Length 01:22:33  Date: July 3, 2021

by Dr. Susan Block. 

It’s the Cusp of America’s Birthday as the Love Train pulls out of the station into the second half of 2021, flags waving and fireworks bursting all around us.

I’ve long loved the sacred fireworks of summer: orgasms for the eyes on the 4^th of July.

May the Fourth Be with You!

4th of July, 2015 on the Bonoboville Roof planting a sparkler “candle” into Biz’s butt representing America’s Birthday Cake.

It’s funny how “fireworks” can symbolize love and war: sexual orgasm on the one hand, and “bombs bursting in air” on the other.

Here in Bonoboville, we love the fireworks of sex, not bombs, and love, not war. Capt’n Max and I lit a fuse to our 4^th of July weekend on the morning of this show with some very intense sexual fireworks.  Though I still appreciate the visual spectacle of regular pyrotechnics, sexual fireworks are even better.

Plus, sexual fireworks don’t pollute the environment, cause fires or scare your dog. Well actually, sexual fireworks might scare your dog, if you scream a lot, like I did this morning. So, give Fido a doggie treat and go back to bed.

Yes indeed, Brothers and Sisters, Lovers and Sinners: liberate your inner bonobo, and set off some fireworks in your pants. Happy Froth of July!

If you like the regular kind, just be careful not to shoot off your fingers. Because how are you going to finger anybody with no fingers?

Also, make sure the LAPD doesn’t confiscate your illegal cache of fireworks, or they might just blow up your neighborhood—in an effort to save it, of course.

See why the sexual kind of fireworks (with or without Katy Perry in white latex) are far superior?

Regular fireworks were invented in China, probably in the second century B.C.E., and didn’t make their way to Europe until 1300 years later.

What’s up with these inventive Chinese? They’re always inventing amazing things, from noodles to a cure for malaria(!), and though they fight to defend themselves and have internal conflicts, they rarely start wars. Capt’n Max, a longtime Sinophile, celebrates the 100^th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, praising China’s astounding accomplishments (bringing hundreds of millions of Chinese out of grinding poverty) and its often unfair demonization by so many other (jealous?) countries, especially the U.S.A.

Freedom is the Greatest Aphrodisiac

Back to us… Happy Birthday U.S.A!

This land we call the United States of America is 244 years young—very young—compared to the Native Americans who have inhabited the land they call Turtle Island for thousands of years.

The *baby* that became the U.S., born on July 4^th, 1776 was conceived through the Native American genocide, birthed though war (oh, those “rockets red glare”) and suckled on slavery. America eventually outlawed slavery and the massacring of indigenous people, but stoked the fires of capitalism of the worst kind. Sadly, now most of the American body is sick and emaciated, while a very small portion of that body—call it “the billionaire butthole”—is tiny but bloated to the point of bursting. It’s Inequality Gone Wild.

And yet, there are these great ideals of “equal rights” and “freedom” embedded in our Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves, one of whom was his lover.

Like most of us, each of our Founding Fathers, glorified by hagiographic American history, was a human bundle of contradictions. Jefferson’s famous words, claiming human rights for all to be “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” were, to some degree, inspired by Max’s ancestor, Italian philosopher/prince Gaetano Filangieri, a friend of Ben Franklin, a Freemason, who also owned slaves, but not as many as Jefferson or another slave-owning Freemason by the name of George Washington.

The Signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776 (it took a couple of days for word to get out which is why we celebrate it on July 4th). Painting: John Trumbull

Human evil is rarely absolute.

For instance, freedom is the greatest aphrodisiac. But restraint is a close second.

By “restraint,” I mean consensual BDSM, of course. Real-life slavery is one of the worst human institutions ever. Despite that, or maybe partly because of it, consensual restraint and bondage, can, feel very freeing. It’s one of those great paradoxes of life that sexual desire lays bare.

As one of our Reddit listeners comments, “You talk about the taboo topics: sex and politics.”

That’s why we sometimes call our shows “speakeasies,” because we speak easy about stuff that isn’t so easy to speak about.

