I installed Skout about a month ago. I am only talking about the free version here not the 4$ one. I learned about Skout from a BBC 3 program called Websex: What’s the Harm? I am fascinated by how teenagers grow up into adulthood… or rather how all the powers that be work together to keep young people immature for as long as possible (teenagers are the best consumers so it behooves marketers to keep young people teens until 30) In Websex, Nathalie Emmanuel follows teens who use the Web and mobile technology to hook up. It is a very interesting documentary if you can find it. It took a whole year for me to get around to installing Skout on my Android phone!

I created a profile description and was rejected for being explicit. Since the app message was robotic in nature I suspected that the system simply flagged me for an inappropriate word. I therefore changes my description to reflect that I am a ‘s3x educator’ and all was fine from then on! I used my domina handle wondering if someone would look past it and Google me. None of the 20 or so guys I chatted with did any background check… Surprising (but not in a good way.)

Skout is a mobile profile-based chatting system with the usual dating site features such as picture gallery, backstage (I assume for sexier photos) descriptions, about me and a status update. Other features are comments on the photos, gifts, a hot list and blocking feature as well as the ability to search by distance, age, city and gender.

Skout is based on a points system. As with other mobile apps you can get additional perks or points by downloading other apps or games. In app points can be used to buy access to other people’s backstage photos and by that same logic, the points you spend on access to a backstage go to the other user who set up a backstage. The fact that this is not gendered is good because I have a huge thing against all types of system that deceive men into paying access while selling them the female user-base as the product (The main scam of most online dating services.) Points can also be used to send pictogram gifts to others which is cute. If you want to know the relative popularity of a user on Skout, you can look at how many gifts they have. That is only a partial indicator of popularity because giving a gift is pushed when you add someone to the hot list and therefore not an endorsement of someone talent as a conversationalist.

One of the more informational aspects of the system is looking at the comments men make on women’s photos. These can usually give away a lot of information about someone’s motives or level of class I find online comments of a sexual nature by strangers to be very off putting but since I do not sell myself online (literally or figuratively), I don’t have to delete any of those… Yet men still find a way to make very inappropriate comments on my Facebook photos… this is weird to me.

I find the medium of Skout to be too similar to SMS and too asynchronistic (not in real-time). Meaning that it takes too long to get a reply for it to be a conversation. I take for granted that all users, especially the younger ones are involved in another activity or many chats so I do not expect a reply but unfortunately, the system does not always update the screen when a new message comes in. You have to leave the conversation and come back in order to view the reply.

Skout is super invasive as it will buzz about every hour of the day or night. In order to keep Skout on my phone I have taken to putting it on Airplane mode when it’s time to sleep (That is easier than changing the notification setting in the app every time.)

Other than that the geolocation seems accurate enough to be useful. I enjoy the fact that I can use the app to direct attention to people who are conveniently located. I am not specifically looking for someone but if I do meet a like minded person it is better if they are close by or reachable without long-distance charges. I get the impression that the system is not as awesome for guys because I get a lot of messages from men who are in the US, which is not a place I find myself very often.

The user base of men is mostly under 30. As usual the oeuvre that is American Pie continues to deliver to women my age an endless stream of attention from young men 18-25. But be careful with Skout. While it is open to users over 18, a lot of the young users are actually UNDER 18. Some say it in their profile which is helpful. As a mature adult who often finds herself doling out love advice and answering sex-related questions in great details, I am weary of the fact that the receiver might be under 18 and it open me up to issues with inappropriateness. Of course SEX ED should be doled out in great details to kids 12+, something I have outlined in great details before. But I am more worried about people using this system to target young women in their area in order to stalk them, or create relationship with huge power imbalances, the kind of relationships older men conduct with younger women in their early twenties. Young women are not very clued into the tricks that older men (often married ones) use to scam them out of time and sex with no intention of creating a lasting relationship. Skout would be an efficient boost on productivity for creepy guys.

