I always suspected as much — they’re a bit strange over there, 40 miles to my west. Steve Hickey, one of those state legislators in Sioux Falls (and a Republican, of course) was compelled to write a long screed ranting about the public health dangers of gay sex by this event:
Hickey told TPM on Wednesday he was driven to write the letter after Nancy Robrahn and Jennie Rosenkranz, a lesbian couple from Rapid City, S.D., announced their intention to become the first state residents to challenge its gay marriage ban. The couple was married on Saturday in Minnesota in a wedding that was officiated by Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, setting the stage for South Dakota to become the 29th with a marriage equality court case.
Two lesbians getting married drove him to think horrible thoughts about anal sex. That doesn’t even make sense. If he’s going to rant about the public health risks of sex, he ought to know that it is lesbians who have the safest sex lives.
Here’s his wretched letter in full. The comments are full of praise for his brave stance.
A One Way Alley for the Garbage Truck
Rep. Steve Hickey, District 9, Sioux Falls
Consider this an open letter to the medical and psychological communities in South Dakota. The subject is homosexuality, which is about to be a front-page topic for the next few years in our state. I’m asking the doctors who practice in our state, is the science really settled on this issue or is it more the case that you feel silenced and intimidated?
Certainly there are board-certified doctors in our state who will attest to what seems self-evident to so many: gay sex is not good for the body or mind. Pardon a crude comparison but regarding men with men, we are talking about a one-way alley meant only for the garbage truck to go down. Frankly, I’d question the judgment of doctor who says it’s all fine.
South Dakota docs, it’s time for you to come out of the closet and give your professional opinion on this matter like you capably and responsibly do on all the others. Somehow the message we are presently getting from the medical community is that eating at McDonalds will kill us but the gay lifestyle has no side effects. Truth be told it seems self-evident the list of side effects would read far longer than anything we hear on a Cialis commercial.
If many are indeed wearying of our religious community leading on these morality issues, and believe also those of us in the legislature should butt out too, it’s time for the medical community in our state to be honest with us. If you don’t speak up, this issue will be decided by five unelected judges on the Supreme Court regardless of what states like ours have decided by public vote.
This indeed is a matter of being on the wrong side of history considering that historically, homosexuality has been a notable marker of the downfall of past civilizations, not their rise. It’s not hate for a physician to speak up about something that is harmful to human health. It is not unloving to tell people you don’t have to have sex with and marry someone to love and be loved by them. As one who performs marriages and counsels couples as part of my professional life, marriage is the last thing I’d recommend to someone who simply wants to be loved and legitimized. What do other health care and mental health professionals in our state really think?
The South Dakota High School Activities Association is presently considering changing the rules to accommodate transgender kids. Forty-one percent of those who struggle with Gender Dysphoria attempt suicide, that’s twenty-five times the rate of the general population– certainly tragic and urgent but not a word from the medical and psychological communities? So really, we are letting our basketball coaches sort it out while ACLU lawyers look carefully over their shoulders!?
Letting boys play girl sports is not the starting place to fix the suicide problem or the very real daily struggle these students face dealing with something they have been handed in life. Society is broken and people have broken identities. Is it really best for us to break down the one remaining thing that has been working in society to try to fix the broken in our midst? And does it really even do that, or does it merely put them in more places exposing them to additional painful ostracization all the while transferring serious anxieties to other innocent and impressionable ones in those locker rooms? We need to have compassion but there are unintended consequences to consider too.
Before we let lawyers and judges decide this for our state and override the will of the people in the 2006 election, I issue a call to the medical and psychological communities and associations to weigh in publicly and timely on the matter of homosexuality and the human body, psyche and family, particular kids.
I thought his ignorance and his fascination with one specific sex act was amusing, until I read the part where this asshole has the gall to use transgender people’s suicide statistics as a blunt instrument to imply there’s something wrong with them, rather than with the poisonous haters like him who make life miserable for them. There is something deeply wrong with society, and it’s represented by the smug Steve Hickeys of the world, not the tortured kids in our schools who are bullied by the bigots.
But otherwise, he’s picking the wrong target. If anal sex repulses him, he shouldn’t do it, but he should also think about who is doing it. Anal sex is the least common sexual activity between gay men — oral sex and mutual masturbation are much more common. Meanwhile, among the majority heterosexual population, about 25% have had anal sex at least once, and 10% do it regularly. If you’re looking for the common link in anal sex, it isn’t homosexuality: it’s the possession of a penis.
I would urge Mr Hickey to rewrite his screed to instead demand that doctors come out of the closet and speak out on the self-evident health risks of having sex with someone who has a penis.
