"Adultery, including adulterous cohabitation, is not prosecuted. Religious cohabitation, however..."

"... is subject to prosecution at the limitless discretion of local and State prosecutors, despite a general policy not to prosecute religiously motivated polygamy. The court finds no rational basis to distinguish between the two, not least with regard to the State interest in protecting the institution of marriage."

Says federal judge Clark Waddoups in Brown v. Buhman, a case about the Utah anti-bigamy statute, which makes it a felony "when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person." From the first time I noticed this issue, I've thought the answer was obvious. You can't punish people for the ideas they happen to have about why they are living in a household with multiple sexual partners. Call it a marriage or call it a sandwich. Imagine that God blesses your relationship or imagine that your kitty cats brought you together. It's no proper concern of the government's.

Now, if you want to legally register your marriage and qualify for various marriage-connected benefits and privileges, it's a different matter, and Judge Waddoups makes that clear. This case was not about that. It was about people who live together and perform private marriage rituals and call themselves married. Prosecuting these people, while other married people are left alone when they commit adultery, is criminalizing their speech and beliefs. If you understand the issue, I think you'll see this must be the answer.

This does not lay the groundwork for finding a right to marry multiple spouses any more than it compels the government to prosecute adulterers.

Ryan O’Neal, fighting for an Andy Warhol painting that Farrah Fawcett left to the University of Texas...

... submits to a deposition and has to admit that Farrah caught him in bed with another woman in the bedroom the couple shared, which explains her motivation to give the painting to Texas. But, he says, she did not take the painting when she left — because wouldn't grab ya painting worth millions if you were running out in a rage — as you might rip your treasured Farrah Fawcett poster of the wall — if it was yours? Answer: No. Moving an expensive painting is a big deal.

And in fact, a year later, the painting was moved to Fawcett's place. How does O'Neal explain that? He says it was sent away "for safe keeping because his new girlfriend did not like having the image of Farrah on the wall 'staring down at her' all the time."

If you're already out of sympathy with O'Neal, check out the photo at the link of him leaning toward a torso mannequin wearing what appears to be Farrah's iconic orange bathing suit, while, in the background the dead actress smiles in her eternally popular poster. The less-famous image of Farrah is this:



That's the Warhol that was hanging over the couple's bed. Imagine cheating on her under that. Imagine having sex with the man who got off having sex with you under that picture of her.

The picture, which Farrah left to her old school, had been missing but was found because O'Neal did a reality show in 2011, in which it could be seen hanging on the wall. At the time O'Neal murmured about how Farrah "permeated my mind and my being" and "still does" and "The things that are nice in my house are the things that she got me."

The mutable sexuality of an internet celebrity.

Antoine Dodson, the hide-you-kids-hide-your-wife viral-video celebrity, has been tweeting about causing a pregnancy in a woman:

"I just became the happiest man alive!! My beautiful Queen and I are having a baby!!" he tweeted. "Wait what?" one user wrote. "Aren't you gay?" another added.

Last May, Dodson claimed he wanted "a wife and family" and "to multiply and raise and love my family that I create." Dodson explained in a series of tweets that he had become a "True Hebrew Israelite descendant of Judah" and referred to his former lifestyle as "foolish."

"I have to renounce myself, I'm no longer into homosexuality," he concluded.

ADDED: He doesn't seem to be denying his homosexual orientation, just rejecting the behavior urged by the orientation, which is exactly what many religions teach. He isn't claiming to be sexually attracted to the woman that he's gotten pregnant. You'd think if he were devoted to following traditional religious teachings he would refrain from pregnancy-causing behavior outside of marriage. Who knows what the whole story is?

There are several moral/religious issues that we can't disentangle in this particular case without knowing more. And I don't really need to know more about Antoine Dodson to go on with the issues raised in a more general fashion:

1. A man's desire to produce offspring is separate from his desire to have sexual intercourse with a particular human being, and many men of homosexual orientation have produced children with women who don't interest them sexually. One reason it's helpful to be honest and not repressed about homosexuality is so that people don't deceive themselves into entering sexually unsatisfying marriages.

2. A homosexual man who wants a family with children might attract a woman into a marriage (or other child-bearing relationship). He could be deceiving himself and her — which is very sad. He could be only deceiving her — which is just plain wrong. Or the 2 of them could be eyes-wide-open about what they are doing, which is, if they really understand what they are doing, a matter of individual choice.

