Why More Leftists Should Date Actual Sex Workers

Mostly, because when you are arguing against the likes of Robert Jensen, it helps to have an actual human being to back you up.

Case in point: Eric Patton just posted his own counterrebuttal to Robert Jensen’s essay at the Dissident Voice website on the issue of whether DP is innately sexist to women….but for this tiime, he managed to channel an actual sex worker/ex-girlfriend (identified as "Colleen"…of course, not her real name) to buttress his case, so to speak.

A few excerpts should show how well she succeeded.

Here is Colleen giving her initial thoughts on Jensen’s blast:

The first thing I notice is that there seems to be a muddying of concepts  that needs to be clarified. Are we speaking entirely about the sexual act within the boundaries of pornography, or within the confines of interpersonal sexual activity? The distinction is very important, as the man who insists that this is an example of how porn is demeaning to women is trying to be a helpful Leftie guy who confuses a dislike with market capitalism with what may otherwise be an actual problem. The man who insists that the act itself is disgraceful, sexist, and/or demeaning is being patronizing [if he] thinks he knows better than a female about what she should do with her body. After all, patriarchy does not exclude itself from the Left — plenty of guys on the Left are more than happy to say what is and isn’t demeaning to women without actually discussing it with women who enjoy it.

[Emphasis added by me.]

And here’s Colleen responding to Jensen saying that he has never had a woman ask a man if DP (or any other sex act) was sexist and demeaning:

Why would a woman ask a man if double penetration is demeaning to her? I have difficulty understanding why this is somehow news to the reader — I can see concerned men asking other Leftist men who care about respecting and loving women, “I am fantasizing about _____. Am I wrong for doing this? Am I being sexist?” I can NOT see a woman asking a male, “I am fantasizing about _____.  Am I being sexist… umm.. against myself?” It’s not going to happen. To make this observation is to hint that women need male input on what is and is not demeaning to them.

Isn’t that really funny…especially considering that most radfems who are full of praise of Jensen for his "gender traitorship" are the first to bait and trap men who think otherwise as attempting to impose their sexual choices on women!!!

But wait, you say!!  Jensen is directing his critique at MEN, not women, so women’s personal beliefs about sex or DP should not matter, right?? 

Ahhh, WRONG.  Remember that one of the main foundations of Jensen’s belief system about porn is that women innately and naturally seek less "aggressive" and more "positive" forms of sexual fulfillment and "intimacy", and that men, for the good of the species and their gender, had damn well better abandon their evil "patriarchial" sexuality and adopt the "feminist"/"female" model. Of course, having an actual woman who says she actually LOVES the more aggressive form of sexuality (never mind getting paid for it) kinda screws around big time with such a theory…which is why Jensen goes to such lengths to sweep away such dissenting behavior as merely tokens of patriarchy. I guess that in his eyes, women like Colleen and RenegadeEvolution don’t even exist as anything other than holograms invented by TEH MAN to justify and defend rape and degradation of women??

But that is a different story for another time….let’s continue with Colleen’s response.

To Jensen’s line that all the women that HE has asked about DP find it innately sexist and demeaning and would never engage in it, Colleen has this:

I may be mistaken, but like tends to surround like. I’ve known women who are interested in and have enjoyed DP. I myself am interested in it, and have played with the concept with toys when actual men weren’t around. Additionally, whether or not a woman acknowledges such a desire does not lead to truth when it comes to whether or not she ACTUALLY desires it — he truly has met an unrepresentative group of women if he has solely been talking to women who practice full disclosure when it comes to their sex practices and fantasies. There are many women of any sexual orientation who find the practice of having their anus and vagina simultaneously stimulated a very pleasurable thing.

But the best portion of the essay is when Colleen goes off on Jensen’s pretension to represent the Left on the subject of women’s sexuality.

I know he says it’s not his part to say whether or not this is ACTUALLY demeaning to women, which is a nice little tale after pages of saying that it IS demeaning to women. His mention of wanting to threaten to have two “of the biggest guys in the room” double-anal rape the boy to see if he likes it is ALSO very telling, for a few reasons: 1. The boy is apparently not gay, so this act would be rape, and therefore not at ALL comparable to consensual  ADP [anal double penetration [1]]; 2. In private, a female participant in a DP would not be taking their clothes off in front of a group — in pornography, yes, but this is no different than any OTHER type of porn, including lesbian-produced girl on girl porn. It’s a cheap shot, totally unnecessary, and betrays his feelings on the matter. If he feels that ALL porn is degrading, he should just say so instead of picking one of the most extreme subjects as a showcase.

I really do find this bullshit from the Left about how porn is demeaning to women tiring and frustrating, especially when it comes from a 48-year-old male. Somewhere in the back of their minds they have an acceptable list of things that can be done to women, and a list of things that cannot be done to women, and IT’S NO FUCKING DIFFERENT than the sexual repression that comes from the Right.  It’s the “Oh, these poor women have no choice but to fuck for money, and they’re victims of our society and of a sex and humiliation-hungry patriarchy.” . . . I made $200/hour fucking men for money. I chose who and where, and I was absolutely worshipped by most of these men, who were looking for release, comfort, acceptance and kink. For a woman like myself to make a living by offering her body as an altar to men, or for a woman like those in pornography to make a living by acting while fucking is the kind of powerful feeling that you cannot get by conforming to the standards of the Left OR the Right, who both think they have a right to dictate what a woman’s sexuality should be.

This is why I have little patience for these kinds of authors, and this kind of essay. It’s disingenuous and abhorrent. Hopefully this helps you a little, but really, I cannot and will not participate in discussions with people like this. By the way, it doesn’t surprise me that he didn’t give you a straight answer regarding porn in a utopia. Of course there will be porn in a utopia, but he will then be forced to consider — what does that porn look like? Will it involve — GASP! — women enjoying DP? Goodness, heavens, gracious! How could that be?

Oh, but don’t you know, Colleen?? In Robert Jensen’s (and the rest of the radical antiporn feminist activist) utopia, men and women will be so transformed by the wonder of radfem "socialist" politics that there will be no need for DP or any other kind of "patriarchial" sex….because sexual "intimacy" (as defined their way to mean "politically correct", "egalitarian" sexual relationships within a perfect feminist monogamy, totally stripped of all those evil "male-identified" fantasies and thoughts (and of most orgasms, too) will be more than sufficient for humans to survive. Besides, we know that in a patriarchial world, a woman really doesn’t have any rights to her body or sexuality until we have that radicalfeminst revolution and shake out "male sexual power" and "male sexual privilege"….even if it seems to give women the "illusion" of having power!! If submission is inevitable and so useful for the Patriarchy, than why can’t certain Leftists use it (while denying it being used) for their own principles???

[/sarcasm]

That’s just a nice sample of Colleen’s rant; the rest can be found here.