I plan to meet maybe one or two guys I have chatted with on Skout. Having a spouse and lover means that I have to consider really hard where I give my attention. I cannot take on a new relationship without considering the time it takes to give it proper attention and create something that is lasting. I am always up front about my poly situation and what it means in terms of everyday life. All my relationships are between 2-20 years long I plan to remove the application because my success rate with men is so much greater with those I meet in person inadvertently or by chance or though common friends. I find myself entertaining men with funny/unusual/sexy banter on such sites but it rarely turns into a situation where I am ALSO intrigued in return so it can only be a pastime and not a love finding tool. Still there are a lot of truly adorable guys on Skout.

So I give Skout 3 out of 5 stars. It is intriguing and has the right parts even though the UX is lacking and the app design only 50% of the way there. I hope Skout, Inc. improves it in the next few months.

So let’s move on to the advice.

Much of the profiles for men in my age range (40+) seem fishy. As with any system that is somewhat anonymous, there are plenty of people who misrepresent themselves on Skout. I am not talking about the married-but-saying-he-is-divorced type of emotional lair but rather fake profiles purposefully created to separate women from their money.

AVOIDING SCAMMERS ON SKOUT (An aside)

Men often tell me that most women on dating sites are fakes or ‘professionals’. I truly wonder how efficient it is for women who charge a retainer for being your girlfriend and if that was a good deal for the men who partake. I would love to hear some of your experiences. But here I am simply talking about he usual scam of faking emergencies and asking for money online.

The Great Thing About Skout is that it is location based. I am using an example I have observed first hand here, this is not a stereotype. Cell phone use is growing in Africa. This is absolutely wonderful for millions of people and kids who will have access to so wikipedia, Google, net radio and video. I expect great things to keep coming out of Africa in the next 5 years, including mobile startups as mobiles are recharged and not as susceptible to spotty power availability like desktops. Much of Africa doesn’t have landlines, the only viable and practical solution for connectivity in Africa is cell phones. They have less moving parts who can fall prey to dust intrusion (sand in Northern Africa is not like beach sand, it is a very powdery substance that gets into everything!) so expect Africans to be the driving force behind mobile usage trends in the next 5 years.

So, finally, here’s my explanation of why Skout inavertantly gives up people who are lying…

- If a user in Lagos, Nigeria creates a fake account.
- He copy-pastes his usual description which is long-winded and makes the following statements. It includes what seems like a real name. It makes the statement that he is a widower or unfortunately divorced (abandonned), well-to-do, Christian looking for a God-fearing woman with some form of urgency in the message. All of these statements are meant to attract sincere, nice and sweet women as they are the most easily scammed out of money. I do not knw of anyone who would call themselves God-fearing… I mean it doesn’t really make any other statement than iviting others to co-opt the word of God in order to manipulate you. So any profile that specifically request a God-fearing person has to be flagged as the most obvious scam attempt in online dating history. At this point a profile photo is submitted and approved by the staff along with the description.
- Then the person uses the system and uploads more photos. HOWEVER, these photos are geotagged and Skout can now properly display the user’s distance from you. So his profile shows weird discrepancies… If you are a New York City businessman, then why are you uploading pictures from 5981km away?

This is the joy of mobile technology… It is possible to fool a system’s geolocation abilities BUT it’s too hard to do for confidence scammers without deep understanding of how their phone works. Also, it’s hard to pay constant attention to the behavior of the GPS and IP geolocation system.

It is always important to see the person’s profile and read it carefully. I am always annoyed when I see profiles of service men which are written in an obvious non-American way and are most likely fakes using the good human capital of service men to scam women out of attention or money. Women do not mention publicly how this scam is prevalent on online dating sites for the past 10 years!

