Al Franken, Your New Sex-Positive U.S. Senator
Posted By jss on January 5, 2009
If there was anything I wanted out of U.S. politics in 2009 beyond the end of the Bush regime, it was the election of Al Franken as U.S. Senator from Minnesota. Don’t let me down, Al, by getting completely serious over the next six years. We have never had a true comedy writer in high public office in this country — at least not one who has also written about threesomes and enjoying pornography.
Franken will be certified as the winner of the Minnesota race today following a lengthy recount process. Thank you, Minnesota, and I do not mean that in a fulsome way. I cannot think of anyone I would rather have in the Senate unless it is Jon Stewart. My expectations for Franken are higher than those I have for anyone else in government, including the president-elect. For not only do I expect Al Franken to do the Right Thing all the time, I expect him to diminish our enemies with crackling wit and verve; and I expect him to entertain me for six solid years. I am glad and proud to help pay Al Franken’s salary as a U.S. Senator, through my tax dollars.
In case you’d forgotten, at one point last summer, Franken’s campaign nearly foundered over an article he’d written for Playboy in 2000. The article included such lovely turns of phrase as:
“…Then Dr. DeVine placed the Virtu-Screw helmet over my head. Sitting in the pitch dark, I felt slightly vulnerable but also excited. She asked me which setting I wanted. Since I’ve been married 23 years, I naturally chose ‘blow job.’ My chair abruptly tilted backward, and I ‘felt’ my pants being unzipped. If I hadn’t known I was sitting in the most state-of-the-art virtual reality sex machine, I would have sworn that a real woman’s hand had pulled my cock from my pants …”
and:
“… That’s why Dr. DeVine urged me to forgo Connie and introduced me to Wilhelmina, a beautiful young German-born researcher who, while human, more closely approximates the Sexbot of the 22nd century. Wilhelmina escorted me to a private room with a bed and removed her clothes. If this is what Sexbots will look like a hundred years from now, I envy my great-great-grandsons. We made passionate love for two or three minutes before being joined by Dr. DeVine, who wanted to make the point that Sexbots will be used for threesomes. I could describe the incredible sex the three of us had, but this is a piece of journalism about the future of pornography and not one of those cheesy letters from a horny reader. Suffice it to say that everyone came several times, except me, who came only once …”
I think the passages speak for themselves, don’t they? No, it’s not great erotic writing. It’s not even great satire. But it’s workmanlike puerile sexual humor, and Franken probably got paid pretty well for it, and good for him.
Don’t let us down, Al. We’re counting on you to defend the Constitution, stand up for privacy and to strike blows for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which obviously includes blow jobs, threesomes and sex with robots. And I even know Republicans who agree with all that but are just plain afraid to say so.
But you’re not. Please do not forget your balls when you go to Washington, Al. If I’m lucky, you’ll get the office next to Joe Lieberman’s. And if you do, I’d like you to occasionally bang on the wall and yell “Fuck you, Joe,” just as loud as you can. OK?
"Into Temptation" is a usually-but-not-always safe-for-work forum about evolving social-sexual networks and how they have changed and are changing lives. It will also loosely chronicle the research, writing and publication, I hope in 2011, of a book by the same name.
Note to self, and anyone else stopping in: Franken will be seated, though it may take a little while yet as defeated GOP Sen. Norm Coleman is expected to challenge his loss in the courts.