I guess this week’s sex-and-culture news has Oprah very excited: a fella is going to have a baby. I can’t keep up with Oprah, personally, so it falls to the Yahoo home page with the news bites on it to inform me of anything inevitable she does: bitch out a shady “memoirist,” cry when girls in Africa are being mistreated (her girls, which makes her cry harder, of course; so would I, in her shoes). Yes, I know I should read her magazine, and then I’d be on top of all things Oprah (oops, I didn’t actually mean it to sound like that; I can barely top anybody)… but if I can’t find the time to blog every single day, how can I add this admittedly valuable burden to my already-challenging relationship to the time/space continuum?

Anyway. Now this. Which I assume means — in a weird way I would not have predicted, and do not exactly approve of — that transgender issues have really gone mainstream: that they have practically jumped the shark, maybe. Well, no. But it’s worth a head-shake nevertheless.

This Oprah phenom is not the first pregnant guy. One of my acquaintances did this — went off testosterone, found a donor, had a kid — some years back; I think it might have occurred in the actual 20th century, though it was pretty 21st-century even then. It was that thing we shorthanded when we said “Millennial” — like, everything is about to change! We’ll finally get our Jetsons cars, our refrigerators that talk, our Maxwell Smart wrist phones. The limits of technology, the mind, and the flesh will melt away, and as they do, the social structure will shift into the next thing, newness will rule, and everything that had seemed oppressive will find its technological fix.

We maybe didn’t think that on the way to the first African-American or female president we’d tolerate a dalliance with fascism. But I guarantee you, at least one guy out there has had his fingers crossed for years that the brave new century would give us pregnant men, and I’m sure he thinks this Oprah-fied situation doesn’t go nearly far enough.

See, back in the ’80s, when I knew him, my ex-boyfriend (who now runs a fertility clinic, because some people are truly blessed with a calling and do not just fall into some line of work because the wind changed) wanted to be the first pregnant man. He was SO serious about this. He was probably into me mainly because I had a uterus, which is ironic, given that I had and have no intention of using it for its so-called god-given purpose — indeed, I’d rather have that Galen thing happen to my uterus that they used to call hysteria, where the womb runs around the body causing trouble, than to have it stay put and cause trouble by producing another person. I do not want kids, pretty much never did, and I am perfectly happy to enjoy yours (well, a few of them, anyhow) mostly from a distance, and pet my cats, and admire my friends who choose to foster kids who otherwise would have a rougher life. I don’t want babies, but Boyfriend sure did, and one of the ways I knew I had an unusual man on my hands (after a lesbian-identified decade of mostly sticking to women) was this desire he had to be pregnant and bear a child.

Not just have kids, see. He has kids now, as a member of a queer intentional family. But he really truly wanted to be pregnant, which amazed me, since that’s not one of those Woman Things I ever experienced. He talked about it very articulately. He had a health care background, so he even had a keen sense of where an implanted embryo might be able to latch on and develop. He was quite sure that this technology would be possible one day fairly soon and fretted only that when it did develop, he might be considered too old to be the guinea pig. 

Boyfriend wasn’t trans in any of the ways we ordinarily define being trans (though I fully acknowledge that “we” in the aggregate aren’t the ones who ought primarily to be defining this — that should be the role of transfolk themselves). He was male-identified to the point of being kind of a men’s movement guy. But he deeply believed in, and desired, this profound breach of gender identity, without desiring to lose or basically change his own gender identity.

See, one of the gifts I’ve received from my transgender friends is the potential to explode gender (I realize, before y’all hit the “comment” button, that not all transpeople desire this or see it that way): most of all by the way some transgender people don’t buy into either/or male/female identities, at least not for themselves. But Boyfriend takes this social change into another realm when he desires the freedom and opportunity to do the one thing that, in our culture, absolutely defines a woman. And having known him, I wonder how alone he is in that desire: I am guessing not all that alone. It is the 21st century. It is the threshold of change. And maybe sharing that deeply gendered experience is what we as a people need to allow us to break on through to the other side of outmoded ideas about who men are and women are. Look, I’ll be the breadwinner, and honey, you have the kids. 

