Lawmakers with a Sense of Humor

This commentary is a repost from “Sex on Wednesdays” by Martha Kempner on Substack. Find her other articles on The Queen Zone here.

Last week, I was surprised when an Oklahoma state lawmaker subscribed to Sex On Wednesday. A quick Google search showed me that he was a Christian conservative who calls himself an abortion “abolitionist” and would like to rid his state of porn. A deeper Google search revealed that I had written about him in the past in a not-so-flattering way.

I was, therefore, less surprised when the same Oklahoma state legislator unsubscribed after merely one issue. Apparently, we don’t have the same sense of humor. That’s okay, there are some lawmakers out there who are more aligned with the Wednesday vibe.

ELON MUSK Act

U.S. Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI) announced plans to introduce a law that would direct federal agencies to cancel all contracts with “special government employees.” Pocan argues that when such employees have the authority to recommend spending decisions, they could steer funding toward their own businesses or away from competitors. He believes these people should be subject to the same rules that prevent members of Congress and other federal employees from profiting off their jobs. (Rules Trump has never been good at following.)

Pocan named his legislation “Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy.”

Which shortens to… the ELON MUSK Act.

It’s not about sex, but I think we can agree that Mark is our kind of people. Well played, Congressman.

CBAE: waste Not Want Not

There are some state lawmakers who may be even more into our Wednesday wit. CBAE doesn’t have the same ring to it (and some of my old sex ed friends will remember when it meant Community Based Abstinence Education), but this act is pretty funny.

Originally introduced by freshman Mississippi Senator Bradford Blackmon, the “Contraception Begins at Erection Act” would make it “unlawful for a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo.” (Not quite how it f**king works, one fertilizes an egg to create an embryo, but we might have to let it slide.) Punishment for the first offense is $1,000 and goes up from there.

Before you get concerned that this is inadvertently anti-birth control, it includes exceptions for sperm donation and using contraception to prevent fertilization. The act doesn’t spell out much beyond that, but my math suggests it would make masturbation, hand jobs, and blow jobs illegal, at least if done well.

For accuracy, I might have named it the “Contraception Begins at Ejaculation Act” or perhaps the “Let Them Have Blue Balls* Act” because hard-ons weren’t the target.

Senator Blackmon said in a statement, “All across the country, especially here in Mississippi, the vast majority of bills relating to contraception and/or abortion focus on the woman’s role when men are fifty percent of the equation. This bill highlights that fact and brings the man’s role into the conversation. People can get up in arms and call it absurd, but I can’t say that bothers me.” Blackmon’s bill has already died, but it gave some Ohio legislators ideas.

Unlawful Discharge

Representative Anita Somani (D-Dublin) and Tristan Rader (D-Lakewood) introduced an act of the same name. Theirs made it a felony to “discharge semen without the intent to fertilize,” but added more exceptions including one for masturbation and one for gay couples in which no one produces an ovum. With that it mind, it looks like the only thing that would be illegal in Ohio is pulling and praying.**

Somani, who is also a practicing OB/GYN, acknowledged that the goal was less about passing a law and more about making a statement, “If you think it’s absurd to regulate men, then you should think it’s equally absurd to regulate women.”

Dr. Somani’s bill has no chance of passing in a Republican-controlled House, but it’s successfully pissing off Republicans like Austin Beigel, the president of End Abortion Ohio. He called the bill “a mockery of the most basic biological concepts.” Beigel continues to try to get abortion banned in Ohio despite voters enshrining it in their state’s constitution. He argues that the pro-life movement has never tried to regulate women’s bodies (it’s about preventing one person from killing another), and compares public support of abortion rights to that of slavery before the Civil War

Anyone else wish Austin a big old case of Blue Balls.***

* Blue balls aren’t really a thing. Yes, it can be uncomfortable to get all worked up and not have an orgasm, but that goes aways either with time or a nice wet dream. Though come to think of it, neither bill discussed exceptions for nocturnal emissions.

** Withdrawal isn’t my favorite of method of birth control, but research shows that it actually works pretty well.

*** Blue balls still aren’t really a thing. But if anyone should get them…