President Trump and The Pimp

In all likelihood, President Trump's immigrant grandfather Frederick Trump, was among other things a brothel owner or to put it less delicately a pimp.

In 1891, Trump moved to Seattle, in the newly admitted U.S. state of Washington. With his life savings of several hundred dollars, he bought the Poodle Dog, which he renamed the Dairy Restaurant, and supplied it with new tables, chairs, and a range.[2] Located at 208 Washington Street, the Dairy Restaurant was in the middle of Seattle's Red Light District; Washington Street was nicknamed "the Line" and included an assortment of saloons, casinos, and brothels. Biographer Gwenda Blair called it "a hotbed of sex, booze, and money, [it] was the indisputable center of the action in Seattle."[3]:41 The restaurant served food and liquor and was advertised to include "Rooms for Ladies", a common euphemism for prostitution.[3]:50
So with that background perhaps it is not too surprising that the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, had a Super Bowl party where he posed with one Li "Cindy" Yang, an enterprising "businesswoman" who among other things owns massage parlors and previously owned the day spa where Trump buddy, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft allegedly paid women for a "happy ending".

Daniels, McDougal and Trump: The Hype That Wasn't

Stephanie Clifford, an adult film star and stripper with the stage name of Stormy Daniels, alleged that she had at least one sexual encounter with President Donald Trump twelve years ago. Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Playmate and Trump voter, said that she had a longer running affair with Trump roughly around the same time. To great hype Daniels told her story on the CBS show 60 Minutes this past weekend. Other than noticing that Daniels had apparently taken some sort of substance which dilated her pupils and learning that in certain circumstances Trump doesn't mind being spanked with rolled up magazines and thinks comparing his younger paramours to his daughter Ivanka is a high compliment, I didn't think there was much surprising, interesting or newsworthy in Daniels' revelations.

And the same is true of any information revealed with McDougal's CNN interview. Trump allegedly tried to give McDougal money after they had done the do. She refused it but apparently took some money as part of a non-disclosure agreement. Daniels also took money, at least $130,000, as part of a non-disclosure agreement set up and executed by one of Trump's lawyers, Michael Cohen. Some people claim that the payment of such money may have violated campaign finance laws but who knows?

Barney Helps Women Get Their Groove Back

Remember Barney, the beatific purple dinosaur from the PBS kids show? Well for a little piece of change he'll do something strange with you, if you happen to be a woman that is. Barney does have standards you know. Like Marvin Gaye, Barney is providing some sexual healing to women in need, but for a fee.

The actor who starred as the cuddly T-Rex host of Nineties children's TV show Barney and Friends is now working as a Los Angeles tantric therapist, it has been revealed. American actor David Joyner, 52, told Vice that his decade-long stint playing a dancing purple dinosaur was helpful for his current career.

“The energy I brought up [while] in the costume is based on the foundation of tantra, which is love,” Joyner said. “Everything stems, grows, and evolves from love." Joyner only accepts female clients for his services, and charges $350 for a four-hour session. On his website, Joyner, a former software analyst offers clients the chance to reach "a higher and more blissful state of awareness [of their] sexuality."

According to Vice, Joyner believes this "blissful state" is best achieved through unprotected penetrative sex, and claims that condoms "block the energy".
Still, the power dynamic at play here between practitioner and client, healer and student, is hard to square for some. Laura Palumbo is the communications director with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. She says a tantra session like Joyner’s that includes intercourse can muddy the waters of consent. “I think when we are looking at a scenario like this the goal is to not be sex negative," Palumbo tells VICE by phone. "But, taking a deeper look, it does seem like there are dynamics here that make it a little more complicated and less straightforward than two consenting adults."

Trans Community, Consent and Scapegoating

Recently a comedian named Lil Duval appeared on a radio show and made a clearly hyberbolic/comedic threat of violence against any transperson who tricked him into sex/intimacy. There was an immediate backlash from some members of the trans community as well as from some liberal people who often appear to have a stick up their behind concerning heterosexuality, which they never tire of labeling as hegemonic or toxic or problematic or any of the other popular academic circle insults. I wouldn't really care at all about what amounts to a catfight but for the fact that both NBC news and the New York Times seized this opportunity to insult the black community, or to be precise, black heterosexual men, as violence prone, hypermasculine, and backwards when it comes to trans issues.

NBC, the New York Times and a fair number of people yelling at Lil Duval used black brute stereotypes straight from Birth of A Nation. They just repurposed them for a liberal agenda.

But when DJ Envy asked Lil Duval what he would do if a woman he had sex with later said she was transgender, he responded, “This might sound messed up and I don’t care: She dying.” The hosts quickly told him that killing a transgender person was a hate crime and that he could not do that. But Lil Duval continued to make jokes and said it was about manipulation and taking away his choice. Charlamagne Tha God, the show’s most popular host, agreed with that point, saying that by not disclosing she is transgender, a woman is “taking away a person’s power of choice,” and he added that “you should go to jail or something.” In a statement to The New York Times released through his publicist on Saturday, Charlamagne Tha God denounced all prejudice and hate crimes, emphasizing that he wholeheartedly believed that violence against transgender people was wrong. 

