Politics is my sport of choice. Even before the West Wing made me feel like a political insider, I was tuned into who was who in Washington. I loved Tip O’Neill and Pat Schroder. I watched the McGlaughlin Group on weekends in the mid-80s (when I was in high school, mind you). Eleanor Clift was my favorite. I followed the Gary Hart scandal closely and felt badly that Fawn Hall got caught up in the Oliver North Iran-Contra affair. (Funny aside: those two kids got married this year at ages 65 and 81 respectively.) Flashing forward I attended a Dukakis rally (not the one with the tank), voted for Bill Clinton once (I was two weeks too young to vote for him the first time), watched in horror as they said Al Gore hadn’t actually won Florida, voted for Hilary twice for Senator, cried joyfully when Obama took office, voted for Hilary again, and wept hysterically for weeks when she didn’t win. Throughout it all, I kept track of who was winning votes and who was ahead in the spin wars. I watched States of the Union with a note pad in hand and treated Presidential debates like the World Series. And then Trump came along. Trump-era politics are a different beast because they’re helmed by someone who is uninformed, unpredictable, and undisciplined. It’s hard to even run through the possible next moves let alone bet on which one will happen. Those of us who see politics as both a powerful force in shaping our day-to-day lives and as a spectator sport are bewildered and exhausted. In just the last few weeks, I’ve celebrated the blue tsunami on election day, cursed the eight Democratic Senators who squandered that momentum, reversed course and decided they might have done the right thing because people need food, and plotted with a friend to replace Chuck Schumer with Chris Murphy. (We’re both a little surprised that no one inside the party has asked for our opinion on the matter.) And then there’s the Epstein mishegas. I never would have predicted that this was the issue that would cause MAGA to question their cult leader. I mean, they’ve known for years—as we all have—that he’s a sex offender, and they’ve chosen not to care. But something in their conspiracy-addled brains can’t let this one go, and it has backed Donald Trump into a corner. It’s not clear what he does or wants next though. If he wanted the files out, he could just release them, so that’s not his end game. If he was banking on the Senate to have his back, he must be pretty pissed at the unanimous vote to release. Does he know Pam will come to the rescue? Has she already scrubbed his name? Or, as Amanda Marcotte posited, is he hoping that people like Megyn Kelly will help him spin whatever is in there into a NBD boys-will-boys-and-the-girls-were-practically-women dismissal. After all, a weak declaration of “locker room talk” was enough to get people to ignore his pussy grabbing comments. The what’s-in-the-files-and-when-will-they-be-released hype is the ultimate “Ginger get the popcorn” moment for the fans. Except we don’t need the files. Sure, the files might tell us what Russia had on him, thereby better explaining his willingness to do Putin’s bidding (heck, maybe Putin is Bubba), but we don’t need the files to get to the heart of this horrifying story. We have the women. This summer I read the story of “Katie Johnson,” one of the women who claims to have been trafficked by Epstein and says she was raped by Trump. It made me cry because it was so utterly believable. Kate Manne told Katie’s story in detail in this post, and Katie tells it herself in a video from last summer. Read about it or listen to it in her own words, and you’ll see a very familiar portrait of the man who has been bullying the country for a decade. Here are just some of the things that totally track:
All of this sounds exactly like the person the country has now elected twice. Shame on us. Katie came forward in 2016 and 2024, but both times she retreated dropping lawsuits and cancelling highly publicized press conferences. Her lawyer said she was being threatened. No one knows where she is now, but a number of Epstein survivors who have their own stories are coming forward. Some just filmed a PSA for the advocacy group World Without Exploitation in which they speak while holding pictures of their teenage selves. Survivors Annie Farmer and Danielle Belsky appeared on NBC News, and yesterday a group of them held a press conference asking Congress to force the release of the files. Their message is pretty simple: this is about people not politics. I admit that I’ve lost sight of that in my spectator-sport zeal to see something finally take Trump down, but they’re absolutely right. They were children who were preyed upon by the most powerful people in the country, and no one did anything to protect them. Decades later, we’re still failing them. F**k the files. We all know what happened. (But also, release the files, because the survivors really want all of the details made public.) More Fodder for Misinformation About Birth ControlX is a’twitter and TikTok is talking because there’s a new study out that suggests a connection between the birth control pill and breast cancer. The Swedish study, published online in JAMA Oncology, tracked more than two million teenage girls and women under 50 for over a decade. It confirmed years of research that has found hormonal contraception is safe for most people but also found a small, short-term rise in breast cancer among users. This is not the first study to find a link between hormonal contraception and breast cancer. Providers are aware of this, and most do not prescribe these methods for patients who have a history of breast cancer in their family or other health issues that put them at elevated risk for the disease. Nothing in this study is alarming enough to suggest that providers change this practice or cast a wider net when deciding who is not eligible for hormonal methods. And nothing in it is alarming enough for users to ditch their pills. As Céline Gounder of KFF pointed out in an analysis of the study, the stats sound bad on first read, but the actual numbers are small:
