The Jeff Booth Show

Internet Radio with Pictures

Show Transcripts

December 9th, 2007

You can contact us at:

Jeff@eroticuniversity.com

(818) 613-9248

Political News

Senator Larry Craig claims that Idaho is a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, even though technically that’s because they buy their energy from greenhouse gas-emitting coal-fired plants in other states. And he claims that America has reduced its emissions, even though they have increased. And he continues to say he is not gay, even though eight men have now come forward to claim sexual encounters with him. I think the problem is that he is misquoted. He actually comes from the bizarro world, and what he really said was me am not gay.

A thumbnail sketch of the Perfect Ten lawsuit is that thumbnails are fair use. Perfect Ten is a magazine of nude and near nude photography that does not like its images appearing on the Internet without its permission. That is understandable, but what they did is sue Google for the tiny thumbnail images you see when you do an image search on Google. I can’t imagine anyone jerking off to thumbnails, so I don’t really see that as copyright infringement, and neither did the court.

I often criticize Microsoft, but I thought they got it right when they pulled the plug on Santa Claus. They added their northpolelive.com site to their Windows Live Messenger so kids could chat with Santa. It was an automated Santa, using simple artificial intelligence to respond to whatever the kids typed. As anyone who watches science fiction knows is possible, though, the software turned evil. When two girls chatted with Santa about pizza, he turned the topic to oral sex. He became a really bad Santa, And Microsoft rightly disconnected him.

At an erotic university event, we set the documented world’s record for most simultaneous orgasms. It won’t actually be documented, but Paul Reffell is going after an even bigger record. On Saturday, December 22nd at 1:08 pm Toronto time, is the Synchronized Global Orgasm for Peace. Reffell stated- “"If everyone had an orgasm at the same time concentrating on one subject – peace on Earth – could it influence the energy fields of the earth in a positive way?" um, no? Since this is the second annual event, and I don’t actually see a lot of additional peace on earth this year. The problem is that the people who should be having the simultaneous orgasms are the very ones who won’t be, and they are the ones causing all of the trouble. If they could just get off, we’d probably all be better off.

And our political bravery award goes to Alabama state Rep. John Rogers. He has filed a bill that would revoke the state’s notorious ten year ban on the sale of sex toys. In reference to his bill, he said, "A shower head could be considered a sex toy. It's just bringing the state into the 20th century." And for Alabama that would leave them in their traditional century behind everyone else. And the award for idiotic statement has to go to Dan Ireland, executive director of the Baptist based Alabama Citizens' Action Program. He said in support of Alabama’s sex toy ban, “"Laws are made to protect the public. Sometimes you have to protect the public against themselves." Interesting use of against instead of from themselves. I guess he thinks people use sex toys against themselves the same way people use firearms against others. Except I’m sure he supports firearms. And then he said "Sexual matters are not to become a nuisance to people and the community. "We have enough problems with sexual-oriented crimes without enticing or promoting it." We’re talking about sex toys, and the day someone uses a dildo to rob a liquor store, maybe Dan’s statements will make sense. In the meantime, he’s an idiot. The Supreme Court in October failed to overturn a ban that makes little sense even in the 20th century, let alone the 21st, and John Rogers is one of the few politicians in the state to stand up and point out how ridiculous this all is.

At the popular nude Playalinda beach in Florida, sun seekers risk arrest for not keeping their swim suits on. But the city has had an anti-nudity law since 1995, so technically, they can’t have a legal nude beach. The new clamp down is because nudists use the beach anyway, and because the boundaries are not clearly marked, some nudists have gotten too close to the clothed beach, which wouldn’t be a problem if they would just repeal their stupid anti-nudity ordinance and put up signs so that people know where the boundaries are and won’t offend anyone. Instead, the taxpayers have to spend money paying deputies to go on nudie patrol.

