Sex and the State Podcast

Watch me read this. Worry not, my babies. I know you all have been waiting with bated breath for my take on Jonah Hill vs his ex Sarah Brady. I come to you today to deliver. In sum, Jonah Hill telling Sarah Brady that not working with or being friends with other men is misogynistic in impact, if not intent. Now, I can just hear you crying out, out loud, to your screen, right now. “Really?” you’re...

Watch me read this. My babies, I am le tired. This is the sixth post in what I thought would be a five-part series on the ACAB case for weaksauce police reform. Last time I wrote about punishing police obfuscating . Obviously one of the biggest ways police obfuscate is by straight-up lying. So I went into my Pocket and started reading the stories I’d tagged about this when I came across a story ab...

Watch me read this. Welcome to the sixth post in the ACAB case for weaksauce police reform series. Part one: The ACAB case for paying cops more Part two: The ACAB case for hiring more officers Part three: The ACAB case against proactive policing Part four: The ACAB case for community policing Part five: The ACAB case for public police records Today, we’re keeping the accountability train rolling w...

Welcome to the 29th TV Tuesday ! In this episode of R&C Watch TV , my bf Rob and I discuss the second episode of Silo season one. Enjoy! Sex and the State is a newsletter at the intersection of policy and people. Like it? Upgrade to a paid subscription , buy a guide , follow me on Twitter , support me on Patreon , or just share this post 🙏 ~~~~~ This ⬇️ is an affiliate link! Sign up today to supp...

Watch me read this . Listen, my babies. We’ve reached the fifth installment of the ACAB case for weaksauce police reform series. Part one laid out why we need to professionalize policing . Part two made the case for hiring more officers . Post three suggested that proactive policing needs to go . Our last post introduced community policing as a good alternative. I had originally hoped this would b...

Watch me read this. Welcome, my dear sweet babies, to the fourth installment of the ACAB case for weaksauce police reform series. In part one we discussed why we need to professionalize policing . Part two was all about hiring more officers . Part three was a diatribe against proactive policing. Today’s post is all about what cops should do instead of proactive policing. As established in our last...

Watch me read this. It’s time, my babies, for the third installment of the ACAB case for weaksauce police reform series! In part one we discussed why we need to professionalize policing . Part two was all about hiring more officers . Today’s post is all about changing how cops do their jobs. As previously stated , we have good reason to believe that improving public trust in the police will reduce...

Watch me read this. Police departments are hiring at a rate of just 3% year over year, slower than the average for all US jobs. That might not sound like a bad thing. After all, cops currently spend most of their time doing shit that they know doesn’t deter crime. Despite this, “The data makes it very clear that more cops do reduce crime,” said John Pfaff, a Professor of Law at Fordham University,...

Watch me read this. Most of the time, when you pay workers more they tend to work harder and get better results. Now, cops are exceptional (mostly in a bad way) in many respects. But this is one area where I think the rule still applies. I think if we want better results, and we certainly should, we should pay officers well, treat them like professionals, and hold them to high standards.  How much...

Watch me read this. Inside me are two wolves. One wants to abolish the police. The other wants to implement reforms that will improve policing. Today, and over the next few days, you’re going to hear from the latter wolf. But before that, the first wolf has something to say. All Cops Are Bastards (ACAB). Hey now, you may be saying. Only 30% of them admit to committing domestic violence. They aren’...

Watch me read this. As an Exvangelical, I had to watch Shiny Happy People . “A limited docuseries exposing the truth beneath the wholesome Americana surface of reality tv’s favorite mega-family, The Duggars, and the radical organization behind them: The Institute in Basic Life Principles.” I got through part of episode one. It’s both slow as molasses and maddening to remember and think about. The...

Watch me read this. Juneteenth marks the day U.S. General Gordon Granger showed up in Galveston, Texas to let the enslaved people know the Union won the Civil War and slavery had been abolished. Though they’d had two and a half years to do it, their owners had never found the right time to let them know. But had slavery been abolished? Well, not really. It just changed form. Today, slavery happens...

Watch me read this. It has come to my attention that I owe Ryan Michler a sincere apology. When I reviewed his book, The Masculinity Manifesto, I truly had no idea what I had. While the review was far from scathing, after reading Senator Josh Hawley’s Manhood, I now realize even my light criticisms were far, far too harsh. Where do I even begin? Josh Hawley has written a self-help book. Not only d...

