Strong Enough For a Man, But Made For a Really Insecure Man

Excellent news! If there's one thing that's always spoiled the Bible for me, it's the nagging awareness that chicks were also allowed to read it. But now at last we men have got the brawny, brotastic, He-Man Women Haters translation we've all been waiting for, filled no doubt with psalms about the musky joys of the locker room, and Old Testament wisdom about a towel-snap for a towel-snap.

Why we helped create a Bible just for men: It tackles marriage, pornography, friendship

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that someone is finally marketing the Scriptures like Just For Men mustache dye, and I won't deny that the Bible is a remarkably flexible text (note, for instance, the ease with which every side in every war in the history of Christendom has claimed its support). But while it does contain some randy anecdotes, it wouldn't be my first choice when looking for porn. Nevertheless, Rule 34 applies here, and I'm sure there's a sizable minority of masturbators out there who can only get off if someone is reciting a long list of begats.  I'm less confident that Scripture has much to teach us about friendship, however, since the lesson of the Gospels seems to be that even your best buds will sell you out to the cops, or suddenly pretend they don't know you.

Still, the two authors of this piece come with unimpeachable credentials. Col. Art Pace (Ret.) was a chaplain, and Dr. Robert Lewis runs "Men's Fraternity Classic," which I assumed was a golf tournament where rohypnol and GHB are served in the gin rickeys at the 19th Hole. But no, it's actually a video series teaching hapless moral hermaphrodites how to get their Authentic Manhood on.

As two men with extensive backgrounds in men’s ministry service, we were not surprised when American Bible Society’s 2014 State of the Bible survey found that men fall below the national averages of both Bible ownership and readership.

But we're still well above the average in Bible thumpership.

In our day-to-day work interacting with men, it is common to hear of their frustration about reading the Bible—they don’t know where to start, what it means, or how to apply it

Interestingly, many men voice the same frustrations about the clitoris, which is probably where the Bible porn comes in.

Men often find themselves struggling in their marriages, with friendships and with pornography. 

Sometimes all at once, which is usually a sign that you're not a strawman in a Foxnews.com article, but actually a character in a telenovela.

(A 2014 Barna Group survey found that nearly two-thirds of Christian men view porn monthly.)

This proves that despite the often bitter partisan divide between liberal and conservative, secular and religious, we're really not so different, and if fundamentalists only tried a bit harder to live up to their principles I'd enjoy better load times on Pornhub.

Many feel helpless without mentors to turn to and do not realize the Bible has the answers they seek.

This is the most depressing theological argument I've ever read, because if the Bible isn't a compendium of Holy Writ, but is actually a mentor, that means our entire lives are just one long internship, enlivened only by the occasional blowjob for which we'll either be condemned to Hell, or subpoenaed by Ken Starr.

They don’t know what their roles are supposed to be as men—

I think I'm playing the butler with the furtive manner who you're supposed to think is the killer until the end of the second act, when I'm discovered floating in the cistern, a Malay kris in my back.

Even for Christian men, the Bible can be an extremely intimidating book to tackle. After all, it is the Word of God. It contains some pretty heavy stuff. And if you happen to pick up a translation and come across words like satyr, concupiscence and phylacteries, you can forget about reading more than two verses before you’re ready to go throw a football around or make a mess in the garage.

So the Bible turns men into toddlers? That's a surprising, and heretofore unknown to me, effect of the King James translation, but I'm sure it's a claim backed up by rigorous experimentation. Nevertheless, I'd like to verify the ministers' findings with the kind assistance of my audience. Gentlemen? I'm going to say the words "bulrush," "firkin," and "cockatrice," and you tell me at what point you start smearing your poop on the baseboards.

So really, it’s no surprise that men—generally visual learners known for our short attention spans and occasional selective listening—are not particularly excited about reading and owning Bibles.

Men sound like morons. It's a wonder people let us rule the world.

We routinely receive the following questions from men about the Bible: 

1. The Bible was written so many years ago. Is it still really relevant today? Can it really help me with all that I’m struggling with?

