Here's Why it Makes Perfect Sense that Josh Duggar Cheated

Here's Why it Makes Perfect Sense that Josh Duggar Cheated
Now can we stop? Please? Can we please stop acting as if Conservative, right-wing “Christians” make any sense or are even “good” people? Any extreme is bad. Any. And that goes for people who call themselves “Christians” and it goes double for anyone who calls him or herself a “fundamentalist” anything.

Of course Josh Duggar was on Ashley Madison. Of course he has an alleged penchant for strippers. Can we please stop pretending that religion can somehow alter human nature? Humans are animals. They are sexual creatures. If you cage them, they will claw their way out or claw themselves to death or claw the eyes out of those they purport to love.

I could not feel any sorrier for Josh Duggar. He has desperately needed help for so long and his parents were so busy worrying about their image and their TV show and their commitment to a “religion” that blames the victims of sexual abuse rather than the abusers that they couldn’t be bothered to get him the help he needed. Instead they swept it under the rug and “prayed.”

Let me be clear here. He sexually assaulted his sisters. He’s a criminal. He belongs behind bars for those crimes.

But the Ashley Madison account? The affairs? The strippers? I only have one thing to say on that front — Duh.

Of course he behaved that way. He was kept from a normal life, a normal childhood, a normal upbringing. He was raised to believe that the natural, healthy feelings he was having about sexuality were wrong. He was taught that there shouldn’t even be any kissing until marriage. Are you kidding me? Think about that for a minute — telling an adolescent that they are to bottle up all of their healthy, happy sexual feelings because they are “bad” and “wrong.” It’s sick. It’s dangerous. And, obviously, it’s escalating all around.

In fact, I believe it was that very upbringing that lead him to the criminal behavior with his sisters. He was taught that victims were to blame. He was taught that women were put on this earth to serve men. He was taught that life barely existed outside of the four walls of his family home. What on earth did we expect to happen?

How many more examples do we need? Seriously. If you teach nothing but abstinence, girls get pregnant and contract STI’s. If you damn homosexuality, young people run away or kill themselves. If you teach a child that sexuality is bad or wrong or dirty or only for married people in love making babies, they go on the DL. They join Ashley Madison. They visit prostitutes and strippers. They do untoward things because they are not “allowed” to do perfectly healthy natural things.

I truly believe that if Josh Duggar was taught the scientific truth about human sexuality (and about evolution, while we’re on the subject), if he had been allowed to date, if he had been taught about the health and joy of masturbation, if he had been respected and supported as a human male, none of this would have happened. None of it. Including the molestation of his sisters.

The Duggars are creating monsters. They may mean well. They may be equally brainwashed and ignorant and sheltered and mislead. But they are creating monsters.

Extremism creates monsters. We have to teach science. Not fantasy. We have to respect the reality of humans and their development. Not promote puritanical myths of purity.

The Ashley Madison hack may have been the Godsend we have been needing for so long, the pulling back of the proverbial curtain. Look at the facts. Looks at the history. This shit goes on — the lying, the cheating, the molesting — because we are refusing to accept reality. People are claiming monogamy and cheating all over the place. When are going to stop turning a blind eye to all of the truths that are right there in front of us?

Sex is wonderful. People have sex. Sex is healthy. There is nothing wrong with sex outside of marriage between two enthusiastically consenting adults. Young people are sexual. If we don’t give them information (real sex ed) and an outlet (facts about masturbation and sex before marriage) and support (a sympathetic and knowledgeable ear when they have questions about what they are feeling and experiencing), things are going to go badly. Very badly.

Every sex scandal exposes these truths — the Senator and his aide, the sexts between boss and intern, the golf star and his stable of strippers, the preacher and his addiction to meth and male prostitutes. If we keep people from healthy sexuality, they will pursue it in an unhealthy way. That’s all there is to it.

It’s almost too simple really. We could stop nearly all of this with a little honesty and education. All we have to do is give up on the lying and the religious nonsense and the pretending. And so I am asking, once again – –

Now can we stop? Please?

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Oregon bakery fined for refusing to make cake for gay wedding sends cakes to LGBTI groups

Oregon bakery fined for refusing to make cake for gay wedding sends cakes to LGBTI groups

The owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon refused to bake a cake for a local lesbian’s wedding – and got fined $135,000 for it – but they want the LGBTI community to know that they ‘love’ them.

