The most effective argument for atheism (or at least against against religious doctrine) I ever heard is Voltaire's famous "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him ( Read more... )

"My research has found that people who identify as scientists are genetically predisposed to be assholes." --mme_louise

There's a paradox to studying difference--whenever you argue for difference between two categories, you are arguing for similarity within those categories. When you hold forth on how cats are different from dogs, you are implying that ( Read more... )

I'm deeply leery of trying to generalize out loud about what people find sexy, but gathering data points is always great fun. One of the great gender myths of our culture is that men find pictures sexy, and women don't. Over in her journal, sushis is asking women to post images they think are hot. So far, disappointingly, this has produced a bit of ( Read more... )

One of my flaws as a blogger is a reluctance to swing at the really easy pitches.

CNN ran a story earlier this week that was crying out for me to make fun of it, but I just can't think of anything all that clever to say. The gist: Some married couples don't have a lot of sex ( Read more... )

Some months ago, my discussion of Evangelical sex-advice site The Marriage Bed provoked a visit from co-author Paul Byersley, who offered a legitimate criticisn of one of the points I'd made: ( Male desire, female desire, and the gravity well )

As I think I mentioned before at some point, when I got hit with the hormones of puberty, one of the first things to do was to hit my middle-school library and check out all the books on sex they had. At that point, the notion of discussing it with adults or with my peers were each intolerable, each for different reasons. But books! Books were safe ( Read more... )

Did I never set forth my Dirty Dishes Principle? It goes like this ( Read more... )

Someone just posted a set of links to "porn for women" over at feminist_sex. I responded thus:

What do y'all think of the idea of 'porn for women' as a distinct genre? I have some strong reservations about the way the notion sets up women's sexuality as somehow monolithic and fundamentally distinct from men's ( Read more... )

I never told my little anecdote from last year's pride parade, did I? I was paging through the incredibly hot nekkidbirls community yesterday, and pictures of an FTM there reminded me of it ( Read more... )

The other day I was walking by the bus depot near my house, thinking about one thing or another. Passing a bus, I did a double-take, turned around, walked back, and stared for a minute. The ad I was staring at was one you've probably seen by now. it's for a product called Dove Firming Gel, ( and it looked like this. )