The Free Thinker

So there was a big ecstasy bust in the city yesterday. When you're measuring the take in kilograms, you know it's a big deal. Hell, that's enough to supply a few hundred people for life, probably. Are they looking for anyone to guard that evidence locker?

Anyways, why do the police insist on grossly exaggerating the value of the drugs they seize? Are they trying to impress someone? 'Cause nobody in this city pays $40 for a pill. It's not 1999, for crying out loud.

If any of you, my dear readers, ever gets busted and brought up on charges, I will gladly appear at your sentencing hearing pro bono. As an expert witness, I'll testify about the over-inflated value of your beloved cargo. Of course, if you could introduce me to your "successor" as a thank you, it'd be all the better.

We already know that children can't hear the word scrotum, but did you know teenagers can't utter the word vagina?

That's right, three otherwise well-behaved high school students were suspended for reciting a few lines from The Vagina Monologues at a school event. For shame!

The school administration argues that it was an event open to the public, and there could've been children there. Oh my god, children might hear the word vagina! You know I've known the word vagina for a really long time, way back before I really knew what it entailed. Since I didn't even learn where it was until age 20, there were 14 or so years that I knew the word but couldn't find it on a...map.

And yet somehow, with this shameful word in my vocabulary, I managed avoid turning into a serial killer, rapist or pedophile.

I'm just shocked that this kind of puritanism still exists in our society. I mean, you can make a logical argument for why children shouldn't be exposed to sexuality. I'd say we usually go overboard, but the argument is there. But maintaining that the very name of their body parts shant be uttered is downright ridiculous.

Maybe the principal is sexually frustrated or something. Buy him a blow up doll and let's move on with our lives.

PS While writing this post I found the best list of vagina euphemisms ever!

From the Puritanism-is-alive-and-well file, we have news that librarians are freaking out over this year's Newbery medal winner. Why? Because it has the word "scrotum."

I'll wait a few seconds so you can recover from this ghastly noun........

Ready? Okay. Anyways, isn't it about time we got over this societal obsession with teaching children "cute" names for their naughty bits, rather than the actual word? Is it honestly going to damage a child to call it a penis, rather than a ding-dong, peter, or whatever?

But of course this is just the beginning of the repression that continues when we're taught that sex is a very serious matter that leads to strong emotional connections, and that promiscuity is something we should be ashamed of. Now it's not quite as bad as "abstinence only" programs south of the border, but there's still a lot of cultural taboo against casual sex, even though a lot of us (and the vast majority of we fags) practice it at some point in our lives.

This is a sitatuion that makes the Toronto gay community particularly annoying, because all the sluts try to pretend they're chaste. You ain't fooling anyone paco.

So I guess what I'm saying is, start teaching kids to call it a penis, scrotum, clit, vagina etc. and future Toronto homosexuals will be able to sleep around with ever-so-slightly-less hassle. If global warming doesn't kill everyone off by then.

Image courtesy of Storeyland.

Sometimes all it takes is one juicy, beautiful, GENIUS quote to take an old issue and put it back in the spotlight. That's exactly what US congressman Gary Ackerman did yesterday in a comment about their military's "don't ask don't tell" policy that lets them boot gays out at will:

For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists, but they're very brave with the terrorists. ... If the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.

Of course this quote spread across the Internet like wildfire. Personally I don't find the idea too too scary...until I consider what would happen when their cycles got in sync. Now that's a bloodbath. I don't even want to think about the PMS.

One more sign of the apocalypse:

Sleep medicine experts have successfully treated a rare case of a woman having sex with strangers while sleepwalking.

The behaviour had disrupted the lives of the woman and her partner. At night while asleep, the middle-aged sleepwalker - who lives in Australia and cannot be identified for reasons of confidentiality - left her house and had sexual intercourse with strangers. The behaviour continued for several months and the woman had no memory of her nocturnal activities.

Circumstantial evidence, such as condoms found scattered around the house, alerted the couple to the problem. On one occasion, her partner awoke to find her missing, went searching for her and found her engaged in the sex act.

There are a few VERY IMPORTANT questions that come to mind:

• Who were the guys she was sleeping with?
• How did she seduce them in her sleep?
• Perhaps most importantly, did they know she was asleep?

Quite frankly the journalist's job is to anticipate the kind of questions that the reader is going to ask, and I'm very disappointed that the writer failed to include these tawdry details. I know that people who are sleepwalking can appear to be conscious and even carry on a conversation, but they don't talk about this at all. I'd really like to know more about what the hell was going on.

On a brighter note, it is encouraging that even while sleepwalking she was smart enough to use a condom! You know your safe sex campaign is successful when people practice it even when they're unconscious.

Anyways, if I had to do something in my sleep I'd take sex over eating or murdering any day. Still, it sort of takes the Coyote Ugly thing to a whole new level, doesn't it?

I'm just so awe-struck that I'll let the story speak for itself:

Minnesota high school wrestling programs were suspended Tuesday because of a widespread herpes outbreak.

The Minnesota State High School League banned competitions and direct contact between wrestlers in practice until Feb. 6 after 24 cases of herpes gladiatorum were reported by 10 teams. The virus is spread by skin-to-skin contact, and symptoms include lesions on the face, head and neck.

The suspension is meant to control the current outbreak, allow time to diagnose new cases and prevent disqualifications at the state tournament, scheduled for Feb. 28-March 3.

All I can say is wow. I mean, wrestling resembles gay sex enough as it is. Apparently it has a lot of the same risks too. Can you imagine ending up with herpes for the rest of your life because you wrestled in high school!? Try explaining that one to your future dates.

We liberal-minded folk know the War on Drugs has been something of a farce; an expensive mistake that hasn't curbed drug use at all. However, I don't expect to hear those sorts of opinions from former undercover cops. Try to ignore it's from FOX news for a minute and take a look at this. As these officers attest, the war on drugs has a lot of negative side effects (no pun intended). It destroys lives when otherwise functional people are sent to jail for possession. And it increases the power of organized crime.

Now people are speaking out about it here in Canada. The message is the same: enforcement is a waste of money and education, research and treatment programs should be a higher priority. Of course, we already have a drug education program: DARE. I went through something called VIP when I was in grade five, but I'm sure it's mostly the same thing: a lengthy tirade about the evils of peer pressure followed by a long list of "don'ts". But we know don'ts are a bad idea, because some of our lovely neighbours to the south teach this wonderful concept called abstinence only in sex ed classes. It doesn't work.

When you think about it, that thing we all snickered about when we were twelve was actually pretty important, wasn't it? I don't know about you, but I don't even consider anything but safe sex. I think sex education had a big part in helping me make the right choices.

Sex and drugs are two very similar things from a teenager's perspective. Both of them involve a lot of peer pressure and both carry a lot of misconceptions. But most importantly, teens are going to both of them whether you want them to or not. Deal with it.

So instead of coming out with a big lecture and a bunch of scare tactics, how about teaching kids about drugs instead of just describing them as scary and awful? No, we don't need classes on how to roll a joint. The message should be the same as with sex ed: we know some of you are going to do it. If you choose to, here's how you can keep from hurting yourself. Stuff like how to recognize the signs of addiction, what to do in the event of an overdose, who to call if things get out of control, and what drugs you should absolutely, positively avoid because they're extremely addictive.

Let's face it, if we don't teach this to them at school they're going to be exposed to it sooner or later. Kids know that every person who does drugs doesn't end up like some messy junky. Let's stop lying to them and give them the information they need to make the right decisions. After all, education is supposed to be about the truth, right?