Some words however, are overused in completely inappropriate contexts. Take the word Whore for example which means a woman or man, who exchanges sex for money. At a time when most people know what the word prostitute or, more largely, sex worker means, the word whore can be avoided. Unlike the word Slut which has a positive context in women-centric groups and can even have an aspirational connotation in the world of BDSM, the word whore always has a negative connotation. My favorite use of the word is to refer to politicians who conveniently change their values to serve their wealthy donors, notably ‘Koch Whores’. Besides this oh-so-easy pun, there is much language that can be used to describe unconscionable, unethical, unscrupulous actions.

However, more and more, I hear young women use the term to refer to themselves. Recently, I heard a woman say: “I’m kind of a label whore.” What does that mean? Does it literally mean “I am an unscrupulous person who exchanges sexual favors to buy designer shoes, bag and clothing?” or is it a self-deprecating comment we are supposed to find charming? Why refer to yourself as a whore in casual fashion-related context AND in a Youtube video? I cannot think of a context where a woman can refer to herself as a whore outside of a sex work situation. And even then, prostitution, the act of providing attention, companionship and sex for a fee is hardly something that can be described as unethical. It’s just one of those activities that are unfortunately illegal even though there is no intelligent argument to leave it in the control of and to the benefit of criminals (like marijuana growing and selling).

Should the word whore be retired?

What’s up with young women and ‘Girls’? Young women are up in arms about Lena Dunham’s new HBO TV Show ‘Girls’. To read the reviews and their comments it seems like young women are fuming over the fact that the show isn’t a specific representation of their own life. And why should it be? However, most of the reviews also read like they were written by young would-be writers who seem miffed that THEY didn’t get a HBO development deal from their own ‘memoirs-written-at-24′. Setting aside the envy factor, the rest of the reviews fault the show for not being diverse enough. Perhaps these people should visit ‘Tiny Furniture’ (also by Dunham) to be introduced to slow train wreck of her life.

Why does this TV show in particular need to be relevant to all twenty-something girls? Isn’t TV full of shows that do a greater disservice to Girldom? Like Gossip Girl, 90210, or any other overly produced show where women sport clothing inconsistent with their budget and hair/makeup inaccessible to normal busy working women. Everything about ‘Girls’ is under-styled and gray-ish and that’s nice for a change. Girls offers a view into a bubble inhabited by a small clique of people just going on about their neurotic/narcissistic life.

This isn’t the time to cut other women down for making their art. Stop acting as if there can only be ONE show about Girls written and produced by a girl. We do not live in that world anymore where all women need to aggressively cut each other down because there can only be one token pretty girl, one token manager woman, one token female writer.

I hope ‘Girls’ is so successful that it increases the number of opportunities available to young women writers.

Little did I know that so many prominent men with a large audience would parrot the dissected behaviors in public in the following weeks!

After a year of hinting at it in various creepy ways, right wing zealots in the U.S. have officially decided to wage a war against women, I am even more worried for young women, including teenagers.

Rush is Vandalizing The Lives of Girls!

When adults propagate lies about contraception and stigmatize women on the Pill by calling them sluts and whores, it filters into the rest of our lives. When Rush Limbaugh attacks a successful and educated woman on the radio, it diminishes all our accomplishments and vandalizes the everyday life of girls everywhere who will have to put up with more attacks from ignorant hate mongers and bullies in high school and college. And if Limbaugh’s 3-day tirade on Sandra Fluke wasn’t enough of a clue to his mysoginy, the following week he attacked an award-winning journalist and writer calling her “Overeducated”.

Here’s a thought:
Seeing a daughter make it through
law school, get published and win
awards probably makes all
parents really proud.

Does Rush really think his listeners hate their daughters as much as he does?

Sex Is Not Evil!

Sex is important. Sexuality is a much broader topic beyond ‘the having of the sex’. Sex is a skill, a set of knowledge, a quintessentially wonderful bonding activity for lovers. Sex is an important part of adult life. Sex gets better with age. The way one feels about sex and the quality of the sex they are having is directly linked to happiness (or lack thereof). Sex is simply part of the life of most adults, like sleeping and eating. Get over it!

