knee-squeezing twits

Actual Researchers Prefer Not to Speculate, But For Ev Psych the EADR Gene Has Gotta Be About Hair and Boobs

Posted by figleaf on Sat, 2013-02-23 14:37

Ermahgerd Ervarlershanery Psercholerghy!!!
Image by figleaf published with a Creative Commons license.

So some evolutionary biologists, Yana G. Kamberov and Pardis C. Sabeti, recently published a paper about a relatively recent (only 35,000 years old) gene mutations in humans that appears almost exclusively in East Asians. The mutated gene, EADR, appears to be responsible for thick hair, distinctively-shaped teeth, small breasts, and extra sweat glands. It's not carried by populations of European or African descent. With me so far? Great! So far we're just talking about regular, everyday genetics research.

The problem arises, as it usually does, in the interpretation of regular, everyday genetics research. Because sooner or later -- usually sooner -- some asshat "evolutionary psychologist" or sociobiologist is going to come along and insist it couldn't be about anything but sex.

Katy Waldman has the scoop.

Joshua Akey, a geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle, [says] it all comes down to pretty ladyparts.

According to Akey, “thick hair and small breasts are visible sexual signals which, if preferred by men, could quickly become more common as the carriers had more children.” In fact, he claims, “the sexually visible effects of EDAR are likely to have been stronger drivers of natural selection than sweat glands.”

Basically, the genetic mutation flourished because men wanted to do the no-no-cha-cha with women who carried it. Oops, I’d forgotten that science, the world, etc., revolves around what males find attractive. Never mind that this assumes an alarming passivity on the part of the females. Did they have no say in their mating partner? (That’s a rhetorical question: Studies throughout the animal kingdom show that it’s usually the females who decide who gets action and who doesn’t.) And even supposing that the women had no agency, were prehistoric East Asian men really so very picky? Did they typically refuse intercourse with large-breasted or fine-haired women? I am trying to imagine a caveman turning down a willing sexual partner on account of a triviality like insufficiently luxuriant tresses, and not just one caveman but the entire sperm-producing Pleistocene population.  

Source: Slate.com

So let's review. Here we've got a gene mutation that codes for four characteristics.. If one of those characteristics increases the survival prospects of one's descendants the whole mutation will likely be conserved and might even eventually outcompete all other variations on the gene. So it could be better ability to sweat -- but how useful would that have been in the extremely hot, muggy climate of east Asia 35,000 years ago? It could have been the teeth. It could have been the hair. It could even have been the breasts. And even if it was the breasts, it could have been that the particular configuration of smaller breasts were more efficient for nursing, less subject to infection, less likely to interfere with running or other physical activities. And sure, they could even have been more attractive to men, although given how many generations it takes for a characteristic to evolve and how fickle fashionable preferences tend to be in humans, it would have had to have been hella more attractive than all other breast types to have consistently been preferred by mating decision makers (men or, often as not, matchmaking parents) over tens of thousands of years.

But one way or another, if all characteristics are encoded by a single gene and just one of them confers a reproductive advantage then all the rest are just carried along for the ride.

Which, without considerable further research, makes it essentially a value judgement and/or an expression of conscious or unconscious bias to proclaim that one and only one of those characteristics "must" be the important one.

Now. Did the original researchers, Kamberov or Sabeti, make any such claim? No. Did their co-author Daniel Lieberman, another genetics researcher make the claim? Quite the contrary. Instead when Waldman asked him outright he said " “The problem with all selection, but especially sexual selection, is that it’s impossible to test on humans. We were careful not to make assumptions about the selective benefits of the gene.” And did Jerry Coyne, another evolutionary geneticist Waldman spoke to make any such claim? Nope! Once again an actual evolutionary geneticist said the idea was "extremely dubious" and, besides, sexually selected traits tend not to work that way anyway. (They usually arises in one sex only and generally impose that would otherwise be filtered out by increased mortality if the other sex didn't preferentially select it.)

Nope. The only scientist to jump on the titties and hair bandwagon was someone from the David Barash school (literally! Barash and Akey are both at the University of Washington) of just-so storytellers, a.k.a. making shit up to fit your expectations.