I was amazed that presidential candidate Mitt Romney actually said in his speech Thursday that “Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.”, since he is the candidate accused of jetting so many of his beliefs to well, try and win the leadership of the free world. He no longer supports gay marriage, he changed his position on abortion.  He strongly supports freedom of religion, he just does not support freedom from religion. His comments may appeal to religious evangelicals. But with his comments on secularism being a religion and his apparent fondness for tearing down the wall between church and state, he scared the hell out of the rest of us.

It would be a sad story and you’d feel sorry for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee if he just admitted he made a mistake and stopped lying about it. But he won’t. He continues to claim that everyone else is lying, despite mounting evidence. He supported the parole of a convicted rapist. The rapist got out 25 years early, and promptly raped and murdered a woman. And he was the chief suspect in the rape and murder of another woman, but he died in prison before being tried. Huckabee says he never pressured the parole board to release Wayne Dumond, despite four parole board members and his own chief of staff claiming otherwise, in a secret session that violated state laws. Strangely, the rapist Wayne Dumond at the time was almost a political folk hero in conservative circles.  Why? Because the 17 year old high school cheerleader he was convicted of raping was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, and the woman’s father was a major Clinton contributor. Conservative columnists took up the cause. Dumond was falsely convicted, they claimed, an innocent victim of the Clinton political machine. The enemy of my enemy. At the time, no Clinton conspiracy was too outrageous, even one involving framing an innocent man for rape, despite the fact that Clinton had nothing to do with his conviction. Under these circumstances, though, it was easy to believe that Huckabee thought the man might have been innocent, or that he posed no danger. Except for the just revealed this week letters to Huckabee from other rape victims of Dumond, who begged Huckabee to keep him in jail because he was a violent serial rapist and next time he might just kill someone.  Which he did. And since these letters were leaked by Huckabee staffers, we know his office saw them. And we now know his office had files showing that Dumond had prior arrests for assault and the attempted sexual assault of an underage girl. The issue has been well-known in Alabama, but the release of the letters and his political surge has put the story on the national stage. Huckabee claims that he acted out of compassion when he supported the release of Dumond, but where was his compassion when he personally intervened to block state funding of an abortion for a retarded 15 year old who had been raped by her own father?  As with most skeletons in people’s closets, its not the scandal but the attempted cover-up that gets you in trouble. And here, with numerous instances of Huckabee telling what appear to be lies, his squeaky clean minister image may take a beating.

Science

Welcome to another Sex Science Sunday. We are often critical of bad sex science, and even have a site, sexscienceskeptic.com, to keep track of it. But there is also obvious science. Research results that our only response can be- you had to do research to learn that? Here some of the latest.

Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, PhD. at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis revealed that the results of their research show that there is a relationship between heavy drinking and sex. Uh Pat, I think that’s been the situation since alcohol was discovered. The study says "alcohol-dependent individuals... are at risk for increased number of sexual partners (ten or more)." That statement is just going to make people want to drink more. And she made the mind-numbingly wrong claim that an increased number of partners increases the risk of unintended pregnancies. No, the increased number of incidences of unprotected sex increases the chances of pregnancy- not how many different partners you have sex with. If you have unprotected sex ten times, it does not matter for pregnancy if its ten different guys or the same guy ten times, unless that one guy just happens to be sterile. And her claims about increased risk in general were not much better, missing the entire point that it is not the number of sex partners, but the bad decisions you might make with any one of them when, such as having unprotected sex, you have had too much to drink. Its amazing that one bit of research could be both so obvious and so wrong at the same time.

And in another duh study, done at Michigan State University, they found that households in which a divorce occurs have a greater negative impact on the environment in terms of efficient use of resources than the households of married couples. They fail to take the results to the obvious conclusions though. Gay marriage is green, as otherwise instead of one, you’d have two often economically well off households consuming energy. And polygamy is really, really green, unless you can afford the multiple house scenario in Big Love. And living together is green outside of marriage is green. And maybe instead of divorce, both parties should stay together in the same house and take on lovers, who live with them. That would be really green. These obvious conclusions are what makes this study so dangerous. The last thing we need is an excuse for social conservatives to reject environmentalism.

