If I get a chance I’ll blog about these topics, but even if I don’t the following posts are good food for though.

Ann Bartow: Hillary Clinton’s Gender Agenda. “Democracy means nothing if half the people can’t vote, or if their vote doesn’t count, or if their literacy rate is so low that the exercise of their vote is in question.”

Laura Agustin: Stripper class-action suit challenges independent-contractor status [in] Boston. Having been one of the earliest “independent contractors” in high-tech, and thus having missed the dot-com stock bonanza, I’m particularly sensitive to this issue. Bottom line: Strip clubs set rules, hours, performance standards, pay scales — labor law says, fairly unambiguously, that’s not independent contracting, that’s direct employment. Case law dating from the 1980s and 1990s leaves even less wiggle room. But the bigger “scandal” of the sex part of sex-work (“ooh, boobies!”) has obscured the more egregious scandal of the illegal work part of sex-work.

Debby Herbenick: Will Lay There Angry For Food? “A new law has been passed in Afghanistan that would allow Shia men to deny their wives food if they are ‘disobedient’, which includes denying them sex.” Bonus in the law: “In addition, it apparently allows men to evade prosecution for rape if they pay ‘blood money’ to the woman they raped.” Double bonus: Herbenick has a new book, — Because It Feels Good: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction. Based on the radical-sounding title don’t hold your breath waiting for Cosmopolitan to review it.

Katherine Anne Forsythe: Straight, Single, and Sixty: The Truth About Dating After 55. “Better sex? Remember, this is the generation who brought us The Rolling Stones, Betty Friedan, Hair, free love, and The Joy of Sex. This generation is not going to take dating while aging lying down. It’s no surprise that this group is redefining dating and sex to fit their needs.” Note: there are a couple of good posts about sexuality over 40 this week. See, for instance, Debbie at Shapely Prose “Used to be, “aging” started somewhere around the 40s. Now, especially for women, ‘aging’ starts before you’re 30. Since the only definition of ‘hot’ is 25-or-under (and often younger than that), you’re out of the race” And Sungold’s Erotic Pictures for Women: Still Leaving Me Cold notes with exasperation that the male models in the first issue of Filament all seem to be under 30… and maybe under 20.

Michelle Cottle: XXX vs. ZZZ. A decade ago 31% of respondents said they’d prefer sleep to sex. This year it’s up to 51%. “Counterintuitive finding: More men than women went for sleep over sex.”

Violet Blue: Well Stop the Fucking Presses. Proliferation of free, amateur porn is gutting industrial porn sales. “Imagine a world where you can’t go to Joe’s Jack Shack and buy a product for $50 that you know you’ll like some of, or an overly expensive rental that you know you’ll like one scene from because it’s packed with the same old shit to wank to — and that’s your only choice? I can’t imagine this world. With… what? Different standards of beauty and sexual expression? It’s like, a pornpocalypse. Praise the lube and pass the ammunition.”