3. It's a separate issue whether that man and woman, having formed a family like that, give each other permission to find sexual satisfaction with other partners. That's not traditional morality, but it is a matter of individual choice.

4. And it's a separate issue whether a man and a woman, having come together to bring a child into the world, must stay together to raise that child. This is the most serious moral issue, because the child isn't given any choice.

"No money for anything now - not even for women.... The day of Casanova is over."

"One woman only - and that's already too expensive."

"The good time's finished.... I'm an ex-Casanova."

Downsizing in Italy.

The list of the adultress, the unfair headline, the "orgasm of life," the twice-seen movie, the arcane logo, and the corporate cult.

I'm no fan of adultery, but "Google mistress more into sex than 'love' and kids," trashing 26-year-old Amanda Rosenberg (who's linked to Google co-founder Sergey Brin), is an awfully unfair headline.

The NY Post has gathered its information about what Ms. Rosenberg is "into" from a lightweight blog post of hers titled "The 10 Least Inspiring Sentences on This Lululemon Tote." Here's the blog post, which has a picture of the begging-to-be-mocked tote bag. #1 on the list is "1. Children are the orgasm of life." Calling that sentence "uninspiring" — I'd call it a lot worse — is not taking the position that one is not "into" kids. The blog post ends with Rosenberg identifying herself as "a misanthropic Brit who lives in San Francisco and works in Silicon Valley," and "She's currently struggling to come to terms with Californian optimism and cannot believe someone actually wrote the sentence 'children are the orgasm of life.'"

Sounds about right to me.
I was in a Lululemon store the other day — just throwing away time while waiting for my ride after seeing a movie. (I saw "Blue Jasmine" a second time, on the theory that a second viewing would inspire me to write a blog post in the style of this 9-point list I did on "Doubt." But I didn't have that experience of details bursting out and themes connecting up that I'd expected based on loving the movie the first time and getting over an hour's worth of conversation out of it. Instead the movie on second viewing turned out to be exactly what I thought I saw the first time. Knowing the story in advance, I admired the sharp storytelling, done through expert writing and editing, but I didn't uncover any cool listables.)

I didn't know I was in Lululemon, because I didn't see that word anywhere, and I looked. I saw the logo, which I had to look up just now to determine that I was, in fact, inside the store whose handbag Amanda Rosenberg mocked. At the time, seeing the logo on the sign over the door...



... I thought "Omega?" (Ω.) At the Lululemon website now, I see:

The lululemon name was chosen in a survey of 100 people from a list of 20 brand names and 20 logos. The logo is actually a stylized "A" that was made for the first letter in the name "athletically hip", a name which failed to make the grade.

So... it doesn't look like an "A," and the store's name doesn't begin with "A." Is it supposed to feel like a secret club, like you're hip (athletically) if you get the logo? Is it somehow connected the way yoga is (sort of) religion, so replacing the name with a seemingly unrelated symbol — like the fish that means Jesus — delivers the vibe that you're entering a cult? Is it connected to "I am the alpha and the omega"?

I Google "lululemon cult" and get 218,000 results. "Lululemon's Cult Culture: Get Fit or Die Trying""

Lululemon wants you to know it's "elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness" and "creating components for people to live long, healthy and fun lives." But, dig deeper, and you'll learn about Landmark Forum, the ultra-secretive, eerily cultish educational series, which Lululemon employees are "strongly encouraged" to attend. Before you're in line for Landmark, you're bombarded with Brian Tracy motivational CDs and a book club that culminates with Atlas Shrugged.

"12 Utterly Bizarre Facts About The Rise Of Lululemon, The Cult-Like Yoga Brand":

The founder is an Ayn Rand fan and the company takes its values from Atlas Shrugged....

Wilson believes the birth control pill and smoking are responsible for high divorce rates—and the existence of Lululemon itself....

"A rare look at the luon empire of Lululemon/The story of a Vancouver business that inspires cult-like devotion":

Part of the initiation and training in the company, known as “on-boarding,” involves setting your vision and goals, referred to as one unit, “vision-and-goals,” in company parlance....

“You’re a whole brain, a whole body, a wholehearted person. You should be focusing on all these things. When your life is firing on all cylinders – so when home’s working, personal’s working, career’s working, health is working – you’re going to be great at work. It’s just going to happen,” [said  said Margaret Wheeler, senior vice-president of Human Resources (“People Potential”)].

