Frank Rich on the sex wars

Good summary of various problems that are cropping up now that the American Taliban thinks they have license to put glass walls in all our bedrooms. Lurking inside Rich's article, though, are things that give me hope. Then:

Though a Gallup poll at the time found that three-quarters of the public approved of Kinsey's work, not everyone welcomed the idea that candor might supplant ignorance and shame in the national conversation about sex.

Now:

As politicians and the media alike pander to that supposed 22 percent of "moral values" voters, we're back where we came in.

The numbers of sex-phobics who are deluded that they understand what morality is have not gone up at all, it seems. They are holding steady at 1 in 4. Presumably, the other 3 in 4 of us who understand that sex isn't some new thing thought up by beatniks or hippies to scare church-going folks are going to continue to be a problem for the wannabe Mrs. Kravitz types, sticking their noses in our business to ward off those who would nose around in theirs.

More reason to hope:

Though that sequence takes place in 1939, you can turn on CNN in December 2004 and watch Genevieve Wood of the Family Research Council repeatedly refuse - five times, according to the transcript - to disown the idea that masturbation can cause pregnancy.

So slap a condom on that dildo, ladies!

I think that interviewers need to ask this question of every single person they have on TV to promote abstianence-only education. Also, ask them if masturbation causes hairy palms and blindness. Ask until they answer. It will be entertaining and it will expose them for the scare-mongering asshole sex-hating misanthropes they really are.