Another Republican in a "morals" scandal.

The French comedy film, Le Cage aux Folles, has the son of two gay men engaged to the daughter of the deputy leader of a French version of the Moral Majority. The deputy leader just learns that the leader of the moral order has died of a heart attack while in bed with a prostitute, who was both underaged and black. Not knowing the truth about his daughter's fiance's family he concocts the idea that a nice, wholesome wedding would save their image. From this premise all humor flows.

Republicans are the organized political party of the moralistic crowd in America. They promote "family values," which is code for "we hate gays." Taking their clues from insane American fundamentalists the GOP assumes that hating gays is the height of morality. Doing unto others, in their mind, requires punishing people for their perceived moral shortcomings.

I have long contended that the conservative obsession with morality is the direct result of these individuals knowing their own heart all too well. They fear "sin" in others because they know exactly how corrupt they themselves happen to be. Conversely, the desire of those on the Left to impose charity, via the state, on others, is the result of their knowledge that they are not charitable when given the opportunity. Political groups tend to want the state to compensate for the moral shortcomings that they themselves possess.

And once again a Right-wing, moralistic Republican politician has stepped forward to prove my thesis. The Republican in question is Indiana state representative, Phillip Hinkle. An 18-year-old male had placed an online ad looking for a "sugga daddy." The implication was clearly an exchange of sex for cash, which certainly is a far more honorable profession than, say, being a state representative.

Hinkle emailed the man saying, "Cannot be a long time sugar daddy, but can for tonight. Would you be interested in keeping company for a while tonight?" In keeping with his "fiscal conservative" nature Hinkle actually went on the cheap. He offered the young man $80 to spend time with him at a local Indianapolis hotel. He told the young man that he would give him an additional tip of $50 or $60 "for a really good time." Hinkle told the young man, "I am an in shape married professional, 5'8", fit 170 lbs, and love getting and staying naked."

The young man, Kameryn Gibson replied, "Yes, I can!" Hinkle offered to pick up the young man at his home and drive him to the hotel. He also suggested, "If u want to consider spending night u might tell ur sis so she won't worry. Would have u back before 11 tomorrow. No extra cash just free breakfast and maybe late night snack." No extra cash! For a full night! He's not only a hypocrite but a cheap hypocrite to boot! Gibson gave his address and Hinkle picked him up.

At the hotel Gibson was told to go to the room by himself first, so that that the two would not be seen together. Hinkle waited about 15 minutes and entered the room and stripped and then wrapped a towel around his waist. At this point he mentioned to Gibson that he was a legislator and showed an ID card. Gibson, perhaps realizing he was dealing with a particularly loathsome and low class of human being—a politician—did what any self-respecting prostitute would do; he told Hinkle, "I don't want to do this."

Hinkle got upset that Gibson wanted out and supposedly him "You need to do this, because I came and got you, and I'm not taking you back until we do what we need to do."

Gibson made a beeline for the bathroom and called his sister who said she would be there momentarily to pick him up. Upon leaving the bathroom Gibson was told by Hinkle that he couldn't leave. Gibson called his sister again who read the riot act to Hinkle and told him that he didn't let her brother leave she would call the police and the media.

According to Gibson, when the pair hung up, Hinkle grabbed Gibson's upper arm to stop him, reached around to grab the young man's ass and then dropped his towel to put his Republican jewels on display. When Megan Gibson arrived to pick up her brother she again cussed out Hinkle telling him she was calling the police and the media. Hinkle panicked and offered her his iPad, BlackBerry and $100 in cash. Stupidly, in my opinion, she took what Hinkle offered and left with her brother.

She says she started getting calls on the BlackBerry from a woman who said she was Hinkle's equally Republican wife. Megan responded, "Your husband is gay." Mrs. GOP said, "You have the wrong person." Megan recounted the email address used to solicit her brother and the wife went silent and then said, "Please don't call the police."

Megan says that various family members of Hinkle started calling demanding to see proof of the email exchange between the politician and her brother. Megan dropped Kameryn off at home and was asked to come back to the hotel to meet Hinkle's daughter who wanted to see the emails. They were shown to her. Shortly Hinkle's wife called Megan and offered her $10,000 to remain quiet. Then Hinkle himself called Megan. Megan told him that she had told his wife and family that he was gay. She said Hinkle said, "You just ruined me." No, she didn't! The ruin of Hinkle was entirely self-induced.