I know, a bunch of tenured biology professors will say smart-sounding things about biology and sociobiology, and maybe they’ll be right, but that’s the great thing about the space/time continuum, even if it flummoxes me by its demands on a day-to-day basis: it has no end. So the story they mastered to graduate with honors back in the 20th century, and get their tenure-track jobs and their Mr. Science book gigs, isn’t fully written. 

Professors, I got your biological imperative right here. I assume you would like it with lube.

I know you haven’t heard from me in a while, and I suppose I owe you a “what I did on my summer vacation” post (partial report: I went to Scotland and looked out a window at a very green field filled with more sheep than I had seen since my sheep-filled childhood).

What, you didn’t know I had a sheep-filled childhood? Well, my memoir will cover all that: sheep, evangelicals, trees, the whole deal. Right now I want to talk about the present — nay, the future! I want to tell you about the most exciting new project I’ve been mixed up with in some time: the Sexies.

The Sexies are the just-announced Sex-Positive Journalism Awards. I’m one of the judges, and I look forward to reading many fabulous articles (and a few really heinous ones) and hobnobbing about them with my fellow wizards. This idea is the brainchild of Miriam Axel-Lute, a journalist who noticed how many other sorts of journalism awards there were, and also how relatively rare it still is for a mainstream journalist, especially, to have the freedom to do a really good job with a sex-related story assignment. Too many of these articles are hogtied by editors concerned about “community standards,” or are written by journalists who really exhibit their own bias and confirm those of their readers. Hence, the birth of the Sexies, which will recognize those who get it right (and there’s also a category for those who get it really, really wrong: compare and contrast, class! That one’s called the Unsexy).

This isn’t just an academic exercise. What people read in the papers, in magazines and on websites affects how they understand the world around them: look at the role US journalism has played in the politics of the US over the last six or seven years. When there’s a backstory we don’t hear, it makes the front story hard to understand; in the case of sex-related journalism, that can involve misrepresenting (or ignoring) the role of consent in a purported crime, or the presence of a sex community with its own community standards, or pandering to sex-negative opinion without showing a sex-positive slant that would change the way a reader experiences the story.

At the same time, there are journalists doing amazing work trying to help people really understand sexual issues, or remaining scrupulously fair about whose quotes they use, or doing the extra legwork to understand the context of the sex-related topic about which they’re writing. Several of those journalists will be awarded: the categories are News, Feature, and Opinion, and each of these has four divisions: daily newspaper, weekly or biweekly newspaper, online news publication, and sex-themed (or sexual orientation-themed) news publication. The first three divisions are for generalist publications rather than those which cover sex topics as a primary part of what they do. The Unsexy will not be awarded by division; contrary to the way Keith Olbermann does it, there will be only ONE worst… sex story… in the worrrrlddd!

And you can recommend your favorite articles! The Sexies are in their nomination process for the 2007 award until March 23, 2008. It’s fine for a writer to nominate her/him/hirself, or for a reader to do so. The only requirement is that the article must have been published in 2007. Nominate online at www.sexies.org/submit.php.

Who will judge these, besides yours truly? My fellow wizards are a terrific lot: Judith Levine, whose great book Harmful to Minors uncovered, among other things, just HOW bad sex education in America has become (for a good look at her importance see “What Judith Levine is Really Saying”); sex therapist Marty Klein, PhD, author of must-read e-zine Sexual Intelligence and the recently-released America’s War on Sex; Jack Hafferkamp, PhD, one of the founding editors of the late, great Libido: The Journal of Sex & Sensibility (plus he used to be a journalism professor, so he knows what writers should be doing); the one and only Dan Savage, of “Savage Love” fame; Liza Featherstone, who wrote “Sex, Lies, and Women’s Magazines” for the Columbia Journalism Review; http://www.zmag.org/bios/homepage.cfm?authorID=71, a contributing editor to The Nation; and last but certainly not least, Claire Cavanaugh, co-founder of Babeland (which is also a sponsor of the Sexies, along with the Center for Sex & Culture, and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom).