We women bear the burden of sex. As soon as we are sexually active, we are the ones who are mostly at risk for STIs, unwanted pregnancies and violence (both emotional, psychological and physical). Women don’t refuse condoms, men do. Many women choose the pill out of necessity and it is a necessity for decades! While men only need to use a condom those times they do have sex we have to take a pill everyday even whether we have sex 3 or 333 times a year. If we forget, then the whole month’s effort is null and void. Birth control is not a sex-related responsibility, it’s a lifelong responsibility intrinsically linked to health and quality of life for women and their WHOLE family. Most women are on birth control, a statistic that seems constant across all walks of life. The burden is already large on women of reproductive age but it’s not enough for old white and orange men who continue to enact anti-human and misogynistic laws while displaying shocking ignorance on the subject (and even content of their bills).

Free speech: Sometimes, You Get What You Pay For…

Rush Limbaugh may be free to have constant inflammatory verbal diarrhea on his show but he seems to think he doesn’t have to be 100% responsible for what comes out of his mouth. You can say what you want but have to accept the consequences. Say something untrue, stupid or miss-leading and critics who will call you on your lies, ignorance and misrepresentations. Hate on accomplished young women day-after-day and people will start to pretend they don’t know you. Here and there, there will always be under-informed people who thinking that the right to free speech makes their lies true or their ignorance knowledge and that is sad. In Canada we have the same right to free speech as in the U.S. but generally speaking people who have an audience tend to not want to come off as complete ignorant fools when speaking or writing in public. There is no specific fetishization or celebration of stupidity or ignorance in Canada… yet… Sure, we have some monumentally stupid people here too but they don’t wind up with a syndicated national radio show. Even our anchorpeople are actual mature human beings with knowledge about or a sincere interest in the news they are talking about! U.S.-style stupidity is slowly creeping in on (Fox-like) Sun TV and on one particularly embarrassingly dumb trash radio station from my hometown but it’s still very much avoidable.

But what I now see in U.S. media is that the factual news is being replaced by gossip (sometimes billed as opinion) and comments (which devolve into off-topic hate speech and right-left feuds only a few moments after a story is published on most sites). Investigative journalism is being replaced by instigative journalism (where concerned parties’ comments are billed as attacks even if tame to avoid having to fact-check and provide context to the meat of the story.) The concept of news is getting really close to the bottom of the toilet bowl and soon, nobody will be able to save it from being flushed away forever.

Miss Eva Vavoom enjoys sharing life and sex tips with her girlfriends while knitting dildo cosies and drinking Genmaicha tea.

So I thought today that I would take a little bit on time to dismantle this sexist and mysoginist attitude for young women everywhere who have to endure the insolent comments of men about women.

It’s About Shame. It’s About Control. It really has nothing to do with you.

Men are generally quite attracted to women of all shapes and sizes and will be all too happy to share an intimate moment with you even if your left boob sags more than your right one. Any man who makes a disparaging remark about you or another woman’s level of attractiveness should be avoided at all cost. Men who do not like women should not be trusted as experts on female beauty. Those men should be discussing their fear of women with a psychiatrist and not you. There are many flavors of this type of mysoginy out there:

- The slut shamer : Someone who makes disparaging comments about women’s sexuality have issues with their sexuality, notably, how they are ashamed of themselves. Slut shamers feel more comfortable living in a mental space that enriches this reality by watching porn or porn-ey media that only allows fuckable women to be visible. If given the opportunity he’ll say things like: ‘women shouldn’t dress like sluts if they do not want to be raped’. The slut shamer is all too happy to put the responsibility for all his pent up self-hatred and sexual shame on a woman rather than face his own grave self-esteem issues. The slut shamer always has something incredibly innapropriate to say in all social circumstances and should be avoided at all cost.