And what a story it is! A mutation crops up that affects teeth and chest shape, number of sweat glands, and hair thickness in both men and women. Some of these characteristics -- thick, shiny hair in particular -- are considered attractive in both men and women. And yet, somehow, the only possible advantage a nominally professional geneticist can imagine the mutation might convey is to make women more sexually desirable to men. But not the other way around? Really? No woman might be more attracted to a man with thicker, more luxurious hair? And therefore preferentially want to "mate" with him (a.k.a. jump his bones?)

Oh right. Based on all the evidence the primary purpose of reflex "evolutionary psychology" speculation is to buttress the dominant paradigm: it's simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a woman to have sexual desire; it's simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a man to be sexually desired. Therefore it's doubly inconceivable to Mr. Akey and his kind that nicer hair would make any difference to a woman's partner preference. End of story.

Fortunately there are other kinds of scientists.


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De Botton Either Has the Best Spam Filter or the Shortest Memory Span Ever

Posted by figleaf on Wed, 2013-02-13 17:25

Photo by Flickr user vistavision. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Photo by Flickr user vistavision. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Another way de Botton's claim...

Erections and lubrication simply cannot be effected by willpower and are therefore particularly true and honest indices of interest. In a world in which fake enthusiasms are rife, in which it is often hard to tell whether people really like us or whether they are being kind to us merely out of a sense of duty, the wet vagina and the stiff penis function as unambiguous agents of sincerity.

Source: Psychology Today

...isn't, um, "particularly true and honest," let alone an "unambiguous agent of sincerity" would be that based on 3rd, 2nd, and lately 1st-hand evidence, it can be the case that no erection doesn’t mean not aroused. For some men some of the time, and almost all men as we age, the darn things aren’t up when you really, reallly, really want them to be.

Also, not to put too fine a point on it but not that long ago something like 27% of all email spam was for variations on erectile "dysfunction" remedies!  How can he still make such a ridiculous assertion!?!?!?  How can he not have made that connection?!?!?

Also, as another commenter, Crista, at Emily Nagoski's blog pointed out, vaginal lubrication can persist well after arousal has gone. And, of course, like erectile inconstancy, for some women some of the time, and most women as they age, vaginal lubrication can also "fail" to arrive either before or after orgasms, let alone arousal.

All of which just goes to show it would be an insult to sheep to call this guy de Button a mutton head.

I mean, look.  I'm sure that for a privileged, cis, straight, white, high-income, younger than middle age, educated, non-medication-using, possibly non-sex-abused-or-abusing man from a developed country de Botton was just trying to make a philosophical point about how nice it is that there can be some confidence of certainty when your partner's shows genuine (if also highly typically indicated) arousal for you, as opposed to some other forms of communication that can be confused with, say, rote observances -- for instance anniversary "remembered" in your Outlook calendar, flowers orderd by her secretary, vaseline on the teeth to keep you smiling for in-laws, Lake Woebegone assurances of "no, it's fine, fine, really it's fine."


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Alain de Botton Not Just Wrong but Dangerous About Meaning of Involuntary Erections, Wetness

Posted by figleaf on Wed, 2013-02-13 10:57

I already didn't like "philosopher and writer" Alain de Botton before he got is gig at Psychology Today. Now, via I've got a serious problem with him. Here's why I think you should too.

In a post called 12 Rude Revelations about Sex de Botton makes the following startling, and wrong, and very, very dangerous assertion

Involuntary physiological reactions such as the wetness of a vagina and the stiffness of a penis are emotionally so satisfying (which means, simultaneously, so erotic) because they signal a kind of approval that lies utterly beyond rational manipulation. Erections and lubrication simply cannot be effected by willpower and are therefore particularly true and honest indices of interest. In a world in which fake enthusiasms are rife, in which it is often hard to tell whether people really like us or whether they are being kind to us merely out of a sense of duty, the wet vagina and the stiff penis function as unambiguous agents of sincerity.

Source: Psychology Today (naturally)

Emily Nagoski nicely dismantles de Botton's factual, psychological, and sexual claims so I don't have to. (Hint: if he were right then most men have serious sexual attraction to full bladders first thing in the morning.)

That means I can concentrate on de Botton's seriously creepy sexual-violence-supporting implications instead.

