"The trial found that after 15 weeks of applying a teaspoon amount of the gel on their shoulder blades once a day, 86% of trial participants had sperm counts low enough to prevent pregnancy...."

"Why has it taken so long to get this far? Partly because male birth control is tricky from a biological point of view. Women produce one egg a month. Men, meanwhile, are constantly producing sperm at the rate of millions a day. There have been various attempts to make a male birth control option, but they’ve all hit roadblocks. In 2016, for example, a stage II trial of a hormonal birth control injection for men was halted because of the side-effects – which included acne, mood swings and depression. One man tried to commit suicide, which is what led to the study being cut short...."

From "A male birth control gel is one step closer to reality, and that’s worth celebrating" (The Guardian).

ADDED: It bothers me to think of this stuff spread on men's shoulder blades. Is there to be no more hugging?

Biden is betting Americans don't care about Afghanistan and we'll blind ourselves to the ongoing catastrophe.

Looking at the "Most Read" list at The Washington Post this morning, I think he might win that bet.

How many Maryland workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Grandma wants a hug. Covid's still percolating in the dumbosphere. And a lady lost a footrace. 

America curls up and gets cozy. That virus is going after Republicans who sorta deserve it. The birdies didn't deserve the murderous workers. Are we getting our snuggie-wuggles from the kiddies? Feeling better to know that the runner who didn't run in the Olympics probably wouldn't've won anyway? 

It's comfy to tsk at the Gramma who loves too much, the unvaccinated dead man, the Mississippians buying their medicine at the feed store, the workers who killed birds. 

It's manageable caring. Shed a tear for a bird and another bird! Keep it up, and Joe's bet is won.

"Rudy Giuliani says driving Cuomo out of office would be 'unjust, dangerous and entirely un-American.' People, do you think this is because..."

".... A) Giuliani just wants to see Cuomo suffer through a long, painful impeachment. B) Giuliani made the remark at a party after several tumblers of scotch. C) Giuliani thinks it’ll help his son Andrew’s chances to be governor. Yeah, yeah, it’s A. Well, very possibly all three. But short of Rudy, Cuomo does seem to need all the help he can get. He’s been trying to defend himself by showing pictures where he’s kissing and hugging lots of people who seem perfectly happy with the attention. Of course, some are elderly fans who were standing in line waiting for it. Others, like, say, Al Gore, seem … not transported."

Writes NYT columnist Gail Collins, in "What Makes Cuomo So Grabby?" 

A disgusting headline by the way. Are we supposed to care about the internal workings of his mind? Ah, I guess they did that with Trump, diagnosing him with narcissism and whatever, though that never seemed like an honest exploration of human psychology. It was always political attack and therefore a perversion of the field of psychology. Is it any different with Cuomo?

Oh! Now I've read the column, and I don't think it answers or even asks that question in the headline! Looking for what could possibly justify the headline, I'm at a loss. "His private life seems to be a little — wanting" — that is, he's divorced and his girlfriend left town. Albany is "a somewhat isolated world." And there's a gender imbalance "in the power structure." It's almost like saying boys will be boys. What the hell? Who wrote that headline?

But, yeah, forget that. Let's all kick Giuliani. That's how you pad this column. But what I'd like to know is not why Cuomo would commit so many acts of sexual harassment for so long, but who knew and who protected him? Presumably, there are a lot of New York Democrats who've protected Cuomo over the years, probably people who made sanctimonious pro-woman statements in the heyday of the "Me Too" movement. Tell me about them. Instead you wheel out a convenient Republican.

And by the way, the phrase "so grabby" — in "What Makes Cuomo So Grabby?" — trivializes sexual harassment in the workplace. It makes it sound like Cuomo is just childishly uncontrolled in the hands. But sexual harassment is a mechanism of power, structuring the workplace for the benefit of men and relegating women to a separate track, where success and failure depend on things other than work. Start taking it seriously.

"Mike will literally lick my face if I am not giving him affection when he desires it."

Says Amber Lee, a matchmaker, about her husband Mike Lee, a life coach and matchmaker. She adds: "This playfulness helps me to loosen up and helps him to get the attention he desires from me as we laugh and enjoy each other."

Quoted in "Are You in an ‘Inter-Intimate’ Relationship? For some couples, having different nonsexual intimacy preferences can be a strain on the relationship. Here’s how to meet in the middle" (NYT). 

I guess the key word there is "nonsexual." This article is about cuddling. He's not licking her face because she's withholding sex. The article would have a completely different vibe if that were the situation. He's licking her face to get nonsexual physical intimacy. Somehow, in that situation, the licking is supposed to make us feel that Amber's husband is adorkable. 

“Proper communication about affection wants and needs should occur often in the relationship,” Ms. Sampson, the social worker, said. “Rituals should be clearly identified in order to foster and maintain equilibrium. Couples may want to kiss good morning and good night, embrace one another upon greeting or ensure there is cuddling before or after sexual intimacy....”... 

Emily Grace Bergh, 39, a publicist, and Colter Reid Bergh, 33, a software engineer,... have been together for three years.... Ms. Bergh requires more affection.... Mr. Bergh actually sets an alarm on his phone for cuddle time every Thursday night to meet his wife’s expressed need....

"... I was sensitive to the way my body had not been allowed its own autonomy, growing up as a girl. I began to realize that even [for] a boy, it doesn't mean all is open and everything is game."