Grounder also noted that the results do not (yet) distinguish between invasive breast cancers and non-invasive “in situ” tumors that may or may not become life-threatening. She writes, “Including these precancerous cases could make the overall risk of clinically significant disease appear higher than it is.” No one is saying that the study was done poorly or that the results should be summarily dismissed. Even a small increased risk of cancer is something each of us should consider when weighing the pros and cons of any method. Plus the study adds some valuable information about which hormonal formulations (there are 40 different birth control pills, for example) were associated with the small increase in risk and which were not. Some of the experts Grounder spoke to, however, did say we have to wait for further analysis of the Swedish data that separates cancer and pre-cancer health before we really know what this study means. Unfortunately, social media doesn’t trade in nuance, and it doesn’t foster an environment of calmly waiting for more information to come out. Moreover, anyone who watched the videos I made with SIECUS, Sex Ed for Social Change knows that messages like “the pill causes cancer” play right into the hands of conservative political forces who want us off the pill and in the kitchen. (Abortion causes cancer was a favorite trope of theirs for years, despite no legitimate science to back that up.) The truth is that when we’re dealing with misinformation, we have to be vigilant about bad studies (like the ones that says the birth control pill makes women seek out wimpy men) and good studies that can—and will—be misinterpreted. For more untruths about contraception and what we can do about it, watch Persistent Lies. Did Hitler Have a Micropenis?Last week, we were talking about three coke cans stacked on top of each other. Now we’re down to baby carrots (which aren’t baby at all, just a genius marketing ploy to get us to buy all the gnarly carrots that farmers couldn’t sell). New research on Adolf Hitler suggests that he had a genetic disorder that likely stunted his penile development. That’s right, a DNA study done on an 80-year-old sample of Hitler’s blood shows he had Kallman syndrome. (For a bit of the macabre: the sample was taken from the fabric of the couch he was on when he shot himself.) Kallman syndrome is a genetic disorder. It can be inherited from a parent or result from gene changes during fetal development. While some issues are noticeable at birth—including possible micropenises, undescended testicles, and cleft palates—most people are not diagnosed until puberty. More accurately, they’re diagnosed by the absence of puberty. Puberty starts when the hypothalamus begins to release GnRH (gonadotropin-releasing hormone). That signals the pituitary gland to start making FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinizing hormone). Those hormones then signal the ovaries/testes to make estrogen/testosterone which signals the rest of the body to do things like grow, sprout hair, menstruate, get erections, and yell at your parents a lot. Kids with Kallmann syndrome don’t make enough GnRH, so the other parts of the body and brain never get the let’s-get-this-party-started memo. This is a form of hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, meaning that the body doesn’t produce enough testosterone or estrogen. In girls this would lead to a lack of breast development and no periods or irregular periods. In boys it usually means smaller than average penis and testicles. It can cause infertility and low sex drive in both sexes. It also leads to other issues not directly related to sexual health such as poor balance, missing or undersized teeth, eye movement disorders, scoliosis, and renal agenesis (missing kidney). Many people who have Kallman Syndrome also have a diminished sense of smell. The association between small testicles and olfactory issues was noted as far back as the 1850s, but the syndrome wasn’t officially recognized until American geneticist Franz Josef Kallman published a study on members of three affected families in 1944. Today, people diagnosed with the syndrome are prescribed hormone therapy to help them develop secondary sex characteristics. Males with Kallmann syndrome who get testosterone therapy may even become fertile. A new UK documentary reveals that Hitler suffered from this condition and argues that as a result Hitler had a one in 10 chance of having a micropenis (the other nine times, it’s just quite little). Historians say that this information tracks with stories about Hitler being bullied during World War I for having small genitals. It also makes sense against medical records from 1923 (uncovered ten years ago) which said he had an undescended testicle. So, Hitler was an angry man who had a small penis. Sounds about right (and sadly familiar). Sex on Wednesday is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Sex on Wednesday that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Angry Men With Small Penises
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