Watch me read this . This is a story about a girl named Cathy who tried to talk herself into pro-natalism and then wound up right back where she began. I was chatting in the Center for New Liberalism Slack Group ( join us! ), as one does, about loneliness, of course, and my interlocutor said, in essence, more liberals should get married and have kids. And suddenly, a theory of marriage and kids oc...

Watch me read this. Welcome to the 26th TV Tuesday ! Two parts of a recent Ezra Klein show episode got me thinking about Evangelical Christians and AI. And they highlighted what I think is a fundamental contradiction between human specialness and the Protestant Work Ethic that I think is interesting and may impact how Evangelicals adopt and grapple with AI. The show addressed what, if anything, ma...

Watch me read this. As I’ve written , I just started a Huntsville chapter of New Liberals. These chapters were, until very recently, called Neoliberals. I identify as a sex-positive libertarian/neoliberal feminist, though as a special snowflake of course no label can perfectly describe all my positions.  I, personally, liked the trollishness of describing ourselves as neoliberals. It’s fun to recl...

Watch me read this. I think it’s fair to say most of the coverage of AI has been negative . I admired these podcast hosts for saying the quiet part out loud: They’re worried about their jobs. I think the journalists who are most worried about being replaced by algorithms are the ones who have the most to fear. It’s like a candlestick maker opposing electrification because it threatens their job, b...

Watch me read this. Republicans are banning shit like books, dressing in drag, and the accurate teaching of history. Leftists are up in arms, as they should be. But leftists need to focus less on the what and more on the why. Because while Republicans are doing shit that only appeals to the fringiest fringe, Democrats can only get weaksauce through. The left wants to defund the police and build pu...

Watch me read this. Welcome to the 25th TV Tuesday ! I thought for sure I’d written about the Jane Fonda HBO (sorry, Max) miniseries on but it turns out I’d just tweeted about it. I found it extremely relatable, apparently, when she left her husband to go do political activism full time, got woke, got on speed, and hated the patriarchy while dieting constantly. Who among us? I’m thinking about it...

Watch me read this. On Sunday morning, I felt seen. It started a few weeks ago when I visited Lowe Mill for the first time in more than a decade and met David Nuttall . He paints plausible imaginary maps on naked bodies. “Are you into urbanism?” I asked him. He is. I knew I wanted to model for him, so I got his card and made my pitch. Fast forward a few weeks and I’m naked in his studio covered in...

June is, of course, PRIDE month. But it’s also Men's Health Month. Around here, we’ve been talking a lot about men’s health. I’m especially focused on how loneliness , masculinity , and mental and physical health intersect . I got to talk about all that and more on The “It” Cast recently. Check out the episode below and let me know what you think. I honestly think it was an incredibly important an...

Watch me read this. Welcome to the 23rd TV Tuesday ! 1. I love pop culture. I have always loved pop culture. TV and music, specifically. Movies and novels are okay, too, I suppose. And I have always loved great pop culture writing. TV Tuesdays are my way to practice writing about pop culture. I am not good at it, yet. At least as far as nicko2864 is concerned, as his recent comment on the YouTube...

Happy Memorial Day. Watch me read this. I come from a military family. Both my grandfathers were fighter pilots in Vietnam. Neither ever wanted to talk about their combat experiences. My dad is career Army and I grew up in Huntsville, a military town. I was pretty rah rah jingoistic until I discovered libertarianism and learned more about things like the CIA helping turn Iran from a fairly liberal...

Watch me read this . We’ve got another long read today. Buckle up, my babies. Everyone’s talking about how assortative mating and hypergamy are partly to blame for declining marriage rates. But there’s good news here too. Before we get to that, let’s define our terms. Assortative mating just means like marries like. People in the US today tend to marry or pair up with people with similar levels of...

Watch me read this: I wasn’t going to write about AI regulation. But then on Breaking Points ( Jeremiah Johnson ’s favorite show) Matt Stoller complained about Google’s monopoly. Uh, no offense Stoller, but we’ve got a much more important wannabe monopolist to worry about right now. That’s right, my babies, I watched the entire hour and a half Senate hearing on AI regulation with Sam Altman and re...