Love, Rape, Whatever

David Weigel | June 8, 2007

So it turns out Friday is Homophobia Fun Day on Michael Medved's Townhall blog. Here he reads a story about California allowing conjugal visits for prisoners with legal domestic partnerships and starts fuming about gay sex.

Because of the state’s new “civil unions” law, the gay convicts who linked themselves to partners before incarceration [read: fell in love and got the equivalent of a marriage certificate] are now entitled to scheduled sessions of intimacy, just like their married counterparts. This means that prison staffers who spend their time in desperate efforts to prevent behind-bars gay conduct, including rape, must now assist selected prisoners with trysts involving their “domestic partners.”

I've never been a prison guard; maybe Medved has. So he might know whether guards are sweating the gay conduct that happens in their prisons or worried about the forced, raw sex. Line 3007 of the prison code prevents both kinds of sex, but are they really that bothered with the sex that isn't rape? They usually seek special placement of homosexual prisoners and they're done worrying about that.

More of the mustache:

This absurd innovation exposes the true nature of the so-called gay rights agenda: it’s not about equality, it’s about governmental promotion of behavior that many Americans still consider disgusting and immoral. Gay conjugal visits should cause the public to look past platitudes about love to focus on the raw actuality of male-male eroticism. Is this practice – with all its hygienic, physiological harm—really deserving of governmental (and prison system) support?

Ah, so we're worried about filthy gays bringing disease into the prison via their conjugal visits? Really? Given that the HIV/AIDS rate in prisons is about five times higher than the rate outside, and that the conjugal visitor or prison is going to be providing condoms, and that the prisoners are monitored during the visit, the visiting room might be the most disease-free room on the prison grounds.

Well, I'm not going to convince Medved. What will?

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|6.8.07 @ 6:22PM|#

If Medved is really that concerned about what gay couples do in prison--nay, he writes an entire column about "male-male eroticism", hes obviously in the closet.

Michael Medved|6.8.07 @ 6:37PM|#

Gay sex is disgusting! Nothing is more offensive in the eyes of the Lord than two taut, muscular male bodies, glistening with sweat, gripping each other's firm buttocks while one man puts his hard, stiff shaft into the other man's ... oh, God, it's horrible. Disgusting! No decent person should even think about gay sex between two or more hot young studs in the prime of their young lives, let alone actually do it.

TallDave|6.8.07 @ 6:45PM|#

No, I think the question of consensual prison sex is a real issue.

One of the problems we now have as a culture is that separation of the sexes makes less sense, once we accept homosexuality (which, I should stress, is the correct thing to do). If we're separating men and women so they don't have sex, what about gay men? Doesn't it discriminate against heterosexuals if gays can be together in jail while heteros can't?

And it's not just prison. Should we have gay Scout leaders? If so, would we also let a straight guy regularly take a dozen teenage girl Scouts on an overnight camping trip? Are both of these discrimination, or neither?

We're really just starting to grapple with all this.

|6.8.07 @ 6:46PM|#

"Gay conjugal visits should cause the public to look past platitudes about love to focus on the raw actuality of male-male eroticism."

Um, what's this even trying to say? That gay couples having sex shows that gay men don't love their partners? Would this make any sense if he said "Straight conjugal visits should cause the public to look past platitudes about love to focus on the raw actuality of male-female eroticism"? Oh wait, that's right -- straight sex isn't icky, just gay sex. I know because Michael Medved said so.

"Is this practice - with all its hygienic, physiological harm-really deserving of governmental (and prison system) support?"

Um, is straight sex somehow deserving of governmental support, all of a sudden? If so, where do I get my subsidy check?

TallDave|6.8.07 @ 6:48PM|#

Oh, and let me just add the "Real Jock Gay Fitness Community" ad on the sidebar is amusingly apropos.

|6.8.07 @ 6:51PM|#

"See, government is supposed to prevent use of force, and these here civil-union laws are forcing all of us God-fearing Christians to live in a world where hoe-moe-SEX-U-alls are making whoopie."

Amazingly enough, there are people out there who believe this shit...

|6.8.07 @ 6:59PM|#

Con-jungle visits make as much sense as letting Paris Hilton out because she says she has a medical condition.

|6.8.07 @ 7:03PM|#

,i>Because of the state's new "civil unions" law, the gay convicts who linked themselves to partners before incarceration [read: fell in love and got the equivalent of a marriage certificate] are now entitled to scheduled sessions of intimacy, just like their married counterparts.