Melissa and Aaron Klein sent cakes this week to 10 LGBTI organizations which read: ‘We really do love you!’

‘We came up with the idea of sending cakes to express that we really do love them,’ Melissa Klein tells The Oregonian.

The couple, who are appealing the fine, cite their religious beliefs as the reason why they would not bake the cake for a same-sex couple.

Along with the cake, the couple also sent a copy of the film Audacity along with a $25 restaurant gift card provided by the film’s producer, televangelist Ray Comfort. According to the film’s website, the movie ‘delivers an unexpected, eye-opening look at the controversial topic of homosexuality.’

To promote the film, Comfort plans to fly rainbow-colored banners that include #LoveWins! over 11 US cities and has said: ‘We are like doctors with a cure for cancer. This movie is made for the lost, so one way to get the lost’s attention is to fly a four-story-high banner across San Francisco.’

The Los Angeles LGBT Center, one of the organizations to receive a cake, replied on its website: Nothing says “We really do love you!” like a little frosting-covered hate mail. And, while we have no trouble telling Comfort to get his hands off our rainbow, hashtag, and inalienable rights, we’re not quite as sure about what to do with the cake.

The post Oregon bakery fined for refusing to make cake for gay wedding sends cakes to LGBTI groups appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/oregon-bakery-fined-for-refusing-to-make-cake-for-gay-wedding-sends-cakes-to-lgbti-groups/

The Joys Of Blowhole Sex

The Joys Of Blowhole Sex

What two consenting dolphins do in the wilds of nature is their own business, and if you had an orifice on top of your head, you might enjoy it, too.

Blowhole penetration is just one of the subjects we delve into on this week’s Weird News podcast. We sent Noah Michelson — co-host of the fabulous Love & Sex Podcast — to New York City’s Museum of Sex and he got natural with the animals.

If you think threesomes, wild masturbation rituals and all sorts of recreational pleasure are reserved for humans, you simply haven’t spent enough time in the jungle — and Museum of Sex curator Sarah Forbes sets us straight (even if you’re gay).

In the end, the only thing weird about animal sex is wrapped up in our own human hangups. Admit it: If you had an elephant’s trunk, you’d involve it in your self-stimulation, too. Wouldn’t that be fun?

“All conceivable sexual partnerships and sex acts exist,” the museum concludes, “from foreplay to post-coital cuddling: animals engage in kissing, hugging, self and mutual stimulation, oral sex and every kind of penetrative intercourse imaginable.

“Sex in the animal kingdom is as nuanced as it is in the human realm; and sex-for-pleasure, it seems, is not just restricted to Homo sapiens.”

Isn’t nature great? Listen to the podcast  for more. 

Special thanks to our producer, Katelyn Bogucki and sound engineer Brad Shannon. Check us out on iTunes, Soundcloud and please give us a review. We love you!

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Anti-gay Family Research Council: Josh Duggar’s latest scandal ‘devastating’

Anti-gay Family Research Council: Josh Duggar’s latest scandal ‘devastating’

The anti-gay Family Research Council is calling the cheating scandal involving Josh Duggar, the former executive director of its lobbying arm, ‘devastating.’

‘We are grieved by Josh’s conduct and the devastating impact of his pornography addiction and marital unfaithfulness,’ FRC President Tony Perkins said in a statement on the group’s website.

‘Our hearts hurt for his family, and all those affected by Josh’s actions,’ Perkins added. ‘His deceitful behavior harms his family, his friends, his former coworkers, and the cause he has publicly espoused.’

Duggar, one of the members of the evangelical Christian family that starred in the now-cancelled TLC reality series 19 Kids and Counting, resigned from FRC in May after he admitted to sexually abusing five young girls, including some of his sisters, when he was a teenager.

This week, Duggar admitted to being ‘the biggest hypocrite ever’ when it was discovered that he had an account with the website Ashley Madison which specializes in facilitating extramarital affairs.

States Perkins: ‘Those of us who advocate for family values in the public square are held to a higher standard, and Josh’s failures serve as a painful reminder of the destructive effects of not living with integrity. We are praying for the family.’

FRC advocates and lobbies for socially conservative policies and opposes and lobbies against LGBTI rights such as same-sex marriage and adoption. In 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center classified the FRC as an anti-gay hate group.