"Lululemon: A Cult, a Phenomenon or Just a Great Brand":

Lululemon promotes its brand, its community and its culture with local events, some quite large in scale. In New York this September, an event entitled, “The Gospel of Sweat” was staged at Riverside Church inviting people to “Come together to build community, engage spirituality, and celebrate fitness!”

It's just a brand. Do you want your comfy clothes made out of cotton or synthetic fibers? It all depends on how much you sweat. Sweating sounds lowly, and there's religion(ishness) to elevate things. The Gospel of Sweat. But it's not religion. It's not religion because they obviously don't care about heresy.

And because Ayn Rand was a big old atheist. What's that "A" for again?

Which reminds me...



... do not commit adultery. It will expose all your old blog posts — and all your new movie scripts — to unsympathetic reinterpretation.

How clean did "male feminist" Hugo Schwyzer come?

The Daily Beast has an interview with the headline "Porn Professor Hugo Schwyzer Comes Clean About His Twitter Meltdown and Life as a Fraud." I suspect he's playing a longer game, and this is first class bullshit. We've all heard of this guy now, and I wonder what's his next move, now that he has our attention.

Let's review the facts thus far. He got his academic credentials in British and medieval history, and he is a tenured professor at Pasadena City College, who taught classes in Women's Studies. It emerged that he, a 46-year-old married man, had "sexted with a 27-year-old sex worker activist." Then, he tweeted a lot about what a fraud he was. Who cares?! Well, I guess it was dramatic for a professor to let loose with a spate of tweets ostensibly attacking himself.

I am just so sorry.  I am just so sorry.  I lied and manipulated and cheated so many of you....

I will never teach women's studies or gender studies again.  If I can get well and beat this, I will teach my Western Civ courses....

This seems completely silly to me. It's common in law school, for example, to teach a course in a subject within law that you've never taken a single course in. Schwyzer had, in fact, taken a couple of Women's Studies classes, and it's not as if "Women's Studies" is something technical like engineering. It's an umbrella heading under which, I would assume, you can create all manner of courses relating to women, drawing on various scholarly disciplines (such as history).

And it seems that going confessional and saying, as a male, you are a fraudulent feminist is really another feminist rhetorical move. One anticipates a later synthesis. Confessing fraudulence is leverage toward greater sincerity. It feels like a feminist strategy.

The Daily Beast interviewer confronts him with his claim of fraud, which, ironically, seems phony. Schwyzer says he didn't fake any research or plagiarize, though he did fail to publish in "serious" journals. He wrote "for a popular audience" in places like Jezebel or The Atlantic. So how was this a "fraud"? His only answer is that in his life he did things that were inconsistent with the ideology in his writing, specifically that he had sex with a younger woman when he was writing that men should go for women their own age.

This raises the question whether he promoted ideology he didn't actually believe or whether he merely failed to live up to his own principles. He hedges at first, saying he's "very confused," but soon he saying he's "guilty of hypocrisy" and "the fact that I am guilty of hypocrisy doesn’t invalidate the truth of what I was saying. I was just too weak to live up to what it was I was writing." So, in short, there's no repudiation of his stature as a tenured professor, the aptness of writing for the popular media, and the truth of everything he's written. He's just a guy that got caught misbehaving, and he's making the best of it. Doing a damned good job of it!

The Daily Beast interviewer invites him to admit that he was really writing for women and telling them what they wanted to hear, and he admits that:

I always wrote for women but wrote in a really backhanded way where it appeared I was writing for men so that it would not appear too presumptuous and instead it would make me look better. And that required presenting myself as the ideal husband, father, and reformed bad boy. My point is that I was writing for women because I wanted validation from women. The way to get validation from women was to present an idealized picture of what is possible for men.

And he's getting away with an almost identical strategy now with this big breakdown and confession. It's for the women, whose favor he wants, and who he knows will be massively pissed off that he had sex with that younger woman. He's the bad boy again, and he's got to reform again.

I taught a course in men and masculinity, and I cited male authors, but the whole way of designing the course was to get women excited about the possibility for male change, that they would then transfer some of that hope onto me. That is what I was doing.

And he's doing it again! Hilarious. There are some more confessions, but I'm stopping here. I really shouldn't give this guy more attention, but I'm writing this because I'm afraid people are falling for his bullshit. He should be regarded as a relatively smart academic man following some strategies within the Women's Studies and pop media games. That is to say, he's a dull little man, and his theater is boring.