Unfortunately not, since you seem to be struggling with a violent reaction to polysyllabic words. Just wait until you get to "ambassage" or "euroclydon" -- your garage is gonna look like a tornado hit an outhouse.

2. Can’t you just give me the highlights? It takes so long for me to read it and my eyes begin to glaze over.

I have the same problem with Atlas Shrugged.

3. When I do want to open my Bible, I don’t know where to go or what to do. Is there an app for that?

Based on your questions so far, it sounds like you might enjoy iFart Mobile - #1 iPhone App - The Premier Fart Application

The problem is, when men go to the local chain or Christian bookstore, the product line-up consists of multiple Bibles for kids, teens and women. Are there some for men? Sure, maybe one or two, but nothing comparable to the selections for the other demographics. 

It appears that retailers know their Bible-buying demographic well, and it isn’t men. But when men do decide to make that purchase, they need something clearly, visibly for them.

Perhaps an action shot of Onan on the cover.

The Emancipation Approximation

Let's check in with our old friend Matt "Bam Bam" Barber, the Boxing Nun.

"So I've got the goatee and the suspenders, but I'm wondering...is there anyway I could possibly look more like a douche?  What do you listeners think?  Lines are open..."

‘Pro-Choice’ Slave Masters Losing War

The pro-aborts are losing. They know it, and they hate it.

It's true.  We're being underbid in the marketplace by the pro-bono-aborts.

As LifeNews.com reported in January: “CNN released the results of a new poll showing a majority of Americans want all or most abortions prohibited – a clear pro-life majority.”

Well, I guess that's it.  The practitioners of anti-choice activities (or an-cho-vies, as the pro-aborts like to call them), have sounded the death knell for Roe v. Wade.

Indeed, the winds of life are blowing free the foul stench of a pro-abortion culture of death.

I told the other people in the movement that "pro-abortion culture of death" was a crappy name for our new line of imposter fragrances.  Good name for a punk band, though.

Oh what the hell, I might as well get out of the boat, seeing as it's sinking and all...  From the LifeNews "report":

In August, CNN released the results of a new poll showing a majority of Americans want all or most abortions prohibited — a clear pro-life majority.

The survey asked: “Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal under only certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?” Some 62 percent want abortions illegal in all cases or legal only in certain instances while just 35% want abortions legal for any reason.

If you click the link above (warning: goes to a pdf), you'll see that this poll, from August 2012, is mostly about the presidential election, with one question on abortion (or two, depending on how you answer).  I guess there's an art to reading polls without skewing, because I looked at this thing and got a very different impression of the results than the experts at LifeNews.com did.  Maybe you guys can help me decode this statistical mumbo-jumbo (click to embiggen):

To my untutored eye, it seems like the number of people who think abortion should be legal under any circumstances has actually increased -- by 10 points since 2011.  The number who think it should be legal in at least some circumstances has decreased by 6 points, but the percentage of the population who think it should be outlawed has also decreased by the same amount.  So while I guess you could come to the conclusion -- as the an-cho-vies at LifeNews.com (or Li-Nom, as we've just decided to call it) do -- that 62% of the American people are opposed to abortion by adding the number of people who want to see it criminalized to the number who wish to keep abortion legal, but with restrictions (pretty much the case since Roe v. Wade was first decided), you could also hang a left turn, adding the "legal under certain circumstances" crowd to the "Legal under any circumstances" degenerates, and conclude that a clear 82% of the population favors the Pro Choice position.

Instead of reaching back to last summer, Li-Nom could have avoided all this murky ciphering by simply going with the more recent CNN poll, headlined "Strong majority oppose overturning Roe v. Wade."  But like I said, arithmetic was never my strongest subject.

Anyway, back to Bam Bam...

This is why President Obama and his fellow pro-abort zealot, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, have unilaterally, arbitrarily and unconstitutionally forced, through Obamacare, every taxpaying American citizen to fund “free” abortion-on-demand.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, pregnancy termination and the latest hit movies are now included free with my basic cable package.