The post Anti-gay Family Research Council: Josh Duggar’s latest scandal ‘devastating’ appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/anti-gay-family-research-council-josh-duggars-latest-scandal-devastating/

‘Grandma’ “Ill-Tempered Lesbian” Plus 12 More Fabulous Lily Tomlin Looks

‘Grandma’ “Ill-Tempered Lesbian” Plus 12 More Fabulous Lily Tomlin Looks

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We love Lily Tomlin. Buddy comedy Grace and Frankie, co-starring Jane Fonda, is a hit on Netflix, and the new Paul Weitz dramedy Grandma is earning Oscar buzz for Tomlin’s portrayal of what the Hollywood Reporter labels an “ill-tempered lesbian.”

That got us thinking about other Lily Tomlin looks, and how in her best work they’re like elaborate masks. Tomlin doesn’t move her face a lot, like a rubbery Lucille Ball, or Tomlin’s Laugh-In co-star Goldie Hawn. All the action is in the eyes and around the mouth and at micro-scale, and it draws you in like a shared confidence. The look gets your attention for another, more intimate performance.

Here are “Ill-Tempered Lesbian” and 12 more fabulous looks by Lily Tomlin. Grandma opens Friday.

1. 70’s Feminist Icon
Laugh-In made Lily Tomlin a star with characters like Ernestine the operator and that baby in the giant chair, but her other role on the variety show, as “herself,” was Feminist Icon: modern, independent, free-thinking and free-loving.

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2. The Tasteful Lady

One of Tomlin’s Laugh-In looks. The Tasteful Lady dispensed advice on gracious living in a pillbox hat, here with a swinging and late-career Rita Hayworth.

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3. Cheating Housewife
Tomlin blew up with an Oscar nom for Robert Altman’s Nashville in 1976, as a mother of two deaf kids who’s making it with Keith Carradine. This look is perfect for the phone.

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4. Track-Suit Nonconformist
In neo-noir The Late Show, Tomlin plays a quirky nonconformist on the fringes of Hollywood who smokes weed and hires Art Carney to find her cat. She’s outspoken: “This car is not only a toilet, but you are the attendant.”

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5. Working Girl
Tomlin’s corporate drag for 9 to 5 is one of the iconic examples of the popular 80’s look, see Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver. As well, Violet smokes weeds on her journey.

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6. One Woman Show
In 1986, Tomlin debuted on Broadway in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by her now-wife Jane Wagner, and featuring Tomlin in many voices. They all come together in this self-possessed look.

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7. Waitress
For Robert Altman’s arthouse-Earthquake, Shortcuts, in 1993, Tomlin pulls her hair back for a waitress-life look, and runs over a kid with her car.

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8. Pot-Smoking Mom
Tomlin plays Mary Schlichting of the great name, and Ben Stiller’s real mother, in David O. Russell’s Flirting With Disaster. You have a feeling this look may be how she hangs with Jane.

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9. Ice Queen
In David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees, Tomlin plays existential detective Vivian with a severe look, or she’s just tired of fighting.

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10. Orange Jumpsuit
Tomlin’s contribution to the current women-in-prison look craze comes via Lisa Kudrow’s Web Therapy as her spiraling mom.

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11. 70’s Feminist Icon Today
Looks kill when Tomlin plays an ardent feminist and Tina Fey’s mother, in that order, in Paul Weitz’s Admission.

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12. Hippie Art Teacher
Tomlin adds grey and resignation to her look for Odd Couple comedy Grace and Frankie with Jane Fonda. Good with her hands.

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13. Ill-Tempered Lesbian

For Weitz’s Grandma, Tomlin runs into old friends and grievances on a quest for her granddaughter’s abortion money. This look could earn Tomlin her Oscar.

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greg gillbergh

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FRC Hate Leader Tony Perkins Says Josh Duggar Cheating Scandal Has Hurt the Anti-LGBT Cause

FRC Hate Leader Tony Perkins Says Josh Duggar Cheating Scandal Has Hurt the Anti-LGBT Cause

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Tony Perkins, president of the hate group Family Research Council, has released a statement responding to his former employee Josh Duggar’s confession in the Ashley Madison hack.

Duggar, a married father of four, served as executive director of the FRC’s lobbying arm for two years before resigning from the position in May in the wake of a molestation scandal in which he admitted to sexually abusing his younger sisters as a teenager.