Perhaps you are asking yourself, “Wow, what can I do to help this fine project?” I am SO glad you asked, because Miriam already thought of that, and she cooked up this useful list: 10 Ways to Support Sex-Positive Journalism

1. Give money! The Sexies are a labor of love. But love doesn’t pay the bills. If you can give $100, $50, or $25, it will help us promote the awards, cover our expenses, and honor our winners properly. www.sexies.org/support.html.
2. Submit entries. Yes, readers as well as writers can submit. Articles have to have been published in 2007, in a general audience newspaper or news site, and meet high journalistic standards as well as our sex-positive criteria. Full guidelines, criteria, and a submission form are on our website: www.sexies.org.
3. Tell everyone you know. Blog about us, bring us up at opportune (or inopportune) times with family and friends and your local newspaper editor…
4. Make us popular. Join our LiveJournal community (sexposjawards), friend us on Myspace (www.myspace.com/sexposjournalism), post our site on Del.icio.us, Digg us.
5. Sign up for our announcement list. If you don’t do LiveJournal or Myspace, sign up for our update mailing list, sexies_upate@yahoogroups.com, to stay up to speed.
6. Link to us. Even if you don’t want to make a big fanfare, a link helps us in search-engine rankings.
7. Become a corporate sponsor—or connect us with your favorite sex-friendly business that might want to be one. E-mail info@sexies.org for more information.
8. Donate airline or Amtrak miles to get our winners to an awards ceremony. E-mail info@sexies.org if you’ve got a chunk to offer.
9. Mention us in a letter to the editor, especially our sex-positive journalism criteria and resources for journalists, both of which are on our website. If you’ve always been meaning to write in to your local paper about their sex-related coverage, good or bad, now’s a great time to do it!
10. Ask your favorite sex-positive publications, and your favorite mainstream ones as well, to cover the Sexies. We think we’re pretty unusual and would make a good story!

See? So many ways to have a hand in the improvement of journalistic discourse. Think how good you’ll feel about being part of this fabulous project — I know I am! Visit http://www.sexies.org to get more acquainted.

Just now my computer, which is SO polite, sent me a little message:

“Hi. This is the qmail-send program.
I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.”

All computer talk here will be italicized so you can read it. This seems to have been the problem:

:
209.139.193.251 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550 : Recipient address rejected: 5.1.1 sorry, no mailbox here by that name (chkuser) [I think this means "chicken user"]
Giving up on 209.139.193.251.

— Below this line is a copy of the message.

Return-Path:
Received: (qmail 44853 invoked by uid 16947); 15 May 2007 02:47:07 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO [10.0.1.3]) ([71.141.140.105])
(envelope-sender )
by 192.220.66.51 (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP
for ; 15 May 2007 02:47:07 -0000
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.3)
In-Reply-To:
Message-Id:
From: Carol Queen
Subject: Re: [Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture] New Comment Posted to ‘Hip-Hip-Hypocrisy! (with a Paean to Prostitutes)’
Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 19:47:02 -0700
To: getreal@what.com
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.3)

On May 14, 2007, Carol Queen wrote:
“Hi, Ohplease! Thanks for participating.

How about giving me more info about when and under what circumstances
you worked in the sex industry? You seem to have a strong perspective
about it and I gather you must have experience in the trenches.

Thanks!
CQ”

In response to this blog comment:

On May 4, 2007, at 4:10 PM, getreal@what.com wrote:
IP Address: 70.231.134.124
Name: ohplease
Email Address: getreal@what.com
URL:
Comments:

You are SURPRISED that a pimp would turn on the prostitutes and
johns? Seriously? I don’t know what land of oz you hooked in, but
in the real world, pimps are not people of the highest moral
standards.

The D.C. situation just shows what prostitution is all about. It’s
about men who want to feel powerful and who do it by ordering women
up on the phone like chinese food.

It’s about society keeping the names of those men secret, covering
up for them, letting them abuse women as much as they like even
though they are supposed to be “leaders” and even though
prostitution is illegal.

It’s about women participating in their own downfall by convincing
themselves this is really cool.

How many of those prostitutes are going to want their daughters to
grow up to be prostitutes? How many of them are going to try to
hide this from future boyfriends and husbands and employers.

Prostitution is not a noble profession. It is men using women as
objects to feel more powerful. It leaves damaged women in it’s wake.

The fact that you try to help those men and justify their abuse
makes you an abuser too.

Oh please, “ohplease.” I’d hoped to have a useful little dialogue with you. But, so like the many web-masked commentators who fuel their bad manners with anonymity, not to mention strew apostrophes all over like cat hair on a black sweater, you worked it out so I can’t even communicate back.

That’s so cheesy.