“Nobody should be killed just for existing,” he said. What needed to be discussed further, he added, was whether transgender people should disclose their gender identities to sexual partners. “To me, anytime you take away someone’s power of choice, it’s criminal,” he said. “Let me decide for myself if this is what I want. But if a trans person doesn’t disclose until after sexual acts have occurred, they shouldn’t be killed for it.”

I don't give a flying fig what people do in private. Not my business. If you want to cut off your male organs, get surgery and ingest/inject chemicals to attempt to give yourself a feminine appearance, that's you. If you change your name from a masculine one to a feminine one and demand to be addressed by the feminine name, I will call you by your new name. If you want to walk or talk like your silly stereotype of what a woman walks or talks like, fine. Yawn.

Michigan State Senator Virgil Smith and Domestic Violence

The Bible tells us that only the person without sin should throw stones. It also informs us that we should judge not lest we be judged. That might be good moral advice but of course a working society requires that we do judge certain sins and crimes and punish those who engage in them. That's just the way it is. Although I think everyone has dealt with lust, jealousy and anger at some point in their life not everyone lets these sins get the better of them. You have to maintain control over your actions. The result of losing your temper could be disastrous for you and those around you. Michigan State Senator Virgil Smith (D-Detroit) is finding this out the hard way as new details and conflicting stories are emerging about a confrontation between Smith and his ex-wife that turned physical.  Two sides emerged Monday in the story of a lurid domestic shooting involving a state senator with longtime family connections to the the halls of power in Detroit and Lansing. State Sen. Virgil Smith told police that opening fire at his ex-wife’s Mercedes-Benz with a rifle early Sunday morning was “the most stupid thing” in his life. In a statement Smith gave to investigators, he said his ex-wife, whose name is being withheld by The Detroit News, “was banging on (the) bedroom window,” at about 1 a.m., a Detroit Police report said. Smith said he opened the front door, and his ex-wife, “kicked the door open and pushed (past) him. 

“(The ex-wife) went into (Smith’s) bedroom and observed a female ... in (Smith’s) bed. (Smith) stated that (the ex-wife) attempted to attack (the girlfriend),” the police report obtained by The News said. “(Smith) grabbed (his ex-wife), they fell backwards, knocking over the television. (Smith) stated that (his ex-wife) attempted to attack (his girlfriend) again.” Smith told police “he grabbed (his ex-wife) and forced her out of his house,” the police report said. Smith then told investigators he went back into the bedroom to check on his girlfriend, and then returned to the front door, “and observed (his ex-wife) throwing a chair at his house windows.  “(Smith) then stated he did the most stupid thing in his life, he shot (the ex-wife’s) vehicle,” the report said.  

A second police report, containing the ex-wife’s side of the story, was taken by police at 4:41 a.m. Sunday. She said Smith had invited her to stay the night at his house, and, when she arrived, “she was met by a naked (Smith) and an (unknown) female,” the report said. “At this time she became angry and upset, and both started verbally arguing. “At some point during the argument (Smith) grabbed her by the back of her head and shoved her face first into the carpet. Victim stood up and was struck by (Smith) 4-5 (times) in the face with closed fist causing cheeks on both sides of her face to swell.” Smith’s ex-wife told police she ran out the front door, and he chased her with “an (unknown) type long gun and followed behind. She observed muzzle flash (three times) as suspect began firing at her,” the report said. The ex-wife said she ran into a nearby alley as Smith fired the rifle. She said she went into the nearby home of a friend, “who allowed her to call 911 and clean her wounds.” 

The friend later tried to retrieve the ex-wife’s 2015 Mercedes Benz GLA250, but that it was “unable to start due to gunshot damage,” the report said. Evidence technicians later found three suspected bullet holes in the vehicle’s hood; two in the driver’s side headlight; two in the driver’s side front fender; and one each in the driver’s side door, windshield, and rear driver’s door pillar, the report said.

LINK
My thinking is that if Smith did not want his ex-wife at his home he never should have opened the door. Nothing good came from that decision. Perhaps he thought he could calm her down. Or perhaps he and the ex-wife were indeed planning to have some adult fun but the ex-wife did not know another woman would be there or didn't know that that particular woman would be there. Who can really say what's going on in someone else's private life. I have always thought that if someone is an ex there is likely a good reason for that status. Why change it? The problem for Smith is that although the differing stories around the confrontation inside the house may be unverifiable, the ten bullet holes in the car and his own alleged admission of firing the gun would seem to make this a pretty simple case of assault. The only reason to use a gun is if you're defending yourself from another person's deadly force. Even if Smith's crazy ex was throwing chairs at his home windows I don't see how that would legally or otherwise justify shooting at her or her car. But once some people lose their temper and HULK out so to speak, there is no reasoning with them. Still, as far as I'm concerned it's a fair expectation that a State Senator should be able to avoid situations that are more likely to show up on Worldstar than C-Span. I wonder why the other woman in this tale has not sought to press charges for assault? 