- The control freak: The control freak must prevent women from rising above his status and he has found that the easiest way to do this is to criticize their appearance, age or any other aspect that is linked to outside appearance (or fuckability). Control freaks have found that making women insecure about their appearance, or comparing them to other women, is the easiest way to control them and limit their success in life. The control freak’s ultimate goal is to put a women in a place where she must obtain his validation in order to cross an imaginary door just ahead. Control freak can then pretend to dangle the key to aforementioned door in order to obtain various perks, advantages and sexual favors. It is easier to avoid slut shamers but control freaks tend to be validated in many spheres of business so you will encounter them more often. The control freak has no weapon against a independent and confident woman who does not need external validation.

- The slut shaming control freak : The slut shaming control freak lives in a strict confined mental place where women are second class citizens. His sentiment of superiority  and sexual shame come from the antiquated traditions of his religion. He sincerely feels that women are suspect and men are stewards of women and all their bodily functions. The slut shaming control freak is absolutely appalled by the idea that a woman could happily exist on her own and decide the course of her life, what she will study, where she will work, how many kids she will have and who she will fuck. If a women in his entourage steps aside the restrictive unrealistic confines of womanhood set forth by his cult, he will feel morally justified to psychologically or physically hurt her. The slut shaming control freak can be dangerous. Once he has outed himself, you should run away.

Beauty grows from the inside out

Most people over a certain age understand that outward appearance is not a good indicator of someone’s beauty. In the past 50 years, beauty has been completely commoditized. Beauty is therefore something you buy, not something you are. The media plays the control freak card in order to sell you beauty as something you must attain in order to be able to enjoy life. I have never run into a beach patrol unit that tells fat and ugly women to go away but this metaphorical entity has kept my mother from wearing a bathing suit on the beach for almost 20 years.

There are two really expensive subscription plans in our Western lives. For men it is the subscription to the promise of sex. For women it is the subscription to the promise of beauty.

You can opt-out! You will then have so much time to grow your beautiful self from the inside out. When your beauty stems from your confidence, your qualities, your accomplishments and your success, it becomes indivisible from YOU. This attitude will also win you an entourage of sincerely awesome people who provide great insulation against the increasing vapidity of modern life.

I almost threw away this delightfully mistranslated trial packet of lubricant! I think that Chinese translation cannot be blamed for this one.

When I was Courtney’s age I fantasized that I was exactly the same person I have become today. In my fantasies I had 100% control over my life, did many spur of the moment projects, was in a plural marriage with 3 awesome men who got along great and dated a lot of really creative people. This is what I fantasized about constantly from about 12 until my early 20′s when I was able to do concrete things to realize my fantasies. It is therefore entirely believable to me that Courtney’s current phase could be a ploy to realize a very specific socio-sexual fantasy.

So far she has put on an award-worthy bimbo show, lured in a z-list celebrity husband who lives to clean up after her, shopped a lucrative reality tv show and has Dr. Drew on speed dial. Dr. Drew’s secret theory seems to be that Courtney will wind up on his ‘Celebrity Rehab’ program before she is even 21 but I am holding out for my own prize.

My theory is that after only a few years of punking the media with her bimbo experiment, creepy wedding and subsequent shower of inappropriate Facebook pictures, Courtney will tell us it was all a joke/performance to distract us and come out with a tell all book about the vapid creepy Hollywood bubble she now inhabits.

‘Cuz that would be funny and I would say ‘Bravo!’ and buy that book…

Why are creepy old men injecting themselves into the private life of women?

It becomes really obvious that the ideology behind these abortion push-back bills is to declare women incompetent when it comes to making decisions about their body. This can also be seen in a really creepy video shown by Melissa Harris Perry on The Rachel Maddow show of August 30th, 2011 (at 3:17 of the segment). The old gray-haired men whom, by the way, have failed to display any knowledge or understanding of women, their bodies and reproductive system sincerely feel they are better adept at making decisions regarding reproduction than women and even their doctor. In their world, the condom is the only convenient method of contraception, and therefore the man, is the one who decides the purpose and outcome of sexual activity.

Without reproductive freedom, all women are sentenced to poverty.