I think Medved is right for the wrong reasons. The policy wrongly discriminates against poor heterosexuals who "shack up." While gays can't get married, who knows how many of these guys would get married if it were legal? And given that more poor folks go to jail and that more poor folks choose shacking up over marriage, why can't poor heteros who cohabitate get the same treatment?

|6.8.07 @ 7:04PM|#

The irony is that sometime soon, Medved will discuss his support for a limited government that doesn't intrude into the lives of citizens. I guess Big Government is fine as long as it restricts itself to making sure that gay sex, gay marriage and abortion don't occur.

Ronny|6.8.07 @ 7:10PM|#

Another point is that I imagine it has hard to tell the difference between coerced and truly consensual prison sex.

|6.8.07 @ 7:12PM|#

In light of Cathy Young's column, it sounds like Medved would feel right at home in Russia.

|6.8.07 @ 7:19PM|#

In any event. Townhall is a curious site. The following ad appears in the current edition (and no, I didn't make this up):

While Rosie is on her way off her TV show, her liberal voice may be replaced with the even more radical voice of Kathy Griffin. The threat her left-wing rhetoric poses against our nation and our safety is gaining power. Only you and conservatives like Ann Coulter, Tom Delay, Thomas Sowell and the rest of Townhall.com's over 200 conservative leaders stand in their way. Stop their liberal plans by joining the millions of Townhall.com conservatives now!

Sometimes you just wanna slap certain people in the back of the head, and tell them to get the FUCK over themselves...

lunchstealer|6.8.07 @ 7:45PM|#

So are heterosexual conjugal visits meant to focus our attention on male-female eroticism? I've never had much (any) respect for Medved or his reasoning skills, but this makes no sense whatsoever. The only possible difference between male-male conjugal visits and male-female conjugal visits would be the remote possibility of procreation, but if 'eroticism' were somehow a bad thing in conjugal visits and the whole point was procreative sex, then you'd think that they'd avoid the whole thing altogether and make partially-imprisoned couples use in vitro fertilization.

This might possibly be the worst bit of reasoning I've seen out of the anti-gay-marriage set in a long time, and it's up against some stiff (pardon the pun) competition.

Stephen Macklin|6.8.07 @ 7:50PM|#

I don't get the whole concept of conjugal visits in the first place. Isn't the whole point of prison to deny the convicted of the privileges and pleasures as freedom as punishment for their crime?

|6.8.07 @ 8:06PM|#

I thought every day was Michael Medved's Homophobia Day? Next you are going to post that Steve Sailer said something racial today.

CLS|6.8.07 @ 8:21PM|#

Medved, I hear is some Slavik language for moron. He was never a good film reviewer but if there is something you can be paid good money for these days is shrill, unadulterated hate. The religious fanatics eat that sort of hate up in double portions. The shriller, the rawer, the better for them. Oh yes, Jesus loves me, it's you he hates.

|6.8.07 @ 8:57PM|#

I couldn't read any farther than "hygenic, physiological harm." If it's hygenic, how is harmful? Isn't being clean a good thing? Especially in prison?

I shouldn't expect clarity from that particular source anyway. Jacob Sullum is the only person who writes for Townhall who doesn't cause me to turn into the Grammar She-Hulk at least three times per column. What is it about the Upholders of Eternal Values that prevents them from following the Eternal Rules of English Grammar?

|6.8.07 @ 8:58PM|#

Do Medved, Malkin, Schlussel, and their ilk get compensated based on how many other sites link to their brain farts? I hate to think that they profit from our disdain.

|6.8.07 @ 9:01PM|#

Oh, and Medved really does have WAYYYY to much interest in the, er, mechanics of gay sex. No actual straight male I know spends anywhere in the same galaxy of the amount of time Medved does thinking about buttsex.

|6.8.07 @ 9:28PM|#

Medved is terrified that someone out there knows he wants to give Lance Bass a mustache ride.

|6.8.07 @ 9:37PM|#

Gay conjugal visits should cause the public to look past platitudes about love to focus on the raw actuality of male-male eroticism. Is this practice - with all its hygienic, physiological harm-really deserving of governmental (and prison system) support?