"My husband and I both date other partners, and we've been doing so since before we were married."

"It was our first choice of approach for the relationship (not a fallback position). Initially we both dated relatively casually outside of our marriage, although I started seeing someone about a year ago with whom I unexpectedly fell in love. These days I am only seeing my two lovers, while my husband continues to date other people causally."

From a Slate article by Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins titled "How Do You Maintain Desire in a Long-Term Relationship? Date Outside the Marriage." Jenkins and her husband are both — she says — "professional philosophers."

Some people stay single because they love dating. Some people get married and think finally, no more of the ordeal that is dating. And then there are the "philosophers"....

ADDED: Jenkins writes that her "husband continues to date other people causally." Philosophers are careful with language, I think, so I take that to have something to do with the processes of cause and effect. We are talking about relationships. And the expression "causal relationship" is common. But it's possible that Jenkins got careless, like that time she "unexpectedly fell in love," and maybe she meant that her husband "continues to date other people casually," which is nice for her, since that crazy thing called love is annoying when your spouse does it with someone else when you are dating "Accidentally... Without design or previous intention; as it happens or happened; by mere chance" — (to use the OED definition of "casually").

1828 C. Lamb Poor Relations in Elia 2nd Ser. 149 He casually looketh in about dinner time.

Bill Clinton acknowledges double entendre about Hillary having sex with Barack Obama.

From a montage of clips from recent graduation addresses, shown on today's "Fox News Sunday":

"One of the things that heartened me when President Obama asked Hillary to be secretary of state and she said yes, and they developed this -- not just working relationship -- this amazing friendship, which I just watched with great interest, is that they -- they had -- oh, come on, guys. Get a life here."

The "oh, come on, guys" reacted to the audience's reaction to "I just watched with great interest." I wish I had the video clip, because it was very clear from the manner of his laughter that he was acknowledging the double entendre and — I think — the idea that people associate him with sexuality.

ADDED: Here's the video:

How not to show respect for the stay-at-home spouse.

On "Meet the Press" today, David Gregory questioned various commentators about a report from the Pew Research Center that said that in 2011 women were the sole or primary breadwinners in 40.4% of American families. (It was 10.8% in 1960.) There were some strange statements from "Republican strategist" Ana Navarro:

There has been an evolution in the American family.  You know-- and I think what we have to be as a society is accepting of what couples decide to do for themselves.  There are some people who want to lean in, there are some people who want to lean back and be on a rocking chair drinking a mint julep.  Whatever works for every couple is what we should respect…

So right off, Navarro is portraying the home-based partner as lazy! The old image was lying on the sofa eating bonbons. She's got the sofa replaced by a rocking chair and an alcoholic beverage in place of the box of chocolates. Gregory breaks in with a wisecrack — "Enough about your Sunday afternoon" — and this prompts Navarro — the Republican — to double down on her idea that the stay-at-home spouse is a sponge:

When I say in my house that I want to be a kept woman, the answer I get back is well, I want to be a kept man.  So, you know, that’s not working-- it’s not working in my house.  

Kept woman! This isn't as bad as Rush Limbaugh's notorious equation of free birth control and prostitution. It's actually kind of worse. Limbaugh intended to malign the demand for free birth control. He meant to say that the general public shouldn't have to pay for a particular person's sexual activities. He found a notoriously crude way to say I don't want to pay for you to have sex (i.e., if someone pays you to have sex, you're a prostitute). But aside from the crudeness, the opinion that the group shouldn't pay for the individual to have sex isn't offensive. It's just economics and ideology.

Navarro claimed "Whatever works for every couple is what we should respect," but she said — twice, quite clearly — that the stay-at-home partner isn't contributing. The first image was of someone loafing and drinking alcohol during the day. The second image was of a "kept woman" — that is, a woman who doesn't take care of the house and the children or do anything helpful other than to provide sex! If that "works for" you, that that's something that deserves respect — she asserts — but it wouldn't work at her house, and if she were to suggest that for herself, her husband would say that's what he wants. Obviously, the idea is that the nonbreadwinner spouse is goofing off. So where's the respect? At most, she says, if some other couple finds that this "works," then we should accept that they make their own decisions. Navarro goes on to say:

But I think, you know-- I think, we-- women that work need to be not judgmental of women who don’t.  

But your judgment leaked out all over the place!