Well done, Eric…..you have as good a taste in girlfriends as you have guts.

And thanks for giving Nina Hartley the shoutout, too.

Because A Used Car Isn’t Quite Like A “Used Woman”….I Guess??

To understand the title of that post you must:

1) Go over to the Village Voice website and read the totally fine (and totally fine-ass) Rachel Kramer Bussel column on virginity as an sexual option for young people;

2) Go the the following week’s "Letters to the Editor" section of said newspaper for one of the lowest in asshattery in response to Rachel’s comment; and note the really touching (in a "touching a live electical wire" sort of way) analogy "James D" uses to defend "intimacy"; and,

3) Read Rachel’s bemused, and not-so-slightly pissed off response to said asshat in her Lusty Lady blog today.

Underneath even the lustiest ladies lie a total bitch, waiting to be sprung. Memo to Loser James D: You’ve been served, fool.

 

Et Tu, Gooney??? Stan Goff Defends Robert Jensen…As Only Stan Goff Can

Oh, but this is just too fresh….

Straight out of the blue, here comes Stan Goff from deep antiporn radical right left field to attempt to defend Bob Jensen’s mindlessness about double penetration and the men who enjoy watching it.

Actually, he just reprinted Jensen’s original Dissident Voice article, then let his posse of antiporn rad freaks have at it.

Some nice excerpts:

I read this, then cried, then threw up a bunch of coffee, then cried some more. Then I could think well enough to type.

1. Stan, it’s very good that you posted this.
2. The answer to the question posed is yes, for the record, from a woman.

Comment by Elaina — 11/15/2006 @ 12:03 am

——————————–

The next two postings were attempts to actually critique Jensen:

• Insofar as his discursive method appears to be both feminist and postmodern (as if the two are ultimately separable), I find Jensen’s attempted answer curiously essentialist.

  Jensen, however, avoids answering it based upon the paltry anecdotal data available to him. And wisely, I might add.

  Surely his admittedly “unscientific” data is skewed by his status as a male, and a older male professor at that. Of course many women will find DP uncomfortable and sexist. But of those who decline to answer he cannot speak–especially when one considers that “good girls” don’t do DP. Nor do they lie.

  Surely in some cases, if not most, the failure to answer might be due to shock and discomfort at such a traumatic thought; then, of course, there are probably those who simply think such a question impertinent; but there are also, quite possibly, others for whom lack of an answer might represent a “sin” of omission–a failure to positively account for practices that they deem unacceptable by “polite” society.

  My own anecdotal evidence, based upon the experiences of my lifemate, a feminist, contradict Jensen’s theory. Not only has she initiated and enjoyed DP, she found it “exhilerating” and empowering. This was neither uncomfortable, nor was it submissive in her view.

  I believe Jensen has wisely deferred, too, on men’s attitudes while (correctly) identifying some sadistic/homosexual motivations on the part of at least some (if not most men who watch and/or seek DP.

  However, even in this his inclinations are suspiciously essentialist/universalist. It may be true for large numbers of men, and this is significant and should be troubling. But it is likely to be only a generalization.

  Jensen cites clearly mysogynistic and sadistic rhetoric in the form of pornographic advertisements to further his case regarding mens’ attitudes toward DP, but a few searches of more “vanilla” sexual practices will reveal much the same rhetoric.

  Furthermore, his (understandably) reactionary attitude toward the valid question posed at Stanford demonstrates well his understanding of feminism but it betrays a lack of understanding of some other marginalized segments of humanity. It is irrelevant whether Jensen or the questioner would find DP anal horribly painful, unacceptable, humiliating, and so on–which I submit they likely would. What is relevant is whether there are those who would find such a practice pleasant.

  Jensen seems to wish to reduce these behaviors/practices to polemic issues, but it is not clear that this can be done; on the contrary it seems unlikely that a purely polemic case can be made. Further, he seems to favor purely socio-political explanations for what are sometimes more personal reasons, based on isolated fetishistism and/or individual biological impulses.

  None of this is to suggest that his final statements aren’t generally correct. But they’re ambivalent, and wisely so. People aren’t easily essentialized, and their attitudes and behavior are perhaps doubly difficult to boil down to singular impulses.

  Comment by Jimi 45 — 11/15/2006 @ 1:42 am

——————————————————————-

• I guess us women are such mindless, appendages who have no power, opinion, or choice when in comes to matters of having sex with one or ten men. I wonder if Mr. Jensen would pose the same question in the case of two women having sex with one man. But forgive me, I keep forgetting that the implication is always that men have sex with women and not vice versa.

  I guess for the sake of philosophical debate, the questions posed by Mr. Jensen can be considered an exercise in mind (and body) bending, linguistic pornography and eroticism of hedonistic proportions designed to prove some hidden mystery about the oppression of women.

  I have read some really valuable insights into the issues of gender here, but I have also seen some comments and descriptions that have left me wondering about the value of much of the feminist literature out there.

  We cannot have it both ways. If a woman says no during the act of sex and the man does not stop, it is rape, but if a woman says “yes” to two men, it is still degrading to women.

  We live in a free society (at least in most bedrooms) and what happens between two or three or ten consenting adults is their business no matter how offensive we may view it. THAT is the important point. I doubt if Mr. Jensen’s questions will solve the mystery of why men are the way they are and why women are the way we are told we are.

  I refuse, as a female, to succumb to the notion that if I willingly have sex with two men that somehow it is sexist on their part and, even if it is, if I consent to it, who cares? Men and women cannot be gender neutral when dealing with each other, especially in intimate relationships.

  If I am offended by the portrayal of such acts in movies, I don’t have to watch. If others want to watch them, I think they should go for it as long as no one forces ME to do anything I CHOOSE not to want.

  I am tired of hearing how helpless we women are in all the variety of sexual positions, imaginations, and hallucinations of all the drug and alcohol saturated brains out there. Who thinks this stuff up anyway?

  Feminism is “in” and many are hopping on the train to fame. It is being done in such a superficial manner in areas that really do not promote women’s autonomy.

  I would like to hear about any ideas that the feminist writers have about “empowering” women to be who they CHOOSE to be. We have to acknowledge that women do have a choice in the good and bad they do. Many are oppressed but many also make mistakes and many more have come a long way.

  I always admire the American women of the early 20th century. They were the true feminists and the true promoters of peace, justice, and human rights. I am also a great admirer of the American nurses of the same era and before.

  I would ask a really important question here: is the feminist movement in the United States in its last throws? It has maybe become symptomatic of the “gluttony” of empire, where moral depravity and affluence have really removed the citizens from the true meaning of struggle and suffering.

