Pass Me My Porn Please

By Tatiana von Tauber 

When I was a kid I was mad that anyone would laugh at or with Benny Hill. The idea of making fun of  T & A sickened me. Then I grew up and discovered that if one can’t have fun with sex one is just lacking the humor around the absurdity of seriousness society has placed on gender and sex.  Meaning, we’re merely living in a more modern fashion of Puritan times.  Clearly the sex industry is winning and one doesn’t need to go far to see how sex has jumped into the mainstream.  Why?  People want it. 

A little porn is good for you

Some people are offended by sexist humor or sexist anything that depicts the stereotypes we know we don’t fit into, but when stereotypes are created, they are so clearly because of those few generalities which stand out to the masses. The uncomfortable nature of feeling victimized to stereotyping and thus judgment is to simply accept that sex can be funny just as easily as it can be serious and just as easily as it can be sexually stimulating. In other words, it seems wise to open up to its many possibilities rather than forcing them into the closet based on out of date ideology rooting in shame and fear. Sex has many sides but ultimately sex is the pursuit of pleasure. It is typical that society attempts more than anything to control the pleasure of others, especially those which are natural. 

 The most common characteristic I see in women I photograph boudoir with is their initial discomfort about the entire “pornography” thing but once they realize they’re in control of their own “on camera” sensuality,  an hour into the session they let go and have fun.  It opens a new perception on the fact that the erotic need not be scary.  Suddenly what they were most afraid to do became something exciting, fun and pleasurable to them.  And there begins the transition from sexual repression to sexual awakening.  At its end, sex is a human benefit despite its shadows and now studies are finally showing what too many would rather not know or deal with: pornography is good for you!  Time to take that secret out of the closet and look at it in the light.

Massachusetts libel case upholds Fair Report privilege

By J. DeVoy

The trial court’s opinion in Howell v. Enterprise was affirmed by Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court earlier this month, reaffirming the special protection journalists have when reporting on difficult cases.  The Media Law blog offered its analysis of the case and its significance when the decision was released:

The opinion in Howell v. Enterprise dismisses a defamation suit brought by a former employee of the town of Abington against The Enterprise newspaper in Brockton after it reported that he had used town computers to access pornography.

In affirming the applicability of the fair report privilege, the opinion by Justice Robert J. Cordy said, “[I]t is important that the privilege be construed liberally and with an eye toward disposing of cases at an early stage of litigation,” and that courts should take “an expansive but not unlimited view” of what qualifies as an official action covered by the privilege. Applying these principles, the SJC concluded that the actions at issue in this case qualified as official.

The SJC goes on to conclude that the bulk of the reports met both prongs — that they were both fair and substantially accurate. One statement in one article was inaccurate, the SJC found, but lacked the requisite element of malice that would be required to prove defamation against Howell as a public figure in his town.

The Supreme Judicial Court tacitly supports a lenient standard in determining what constitutes an official action, but still applies a two-prong test to the speech. Namely, mistakes made in reports are examined for their accuracy — the factual relation of what happened — and their fairness, the event’s reported character.

This decision seems to back away from Murphy v. Boston Herald, previously discussed by Marc.  In that case, a judge’s alleged statements about a rape victim in criminal litigation were at issue, though, whereas here there’s merely the claim that a state employee viewed pornography on government computers.  While no less damaging for the individual here, the public effects of extreme statements about a judge have greater consequence than those about a generic state employee.  Murphy may even be a special case because of the importance of the public’s trust in the judiciary and the recklessness displayed by the journalist in gathering his facts — or, more accurately, failing to do so.

Still, the Fair Report privilege lives on, and may have received a new vigor from Howell.  Though the doctrine sounds like it was ripped off from Fox News, journalists everywhere are fortunate to have it.

Only in America…

by Christopher Harbin

Only in the greatest country in the free world can one die-of-a-heart-attack-after-you-eat-here themed restaurant sue another one for trade dress infringement.  I’ve never felt so patriotic.  I might cry.

"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." - John Updike

Advice for this weekend and all others

By J. DeVoy

As the last man standing, literally, and the only unmarried regular Satyriconista, it’s become my de facto role to bring some dating realism to the blog and unite it with legal and social commentary.  This must be hilarious to anyone who knows me in real life.  I mostly link to stuff that works and marinate it with cynicism.

So, without further ado, a guide for defensive casual and more-than-casual hookups.