Involuntary reactions such as wetness or erections are "satisfying?" "Erotic?!?!" Seriously?

 this is giving direct aid and support to rapists? Because that whole “if you didn’t really want this you wouldn’t be hard/wet” is one of the big guns in abusers and rapist’s bags of psychological tricks. (Tip for de Button: try Googling “arousal during sexual assault.” Asshole!)

One result that pops up early on is from survivor-support site the Pandora Project (my italics.)

A sexual response or orgasm in the course of sexual assault is often the best-kept and most deeply shameful secret of many survivors. If you are such a survivor, it’s essential that you know that sexual response in sexual assault is extremely common, well-documented and nothing for you to be ashamed of.

…

And it isn’t just about you and the way your body responded either. It may also have been one of the repertoire of dirty tricks rapists use to get their victims to feel responsible. Diana Russell writes that “Some rapists think they’re lovers” and tells us:
(These rapists) think that if a woman is stimulated in ‘just the right way’ she will enjoy it. The conquest may seem more important if the rapist believes he has turned the woman on physically, particularly if it is against her will. Getting the victim to respond physically may also alleviate the rapist’s guilt feelings.

Source: Pandora Project: Sexual Arousal & Sexual Assault

Or regarding erections, from Living Well, and Australian site for recovering male victims (my italics)

People who sexually abuse boys and men often use their knowledge about male bodies to deliberately cause an erection and/or ejaculate to occur. They do this because they know it is extremely confusing and embarrassing. They might also do it to try and convince both the person being abused and themselves that what is happening is not really abuse. Whatever the reasons, ultimately they know that if the boy or man was aroused, they might be less likely to tell anyone about the abuse due to feelings of shame and embarrassment.

Source: Living Well: Sexual Assault and Arousal

In that context de Button’s choice of the words “Involuntary physiological reactions such as the wetness of a vagina and the stiffness of a penis are emotionally so satisfying (which means, simultaneously, so erotic)” (my italics) are just beyond horrifying and right up there with encouraging, endorsing, and maybe even celebrating sexual violence.

Maybe he’s too stupid to understand. Maybe he thinks he thinks he’s being “edgy” and contrarian. Maybe he’s trying to rationalize his own prior victimization. Or perpetration! But one way or another it’s not funny either that he said it, that his editors passed on it, or especially that Psychology Today (of all people*!) published it!!!

Sweet Mother of Pearl!

* Not that I expect Psychology Today to be particularly interested in truth, reality, or responsibility -- after all they seem to have picked de Button to replace their previous calculated-to-offend, too-distraced-even-for-them columnist Satoshi Kawazana -- but for a journal purporting to be about, well, psychology, today, I would at least expect them to have some sensitivity to the psychological and emotional well being of survivors of sexual violence.


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Boykin: Women Shouldn't Be in Combat Because Men Are Too Modest?

Posted by figleaf on Sun, 2013-01-27 15:41


Everyone Poops (My Body Science Series) By Taro Gomi

According to a quote from David Edwards at Raw Story, General Jerry Boykin thinks women are and would continue to be great combat soldiers. But men still shouldn't have to serve with them. Because tampons? Let's take a look.

Emphasis mine:

During a Sunday interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin why he disagreed with the Pentagon’s decision to remove the ban on women in combat.

“You need to frame this thing correctly,” Boykin explained. “It’s not an issue of women in combat. Women are in combat already and have been in combat since 9/11, and in fact, prior to that.”

“My issue here is mixing the genders in infantry units, armor units and special forces units is not a positive, there are many distractors there, which puts burden on the small-unit combat leaders and actually creates an environment — because of their living conditions — that is not conducive to readiness.”

Boykin agreed that “some women can meet the standard,” but the issue was about “personal hygiene.”

“What I’ve raised is the issue of mixing the genders in those combat units, where there is no privacy, where they’re out on extended operations and there’s no opportunity for people to have any privacy whatsoever,” the retired lieutenant general insisted.

“Now, as a man who has been there and as a man who has some experience in those kinds of units, I certainly don’t want to be in that environment with a female because it’s degrading and humiliating enough to do your personal hygiene and the other normal functions among your teammates,” Boykin opined.

Source: Raw Story

Ok, so no doubt "some women" can meet the standard. But not all, which is fine, because not all men can meet the standard either.

So meeting the standard isn't the problem.

