Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

January 31, 2009 Martha Thomases 33 Comments

When Republicans were looking for reasons not to cooperate with Democrats on President Obama’s proposed stimulus bill, they cited the $200 million plus to be used on family-planning programs.  “What does contraception have to do with stimulating the economy?” they demanded.

And thus was born a week of monologue jokes.  Go ahead, check out YouTube and ComedyCentral.com.  I’ll wait. We want the cheap laughs out of the way so we can go on and enjoy the finer, more expensive laughs you’ve come to expect on MichaelDavisWorld.com.

For reasons I don’t understand, conservatives don’t get the connection between birth control and financial prudence.  Let me lay it out for you (and, if my use of the word “lay” gives you the giggles, go back and read a few more jokes):  Women who can have babies on their own schedule have more productive careers.  They make more money, and they use the money they have to take care of their existing family members.  They pay more in taxes.  Children who are planned and wanted have fewer emotional problems.  They grow up, get jobs, and stay out of prison.

That’s all well and good, say conservatives, but if they don’t want to have children, they don’t need to have sex.  And, if they do have sex, why should tax money support it?

I’ll tell you why:  because it’s more fun than using tax money to support farm subsidies.  And it’s just as useful to the economy.

Our economy depends on sex.  If you don’t believe me, watch the Super Bowl tomorrow.  I haven’t seen any of the ads, but I bet more than a few of them imply that the use of the advertised product will make you, the consumer, more attractive and/or able to have more sex.  The most successful ads not only use the promise of sex, but dirty, nasty (i.e. fun) sex between people who are not only not married, but probably also don’t know each other very well.

Don’t believe me?  Watch the beer ads.  Watch the ads selling hair dye to men.  In fact, watch any ads selling anything to men.

(If you want to see ads using the promise of sex to sell products to women, you’ll probably have to wait until the Academy Awards.  Or watch daytime television for those Revlon lip-gloss ads. Sometimes, I need a cigarette after AND I DON’T EVEN SMOKE!)

The promise of sex stimulates the economy.  In my own neighborhood, restaurants and bars are taking reservations for Valentines Day by posting menus with oysters, Champaign, chocolate and other aphrodisiacs.  Other stores have perfumes and lingerie in the window, the better to entice.

Sex is big business, and big business gets to deduct big business expenses from their taxes.  My tax dollars (and yours) support Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt and Joe Francis just as they support the Catholic Church and the War in Iraq.  No one asked me if I wanted my tax dollars spent this way.

There’s another way my government is spending my money without discussing the details with me.  The CIA is giving Viagra to Afghan warlords.

So why can’t women get a few tax-subsidized condoms?  Or birth-control pills?

I’ll tell you why.  It’s because we’re women.  Men can get Viagra through their insurance programs, including the government-funded Medicaid and Medicare.  These same institutions deny women birth control or abortions.  Conservatives don’t like it when women  – especially single women – have sex without the threat of childbirth.

Spending a few hundred million on family planning will create a lot of jobs.  And a lot more happy workers.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, also thinks a stimulus package for freelance writers would be a great thing for the economy.