And in a study on the age that people become sexually active, led by Dr. Theo Sandfort of Columbia University in New York City, they concluded that those who become sexually active at an early age were more likely to have certain risk factors for sexually transmitted diseases (STD) -- including a high number of sexual partners. This makes sense- start earlier- more sex partners. Gives you a head start. And the younger you are when you start, the less likely you are to know how to protect yourself. At the other end of the scale were those who become sexually active later in life. The study found that they were at increased risk of sexual dysfunction. Delaying sexual activity may "create health risks by impeding development of the emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal skills that are crucial to satisfactory sexual functioning and general well-being”. Age 14 or earlier was considered an early starter, and those age 22 or older were considered late starters. Keep in mind that the federal abstinence guidelines encourage abstinence before marriage up until the age of 29, and since most people get married quite a few years after they reach 22, following the federal abstinence guidelines would put most people at risk of sexual dysfunction. But, considering the sex-phobic nature of this administration, maybe that is exactly the point. 

There is actually an ugly disease. Its called BDD, but it doesn’t make you ugly. It just makes your brain misfire so that you think you are ugly. It leads to obsession and cosmetic surgery. The results of MRIs of people with body dysmorphic disorder were just published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. While they do not yet know the cause, we do know the cause of MIBDD, media induced body dysmorphic disorder. It is caused by a media obsessed with unrealistic and unhealthy ideals of beauty that teaches women that anything more than a size 0 is fat, that women shouldn’t actually have curves unless they are artificially implanted into their chests, and that the slightest imperfection, at least as perceived by them, is something to ridicule.

 In the disappointing results from research category, at least for pot smokers, no, smoking marijuana does not prevent breast cancer. But a compound in marijuana, CBD, apparently does seem to slow the growth of breast cancer. It has to be synthesized out, smoking won’t do it, but the study published in the medical journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, does show promise for a new treatment for breast cancer that is much less toxic and painful than chemotherapy.

The results are in for the latest Durex® Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey, focusing on the bedroom, and it is not good news for Americans. According to the survey, Americans are having less sex than just about any other country in the world, and well below the global average. When we do have sex, it doesn’t last that long. Americans spend on average about 35 minutes on both foreplay and intercourse. The only area where we seem to beat out other countries is in vibrator use. That may have something to do with the other results about less frequent sex and shorter durations. 

According to evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup, his new research suggests that handgrip strength in men is directly connected with reproductive fitness. He believes that men with high-grip strength are usually healthier, heal faster, and live longer. In his study, he claims that better grip also leads to more sexual opportunities and more sexual partners. But hand exercises or even more frequent masturbation isn’t the key- grip strength is largely genetic. 

The notion of nymphomania is often exaggerated and mythological, a way to denigrate women with a high sex drive, or the premise for a joke. There is a real condition that effects women that is no joke, though, and science is just beginning to understand it. It is called PGAD, persistent genital arousal disorder, named in 2001 by Sandra Leiblum. Now scientists believe it is less a disorder and more of a syndrome, meaning a collection of symptoms indicating a disease. Essentially, PGAD causes a constant sensation of engorgement in the genitals, unprompted by erotic thoughts or feelings. It can lead to constant masturbation without relief. Pioneering sex researcher Beverly Whipple is now doing studies using MRIs. Since it is so poorly understood, it is difficult to get a diagnosis. Many women have simply been told that they have psychiatric problems or are just sexually repressed. Some women have committed themselves. Fortunately, some anti-anxiety drugs are helping. Although organically different, it is like the female equivalent of priapism, where the man has a constant erection. Unlike priapism, though, which can simply be painful, women suffering from PGAD feel a need for constant relief. While many women have problems with a lack of desire, having just the opposite can be worse. And science is just now starting to find ways to provide relief.

Sex in Space

It has always been my fantasy to have sex in space. Weightless. Inventing completely new positions. But the reality may be much different than my fantasies. Sex in space might actually be more challenging than I thought.