And I don't even think he's using "personal hygiene" as the usual euphemism for pads, tampons, or other menstrual products, so I don't think he's got the stereotypical macho "girl cooties" problem.  

So it's not a matter of Newt Gingrich style mythology of keeping women out of combat because "females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections, and they don't have upper body strength."

Instead look at his "framing" again:

I certainly don’t want to be in that environment with a female because it’s degrading and humiliating enough to do your personal hygiene and the other normal functions among your teammates.

Let's go one step further and overlook that bit where he differentiates men as "teammates" and women as "females" and get to the very heart of what he seems to see as the real problem: the degradation and humiliation of, what?  Men in combat having to "go poopie" around "females?

Seriously, gang!

When are we going to get it through their thick skills that actual non-stereotypical men can handle women seeing their peepees in non-sexual situations, just like women can handle men seeing theirs?  I mean, sure, it's not fun, and it's sure not interesting to see your teammates of any body type attending to their bodily functions.  But assuming you're in combat situations together, as Boykin acknowledges women and men have already been for at least 10 years now, you're going to see dramatically more traumatic things happen to your teammates and possibly to yourself than little bits of poop, pee, blood, or toilet paper here and there.

And even if you can't pull up your big-boy pants and deal with it there's no reason to penalize someone else just because you lack the trainability, resilience, or maturity to deal with it.


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Whether They're Kardashians or Cardassians, Let’s Stop Claiming that People We’re not Attracted to Are “Disgusting”

Posted by figleaf on Mon, 2012-12-31 15:41

Photo by Flickr user Brian Wilkins. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy

Via Brute Reason, here's a great post about not bashing those you're merely not attracted to from The Polyamorous Misanthrope

[L]et’s stop claiming that people we’re not attracted to are “disgusting”:

Can we all, please, stop using terms of disgust for people to whom we are not sexually attracted?

[...]Let’s say that, oh, people with brown hair aren’t attractive to you. It does not make people who have brown hair offensive or disgusting. It just means that they have brown hair and that isn’t your thing. It’s okay that it’s not your thing.

It’s not okay to get indignant because someone has the temerity not to be attractive to you.

Like curvy chicks? That’s cool. It’s not cool to snark the skinny ones just because that ain’t your thang.

Gay male? Cool. But freaking out about how disgusting pussy is? Gimme a break.

Source: Brutereason

This reminds me of a related point I was telling my children about yesterday afternoon. (They're right in the middle of the school-age crush zone at the moment.) Specifically my daughter mentioned a friend's disappointment upon learning that White Collar star Matt Bomer is not just gay but happily raising three children with his partner. My observation was that orientation really matters if and only if the person in question is a direct prospective partner. Which pretty much by-definition Matt Bomer, who lives a continent away, isn't now and isn't likely to be. Nor would it matter if my daughter's friend was a gay-identifying male: Matt Bomer still lives a continent -- not to mention a generation -- away!

This post fits in really nicely with that point! Consider the 1990s trope of people joking about then-attorney-general Janet Reno's lack of conventional/cliche sex appeal. Or the more recent "positive" comments about Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman's conventional/cliche good looks. Or the ambiguous but unnecessarily derogatory and/or adulatory remarks about nominally conservative performance artist Ann Coulter's appearance.

It doesn't matter because, since they probably wouldn't sleep with you, their looks, orientation, speculative, or even real talents in bed have no, zero, none bearing on one's fandom.

And, as you say so nicely, it even has no bearing if you're the one who wouldn't sleep with them! There's never, ever a reason to say anything more than "not my type."

Not least because saying anything more reveals far more about you than it does about the object of one's scorn.

And of course the added bonus confrontation when faced with someone's virulent rejection of, say, Marylin Monroe's mole or Paul Ryan's hairline or (my personal bugaboo) the makeup worn by various Kardashians.. or is that spelled Cardassians would be "projection much?" And/or "Trying to pass?"


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Acknowledgement for Mary Matalan's Point About Gay Marriage Success and Straight Marriage Failures

Posted by figleaf on Sun, 2012-12-09 12:58

Should we congratulate conservatives when they correctly say the obvious? I'd say yes. Case in point: Mary Matalin says, correctly, that failed heterosexual marriages are a far greater threat to the institution of marriage than successful gay ones. David Edwards has the scoop:

Republican strategist Mary Matalin, who has previously said that marriage equality is not a civil right, asserted that polls now show Americans support same sex marriage because they know it’s not a “threat to the civil order.”

