NYC Moms

Sex in America

It's been a bad week for sex in America.  First, New York governor Elliot Spitzer, well known moral-highgrounder is found to be consorting with prostitutes, and then today came the news that one in four teenaged girls has a sexually transmitted disease.

Sex scandals are nothing new.  Powerful men in politics from Alexander Hamilton to Bill Clinton, to Jim McGreevy have all gotten embroiled in sex scandals while in office. And some of these scandals (Bill Clintons comes to mind)became national  -- even international -- obsessions.  But if the men involved weren't famous, wouldn't it all just have been sex?  Seems to me it's the celebrity that makes it scandalous, not the sex act itself.

Let's face it, our culture glorifies sex as much as it vilifies it.  We want our politicians to be tv-ready (witness the fawning over Obama's good looks), but then are shocked, positively shocked I say, when they turn out to be sexual beings.  Music videos (mostly watched by teen-agers)feature sex acts only marginally presented as dance moves.  Horror movies like Saw and Hostel entwine horror and violent sexual images so completely that they've generated a new film genre: gore-nography.  The Victoria's Secret "Fashion Show," has become a soft-core prime time ratings bonanza; shows like The Bachelor pimp women out to generate ad-revenue, and on and on and on.

But still, a politician who has extra-martial sex?  With a hooker?  How could he? Or a teenaged tv star, getting pregnant?   I'm shocked, positively shocked, I say. But sadly, not at all shocked to find out that nearly half of the African American girls in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey had at least one sexual disease. Because a world as sexualized and sexually confusing as ours is bound to have consequences for those too young  -- or too arrogant -- to navigate it.

Pundits are very quick to denounce Spitzer's hypocrisy: he was a moralist who prosecuted prostitution rings, after all.  And I agree,  I think he's a hypocrite and a fool and he should step down.  He broke the law, and governors can't do that. But maybe it's not him that's wrong, but the law that's wrong.

So what I'm about to say, I say  as a mother of a little girl, and with the full knowledge that many (if not most) of the regular readers of this blog will disagree, but I think public schools should be able to hand out condoms along with strong recommendations  for abstinence, and that prostitution should be legalized.

Vote For Mom

Super Tuesday is right around the corner (though I’ve heard it called “Super Duper Tuesday,” which makes it sound like a weekly special at the IHOP) but I’m still undecided.  One candidate I think I know too well, and the other, not well enough.  So I’ve decided to throw my hat into the ring.  I’m running on the MOM platform.  And it’s not an acronym.  I’m running as a Mom, on the issues that matter to Moms and here’s where I stand.

1.  The Economy
Buying your children shoes that cost more than a night out with your husband is immoral, shocking, and quite frankly stupid.  Your kids feet are growing, the economy is not, and Stride Rite has upped the ante on styles that suit any kid.  Blahniks for babies?  I don’t think so.

And as long as we’re on the subject of spending, where does all the kinzcash go?  Really, I’d like to know.  My son and daughter often choose to play on the Webkinz website for their allowed thirty minutes of screen-time each day.  There, they earn Kinzcash for doing jobs, and playing games.  Yet they never seem to have enough Kinzcash to buy the things they need for their pets, like a new chew toy, or a large screen tv.(And really, what virtual penguin doesn't need at least a 55" plasma?) America needs to start putting a little kinzcash in the bank, for that sick day when all screen-time rules go out the window, and they play on the computer all day.