I think men who are mister moms need to be accepted by those who are the alpha male breadwinners.  So, I think it’s got to be whatever works-- different folks…

Mr. Mom... alpha male... the disrespect is plain, even as you keep insisting you are tolerant.

"The founder of Ashleymadison.com said new registrations surged a whopping 230% this week after millions watched..."

"... how a frustrated Marge Simpson stumbled onto an Ashley Madison-type website and then toyed with the idea of pursuing an extramarital affair on the eve of her wedding anniversary."

"When we see an anomalous spike we try and identify where it came from: was it marketing, media coverage or something else? We looked at what was on TV at that moment and it seemed to us to be very attributable to “The Simpsons,’” he said.

"A few months ago, my husband uncovered an affair I was having with an old flame."

"He moved out and initiated divorce proceedings, but in the time since, I was able to convince him that I am truly repentant and to give our marriage another chance for the sake of our children. The problem I have now is that he says that if we are to stay married, he wants it to be an open marriage. I've tried to tell him that I've gotten that out of my system and I don't want to be with anybody other than him, but he says there just isn't any way he can ever trust me again, he doesn't feel an obligation to be faithful to me anymore, and at least this way we're being honest about it."

Letter to advice columnist "Prudie" from a woman who "just want[s] things to go back to how they used to be."

Who's more wrong, the wife or the husband? It's easy to say the wife, but the husband is also wrong, because the idea of open marriage should be founded on trust, not mistrust. He's punishing her, deliberately, not pursuing what he believes is a positive way of life. (I'm not recommending polyamory, but if you're doing it as an expression of hostility to your primary partner, you're not doing it the way the prominent proponents say you should. I know... should... why speak of shoulds in the realm of transgression? I do get that. But I'm not one of the promoters of polyamory. I'm just someone who's listened to my share of Dan Savage podcasts.)

"I've always told Will: You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay."

"Because at the end of the day, Will is his own man. I'm here as his partner, but he is his own man. He has to decide who he wants to be and that's not for me to do for him. Or vice versa."

"Mark Sanford won over primary voters Tuesday night, but national Republicans aren’t celebrating..."

"... Many privately concede the former governor could hand a safe Republican seat to Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch."

Sanford is the former Governor of South Carolina, who resigned after disappearing and then reappearing as an adulterer with an Argentine girlfriend. That woman — Maria Belen Chapur — is now said to be his "fiancée," and she was at his side for his victory speech last night. I put "fiancée" in quotes because he's trying to get back in the public's good graces, so he should have actually married her by now.

Sanford will now face Elizabeth Colbert Busch and Green Party candidate Eugene Platt in a May special election. She is the sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert.

"In Love With a Sex Addict" — oh, really?

I hadn't given much thought to the much-bruited Tiger Woods/Lindsey Vonn romance, but something about that magazine cover set off my bullshit detector. I think his PR people contacted her PR people and this couple was concocted for our consumption. I love the way they are in love... with the camera. Smiley eyes!

Here's the underlying story.

"They're a really happy couple -- not living together yet," a source explains to Us Weekly... "He confessed everything in his past to her and stuff - they're really into each other," the source tells Us.

Confessed? How do you confess — and stuff! — when everything was all already in the newspapers? And speaking of everything... did you see this new Nike ad that's been "criticized by some"?

"What precisely is the way in which allowing gay couples to marry would interfere with the vision of marriage as procreation of children that allowing sterile couples of different sexes to marry would not?"

A perceptive question by Justice Breyer at today's oral argument in the Prop 8 case, asked of Charles J. Cooper, who had framed the state's interest in terms of "responsible procreation." It's certainly true that same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples are different in that only sex between a man and a woman can result in children, but what's the harm in letting some couples who can't reproduce get married?

Cooper says:

The concern is that redefining marriage as a genderless institution will sever its abiding connection to its historic traditional procreative purposes, and it will refocus, refocus the purpose of marriage and the definition of marriage away from the raising of children and to the emotional needs and desires of adults, of adult couples….

Justice Kagan presses him: What about older heterosexual couples over the age of 55? Their sexual intercourse isn't going to produce children. Letting them marry when they can't procreate ought to present the same problem of centering marriage on adult "needs and desires" instead of on children.

Cooper says:

[S]ociety's interest in responsible procreation isn't just with respect to the procreative capacities of the couple itself. The marital norm, which imposes the obligations of fidelity and monogamy... advances the interests in responsible procreation by making it more likely that neither party, including the fertile party to that...