“Well, because Americans have common sense,” she explained. “There are important constitutional, biological, theological, ontological questions relative to homosexual marriage. People who live in the real world say, the greater threat to the civil order are the heterosexuals who don’t get married and are making babies. That’s an epidemic in crisis proportions. That is irrefutably more problematic for our culture than homosexuals getting married.”

Source: Raw Story

Good for Matalan!

Now one could argue, as I often do, that the tradition of marriage has some violent and alienating elements that make even successful marriage problematic (i.e. Which Husband Would You Stone For Adultery?) And one could argue, as I've also done in the past but Kevin Drum and others have done more recently, that single-parent families aren't as problematic for society as Matalan suggests. And one could argue, as numerous others have argued, that rather than celebrate secular recognition of gay marriage we should stop secularly recognizing marriage at all. But! If you're going to stand up for the institution, as Matalan and others gay and straight choose to, then there's exactly zero question that Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan, or Britney Spears' hetero marriages undermine the institution far, far, far more than the gay and lesbian couples who began getting married here in Washington State at 12:01 AM this morning. The heterosexual shotgun marriages of children in Nebraska and elsewhere undermine it far more than the same-sex marriages that will soon take place in Maine. The shaky, fragile, and outright false heterosexual marriages of David Vitters, Elliot Spitzer, Ted Haggard, or Phyllis Gates can't make less of a mockery of the institution any gay marriages that's likely take place in California, Minnesota, Hawaii, Massachusetts and on and on around the country.

Note: this doesn't mean some percentage of same-sex couples won't eventually turn out to have marriages every bit as bogus as current hetero ones can get. In fact, since gay people are exactly like straight people that's both a) inevitable but also b) the whole point! We're not enabling gay marriage because gay people are more noble nor because straight people are more depraved -- we're doing it because if any couple should be able to do it then every should be!

So yeah. Even though it's obvious, good for Matalan!


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Because Only Men Have Careers Only Men Put Their Careers On the Line When They Have Affairs... Oh Wait!

Posted by figleaf on Tue, 2012-11-13 20:19

More on the Allen/Broadwell/Kelly/Petraeus (in alphabetical order) kerfuffle from gender-determinism skeptic Echidne says

Take what is currently known (or asserted):  David Petraeus, a married man, had an affair with Paula Broadwell, a married woman.  It is argued that Paula Broadwell, a married woman, sent threatening messages to Jill Kelley, another married woman, to warn her off Petraeus.  Jill Kelley, a married woman,  may have exchanged "inappropriate" e-mails with John Allen, a married man.  None of these people are married to each other.

...

I understand the angle of these stories. It's Petraeus and Allen who are famous and well-known and they are men. But the facts of the case suggest that we should also ask why women cheat, given that all alleged participants in this mess had marital partners. Broadwell, too, seems to have "risked it all" to cheat: her marriage, her career as a biographer and the risk of the kind of public attention she is now receiving. Her position may not look as powerful to us but in terms of her own life the risks she took were huge.

Source: Echidne of the Snakes

Echidne points out what would probably be obvious minus the knee-jerk knee-squeezing twittery: It takes two to tango...

Heck, as she puts it

As I mentioned, I get the angle of these stories. But it takes two to tango, and in heterosexual extramarital affairs both partners can be married. Thus, the questions those headlines ask about men cheating disguise the fact that we should ask similar questions about women cheating.

I mean, seriously!!! So far everyone involved has had some degree of professional credibility and respect on the line. You have to be... well, there aren't a lot of choices here besides being head-up-your-butt invested in misogyny, head-and-shoulders-up-your-butt stupid, or maybe all-but-your-ankles-up-your-butt invested in the cheapest-possible interpretation of "evolutionary psychology" to miss the oh, gee, wow, surprising similarities between the behavior of the various career men and women involved.

Maybe it's because both women and men are, you know, people.

Naah.  The other possible explanations about genes or gender-determinism are so much more complicated they must be true.