He could also throw in something about how his religion venerates vaginas that are either untainted by the intrusion of a penis, and/or are one way exits for babies. He should specifically mention the Virgin Mary as the perfect example of how god intends that that pathway is best as a one-way street.
Although, do you really believe Mr Hickey is at all motivated by his concerns for the health of his gay constituents? I don’t think so.
South Dakota. Where the men are men, the women are scarce and the sheep are mighty nervous. (With apologies to my former business associate from Montana, who used this line to describe the state of his birth. He also noted that his fellow Montanans felt that his marriage to an Italian woman from Brooklyn was interracial).
The medical and psychological communities have weighed in. But, of course, Mr. Hickey doesn’t think they have weighed in until they agree with him
“A one-way alley meant only for the garbage truck to go down” would seem to pretty much describe the route followed by the thoughts coming out of this guy’s head.
I think it’s time for the “medical and psychological communities in South Dakota” to come forward and hand this guy his ass on a platter. What say you, USD Department of Psychology and School of Medicine?
So basically he wants expert advice, provided it agrees with his preconceptions.
The penis is one-way and garbage goes down it. Was that his point?
I’m deleting The Doors ‘Back Door Man’ from my iPod immediately.
You know damn well they’ve said tons of words about the subject. Put them together and you get something like: ‘The disgustingly high suicide rate among trans people is almost entirely due to the dysphoria of having a body you can’t stand and being treated like shit by bigots. Transitioning to the right body while being loved and supported in doing so drastically lowers those odds.’
As someone who almost certainly would have eaten a shotgun shell if my parents hadn’t supported my transition I’m absolutely enraged by this guy using suicide as a club to bash us.
If it weren’t for anal sex, Steve Hickey would not have been born.
Although I am not a male, and I do not want to get too vulgar here, it is my understanding that the male anatomy is highly inclined to like anal sex, almost as if it were designed that way.
It’s kind of amazing to me that anyone could look at our intertwined reproductive and eliminative system and imagine an intelligent being doing that on purpose. Maybe a doctor could explain it to him though.
Bets on how long it will be before this guy falls out of the closet?
Translation: I have already made up my mind about this and calling for professional opinions is a pointless exercise that i’m only engaging in in the hopes that it will validate my preconceptions. If it turns out not to, it won’t matter one bit to me.
Steve Hickey, you are a disgusting piece of shit.
If you are afraid of catching The Gay, there’s a pretty good chance you already are….
Always about gay men, and always about anal…these people are obsessed. Tell him we lesbians have the lowest rate of STDs and his head will explode :D
No one’s more obsessed with anal sex than Republicans.
On the contrary, it matters a lot. If the doctors don’t back him up, that just means that Big Gay has scared them into silence. Any time a doctor doesn’t agree with him, it proves that he was right all along. If many doctors disagree with him, that just shows how big the problem is.
In his case the anus is indeed a one-way passage. For talking through.
Yes, I also too question the expertise of experts when they do not agree with me, a non-expert! That’s the surest way to determine what is fact from fiction!
Actually they have said more than a few words about it. It can generally be summed up with the fact that the only thing wrong with them is that they have to live in a world along side assholes like Hickey. If we could take care of the latter, the former would probably evaporate. But they, the experts, disagree with Hickey, a non-expert (at everything except being a useless asshole), so I guess he ignored all that.
Mr. Hickey, ain’t the vag also a “one way street” for menses blood and babies to come out? Why do you think the menz want to stick their Rod in there, to get all babybloodied?
As should we all. Yes, one must make everyone give the reasons for their judgements. As long as your use of “question” is passive-voice (“tell me your reasons; I’m listening”) and not euphemism for “punch you in the face for …; reasons”.
I do resist this kind of teasing most often BUT in this case, no:
I remember as a teen doing some summer tenting with my girlfriend and necking half the night and then in the morning light discovering, oh horror, a huge hickey on my neck. What a horrible couple of days hiding out and trying to stay closeted. I think I saw this guy in there too.
It is a embarrassment living in this state. Unfortunately since he is a person of power what he say seems to make sense to large number of SD resident. Hopefully that will change soon.
Yes, many do believe that
Oh please do butt, out and in, and in again.
Anal sex for all!
There are a few comments here that would irk our, once and always, Official Spokesgay, for valid reasons. Some names I don’t recognize, so I’ll just put it bluntly: accusing a bigot of being in the closet is just as damaging a jab to that person as it is to homosexuals in general.
Anything else you want to say in defense of that type of teasing let’s hash it out in the Thunderdome. I’m just requesting that it stop now in this current thread.
