Sex and Relationships

AlterNet's "Sex and Relationships" coverage includes stories about sexuality, love and relationships.

Hot Chicks Eating Burgers: Carl's Jr. Finds a New, Sexist Way to Hawk Its Disgusting Crap
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on July 8, 2009 at 12:01 PM.

It’s a little-known industry secret that models and actresses eat massive amounts of fast food. That’s why Carl’s Jr.’s recent series of ads, featuring “top-rated bikini body” Audrina Patridge ramming a Carl’s Jr. burger in her mouth while wiggling around in a gold bikini, is both realistic and helpful.

“To look this hot in a bikini” she coos, “I have to give up ... like ... everything. But there is no way I’m giving up that Terriyaki burger. I have to be a little bad. I call it my ... bikini burger.”

Is this a public service announcement? Because it's about time somebody armed women with the information they need to achieve the sexy, lithe frame of a pre-pubescent boy with fake boobs.

But that’s not the only way Carl’s Jr. has chosen to empower women. The burger chain is also offering some lucky "girls" the life-changing opportunity to star in their own Carl’s Jr. commercial. A few days ago Feministing posted a blog about a craigslist ad promising women 1,000 dollars and a spot in a Carl's Jr./Hardees ad if they “submit a video of themselves eating one of their burgers and is "hot" enough for their marketing campaign.”

While the Craigslist ad is down, the campaign is still in the works. And if you needed more convincing of the burger chain’s noble intentions, the kicker to the campaign, itself aptly titled “Hot Chicks Eating Burgers”, is “More than just a piece of meat.” It’s like a fun-house mirror version of the ads in the Dove 'real beauty' campaign (in themselves problematic, but not in such a vomity way.)

Now, before Carl's Jr. decided to promote the interests of women, their ad campaigns for a million years consisted of those infuriating "dude-bro" commercials. In those ads, manly, attractive guys did manly things like ignore their carping, whiny girlfriends while eating manly things like Carl's Jr. burgers.

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How to Survive a Sex Scandal in South Carolina
Posted by Steve Benen on July 8, 2009 at 5:01 AM.

HOW TO SURVIVE A SCANDAL IN SOUTH CAROLINA.... Mark Sanford clearly made a bad decision last month when he left the country for a week, without telling anyone, to spend time with his mistress. Things got worse when he returned, and acknowledged his adulterous affair during a bizarre press conference. Things got even worse when he acknowledged having "crossed lines" with other women, had to pay back taxpayer money he'd used to fly to Argentina, and began calling his mistress his "soul mate."

And things got even worse still when prominent South Carolinians began questioning whether the governor is mentally sound.

But that was last week. This week, Sanford seems to have convinced Republicans to let him stick around.

The South Carolina Republican Party voted to censure Gov. Mark Sanford Monday -- rather than call for his resignation -- an outcome that makes it likely the GOP governor will be able to weather the storm surrounding his extramarital affair and remain in office.

The vote of the state GOP executive committee took place late Monday night following a nearly four-hour-long conference call and three rounds of ballots aimed at getting a majority of the committee to either censure, support or ask the governor to resign.

The censure finally agreed to by the committee called the governor's behavior a breach of "the public's trust and confidence in his ability to effectively perform the duties of his office."

Sanford was also criticized by the committee for failing to adhere to the "core principles and beliefs" of the Republican Party, though the censure noted that "barring further revelation" Monday's action would be "the party's last word on the matter."

The final vote was 22 to censure, 10 calling for resignation and 9 supporting the governor.

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Jon Stewart: Mark Sanford, Shut the F**ck Up
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on July 3, 2009 at 3:01 PM.

Jon Stewart points out that God killed Michael Jackson to let Sanford off the hook. But Sanford can't stop treating the press and public like his private confessional.

Sanford Drops Pledge To Release Travel Records
Posted by Jed Lewison, Daily Kos on July 1, 2009 at 1:51 PM.

Smoke, meet fire?

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has backed out of a promise to release personal financial records proving he did not use state money for trips to see his mistress.

A day after Sanford declared in an emotional Associated Press interview that his mistress is his soul mate, spokesman Joel Sawyer says the governor does not want to discuss personal matters in the media anymore.

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It's Time to Drop "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" -- End of Story
Posted by Melissa McEwan on July 1, 2009 at 12:15 PM.