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Extremist Republican Rape/Pregnancy/Single-Motherhood/Fatherhood Feel-Good Failure

Posted by figleaf on Wed, 2012-10-24 13:39

While reading E.J. Graff's exploration of Republican attempts to justify their gut conviction that rape is bad but rape pregnancy is very, very good the following knee-jerk right-wing syllogisms popped into my head.

  1. Pregnancy from rape is very good.  So good that the government should force victims to remain pregnant through live birth.
  2. Rape, on the other hand, is very bad.  So bad that rapists should be executed.  Even, presumably, rapists who impregnate their victims.
  3. Single motherhood, on the other hand, is also very bad.  So bad that every child should have both a mother and father.
  4. ???
  5. Republican policy success!

Each of the first three steps, above so obvious to these guys.  So obvious you can just see their earnest enthusiasm bubbling over.  You can practically understand their confusion and frustration that what's so obvious to them should not seem obvious to others.

Obviously something is missing.

What, er, conceivable argument can you put in line D that will square their little hippie-dippy feeling-good-matters-most circles with honesty, integrity, consistency, responsibility, or any of the other attributes these same guys used to accuse 60's-era hippies of lacking?


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The More Absolute a Right to Post Dead Teenage Girls The More Absolute Someone Else's Right to Out You For It

Posted by figleaf on Sun, 2012-10-14 10:21

This post examines several sides of the collision of privacy and freedom to offend.  And comes to a conclusion that surprised me.

There's a lot of complex hand-wringing, celebration, and outrage making the rounds about the recent Gawker post that outed internet uber-troll Michael Brutsch, who for years has led an anonymous and wildly successful movement on Reddit and elsewhere to be as calculatingly cruel as possible to victims of previous crimes and other offences.

The hand wringers are pretty uniformly people who recognize Brutsch for the flaming fucking asshole he is... but who nevertheless feel conflicted about people's rights to a) post anonymously and b) retain a right to free speech.  Oh, and possibly c) a right to privacy.

There are others who feel that the mere nature of Brutsch's deplorability (and, seriously, the guy is utterly deplorable) deprives him of his rights to free speech and privacy.

And there are yet still others who feel that the very deplorability of Brutsch's "speech" (and again, seriously, his entire on-line presence revolved around creating, celebrating, and nurturing deplorability) somehow enshrines his rights to free speech and privacy.

Sorry, gang, there's no paradox, no cause for outrage, no cause for censorship, and definitely no cause for hand-wringing.

Instead it's a matter of standards.  Standards of decency.  Standards of deplorability too.

It is, of course, equally deplorable to either a) to offend sensibilities by encouraging others to jack off to photos of dead minor children as Michael Brutsch, operating under the pseduonym Violentacrez did, or b) to offend sensibilities by outing someone who posts anonymously on the internet, as Gawker Media did.

Sorry, on the hand-wringer-y side it's just true: if you're offended by one you should be offended by the other -- and thus people offended by outing Brutsch's "speech" must by definition be offended by Gawker outing him.

Similarly, sorry, on the censorship side it's just true: if you defend Brusch's right to post calculatingly deplorale "speech" on the internet then you by definition must defend Gawker Media for outing him.

And finally, sorry, on the free-speech side it's just true: if you agree that Brusch should have been outed for posting his deplorable speech then by definition you agree he should be able to post it.

If you think you can weasle out of it by picking one side or the other you're mistaken. (Well, while remaining a progressive anyway: conservatives do it with self-serving ease but that's why they disgust us.) If you think you need to wring your hands over it you're also mistaken.  (Well, while remaining progressive anyway: liberals do it with self-defeating ease but that's why so many of them disgust everyone else.)

Update: Other variations include

If you support censor Gawker for outing Brutsch you support censoring Brutsch

If you support taking revenge on Gawker for outing Brutsch you support taking revenge on Brutsch


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Paul Ryan Also Believes Burglary Is a Method of Interior Design and That Ayn Rand...

Posted by figleaf on Sun, 2012-09-30 11:38

...is the author of a method of political philosophy rather than the author of bodice ripping fiction.

For Rand worshipers consent is compromise. For Rand worshipers compromise is only for the weak.  For Rand worshipers the strong don't compromise they take.  Therefore in Rand's impoverished little moral universe "legitimate" rape, which 'wingers are always so careful to distinguish, is the only legitimate "method of conception."

And, of course, Paul Ryan is a Rand worshiper.


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