  I look up to the women of RAWA – http://www.rawa.org/ and their struggles against oppression, and who have been active since Bin Laden became the playboy stud frequenting the nightclubs of Beirut (before he found god and before he had four wives, one in each corner of the globe). No one paid any attention to them at the time when their female doctors, lawyers and professionals were committing suicide by the droves because they lost their freedoms as a result of the psychotic religious and cultural rules of the men. I do not think you will find them arguing about who should be on top or bottom during sex.

  I look up to the civil defense and Red Cross women of the Middle East who are out there picking up burned and charred bodies of children after bombardments and firefights, and they do not get paid for it. Those same women drive medical trucks around remote villages vaccinating the women and children and teaching the women about birth control and health checkups, free of charge. They teach women to help themselves when the men refuse to participate.

  I look up to women who teach in schools that cannot afford to hire teachers, and they do it for free.

  And tell you what, if those same women choose to have sex with five men or five monkeys, I really couldn’t care less as long as they did it with a smile on their faces.

  p.s. We all think “degrading” and “violent” thoughts. Such thoughts are normal. It is what we choose to do about them that matters and it is the actions that determine our degree of dysfunction, not the thoughts alone.

  Comment by Marilyn Farhat — 11/15/2006 @ 2:06 am

Gooney Goff, however, was having none of that:

Jensen’s discursive method is not postmodern, but yours is. Jensen talks about pornography as an industry, a fact that both Jimi and Marilyn seem to evade. It exploits the “performers” (the empitical evidence for this is already overwhelming), and it markets directly to misogyny (as Jensen showed). It is, in this context, sexually as well as economically exploitative of women, and it serves as a special kind of hate speech against women, that is reinforced biochemically by men’s masturbatory orgasms.

Every time anyone says anything against porn, it provokes this this liberal (sometimes dressed up in academic postmodernism) kneejerk about individual rights, which never says anything about how desire gets constructed by patriarchy (which is essentialist, the naturalization of desire, that is).

For anyone interested in “essentialism” and anti-essentialism, which is thrown in here to sound erudite and reasonable as a way of carefully throwoing doubt on what Jensen is pointing out about how men desire (not how women desire, Marilyn), it is covered in an earlier post-series on gender.

http://stangoff.com/?p=215
http://stangoff.com/?p=218
http://stangoff.com/?p=219

As to postmodernism, Maria Mies, Margaret Dierdre O’Hartigan, and Alf Hornborg say it better than I can:

“Although biological determinism had been criticized quite early in the women’s movement as a method of explaining man’s patriarchal dominance by the biological difference between the genders, the postmodernists tabooed even the use of such concepts as ‘woman’, ‘mother’, ‘land’, ‘patriarchy’, ‘capitalism’, and so on. The fact that women have the capacity to bring forth children, that they can become mothers, is totally devalued, de-historicized and dematerialized. It is considered to be a mere biological accident which nowadays can be changed by biotechnology. The same applies to the category ‘woman’. The fact that most people appear in this world as male or female is not accepted as a given, because it is possible today physically to change one’s gender or one’s sexual orientation. The gender discourse in particular contributed to the elimination of such categories as ‘mother’, or ‘woman’. In this discourse ‘sex’ as supposedly biologically determined and ‘gender’ as culturally constructed are being separated and contraposed. This results in the old schizophrenic situation that ‘sex’ is again dehistoricized and declared a matter of biology only, which can be left to reproduction and genetic engineers, while ‘gender’ becomes the ‘higher’ affair, where culture plays the determining role. Old dualism in new garb.” -Mies

“The ‘postmodern’ supposition that sex is nothing more than a ‘constructed social identity’ threatens the very concept of ‘woman’ while leaving intact the oppression of women. Little wonder that the sophistry of ‘deconstruction’ – primarily developed and promulgated by white men such as Michael Foucault – has found such favor in our sexist society. But whenever ‘off our backs’ publishes a two-page paean to ‘deconstruction’ which cites Colin Powell and Jerry Springer as its only “authorities” (”Identity Politics and Progress”, off our backs, April 1998) it is time for a reality check in a world in which women are routinely discriminated against and murdered because they are women. ‘Deconstruction’ may very well eliminate the perception of such injustice by mutilating the bodies beyond all recognition but the injustice itself will continue unabated.” -O’Hartigan

“It is not a coincidence that the postmodern paralysis is a condition that mainly afflicts academics, for it is at a distance [eg, cloistered in the academy] that human meanings assume the appearance of ‘constructions’…

“… the ‘postmodern.’ It is a condition where the exhausting attitude of radical skepticism tends to give way to a structurally enforced feigned gullibility. All hope of certainty has vanished, but precisely because no pretense to power or truth can be admitted, any pretense is as good as any other. Signs are once again perceived as indices of identity, but now simply by virtue of positing themselves as such, rather than through assumed correspondences with essences… ‘” -Hornborg

Here is my own point for the day on all this: IF YOU AIN’T TALKIN’ ABOUT HOW PATRIARCHY TRAINS US TO DESIRE, YOU AIN’T SERIOUS!

Treating desire as if it is beyond critical reach is sly as hell, liberal as hell, and the most insidious of all rhetorical defenses of patriarchy.

All of Jimi’s response seems to throw sand in our eyes on this key point, with these conversational appeals to authority (science, etc) and casual dismissals of Jensen, while never directly confronting what Jensen is pointing out. Men get off on the humiliation of women. Porn gets women (by various means) to behave as if they enjoy these humiliations (DP’s, facials, etc), then sells that often-coerced performance to men, who jack off to it.

If the Klan could get people to experience an orgasm every time they viewed pictures of the humiliation of Blacks, immigrants, Jews, etc., then we would recognize how deeply dangerous this is to Blacks, immigrants, and Jews, and we would fight against employment this method of indoctrination. When it happens to women, however, everyone becomes a goddamn Constitutional lawyer or a detached academic (especially boiz and a handful of privileged women who see sex and identity as consumer choices… hmmm).

Jimi sez: “It is irrelevant whether Jensen or the questioner would find DP anal horribly painful, unacceptable, humiliating, and so on–which I submit they likely would. What is relevant is whether there are those who would find such a practice pleasant.”

So you get to set the terms of the debate, eh. You get to determine what is relevant. And with you, it is the rare individual who elects (apparently without any socialization at all) to have sex in a particular way. Not the millions of women who are harmed by this industry — god forbid one person might have his or her desire subjected to a critique — nor the millions of men who are being socialized (with biochemical reinforcement) by this porn genre to desire the objectification and humiliation of women.

You say, “Jensen seems to wish to reduce these behaviors/practices to polemic issues.” This is, of course, a lie. Read what he said.

I’ll leave it to others to describe Marilyn’s abstract liberalism, and continued penchant to naturalize power. I have to run.

