If someone gave me a blowjob when I was 15, I would nominate them for the Nobel Hormone Prize.

Hadn't heard of that one, Kev. Its banquet must be a blast… Odiferous, but fun.

I feel for this guy, but if he really wants to move on with his life, I think he should get out of the business of being a professional plaintiff. He should also move to a state that does not require him to register as a sex offender. Based on the specific nature of the legal catch here, I am pretty sure there are some.

Our court systems are rife with injustices. But this isn’t exactly the Fells Acre Day care case. I’m a bit concerned that his employment at a facility for troubled youth put him in a position of someone who was not just one of the boys. There is a pretty stark line between what you should and should not do when you are in a position of trust and have a power of supervision (or the granting of favors) to those, with whom you become sexually involved.

Gay isn't the issue here. The same thing happens to 18-year-old straight boys who have sex with 16-year-old girls.

...the Gem County Sheriff's Office investigated a report that Menges and two other 16-year-old men had engaged in sexual activity.

...However, because Menges and the other 16-year-olds were all boys, Menges was convicted in 1994 of one count of Crimes Against Nature.

Men? Boys? Which is it?

I’m a bit concerned that his employment at a facility for troubled youth put him in a position of someone who was not just one of the boys. There is a pretty stark line between what you should and should not do when you are in a position of trust and have a power of supervision (or the granting of favors) to those, with whom you become sexually involved. ~ Isab at April 2, 2021 6:44 AM

That was the first thing I questioned. Further reading seems to indicate that Menges was a charge at the ranch who turned eighteen there and continued working at the ranch afterward. I don't know what his relationship to the "troubled young men" was supposed to be; whether he was "in a position of trust" and under an ethical obligation to avoid sexual relations with them.

I do think the tone of the article may have been different had the two charges been female. Instead, the writer had a nice case with which to charge the legal system with homophobia and ran with it.

All of that said, I think the sex offender registry is a joke, simply a way of gaining permanent revenge against people who violate the accuser's standard of decency. Because this was a homosexual relationship, a "crime against nature," Menges was placed on it.

OK first of all 16-year-olds are not men. They are boys.

I think the issue of him working at the Ranch does make it a different issue than a senior getting it on with a sophomore.

At the same time, an 18-year-old and 16-year-old is very, very different than an 18-year-old and 12-year old, or a 40-year-old and a 16-year-old.

That said, I think the advice above about moving to a state with no registry and moving on is sound.

This is a problem with no clean solution. We obviously don't want adults preying on children, which can be traumatic to the child. But is a 16 yr old a "child"? In many states a 16 yr old can get married (or even 15) but cannot have sex beforehand. The Left for decades has made fun of abstinence and promoted passing out condoms in high schools, but if you follow their advice at 17 with your 16yr old girlfriend you can go to jail. So where do we draw the age line? Do we say 16? 15? Do we define an age difference? So a 17 yr old with 15 is ok but not a 20 yr old with 15?

It is called puberty. Before it you are a child. After you are an adult. The rest of growing up is environmental.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puberty

"If someone gave me a blowjob..."

I'm sure there are plenty of other people who, like me, have always found "blowjob" to be quite a peculiar term. For one, thing, the person giving is doing quite the opposite of blowing and then there's the "job" thing. Nothing quite as unsexy as referring to a sexual act as a job.

Regarding the latter point, my impression is that, for some women, "job" actually isn't that far off the mark. And perhaps that's also true for most women at least some of the time, for various reasons (e.g. not enough reciprocation.)

On the other hand, my impression is that gay men are quite enthusiastic about doing it, that it's definitely not a "job" for them.

Anyway, a term like "suckfun" would be more appropriate but that's a much worse term than "blowjob."

When it comes to the proper terms, "fellatio" is, in my opinion, a much more pleasant-sounding term than "cunnilingus." "Fellatio" has a sexy Italian sound -- and, of course, also gets it right (from Latin fellare ‘to suck') -- whereas, while I love doing it, I've never cared for the sound of "cunnilingus", perhaps because "lingus" reminds me too much of "fungus."

The Latin lingere 'lick" sounds much nicer to me than "lingus." If fellare gave us "fellatio" then why not "lingatio" from lingere? What you're sucking isn't specified in "fellatio" so there's need to specify what you're licking and you could just drop the "cunni" part.

Of course, if we had always used "lingatio" instead of "cunnilingus",
then the wordplay in this sketch (with Christopher Walken) wouldn't work.

> …always found "blowjob" to
> be quite a peculiar term

The vernacular transcends demographics, borders and cultures. No need to overthink this—

> For one, thing, the person giving
> is doing quite the opposite

—Unless you've always wanted to review the particulars for a polite audience.

I dunno - "suckhobby" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

"All of that said, I think the sex offender registry is a joke, simply a way of gaining permanent revenge against people who violate the accuser's standard of decency."

In the peripheral situations like the one described here, I agree. But not when it comes to the bulk of the cases where some 25+ yo males(and yes, females, but I suspect that is a more minor component of perps) are having sex with young teenagers or even other younger children. The age of consent needs to be a hard deck below which no sexual trespassing is allowed.

Pedophiles have a special place in hell, and they are lucky when society lets them live after being caught. Being put on a list is letting them off easy.

JD, my guess is that the term "blowjob" is based on the pre-1960s idea that fellatio is something that ONLY a hooker (or a "loose woman") would do - and that no virtuous wife should be expected to do it.

Of course, back then, a "virtuous wife" wasn't really supposed to enjoy even PIV sex, so heaven forbid she should ASK her husband for, say, cunnilingus. (So, at least, he wasn't getting "cheated" in bed.)

