Length 01:21:37  Date: September 25, 2021

by Dr. Susan Block.   

Falling in love in Fall flows like sweet sap down the maple tree. The sun rises later and the nights lasts longer, optimal conditions for cuddling up with someone you love and falling deeper into the warmth and intimacy between you.

Though long-term love has its ups and downs, hair-raising twists and hairpin turns, and so does our Love Train as we ride through some of the glories (gorillas going downtown!) and hazards (climate catastrophes everywhere!) of Autumn Equinox, 2021.

At least, we don’t go literally off the rails, like the unfortunate Amtrak train that derailed in Montana, killing 3 people and injuring about 50, just before we broadcast live. Well, that’s one reason, our Love Train is not literal, but virtual—no real-life train crashes or pollution.

Nevertheless, virtual reality can stir up emotions that are just as intense as analogue. During one of those hairpin turns, Capt’n Max and I almost fall off the Love Train, at which point he actually climbs out the window for a breather, and I fall (so to speak) into a state of confusion. The only thing I know is this stupid derailment is all my fault. Am I going just as bananas as the world around me? You decide (listen above or below)…

Regardless, “the show must go on,” so I go on with the show. It’s really quite the hairpin turn; just that morning, my beloved Captain and I celebrated the equinox so romantically and orgasmically. Of course, we’re falling into the “autumn” of our lives, and almost everything about senior sex is more physically challenging than it is when you’re young… except orgasm which, ironically, cums easier (at least, that’s my experience). Now that’s the way to go nuclear! Some things (not many!), get better with age.

But a gal can’t rest on her orgasms, or laurels, or even blow-jobs (like the pretty good one I’d given that morning); there’s much more to practicing the Bonobo Way. You have to take responsibility for your stupidity when it strikes, even if you’re on the air. Well, maybe you don’t (or just wouldn’t), but I did (listen above or below if you’ve never heard me apologize before), and that seems to help get the Love Train back on track.

Though it’s still making strange noises, and at one point, the sound of gunshots punctuates the broadcast! Listen with earphones and you might make out the pop-pop-pop. Not everything you hear on F.D.R. is virtual; some of it is all too frighteningly real.

Mabon’er & the Fall of Persephone

Autumn Equinox is as real—and down to Earth—as life gets, and it falls (always falling) towards the end of Self-Love September, so it’s a good time to roll around naked in a pile of bright, freshly raked leaves, just jump in a cool lake before making love (to yourself or somebody else) by a roaring autumnal fire. The equinox also signals a spiritual kind of “self-love” enhanced by communing with the great outdoors. Though the outdoors in your neighborhood might not be so great at the moment, if one or more of the now ubiquitous climate catastrophes has flooded, burned, dried up or just destroyed it.

Another name for Autumn Equinox is “Mabon,” after the Welsh God of the Harvest. I call it “Mabon’er,”  which stimulates a little chat with Capt’n Max, Unscene Abe and Mel about “lady boners.” Having grown up in the Welsh-named “Bala Cynwyd” (Welsh translation: “Rolling Hills”) suburb of Philly, I know all too well how much the rather bland Welsh gods need a little spicing up.

I prefer the more baroque characters and erotic scenes of Greco-Roman mythology where Fall Equinox is seen through the “Fall,” aka the Rape of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, the great Earth Mother Goddess of the Harvest, Fertility and Agriculture. Like too many unfortunate maidens then and now, Persephone is sexually assaulted (quite a disruption!) by her mean old Uncle Hades, the Lord of Hell. As he sweeps her up into his chariot, Persephone literally falls through the Earth into the Underworld, taking her Mother’s joy and the Earth’s abundance with her for the harsh Autumn/Winter months. Raging with grief, the Earth Mother almost destroys the Earth. Fortunately, Mama Demeter has the wherewithal to work a deal for sustainability with King Zeus for her beloved daughter to reunite with her half the year… at which point, she blesses the Earth with the glories of Spring and Summer.

Of course, these Greek myths were created before Climate Change started wreaking havoc with our seasons….

Obscene Anthropocene & Haitian Agony

We are living through what some scientists call the “Anthropocene” geological era, when “human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.” It’s a touchy subject, not the easiest set of syllables to pronounce (try saying “Anthropocene” 10 times in 30 seconds), and even disrupts the show momentarily.

Of course, Anthropocene weather disruption is hardly momentary, and it’s pushing millions of “Third World” refugees out of their native lands and towards our borders, including thousands of Haitians escaping devastating conditions, having just suffered a major earthquake shortly after the island nation’s President was assassinated by outside (American?) agents. As these desperate refugees wade through the river under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas, U.S. officials patrol on horseback, trying in vain to “rein” in desperate people with reins that resemble whips. It’s beyond disturbing, and the horses (that the Biden administration is now banning) are the least of it.