Should Smith's fellow Senators expel him from the State Senate?

Feminist Marriages: More Equality, Less Sex?

I wanted to write on this quite some time ago but the person who reviews my paid work had different ideas about my priorities. So this is a modified and much mellower version of the original post. The idea expressed in the post title is something that's been floating around the blog-o-sphere for quite some time. It finally penetrated the firmament of the New York Times Sunday Magazine. When I read this recent article I thought I was in a real life Geico commercial. Because I thought everyone already knew that. It seems that whatever the benefits of "egalitarian" style marriages may be, more sex and less divorce aren't among them. Surprisingly, it appears that heterosexual women may have some unacknowledged preferences for a certain level of well, difference and maybe even virility or dominance (shut your mouth!!!) in their husbands. As this finding very much does not comport with the modern progressive orthodoxy regarding house husbands, 50/50 sharing of chores, lean in bromides and the fiction that men and women are exactly the same except for internal plumbing, some of the people quoted in the article seemed to be suffering from very bad cases of cognitive dissonance.

I wrote previously on how there are some household tasks which are (often arbitrarily) considered more masculine. It seems that some women, or at least some married women agree. Whether we believe that it's mostly biological, mostly cultural, or imo some combination of the two, it appears that men and women appreciate each other's differences and look for a partner that exhibits divergent characteristics. According to the fascinating article quoted below a husband who becomes too similar to his wife or to put it another way a man who is too complaisant and gallant runs the very real risk of discovering what a Stephen King character ruefully noted in the book Joyland : "What I know now is that gallant young men rarely get *****. Put it on a sampler and hang it in your kitchen".

A study called “Egalitarianism, Housework and Sexual Frequency in Marriage,” which appeared in The American Sociological Review last year, surprised many, precisely because it went against the logical assumption that as marriages improve by becoming more equal, the sex in these marriages will improve, too. Instead, it found that when men did certain kinds of chores around the house, couples had less sex. Specifically, if men did all of what the researchers characterized as feminine chores like folding laundry, cooking or vacuuming — the kinds of things many women say they want their husbands to do — then couples had sex 1.5 fewer times per month than those with husbands who did what were considered masculine chores, like taking out the trash or fixing the car. It wasn’t just the frequency that was affected, either — at least for the wives. The more traditional the division of labor, meaning the greater the husband’s share of masculine chores compared with feminine ones, the greater his wife’s reported sexual satisfaction.

The chores study seems to show that women do want their husbands to help out — just in gender-specific ways. Couples in which the husband did plenty of traditionally male chores reported a 17.5 percent higher frequency of sexual intercourse than those in which the husband did none. These findings, Brines says, “might have something to do with the fact that the traditional behaviors that men and women enact feed into associations that people have about masculinity and femininity.” 

As Sheryl Sandberg encourages women to “lean in” — by which she means that they should make a determined effort to push forward in their careers — it may seem as if women are truly becoming, as Gloria Steinem put it, “the men we want to marry.” But these professional shifts seem to influence marital stability. A study put out last year by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that if a wife earns more than her husband, the couple are 15 percent less likely to report that their marriage is very happy; 32 percent more likely to report marital troubles in the past year; and 46 percent more likely to have discussed separating in the past year. Similarly, Lynn Prince Cooke found that though sharing breadwinning and household duties decreases the likelihood of divorce, that’s true only up to a point. If a wife earns more than her husband, the risk of divorce increases. Interestingly, Cooke’s study shows that the predicted risk of divorce is lowest when the husband does 40 percent of the housework and the wife earns 40 percent of the income.

LINK 

Of course studies are like opinions. Everyone has one. And statistics only apply to populations, not individuals. There must be a wife who is ecstatic to have her husband darning socks, fixing dinner, making quilts and cleaning the toilet while she changes the oil in the family car, cleans the gutters or installs the new sump pump. And I know for a fact there are husbands who are pleased as punch that their wife earns multiples of what they do, giving them the opportunity to stay at home with the kids or work for years on the Great American Novel that they somehow never complete. 

Stories like this reinforce why I think the great feminist dystopia "utopia" will never arrive although some people continue to argue that if we just use more corporate and government coercion incentives we'll get there. Although in total men and women are much more alike than we are different, we do seem to prefer different characteristics in our significant others. This is primarily biological in my view although different cultures express it differently. And these different preferences, minor though they are overall, drive marriage, mating, and what sort of jobs people look for.

In other words, women and men bear equal responsibility for how social relations work. It is logically impossible for women (as a group) to want total pay equity in the workplace but continue (as individuals) to be attracted to men who earn more money and/or express more dominance than they do. The incentives don't match. What is good in the public arena of work is apparently not so good in the private arena of relationships. I think that the best that society can do is to ensure workplace equal opportunity regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. Equal results, based on how they are defined, may remain ephemeral. And that may be ok.

Thoughts?