Because we have to work harder for less pay and raise children while we take on most or all of the household work, it is imperative for us women to control when and how we have children so as to give them the best possible care during their life. This is why the demonization of Planned Parenthood in the U.S. is so shocking. The fact that abortion is legal and the idea of family planning is what has contributed to the betterment of the lives of millions of people in the last 40 years. Regardless, 1/5th of children in the U.S. still live in poverty and poverty affects women at a greater rate than men.

This medieval mindset rules the GOP.

In addition to having no knowledge of reproduction and contraception, Mitt Romney has very little regard for women’s concerns as he dismissed a woman’s extremely important question without ever answering it! Furthermore, the birth-control pill has many other uses including, but not limited to, as a menstrual cycle regulator for millions of women whom, like me, suffer from Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrom (PCOS).

If sex if free, then why do people spend so much of their money on the mere promise of it?

I have come to believe that most North Americans do not know what sex is whatever their age. It takes a long time to develop sexual intelligence and sexual competence but it seems everything is set up to disable people from attaining these goals. For me sex is a fun, pleasurable and bonding activity and I now credit my success at it on my basic knowledge of the sexual body, the sexual brain and, very importantly, on my ability to select ideal compatible partners. For most people, sex is a product created to separate them from their money.

There is a weird catch-22 going on in sex today. Schools teach abstinence only to teenagers who are marketed sex 24/7. If teenagers had true, scientific and usable information about sexuality they could build on their sexual intelligence. Knowing what a healthy and pleasurable sexual lifestyle is, they would probably not buy into the sex that is sold to them in pornography or rom-coms. As an adult, I spend a considerable amount of time researching sexuality through reading, discussing and practicing awesome sex with awesome partners. What few people know is that most human sexuality is unrelated to the sum of its sexual parts. But in order to discover the wonderful sex life that is 75% technically abstinent, you have to grow up in a gender-equal community that values knowledge and emotional intelligence and accepts discussion about all topics of adult life including sexuality (and economics, parenting, marriage, etc.) Just a note here, abstaining from having sex with sexually uneducated, incompatible and immature partners is a good thing. Going through a series of regrettable experiences forced upon you by peer pressure in a society of one-upmanship fueled by Internet porn is not so great…

I am very sad when I get very basic questions about sex from men in their twenties. I have sat in a room full of twenty something women talking about their sex life. It has always seemed to me that young women take for granted that what they know is correct and ae the ones less likely to ask for directions. But then again, indirectly, I notice more women in adult sex classes. And yes, as an adult, you should attend sex classes!!!

I understand why our world is set up to create people incredibly uninformed about sex. As North Americans we are groomed to become consumers and therefore purchase every aspect of our humanity ready-made. We purchase our values printed on t-shirts, paint-on our gender with makeup, select passive entertainment from a database of millions of titles as we eat our food pre-prepared and drink suspect liquids from a plastic bottle because we have even forgotten that water comes from the tap. Oh and of course, most of these products come packaged with the sexual innuendo-filled promise of sexy sex.

Here’s a tidbit of info: Even if you reach the base camp of Mount Consumerism, you won’t be able to see the top of the mountain and will always feel like you need more things to be happy, sexy and fulfilled. Powerful moneyed people demonstrate everyday how there is not enough money in the world to reach the top of that mountain.

We live surrounded by sex but very little useful information about sex. We know all the details of the ailing sexual lives of politicians, false prophets and billionaires. We can watch the regrettable sexual encounters of celebrities online but have very little insight from people who are doing sex right. So without ongoing comprehensive age-appropriate sex ed, teenagers will continue to learn about sex through a series of regrettable experiences forced upon them by peer pressure in a society of one-upmanship fueled by Internet porn. And that path doesn’t even lead to a happy and fulfilling adult sex life.

In order to know what sex is, one has to get correct basic information about our sexual organs and how they work. Most information available online about the sexual organs of humans are still incomplete! There are three facets to the physical sexual curriculum, reproduction, sexuality and sexual health and hygiene.