Read the FRC statement:

“Last night we learned from online reports about allegations concerning Josh Duggar and then read his confession today.  We are grieved by Josh’s conduct and the devastating impact of his pornography addiction and marital unfaithfulness.  Our hearts hurt for his family, and all those affected by Josh’s actions. His deceitful behavior harms his family, his friends, his former coworkers, and the cause he has publicly espoused. Those of us who advocate for family values in the public square are held to a higher standard, and Josh’s failures serve as a painful reminder of the destructive effects of not living with integrity. We are praying for the family.”

The post FRC Hate Leader Tony Perkins Says Josh Duggar Cheating Scandal Has Hurt the Anti-LGBT Cause appeared first on Towleroad.


Kyler Geoffroy

FRC Hate Leader Tony Perkins Says Josh Duggar Cheating Scandal Has Hurt the Anti-LGBT Cause

Bathroom Bigotry and the Battle for Transgender Rights

Bathroom Bigotry and the Battle for Transgender Rights
If you want to know what some people think about transgender people, consider their comments about the bathroom. Right, the bathroom — bathroom use to be specific. Here are a couple of examples:

From former Arkansas Governor, former Fox News talk show host and soon-to-be-former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee:

For those who do not think that we are under threat, simply recognize the fact that we are now in city after city watching ordinances that say that your 7-year-old daughter — if she goes into the restroom — cannot be offended and you can’t be offended if she’s greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man.

Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister (at least I think he’s still a minister) also confided the following: “I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE. I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.'”

How about Bill O’Reilly? What does he have to say on this topic? Not surprisingly, quite a lot, although at times he makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. For example, he has compared allowing transgender children to use the school bathroom or locker room that corresponds to their gender identity to an adult bringing “12 to 15-year-old boys to Hooters.” Say what? Confused? I don’t blame you. Further investigation into his remarks will only deepen your confusion. Check out this link if you enjoy being confused.

Huckabee’s and O’Reilly’s views on transgender people reflect widespread concern, particularly on the Religious Right, about transgender women creating mayhem by using women’s restrooms and locker rooms. Is there any basis for this concern? Consider the following: For years a number of states and municipalities have had laws on the books that prohibit discrimination against transgender people in the use of public accommodations. There are also laws in a number of states protecting transgender students from discrimination in their use of public accommodations. In addition, a number of school districts throughout the country have instituted non-discrimination policies protecting transgender students and allowing them to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. In all of the years since these laws and policies have been in effect allowing transgender adults and children to use the restrooms that correspond to their gender identity there has not been a single confirmed case of a transgender person harassing, abusing or assaulting anybody.

Nevertheless, legislators in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Texas and Utah have proposed legislation that would prohibit transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. The Kentucky senate passed a bill that would nullify a local high school’s transgender nondiscrimination policy, and in California there have been ballot initiatives that would enforce similar bans. Penalties for violating the proposed laws would include fines and imprisonment. A bill that was defeated in Kentucky would have allowed students who think they have identified a transgender student violating the state’s law while at school to collect $2,500 and attorney’s fees for each alleged violation by suing the school for liability.

In California, a current ballot initiative would allow bathroom whistleblowers to collect “up to a maximum of three times the amount of actual damage but in no case less than $4,000, and attorney’s fees” — said damage having resulted from the whistleblower’s privacy having been violated. The violation of privacy would supposedly have resulted from the bathroom whistleblower seeing a person they believed was transgender using what they, the whistleblower, think is the “wrong” bathroom.

What exactly is going on here? Let’s go back to Huckabee’s and O’Reilly’s remarks, because they reflect the beliefs and attitudes that animate members of the anti-transgender bathroom brigade. Huckabee refers to “a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man.” In O’Reilly’s Hooters segment, he says, “Here comes a guy who thinks he’s a girl, into the locker room.” Clearly these guys do not believe that transgender people exist. They think that transgender women are men in dresses and that transgender men are women in male drag. And that’s exactly what the anti-trans legislators and other members of the bathroom police force think as well. They do not understand gender identity, which is how human beings experience and communicate gender. To make matters worse, they confuse gender identity with sexuality. They believe that there is something sexually perverse about being transgender. They therefore see transgender people as a threat and engage in fact-free fear mongering of the very worst kind. They particularly demonize transgender women, accusing them of being sexual predators that present a danger to women and children alike.