This draconian overreach is in perfect keeping with the 2012 DNC platform, which, for the first time, admits without shame: “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to … abortion, regardless of ability to pay.”

"You can, of course, choose to support a woman's right to control her own body -- it's your soul that's going to roast in Hell, not mine -- but at least have the decency to be bashful about it."

Psalm 8:28 commands: “Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.”

MATT:  And why would you even consider having an abortion?
WOMAN:  Well, physically I'm too weak to survive a pregnancy, the father abandoned me, and I'm too poor to raise a child.
MATT:  Those are all rational considerations, but I have this Hebrew pop song from the Sixth Century B.C., so your argument is invalid.

With its 1973 Roe decision, the U.S. Supreme Court put the government’s official stamp of approval on mass murder.

I dunno, Matt.  Even if you do consider abortion to be murder, it's still only one count of homicide.  It wouldn't be mass murder unless Octomom had an abortion.

Since then, the battle lines have been drawn. This is war. They, “pro-choicers,” are the bad guys, while pro-lifers are the good guys. It really is that simple – that black and white. It’s good versus evil.

Not that Matt wants you to enlist in his war and fight on behalf of white and good against black and evil by, say, shooting an abortion provider.  He would just like to point out that physicians are not signatories to the Geneva Convention, so if you happen to take up that AR-15 you are legally entitled to buy without a background check at a gun show, and point it in the face of a doctor and he happens to surrender, you're also legally entitled to make him work as slave labor on that bridge you're building over the River Kwai.

To the unenthusiastic mother, politically motivated abortion violence is deviously portrayed as an acceptable escape from what may seem a desperate situation.

"Yeah, sure, kid, the doctor says you've got 'PTSD' or some such crap from getting raped and impregnated by your uncle, but remember, doctors are enemy combatants in this war.  If you want my opinion, your real problem -- besides the broken jaw and the fractured ribs -- is a lack of enthusiasm.  Perk up, wouldja?"

To the innocent child, it is – without fail and without due process – execution by torture.

Which, thanks to John Yoo, is also now legal, making this war a whole lot easier.  I predict the blastocysts will be home by Christmas.

Consider the horrific practice of Partial-Birth Abortion, innocuously tagged “Intact Dilation and Extraction.” 

Begin by considering that "Intact Dilation and Extraction," a medical procedure, was tagged with the made-up term "Partial-Birth Abortion" by a Congressman and a lobbyist.

 "I'm dipping my pen in a uterus-shaped inkwell so the ladies don't feel left out."

This is a practice so brutal and so needless that even the liberal American Medical Association (AMA) admitted that it is never necessary under any circumstances.

Actually, that's what the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 admits ("a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary").  The AMA says, "According to the scientific literature, there does not appear to be any identified situation in which intact D&X is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion," which is not surprising, since "the procedure has had a low rate of use, representing 0.17% [of all abortions in the U.S.]."  The fact is, it's always seen more use in fundie talking points than in health clinics.

The AMA goes on to say that "ethical concerns" i.e., a stink, "have been raised about intact D&X. The AMA recommends that the procedure not be used unless alternative procedures pose materially greater risk to the woman. The physician must, however, retain the discretion to make that judgment, acting within standards of good medical practice and in the best interest of the patient."

So I guess the "American Medical Association (AMA) admitted that it is never necessary under any circumstances" can be checked off Matt's Tell a Lie For Leviticus! bucket list.

In Dred Scott the Court absurdly held that African-American slaves, even if emancipated, were not fully persons and therefore could never be considered U.S. citizens. Likewise, Roe v. Wade ruled that children in gestation are not fully persons and are therefore not entitled to their most basic civil right: life.