The fertile party? Yes: The man can still reproduce, just not with this woman.

The marital norm... [is] designed... to make it less likely that either party to that — to that marriage will engage in irresponsible procreative conduct outside of that marriage.... That's... the marital norm. Society has an interest in seeing a 55-year-old couple that is -- just as it has an interest of seeing any heterosexual couple that intends to engage in a prolonged period of cohabitation to reserve that until they have made a marital commitment.... So that, should that union produce any offspring, it would be more likely that that child or children will be raised by the mother and father who brought them into the world.

Got that? In this view, marriage is about children and not adult desire because it is a device to rein in male desire, to keep men from fathering children they aren't going to raise. It's not that marriage can keep that bad thing from happening. It just makes it less likely, because the marriage norm is fidelity.

Obviously, fornication and adultery go on despite this marriage norm, and it's hard to see why letting gay people marry would mess up the norm. I'm trying to picture this man at the heart of Cooper's vision of society: He's true to his wife, because he's gotten the message that's the norm, but if some gay people can marry, then he's going to start cheating, knocking up some other woman, and it's because of this guy that gay people can be excluded from marriage?

What a nutty set of things we're asked to believe! Who the hell is this stereotypical married man, constrained by what other people are forbidden to do? And why should his ridiculous, tenuous connection to norms carry the day? And how can obsessing over what makes him tick work to keep marriage focused on the raising of children and not on the emotional needs and desires of adults? It seems to be all about the needs and desires of adults — really ridiculous heterosexual male adults.

Who are these people?!

"The episode is a tragic reminder that even responsible gun owners can find themselves at the mercy of an unhinged gunman..."

The episode, it seems to me, is a nontragic reminder that even responsible gun owners may not get mercy from gunmen who become unhinged when you have sex with their wives.

Lesson: Be a responsible penis owner too. 

ADDED: This post is reacting to the way Think Progress goes for the anti-gun interpretation. I don't know exactly why the husband murdered the man he found with his wife. The two were not in flagrante.

What Ben Affleck said about marriage at the Oscars and why people are criticizing him.

Accepting the award for Best Picture, he said (addressing his wife):

"I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good, it is work, but it’s the best kind of work, and there’s no one I’d rather work with."

What's wrong with that?

The criticism centers around this statement as lacking in cuteness, and focusing on the negative. It wasn’t the “right forum” for this type of declaration, it was a possible indicator that “something is wrong” in the marriage, he should have just stuck to “I love you and adore you and you’re perfect” -- basically whining that a major Hollywood star was uncomfortably honest about his relationship and said overly blunt things about marriage in one of the most public forums on the planet.

Obviously, that's a summary from someone who doesn't agree with the criticism.

The critics are imagining themselves in the position of the wife and thinking they'd want to hear a nice compliment. But I bet Affleck planned his speech, with the help of his wife Jennifer Garner, and that the 2 of them decided they had an excellent opportunity to speak to everyone about marriage and this was the message they wanted to give: Work on it everyone. We — the pretty people, who seem so ideal — we have to work on it and we do work on it.

The line is crafted. 10 years was edited into 10 Christmases. It's been years and it's included family traditions and deep values that take a lot of attention. The first sentence creates some tension. Is he saying that the wife took care of the home front, making his life stable and pleasurable, while he went out in the world and furthered his career? The second sentence prolongs the tension — It’s good, it is work, but it’s the best kind of work — and we finally get to the resolution: there’s no one I’d rather work with. That means he is also doing this work. And that's subtly stated. He didn't praise himself as he said those last few words which reveal that he is a partner in the work. It's all carefully about her.

Well, there's also the "no one" — the nonexistent person he would prefer to "work with," that is, to have a marriage with, because it's marriage that equals work. The temptation of adultery is that it looks like a vacation from a marriage that seems like work. Imagine the opportunities strewn in front of Ben Affleck. There's a twist on that last line that creates anxiety for the sensitive listener: There's no one other than Jennifer that he'd like to work with (be in a marriage with), but does he ever play?

Speaking of being called to a higher law and speaking of speaking....

In the previous post, we're talking about what Jesus wrote in the sand and what he said out loud, in the New Testament story where the scribes and Pharisees present Jesus with the question of what to do with a woman who was caught in the act of adultery. In the Gospel text, we're told Jesus that wrote on the ground, but not what he wrote, and we're told that he subsequently spoke and said "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."