These cowboys are handling people very roughly, no doubt, but this is not about a few bad cowboys. The U.S., and most of Europe, has been harassing and torturing Haiti and Haitians ever since that country’s remarkable and successful slave rebellion in 1804 that made it the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt. No wonder U.S. leaders are afraid of Haiti.

Make love not war, and you’ll solve a lot of problems, including a huge chunk of Climate Change.

But it’s not just Haiti, it’s also Guatemala suffering from droughts and floods so bad, many are starving, their suffering compounded by a government that has been disrupted and corrupted by America. Sadly, there are many more. Some Americans just want to keep these desperate refugees out of “our” country, the land that Europeans acquired via Native American genocide, but hypocrisy is not an issue to hypocrites. Others want to help the refugees, but how do you help them? How do you feed them?

Stop feeding the beast!

Seriously, if we slash funding for the obscenely obese U.S. Military, the 2021 *budget* of which is $686 billion, as well as tax the rich like F.D.R did (that is, somewhat fairly), we’d have plenty of money to feed and house the refugees, as well as needy Americans. That means stop preparing for war with China. Stop arming Australia with nuclear submarines (pissing off France and China). Stop building nuclear weapons. Stop feeding the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC).

What does the MIC have to do with Haiti? Essentially, the Haitian crisis and most recent waves of refugees are caused by two things: 1) The U.S. meddling with another country’s affairs, involving U.S. military, its “secret police,” the CIA, and/or crippling sanctions, AND 2) Climate change, which is also greatly increased by the U.S. military, the single worst polluter on Earth.

In a way, the MIC is Hades and we are all Persephone, being ravished and taken to Hell.

Secret Police

Make love not war, and you’ll solve a lot of problems, including a huge chunk of Climate Change. No matter our differences, Capt’n Max and I agree on this; indeed, it’s the basis for our life’s work. One of Max’s Reddit fans asks him if he’s ever been in the military which kicks off Max’s wonderful true story of being a young army recruit hitting most of his targets on the shooting range when he suddenly realized that his superior marksmanship would soon have him killing people. So, he threw down his rifle and said, “I quit!” Of course, you can’t just “quit” the army (that’s going A.W.O.L.), so they locked him up in a military loony bin from where he languished until he befriended a beautiful fellow patient who happened to be having sex with the married chief psychiatrist. When Max threatened to expose the illicit affair, the furious psychiatrist granted him an honorable discharge, and off Max went to a new life of love, not war.

Whether or not the U.S. is officially “at war” with another country, the U.S. MIC uses a lot of “secret police,” the most notorious of which are CIA, the “secret” that everybody knows. There’s also the FBI for domestic spying, and then there are other secret police most of us know even less about.

For instance, did you know that the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department has its own secret police? Their undercover job is to investigate and harass political opponents and “critics” of Sheriff Alex Villanueva. What a racket! Unfortunately, this kind of corruption is not unusual. We constantly see Sheriffs hanging out, eating, sleeping, taking meetings and possibly having sex in their patrol cars right outside Bonoboville on nearly a daily basis. Are they playing hooky or spying on us?

We’ve also been chronically harassed by City Inspectors, since we moved here in 2019, which culminated a few weeks ago in an unconstitutional police raid that included a panty raid, as well as intrusive, nonconsensual frisking, in addition to other illegal and anti-sex discriminatory infringements. It’s coming to a head in a couple of days when we go to a City Inspectors’ Board Meeting. Hopefully, we will be welcomed like the good law-abiding citizens we are, but if we’re not, make way for the lawyers. Have we got a case for you! Stay tuned…

Our City inspectors’ ongoing harassment reminds me, on a local level, of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. I know it’s a stretch in terms of scale, but consider the parallels: U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan to get Osama, but after they couldn’t find him there, they stayed anyway, supposedly in order to defeat the Taliban, but that plan was foiled when the Taliban surrendered within two weeks. This forced the various U.S. MIC PR departments to come up with various excuses to continue the occupation, mostly in the name of the War on Terror, but also for Afghan women’s rights—which certainly weren’t a concern when we helped the Muhajideen drive the female-empowering Soviets out.  Our War on Terror turned into a War of Terror waged against the Afghan people, mainly because we were already there, with all our troops and equipment, and it was a strategic location, and because the “deciders” didn’t want to look stupid for invading Afghanistan in the first place.