Dred Scott v. Sandford did indeed hold that slave owners could not be deprived of their property without due process, but that raises the question: Who's The Chattel? (one of the more offensive sit-coms of the mid-80s).  If we follow Dred Scott as precedent, then any embryo who escapes a pro-abort woman's womb through the Underpants Railroad could be caught, thanks to the Fugitive Fetus Act, and returned to her, even though she was trying to get rid of it in the first place.  But if the fetus can force the pro-abort to feed and house it for nine months, then it's actually the woman who's the slave, in which case they'll have to start making those Princess Leia metal bikinis in maternity sizes.

Call yourself “pro-choice”? Shame on you. You’re no better than a modern-day slave master. Dump the garbage and join the right side of history.

There’s plenty of room over here.

There sure is, Bam Bam. Mostly because people got up as soon as you started talking and found another bench.

Personality: The Cheaper Alternative to Birth Control

According to Plato, Socrates said, "I know one thing, that I know nothing," or words to that effect. To be honest, I don't know the actual quote, and I'm not just saying that because I want you to think I'm smart.

So clearly, ignorance is the gateway to wisdom; and therefore, by the same logic, if one hopes to get an intelligent answer, one must ask a stupid question. Enter our cerebral friend, Selwyn Duke.

Why accept contraception as a women's issue?

Exactly.  It's like Romney's statements about Jeep moving its manufacturing jobs to China -- just because he says it doesn't mean we're obliged to believe it -- and if we're truly serious about this whole "sexual equality" business, then the ladies should be subjected to the same standards; and that means men are under no compulsion to accept the claim that birth control is a "women's issue" just because women have a vested interest in controlling when they give birth.

While many points have been made about this campaign's contraception controversy, there's one that I haven't yet heard anyone mention.

Why do we accept contraception as a women's issue?

Frankly, I think this unrelenting emphasis on birth control is taking the focus off other, equally important issues of public health, such as the plight of women afflicted by bad prostates.

After all, there is a prophylactic designed for use by men, and insurance policies would have covered it no more than they would female birth control. 

I wonder if Selwyn carries liability insurance for accidental death or dismemberment caused by trying to parse that sentence.  Anyway, while he's checking his policy, he might want to read the rest of the brochure and note that insurance companies actually do cover "female birth control" -- the Free Market having decided that pills are cheaper than pregnancies. 

Even more significantly, contraception is unnecessary unless there's the possibility of conception, something impossible without the participation of a man. In other words, contraception is always used by both sexes.

Back when I was still on the dating scene, I never understood why my girlfriends would insist on popping their prescription birth control every day -- even when we weren't planning to see each other.  Yes, they'd hand me some scientific gobbledegook about "hormones" and "cervical mucus" and "placebo pills," but logically there's no reason for them to have taken the Pill on days when they weren't having sex, so clearly they were all cheating on me.

The likely response here is that I'm being obtuse.

Well, that's certainly the usual response...

 "Don't you know, Duke, that women generally have to assume the responsibility for birth control?" But hold the phone.

That's not the phone you're holding, Selwyn.  I'll, uh...come back when you're done.

 The feminists have long maintained that men should shoulder half the burden of contraception and that thinking otherwise is "sexist." So why did they make that antiquated, "sexist" assumption an implicit centerpiece in their argument for government policy?

Selwyn is right to reject the fanciful notion that a gap exists between aspirations and reality.  When I was little I wanted a pony, so shouldn't I be going out to the stable that must therefore be somewhere in our apartment, and shoveling horseshit every day?  Or is reading Selwyn's column enough?

Personally, I think men will "shoulder half the burden of contraception" only when they start getting pregnant half the time, but then, I'm a sour old cynic, and not a dewy idealist like Young Dr. Chinfinger.

Additionally, the burden stressed when defending the contraception mandate is the financial one. But not only is birth control quite cheap, it isn't entirely true that this expense is footed only by the fairer sex. 

Men often pick up the dinner check and movie tickets that require women to spend money on contraceptives.  (But you don't always score, so if you do find yourself contributing half the cost of birth control, be aware that current IRS law allows you to amortize the cost of each Pill over three separate trips to The Sizzler.)

