Intersex

My sister writes:

A student asked me if hermaphrodites have menstrual cycles. It came up in a free discussion I hold once a week during Sustained Silent Reading time. Do they? Some students said there are different types of hermaphrodites (I’d never heard that before). If they have both sexual organs and one is more developed than the other, I guess that is what they meant? Anyway, how can they have a menstrual cycle with both organs whether one is dominant or not.

Figured you’d know the answer to this.

She knows me so well. Answer below the fold.

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Walnut, March 5, 2008. Category: Sex, The Barbarous Craft.

Dubya’s Dominatrix safe and sound?

Home } Political rants } Dubya’s Dominatrix safe and sound?

Not Condi. That woman’s a bottom, don’t you think? No, I’m talking about Leola McConnell — the body builder, dominatrix, political activist, and candidate for the Nevada gubernatorial election of 2006 who claimed to have had S&M sex with George W. Bush in the 1980s, and who further claimed that Bush had had an affair with Victor Ashe, former mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee. She wrote all about this in her book, Lustful Utterances. From some online promotional material quoted here:

â€œLustful Utterancesâ€ will leave many readers with knots in their stomachs but will provide clarity as to why the homoerotic-sado-masochism of Abu Ghraib prison could only have manifested itself on George Bushâ€™s tenure as leader of the free world.

Indeed. The wife and I often wonder what Bush (whose love of torture goes back to his Yale days, maybe earlier) does with those interrogation tapes and transcripts from Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and all those black sites. Wouldn’t be surprised if videos exist, too. I wonder if he wipes them off before sharing them with Dick Cheney?

In November, there was a slew of reports that Ms. McConnell had gone missing. Conspiracy theories popped about (like a rattan cane on pasty presidential buttocks, perhaps? Choose your metaphor), given that Ms. McConnell published Lustful Utterances after Bush failed to abide by her public request that he come clean about his bisexuality. Payback, perhaps? Did Bush go nukular on his former domme and present nemesis?

Well, maybe not. I had a difficult time finding info on Ms. McConnell, but her website appears to have been recently updated (January, perhaps even more recently). I hope she’s okay. The world needs every last one of its ass-kickin’ dommes.

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Why am I checking such things? Research, my friends. Research.

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My review of The Hub Issue 43-46 is up at The Fix. Check it out.

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FUNNY.

Walnut, March 4, 2008. Category: Political rants.

Waiting

Home } Writer's Life } Waiting

My question for the Magic 8 Ball:

Will Jane Doe* request my full manuscript?

Fucker.

Maybe it’s lying.

*Oh, just some agent who ACTUALLY LIKED MY SAMPLE, that’s all.

Walnut, March 3, 2008. Category: Writer's Life.

SBD: Please ask a doctor.

Home } Books 'n' Authors } SBD: Please ask a doctor.

For today’s Smart Bitches Day post*, I’m afraid I have to slam La Nora.

At Kate’s suggestion, I’m reading Sea Swept by Nora Roberts. Here I am at Chapter One and I’m already screaming at the book.

Nooooo! You can’t talk when you’re on a ventilator! And if your brain is so mushed up from closed head trauma that you’re near death, you couldn’t talk even if you weren’t on a ventilator!

Ray Quinn, crusty old dude much beloved by his three (now four) adopted sons, hangs onto the last thread of life after wrapping himself around a telephone pole. We’re told he’s on life support, and one son, Phillip, carps at himself for not doing more for Dad in the last few months.

But he had known something, just hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. And had let it slide. That ate at him now as he sat listening to the machines that kept his father breathing.

Unless he’s in an iron lung, the man has been intubated endotracheally. He has a whopping huge wad of plastic between his vocal cords. He cannot talk. So, what does he do?

“Always squabbling.”

He talks. And talks. A real Hollywood deathbed scene it is, too, courtesy of a man who has “one last duty” to discharge. Trust me on this: in real life, that one final rally of consciousness is surpassingly rare.

Ms. Roberts, if you read this (and stranger things have happened): so far, I’m impressed with the technical excellence of your writing. It’s so good, I’m forgiving all the head-hopping and sentence fragments, something I’m usually loathe to do. You’ve made me sympathetic to these characters in record time, and I’m hooked, so I know you know your stuff. Yes, I know you don’t need a nobody like me to tell you that.

But please, please, ask a doctor next time. Ask me. I don’t mind — honest!

*It’s been an age since I’ve read any romance. Been on an SF/Fantasy kick lately.

Walnut, March 3, 2008. Category: Books 'n' Authors, The Barbarous Craft.

2008 Guide to Hiring Men

Home } Blogwhoring } 2008 Guide to Hiring Men

Three woots to MissLaura at DailyKos for shouting out I Heart Chaos’s reprint of the 1943 Guide to Hiring Women, which includes, among other gems,

2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy. Itâ€™s always well to impress upon older women the importance of friendliness and courtesy.

3. General experience indicates that â€œhuskyâ€ girls – those who are just a little on the heavy side – are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.

4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination – one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.

Read all eleven recommendations over at I Heart Chaos. Anyway, this got me thinking: surely women aren’t the only humans with special needs in the workplace. Perhaps the HR Department needs guidance in hiring men, too.

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Walnut, March 2, 2008. Category: Blogwhoring, Humor.

My life in six words

Home } such as it is } My life in six words

Note to my reader from Bangalore: sorry, man! I clicked away from chat by accident.

Salon asks its readers to sum up their lives in six words — no more, no less. Think of it as the ultimate micro haiku.

This could have been mine:

Too much hair, then not enough.

I want to kick this guy’s ass:

Found my path. Walked it fearlessly.

I love the honesty of this next one. And, yes, it works for me, too.

Frankly, it is all about me.

But what about my six-word memoir?

Keeps getting funnier all the time.

Stolen from Beetlejuice. What’s the matter, Walnut, can’t you think of anything more original?

It is all about the sex.

What’s your six-word memoir?

Walnut, March 1, 2008. Category: such as it is.

Found a job.

Home } such as it is } Found a job.

So I’ll have to wax my whole body. Big deal. It’ll be worth it.

Anyone up for some live blogging tonight? Same time, same place.

Walnut, March 1, 2008. Category: such as it is.

And Friday Night Funnies

Home } Blogwhoring } And Friday Night Funnies

A true dildo story (hey Suisan, I think this beats yours) (oh, and check out this antique vibrator museum!)

Vote on the Ralph Nader Caption Contest

Walnut, February 29, 2008. Category: Blogwhoring.

Friday Flickr Babe: XL edition

Home } Flickr follies } Friday Flickr Babe: XL edition

Today, Dean posted his XLth (40th, to you non-Romans) Flickr babe, and mentioned how he thought about finding an XL babe, but gave us the usual svelte wonder instead. Not that I object to svelte wonders, but surely there are some nude XL babes over at Flickr.

Below the cut . . . NSFW, natch.

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Walnut, February 29, 2008. Category: Flickr follies.