In the case of the Arcadia City Inspectors vs. Bonoboville, the *invasion* started with the firewoman telling Max she was “creeped out” by our painting of a topless Marilyn Monroe and a graphic recording of my bonobo lecture. When that didn’t turn into anything for which they could charge us, she and her colleague, Amber Ambieta, started working hard to find other things about us to question and investigate so they wouldn’t look stupid (to their superiors) for targeting us in the first place. In Afghanistan, America threw a lot of good money after bad, and—on a much smaller scale, of course—that’s what these City inspectors are doing with us.

I’d much rather be raided than droned, but we do feel violated. On the day of the raid, the violation was physical and even somewhat sexual. Unscene Abe recalls how he was surprised and unnerved to be frisked by a female cop. We were in the studio that day, getting ready for my Washington Babylon interview, and several of us were frisked inappropriately and without consent right there in the parking lot in front of the neighbors and rush hour traffic. What were they looking for in our bras and crotches? Guns? Contraband? Benjamins? Humiliation?

Secrets?

Breaking News: Speaking of secret police, Yahoo News has just revealed that the CIA, led by Mike Pompeo under tRump, repeatedly and seriously considered extrajudicially kidnapping and even assassinating Julian Assange. They actually roleplayed assassination scenarios! The mind boggles at the ethical depths the secret police will dive down to.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE already!

Gabby Petito Syndrome

Sometimes the police are secretive, other times they are just stupid. The latter seems to be the case in the sad story of Gabby Petito who captured the attention of just about everyone with or without an attention span, thanks to saturated coverage that accomplished nothing except to frustrate a bunch of crazed eyeballs (mine included) and also reveal once again that our police are a bunch of idiots and/or lazy, sadistic, racist misogynists.

The case shows that while the trigger-fingered ammosexual police shoot-to-kill innocent people at the drop of a cellphone, they let a “person of interest” who looked very guilty just slip through their greasy fingers. As everyone with an internet connection knows, the police didn’t charge or even watch Gabby’s boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, aka “Dirty Laundrie.” He had returned from their trip together with her van but without her, refused to speak to her family or police, let his parents and lawyer play interference for him for enough time for him to just… disappear. How could the authorities let this happen? Because they’re patriarchal sleazebags, complete idiots, being paid off or hiding something we may never know (that’s the secret part).

Not that poor Gabby didn’t deserve our concern, but where’s the 24/7 outrage when black, indigenous and other people of color disappear? A veteran newsman named Frank Somerville was suspended from KTVU for asking that question. Frank happens to be a white dude with a black adopted daughter, so he inquired on-air as a newsman, citizen and concerned father. Time to cancel KTVU.

Why the laser focus of the Mainstream Media (MSM) on Gabby’s story? For the most part, the MSM are a bunch of lazy corporate shills trying to entice our eyeballs without offending their rich, often racist owners. Gabby was very pretty, of course, but there are a lot of pretty missing people.  One key aspect is that Gabby, aspiring to be an influencer, had tons of video footage of herself looking wholesomely sexy as she communed with nature, Laundrie (ugh!) or the camera, turning the whole saga into a kind of MSM porn—but with no skin, so nobody could call it porn. But we all know that a lot of guys and some gals have been celebrating Self-Love September looking at videos of Gabby Petito (or as one of our Reddit commenters calls her affectionately “Gabby Potato”).

Then there is the harrowing police body cam footage where we see her crying as Brian jokes with police… like a real police show. I guess that makes it violent porn. But there’s no blood or gore (on video), and the authorities won’t even say (yet) how Gabby was killed. It’s giving a lot of addictive personalities Gabby Petito Syndrome.

Saying “Trump won” is an Article of Faith for the Faithful. 

QAnon says “they” (the government? the MSM?) made up the whole story (to distract from Joe Biden’s problems or some such nonsense), and that Gabby and Brian are crisis actors.  I imagine this upsets Gabby’s grieving family tremendously, and of course, anything QAnon says is ridiculous and wrong. On the other hand, I don’t blame them for making it out to be just as unreal as the Greek Myth of Persephone, because of police incompetence and the way that poor girl’s story was—and still is—shoved in our faces like Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s balls….

Speaking of Brett’s Balls and other balls, last week’s FDR show, “#Ballgate, Ballgown, Brett’s Balls & Yours” turned into an article now on Counterpunch!

TrumpVirus Still Spreading

And speaking of CP, editor Jeff St. Claire tweeted, “The Haitians can’t take over the country fast enough, as far as I’m concerned” with a pic of a MAGAt with his rifle, 45 hat, Trump dummy in a bullet proof vest next to him, sporting a Taliban beard (or maybe Amish?) and the ridiculous words “Suburban Legend” tattooed under his lip.