When the media questioned Hinkle about the incident he did not deny the email exchange but described the encounter as a "shakedown." Shakedown? Isn't that what Republicans and Democrats do to taxpayers on a regular basis? His attorney wouldn't clarify what "shakedown" meant, would only say they were "investigating" the matter and then appealed to everyone to "respect" his client's privacy. Privacy? Really! Think about it for a second. Hinkle is a moralistic Republican who supports the laws that criminalized his own proclivities. Sure, if the law only applied to moralistic assholes in office that would be one thing, but these laws apply to everyone in the whole state. When you criminalize the sexual activities of consenting adults you are invading the privacy of every adult in the state.

Hinkle had no respect for the private lives of others. He was hoisted on his own petard.

Now, let us look at what was going on here, and not at the spin that Hinkle is trying to use. Gibson placed an ad on Craigslist making it clear that he would like to meet other men for sexual encounters. He had no knowledge that Hinkle would respond. Hinkle contacted him and expressed a desire to meet. Gibson asked why they should meet and Hinkle offered him money and said he would pick him up. If this were just an innocent friendship there would be no offer of cash by Hinkle and no promise of a tip for a really "good time."

Hinkle, knowing he was soliciting a teen-aged male for sex sent Gibson to the room by himself to avoid being seen entering the hotel together. Upon getting to his room Hinkle strips naked and wraps a towel around his waist. He was ready to go and making it clear. Hinkle stupidly says who he is sending Gibson into a panic who says he wants to leave. Hinkle won't allow it, he did, after all, drive to pick Gibson up and wanted what he contracted for before he would let the young man leave.

Once Hinkle, and then his family, realized that they had a potential scandal on their hands, he and they started offering things to Gibson, and his sister, to try and buy their silence. Let us be clear, it is obvious that Hinkle knew he soliciting a young man for sexual purposes. Everything he did implied he was fully aware of what he was doing. This was no miscommunication. And, it was no shakedown, since Gibson had no way of making Hinkle respond, did not know Hinkle was a politician until Hinkle stupidly revealed that fact—perhaps in the hope of thinking it would impress the young man he was trying to get into his bed.

The offer of $10,000 cash was not accepted and it was Megan Gibson who went to press, saying she thought Hinkle was "creepy" and that since he was a politician the public should know what he was up to. Gibson provided the emails to the press and allowed them to inspect them, as well as showing them the phone log to verify calls from Hinkle. Hinkle, in his "illustrious" career as a political bottom-feeder, has pushed for prayer in state schools, supports "abstinence-only" sex education, was a co-sponsor of legislation to deny marriage rights for gay couples, and pushed through legislation to put "In God We Trust" on car license plates. He is anti-abortion rights, supported a state-wide ban in public places, wants to punish private businesses for hiring "illegal" immigrants, and supported mandating seat belts. He is also anti-gambling. I can see why. He took a bit risk calling a teenaged male for sex, and he lost big time.

The kinkiest towns in America: they love Bush!

There is a legal case that interested me. A lawyer is arguing that his clients, who sells porn, did not violate community standards -- that legal whisp of smoke that the courts imposed which is impossible to define. His claim is that google searches showed that community members in that area of the country were keenly interested in sex. He used the “trends” function to determine this.

That basically measures what terms people search for and where those people are. For instance, you can type in “roses” and find out that the number one city in the world where people, who search for this word, live, is Buenos Aires, Argentina. I can refine it to tell me the city in America that has the most interest in “roses” and see that it Portland, Or. it will let me know which states have the most interest in the term

And that lead to some wicked thoughts on my part. Given this debate about marriage equality and sexual morality exactly how do the various regions of the US line up. Are “liberal” areas more “perverse” than God-fearing conservative regions? So here is what I found.

I thought I’d check up on who is looking up “wife swapping”. In first place is Cincinnati, followed by Louisville, Norfolk, Indianapolis and Kansas City. In fact out of the top 10 cities eight are relatively conservative areas. Interesting.