"So when we used to play this lovely game called 'the mama clinch,"' where I would hold on to him and he was supposed to kiss me in order to free himself. And I used to love that, and he loved it as a child. And then when he was about 8 or 9, he started to not really enjoy that game and he would not jump into it. And I realized, 'Oh, he's growing up and he wants his own autonomy' and picking up on those cues. And I talk in another chapter about how important it is for us to pick up on those cues from our kids, and then that way they learn to pick up those cues from others."

Says Sonora Jha, quoted in "Memoir Offers Advice On 'How To Raise A Feminist Son'" (NPR). 

The feminist son rightly resists forced kissing. Interesting that the feminist mother had to learn her feminist lesson, and fascinating to face up to the strange reality of how much kissing is forced on babies and children. 

Is it right, this soppy smooching? Dr. Spock's classic childcare book, from 1946, famously reacted to this advice from 1930: 

"Never, never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning.... Try it out. In a week’s time you will find how easy it is to be perfectly objective with your child and at the same time kind. You will be utterly ashamed of the mawkish, sentimental way you have been handling it."

That fell so far out of favor. But maybe we should reconsider being perfectly objective — and kind — to our children. Oh, but no one believes perfect objectivity is even possible. You'd just be fooling yourself. Still, I don't like that "mama clinch" game. I'm a bit surprised Jha talks about that openly.

***

There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

I'm hearing that Nancy Pelosi will "cuddle with her caucus."

The topic is impeachment, on "Meet the Press" today, and NBC's Carol Lee must have meant to say, Nancy Pelosi will "huddle with her caucus" (which is what they've got in the transcript). But listen for yourself. It's cute and funny:



"And you're going to see in the coming week Speaker Pelosi try to figure out where the next step goes. Because, you know, she'll have a Monday night leadership meeting. She'll then cuddle with her caucus. This is the point at which she's under the most pressure than she's been about impeachment."

Don't trust that transcript. Look, the closed captions back up what you hear with your own ears:



Just a delightful "speako" (a typo of speech).

Don't freak out, Chuck...



I love the gender politics of it all. The female talking head, talking about the female Speaker of the House, wanted to get to that word from the quintessentially masculine activity — football — and she couldn't quite get there. She got 5 sixths of the way there. Got the "-uddle" but not the "huddle." And she ended up with the quintessentially feminine activity — cuddling.

But I don't know if we can do that anymore, cuddle. Ask Joe Biden. We're supposed to have woken up to the importance of personal space and no physical intrusions.

And yet, maybe that's what we need at long last. A big group hug.

Make America cuddlesome again. 

"Our former vice president, I was going to call him. I don’t know him well. I was gonna say, 'Welcome to the world, Joe. You having a good time, Joe?'"

Said President Trump, the day before Joe Biden came out with his "mindfulness" video.

Joe tugged at my heartstrings, I've got to say. He seemed so sweet and pathetic:

"But I’ll always believe governing — life, for that matter — is about connecting, connecting with people... That won’t change.... And I’ll be much more mindful. That’s my responsibility, my responsibility, and I’ll meet it.... The idea that I can’t adjust to the fact that personal space is important, more important than it’s ever been, is just not thinkable... I will. I will."

The time of loving and touching is over.

Nancy Pelosi explains:



"I'm a member of the straight arm club. I mean, I'm a straight-armer. Just pretend you have a cold, and I have a cold."

"You know, they tried to scare me to not wear this hat—my own friends. But it’s hot! It gives me, it gives me power in a way. "

"You know, my dad and my mom separated, so I didn’t have a lot of male energy in my home. And also, I’m married to a family that, you know, not a lot of male energy going on. It’s beautiful though! But there’s times where, you know, it’s something about—I love Hillary. I love everyone, right? But the campaign, 'I’m With Her,' just didn’t make me feel, as a guy that didn’t get to see my dad all the time, like a guy that could play catch with his son. There was something about, when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman. You made a Superman—that’s my favorite super hero. You made a Superman cape for me, also, as a guy who looks up to you … looks up to American industry guys, nonpolitical, no bullshit—put the beep on it—however you wanna do it, five second delay…"

Said Kanye West, talking to Donald Trump today. I got the transcription from "Inside The Historic Trump-Kanye Oval Office Summit" (New York Magazine). You can watch 24+ minutes of Trump and Kanye and Jim Brown, here:



ADDED: Kanye hugs Trump and tells him he loves him:

Kanye West with President Trump in Oval Office: "I love this guy right here." pic.twitter.com/40Q24j5fRJ

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 11, 2018

Speaking of "dreamers" — here's what some people have been dreaming about Trump.

This comes from The Nation, so these are not people who love Trump (unless it's a secret, unacknowledged love (you decide!)):



I haven't remembered a dream about Trump in a long time, but back on August 3, 2015, long before I had any idea he'd become President, I blogged about a dream in which I was talking about Trump, then saw that he was there listening in on me. But I had another dream about Trump. I'm not sure when I had it, but I told you about it on May 9, 2016 (because I was blogging someone's saying that Trump had succeeded by being "vulgar, abusive, nasty, rude, boorish and outrageous," and "saying what he thinks and, more important, teaching Americans how to think for themselves again"):

I had a dream about Trump a while back. It may have been part of this dream I told you about on August 3, 2015. This part of the dream isn't in that description, but it's the part I've remembered and thought about over these past 8 months: I thanked him, effusively, for teaching us to have the courage to speak freely.

What I didn't tell you even then was that I hugged Trump as I thanked him effusively. At the time I had that dream I wasn't consciously aware of liking Trump at all, so the dream made a big impression on me. There was something about Trump that I thought was tremendously helpful, and I really wanted to tell him.