a rite of passage in some places, perhaps even celebrated to some extent before a poor girl between the ages of birth and puberty is forcibly held down as her genitals are brutally mutilated by other women or even the local male barber, who may be a local health practitioner.  It involves removing part or all of the clitoris and sewing up the labia, which makes the eventual enjoyment of sex very difficult.  This procedure can be done with or without anesthesia.  It can cause significant health problems and gynecological difficulties.  It can also cause death.

Women who have had their clitorises amputated can’t experience orgasms.  They may or may not know what they are missing, which seems like a small problem in the grand scheme of things.  Just the idea of trying to recover from such a brutal operation, as routine for them as having wisdom teeth extracted is for many Americans, is hard to fathom.  It really is food for thought if you happen to be lucky enough to be a woman living in a place where female genital mutilation is not common.

So yes, during this season of Thanksgiving, I am very grateful for orgasms… the ability to have them at will, and for the sweet man who still inspires me to have them.  Orgasms are one of life’s most wonderful gifts.  May you enjoy your orgasms as much as I do mine…

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domestic violence, Duggars, sex

A whole lot can change in a week’s time…

Howdy folks… it’s a beautiful, cool, sunny Sunday morning in Germany, and I’m sitting here thinking about the crazy events of the past week. A week ago, Bill’s daughter was still pregnant, awaiting the birth of her son. A week ago, twenty-one citizens of Uvalde, Texas were still alive and presumably well. And a week ago, we still didn’t know Josh Duggar’s fate. Much has happened since May 22, 2022. Although I know it could be said at any time, a lot of lives began, changed, or ended in the past week.

As usual, I have a bunch of things on my mind. Some of it is pretty ludicrous and probably shouldn’t be shared. But, because I’m an inappropriate person who enjoys saying and writing shocking things, I’m going to share a ridiculous thought I had the other day as I watched Jim Bob Duggar storm out of the courthouse to his vehicle. Jim Bob was wearing a mask on his face, but it was pretty obvious that he was flaming pissed. Just watching the man walk, completely ignoring the press who peppered him with questions, I got the sense that Boob was seething. How dare the judge sentence Josh to 151 months in prison, when so many people had “vouched” for his quality as a human? /sarcasm

And it’s very inappropriate that I thought about this… as a masked Anna came out after Jim Bob, flanked by members of the legal team representing Josh Duggar. Man… the Duggars sure seem to have embraced the masks, haven’t they? It helps hide the wholly inappropriate facial expressions a number of them have made in the wake of this legal scandal. I thought about the obvious anger expressed in Jim Bob’s walk, and the energy that was emanating from it. And I wondered if he was going to go home to his wife and demand that she be “joyfully available” to him, so he might get out some of that energy…

Anna Duggar comes out after her father-in-law, who looked as mad as a wet rooster.

Yeah, I know… it’s inappropriate as hell. But this family wrote the book on being inappropriate, didn’t they? And based on what Danica Dillon said about Josh Duggar, and their alleged rough encounter in a hotel room, I figure the apple probably doesn’t fall far from the tree. Did Josh learn his technique from a book? Was it only from the videos he watched? Or did he learn from watching dear old dad?

Michelle is probably pretty pissed, too.

I think about Michelle Duggar’s speech to her daughter Jill, just before she married her husband, Derick Dillard. In her advice, she remembered being a young bride, preparing to marry Jim Bob. A friend gave her what she thought was very sage advice about being a good wife. The story goes:

She told me: “Michelle, I know you’re so excited. You’re a bride-to-be, but some day you’ll be at this point. I’ve been married three years and I’m still happily married. I have one child, we’re expecting our second and I’m big pregnant. You’ve got to remember this. Anyone can iron Jim Bob’s shirt, anybody can make lunch for him. He can get his lunch somewhere else. But you are the only one who can meet that special need that he has in his life for intimacy. You’re it. You’re the only one. So don’t forget that, that he needs you. So when you are exhausted at the end of the day, maybe from dealing with little ones, and you fall into bed so exhausted at night, don’t forget about him because you and he are the only ones who can have that time together. No one else in the world can meet that need.”