Raw, throbbing, hot actuality. In living color.

Medved is saying in a rather prudish way that he thinks one guy cornholing another is a filthy act that can lead to injury (though I'd like him to define what he means by "hygienic harm"). I wonder if he knows that vaginal intercourse, if done with dirty genitalia and with insufficient lubrication, can also cause "hygienic and physiological harm," to use his words. Seems pretty obvious to me.

Funny to me are people who believe God gave people bodies so that those bodies could be shunned, reviled, and repressed.

|6.8.07 @ 9:39PM|#

Karen said what I meant better than I said it.

|6.8.07 @ 9:46PM|#

So, have Medved and Ted Haggard ever run into each other? If not, how can we make this happen (and film it)?

Nathan|6.8.07 @ 10:20PM|#

"This absurd innovation exposes the true nature of the so-called gay rights agenda: it's not about equality, it's about governmental promotion of behavior that many Americans still consider disgusting and immoral."

Does Medved not understand that these are not mutually exclusive? In order to have equality, the govt has to allow gay conjugal visits, which a bunch of people find disgusting and immoral. So what?

|6.8.07 @ 10:31PM|#

it's about governmental promotion of behavior that many Americans still consider disgusting and immoral.

"That's right, kids! If the gov't promotes homerseckuality they're gonna turn y'all ghey!"

I'm still waiting to see the posters for this promotion.

|6.8.07 @ 10:40PM|#

And it's not just prison. Should we have gay Scout leaders? If so, would we also let a straight guy regularly take a dozen teenage girl Scouts on an overnight camping trip?

No! Dammit, no!

I don't have time for that. My weekends are hectic enough as it is.

|6.8.07 @ 11:13PM|#

When I was in Cubs, we had quite a few female troupe leaders. And Scouts in Canada have been co-ed for several years now.

|6.8.07 @ 11:14PM|#

I imagine it is hard to tell the difference between coerced and truly consensual prison sex

Yeah? For which party?

Ronny|6.8.07 @ 11:36PM|#

I imagine it is hard to tell the difference between coerced and truly consensual prison sex

Yeah? For which party?

For the "catcher", of course.

lunchstealer|6.8.07 @ 11:43PM|#

Stevo, I thought you got kicked out of the Boy Scouts a long time ago. Something about eating that special Brownie during the Order of the Arrow ceremony.

|6.8.07 @ 11:56PM|#

I'm ashamed to say that the first few times I heard that song I didn't realize it was so gay. I actually burned it a few CDs that I played in my car. Then one day, it dawned on me. "Holy crap this is perhaps the most homosexual song ever written"

Rhywun|6.9.07 @ 12:01AM|#

Wow, what a catchy tune! Very Dead or Alive.

Sigh. As usual, the "Right" only sees sex. (And for the record, Mr. Medved, many gays don't practice buttsex [thanks, Karen!]--and many straights DO.) Married, heterosexual partners are in a loving relationship. Gays just fuck.

|6.9.07 @ 12:42AM|#

The Townhall sidebar is dead on. Only YOU can stop Kathy Griffin!

|6.9.07 @ 12:47AM|#

All I can say is that if I was in prison I would prefer Lance take out his desires on his boyfriend and not me.

|6.9.07 @ 2:37AM|#

I work in a prison in a state that doesn't have (official) conjugal visits. (I say "official" because I have heard stories about officers "taking a break" and "inadvertently leaving a closet unlocked" at certain, less-supervised, times.) There is, however, a lot of sex going on. And according to policy, inmates cannot consent to sex. So it's always rape.

Medved is a loon, but I have to say the lunatics are definitely running the asylum in regards to prison sex. With the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in effect, we'll never get to a place where men in prison can have consensual sex, safe sex (I'm sure glad we don't have any troublesome condom sales, since HIV and HepC are so cheap to treat nowadays,) or pay off their gambling or store debts without risking their lives. Rape is rape, and it happens too much in prison. But making all prison sex rape is like stacking an absurdity on top of a problem.

As for conjugal visits for gay couples, who cares? If it's offered for straights, are they monitored for non-missionary position sex? And I don't care if Tom and Bob or Jake and Marge have a conjugal visit, just change the sheets and empty the trash afterwards, okay?