Comment by Stan — 11/15/2006 @ 8:41 am

Ah, yes….the old "sex is totally socially structured by Teh Patriarchy" meme, reenforced with the old and tired bromides about "postmodernism" and "liberalism" as mere appendages to total male power and female powerlessness. I’m surprised that Stanley didn’t go all the way and head straight for Judith Reisman’s "erotoxins" theory (would that be what he means by "biochemical reinforcement"???)

And of course, the idea of a former Special Forces elite warrior and converted radical activist defending an academic and throwing words of "elitism" and "privileged women" and "boiz" about at those who merely attempt to disagree with his analysis is simply breathtaking…and so, so, so typical.

And speaking of elitism, notice how Stanley happens to handle an attempt by a regular civilian (namely, Antiprincess of I Shame the Matriarchy) who attempts to defend her own (and other women’s) right to determine their own sexual desires for themselves (The "Moderator’s Notes" within brackets happen to be Goff’s annotations):

“Is a DP inherently degrading to women and therefore sexist? I don’t know, and I don’t have to know.

so, a woman’s opinion on what gets up her own ass is not important to this man?

[MODEATOR’S NOTE: That is not what he said.]

“Is a DP inherently degrading in the minds of men? That’s a much more important question, and that answer is much more disturbing.”

The opinion of Class Man on what gets up a woman’s ass is the important question?

[MODERATOR’S NOTE: That’s not what he said, either.]

some feminist.

[MODERATOR’S NOTE: Ah, so you write the credentials? Porn posse trolls… be advised. We have been through this gang tackle crap before. We have seen all these polemical fallacies before. You make us very very tired. If we post you at all, when you have nothing to contribute but this kind of misrepresentation and venom, then we will intervene thus, right inside your comment. If you don’t like it, troll elsewhere. ]

Comment by antiprincess — 11/15/2006 @ 3:38 pm

Oh, poor, poor Stanley. It must be really, really galling to fight the good fight against women who don’t understand how they are being led astray by the evil patriarchy and their chemical inducements to degrade themselves into having all kinds of "patriarchial", damaging sex for the mere pleasure of elitist pimps and pornographers.  It is quite understandable that he has to constantly defend himself and his righteous radicalfeminist antiporn "leftist" philosophy against the hated "porn posse" (I assume that he means moi, Nina Hartley, Sheldon Ranz, Ernest Greene, and anyone else who dares to state an contrary position to his) who inflict such "venom" and "misinterpretation" and "polemical tactics". (Interesting rhetoric for someone who practically indicted and executed Nina Hartley as the main enabler of pimps and rapists for simply replying to his ally Chyng Sun.)

But it is this post from good old Julian Real which takes the grand prize for total tomfoolery:

Hi posters.

In order.

First, Elaina–I’m sorry that piece was so upsetting, and I concur it was traumatic to read. Men need to be careful about how and where we discuss topics like this, in the name of feminism, no less. And I think that piece was irresponsibly presented.

Second, a recommendation to Robert: Please put a warning on any sexxxplicit writings you do, including any descriptions of degrading acts against women, including anything that mentions an unsoft penis. Too many people have LIVED that CRAP, been harmed by men’s genitals, and it would be respectful of you to warn folks that some hard-core whitemale supremacist material is about to be graphically described. To not do this is irresponsible, in my view, and is uncaring of all of us who are survivors of this sort of abuse.

Third, Jimi, I’m ignoring what you wrote entirely. It isn’t worthy of a response.

Fourth, to Marilyn. Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I’ll respond a bit.

MF: We cannot have it both ways. If a woman says no during the act of sex and the man does not stop, it is rape, but if a woman says “yes” to two men, it is still degrading to women.

I remember a conversation with a white woman who told me when she was young, due to the unwanted sexual attention she got from her mom’s boyfriends, she learned she had better “really like sex” a lot, or else suffer being degraded and violated. What this meant, in the real world, was that she learned that what men do to and with her she had better consider “consensual”–regardless of the degree to which it was so–because she was determined not to be a “raped woman”. She felt she was too empowered to be that, to experience that. She told me she arrived at this decision not based on what she was capable of enduring or resisting, but on the fact that to make herself heterosexually available to men would, necessarily, mean she would be available to men’s use and abuse of her, no matter how much she pretended it was all “what she wanted”. She told me she now realizes that she had to internalize what men wanted from her as what she wanted with men, in order to get through it all believing she was not used and abused. Note: the experience of many women I know, and many I don’t know, is this: women don’t have a choice about what sex is, socially and politically. Women are increasingly told that what prostitutes do, what women coerced into pornography do, what women and girls who are sex-trafficked do, is “sex” for normal men. Do women have the choice to never encounter THAT kind of sex? How many women have that option? Honestly, Marilyn, not many women I know have that option. In fact, none do. Every woman I know has been sexually used and abused by men, except one woman I know who has only ever been sexually involved with women. She’s been emotionally abused by some women, but not sexually abused.

MF: We live in a free society (at least in most bedrooms) and what happens between two or three or ten consenting adults is their business no matter how offensive we may view it.

I would argue that consent is relatively meaningless in a world in which men are predatory due to political position and right of access. Not all men need to be, of course. Some are tender and kind. But there is a system, the hierarchical gender system of power, in which women are routinely and systematically forced into being and doing things that, were it not for the ubiquity of male supremacist force, covert or overt, women would not have to consider doing. Within this perspective, we cannot know what anyone would desire outside of whitemale supremacist-influenced patriarchies, until such systems of power are eradicated. To think “natural human sexual desires” exist in this world, as we live it, is, in my view, and others, not only dangerous, but also essentialist.

MF: If I am offended by the portrayal of such acts in movies, I don’t have to watch. If others want to watch them, I think they should go for it as long as no one forces ME to do anything I CHOOSE not to want.

For me the core issue is the woman in the films, photo stills, brothels, streets, bedrooms, websites, etc., and what the conditions are that led her to be there, doing what the director/pimp wants her to do that he calls “sexy”. How people are secondarily affected by such abuse of women inside the industry is also important, but not if it invisibilizes the women and girls and boys trafficked, sold, enslaved, and otherwise harmed. (And some men too.)

MF: I am tired of hearing how helpless we women are in all the variety of sexual positions, imaginations, and hallucinations of all the drug and alcohol saturated brains out there. Who thinks this stuff up anyway?

I know women who were in the sexxx industries. Their stories are real, compelling, political, and if you wish to know what happens in the sex-trafficking world, including in pornography and prostitution, globally, I warn you, it’s “not pretty” to say the least.

I agree with you that it is also that case that women’s condition globally is impacted by many other forces other than directly sexual ones. You note them well. Thank you for reminded me, a U.S. white man, about such atrocities.

Fifth, to Consumer.