I'm putting up a separate post because I found the scene that sydney said he loved in the movie "The King of Kings." Made in 1927, it's a silent movie, so no one is saying anything out loud. We see what Jesus says written out on the intertitles, and we also see what he writes in the sand.



Beautiful filmmaking, particularly as the sand-words, not written in Roman letters, transform into our English words, naming the sins that the men in the crowd realize they've committed, and that's why they all turn and walk away.

That's not an accurate depiction of what happens in the biblical text though. The movie shows a mob on the verge of stoning the woman and Jesus intervenes and announces his rule about casting the first stone. Only thereafter, does he write the names of the sins in the sand. But in the Bible story, there is no angry mob with stones in hand. There are scribes and Pharisees demanding that Jesus deliver a legal opinion. Jesus bends down and writes on the ground instead of answering the question.  Only after they persist does he stand up and pronounce his new rule, which causes the scribes and Pharisees to walk away — "beginning with the older ones." The movie would have you see the members of the mob acknowledging their sins and their consequent lack of qualification to cast the first stone. But the text has intellectuals trying to box Jesus in on a question of law, and Jesus getting the better of a conversation he didn't want to have in the first place.

It's not surprising that a movie plays up the visible drama, and it's also not surprising that when I — a law professor — read the text, I see something akin to a law school class. The professors try to stump the student and the student transcends their tricky game. To me, the part where Jesus bends over and writes in the sand is like what happens in a law school class when the lawprof poses a difficult hypothetical and the students bend their heads down and go through motions of writing. They don't want to answer. It's not that they're writing something magically revelatory and startling. But if the lawprof keeps pushing and calls on someone, an answer will be spoken out loud.

I guess the law-professorly interpretation of the text isn't terribly cinematic. It's no wonder the movies present an angry mob with stones in hand and Jesus miraculously knowing and changing the hearts of the sinners. (And the adulteress is an actress evincing exactly the form of sexiness that was fashionable in the year the movie was made. I love the eyeliner!)

But to me the lawprof interpretation is thrilling and dramatic. The professors think they've got the upper hand. They know the legal text and it's tough. And then the brilliant student who will soon be the greatest professor of all gets on top of the dialogue and says something they must accept as correct: If you're going to have strict rules and severe mechanisms of enforcement, you must apply them equally to everyone. This is the structural safeguard of equal protection of the laws that is the necessary component of a democratic system. If there can't be exceptions and special treatment for preferred people, legislatures will resist imposing harsh rules and painful punishments.

In this context, let me give you my favorite Justice Scalia quote, which happens to include one of the key words of Christianity: "Our salvation is the Equal Protection Clause, which requires the democratic majority to accept for themselves and their loved ones what they impose on you and me."

"See Cartoon Instructions For How To Stone Adulterers."

"An Islamist Facebook page uploaded a cartoon explaining how to stone adulterers on Wednesday that is getting a decent reaction on the Web so far, garnering over 120 'likes' and 500 Facebook shares as well as 500 comments."

Buzzfeed.

***

"The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, 'Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?' This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, 'Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.'"

"The world’s most experienced penis reattachment surgeons can be found in Thailand..."

"... where, during the 1970s, an estimated one hundred vengeful Thai wives, spurred by media coverage of a prominent 1973 case, sliced off the penises of their adulterous husbands as they slept. When a suitably equipped microsurgeon was on hand to reattach the errant appendage, the men were able to resume philandering within a matter of months. Though probably with reduced success: The penises, though operative, were shorter, numb, and often only partway erectable. The most serious complication, in the Thai attacks, was infection. Two of the wives flushed the penises down the toilet, forcing their husbands to grope for their lost manhood inside the septic tank. (Incredibly, both were found, cleaned, cleaned some more, and reattached.) More commonly, the women would hurl the penis out the window. In the cases described in 'Surgical Management of an Epidemic of Penile Amputations in Siam,' all the recovered penises were 'grossly contaminated.' Better that than eaten by livestock. Many rural Thai homes are elevated on pilings, with the family’s pigs, chickens, and ducks tending to mill about seeking shade in the space underneath. It is not, oddly, the pigs, but rather the ducks, that the castrated Thai must worry about. The paper does not provide the exact number of penises eaten by ducks, but the author says there have been enough over the years to prompt the coining of a popular saying: 'I better get home or the ducks will have something to eat.'"

I'm reading "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex," by Mary Roach.