Well, tell you what. I dare you to reply to my question above and give us the skinny on your experience with the sex industry. It may be that you know whereof you speak (though that would be, in my experience, fairly unusual, I’m very willing to entertain the possibility).

Speaking of entertaining, the reason that I feel empowered to speak up about this is that I was a ***gasp!*** prostitute. For about ten years. I worked with madams (not pimps, “ohplease,” those are the ones with the hats). And if YOU worked as one too and had a different experience than I did, I would be thrilled to open the pages of my blog for a little discussion. But not with the “Can’t touch this” communication ethos of somebody whose communication style verges on flamery.

So since you won’t communicate with me, guess I’ll just have to communicate with you. Here goes:

You are SURPRISED that a pimp would turn on the prostitutes and
johns? Seriously? I don’t know what land of oz you hooked in, but
in the real world, pimps are not people of the highest moral
standards.

In the “real world,” pimps are business people, albeit illegal ones, of varying levels of awareness, decency, class background, and other options. But we weren’t talking about pimps in my blog, we were talking about madams, and one in particular. So let me get back to that: No, I’m not in the least surprised that the DC Madam “turned on” her clients; how else is she supposed to play this? But in real life, madams usually protect the black book at all costs, because it’s the foundation of their business. In an ideal world, they’d understand the workers as the foundation of the business, but really, pros come and go while clients are often with the madam for twenty or thirty years. We’re not talking about “moral standards” here; we’re talking about business ethics, and I’ll tell you what, if madams, pimps and ‘hos didn’t have ‘em, you’d know a lot more names of a lot more clients than you do right now.

The D.C. situation just shows what prostitution is all about. It’s
about men who want to feel powerful and who do it by ordering women
up on the phone like chinese food.

The DC situation is about powerful men (i.e., men with disposable income) who want to have sex. It’s about women (of widely varying degrees of power) who provide it. Each has something to bring to the table and exchange, and you can critique it all you want, as long as you’re a Marxist. Everybody else is taking the issues completely out of context. And by the way, “ohplease”? Men like that order a lot more than Chinese food.

Plus which, how come you people pretty much always address prostitutes as women? Didn’t you read my Ted Haggard piece? Why don’t you ever work male prostitutes into your lil’ worldview? Is it because, if you did, about half to three quarters of your rhetoric would start screaming, like the Wicked Witch of the West, “I’mmmmm mellllltinnnnngggggg!”?

It’s about society keeping the names of those men secret, covering
up for them, letting them abuse women as much as they like even
though they are supposed to be “leaders” and even though
prostitution is illegal.

Yup. Couldn’t agree more. That’s actually what my blog post was about, huh? Or did you read it?

It’s about women participating in their own downfall by convincing
themselves this is really cool.

Ummmm…. I’m not sure where you got this. Is this from your own experience? Are you, like, a disappointed call girl? Because the coolness factor, in my experience, isn’t #1 in the minds of most prostitutes: the $$$ factor is, whether they’re libertarian rich-chick wannabes or in survival mode.

How many of those prostitutes are going to want their daughters to
grow up to be prostitutes? How many of them are going to try to
hide this from future boyfriends and husbands and employers.

Dunno, but I can guarantee you that none of them will want to share with YOU about it. I may be the only once or future prostitute who has the time for you.

Prostitution is not a noble profession. It is men using women as
objects to feel more powerful. It leaves damaged women in it’s [sic] wake.

Oh, I see. It’s a 1980s women’s studies thing, maybe.

Listen, “ohplease.” If you’d like to define getting sexual gratification as “making one feel powerful,” you can do that, I suppose, though it would make sense to mix into the definition the power one derives from giving (and/or, in our case, selling) sexual gratification. And getting paid. But can I tell you something? For someone talking about the SEX industry, you haven’t felt very comfortable actually addressing sex. That strikes me as odd, it really does. In fact, nothing at all in your post addresses sexual acts, desire, or gratification. That’s just wild.

About “using people as objects”: An argument can be made that this is what much of the work world in fact consists of, but if you’re goinna do that, you’d better convince me you have more facility in Marxist theory than you do in feminist theory. Because these days, feminist theory worth its salt hesitates to speak FOR women with different experiences, and invites them to speak for themselves. Which, for the record, is why I wrote you the friendly email asking you how you know what the hell you’re talking about.