After my concerns about women and girls and boys in the global sex-trafficking systems and industries, and after how that violence impacts (negatively) on the human rights and dignity of women who are impacted by it, because of men who consume it, there’s a mild amount of concern for how you experience this material. Frankly, given the other priorities, what you think of it doesn’t matter at all to me. And for you to prioritize “what it does to you” over what it does to those women in the industry, is a real mark of your own inhumanity, in my view.

There’s no mirror into the viewer’s soul, as you state it. There’s a lens (literally) on reality, on the reality of women used and abused in systems of whitemale supremacist sexxxual exploitation. Please spare us your self-indulgent musings about how whitemale supremacy impacts on you.

Comment by Julian Real — 11/15/2006 @ 4:55 pm

Ahhhhh, OK, I get it now…..so the fact that some individual women might acutally LIKE double penetration and other forms of "patriarchial" sex for the simple pleasure it provides is certainly inmaterial, because even if DP is innately harmless, it should still be banished to RadicalFeminist Hell because it justifies (if not embodies) the "reality of women used and abused in systems of ‘whitemale supremacist sexxxual exploitation’".  ("Sexxxual"????  Hmmmm…could Sam of Genderberg be far behind on this??)

With "leftist radicals" like this, I’d rather give Ted Haggard the benefit of the doubt.  At least he admitted to his sexual desires, even if he so severely repressed them.

UPDATE: Incidently….if you have the time and the stomach for it, you can read the original Stan Goff article which attempted to slam Nina Hartley for her defense of her profession here.  (The comments include both responses by Nina and some heated debate, including some comments from yours truly.)

For an antidote, you can read the following threads developed at Nina’s forum in response:

http://www.nina.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=2475 "Left Wing War on Sex"
http://www.nina.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=2663 "Stan Goff Update"
http://www.nina.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=2502 "Another Day, Another Anti-Sex ‘Leftist’ Rants"

 

 

 

Robert Jensen Goes Cuckoo Over DP (NOT the Democratic Party); And An Actual Decent Leftist Rebuts Him

[UPDATE:  Well, Renegade Evolution is probably not a Leftist, but she is a woman who has done DP for pleasure as well as for pay....and she just poured Jensen a nice tall glass of Whupass over his presumptions over at her blog....feel free to check them out here.]

You know…I was wondering when that Professor Robert Jensen would take time from his radical crusades to return to his base obsession with sexual guilt-tripping men…..and it didn’t take long after the Democratic takeover for him to deliver.

For those of you who may not know about Robert Jensen, he is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who fancies himself as a radical Left activist, a male radical feminist supporter, and most of all an antiporn activist who attempts to apply the Dworkin/MacKinnon ideology of guilt tripping men about their sexual thoughts.

For his latest shame fest, Jensen used an essay from the Left news portal Dissident Voice titled "The Consequences of the Death of Empathy" (mostly on the supposed "privilege" of men and their alleged failure to understand how their "privileges" harm others) to bring forth his classic theories about how standard porn and male sex fantasies and acts inherently oppress and destroy women as part of the grand Patriarchy.  To that end, Jensen tapped into a discussion with a student who attended one of his lectures who attempted to challenge Jensen’s theories:

The student said that he watched gonzo pornography regularly and thought I had distorted the reality of such material. None of what he watched, he said, sounded like what I had described. “The stuff I like — it’s just movies of people who liked to party,” he told me. 
  
I asked him to tell me more about what he watched. As he talked, it became clear he was describing exactly the kind of material I had discussed, and I could see the realization emerge in him: My assessment of the rough and degrading nature of that pornography was accurate, and he had simply never recognized it. When he mentioned a type of sex he liked to watch in pornography called a DP — double penetration, in which a woman is penetrated vaginally and anally at the same time — it really started to dawn on him: In these scenes, the sex was defined by men’s sense of control over, and domination of, women.  
  
I pressed a bit more. What kind of things did the men call the woman during this sex? I asked. As he started to reproduce some of the terms — all names meant to demean and insult women — it became impossible for him to avoid the conclusion that the pornography he had been consuming is not just sex, but sex in which men act out contempt for women.
  
At that point, he stammered, “But I don’t hate women. I love women. I wouldn’t use pornography like that.”  
  
That contradiction wasn’t going to be worked out in the moment. Instead, I told the student that I wasn’t arguing that he hated women but was simply pointing out he had been getting sexual pleasure from pornography that expressed hatred for women. Why had that misogyny been invisible to him? Why had he been unable to see what was happening on the screen and imagine how women might feel about such degrading treatment?  
  
The answer is simple enough: The privileges that come with being a man in patriarchy had undermined his capacity to empathize, allowing the sexual pleasure he felt to override his humanity and making it difficult for him to put himself in the place of a woman experiencing overtly cruel and degrading treatment. 

[excerpted from Jensen: "The Consequences of the Death of Empathy", Dissident Voice, posted October 1, 2006]

Aside from the usual Jensen tactic of avoiding the main question of the student, you may notice how he twists and contorts the student’s concerns to fit into his (Jensen’s) own ideological view…as if it is a given that the student’s love for a certain kind of porn (that involving double penetration) automatically implies a hatred of not only the women who perform DP, but ALL women everywhere. (Of course, this is perfectly consistent with Jensen’s core beliefs that any fantasy or any act of sex not specifically dedicated towards his "feminist" notions of "egalitarian sex" is inherently oppressive to women and one step removed from actual rape.)

Fortunately, there were some who were quite bothered by Jensen’s pronouncements and the implications for Leftist activists….and one regular contributor named Eric Patton decided to offer a response at the Dissident Voice website questioning whether  progressives should take Jensen’s  assumptions at face value:
 

I believe we, as lefties, have to be very careful when we deal with questions of sex and sexuality. There  is a definite perception among the general population that we’re a bunch of anti-sex prudes whose views on sex differ very little from those of the Southern Baptist Convention (except that we’re pro-choice). Unfortunately, there is more than a grain of truth to this perception — we’ve earned it honestly in many regards. 

 

I simply do not at all see how a woman choosing, of her own free will, to have sex with two men (or to do whatever she wants, for that matter, as long as she is not coerced or in some other way deceived into doing it) is somehow anything we lefties can possibly be opposed to.  If women are empowered to make their own free, conscious choices, with no fear of reprisals or punishment, are we seriously opposed to this if the choice she chooses to make happens to involve double penetration?

 

And are many current incarnations of pornography sexist?  Of course.  Does that mean that somehow the very act of filming sex and making it available for public viewing is automatically sexist?  I do not see how.  Let’s assume we have overthrown capitalism and replaced it with parecon.  Let’s assume that everyone works a balanced job complex, that no one is forced to rent themselves in order to survive, and that the people involved with the making of porn are there because they genuinely want to be there. (One might argue that, in a good and decent society, no one will want to do porn. I do not believe this will be the case for a variety of reasons which are not terribly important to the topic of this essay, but everyone has to decide for themselves whether they believe this or not. However, if it indeed turns out to be the case that no one wants to do porn, then it’s hard to see how there would be any.) Under these assumptions, which are not unrealistic in the long term, how is pornography in such a society automatically sexist — indeed, how could it be sexist at all?