There was a fake report going out across the Internet starting ten years ago about secret research conducted by NASA on shuttle missions, where astronauts had sex in space in the name of scientific research. Some journalists and even a book author thought that the report was real. Reading it is quite amusing, with experiments done with straps, rubber tunnels, and many different positions. It cited a Shuttle mission, STS-75, that had yet to even go into space, and much later when it did, it had an all male crew.

And just last Wednesday, Valery Bogomolov, deputy head of Russia’s Institute of Bio-Medial Problems, stated that “there is no proof that on any mission cosmonauts had sex.” So its official- no one has officially had sex in space. Still there was that married couple on the shuttle, but finding even a few moments privacy would have been very difficult. 

SO, what is the deal with sex in space? We have no actual research or experiments to draw from, but a lot of people have given it some thought. There is even a book on the subject, called Sex in Space by Lauara Woodmansee. Its not a topic NASA likes discussing. They specifically forbid the sale of the book in any NASA affiliated bookstores, and it has been banned from the JPL bookstore.

About half of all astronauts are spacesick for the first few days, and it takes some time to get used to zero G, so any space hotel stay would need to be longer than just overnight if sex is what you are planning.

Even kissing is difficult in space. Unless they are anchored down, if you try and kiss someone, the lack of gravity is going to let even the light force of your kissing push them away. The idea of free floating sex, while appealing, would be quite tricky. You are always going to be pushing away from each other, even as you try to get closer. Once you get floating in the middle of the room, you should pretty much stay there, even with a lot of gymnastics. Getting to this center position will be difficult, though, and require some kind of mechanical assistance or a lot of practice. And threesomes in space will be very tricky.

Weightlessness reduces your blood pressure. That means a slightly smaller penis for men when they get erect.

In zero gravity, there is no natural convection to carry away body heat, so you would tend to get quite hot. In fact, warm air would tend to stay around your body. And people tend to sweat more in zero g. Those little beads of sweat can free float to become really unwanted additions to the party. Not to mention any other fluids that might get loose.

And will your birth control pill work as well? We don’t know. We do know that in space, drugs are not as readily absorbed into the body. And from what little we know so far, getting pregnant in space is probably a bad idea.

So even though the idea of a honeymoon hotel in space is a compelling notion, the actual logistics may be a bit more complicated. It seems like a task that should initially be left to the pros- and by that I mean porn stars. And it has already been done. The Uranus Experiment, a porn film from Private Media Group, features sex between Sylvia Saint and Nick Lang shot in a Russian version of NASA’s vomit comet, a plane which flies in a parabolic arc providing for a few seconds of microgravity. This was the first recorded orgasm in zero g. The sequel offered the first gang bang in zero g. Once the pro’s have worked out all the angles, I’m ready to book our hotel in space vaction.

Sexvestigation- Obscenity Trials

Obscenity trials. They cost the taxpayers a lot of money. They cost the defendants a lot of money. And in this look at recent cases, you’ll see they often defy logic, common sense, and even the most basic legal fairness.

The case was in Kentucky. Pendleton,  Kentucky. My wife and I joke about our home town, Riverside as Rivertucky, so obviously, we have little love for the state. Been there. Got out. But, at least in this one instance, the courts there did something right.  Judge Diana Wheeler delivered a directed verdict of "not guilty" regarding three counts of obscenity against Russell Van Wie, owner of the Love Stuff boutique. He was charged with obscenity for carrying Barely Legal 2, Nasty Bottoms, and Gay Pride 38. That was the most obscene stuff they could find? The jury, as always in these cases, was forced to watch all three DVDs. That s what always amazes me in these cases. Juries are forced to watch adult movies so that regular people can be denied the right to see them when they want to. If this stuff is so harmful that we have to try and throw people who dare to sell it into jail, shouldn’t there be some court ordered therapy for the jury? A few months of state paid for psychological counseling to help them overcome the trauma from having been forced to watch porn?

This is the third time the DA has tried to put Van Wie in jail. With the same case- the first two trials resulted in mistrials- one for prosecutorial misconduct when they tried to sneak in an interracial scene without telling the defendants, hoping that would offend rural Kentuckians.