For “girls gone wild” the number one city for google searches is Kansas City, followed by Salt Lake City, Louisville, Oklahoma City and Elmhurst, Illinois. Go Elmhurst!

The search term “anal sex” seems to pop up, pardon the pun, most often in Meriden, CT. That is followed by Elmhurst, again; Louisville, Tampa and Rochester, NY. In the top ten we also have Orlando, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Newark and Richardson, TX.

Considering the reputation that San Francisco has regarding sexual tolerance I kept waiting for the city to show up in the list. Desperate to get them into the list once I tried a search on “homosexuality”. Surely as the gay capital of the United States they would have to come out on top -- that pun was unintentional but I’ll leave it in anyway. But no, San Francisco didn’t even fall in the top ten. The top search location for “homosexuality” was Louisville. Maybe its that Kentucky whiskey but Louisville seems to turn up fairly often. It is followed by Baltimore, Columbus, OH; and Cincinnati.

Next I tried “masturbation” -- the search term that is. And our number one city was Elmhurst again. Considering they scored highly with “girls gone wild” and “anal sex” I wouldn’t have thought they’d have time for masturbation. But it appears the people of Elmhurst are proper wankers. Coming in a close second (oh stop it with the puns already) were Salt Lake City; Rochester, NY; St. Louis, and Louisville.

Moving to the fringes of sexuality I put in a search on “animal sex”. The dubious distinction of coming in first in that search goes to Orlando. It is followed by Richardson, TX, Tampa, Newark and Reston, Virginia. Two more cities in Texas come in the top ten.

Who is searching for “kiddie porn”? The number one city was Orlando followed by Albany, Oklahoma City, Tampa, and Cincinnati. Salt Lake City is in the top ten also.

When it comes to “oral sex” our winner, yet again, is the kinky town of Elmhurst with Louisville in second followed by Tampa, Rochester and Philadelphia.

Searching on “teen ass” is another interesting result. As expected the hyper horny people in Elmhurst came first, following by Richardson, TX; Louisville, San Antonio and Portland.

“Dog sex” is searched for most often in Oklahoma City, Louisville, Richardson, TX, Orlando and Indianapolis.

“Mother son sex” is number one in Elmhurst followed by Reston, VA; Richardson, TX, Newark, NJ and Louisville. The folks in Elmhurst also came in first with “brother sister sex” followed by Rochester, Kansas City, Salt Lake City and St. Louis.

It seems that what ever sexual term, no matter how kinky, that I put in turns up a very high percentage of very conservative towns. So what happens when I try searches that are more chaste and virtuous.

The term “fidelity” shows up number in Boston followed by nearby Cambridge, then Oklahoma City, San Antonio and Providence, RI. That's the first time we got more liberal towns in the top five than conservative towns.

“Wedding” came up number one in Charlotte followed by St. Louis, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. Also in the top ten are Boston and Minneapolis. Again a much higher representation of liberal towns than before.

“Monogamy” was number in Pleasanton, CA, a town in the Bay Area. Also in the top ten were the liberal Texas town of Austin, Portland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston.

Goodness, it appears the liberal towns are searching for monogamy and the conservative town are searching for the index from the latest Hustler. Interesting to say the least. Based on this sampling I’d say the three kinkiest towns in America, in no special order, are Elmhurst, IL; Richardson, TX: and Louisville, KY.

How does this sort of thing work when it comes to the entire world? Are sexually conservative countries more prone to sexual obsession than liberal countries? Here are some of those results. For the sake of brevity I will list the search term and then the top five cities in the world, in order, where it comes to the percentage looking for the term.

Boy sex: Delhi, India; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Chennai, India; Cairo, Egypt; and Jakarta, Indonesia.

Anal sex: Prague; Izmir, Turkey; Ankara, Turkey, Irvine, CA, USA; Montreal, Canada.

Brother sister sex: Lahore, Pakistan; Karachi, Pakistan; Delhi, India; Chennai, India, Hyderabad, India.

Animal sex: Delhi, India; Chennai, India; Rabat, Morocco; Casablanca, Morocco; Mumbai, India.

It does appear that sexual conservative values on the ground do stimulate a higher degree of interest in the practices than does social liberalism.