I find myself wondering. Do any of these people know a single transgender person? Have they ever met one? I would not be surprised to find that the overwhelming majority of them have not. That is why it is so important for transgender people to become increasingly visible. It’s clear that attitudes toward same-sex marriage changed dramatically over a relatively short time because so many gay people had come out. If your daughter, son, sister, brother, friend, neighbor or colleague at work is gay, it is difficult to look that person in the eye and say, you don’t have the right to marry the person you love. It is difficult to objectify and demonize another human being and to deny that human being fundamental rights when you have a personal relationship with them. I believe that we will see a similar change in attitudes towards transgender people as more and more people get to know transgender people both in the culture and personally. That’s why Caitlyn Jenner, and Orange Is the New Black and Transparent are important. They introduce transgender people to the country. That’s also why ongoing advocacy is essential. People need to be educated about gender identity and what it means to be transgender. Cisgender people who view transgender people as “the other” need to understand that transgender people have a lot more in common with them than they think, sharing many of the same goals and aspirations.

It’s hard in the midst of fighting for civil rights, in fighting for equality, to measure progress. But it is clear that we are making progress, however slow and painful it may be. I agree with Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. In a piece titled, “Anti-Trans Bills: It Means We’re Winning,” she says that bathroom bills represent a bigoted backlash against the real progress that we are making as reflected in the increasing number of state and municipal laws as well as school policies protecting transgender people against discrimination. We do indeed have allies in legislatures, in school districts and increasingly in the media. As Mara says, “it is important to be vigilant. . . . let’s fight back, call in our allies, and educate our neighbors. Let’s use these ludicrous [bathroom] bills as an opportunity to tell our stories. And make no mistake . . . We are winning.”

Yes, we are. Despite the ignorance and fear mongering, despite the bigotry and hate, we are winning. If we persevere, if we continue to fight for our rights, we will succeed at achieving equality. If we continue to fight, we will one day surely overcome.

To view the original article, please visit BookTrib.

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Man Comes Out To His Wife While Hammered, Denies It All The Next Morning

Man Comes Out To His Wife While Hammered, Denies It All The Next Morning

Frustrated-Husband-Creates-Spreadsheet-of-Wifes-Excuses-for-Not-Having-Sex-with-Him-01The “closeted married guy” is nothing new, but despite the social landscape becoming much more accepting for everyone to live as their true selves, many still wind up entangled in a web of lies, unable to see light at the end of the tunnel.

But the truth has a funny way of bubbling to the surface.

In this case, a rightfully upset woman in her mid 20s is concerned that her 30-year-old husband of four years may be hiding his sexuality from her. And like may revealed secrets before it, alcohol acted as the lubricant.

“I have never had the suspicion that he was gay,” she writes on Redditthough she admits, “The only signs I can really think of is that it took him a while to initiate sex (I always thought he was just shy like he said). I still have to initiate sex often because he’ll only do it like once a week and sometimes won’t even finish himself off. Sex is over once I’ve finished and we barely have any foreplay before.”

Related: Does This Man’s Wife Deserve To Know His Kinky Gay Adult Film Past?

One night the two attended a friend’s party, where her husband (who isn’t usually much of a drinker) proceeded to knock ’em back like he owned the place.

When they got back home, he hit the whiskey bottle for a night cap or two.

“I’m tired so I decide to head off to bed,” she recalls. “I go to give him a kiss like usual. As soon as I started bringing my face closer to his, he leaned back so far he almost fell off the chair. He had this really confused/disgusted look on his face and I laughed at first, but then when I went to kiss him on his cheek, He pushed my face away. Then he looked at me really shocked and said ‘No I’m gay!’”

That night she couldn’t sleep, replaying the events over and over inside her head.

Related: Mother Opens Grindr, Finds Her Husband’s Headless Torso In Their Bathroom

“The next day, we were having breakfast and he was extremely hungover. I start telling him how drunk he was last night and he just laughs. Then I told him about what he did/said and he looks straight up at me really worried. I must have looked really upset because right after he said ‘everyone says stupid things when they’re drunk, forget about it.’ Then he walked off saying he needs a shower. He’s been a little distant ever since.”

Either way, she’s 26 and in a rocky marriage. Add the likelihood that he actually is gay, and we say get out while you’re young!

As for the husband, it’s time for him to kick himself in the ass and get honest — he’s got to start somewhere.

Dan Tracer

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