Posts tagged: Sex Terms

Penn State Child Sex Abuse Opinion Wrap-Up

By , November 10, 2011 6:00 pm

All forms of media are blowing up with reaction to the firing of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, the rape and sex abuse charges against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, and the blind eye so many at Penn State turned to it. There’s a lot going on here: idolatry; the culture of college sports; people within institutions not holding themselves and their institutions accountable.

This story is multi-faceted with so many different angles, causes and repercussions, I wanted to put some them together to try to find some context.

First, let’s call these alleged crimes at Penn State what they are writes Tommy Christopher at Mediaite:

The nomenclature surrounding “sex crimes” is already hopelessly sterile, and the media routinely refers to cases of rape and sexual assault as “sex scandals,” but that makes it no less important to call them out every time they do it.

Sandusky is not accused of “having sex” with little boys, he is accused of raping them. In our civilization, “sex” with a child is not possible, since a child cannot consent to sex. As I half-listened to the news all day today, then, and I heard repeated references to “the Penn State sex scandal,” it pissed me off. It made my blood steam a little bit, like a hot cup of coffee.

(I would apply this criticism to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn alleged sexual assault which was often referred to as a “sex scandal.”)

Many have made the connection between the cover-up at Penn State and the Catholic Church’s cover-up of child molestation. Maureen Dowd made it in her Tuesday column in the New York Times:

Like the Roman Catholic Church, Penn State is an arrogant institution hiding behind its mystique. And sports, as my former fellow sports columnist at The Washington Star, David Israel, says, is “an insular world that protects its own, and operates outside of societal norms as long as victories and cash continue to flow bountifully.” Penn State rakes in $70 million a year from its football program.

Lawrence O’Donnell also discussed the failure of institutions and the people within them with with filmmaker Michael Moore on The Last Word.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There was a lot of reaction on Twitter last night as protesters and rioters took to the streets at Penn State in support of Paterno.
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Shake Weight + Newscast = Disaster

By , May 11, 2011 2:00 am

I can appreciate a good sex joke (and by “good,” I mean immature and slightly rude), but not when watching a newscast.

This is a clip from the KTLA morning news program in Los Angeles about a Shake Weight class (I’m not kidding). The segment is so inappropriate, on so many levels, in so many instances, I couldn’t look away.

Jokes are fine, but not this television train wreck. Just give me the news.

Brace yourself.

H/t: TVSpy

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News & Opinion 9-3-10

By , September 3, 2010 5:27 pm
Man asleep in bed holding teddy bear

Single childless women under 30, who live in cities, out-earn their male counterparts. [Time]

Alright men, fees up. Do one in four of you really sleep with teddy bears when you travel? [Guardian]

An American man takes 18 months of parental leave in Sweden and talks about “child-oriented masculinity” there. [Slate]  Five months after becoming a father, this writer looks back at his fear of impending fatherhood. [All Men Are Liars]

Should kids wear “I Love Boobies” t-shirts to school to raise awareness for breast cancer? Should anyone wear them? [Mankini Revolution]

Don’t Say Vagina!

By , March 20, 2010 5:09 pm

Were you offended at the word “vagina?” It’s not a dirty word. So, there shouldn’t be a problem with saying it on television, right? That’s what I thought, until I read this.

Kotex is coming out with a new tampon line called U by Kotex. The original ad for the campaign used the word “vagina.” It turns out, using the proper word for female genitalia in a commercial was too much for three broadcast networks. So, they rejected it. Kotex came up with another version of the ad that replaced the v-word with “down there.” That was still over the line for two of those networks because they rejected the revised spot, too. (The networks involved weren’t disclosed.)

It’s bad enough that these corporations rejected the vagina version. It’s not like it’s inappropriate. The ad is for a tampon! But “down there” didn’t make it either? It’s vague, playful without being dirty, and relevant when talking about stuff that happens Down There. (Maybe they should’ve used vajayjay.)

So, after two strikes, here’s the sanitized version Kotex came up with:

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