The majority of our sexuality lives in the brain. In order to enjoy it we must know how to do research, communicate with others, ask questions and talk about sex in a mature non-judgmental way.

And we still haven’t had sex yet!

We have to seriously tackle the issues of sexual conversation in a connected age with education about sexting, social media and online dating.

We have to discuss other aspects of adult life related to procreation such as the true personal and financial costs of child bearing, birth and rearing (parenting and family planning).

And we still haven’t had sex yet!

In order to go through adolescence understanding the changes that we go through and that our peers go through, we have to develop an understanding of what gender is and what sexual orientation is (and know that these two things are VERY different from each other.)

We have to develop tools to understand ourselves and what we value in a partner whether it is for play or for a long-term relationship.

And we still haven’t had sex yet!

We have to look at sexual and gender roles through history and see how sexuality followed suit.

We have to be able to look at suggestive or sexual messaging in various marketing forms and develop the skills to understand how it lies about the sexuality it is trying to sell us. This tools are very useful in preventing the epidemic body-issues that affect boys and girls and will impact negatively in their future sex-life.

And we still haven’t had sex yet!

We have to discuss how pornography (the leading source of sexual information for children and teens) affects people in a negative way both emotionally and physically (in addition to being very questionable as a source of sex info.)

We have to discuss illegal and prescription drugs and how they enable, inhibit, improve or impair sexual activity and sexual health.

And we still haven’t had sex yet!

We have to discuss consensuality, emotional abuse, sexual assault and rape.

We have to discuss what an ethical sexual lifestyle might entail. From discussions on selecting and vetting potential partners to negotiating sexual encounters.

And we still haven’t had sex yet!

We have to discuss what marriage is, what committed relationships are, what monogamy or being faithful means and develop communication skills to attain egalitarian relationships where all parties proactively define what these things mean within their own relationship.

We have to look at a a gazillion sexual products, most of which come without instructions, and dissect what they are for, their potential benefits or risks and if even if they have any use at all.

And of course we would have to talk about the complete relationship cycle in today’s intensely connected digital world including breakup etiquette.

And we probably still haven’t had sex yet!

This incomplete curriculum could certainly sustain weekly sex ed through 8 years of schooling! And there are so many more topics to tackle once we reach college!

If abstinence-only education came with actual information about sex rather than a bucket load of shame and denial then it wouldn’t be detrimental to the lives of so many young people.

Sexual education is not about having sex, it’s about learning to survive and eventually thrive in a world that specifically intends to keep you from reaching a healthy mature *AWESOME* sex life.

There is controversy brewing about Dr. Bachmann’s practice in the media. Last night, Jon Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld did a very funny segment on Mr. Bachmann’s apparently gay affect. Jon called him a hypocrite which shocked me. I am a coach myself, I teach men to attain relationship and sexual bliss. A lot of that involves establishing a strategy and putting in into play over many months. Journalists deride the Bachmann’s in various ways bout it is obvious to me that these are two sincere individuals. You can’t be sincere AND a hypocrite at the same time. You can be sincere AND completely wrong that’s for sure. I have researched the ‘pray the gay away’ movement and come to the conclusion that the only people who sincerely think that homosexuality is a choice are the people who have chosen not to be gay. I am someone who has specifically chosen my lifestyle and constructed a life of bliss based on my vision of adulthood since I was 12 (i.e. being an influential person in the life of my friends and enjoying a non-monogamous lifestyle of knowledge, play and sex) The Bachmanns seem to me like people who have accomplished that as well. They seem happy together, sound sincere when they speak and have raised 5 children and fostered two dozen more. As a couple who devotes time every single day to the welfare of other, they are exceptional. They are walking the walk on what THEY sincerely believe unlike the Koch whores who make up a considerable amount of Congress. Considering what appears to be Mr. Bachmann’s choice, it’s probably not easy! I can’t deride them for making a choice and sticking to it and I understand why their first jest would be to get others in on their bliss!

