Sex tapes and outings and schlubs, oh my!

Reproductive Rights, or the year in Scary Shit

This spring, the Supreme Crapweasels upheld a federal law that allows state legislatures to criminalize a form of second-term abortion that is colloquially known as "partial-birth abortion." Abortions are typically performed after 12 weeks only if there are severe problems with the fetus or if the pregnant woman's health is in danger, and account for a minuscule percentage of abortion procedures. The language of Justice Anthony Kennedy's decision made crystal clear everything that was terrifying about this ruling, his every sentence vibrating with the prioritization of fetal well-being over female well-being. "Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child," Kennedy writes, a sentence that prompted critic Francine Prose to observe that in this decision, "the most important -- the only important -- thing about [a woman's] life is its potential for motherhood." Kennedy's decision also deployed gory splatter-film terminology to make clear how "abortion doctors" (there are no obstetricians here, folks) rip the legs off fetuses, pierce the skulls and vacuum the "fast-developing brains" of "unborn child[ren]," and how in one instance, a "baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping" while it was being aborted. It could only have been oversight that led Kennedy to excise his original passage about Freddy and Jason cutting the pink cupids from their mothers' inhospitable wombs; can you hear the lambs screaming, Clarice?

In her dissent, Ruth Bader Ginsburg told Kennedy to stick it up his ass. Actually, that is not that much of an exaggeration.

In related news, the cost of birth control on college campuses is skyrocketing!

Rounding the Bases

We don't always have a sports category here at the Year in Sex, but former Knicks vice president Anucha Browne Sanders prevailed in her sexual harassment suit against Isiah Thomas and the New York Knicks, and the New York Post prevailed in its attempt to nab married Yankees star Alex Rodriguez heading to a hotel room with a blonde who was not his wife, headlining the story "Stray-Rod." To Rupert Murdoch and his tribe of tabloid monkeys: Never Change.

On the Campaign Tail

You may have read in a reputable newspaper or two that many of the presidential candidates have trophy wives. What qualifies them as trophy wives is that ... they are not ugly, and not old, and they are chicks.

It has undoubtedly not escaped your attention that not all of the candidates have trophy wives; that, in fact, not all of them have wives. One has a husband, and boy, is that fun for everyone. As the novelist Mary Gordon so sagely observed earlier in 2007, "I think no woman is electable in America, and particularly not Hillary ... because she is married to this guy whom everyone is libidinally attached to. I think there is unconscious sexual jealousy of her among women." Apparently, Mary Gordon also thinks that women, overwhelmed by their unconscious desires, will emerge from voting booths only to have huge shrieking pillow fights and then bond over Ben & Jerry's and brush each other's hair.

But seriously, folks, Hillary Clinton wants you to know that she does not regard you as a one-night stand. She wants to have a long, complicated marriage with you. Even if you have a wandering eye and sometimes don't tell the whole truth and maybe once did your intern and even if you compromise her career in service to your willy, she will stick by you. Actually, you know, as far as arguments for someone's willingness to commit go, this one is pretty persuasive. In other Hillary news: She has ta-tas! She has ta-tas!

Also, occasionally animatronic-looking candidate for president John Edwards dodged an extremely nasty bullet this fall when a story about him having an affair with videographer Rielle Hunter got smushed with quickness. And John, we who admire your wife, the toughest nut in town, a woman who is living with cancer and throwing her every last bit of energy behind your presidential bid, certainly hope that that was because the story was really, seriously, seriously not true. Because, dude, if it was...

Oh shit. Late-breaking: Rielle Hunter is pregnant, and the Enquirer is claiming that she's claiming privately that the child is Edwards'. But publicly, she's claiming the baby daddy is Edwards aide Andrew Young. Whuh? Oh, wait, there's more: Hunter has moved into the housing development in North Carolina where Young resides with his wife and children. And still more: Young has issued a statement in which he confirms that he "is the father of [Hunter's] unborn child" and emphasizes that "Senator Edwards knew nothing about the relationship." Yes, this story is really freaking weird. Like "Days of Our Lives" weird. Like soon it will be revealed that Marlena is the real mistress of Andrew Young, and that around her neck she wears a locket containing the DNA results proving the baby was actually fathered by Bernie Kerik.

The Year in Alsos

Also, there are no gays in Iran.

Also, there was a fad for showing realistic male sex (see: Philip Seymour Hoffman, etc.), which echoed the trend a few years ago when William H. Macy went down on Maria Bello in "The Cooler" and Mark Ruffalo went down on Meg Ryan from behind, and ... I'm sorry. Was I talking?

Also, they finally shot the "Sex and the City" feature film. Batten down the hatches, urban girls, and get ready to return to the days when everyone saw you as a social stereotype who blew her money on high heels and high-end lubricant!

Also, high-end lubricant.

Also, news that will surely not come as a shock to anyone out there who has had the pleasure of doing one of us, but research now shows that feminists have better sex.

And in conclusion... A message for those of you clamoring for this column's most regular denizen: Folks, Britney is not sex. Britney is tragedy.

Except, oh dear: Britney's very little sister, Nickelodeon star Jamie-Lynn Spears, is pregnant by her boyfriend, whom she met at church. And guess what? The 16-year-old television star with a potentially bright future will not be getting a shmushmortion. Huh. Wow. Yeah. Hey, should we get another drink?

And to all a good night!

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