“And so be available, and not just available, but be joyfully available for him. Smile and be willing to say, ‘Yes, sweetie I am here for you,’ no matter what, even though you may be exhausted and big pregnant and you may not feel like he feels. ‘I’m still here for you and I’m going to meet that need because I know it’s a need for you.’ ”

Michelle went on to say that Jim Bob would “lay down his life for her”. That seems to be an unfortunate choice of words. He would lay down his life for the only woman he can lay in his life… or so he tells us, anyway. I don’t know if Jim Bob is a faithful husband. I’ve never seen any indication that he isn’t faithful to Michelle, so I’ll assume he is. But obviously, he has a very strong sex drive… just look at all of the kids he’s fathered. And obviously, since Michelle was so free about giving the “joyfully available” advice to her daughter, and the rest of the women of the world, it’s something that is probably expected of her in her marriage. So I wonder, when Jim Bob came storming out of the courthouse, obviously looking like he was mad enough to spit nails, did he go home and work off that energy by splitting logs, stacking cinder blocks, or playing basketball, like LDS missionaries do? Or did he request his wife’s availability in the bedroom for a joyfully available power fuck? I mean, what soothes the savage beast more than a willing helpmeet, ready to do her duty?

I guess the attention isn’t such a good thing after all…

Personally, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch. I think Jim Bob is an angry person. To me, he comes across as very narcissistic. Narcissistic people are often full of rage and shame. They hide behind charming, attractive facades that can fool people. I think Jim Bob is good at presenting that friendly, “Christian” image, at least at first. But over the years, I’ve read a bunch of stories about people and their dealings with him… and what tends to happen when things go south. Also, he seems to have some pretty tone deaf ideas about women and sex. He supposedly told his daughter, Jessa, before she married Ben Seewald:

“Both of you’ll like the physical relationship, but the guy, that’ll be kinda the main focus. But, for a woman, communicating is the most important thing.”

He also said:

“Be careful what you’re good at doing, because you’ll probably do a lot of it.”

And…

“If a woman is raped, the rapist should be executed instead of the innocent unborn baby. Rape and incest represent heinous crimes and as such should be treated as capital crimes.”

Obviously, he can’t see that his son, Josh, is a monster who would hurt women, AND innocent babies. And he clearly doesn’t think Josh should be executed for what he’s done. Josh got some of that stuff from somewhere… and based on what we’ve been hearing about the Southern Baptists lately, it stands to reason that the Duggars probably have similar views. I know they aren’t “Southern Baptists”– they have even more fundamentalist beliefs. They clearly live in a world where abuse is rampant and tolerated. So it’s not hard for me to imagine that when Jim Bob got home after seeing his eldest son sentenced to over 12 years in a federal prison, he had some anger to process. Hopefully, he processed it in an appropriate way, and there wasn’t any abuse. But frankly, my guess is that he’s probably pretty miserable to live with, especially when he’s angry. And he was clearly VERY ANGRY after the sentencing hearing.

No, the Duggars technically aren’t Southern Baptists, but they do come from a similar, and more secretive, world.

I hope that Michelle Duggar is okay… and I especially hope the other girls who are still under Jim Bob’s roof are okay. I hope Anna will be okay, and somehow she can be helped out of the situation she’s in… but unfortunately, she’s going to have to wise up and ask for assistance. Most of all, I hope the children are safer than they were. Unfortunately, I don’t think Jim Bob is a whole lot better than Josh is. Having grown up with a father who wasn’t a sex pest, but did take out his anger on me, I do worry that the people under Jim Bob’s control might be at risk.

Moving on to a more pleasant subject…

Now that Bill’s third grandchild has been born, my status as “granny” has come up again. I mentioned that Bill has a new grandson, and someone questioned my wording, wondering why I wasn’t claiming the child as my grandchild. This person explained that as Bill’s wife, what’s his is mine, too. And he tried to tell me that because younger daughter and her family need love, I should think of myself in a grandmotherly role as I offer that love to them. Bear in mind, I have never met this guy, and he knows nothing about our story.

Once again, I found myself briefly explaining the odd circumstances regarding my relationship with Bill’s daughters. I have only met them in person once in almost twenty years of marriage. It’s only been a few years since Bill and his younger daughter have been talking to each other. And, although I grow to like and trust her more and more as time passes, I don’t feel comfortable with the designation of “granny”. In fact, I don’t even know if she’d want me to make that claim. I would be very honored if she did, but I’m not about to make that presumption, especially since her mother is trying to pass #3 off as her “dad” and grandfather to her children. It’s clear that younger daughter doesn’t see #3 as her dad at all, but Ex is still apparently entertaining the fantasy. So I don’t want to stir the pot by referring to myself as a “granny”… especially since I barely feel like a stepmother, even in the technical sense.

I do hope, though, that I can get to know younger daughter and her family better. Bill is very happy to have them in his life again. And he couldn’t be more overjoyed about having another grandchild.

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