The Prime Says...

"Testosterone is a great equalizer;
It turns all men into morons."
--Rupert Giles

Having survived the Great Blackout of 2003^*, it's now time to turn my attention back to things that matter. Luckily, I also have time to dash out a new edition of The Prime Says.

Blackout 2003

I'm sure I wasn't the only one shocked by the apparent vulnerability of the US power grid. I would have thought that the potential for cascading power failures would have been discovered and eliminated as part of the post-9/11 terrorist target assessments. I thought wrong. This vulnernability means that we have to brace ourselves for the inevitable next wave of catastrophe...

The post-blackout Baby Boom. Why do power problems prompt a pronounced prevalence in pregnancies? Well, with no power there's no TVs, VCRs & DVD players. No Internet. No droolingidiots.com! No stereos. No bars, restaurants or movie theaters. Activities that require sight are limited to what can be accomplished by candlelight and flashlight and further limited by candle and battery supply. So, with all of the distractions out of the way, couples are forced to (gasp!) spend time together (the horror!). And we all know what couples do when they're forced to spend time together with no distractions, don't we? That's right - they make "the beast with two backs," as noted sleaze merchant Billy Shakespeare used to say.

And let's face it, blackout sex can be pretty cool. In complete darkness you have to rely on your non-visual senses - paying more attention to what you're hearing, smelling and tasting. And the whole non-sighty thing really ups the feeliness quotient. (And apparently causes rational, grown men to burst into Buffy-speak.) Sounds like fun, huh? Sure, a blackout doesn't have the same kink-factor as blindfolds, but the effect is the same. Heck, you may not keep fresh D-cells in your flashlight, but I'll bet the batteries in your sex toys are changed regularly. Of course, they're probably drained more frequently too so that might be a wash, but work with me here.

There's just one problem: post-blackout baby booms are an urban legend.

Let's say there's more blackout night sex than typical night sex. We'll even allow that it's just as likely during sweltering 90 degree summer blackouts - where only masochists would go out of their way to get extra hot and sweaty when there's no air conditioning, the water may not work and the dead hot water heater makes showers unpleasant even if the water's working - as it is during the winter blackouts when couples couple for warmth. Even so, that doesn't mean there will be a spike in pregnancies.

According to statistics, the average married couple has sex three times a week. I don't know what the stat is for unmarried couples, but let's assume it's about the same. Would one extra roll in the hay really cause a tidal wave of pregnancies? I doubt it. I don't have the statistics to prove it but I'll wager the impregnation probability doesn't rise significantly between 156 scrog sessions and 157 fornication frolics in a year. Besides, the blackout sex might not even be an extra coital convergence. It may simply be an opportune replacement for one of the regularly scheduled romps.

And what about birth control? Unless people figure that sperm can't find eggs in the dark and forgo protection, there's no reason to presume that birth control would be less effective during a blackout. Condoms don't need to be plugged in. Not even glow-in-the-dark condoms. Pills aren't powered. Neither are diaphragms. IUDs, Depo-Provera and Norplants are good for long periods of time. Coitus interruptus and anal sex... well, they work about as well as they ever do, which isn't saying much, but there's nothing about a blackout that makes them less effective.

In the worst case, there's a spike in sexual activity, condoms are misapplied in the dark, the wrong pill is swallowed because the label can't be read, the stars are aligned and a few extra women get pregnant. Historically, that doesn't cause a boom. Although no less an authority than the New York Times (pre-Jayson Blair days!) reported a post-1965 blackout baby boom, it turns out the stories were exaggerated, if not outright wrong. While some hospitals do experience spikes in deliveries after blackouts, others in affected areas do not. In other words, it's the same random distribution of pregnancies that occur in other times.

I suppose there's always a first time and a 2003 blackout baby boom would certainly be a calamity - all those budget-busting tax credits would be Tauruses. If that doesn't make legions of anti-abortionists switch sides, I don't know what will.