The tRump rally itself was predictably ridiculous… and very ominous. Following the lead of Silicon Valley guru, billionaire and tRump supporter, Peter Thiel, they are—both deliberately and mindlessly—“disrupting” the election process. They know tRump lost and Biden won, by their own recount in Arizona the other day, but they still say they won. Truth and facts don’t matter. There are always “alternative facts” and “my truth.” Saying “Trump won” is an Article of Faith for the Faithful. It’s like a Born-Again Christian accepting Jesus as their personal savior, or a Catholic believing in immaculate conception, or an Orthodox Jew trying to obey over 600 arcane commandments. This is what happens when you don’t separate Church and State. That separation shrunk substantially during the Born-Again Bush years and, despite there being more American atheists and agnostics than ever—the separation of Church and State continues to shrink further, especially with our current Supreme Court that might as well be a Church Choir. They’ve already got the robes.

Whether the MAGAts know it or not, it’s right there in the Fascist playbook: Disrupt! Create Chaos and promise to bring order. Check out this Tshirt: “My Son Died from Covid and I’m still voting for Trump.” Conservative Republicans are even more freaked out by tRump than most Democrats are. Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan compared the Trumpus to Satan, which is not fair to Satan who is the offspring of Pan, patron saint of the bonobos (pan paniscus). Trump is no Satan. He’s a grifting puddle of toxic marmalade that’s still spreading the TrumpVirus…

Tamera in Bonoboville

We contrast the MAGAt cult with a very different kind of human community, the leaders of which were the featured guests on this week’s throwback show, Tamera in Bonoboville on Supermoon Eve. Sabine Lichtenfels, Terra Nova “global peace ambassador” and one of the original founders of the Tamera community, and Tamera “Next Generation” leader Benjamin von Mendelssohn, grace us with their luminous presence. Many thanks to the international matchmaking skills of UPRM Professor SerenaGaia Anderlini D’Onofrio, co-editor of Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love (for which I was honored to write the foreword), who arranged this 2015 visit.

It seems like another time—before the Coronapocalypse, even before tRump!—but Tamera is still in operation, focusing on energy in both its physical and spiritual manifestations, as well as how to “cooperate” with Mother Earth’s resources (like bonobos do), as opposed to just using—or misusing the sun, the wind, the water, the oil. Has capitalism ruined us human apes? Are we able to cooperate instead of just compete?

“How can we become one organism in cooperation?” Sabine asked. The answer is through sharing, which includes sex, and yes, Tamera also supports Free Love.

If the current Climate Calamities turn into a 21^st or 22^nd century Anthropocene apocalypse, a Great Dying where most living creatures, including people, are destroyed, some species will probably survive, maybe even humans, maybe even groups of humans. It’s my hope that the amazing Tamera community will somehow survive the floods and fires of the obscene Anthropocene. With their sustainable, bonoboësque approach to life and a little bit of luck, they just might do that.

Vagina Museum Closing, Cuomosexual Problems & Gorilla Muff-Diving

Meanwhile, sadly, the world’s only vagina museum has closed its lips—I mean, doors. It’s another example of sex-negative censorship by a private corporation. In this case, the landlord (which won’t renew the lease) is named Labtech, which sounds like the real estate version of Big Tech. How is there still a Penis Museum in Iceland (featuring Icicle Testicles?), but no Pussy Museum anywhere? Unfair.

Vulva Art from the now-closed Vagina Museum

Speaking of balls (again), the Cuomo Brothers’ Fall from Grace continues faster than Persephone plummeting to Hades. Now Chris Cuomo, like his brother Andrew, has been accused of sexual harassment. He squeezed the butt of his former boss without her consent in front of her husband at a party, and he apologized for doing it right afterwards, but the “victim” is demanding more “accountability.”

I wonder if Papa Mario Cuomo was a butt-squeezer like Chris or a boob-fondler like Andrew? All I know is my Mom loved Mario Cuomo with a passion and would have taken a squeeze anywhere from him as a gift from God… but that doesn’t make it right for him or his “old-school” sons to do without consent. Though honestly, I don’t care about losing either one of them to the #MeToo movement as much as I did Al Franken. But I’m still waiting for Trumpty Dumpty to fall… Maybe thes E. Jean Carroll rape trial will crack that egg!

CW: Animals doing animally things

Gorillas Perform Oral Sex at Bronx Zoo, Humans Horrified https://t.co/LwOn1SGpEe via @TMZ

— R•O•N•N•I (@LovesTheWords) September 24, 2021

Meanwhile, the gorillas in the Bronx Zoo are having a consensual good time going downtown, plus giving the human voyeurs a show and class in sex education, evolution and female pleasure—and I’m sure these gorillas are smart enough to know that they’re doing just that.

They’re almost as cool as bonobos!

© September 25, 2021 Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For speaking engagements, call 213-291-9497.