Shaker Phira just emailed me this story about Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying he's looking at ways to make the US military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy "more humane," including possibly changing the rule to allow "letting people serve who may have been outed due to vengeance or a jilted lover."

Phira writes (which I'm posting with her permission):

There's just so much wrong with this. DADT is based in hatred, cruelty, fear, and discrimination; to make it "more humane" would require it to become humane. And to become humane would mean, at least to me, that DADT would be thrown out. And I doubt that's Gates' goal right now. Or Obama's.

 

And being selective about which LGBT people are allowed to stay in the army is just further discrimination. "Oh, you're gay? You're out of the army. Oh, but we know about it because your ex-girlfriend got angry and told us? Then I GUESS you can stay," vs. "Oh, you're gay? You're out of the army. Oh, but we know about it because you had the courage to stand up for yourself and be up-front about your sexuality? Then get out. I don't care if you're our last Arabic translator."

I don't have much to add, aside from this: The stated rationale for forcing soldiers into the closet is troop cohesion (or some wacky variation thereof) -- which has long been debunked, anyway -- but I can't imagine how the military expects to continue trying to justify the policy on that basis if they let some openly gay soldiers serve, with, inevitably, no discernible effect on morale.

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Looney Oklahoma Legislator: Gays to Blame for Econopocalypse ... 'Bigger Threat than Islam'
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on June 30, 2009 at 3:04 PM.

Last year, Oklahoma state legislator Sally Kern (R) drew well-deserved criticism for an outlandish rant against the gay community, in which she compared homosexuality to “toe cancer” and said “it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.” “Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it’s the death knell of this country,” said Kern. Listen here:

Though activists responded to her comments with protests, Oklahoma conservatives rallied around her, saying that they “stand with and support Sally.” Now, Kern is back, once again sparking controversy for her attacks on the LGBT community.

Kern is now pushing a “Oklahoma Citizen’s Proclamation for Morality” that blames America’s “economic woes” on “abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse ,and many other forms of debauchery”:

WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and

WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery;

Though Kern denies that her proclamation is timed to coincide with gay pride celebrations across the country, critics say otherwise. Kern’s proclamation specifically criticizes President Obama for recognizing June as LGBT Pride Month. “Whereas, deeply disturbed that the Office of the president of these United States disregards the biblical admonitions to live clean and pure lives by proclaiming an entire month to an immoral behavior,” reads the proclamation.

Watch an Oklahoma News 9 report on Kern’s proclamation:

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Obama: Gays Will Be Happy By the End of My Administration
Posted by Rachel Weiner, Huffington Post on June 30, 2009 at 5:30 AM.

President Obama celebrated the anniversary of the Stonewall riots to at the White House Monday, and he used the opportunity to address some grumblings in the gay community.

"We seek an America in which no one feels the pain of discrimination based on who you are or who you love, and I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that," he said. "It's not for me to tell you to be patient anymore than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago. But I say this: We have made progress, and we will make more. And I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises that I made, but by promises that my administration keeps ... We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."

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Limbaugh Blames President Obama for Sanford's Sex Melodrama
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on June 25, 2009 at 12:58 PM.

Who’s to blame for Governor Mark Sanford having an affair, abandoning his post without telling anyone or leaving emergency instructions, and becoming the latest poster boy for the hypocrisies of family values conservatism? Is it Mark Sanford? Eros? Not according to Rush Limbaugh!

On his show today, the self-professed head of the GOP —  you know, the party of personal responsibility — thinks the person responsible for Sanford’s affair isn’t Sanford, but President Obama.

According to Limbaugh, Obama — in direct contravention of his widely hailed intended purpose — has actually inaugurated an era of hopelessness. The latest victim of Obama’s pernicious plan, which also includes outlawing laughter, is Mark Sanford.

Here’s the sad tale of Sanford’s downfall, as told by Limbaugh: The South Carolina Governor had emerged a broken man from the battle over stimulus funds. (In reality, Sanford was fighting against crucial funding that would have kept South Carolina’s public schools functional and staffed with teachers.  In Conservative reality, Sanford waged an epic war for Freedom.)

With the battle lost, and only a limited time before the Federal Government took over and set about abolishing Freedom, Sanford decided: “What the hell? the federal government is taking over, i want to enjoy life.”

Who can blame him? What would you do if an asteroid was about to hit the earth, wiping out all life? Leave your job and screw.