NYC

I was in the home of hip hop a couple months ago. Kind of. Technically, hip hop came out of The Bronx and, barring the ride to and from LaGuardia, I never left Manhattan. Still, depending on the granularity of analysis, it isn't wrong to refer to New York City as the home of hip hop. Of course, by that reasoning, I could claim to live in the home of hip hop since I live in the United States and that's where the abiogenesis took place. In that sense, all earthlings could claim to be from the home of hip hop. And rock, ska, punk, classical, gospel, country, opera, jazz, blues, gamelan and raga. But not funk. George Clinton has always maintained the extra-terrestrial roots of funk and we don't know the mothership's point of origin. At least we share a solar system with Sun Ra.

One of the highlights of my trip was hanging out with Ben Poe, a fellow musician. (If you'll permit me to, somewhat delusionally, call myself a musician.) I've known Ben electronically for 10 years and it was great to finally meet him in person. He was gracious enough to spend an afternoon showing me around The Village and patient enough not to complain when I stopped in every music store, t-shirt shop and adult bookstore store in the area. The stores were cool, but for the most part I didn't see anything that wasn't available locally or over the Internet. The once vaunted shopping Mecca of New York City has lost its luster now that e-commerce makes almost everything available to everyone everywhere at any time.

One interesting thing I saw in NYC was the Museum Of Sex. While it tilted towards the sociological rather than the titillating, it was a worthwhile way to spend an hour or so. The exhibit on display was called "Sex in NYC" and it offered a retrospective of how NYC has helped shape the sexual attitudes of the rest of the country, often being on the vanguard in prostitution, abortion, censorship, burlesque, homosexuality and pornography. If nothing else, it was cool to visit a museum gift shop that sold vibrators. The Guggenheim gift shop wasn't nearly so interesting.

Bukkake

I saw my first bukkake video last weekend. It reminded me of hip hop.

And not just because it degraded women.

If you're not familiar with bukkake (boo-COCK-ee), I'll try to bring you up to speed. It started in Japan in the late 80's and has been sweeping the pervert world ever since. While there are many variations on the theme, all bukkake involves a long procession of men ejaculating on one person. In its most basic form, 50-100 guys will stand in front of a woman and masturbate. When one of the men is ready to come, he'll step up to the woman and bust a nut on her face. Repeat until all of the guys have blown their loads. No rinsing required. The woman's face winds up looking like a glazed donut.

While watching the video, "American Bukkake 8", I noticed that bukkake a very egalitarian form of pornography, at least as far as the men are concerned. They ranged from emaciated to corpulent, post-pubescent to senescent, mentulate to microphallic, swarthy to aryan, and glabrous to hirsute. One of the guys was even in a wheelchair. How often do you see handi-capable people in traditional porn? It represents the American ideal as envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King - black and white folks living together, judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their testicles.

It's a brilliant concept. After all, the most important part of any porn is the come shot. Guys must see the sperm fly. How else will they know that the congress has been completed satisfactorily? In bukkake, the interminable build up has been eliminated. There's no lame plot, no bad dialogue, no foreplay, no intercourse, just (as Damon and Marlon Wayans might say) mo' money shot, mo' money shot, mo' money shot! And that's why it's like hip hop. Hip hop music was started by DJs. They would take the best records of the day, isolate the best part and extended it by playing it over and over again. And that's bukkake in a nutshell. They've disposed of all the excess verbiage and repeated the best part ad nauseum. Now I just need to figure out how to rap over it.

A word of warning: bukkake is a Japanese word that is not sexual by definition, merely by connotation. If you see it on a menu at a Japanese restaurant, have a Beavis & Butt-Head moment but don't be afraid to order the dish.

And remember kids... there's only 5 more days until Yak Shaving Day.

Excelsior!,
D.I. Prime
Friday, October 3, 2003

^* I'm calling the 8/14/2003 power outage the Great Blackout of 2003 despite there being another three months for a second blackout to supplant it and claim the mantle of Greatness.