Posts by Russell Brown
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to BenWilson,
Happened to you, or happens to a lot of people? Those are different things, and you’re not showing any evidence of the latter. Just a lot of repetition of the former.
Do you have any statistics to the contrary? Show me the statistics on why it is that condoms don’t get used, and in particular when it results from male lack of interest. Show me that you’ve done any research into the matter at all. All you’ve done is repeatedly deny my experience is of relevance.
I kinda have to agree here. “Show me evidence” seems like a dismissive response to the honest sharing of experience. I’d also be interested in hearing from male readers who don’t suffer a loss of pleasure or function with condom use.
I’ve searched for research on the subject and it’s not easy to find – always the questions are about the level of sexual education of the subjects, rather than their reasons in their words. In other words, they’ve prejudged the relevance of the reasons. But here’s one interesting one.
It is. But it does point to some of the things we’ve been discussing here – proper fit, and skill in application included.
Seeing as I'm calling for experience reports, the symptoms of a too-small condom are pain, lack of sensation, difficulty in reaching orgasm -- and the fact that the member just looks so fucking stupid.
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Hard News: Who owns the news?, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
I’m surprised they’ve not heard of TVNZ.
They have, clearly, but given that nearly the whole of the newspaper market is owned by APN and Fairfax, and nearly the whole of the radio market is owned by TRN (also part-owned by APN) and Mediaworks, and Mediaworks has a substantial chunk of the TV news market … they do have a point.
I’m inclined to think that the problem is less foreign ownership than an alarming lack of diversity of ownership. The only sector where independent companies have a decent presence is in magazines, where some local companies, like Tangible Media, have been more nimble than the big guys. But even there, most of the market is with NZ Magazines (APN), ACP and Fairfax, and that’s consolidating further.
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Actually, now I've raised the issue, there are + and - sized condoms available by mail order locally, if not at retail, and some good advice about using them.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Megan Wegan,
Frankly, anyone who said to me, “Oh, I can’t use a condom, because of X….isn’t going to get very far with me. In fact, the one time someone tried it, I threw him out of my house. But I was in my late 20s, not 16.
And fair enough too. I never, ever refused to use one. Ever.
But, to pick a number, I'd say it diminished sexual pleasure by about 50%, and that's not insignificant. I think sex ed should confront that and say, well, if that's the case, here's what you can do. I don't think there are many young men who'd say no to a nice hand job.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Jolisa,
It’s amazing stuff, though. Like the bit about how during the fertile part of the cycle, the cervix apparently elongates, softens, opens up and (during orgasm) swoops down like a sort of giant sperm-sucking squid?
Is it not awesome!?
An episode of Desmond Morris's The Human Animal actually had pictures of just that event. I wrote about it at the time it screened:
It was the opportunity to see how we all do it that, presumably, bumped up the ratings for Desmond Morris's The Human Animal this week. Yes, it was the wild thing from inside. We switched over to fanny-cam for the replays and it was, indeed, all happening at the Gabba. I was bloody impressed with the sheer athleticism of the cervix under orgasm dipping into a fresh reservoir of daddy-juice like one of those nodding birds you stick next to a glass of water. Who said only boys could do tricks with their genitals?
And you, too, can see it here on Google Video! Pull the slider over to 44.30 for the cervical action -- or start at 37.50 for the full, fascinating rundown on physical sexual arousal.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
No-one is arguing for teenagers to not be told things. They are arguing for them to be told that for them to achieve maximum safety from STDS, while having penetrative sex, they must use condoms. You have failed to come up with any argument against that. They are the only thing that works
I think there's no argument against that, none whatsoever. But I also think that doesn't provide license to dismiss the fact that for some men more than others, condoms significantly impair sexual function.
There are ways around that -- from trying to find a better-fitting condom (not easy) to discussing other things to do in bed and choosing monogamous relationships -- but it's not a non-issue. It should be okay to talk about.
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Hard News: Who owns the news?, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
I did intend "editorial resources" to include the newsrooms -- which have shrunk alarmingly -- but you do have a point. There are fewer reporters, more people engaged in churnalism.
There are also fewer sub-editors -- whose jobs have been outsourced to central hubs in both chains. The loss of local sub-editing is an issue on which the JMAD report should have had a lot more to say.
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Hello! The editor of the New Zealand Herald, Tim Murphy, has been in touch on the “enormity” issue:
Hi Russell. Good post. Wonderful days indeed. Toby and you question ‘enormity’. FYI our style guide uses the Concise Oxford, Eleventh Edition, Revised. Its defintion of ‘enormity’ is:
‘large scale or extreme seriousness of (something bad); (in neutral use) the great size or scale of. 2. A grave crime or sin. (Usage: in its earliest sense, enormity meant ’a crime’ and some argue that it should therefore continue to be used only of contexts in which a negative moral judgement is implied. Nevertheless, in modern English enormity is often simply used as a synonym for hugeness (the enormity of his intellect) and this is now broadly accepted in standard English).”
So, for the very conservative among us, prone to ‘negative moral judgement’ ,it was wrong in the paper. But not to our style guide and standard English and common usage.
To which I replied:
Thanks for the reply, Tim – and for the compliment! But I’m afraid you’ll never convince me with the “common usage” argument …
In that case, anyway.
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OnPoint: Transcription of new Rick Perry…, in reply to James Bremner,
Obama is 14 months out from an election, dead in the water, no mojo, no momentum
His ratings have slipped in the past six months, to about where Reagan was at the same point in his presidency, but he still beats a generic Republican candidate, and seems likely to beat anyone from the utter freakshow that is the Republican lineup. Given that he took office at the beginning of the US’s most severe financial crisis since the 1930s, he was always going to face challenges on the economic front.
he is in the really dangerous political space where the phone is just about off the hook, and all he can do is insult the pols whose votes he needs to do anything, and offer up the same tired old crap about the rich paying their fair share. Apparently he is too clueless to know himself, or no one has told him that the rich pay just about all the tax that gets paid, which is the obvious outcome of a the progressive tax structure the US has.
This is actually the problem – as you unwittingly implied above. The US revenue system is borked, to the point where there simply is not the revenue base available to fund the kind of superpower Americans perceive their country to be. There are too many exceptions and loopholes, too many people paying no tax at all – and many very wealthy people paying 15% marginal rates on their dividend income.
The single biggest factor in the Bush deficits was not his spending – although, man, did he ever expand government – but his tax cuts. This graph of top marginal tax rates since 1900 tells the story quite well. Note the 15% top rate on dividend income.
And it’s hardly only federal government with this problem. The Republican-as-it-gets state of Texas will run a deficit of $9 billion in 2012, equivalent to more than more than 20% of its general budget.
I'm surprised that you would quote state income tax rates at 10%, if you're as familiar with the tax system as you say. Only Hawaii has a top rate greater than 10% -- all other states levy less than 10%, most of them substantially less and some none at all.
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Hard News: Auckland, so much enormity to…, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
I do respect Peter Leitch, and as you say, he has given his time to a great many people over the years. I try and avoid buying his meat, though. It tends not to be of particularly good quality, and it's not necessarily cheaper than Westmere either.
Happily, the Point Chev Mad Butcher store currently has litre packs of Italian pomodoro passata for only $2.50. I can get behind that.