@22 throwaway: I erred in using the term, closet… What I mean, more accurately I trust, is hiding/lost in the dark. I have been there of course and will be again I am sure. I regret the insensitivity and hear you very clearly. My dad used to say, when making an emphatic judgement, “Any sensible person will agree….” and then you could pretty much say what you like. The Rev. Hickey is a polite and hateful shit. K?
I am grateful for your pointing… It is so fucking hard to be fair and angry all at once.
This bloke is rather fond of the trick of making faux statements in the form of questions. In this particularly crap example I’ve just noticed that Hickey has left a question mark at the end of what would otherwise be a straightforward sentence, so that whereas obviously it comes across as some kind of statement, he can always say that he didn’t actually say that.
Which is fairly vile, given the subject.
PIV is responsible for almost 100% of all human deaths.
Clearly not healthy.
South Dakota was also the home of George McGovern, a man who was too liberal to be elected president but was repeatedly elected by South Dakotans to the US House and Senate. Have things changed that much there?
“Pardon a crude comparison but regarding men with men, we are talking about a one-way alley meant only for the garbage truck to go down.”
If his pooping methods involve sending even a metaphoric garbage truck to retrieve his waste, he’s doing it all wrong.
I have to second throwaway here:
It is pretty fucking clear that Rep. Steve Hickey is behaving like an antisocial, bigotted dingleberry. To then try and explain that away by suggesting it is because he is gay is pretty fucked up.
Stop such bullshit.
throwaway and theophontes are quite right, and I apologize for letting my fingers get ahead of my brain.
Considering that this man produces shit from both ends, maybe he needs a truck to handle all that waste.
Or maybe he just needs more fiber in his diet?
In the comments section, Hickey has this pearl:
So he blames gay men or women, but not straight men?
Trebuchet @ 26:
Jesus. Seriously, you do not want to know. It’s a nightmare pit of fundamentalism entwined with not-so-sane conservatism.
Not even that; plenty of people/couples/larger groups use assorted toys/implements for anal stimulation.
Hickey: “Society is broken and people have broken identities.”
This comment like much of Hickey’s preach-spew here is typical Christian whitewash. Society is broken because they/we are unrepentant sinners and our identities have unravelled for guess what reason! We have not repented, or not enough at least. Like being gay or trans or bi is all about not titheing, all about the fall of Adam. Jeebus, bejeweled and hog-tied! This is why I adore an empty church, the whole silence and air so still, a beautiful deadness. I can sit and ponder the deep thoughts: Society is broken. And where the fuck did I leave that identity this time. Aw shit, it broke (again).
Ah, so it’s up to the women, eh? Again.
Judging by this sentence, Mr. Hickey is deeply confused by anything that does not fit into his extremely narrow world-view but does at least recognize that suicide is a problem.
I am trying to figure out what he means by “girl sports”, other than showing himself to be incredibly stupid and sexist. Perhaps he is upset that boys are being forced to join the competitive menstruation team?
It apparently never occurred to Mr. Hickey that “nature” provided a rather large number of nerve endings in and around the anus that respond to being stimulated by creating a pleasurable sensation in the brain. I wonder what he would answer if I asked him why the Creator of The Universe, Who Made All Things made us that way?
The old joke about the intermingling of the playground with sewage disposal doesn’t seem to connect for Hickey. For many years I had an organ intended for the removal of urine from a cis male body placed inside my body. Enthusiastically.
{understatement}I rather enjoyed it (/understatement}.
Hell, I don’t know what he’s complaining about anyway. At least he presumably has a prostate, which, when stimulated during a sex act can produce extremely pleasurable sensations. Or at least, so I am told. And the only way to do that that does not involve surgery is per anum. We cis women have to do without that.
We manage anyway.
Seriously, these guys have been psychologically mutilated by their subculture and their religion. Their idea of sex is so limited that they are basically castrated. No wonder they don’t want anyone to have any fun. They apparently never do.
Since the babbling was clearly not written by anything sentient, what did babble? I suspect something like the Bad Translator, left idle and alone during the dark and scary night:
@28 theophontes
I imagine this was also directed at me. I wasn’t trying to explain away his bigotry by suggesting he is gay. I do however think that it is common for people who think you can “catch homosexual feelings” to have experienced homosexual feelings themselves (which of course doesn’t necessarily mean someone is gay). Regardless, if i gave the wrong impression or have offended anyone, i apologize as i do understand where the objection is coming from and it was a silly comment to make anyway.