I. Use only the weakest pretexts to get her to your place.

If a girl wants to go home with you, she will, as long as some reason is given that doesn’t make her feel cheap and used.  The problem is that men (well, betas, but whatever) think that they need a compelling reason to bring her back.  As a result, they start talking about things she has to see – his home theater setup, his collection of books, and so on.  Art is a commonly used reason, and it can be fairly interesting, especially if it’s of an exploding astronaut or Hulk Hogan embracing a zombie.

The problem is that she might think she’s there for the art, and you assume she’s there for more.  Things get awkward, and the window for more than stilted conversation slams shut like so many rusty bear traps.  Plus, ambiguity is the breeding ground of false rape charges, a top-five fear for all men alongside prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction.

Avoid this quandry by using the flimsiest excuses possible.  Tell her that you have incredible tap water and she has to come up and try it.  Invite her to inspect your bedding’s thread count.  It doesn’t matter what, it just can’t be something anyone would legitimately find interesting.

This doesn’t discount the importance of delivery; none of the above statements can be said deadpan and work.  But, those statements are less likely to be lies, and a better barometer of a girl’s interest.  If she says no, then she says no.  But if she says yes to something that a person without interest in sleeping with you would like, such as artwork, you’ve created at least a socially awkward situation and possibly a serious legal threat to your freedom.

II. Make the sex really, really good.

If you don’t, she might cry rape!  Really.  As the mug shots show, expecting good sex is not just the province of attractive women whom many men desire.

Caught in a bad romance!

 

Furthermore, good sex means she’ll be back for more.  It may not be a perfect or stable relationship, but members of a gender that can rationalize staying committed to men who physically beat them likely have no problem returning to the font of all good things.

Proponents of monogamy, myself included, might find this abhorrent on some level. But, setting the fact that relationships are based on more than sex aside, this tactic is just another tool for building the stable, committed relationship you want.

III. Never stop being cool and interesting.

Winning her interest by being cool and interesting doesn’t mean your job is done, unless you’re having a serious case of buyer’s remorse.  The bravado and assholish ways that carried you to this point might be toned down a bit to yield something more sustainable, honest and, dare I even say it — vulnerable.

But, if you’re boring and don’t think about or do anything — a particular problem for lawyers and law students because so much of their work is confidential, mind-numbing, or both — she will lose interest.  Don’t lie, but think back on your life experiences and release them gradually, slowly building your narrative.  Lawyers, especially litigators, should have no problem knowing how to tell a story and keep the audience wanting more.

As Ferdinand Bardamu perfectly states:

[I]f you want to sell anything, you have to be cool. Coolness is the primary reason why the Roissysphere blossomed out of nowhere to become a potent intellectual force in the span of less than three years while the much older men’s rights movement is perennially fighting off accusations of loserness. (Full disclosure: I am a men’s rights supporter.) If you libertarians want others to respect you, maybe even accept your ideas as correct, you need to drop the shtick and learn to be cool. Getting hyper-defensive when people point out the truth about you and making bad music videos will ensure you remain an ignored minority.

For lawyers, don’t get to the point.  Dwell on the ambiguity and put that previously worthless B.A. in English to work.  Never merely say that you’re an attorney for, say, big tobacco or an insurance company: You might as well follow up with, “and I kick small animals for fun in my 5 hours of free time each week,” as it wouldn’t do any additional damage.  Frame yourself as the guy who exposes lying, greedy personal injury plaintiffs for what they are, or as an above-it-all playwright who makes others pay for their own stupidity as a day job.  Lying is wrong, but unflinching directness is for losers.

Make no mistake, this is a man’s duty.  Women should be thoughtful and interesting, but there’s less of a burden on them to have top 1% life experiences, success, personality and attraction-winning X-factor.  Most readers of this blog have standards requiring women to reach a certain threshold of education and life experience, but anything beyond that isn’t truly necessary; men want girls who fundamentally are caring, thoughtful, and happy to cook for them every once in a while.

When you’re cool and interesting, though, you can do anything and people will worship you for it.  Just ask Roman Polanski.

Not our sponsor, but they should be

A billboard inspired by the ad has a bunch of big bad Texans’ panties in a wad.

Of course I care about the environment

You might have noticed that this blog doesn’t really talk about environmental issues much… well, except for Fischer’s occasional right-wing-talking points about how global warming is not happening. This has led some readers to question whether I care about the environment. Well I do when issues like this come up.

Flori-duh’s bigoted adoption law on the ropes

Another Florida judge has issued a ruling that the state’s law that bans adoptions by homosexuals is unconstitutional and unenforceable:

Describing the state statute as unconstitutional on its face, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia finalized the boy’s adoption by attorney Vanessa Alenier, 34, earlier this month, the newspaper reports. She and her longtime partner, Melanie Leon, 31, have raised the boy, who is a relative of Alenier’s, from infancy with her extended family’s blessing after he was removed from his original home by child welfare workers.