[Excerpted from Eric Patton, "Thoughts on Sex and Pornography"; Dissident Voice, posted on November 10, 2006]

Note: "Parecon" is shorthand for "Participatory Economics" a theory of socialist economics that was developed by Michael Albert of Z Magazine as an Left alternative to Marxist theory.

Well…..it didn’t take long for Jensen to notice…and today he posted at Dissident Voice a rebuttal to Patton that attempted to justify his beliefs on DP as innately sexist….unfortunately, his rebuttal  does more to distort the issue than to clarify it.

Right off the bat, Jensen throws down the gauntlet:

This question was posed to me recently by a man who had read an essay of mine in which I had argued that men’s ability to achieve sexual pleasure by masturbating as they watch DP scenes in pornographic movies was an example of a failure of empathy.

"A failure of empathy"???  For whom, Professor Jensen….the woman who you assume is being raped or degraded???  For all women who are represented by that woman enjoying the act?  Or the fact that some men do get sexually aroused to seeing a woman who enjoys that kind of sex with more than one man???

And never mind the basic fact that you don’t even need a penis or even a set of penises for a woman to enjoy double penetration (there are such things as fingers or sex toys, you know), or that you don’t even need MEN for a woman to engage in DP…..I guess that for Jensen, merely the act of a man masturbating to an sexual image he doesn’t approve of as insufficiently "feminist" is enough to declare it  as "sexist".

Next, Jensen shows his abject ignorance of sexuality outside of his "feminist" boundaries , by admitting the following:

Observation #1: The only people who have ever asked me that question are men. I’m not suggesting that no woman has ever considered the question. But it is the case that in my 18 years of working on this issue, it has been a question raised exclusively by men.
 
From there, let’s move to other important observations and assumptions on which my conclusion will be based. 
 
Assumption #1: There is considerable individual variation in the human species, yet there are also patterns in human behavior. That is, we cannot ever predict what any specific individual will feel, think, or do, but we often can find patterns in human emotions, cognition, and action. That leads to . . .
 
Assumption #2: There are women who in their personal lives find sexual pleasure and/or emotional fulfillment in DPs, which I call an assumption because . . .
 
Observation #2: In my 48 years, I have never met a woman outside the pornography industry who has acknowledged participating in a DP or having a desire to do so. It’s possible that I have met an unrepresentative group of women, or that some of those women have participated or harbor such desires but remain silent about it. But neither of those possibilities square with my experience, which includes traveling widely for many years to talk in a variety of settings about these issues.

 Notice how Jensen arrogantly extrapolates his own experiences as a "researcher" and an activist to make sweeping overgeneralizations about both the men who consume such porn and the women who produce and  engage in such activities.  Now, if he ever bothers to slip away from the MacDworkinite cocoon and actually engage with real women not totally ensnared within that inner circle, he would find a whole lot of women outside of porn who do actually engage in DP with relish….and actually do come out mostly unscathed and with their full humanity intact. (I believe that Jensen even had a long debate with one such….errrrrrr….renegade.  Assuming, of course. that RenEv has actually done that kind of thing, mind ‘ya…;-))

And notice how Jensen so blissfully dismisses the opinion of those within the porn industry who do  DP….as if they are either faking their pleasure at being "raped" merely to take the paycheck, or they really are the paid agents of Patriarchy.  Of course, only they make "assumptions", by contrast , antiporn activists like him make "observations" based on more than just their own personal biases and myopias.  Really, they do.

Continuing with Jensen’s assumptions:

Observation #3: When I ask women whether they think a DP is degrading and sexist, all have answered yes or refused to answer, suggesting the question is meant to be a diversion from a focus on men’s behavior. I do not claim this is a scientific sample from which generalizations can be made. Again, it could be that I have spoken to an idiosyncratic group of women, but I think there’s a pattern here.
 
Observation #4: I have never met a man outside the pornography industry who has acknowledged participating in a DP, though some have told me they would like to. Given men’s typical celebration of their sexual feats, there’s no reason to think men are hiding their participation in DPs. These observations lead me to . . .
 
Assumption #3: Outside of pornography, very few heterosexuals are participating in DPs. There is no systematic data on this, because surveys of sexual behavior don’t ask specifically about DPs. But the most reasonable assumption is that DPs, while common in pornography, are relatively rare outside of the industry and are not part of the routine sexual practices of the vast majority of people. 

Assumption #4: Heterosexual men who watch pornographic movies featuring DPs — whether or not they have a desire to participate in DPs in their lives — know that the vast majority of women would not find sexual pleasure or emotional fulfillment in a DP and do not desire to participate. Male pornography consumers have told me they think that the women being DPed in pornography like it, and some say that women outside pornography might like it if they tried it. But I’m relatively confident that most men don’t think most women really want to be DPed.

Now, Assumption #3 might indeed be true, and not many "civilian" men and women may be as interested in doing double penetration as professional porn starlets (and I should add that not even all porn pros or amateurs are doing acts like DP, either)…but does that say anything about those whom have actually tried it and liked it??  Or those who have tried it, didn’t like it that much, but have no ill will or political animus towards those who do?? Just because some women do take much pleasure in DP does not mean that all women would if given the opportunity…nor does it mean that all men who watch DP automatically believe that ALL women SHOULD like it. Remember, the main attraction of porn is NOT degradation or violence, but seeing people engage in sex acts for sheer pleasure.  Since Jensen’s of the belief that sex should be only based on "intimacy" and "emotional fulfillment" and oriented towards only  higher goals of human relationship rather than sheer pleasure (which he sees as simply "patriarchial" and promoting male violence and disrespect of women), it’s not surprising at all that he would dismiss the feelings of his student…and make totally invisible the women who might actually like such sex acts.

But the fun part begins when Jensen promotes his "conclusions" based on his assumptions about men and DP sex:

Conclusion #1: The key to the sexual attraction of DPs for men is the knowledge that women don’t want it. The men who watch DPs in pornography know that the vast majority of women outside pornography do not seek out that sex act, and this knowledge is at the center of the sexual charge. The attraction of a DP in pornography for heterosexual men is not just that it’s a social taboo — a sexual practice considered by many to be inappropriate or immoral — but that men know women don’t want it.
 
So, is a DP inherently degrading and sexist? In the minds of the men who want to watch them, I think the answer is yes. That is, men understand and experience it as a degrading and sexist practice. That’s why it’s sexually exciting, precisely because of men’s assumption that women don’t want it — because it’s degrading, something that has to be forced on women who don’t want it.