As a member of the medical community, I have the following to say about this: Trans people have higher rates of suicide because they are abused and discriminated against. While it is probably intrinsically difficult to be born in a body that doesn’t match genders with your brain, this can be handled with a supportive community and medical intervention (hormonal, surgical, psychiatric) as needed. It’s the sexism, transphobia, and general asshattiness (conscious or unconscious) that do the majority of the damage. In short, the best way to reduce the risk of suicide in people with gender dysphoria and similar issues is to slap people like Hickey down fast and hard. He should NEVER be representative of any part of any civilized country and the fact that he is the elected representative of S Dakota is…telling of how far we have to go to be a civilized society.
You shouldn’t rule out the possibility that he believes that if he isn’t allowed the sexyfuntimes that he wants that he thinks no one should have the sexyfuntimes that they want. I have no idea what
Congressman Ronald NorthRepresentative Steve Hickey is into, but it seems pretty unlikely he’s getting it, or he probably wouldn’t be so interested in what other people are doing.I should’ve mentioned that my reply was in response to the idea that he’s a closeted gay person. There are a lot of reasons someone could be virulently anti-gay while not actually being attracted to members of their own sex.
What a nasty, creepy, bigoted little excrescence it is, to be sure. Sure, there’s a kind of illness involved here all right – the existence of people like Hickey, of people who think the way he does and who revel in bullying others the way he does, is a harmful, festering boil on the body of society.
Chances are these girls have never had sex with a man, so technically they’re virgins. And as a good Christian man shouldn’t Steve be supportive of two virgins getting married? /snark.
this: does it merely put them in more places exposing them to additional painful ostracization
might have some barring on the suicide rate
ostracism is A OK of course and in no way wrong or have any negative effects
uncle frogy
Opposablethumbs @ 44:
He’s just the latest in a long string. Back in ’06, when SD was banning abortion, Sen. Bill Napoli provided this example of a possible exemption case:
The video of him saying that was much worse than the written transcript – he sounded like he was indulging in a private sex fantasy. Source: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law-jan-june06-abortion_3-03/
I don’t know of any gay men who spend as much time thinking about anal sex as these guys.
really PZ, such a broad generalization:
“South Dakotans are obsessed …”
How dare you!
Fixing That For You: “A South Dakotan is obsessed with …”
But he is only one, he doesn’t represent all South Dakotans; Senators never do so. [looking at the Fed Senators].
twas brillig:
No, not all. That said, you aren’t familiar with SD at all.
*eyebrow*
…oh :(
Actually — no. Many lesbians practice it, too. If you’re looking for the common link in anal sex, it isn’t homosexuality: it’s the possession of an anus.
Fuck, I remember that quote from Bill Napoli from here on Pharyngula. I think I was lurking back then. I haven’t had the guts to watch the clip, but even reading it cold – it’s the way he makes up such a ridiculous level of detail that makes it very compelling indeed to consider it a fantasy of his. It’s appalling that somebody like this can wield political power.
Specifically, one that isn’t blocked by something else, like one’s head. …I guess Hickey’s just jealous.
@Greta, #52
I remember discussing with a group of people including, IIRC, Carol Queen, that the closest thing to a universal sex act (discounting things like kissing) was anal fisting. A higher percentage of people could engage in it from either direction than any other act we could think of. ;)
The passive voice of to question is to be questioned.
:-D :-D :-D
Depends. The G spot is homologous to the prostate. Not all women have a G spot, and of those who have it not all like to have it stimulated – but then, not all men like having their prostate stimulated either.
Meanwhile, next door in North Dakota, Republican state senate candidate Steve Wiles who supported North Carolina’s ban on gay marriage once worked as a female impersonator at a gay nightclub.
Maybe Minnesota should put up a big wall along its western border. It would provide a nice windbreak while protecting your precious bodily fluids from all those impure-Americans…
Pierce @ 57, perhaps you should keep in mind that there are regulars here who live in SD, ND, and MN, before you exercise your sense of humour more.
I’ve heard… that a common complaint of every man’s “prostate exam” is an unintentional erexion. I wonder, if Hickey has had such an occurrence. (all males over 40yo need such an exam). Maybe that caused his opposition to sticking things “up there”… }:-|
@55 stephanienoir
What about auto-erotic trepanation?
gijoel:
Actually, quite a few women who are in same-sex couples have had sex with men at some point. That includes both bisexual women, and lesbian women who didn’t realize they were lesbian until after having had relationships with men.
This is part of why many of us talk about marriage equality or same-sex marriage rather than “gay marriage.”
It’s a known fact that Jesus designed wives’ mouths to fit around their husbands’ penises. In fact, Jesus turns a wife’s mouth into a temporary second vagina for so long as her husband’s penis is in it.