After all, if a man and woman truly are a couple, expenses are often a mutual responsibility.

You buy half her tampons and birth control pills, she buys half your Rogaine and porn -- it's the only rational way to approach public health policy.

 And not only is this especially true of married couples, it's also a fact that husbands are much more likely than wives to be the main or even sole income source.

Is Selwyn married?  I've never seen him mention a wife, but considering that RenewAmerica doesn't actually pay its contributors, perhaps that's all for the best.

 So is it primarily "female" or "male" dollars that pay for birth control? It would be interesting to see a study to that effect.

Well, since Selwyn's image of family finances dates back to the Fifties, a time before the birth control pill existed, I'm not sure how we could possibly devise a study that would validate his assumptions without also causing a dangerous causality loop that could produce a rip in the space-time continuum and lead to Selwyn accidentally impregnating his own grandfather.

Of course, then there's the type of single woman targeted by the statist contraception appeal, the species known as the Fluke. 

Anyway, enough manly joshing...let's get on with the initiation.  Duke, your Delta Tau Chi name will be "Nematode"...

Single women who have one-night stands or who enter into other low-commitment sexual relationships aren't going to collect tolls before allowing partners in lust to cross the bridge to nowhere

I'm not sure, but I think he just called Sarah Palin a slut.

so they would have to pay to play (who, however, pays for the dates?). 

Yeah, I'm sure Selwyn knows nothing about that.

But this raises a question: is facilitating such behavior good social policy?

So our government funding has gone from midnight basketball to midnight...well, you know. Paying for people's healthful recreational activities was bad enough; now we have to finance their recreational sex. 

Hm.  Someone seems a tad bitter.  Frankly, I'd be willing to pay Selwyn not to have sex, just as a gesture of goodwill to my species, but I have a feeling that'd be like bribing an oyster not to compete on So You Think You Can Dance.

And since these tax dollars come partially from women, robbing the taxpayer to pay for contraception is as much a "women's" issue as is the use of it.

Tax dollars?  What tax dollars?  I thought the issue was over requiring private insurance plans to cover contraception.  Alright, never mind, let's just go with it...So women are paying taxes, and part of their taxes go to pay for something that women use, which means that they're being robbed...by themselves...

Hm.  Maybe if I finger my chin it'll become clearer...

Nope...Okay, let's trying focusing on Selwyn's larger point -- that there should be an equal division of labor and resources when it comes to contraception, just as there was in hunter-gatherer societies, where men did the hunting and women the gathering.  Therefore, I believe what Selwyn is proposing is that we divide up "birth control" 50-50.  Women get the "birth," men get the "control."

And Selwyn gets to "hold the phone" (at $2.95 a minute).

Selwhine Duke

You know Young Master Selwyn Duke, of course.  Failed tennis pro.  Successful douche.  Middling Tea Party propagandist.  What I like to think of as an extra brisk Lipton Doucheteabag.  But most important of all, Master Duke is a self-certified genius whose prodigious mind has but one flaw: it's on a dead-man's switch, and if he releases the pressure on his chin for even an instant, his overloaded brain will explode!  Sure, it requires him to go through life looking oddly...coy, but he does it all for us, for were his skull to detonate, then where would we go to get our minimum daily adult requirement of snide allusions to Candy Crowley's weight?

So let's enjoy Selwyn's uniquely cerebral insights while he still has the strength to apply a constant 32 P.S.I. to his lower face.

Candy Crowley plays biggest loser with Obama

You might think that with all the recent focus on media bias in debate moderation, Candy Crowley would have minded her p's and q's in last night's presidential debate. But clearly, she doesn't even know the ABC's of her job.

She's a POS who's clearly FUBAR, and therefore undeserving of R.E.S.P.E.C.T.  QED.

Her most obvious transgression was chiming in and contradicting Mitt Romney's assertion that Barack Obama did not label the Benghazi attack an act of terror when he spoke in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12.