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GOP: Champions of "Family Values" Become Party of Vice
Posted by Steve Benen on June 25, 2009 at 8:13 AM.

PERFIDY PARITY.... Way back in May 2003, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz had an item about then-West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise (D) admitting to an extramarital affair and apologizing to voters. Kurtz told readers at the time, "Just what the country needed: another Democrat who can't keep his zipper zipped."

I get the sense that, for quite a while, this was the accepted conventional wisdom. When it came to sex scandals, this was more a problem for Democrats than Republicans.

Can we finally put this notion to (ahem) bed?

To be sure, looking back over the last couple of decades, Dems have had plenty of high-profile controversies about illicit affairs. John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and Jim McGreevey are some of the more recent ones. If we look back at the '90s, we can add Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, and Henry Cisneros to the list. Looking back even further, Gary Hart, JFK, and even FDR come to mind.

But Republicans have made great strides of late in closing the gap with Democrats, and by some measures, have taken the overall lead. Mark Sanford, John Ensign, David Vitter, Larry Craig, and Mark Foley are all pretty recent. If we look back just a little further, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich obviously come to mind. And if we include the '90s, embarrassing adulterous admissions were made by Tim Hutchinson, Henry Hyde, Dan Burton, and Bob Livingston.

The point isn't that there are a lot of men in positions of power who are sleeping around -- though that seems to be a common problem -- the point is that neither party has a lock on virtue or vice.

The difference, of course, is that only one of these two parties presents itself as the champion of "family values," seeks to use government to impose its sense of morality through public policy, lectures Americans on the "sanctity of marriage," and blames gay couples for undermining Western civilization.

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Burger King: Burgers, Blow Jobs -- What's the Difference?
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 24, 2009 at 2:47 PM.

Burger King, whose adverts have previously featured in this series not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times, has done it again with a new ad that Copyranter describes as "the new leading 'most overtly blow-jobby ad' I've ever seen."

[Click to embiggen.]

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Did Taxpayers Fund Sanford Affair?
Posted by Jed Lewison, Daily Kos on June 24, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

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The Hidden Effects of "Don't Ask Don’t Tell"
Posted by Abe Forman-Greenwald, Brave New Foundation on June 23, 2009 at 3:00 PM.

When President Obama recently chose Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, he singled out her "practical understanding of how the law works in the everyday lives of the American people." It is now time for Obama to apply that standard to the families of gays and lesbians who choose to serve in the United States military. A practical understanding of the effects of "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" on the partners of gay service members would quickly reveal its failures.

As a producer of the documentary series In Their Boots, I have been privileged to meet a number of recent veterans and their families.  These vets face many complex issues to which there are no easy solutions. From a lack of mental health resources to the struggles of integrating back into civilian society, there are difficult policy choices that must be made in order to best serve our nation’s veterans and their families. However, one issue facing military families has a clear and obvious solution. By repealing "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell," our government could allow gay service members to communicate with their loved ones openly while on deployment, and it would save millions of dollars currently wasted by discharging essential military personnel during wartime. How’s that for a 2 for 1 deal?

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My (First) Big Fat Gay Wedding: What Was Different?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on June 21, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

I love a good wedding (as long as I'm not the one being hitched)!

I attended my first same-sex wedding last night. It took place in one of those quaint little upstate New York farm towns that's been invaded by artsy hipsters and aging hippies from the city. You know the kind of place -- in the parking lot of the little country store nearby a red Prius with a bumper sticker that read, "The Best Things in Life Aren't Things" sat next to a monster truck with a bumper proudly proclaiming, "Diesel Fumes Make Me Horny!" You might be assaulted by the acrid aroma of fertilizer one moment and the taint of patchouli the next.

Elana, long-time girlfriend of Penny Coleman, our great and passionate writer, was finally making an honest woman out of her -- they've been a nesting pair forever. (The grilled mahi mahi they served must have cost a fortune, so a plug for her book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, is in order -- think of it as a wedding gift!)

And -- this shouldn't be a surprise -- it was pretty much like every other really nice, mildly hippie-dippy wedding I've ever attended.

There was a big tent on a sprawling lawn, tables of food, an awesome cake -- lovingly made by Penny's radiant daughter Sophie -- and revelry lasting long into the night.

Everyone was all decked out and looking great.

There was a series of blessing ceremonies from a mish-mash of different faiths that would have brought tears to the eyes of all but the butchest of cowboys.