Hey Nancy Robrahn and Jennie Rosenkranz, congratulations on your wedding! Long life and much love to you and all around you.
Why do these idiots send their time “wondering” how you physically love each other?
Just the fact of love is enough.
He compares anal sex to eating at McDonalds? Talk about Hobson’s choice. Mind you I can think of some hazardous things he could do with their hot apple pie.
I don’t know, but you should probably feel sorry for their partners.
Inaji @ # 58 – If you lived here in Florida, you’d keep in mind that state-based humor can be survived with hardly any scars at all.
Why is it that when the ” homosexual community” is discussed by bigots it regularly only ever includes men who have sex with men? Why is it that lesbians, bisexual people and everyone else who falls under the queer umbrella are non existent in their eyes? I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that they can drum up more support for the idea that anal sex is icky than they can by saying that women having sex with each other is icky. Utterly pathetic.
leahdoner @ 62
Transubvagination? Alert the pope! We’ll at least get a weekend off while they get off on their weekend!
I agree with the point of the post, but I’m bothered by PZ’s use of the data. The survey (PubMed link) doesn’t say that “Anal sex is the least common sexual activity between gay men”, it says that more gay men’s last sexual encounter involved kissing, mutual masturbation or oral sex than anal sex, with the most common encounter involving “”holding their partner romantically, kissing partner on mouth, solo masturbation, masturbating partner, masturbation by partner, and genital–genital contact.” Presence in percentage of people’s last encounter isn’t a good proxy for how commonly people engage in a particular practice.
/pedantry
Actual Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24287965
Anal sex is dangerous to Repubes, it can lead to semen on the brain.
About the “proper” role for sex:
> I can kinda see part of their “logic” against anal sx. Sex, in their mind [I’m telepathic, donchaknow], is only for one purpose; to fertilize eggs, to produce a baby. All other forms of sex are just hedonism; to be forbidden.
|| Lesbianism is just two girls, getting ready for sex with a big strong guy who can please both of them (simultaneously).
-Two men having fun with each other are just wasting their seed and should be scolded for spilling their goodstuff into the cesspool of each others butt.
… so… even with that kind of distorted mindset; I still can’t get why they don’t also object to M/F anal, nor blowjobs, ‘fingering’, etc. ONLY M/M Anal is on their hitlist, everything else is just “meh”.
>>> ehrhrhrh, bleh, blech, my porno brain is going all wonky, bleh, blech, blech
derail alert!
sorry for the sidetrack: But I have heard (I think) that there actually is a significant number of ‘girls’ who think that oral sex (umm, feelatteo, not ‘cunning linguist’) can get one pregnant just as much as vaginal sex. I always wondered, do they just ASSUME that can happen because of LACK of SexEd, or are they being TAUGHT that by SexMisEd, to keep them away from boys until they marry one of those creeps they are told to avoid at all cost? [oh I forgot, marriage is magical, etc. etc]
ignore my snark, but the point is ‘oral can result in pregnant’ is really believed by some people, WHY?
twas brillig @ 73:
Honestly? There are people alive today who believe that? I know the Egyptians thought that, at least during the Middle Kingdom…which was always good for a laugh.
Please don’t let these haters get away with using the term “gay sex” as a synonym for “anal sex.” One need not engage in anal sex to have gay sex, and, most important, there are far more heterosexual Americans engaging in anal sex than the total number gay men in America.
PZ, you have a typo in your post. It’s not ‘transgendered‘, it’s transgender or trans.
Waste disposal: If the human body was intelligently designed, it would teleport solid waste into a black hole, getting energy from the accretion disc.
“auto-erotic trepanation”
(head explodes)
“not ‘transgendered‘,
Could this be one of those British English/Mercan English things?
It has occurred to me that Steve Hickey is one of those who reads wossname in the OT, (“those who use ketchup during the sabbath shall be stoned”) and thinks the stuff has genuine relevance to his life. And having never had significant contact with people outside the bubble he is like those Brit upper-class twits who still don’t know where their toothbrushes are stored since the butler does everything -when speculating about other people’s lives he lacks the tools to get it right.
I, for one, really hope they take him up on this. I’d love to see the look on his face when over 95% of doctors go “Er, yeah, it’s fine. Really. Perfectly safe.”
And then I got to the bit about trans* people. Trans* people commit suicide more often, so oviously there is something “broken” about trans* people!? I am now very, very angry.
@’TwasBrillig
Sing it with me people:
“Every sperm is sacred,
every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted,
God get’s quite irate”.