Of course, Obama did label the Benghazi attack an act of terror when he spoke in the Rose Garden, but that's not important, for two reasons.  Number one, because who cares?  But number two -- and a thick, steamy, corn- and peanut-speckled number two it is -- if the transgression of contradiction is allowed to go unpunished, then our entire system of argument by assertion could collapse, which would leave us with a lot of hours of cable news programming to fill up.  Sure, there's When Animals Attack, but eventually you're going to run through the grizzlies, and pumas, and ocelots, and find yourself spending all your time trying to get a bonobo to attack by promising it a box of raisins and a Fleshlight.

Crowley's unwarranted meddling was significant.

You know what you almost never see in this country?  Warranted meddling.  You know, like there's a knock at your door, and two cops are standing there, and they say, "We want to interfere with your love life, and rearrange all your furniture to make your apartment more feng shui."  And you're all, "Have you got a warrant?"  And they're all, "Yes we do," and you're like, "Okay, come on in."

The apparent lies surrounding the Libya tragedy are a huge scandal for Obama, and, with the mainstream media's failure to aggressively cover the story, the debate was a golden opportunity to get the truth out.

If there's one fault I can find with our impulsive, content-hungry, profit-driven mass media, it's their tendency to shy away from huge scandals.

Enter Crowley's Passion.

Well, why not?  Every other celebrity's got their own crappy fragrance nowadays.

She snuck into the ring, without Obama even tagging her, and hit Romney from behind with a chair while the ref, Crowley's Brain, was looking the other way.

Although a Romney supporter, even Connecticut Senatorial candidate Linda McMahon declared this a legal move.

And, as was established later, she was wrong.

Not on the facts, but Frank Luntz's focus group agreed that given the importance and solemnity of the occasion, Crowley would have better served the viewer by getting Romney in a side-headlock and ramming him face-first into the turnbuckle.

Also striking, however, is that most of the questions asked clearly played into the liberal agenda. This isn't surprising since they were chosen by Crowley herself. And we should ask: why was one liberal in a nation of 308 million people empowered to unilaterally choose the questions for a presidential debate?

I wouldn't call Candy Crowley a liberal, because I never see her at Poliburo meetings, but that could just be because I only go on Thirsty Thursdays.  Also, since the current estimated population of the U.S. is 314 million, I wonder what Selwyn did with those other 6 million people (hint: check his crawlspace).  Anyway, it does seem insanely biased that Crowley and Crowley alone had input into these questions...

CROWLEY: The Gallup organization chose 82 uncommitted voters from the New York area. Their questions will drive the night. My goal is to give the conversation direction and to ensure questions get answered.

The questions are known to me and my team only. Neither the commission, nor the candidates have seen them. I hope to get to as many questions as possible.

Okay, so the questions were supplied by Gallup, but admittedly chosen by Crowley, making it impossible for Romney to shine at this debate the way he did at the first, when the questions were selected by an entirely different, and far more democratic method:

LEHRER:  Thousands of people offered suggestions on segment subjects or questions via the Internet and other means, but I made the final selections. And for the record, they were not submitted for approval to the commission or the candidates.

Okay, we could argue about why identical things are different, but we should hurry back to Selwyn, before his chin-finger gets tired.

In fact, it would have been laughable if not so tragic, as Crowley was clearly out of her depth and ended up deep-sixing the truth. She chose a question about the male-female wage gap, assuredly oblivious to the fact that women do not get paid less for the same work; they get paid less for lesser work.

As we all learned in high school biology class, a man and a woman might perform identical jobs, but the quality of work will inevitably vary depending on the presence of a dick (in fact, six separate studies show a direct correlation between penis length and professional achievement, which is why America's Greatest Actor was either Roddy McDowell or Forrest Tucker).  This is also why male employees are not permitted to wear pants, so that Quality Assurance personnel can more easily spot check productivity.

It isn't surprising that Crowley would advocate for the feminist agenda, however, since she no doubt owes her position to affirmative action.

And Selwyn's writing would no doubt make 8% more sense if they hadn't snipped off his foreskin.