“There is no rational connection between sexual orientation and what is or is not in the best interest of a child,” says Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia in a written order. “The child is happy and thriving” in Alenier’s care and “the only way to give this child permanency … is to allow him to be adopted” by her. (source)

More coverage from the Miami New Times.

Strange

There are direct flights from Buffalo to Detroit?

Well, I suppose that at least one businessman made good use of the convenient nonstop.

Salinger Dead

J.D. Salinger is dead.

Boy, when you’re dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody

(Fake) Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy

Dumbass.

Super Bowl to air “controversial” pro-life ad – care?

By J. DeVoy

The big story in my own little slice of hell law school yesterday — other than some ill-planned “joke” by tasteless imbeciles to bring Jersey Shore cast members to commencement — was CBS’s tentative decision to run a pro-life commercial during the Super Bowl.  The ad, sponsored by openly Christian group Focus on the Family, features Heisman Trophy-winner Timothy Tebow and his parents, discussing their decision not to abort the child who became the most dominant quarterback in the SEC. (Source.)

But, enter the censorshipistas who think this message undermines abortion rights.

The Women’s Media Center and over 30 other liberal and women’s advocacy groups sent a letter to CBS, the TV network to air the Super Bowl on Feb. 7, saying: “… we urge you to immediately cancel this ad and refuse any other advertisement promoting Focus on the Family’s agenda.”

“We are calling on CBS to stick to their policy of not airing controversial advocacy ads … and this is clearly a controversial ad,” Jehmu Greene, the president of the Women’s Media Center, told Reuters.

How about no?  Instead of offering a rebuttal message or rationale for how this personal vignette, the contents of which are yet unknown, harms abortion rights, they immediately reach for the bottomless slopbucket of shame.

If I were at the helm of CBS, my response would be exactly one finger long.  One extended, defiant finger.  Though not bound by law to do anything, CBS could heed the tenor of public debate shown in Citizens United, namely that money talks, no matter whose it is.  And what kind of mush-minds are going to alter their world views based on a 30-second spot featuring the parents of a college athlete?

If people want to counter this message, they shouldn’t stamp their feet and wail like toddlers, but show how much support they have by raising the 2.6-3.2 million dollars necessary to run a counter ad.  For how much the pro-choice elite like to trumpet their material success and superior intellects, surely coming up with that sum of money across 30 groups would be a trifling matter.  The notion that speech should be fought with speech isn’t suspended merely because it carries a price tag.

It’s doubtful that pro-choice advocates think the act of abortion is a trivial matter.  Sure, they’re scientifically accurate that a fetus is a clump of cells, and I admire the hardcore proponents’ desire to argue ad nauseam about when life truly begins in how-many-angels-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin fashion, but there seems to be consensus that abortion is a serious choice with drastic physical and emotional implications.  Even then, not all pro-choicers are pro-abortion, recognizing the seriousness of the procedure and wanting to retain only the right for women to make the choice on their own — exactly what the term denotes. (Curiously, none of them support the right for men to make a similar decision and unilaterally truncate their economic liability for unwanted children.)  Finally, only the most deluded of dumb shits think that Roe v. Wade will be overturned wholesale or even substantially; abortion is a reality we all live with, and those who seek to end it should consider the burden its cessation would place on our existing social welfare and criminal justice systems.

Choose your URL carefully…

Each kid gets a free bear! Over 9,000 served!

Discrimination – the final frontier

This is where too much PC thinking gets you:

When it comes to hiring staff, there are plenty of legal pitfalls employers need to watch out for these days.
So recruitment agency boss Nicole Mamo was especially careful to ensure her advert for hospital workers did not offend on grounds of race, age or sexual orientation.

However, she hadn’t reckoned on discriminating against a wholly different section of the community – the completely useless.

Nicole Mamo, director of Devonwood Recruitment was stunned when a job centre in Thetford, Norfolk, said she could not include the phrase ‘reliable and hard working’ in her advert
When she ran the ad past a jobcentre, she was told she couldn’t ask for ‘reliable’ and ‘hard-working’ applicants because it could be offensive to unreliable people. (source)

Awesome. Just awesome.

Horny Goat?

A goat broke into a strip club. Yes, really. It smashed its way through the glass doors and just hung out for a while. (source)

Come on, not even partial credit?