On It’s Not Rape If The Sex Offender Is Hot, my response to Gunaxin’s list of its 25 favorite female sex offenders (because it couldn’t choose just 24):

From David:

This is sort of odd, ’cause their list… the women are really really hot.

So why would women, who can get their pick of the lekking order, want adolescent boys?

The lonliness excuse doesn’t fly, ’cause they can get whoever.

i don’t think it’s fair to call them pedophiles if they’re not pursuing pre-adolescents, but…

and the whole “tenderoni” thing implies it’s not exploitative and/or predatory…

From Amanda Hess:

David, I agree with you that neither “pedophile” and “tenderoni” seem to fit here. I also agree the women are attractive, and at least socially adept enough to be hired as schoolteachers.

So why do they want to have sex with underage boys? Remember that these women are risking their jobs, reputations, and free lives in order to do it. In Letourneau’s case, she even served time, was released, and returned to the boy again (they’re now married). How do we account for this compulsion to do so despite the consequences?

I’m not going to venture to say that what sexual predators do can ever truly make sense. But when a woman preys on a young man, I can’t help but think that some of the compulsion here lies in subverting the traditional gender dynamic. Sure, many of these women could probably have their pick of men of legal-age. But while those men might want them, would they need them like an underage kid does?

From Eleanora D’Aborborera:

“I’m not going to venture to say that what sexual predators do can ever truly make sense. But when a woman preys on a young man, I can’t help but think that some of the compulsion here lies in subverting the traditional gender dynamic.”

Amanda! This is why I almost never read your column. You are sitting there with the entire internet at your fingertips, and the opportunity to share actual information with many people.

How about you (1) do a search to see what has been written on the topic, and (2) call a few experts to ask their opinions and then (3) write up a few of the things you have learned? Is that too much to ask of someone who writes the only news/culture gender-conscious feature in the City Paper?

Sigh.

I’ll double that Sigh, Eleanora. I wish that I had time to thoroughly report out all the conversations that go on in the comments section of my blog. For better or for worse, though, the blog mostly functions as a venue for myself and others to share, opine, and argue. Some of the sex and gender issues I care about I’ll open for discussion on the blog; others, I’ll report out fully (and I would be honored if you would look for my reported column in the newspaper every week!)

That being said, I’m probably not going to write a reported column on adult female sex offenders, citing experts and victims and perpetrators—it’s just not my main area of interest, and I’m a local reporter, not a national one. Even if I did spend a day making phone calls, is that going to conclusively determine why some women sexually abuse underage men? Still, I don’t think that precludes me from sharing an opinion that I’ve formed by following the media coverage of these cases—that these women are acting from a position of power that they can’t claim with men of their own age and status; that they are often themselves victims of male dominance (either culturally or explicitly through their own sexual assault experiences); and that her actions are often downplayed specifically because she is a woman, and doesn’t fit the abuser profile. Does any of this mean that I can truly understand the abuse of a minor? No.

I can’t write a newspaper story for every blog comment, but I can open the conversation on this blog, and I encourage anyone and everyone to share their own insights and information and links and opinions on the phenomenon. Maybe someone else, like you, will take an interest in the subject and write a story on it. If you do, I’ll link!

In the meantime, you can check out my reported work here.

This one’s a two-fer, in response to my post on the omnipresent anti-abortion Metro ads, “Metro Swathed in Anti-Abortion Shame.”

Craig Howell writes:

Um, there’s a First Amendment issue here, folks. As a government agency, Metro cannot indulge in viewpoint discrimination. This matter was settled 30 years ago when the courts told Metro it could not refuse to run bus ads sponsored by the Gay Activists Alliance. I have been a member of what is now the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance since 1973, and this victory remains one of our signature achievements.

Lisa responds:

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Please, nobody ever buy me one of these.

1. Menace to Sorority, in which the sorority message-board-dwellers simply cannot quit me.

2. Trans Slammer, in which D.C.’s transgender inmates win some battles, lose others, and gain some very persistent commenters in the process.

3. The Great Mexican Cartoon Porn-Off, Part 3, in which I review Spanish-language cartoon porn culled from the beaches of Mexico.

4. The Great Mexican Cartoon Porn-Off, Part 1, in which Part 2 does not get nearly so much lovin’ as do the other parts.

5. Saws in Vaginas: Dangerous, in which a saw inside a dildo inside a vagina painfully breaks free of its rubber and flesh captors.

Health and Human Services published President Obama’s official proposal to rescind Bush’s “conscience rule” in the Federal Register today. Bush’s rule expanded protections for healthcare providers who are morally opposed to performing or aiding in certain procedures—abortions, sterilizations, birth-control prescriptions, treating gays and lesbians, etc.

For the next 30 days, the public is invited to comment on Obama’s proposed rescission of the rule. Love it? Hate it? Tell the Obama administration through one of four easy ways (no faxes, n00bs). Once Health and Human Services opens comments for review, I’ll post the highlights here on the blog. And stay tuned for this week’s City Paper, where I’ll have more on the short-lived regulation.

For now, get to commentin’! Instructions are after the jump:

Read More “Comment on Obama’s Reversal of the “Conscience Rule”” »

My WordPress software, as if in a loyal attempt to protect me from cogent, well-delivered criticism of my work, quarantined Emily’s comment in my spam folder until this morning. Here’s what she had to say on The Feminist Mystique: How Election 2008 Killed a Notorious Word:

Feminism is not supposed to be controversial. It is commonsensical, so by virtue we would be fighting against the odds to make it naughty. The goals the movement seeks to achieve “voting rights, contraception access, pay equity” are not evermore scandalous, they are rudimentary. It’s pitiful that they must be achieved slowly, one step at time involving arduous processes of convincing those in power that women deserve the same freedoms as men. I would absolutely NOT agree that tagging our president as a feminist hurts the movement. Instead I think it’s a slap in the face to those that mock feminism as something that only hot-tempered, irrational women spout off about because they hate men or love women too much or whatever.

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