Which makes me wonder why, in the 1980s, when both Dear Abby and Ann Landers did "surveys" on whether most women really enjoyed sex, NOBODY pointed out that "sex" just might have very different meanings to different generations. Anyone born before WWII was likely taught that any non-reproductive sex was dirty and shameful, even within marriage, and so, there have been MANY married couples who seldom or never had oral sex.

With that in mind, here's the 1980 letter that started the Dear Abby survey.

Dear Abby: "My husband has been reading up on the subject of sex, and he is of the opinion that if a woman doesn't enjoy sex right up to the grave, there must be something wrong with her.

"At age fifty, and after thirty years of marriage, I would like to forget about sex altogether. Believe me, I've paid my dues.

"Where is it written that a woman should be ready and willing to perform every time her man beckons? I suspect that many (if not most) women get very little physical satisfaction out of sex; they just go through the motions because they want to do something for men they love.

"I can't believe I'm the only woman who feels this way. Please poll your readers, Abby. And if they're honest, I think you will find that I am right."

-Tired in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Total responses:
227,606

Agreed with "Tired":
114,005

Disagreed:
113,601

Interestingly, the two dozen or so responses she reprinted in "The Best of Dear Abby," both pro and con, almost all seemed to be from women over 50. (Some were over 70.)

Fourteen responses:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19800901&id=EFtOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wu4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3876,72755

And here's another:

"Dear Abby: I am not a loose woman, but anything gets boring with the same person after twenty-five years.

"Where I work, there are 103 married women between nineteen and sixty-five, and just for fun, I decided to ask each woman if she had ever had an extramarital affair.

"Of course I didn't expect an answer, but behold - 73 said yes, 21 said they would if they thought they could get away with it, and 9 told me it was none of my business."

-Nosy in Tucson.

Where I work, there are 103 married women between nineteen and sixty-five, and just for fun, I decided to ask each woman if she had ever had an extramarital affair.

"Of course I didn't expect an answer, but behold - 73 said yes, 21 said they would if they thought they could get away with it, and 9 told me it was none of my business."

An this is why IMNSHO Marriage and the idea of marriage needs to be delinked in our culture from temporary or not so temporary sexual interest.

I dunno - "suckhobby" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

If you said blowjobby instead of blowjob, and pronounced the "j" as you do in Spanish, the job(by) would turn into a hobby.

JD, my guess is that the term "blowjob" is based on the pre-1960s idea that fellatio is something that ONLY a hooker (or a "loose woman") would do - and that no virtuous wife should be expected to do it.

That seems like a reasonable explanation for the "job" part, Lenona.

Here's a website I just found which offers explanations for the origin of five different terms/phrases for oral sex, including "blowjob" (which they have as two separate words.)

Why Do We Call It A 'Blow Job,' Anyway?

The roots of the term "blow job" begin a bit earlier than this — in the 17th century, to be exact, when to "blow" meant to bring someone to orgasm.

The term "blow" wasn't applied specifically to fellatio, however, until 1930, when we saw the first recorded usage of it in a pulp novel called Nell Kimball: Her Life as an American Madam . It also featured into a popular underground poem that circulated in 1948 called "The Platonic Blow," which some have tried to attribute to W.H. Auden (with some controversy), and which is about exactly what it sounds like.

But while some claim that the term is derived from Victorian prostitute slang referring to performing oral sex as giving a "below-job," the first recorded usage of "blow job" was in a Tijuana Bible — a type of comic book that depicted popular cultural figures engaged in explicit sexual acts — printed in 1948, which featured one McCarthy-era male politician telling another, "You give such good blow jobs."

And with that, we never looked back, America! Except to discuss whether it is one word or two words, obviously: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language says it's one, while Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary say it's two, so feel free to style it however your blowsy little heart desires.

I suspect that many (if not most) women get very little physical satisfaction out of sex; they just go through the motions because they want to do something for men they love.

Lenona, in the responses you noted, there was about a 50/50 split with how women felt. I suspect that this ratio is going to be different -- and perhaps quite different `` among younger women as opposed to older women.

An this is why IMNSHO Marriage and the idea of marriage needs to be delinked in our culture from temporary or not so temporary sexual interest.

Isn't that basically the idea they have in France?

Also, couples who are polyamorous share that idea. Personally, I don't know how they manage to successfully do it without jealously rearing its head and causing problems, but many of them seem to. At least that's my impression; maybe reality is quite different.

Lenona, in the responses you noted, there was about a 50/50 split with how women felt. I suspect that this ratio is going to be different -- and perhaps quite different `` among younger women as opposed to older women.
______________________________________

Um, yes, I implied that in my first post. Of course, we all get older, even though our generations don't change. But, when you click on the link, you'll see that while one respondent thought women under thirty who liked sex WOULD change their minds years later, another, very old, sex-positive woman said that "Tired" must have a poor lover of a husband. That is, someone who refused to be truly helpful. (Abby once said "there are no cold women - only clumsy men.")

Not to mention that it's been said that many women actually enjoy sex more in their 40s and 50s than when they were younger. I don't know whether that has to do with not having to worry about pregnancy - or just that those women have had more practice in bed and so they find it easier to achieve orgasm. Or both.

Of course, there IS such a thing as loss of libido in both sexes, but when there's no medical reason for such a loss, there's nothing like variety and a kind, thoughtful partner to bring it back. (Or to prevent the loss from happening in the first place. Anyone who's never questioned the idea that the missionary position is the only decent way to have sex will get bored in under a month.)

Another response:

"There must be something wrong with 'Tired.' I'm 81, and when my husband was alive, I thought sex was the most fun in the world, but now that I'm a widow, it's kind of hard to find someone to play with - especially in a small town where everyone knows your business."

-Having Fun at Eighty-One