And about that apostrophe… gosh, this is such a pet peeve of mine. A pet peeve within a pet peeve! It’s, like, pomo!

The fact that you try to help those men and justify their abuse
makes you an abuser too.

Exactly how am I trying to “help these men”? Again, did you read my blog, or just hit “comment”?

I return to my original point: Why the hell do people do this?

But that just brings up a related peeve: the people who ask me to join Facebook or Whatthefuck and only give me their first names. (Or occasionally just initials.) Um, sweetie? I don’t know you. And this makes me hesitate to be your “friend.”

So frustrating. I guess none of y’all are worried about running into Miss Manners out here.

Just back from a road trip/tour in the Midwest, where the fissures in the hide of our country’s body politic are most evident, I find that another Bush administration official has gone down for the best reason possible: consorting with hookers! Yay, hookers! My colleagues in the sex industry surround the White House and every fundamentalist mega-church in the land, poised to do their part. Hypocrites, beware!I had already planned to write about the Washington DC hookers because their madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, has lately been in the Bay Area news. She lives in Vallejo, even though she runs her service, “Pamela Martin and Associates,” out of the nation’s capitol. When she got busted, she engaged in the most entertaining bit of passive-aggressive courtroom theatre I’ve encountered in a while: “Oh, poor poor pitiful me, I am but a legitimate escort service operator, sworn to make sure that no politician will ever have to eat his dinner alone.” (Here, naturally, I paraphrase a little.) “But oh dear me, I have been falsely accused of running a herd-o-hookers; how shall I defend myself? My girls are not prostitutes; they would never, never fuck a politician, and if they did, I’d turn them in them myself.” (Not the most supportive madam on the block, Ms. Palfrey; working girls, this is the best reason I can imagine to go into business on your own.) “Oh dear, oh my, I have no money. Ooooh, I know! I’ll just sell the only asset I have, my lil’ black book.”

The judge stopped her, but not before she’d handed off a copy; hence last night’s news, that after the end-of-day news cycle (hoping to avoid the silver-sharp tongue of Keith Olbermann, no doubt), another White House resignation had been tendered.

Of the AIDS Czar. For appering in said Little Black Book.

Heh heh heh.

And what do you suppose this czar’s HIV prevention policy might be, given that he is the bureaucratic love child of W and Condoleeza? That’s right, class: abstinence unless you’re married, and fidelity to your spouse.

Randall Tobias, the hypocrite in question, is indeed married. Friends, you just can’t make this shit up.

Now, when I toiled in the vales of the sex industry I was blessed with far more supportive madams, and far less hypocritical clients. But whether a sex worker has a Cinderella tour, like I did, or has to put up with Haggards and Tobiases (and whomever else is ordering in at the White House — remember, someone over there likes butchy boys, if Jeff Gannon’s name appearing on the sign-in list is any indication), they are still engaged in the honorable work of distracting often-powerful men from doing even worse mischief than they already are.

Kudos to them! Who knows how many times ‘hos have saved the world?

And if anyone wonders why prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, consider this: It’s because happily-married mid-level White House officials with fetishes for dispensing nearly-useless sexual health advice that they don’t even believe but insist others parrot before they can get funds to save even one life — well, they deserve love too. Or blowjobs. Or prostate massage. Or whatever other obscure kinky thing they like that can get done in a $300 hour, with a tip if their professional condom tester looks anything like Ann Coulter.

(Yes, it’s somewhat revolting, I know, but if you kids really want to grow up to be sexologists like me, you must be able to watch videos of Karl Rove and Ann Coulter rimming each other. No, it comes with the territory; if you can’t do that, you have to find something else to be when you grow up.)

But I know that not what some of you are thinking; you’re thinking, “What might be worth $300 an hour? And is that taxpayer’s money?” (By the way, in my view three hundred is a pittance; considering where they work, those hookers should be getting hazard pay, just like our boys and girls in Fallujah.)

Well, I can’t speak to the source of the funds; usually they’re crisp twenties, freshly ironed by the ATM. But as to why the hourly fee is so high: Have you ever had to breathe in the stench of hypocrisy?

Oh, you have? On their *balls*?

I rest my case. Now you know why Robert calls our nation’s capitol “WashDick.”