The wine flowed freely.

A bride fell in the pool.

Shaky and reeking of wine, I made a sloppy pass at one of the hotties in attendance, who calmly told me, "you should go elsewhere now."

And, of course, every wedding requires one truly awkward moment. In this case it was provided by Penny's son, Charlie, who, during a round of toasts, decided for some reason to offer a tribute to his "first vagina" (I shit you not), and then, in response to the uneasy silence that followed, extended it to "everyone's first vagina" (which I for one found kind of gracious).

The sound system went down, but someone jerry-rigged some music and we danced. There were hugs and tears and congrats and mazel tovs all around.

So, it was just like a straight couple's wedding! 

Except for one key difference: it wasn't really a wedding. It was a reception, and all but a few of the guests were absent when the bride and bride actually tied the knot. Because, unlike folks like me (or, I should say, unlike straight people who aren't terrified of the prospect of being wed), Penny and Elana had to drive to Massachusetts to do the deed, and most of those assembled last night weren't able to make the trip for various reasons.

As I've argued in the past, marriage equality isn't about the right to get married. It's about equal treatment under the law (which is why I'd be just as happy to get the state out of the marriage business entirely as I would to see gay marriage legalized everywhere). "Separate but equal" still doesn't cut it with me, and it shouldn't with you.

And this situation brought home for me the utter insanity of this patchwork of laws we've created -- with marriage equality now the norm in 6 states, a federal "defense of marriage act" and a slew of states whose constitutions forbid it. I know this will change -- that in the future people will look back at the days when it was legal to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples the same way we regard those shameful old miscegenation laws today.

But until that day comes, the situation will remain nothing short of bizarre. Consider this Los Angeles Times story about how gay and lesbian couples in some jurisdictions can end up having a tougher time getting a gay divorce than entering into a gay marriage (and just how surreal is it that gay marriage is forbidden in California, but gay divorce is still fine?).

Or think for a moment about the complexities that enter the picture when you consider that one's sex is quite fluid. Jennifer Finney Boylan, writing in the New York Times, laid out the issue nicely:

Deirdre Finney and I were wed in 1988 at the National Cathedral in Washington. In 2000, I started the long and complex process of changing from male to female. Deedie stood by me, deciding that her life was better with me than without me ...

I’ve been legally female since 2002, although the definition of what makes someone “legally” male or female is part of what makes this issue so unwieldy. How do we define legal gender? By chromosomes? By genitalia? By spirit? By whether one asks directions when lost?

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When Is Obama Going to Stop B.S.ing About Gay Rights?
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 18, 2009 at 5:17 AM.

Not good enough:

President Barack Obama signaled to gay rights activists Wednesday that he's listening to their priorities by extending some benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. But he didn't give them even close to everything they want, bringing growing anger against the president to the surface.

We all have to acknowledge this is only one step," Obama said in the Oval Office, where he signed a memorandum that made incremental changes to benefits offered to the same-sex partners of gay federal employees. ...Obama has refused to take any concrete steps toward a repeal of a policy that bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, even though as a candidate he pledged to scrap the Clinton-era rules. He similarly has refused to step in and block the dismissal of gays and lesbians who face courts martial for disclosing their sexual orientation. Obama said he wants to see the Defense of Marriage Act repealed and in its place a law that would give the partners of gay and lesbian federal employees health insurance and survivor benefits, among other things.

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Republican Sen. John Ensign Had Extramarital Affair
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on June 16, 2009 at 4:32 PM.

Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign has admitted to an extramarital affair with a married staffer. Ensign, a staunch opponent of gay marriage and a 2012 Presidential hopeful, said "I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions." In 1998, Ensign called on former President Bill Clinton to resign when details of Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky became public.

Politico reports that Ensign's admission and public apology come at the heels of a blackmail attempt by the campaign staffer's husband:

Political insiders in the Senate and in Nevada told POLITICO that Ensign began an affair with a staffer several months after he separated from his wife. When Ensign reconciled with his wife, the sources said, he gave the aide a severance package and parted ways.

Sometime later, a Nevada source said, Ensign met with the husband of the woman involved and had what this source described as a positive encounter. Sources said that the man subsequently asked Ensign for a substantial sum of money – at which point Ensign decided to make the affair public. In his Las Vegas press conference, Ensign declined to give specifics about the woman involved but did say she and “her husband were close friends and both of them worked for me.”