Three juries forced to watch porn that is supposedly harmful. In an attempt to put a man in jail for three years for selling three movies out of the many he had because somehow he could know that these three, out of all of the others he had also never watched, somehow violated the ephemeral standards of obscenity. In a defense that is being used successfully in many of these cases, the argument is that store owners simply can’t know the content and character of every DVD they sell. Judge Wheeler accepted that argument, and finally put an end to this farce that cost both the store and the taxpayers a fortune.

Fortunately, the rules of obscenity trials are more an aberration than the norm, wit undefinable standards for conviction. The last thing we want is for the rest of our justice system to be like obscenity law. Some are pushing the envelope on this, though. The argument that secondary effects negatively impact local communities when an adult business moves in have long been used successfully against adult businesses. This despite the fact that they are seldom ever required to actually prove these secondary effects, or show that they are substatantially any more harmful than those caused by other businesses.  Operation rescue has gone after Planned Parenthood in Illinois, trying to have them found by the courts to be a public nuisance due to secondary effects.

The case in Kentucky was fueled by local anti-porn activisits, but its even worse in North Carolina. The local police chief, Frank Palombo, is working hand in hand with the Christian Coalition, and has even interfered with city attempts to just settle the case. He just wants the store to get out of town. This is the unbelievable story about Greg Sakas, charged with stocking dildos with videos, a third class misdemeanor in North Carolina. No, I’m not kidding. I’m not sure that I follow the logic- would stocking dildos encourage you to buy them with the video so that you could masturbate?  Is that what is making them so insane- because, you know, you don’t need them both together to do that. You can sell them individually in North Carolina, but you can’t have videos and adult novelties together in the same store. We first talked about this case back in May after his store had been raided by police multiple times, hauling out tons of his merchandise which to my knowledge is yet to be accounted for, and Greg was arrested in March. Well, not arrested, he tried to turn himself in, but they made him drive 70 miles to another precinct, lied to him about bail, and were either unbelievably incompetent or intentionally making life hard for him and the other three people arrested. For having a dildo and videos together in the same store. In November, Sakas was told that no local judge in New Burne wanted to hear the case. I didn’t know that judges got to pick and choose, but I suspect none of them want to piss off the powerful Sheriff by throwing out what they know is a travesty of a case. So the Attorney General of the state assigned a judge from Raleigh, North Carolina.  Oh, there is also another charge- selling drug paraphernalia and a toxic substance. Because he sold video tape head cleaner, a legal product in North Carolina. Something you typically see sold with videos.

At Guantanamo, prisoners don’t get to choose their own attorneys to represent them- they are assigned to them. Apparently, Staunton Virginia prosecutor Raymond Robertson also thinks that choosing your own attorney is a bad idea. Which it is. For him. He did not want renowned free speech attorney Paul Cambria to represent Rick Krial, charged with 24 counts of obscenity, in a really bizarre filing of two charges of obscenity against each of the 12 DVDs confiscated by police from his After Hours store. Since a work has to be looked at as a whole to determine if it is obscene, I’m not sure how they get two charges on each one. Robertson filed a motion to exclude Cambria as an attorney on the grounds of conflict of interest- he claims that because Cambria makes a living representing defendants in the porn industry any plea agreements might be considered against the interests of the porn industry. This is a conflict of interest. The same twisted logic could be used against any lawyer who specializes in a particular industry. And the real irony is that the conflict of interest is that DAs get campaign money from conservative religious people and groups. Without that influence- they would never bother with these moronic obscenity cases in the first place. There’s your real conflict of interest. Fortunately, the judge rejected this motion.

And things get to the point of utter ridiculousness in Kansas City, Kansas. They indicted four businesses for obscenity recently, including the Spirit Halloween store. They claimed the seasonal store was selling inappropriate costumes.

Obscenity cases go on locally all over the country, but no one knows what obscenity actually is. But we know what it does. It helps the political careers of local prosecutors in conservative parts of the country. And because of that, these ridiculous and abusive trials that make a mockery of free speech and justice will continue.