Oh, really, Professor Jensen??? Now, there is something to the sense that DP sex (and by extension, all other anal sex acts) can be seen as taboo in the eyes of more conservative and puritanical belief systems….and that among some of the more repressed and conservative men, such a mindset could show up in their choices in porn. But how in the hell does that lead to Jensen’s conclusion that men who masturbate to DP porn innately hate women?? Here is yet another example of how Jensen channels Far Right Puritan sexual mores to ostesnively sell a "feminist" agenda. I would think that the exact opposite is true here: men (and women) who are really into DP watch it for the pleasure of seeing a woman who really is into that particular act, thus putting her above the rest. In other words, it is the sexual worship of those who DO, rather than the putdown of those who DON’T.

Another fascinating aspect of Jensen’s critique is that he refers to heterosexual men, thus avoiding the basic fact of the "taboo" of anal sex for gay men (and for lesbian women who may use sex toys or digital penetration to achieve the same effect as a DP). It all makes me wonder if Jensen really is a double agent for the Christian Right, selling monogamous marriage as a feminist counter to the evil of the "male gaze".

To continue….Jensen then goes on:

My main goal here is to refocus our attention. When this question about the nature of DPs is posed to me by men, their focus is implicitly on women: Is a DP inherently degrading for a woman and therefore sexist? The more important question: Is a DP inherently degrading in the minds of men? The only conclusion I can reach is that men think of a DP as a way to degrade women. Based on my analysis of men’s use of pornography, I believe men see a DP as something dirty and degrading that is pleasurable to watch women submitting to.
 
That a DP is dirty is not my moral judgment, but is simply borrowed from a popular female pornography performer, Ariana Jollee. In an interview with a documentary film crew, she said: “Double penetration isn’t painful at all. It’s one of the best feelings in the world. It’s filthy and if you believe it feels good, it will always feel good, so just give it a try.”
 
That a DP isn’t painful is not so clear. The human body is amazingly flexible and can adapt to a variety of practices, but that doesn’t mean all such practices are easy on the body. I am not a woman, and so I obviously cannot experience a DP. While I speak without knowing how such acts feel, from watching these acts on screen it’s reasonable to assume — even though women performers routinely say they enjoy them — that they are hard on a woman’s body and require conditioning to endure. Belladonna, another well-known pornography performer, in an interview with ABC News, described such scenes this way: “You have to really prepare physically and mentally for it. I mean, I go through a process from the night before. I stop eating at 5:00. I do, you know, like two enemas. The next morning I don’t eat anything. It’s so draining on your body.”

Let us attempt to manuever through this briar patch of twisted logic here: Jensen, being a man, has no wish to speak for any woman about how degrading and sexist DP really is (that is simply assumed on his part)…but he then quotes two porn starlets who tell him in his face that they do enjoy DP personally to basically put them down as supporting his theory; then quotes Belladonna’s preparatory regimen for doing a pro anal scene.  And then, he makes assumptions about how painful and damaging DP really is based solely on his  viewing DP scenes (not even trusting the actual performers who tell him that DP is relatively safe as long as you have the proper lube and relaxation and preparation before the scene…and none of the other performers are STD-positive).  And he completely discounts and distorts Ariana Jolee’s interpretation of the word "filthy"; in the sense that the act is defiant of conventional sexual mores.

And to finish off, Jensen offers this quite revealing (of his own sexual self loathing) thought, in response to a questioner at one of his lectures who challenged his theories:

I don’t remember exactly how I answered the question that evening, but I remember clearly what I wanted to say to him. I wanted to suggest to this privileged young man at one of the United States’ most elite universities that we conduct an experiment. I wanted to ask him to come to the front of the room and take off all his clothes in front of the group, lie down on his back, put his legs up, and make his anus as open and available as possible. Then we would ask if other men could volunteer to do a double anal on him, and he could then report back to us about whether that experience felt degrading.
 
It would have been inappropriate for me as an older man with a professor’s status to be so harsh to a student, and I was more measured in my response. But that’s what I wanted to say to him: Why don’t you come up here and we’ll let two of the biggest guys in the room fuck you in the ass at the same time so that you can tell us from direct experience whether a double anal is inherently degrading.

Oh, how touching.  Forget the fact that Jensen mixes his sex acts (remember, the original question was about DP, meaning simultaneous anal/vaginal sex, NOT about "double anals", which raise its own seperate issues of safety); of course, no man would allow themselves to rip their clothes off and do anal sex of any kind…..in a professional lecture setting.  On the other hand, how does Jensen know that the person he responded to might not be gay and like anal sex a lot…may even wish to experiment with double anal, given all the risks involved?  You can make a genuine concern about the safety of certain sex acts being promoted in some of the more extreme porn, but to merely label them as "degrading" is a whole other kettle of fish, and implies exactly the kind of moral condemnation that is consistent with Jensen’s teachings about the shaming of male sexuality to fit his "feminist" beliefs.

Promise Keepers and the ex-gay ministers have nothing on Robert Jensen when it comes to self-hate and humiliation of men for their sexual fantasies….that he is able to call himself a "leftist" and sell his quackery as "progressive feminism" is a tragedy and a parody of genuine progressive activism.

UPDATE:  Belledame of Fetch Me My Axe tees up and whacks Jensen for good here.  Renegade Evolution gets her shots in here.

Mission. Freakin’. Accomplished.

Well, the rout is now complete.

The Associated Press and NBC just called the Virginia Senate race for Webb; and the AP article quoted an Allen staffer as saying that he probably would concede the election without a recount as early as tomorrow evening.

That makes it six GOP Senate seats turned over….and combined with Fightin’ Joe Lieberman’s announcement that he would indeed vote with the Democrats next year (and the presumed vote of the other Independent, Sanders of Vermont), that clinches the 51 votes the Dems need to take control of the Senate.

You may now feel free to celebrate, if you happen not to be a right-winger.

Karma can be such a bitch, can it???

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…..Deal With It, ‘Pubs!!!! Plus…Liberals Bash Greens: The Third Chapter

It is now official, all the media outlets have now called the House of Representatives y to shift to Democratic hands; 16 Republican seats have now been called to turnover.

Which means…you’ll just have to get used to hearing the name of Nancy Pelosi as the House Speaker (first woman speaker in US history, BTW….kinda nice, I’d say).

The Senate is still up for grabs, though….Arizona and Missouri are still tallying their votes.

Unfortunately, it seems that based on the first count, George Allen may have squeaked a victory past Jim Webb in Virginia by about 7,600 votes out of nearly 3 million votes cast in total [Uhhhh...not so fast, 'Dog!!! See the update below]……less than one-third of the total vote carried by the Green Party "Independent Green Party" candidate. The logical results: some liberal bloggers will not be sending G. G. Parker (the aformentioned Green candidate) flowers and candy anytime soon…..unless the candy is spiked with thorns and the roses tainted with wasps. Great….another "goddamn Greens cost us the Senate" weep fest amongst liberals who should know better…as if only THEY have the inevitable right to represent the Left….and support a conservative Democrat???

