Caitlin Flanagan Takes On Oral Sex

I really can't say much here, because my mom and now both my in-laws read this blog, but I just don't understand what's so bad about blow jobs. In fact, I think oral sex is kind of a good idea for teenagers, myself.

But seriously, the thing about Caitlin Flanagan is that she's so infuriatingly on and off. She does good legwork here on the origins of the urban myth of train parties that everyone seems so set on believing, but she blindly embraces the notion that girls are completely disempowered by contemporary sexual practices.

Then there's her tendency to cast her web so wide that she pulls in everything but the kitchen sink, in smooth prose that seduces you into accepting her analysis, especially because parts of it work. Here she finds that the fault for the apparent oral sex epidemic lies with Planned Parenthood, feminists, rap music, distracted parents, and the lamented loss of the patriarchy--but wait, aren't those culprits the source of all our problems? Oh yeah, that's David Brooks.

Just when you want to wring her neck, she's right on target about the influence of pornography, a point some feminists have been making recently. But then she goes overboard again, reaching a crescendo like a preacher nearing the end of her sermon, insisting that our little girls are lost, lost lambs in the woods, I tell you, and there is nobody to protect them but their parents, in this terrible world of ours. Luckily, though, she doesn't need to worry about that because she's the mother of boys and boys don't have feelings like girls do, especially about sex. Phew.

Really, though, I just feel bad for her husband.