And where is the outcry against the lesbian conjugal visits? I'm sure in Medved's mind, it's just a disturbing vision of prison orange fingerless gloves and garter belts, carefully trimmed fingernails, and of course they have sex merely by pulling each other's labia apart, followed by a shower. It's so disturbing I had to bring it up for him.

|6.9.07 @ 7:31AM|#

What of tall Dave's idea of having co-ed prisons?

I think that is the most interesting question here. The gay sex yes or no, forbidden or unforbidden is minutia really. Gay people can have sex in prison if they want to. Straight people can't, not unless they have awesome connections.

I suppose the huge problem would be pregnancy. Gay sex can't get people pregnant, so the law could treat them with preference.

Medved is an Anglicised spelling of Medvyed, a transliteration of the Russian for "bear". There is also an entire sub-culture of homosexual men known as "the bears", usually husky or muscular men with facial hair. It came into being more or less as a backlash against the whole idea of homosexuals being thought of exclusively as pretty-boy types.

Medved and Michael "silly savage!" Savage have such an obsession with homosexual acts that I really DO wonder if these two are closet cases.

librarian|6.9.07 @ 9:48AM|#

It's a good thing for Medved that it has not yet occured to the heteros that we, too, can have anal sex, or his point of view would seem sort of silly.

|6.9.07 @ 10:20AM|#

I always thought that the "homophobes are closeted gay men" shtick was just a convenient thing for gay rights supporters to say, but when you some of this stuff, that conclusion is simply unavoidable.

It's just too close to the scene in "Harold and Maude" in which the obviously-aroused priest lectures Harold about how disgusting his relationship is.

|6.9.07 @ 11:16AM|#

Actually, from a Christian perspective, gay rape is preferable to consensual gay sex. In gay rape, only one person sins, while in consensual sex two do.

Of course, that shouldn't be a basis for legislation, but I'm just clarifying a perspective that doesn't seem to be getting much defense here.

LarryA|6.9.07 @ 11:49AM|#

Um, is straight sex somehow deserving of governmental support, all of a sudden? If so, where do I get my subsidy check?

Um, is straight sex somehow deserving of governmental support, all of a sudden? If so, where do I get my subsidy ~~check~~ chick?

Fixed that.

MikeT|6.9.07 @ 12:21PM|#

TallDave,

Have you ever heard of a girl scout troop lead by men? I haven't.

|6.9.07 @ 2:45PM|#

In Los Angeles, Salem Communications owns KKLA ('christian radio') and 870 AM (I forget the call letters, but they run Medved, Hewitt, etc). In much of Christianity today, there is simply Blood Lust. KKLA lets people get their pious fix of RC Sproul, then then turn to 870 AM for the red meat/hate. Apparently a good biz strategy for Salem.

|6.9.07 @ 3:19PM|#

joe,

"I always thought that the "homophobes are closeted gay men" shtick was just a convenient thing for gay rights supporters to say"

Actually there is some pretty hard evidence produced by the empirical studies of the issue using a straight forward measure... the erection.

The circumference of the chubby a guy get when looking at gay porn predicts their scores on questions that measure "homophobia."

|6.9.07 @ 3:35PM|#

Wow, so many errors and misrepresentative statements!

Given that the HIV/AIDS rate in prisons is about five times higher than the rate outside,
Nope:
"On December 31, 2004, 1.9% of State prison inmates and 1.1% of Federal prison inmates were known to be infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)."
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/hivaids.htm
The general population rate is: .6% (CIA World Factbook).

Besides, the general population isn't going to be visiting for homosexual conjugal visits, and:

"In the United States, HIV infection and AIDS have had a tremendous effect on men who have sex with men (MSM). MSM accounted for 72% of all HIV infections among male adults and adolescents in 2005 (based on data from 33 states with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting), even though only about 5% to 7% of male adults and adolescents in the United States identify themselves as MSM [1, 2].
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/resources/factsheets/msm.htm

and that the conjugal visitor or prison is going to be providing condoms,
The linked article doesn't say that the prison provides condoms. It says: "Visitors are allowed to bring up to 10 condoms."

and that the prisoners are monitored[linked] during the visit,
The linked article doesn't say that they're monitored.

the visiting room might be the most disease-free room on the prison grounds.
There's no reason to believe that.

