sex and age

I'm back in the city, which means I'm back in the country.

I just returned to NYC from Alberta and British Columbia where I spent six days meeting cousins on one branch of my partner's family tree, seeing beautiful countryside. We put over a thousand miles (1707 km) on our rental car, saw the oil industry service sector outside of Edmonton, the ranch land west of Calgary, the mountains separating Alberta and British Columbia, the lush greenness of British Columbia's Shuswap Lake region, and even got a peek at some of the disappearing glacier behind Lake Louise. And of course, as all my travels do, this one generated some sex-related insights.

I'm headed north and west for 6 days. I'm going to a land where marriage is legal for couples regardless of gender or sexual orientation, and where the national anthem starts with a great big O.

I'm going to Alberta and British Columbia.

I'm going to see family. I'm going to see wilderness. I'm going to see glaciers (before there are no more). I'm going to spend lots of time driving through mountains in a rental car with my partner and I'm going to face the fact that my sabbatical is just about over.

And when I come back we're having a party, to which you are all invited. It's our Sex in the Public Square coming out party. Join us!

While I'm gone, here are some things to read, ponder, get excited about or get outraged about.

The New York Times reports today on research that demonstrates a very high correlation between use of child pornography and the actual molesting of children. The Times did a good job of reporting why it is so important to be cautious about interpreting a study like this one. And it also does a good job of reporting on the need for continued research on child molestation.

Because of the tremendous moral panic risks that are attached to publishing anything about htis kind of research I am going to focus entirely on the cautions. There will be lots of voices out there focusing on the tentative conclusions of the study itself, so here lets just focus on the limitations:

1. Remember when thinking about these results that they were produced using only already-incarcerated men convicted of child pornography charges. These men may well not be representative of all people who have ever downloaded or viewed child pornography.