The caveat is that I know from experience that embarking into a ‘role’ in adulthood or a relationship can be, as Michele says: ‘Bondage!’ and lead to heart disease, depression and regret in some people. Life is kinda short and that tends to hit home in the 40s. And you thought that was a mid-life crisis?!

Now as much as I admire them for their family skills, they would be unlikely to admire me. I gladly travel on the edge of society and every time I’ve gone once around, I discover that the edge has moved a little bit outward and once again I go. I upgrade my knowledge of how people think, feel and love on a daily basis. The Bachmanns, however, are running on legacy software. Faith is one thing. For instance, it’s quite cool that God speaks to Michele directly. Hey God speaks directly to me too! But I suspect her entourage may also have helped convince her to go into politics. Religion is a whole nother ball game though. It’s a program. And religious people’s reasoning is based on a database of information which has little to do with facts or science. Clusters of people who run on the same legacy software like Catholicism or Evangelical Christianism are natively compatible and they get along swell. Often these people are in the same age group so their priorities are similar as well. But their legacy software is full of security holes (superstitions) that pose a REAL threat to progressive society. But when legacy software people try to broadcast their antiquated ideas and pseudo facts to a generation under 30, we collectively return a WTF?! error. And that happens en masse during political campaigns.

There are moneyed interests whom, after years of investing in think tanks, have figured out a way to hack the legacy software and install it in all aspects of U.S. life with devastating effect. And kudos to them for acting at the exact right time when people who run on buggy and insecure legacy software are still young enough to be bought and used in politics, notably the U.S. Congress. And what a resounding success it has been for the roll back of human rights in the U.S.

Just so you understand my position here :

It is wrong to prevent people from unionizing or uniting for a cause when corporations can have unlimited amount of lawyers. It is abusive to prevent people from expressing their gender and sexuality. It is psychologically abusive to indoctrinate children into a religion. It is anti-humanistic to remove access to sexual health preventative medical care. It is just plain cruel to declare women unable to make decisions about their own heath and reproduction. And, it is also wrong to micro-manage a soldier’s career based on whether or not they attend religious rallies organized by some of their leaders.

You know when you grow up and suddenly realize that your parents don’t know any better, are blatantly wrong, are somewhat embarrassingly daft. Well it must be how some young adults are feeling in the U.S. At least I hope that that is how they are feeling because they are stuck interacting with people who refuse to upgrade their database to include recently acquired knowledge, scientific progress and a reasonable understanding of how people experience their lives today. Unfortunately we can’t enlighten them against their will. We could try to influence them by writing what is important to us on 100$ bills! Perhaps Colbert SuperPAC can make a difference even though progressives are a few years lacking in that effort.

It is important to push DIFFERENT people into politics. Sincere people who make sense. Michele and Marcus represent a subset of the population who are working hard to turn all of us into the gut bacteria of giant multinational corporations. That is their hopes and dreams for the future.

But take the case of Ron Paul. I don’t know if his policies are all feasible yet but researching them is quite an adventure! Heck he could be sincere AND wrong like the Bachmanns but most of what he says makes enough sense to me to be involved into researching whether or not ending the Federal Reserve is feasible or even a good idea. Mr. Paul is sincere and consistent and that has netted him his own army of followers and helpers. When Ron Paul speaks you get the impression he is speaking to the priorities of his core supporters who affect his work through volunteering, not just giving money!!! So it is possible for non-billionaires to affect the quality of politician we get!

So your homework today is to change the world changing the politicians. You will look around you and try to spot that one person under 30 whom you feel has the leadership qualities to represent you. And then you will embark on a campaign to get them to accomplish something important on their list of things to do. Then, you will continue this effort by getting them into a leadership position at a local or state level. One would have to be a raging narcissist to decide for themselves to go into the political scene (Or want to increase their speaking fees and sell more books…) Leadership develops really well when people around you encourage you to take issues and projects on.