You might think that Medved's ideas are silly, but at least they're not as dishonest and/or ignorant as Weigel commentary.

|6.9.07 @ 3:42PM|#

The Michael Savage possibly used to have sex with men thing has actually been around for awhile. People claim Mr. Weiner was a lot different back in the day when he used to go skinny dipping with Ginsberg and the Beat poets.

Have never heard anything about Medved- though he definitely has a gay look about him.

|6.9.07 @ 3:48PM|#

Does getting an erection from gay porn mean someone is gay?

|6.9.07 @ 3:56PM|#

***Stephen Macklin | June 8, 2007, 7:50pm | #
I don't get the whole concept of conjugal visits in the first place. Isn't the whole point of prison to deny the convicted of the privileges and pleasures as freedom as punishment for their crime?***

Isn't the idea to reduce some of the sexual tension in prison, by providing an "approved" outlet for the energy?

And BTW: I'd appreciate it if the so-called Christians" would devote a little more of their energy trying to clean up their OWN acts for a change, rather than always trying to clean up everybody else's acts for them. Sheesh!

|6.9.07 @ 4:38PM|#

"Does getting an erection from gay porn mean someone is gay?"

Well, that is a tough question. Samuel Delaney, gay writer, would probably say yes, essentially, but then give you a hundred pages on how it is more complicated than that...

MisterMyke|6.9.07 @ 5:34PM|#

Medved is so homophobic he trashed the cartoon penguin movie "Happy Feet" about a "radical pro-gay agenda" he saw within it.

Oh, and he also saw anti-religious elements in there too.

The guy is so obviously a closet case it would be funny if he didn't have such a forum for his absurd rantings.

|6.9.07 @ 6:07PM|#

"And it's not just prison. Should we have gay Scout leaders? If so, would we also let a straight guy regularly take a dozen teenage girl Scouts on an overnight camping trip?"

Your assumption that scout leaders are there for sex with the kids is highly offensive.

biologist|6.9.07 @ 6:13PM|#

let me be the first to say it: Weigel is shilling for Big Gay Sex!

LeMur: from the article:

"Foeller said that during the conjugal visit his partner was troubled by the interruptions by guards every four hours -- a standard procedure during such visits to assure inmates have not escaped or caused harm."

sounds like they're being monitored, although not constantly watched, if that's what you thought was implied by "monitored"

|6.9.07 @ 9:10PM|#

The idea of conjugal visits is that they allow inmates to maintain family ties. They're probably also a good tool for inducing inmates to behave.

Timothy Hulsey|6.10.07 @ 1:38AM|#

Have you ever heard of a girl scout troop led by men? I haven't.

By the way, folks, the Girl Scouts of America does not discriminate against lesbians, which means that you may purchase those delicious Thin Mint cookies with a clear conscience.

|6.10.07 @ 5:14AM|#

***Stephen Macklin | June 8, 2007, 7:50pm | #
I don't get the whole concept of conjugal visits in the first place. Isn't the whole point of prison to deny the convicted of the privileges and pleasures s freedom as punishment for their crime?***

I would think that a smarter whole point of prison would be 'to reduce the amount of crime committed on the general populace'.

Anything else strikes me as counterproductive

SixΣ|6.10.07 @ 4:25PM|#

Does getting an erection from gay porn mean someone is gay?

No - arousal is an automatic response that some can't control and doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Because, under the logic - if arousal automatically meant positive thinking towards the stimulus - then all rape victims that became aroused wouldn't have a case - because they really wanted it.

FWIW - this doesn't prove the negative. IE arousal from a certain stimulus might mean for some that they are attracted to that stimulus - it just doesn't hold true in enough situtations to use the positive event as proof of anything.

|6.10.07 @ 7:38PM|#

SixSigma,

Not to be too pedantic, but there is a difference between a response to images and a response to physical stimulation... makes your rape example a little less than apt.

I won't, however, even attempt to get into a discussion of how we define a person's sexuality. . . just too complicated.

The studies that show the correlation btw the gay porn and homophobia are, however, harmonious with the folk psychological attribution of homophobia resulting from closeted homosexual feelings/reactions by these men.

|6.10.07 @ 10:49PM|#

Wow. Getting a hard-on from the sight of two men having sex doesn't make you gay?

Anyone else ever see "Brain Candy?"

"I was trying to keep him from falling down. The man's pants were around his ankles for God's sake!~"

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