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_______________STRAP-ON EPIPHANY BY VIRGINIA VITZTHUM (01/28/99)
	Maybe I'm just tired of all sociopolitical analysis articles on sex, but "Strap-on epiphany" irritated me. I know the point is that penetration taught her how those recalcitrant stereotypes about men, women and sex form, taught her that they're based on actual experience. However, the article was riddled with assumptions that I suppose the author meant to justify with her epiphany. "I never minded being the girl in bed"? (Do 1990s gay men see the penetratee as necessarily being the female half of the equation?) Why detail how she and Adam reversed traditional gender roles outside of bed, when her ostensible point is that this one experience (and nothing else) changed her perception of men/women in bed? Most importantly, her conclusion is not the only one that one could draw. I can see how she might feel strong and manly while penetrating -- but did she consider that she felt this because she was enjoying playing a role of the Traditional Conquering Sexual Male (as one might play any other role in the porn movie of one's mind), and not actually experiencing what all men feel every time they penetrate? Furthermore, is there any reason to infer that the power/possession circuit comes naturally between men and women? Our pleasure associations are at least partially set by social input; if you associate penetration with vulnerability, then that's what you'll feel. Nature may be involved, but we can't determine to what degree under all our layers of social gender conditioning. -- D. Dreilinger New York
_______________LEFT HOOK: THE GOP'S NEXT NIGHTMARE: CLINTONOMICS BY JOE CONASON (01/26/99)
	Joe Conason is one of very few journalists I have read who quotes his subjects from several years past. This basic tenet of research (and good journalism) has been replaced in recent years, but Conason does a fine job juxtaposing past conservative GOP rhetoric with the actual economic growth sustained over the past six years. If there was one aspect of "Reaganomics" that made people feel good, it was the great spending on the U.S. military that produced a large demand for both skilled and unskilled labor -- especially skilled, high-tech labor that put demand on college-educated engineers, researchers and so on, giving them good jobs and a stimulating education. While it may take a degree in economics to prove that assertion, certainly George Bush's much heralded "peace dividend" vanished into thin air, when the umbilical cord of government defense spending in California, Connecticut and other states was slashed without an alternative or even a "soft letdown." Today, the U.S. government is still a vital part of U.S. private economic growth, and Clinton's targeting of "little things," derided by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., is exactly what defines the excellence of the president's administration. Broad, sweeping programs to "eliminate poverty" may fall on a million obstacles and impediments, but carefully targeted and sponsored programs which improve the productivity of citizens -- allowing them to earn more, spend less, save more -- in short, empower them to be better contributors to the economy. -- Lawrence Brohkahn SALON | Feb. 3, 1999

R E C E N T L Y+| HAVE MY SHOE TALK TO YOUR REFRIGERATOR BY JANELLE BROWN

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