Ahhh…yeah….right….do us a favor, Matt Yglesias and Amanda Marcotte, and wait until the votes are recounted (and the thievery of the Repubs exposed) before you go off half cocked (sorry, Amanda) and blast the Greens for your own failures.

UPDATE: Turns out, Parker seems to be a bit more conservative than the usual Green. This from Violet Socks from the discussion thread at Pandagon:

Parker is also very conservative; I found this bit (http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5337) which sums her up pretty well:

According to an article by the Associated Press, Gail Parker, the “Independent Green Party” candidate in this year’s U.S. Senate race in Virginia, is actually “not a Green at all.” In fact, according to the article, the “Independent Greens” actually are “promot[ing] themselves as “Common Sense Conservative Greens.’”

What on earth’s a “Common Sense Conservative Green?” That’s very hard to say, except that they seem to like rail (who doesn’t?). According to Parker, “[w]e’re conservative, unlike the national Green Party.” Aside from rail, Parker says that her campaign is about “family, faith and values.” She says that her “values were established in a Christian household, with Christian guidance.” She’s for term limits. She believes in “free-market alternatives and incentives.” She refuses to say whether or not she’d support overturning Roe v. Wade, whether she supports embryonic stem cell research, whether she supports a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, or whether she supports the so-called “marriage amendment.” And she calls herself a “fiscal conservative.”

In other words, Gail Parker is a right-wing, Christian, social conservative who calls herself a “common sense conservative.” Sound familiar? That’s right, Gail Parker’s political philosophy isn’t much different than George Allen’s, except that Parker really REALLY like “rail!” In fact, she likes “rail!” so much that she puts an exclamation point after the word “rail!” wherever that word “rail!” appears! And she touts “rail!” as the solution to everything from Iraq to the common cold. Well, maybe not the common cold, but did I mention that Gail Parker really really loves “rail!”? For more on Parker and “rail!”, check out her questionnaire responses in the Connection Newspapers.

The people voting for Parker may not be true Greens at all; they may just be conservatives who would normally vote for Republican except for their festering fascination with “rail.”

In short, she might be more of a Far Right clone of the official Green Party of the United States (the real independent Left deal) designed to deliberately tap off conservative votes from the Dems to help Allen and the Repubs (her support of light rail and rail-based transit aside…which, BTW, is also a major pet project of New Right guru Richard Viguerie, too).

Of, course, that won’t stop most on the liberal blogosphere from tossing their spitballs at real Greens, will they??

Meanwhile, the rout continues….more forthcoming…..

UPDATE (11:35 PM):  Ahhhhh, lookee here….Seems that I conveniently forgot that the urban votes are usually the last to be counted….and Webb has not only caught up with Allen, but is now ahead by 3,000 votes with 99% of the votes counted. 

That sonic boom that you might be hearing in a few minutes if this holds up is Karl Rove’s head exploding.  WOW.

We may not need Fightin’ Joe after all.  Stay tuned….

…And A-Waaaaaaaaaaay We Go!!!!!

As of 9:17 PM  CST: The events so far….

THE VERY GOOD:

 – Bob Casey smacks Asshole…errrrrrr, Santorum; wins Pennsylvania Senate seat (even is Casey’s a right-wing    Democrat, getting Little Ricky out of office is still pretty sweet)

 – Sheldon Whitehouse knocks off Lincoln Chaffee; wins Rhode Island Senate seat

 – Bob Menendez beats back Thomas Kean; retains NJ Senate seat (the one Dem controlled seat that was threatened)

 – Sherrod Brown beats Tom DeWine, wins Ohio Senate seat.

 – Ben Cardin holds off Michael Steele; wins Maryland Senate seat.

Dems running the table on Governorships (including turnover wins in MD (O’Malley over Ehrlich); OH (Strickland over Blackwell), MA (Patrick over Healey); and NY (Spitzer over Faso)

That’s a +3 gain, BTW….only three more to go before the Senate changes hands…

Plus; the Dems have gotten a few upsets in the House races; the biggest ones being Hosetteler (IN-08), Northrup (KY-03), Bass (NH-02), and Padgett (OH-08).  There may be more forthcoming…

THE NOT-SO-GOOD:

 – Fighting Joe (for the GOP) Lieberman is coasting over Ned Lamont and Alan Schlesenger; should retain his Connecticut Senate seat…..now will he bolt to the GOP for promises of a committee chairmanship if he becomes the point man in the Senate??)

– As of last count, Allen was barely leading Webb in Virginia’s Senate race by 2,000+ votes with around 80% of the vote counted…he could squeak by by a hair, though it will probably be challenged well into Thanksgiving.)

Still to come; Missouri, Montana, Arizona, and much of the Midwest and West…still a long way to go before things get settled…but it does look pretty good for the Dems for both the House and the Senate.

More as things happen…..

Because Sweet Revenge Is Served Best With Just A Touch of Ass-Kick — “Political Smackdown 2006″ Conclusion

I will explain later on why I have been so lax in posting here of late….but the story of the night has to be the 2006 Midterm Elections and the prospective ass-kicking that the Republicans are apparently about to receive.

Already, we hear that the Dems are boat-racing the exit polls even more than they were in 2004 (for whatever good that did); that the Repubs are up to their old dirty tricks in voter suppression; that there is record turnout in most of the key states (70% in Connecticut and 65-70% in Virginia alone)..and that two of the main Big Fixer-Uppers in ‘00 and ‘04, Cruella da (Katherine) Harris (FL Senate) and Ken Blackwell (OH Governor) are being dropkicked out of their offices (by Ben Nelson and Ted Strickland, respectively).

Barring any unforseen surprises, this could get real ugly for the GOP…..real quick.

And the even bigger surprise may be that old Ned Lamont might even have a chance of pulling out the impossible and actually beating Fighting Joe (for the GOP) Lieberman in Connecticut’s Senate race, in spite of the polls showing him a bit behind. Boy, would that be a nice topper to getting back the Senate.

Hell…even Harold freakin’ Ford still has a shot of beating the odds in Tennessee, if the coattails of the Dem /moderate tsumami peaks well enough.

Like everyone else, I will be monitoring the results and giving flash updates as they break. Just watch this space.

And if the deadline hasn’t passed you by and you haven’t voted: WHAT’S YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION, NUMBNUT?!?!?!?

UPDATE #1 (8:08 PM):  The only threatened Dem Senate seat has now been secured: Menendez beats Kean and keeps the New Jersey Senate seat Democratic.  One swinger down, two (Missouri and Virginia) to go.