Femocratic Wonder Women

On past 4^th of July Speakeasies, we’ve done a lot more than “speak.” Our after-show throwback is our Wonder Woman Femocratic 4^th of July, featuring Ikkor the Wolf (celebrating his birthday, as well as America’s), animal play specialist and multiple SUZY Award winner,Madame Margherite and Sanctuary pro-Domme Madam Grace Marie, aka “Goddess of LA,” who climaxes—with female ejaculation—all over the Motorbunny!

Go Bonobos for squirting fireworks! They’re kind of messy, but much less likely to start a fire than put one out.

Also joining us live from the “Enchanted Island” of Puerto Rico is Professor Linda Maria Rodriguez Guglielmoni, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez Creative Writing and Film department, whom I met at the UPR Ecosexuality Symposium (where I gave the keynote), convened by Professor SerenaGaia Anderlini D’Onofrio, co-editor of Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love. Based upon her Storyrocket essay, Wonder Woman: An Allegory for Our Times, Professor Linda gives us a wonderful, sapiosexual interview on the social effects of the Wonder Woman film.

I grew up reading Wonder Woman comic books, as did most of my other guests. We may not have “super powers” or bracelets that deflect bullets, but we all have an Inner Wonder Woman that feels good—and does good— when we release her.

We also talk about Wonder Woman’s comic book creator, William Moulton Marston, aka Charles Moulton, who lived polyamorously with his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, and their girlfriend, Olive Byrne, both of whom inspired his depiction of a strong, smart, brave, beautiful, very “womanly” super-heroine. Thanks Jacob Sokoloff for reminding us of this during the live broadcast).

Prof. Linda is not sure if the pioneering threesome (all psychologists) engaged in bondage play, though she agrees that it’s quite  possible when I speculate that this could have inspired Wonder Woman’s famous Golden Lasso of Truth that she uses to subdue so many bad guys, like a FemDom tying up her male submissive and “making” him reveal his secrets.

I never did see the whole Wonder Woman film, but the trailers and previews were enough to make me a bit of a fangirl for Gal Gadot. When I learned she’s a gung ho Zionist and former solider in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), a branch of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex (MIC), who supports the Israel’s ongoing apartheid against Palestinians, I changed my mind. I love it when actors speak out about politics (we all should) but if I disagree with them, I will then speak out against them.  Tit for tat and all of that!

Good Riddance to Bad Rummy

Speaking of the evils of the MIC…

Read It on Counterpunch

They say that history is written by the winners. But what if you wage a war that nobody wins?

That’s the Iraq War (also the Afghan war). Everybody lost (except maybe Iran and Israel) and continues to lose, 20 years later, as a defeated America fitfully attempts an ignominious, dangerous, but better-late-than-never withdrawal.

One of the chief architects of both of these forever-losing Perma Wars, as well as the post-9/11 War on Terror and Worldwide Web of Torture surrounding them, passed away on June 29^th, 2021, and on the occasion of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s death, I am mourning the victims of his war crimes.

As for him: Good riddance to Bad Rummy.

While he departed this life in peace, at the ripe, old, unrepentant age of 88, surrounded by loved ones and luxuries, his innocent quarries were often blown apart or fried alive in a state of war that he helped create, fan and maniacally micro-manage.

Donald Rumsfeld, nicknamed “Rummy,” was a heinous, mendacious, diabolically flirtatious, boorishly militaristic, casually sadistic, deeply opportunistic war criminal.

At the turn of the 21^st century, Rumsfeld was one of America’s leading “chickenhawks”—draft dodgers and battle-duckers who later in life advocate for pointless wars—such as Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Paul Wolfowitz, Mitch McConnell, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and the list goes on. I have nothing against draft dodgers—some of my favorite people have refused to serve the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC)—unless you dodge the draft when you’re young, only to actively support a war when you’re old. That’s one of the worst sorts of warmongers, and that’s the sort of warmonger Rummy was, though he wasn’t even brave enough to be a draft dodger; he was a battle-ducker, serving three years in the U.S. Navy between wars, nattily sporting the uniform but neatly avoiding the combat into which he would later send thousands of troops.

We peaceniks tried to stop those wars, especially the Iraq invasion. Back in 2003—after spending over a year busting up beautiful Afghanistan while failing to find Osama—Rummy, Bush, Dick and the other ammosexual neocons amped up their threats to  “preemptively” invade Iraq. It was a ridiculous, reprehensible idea, and there was a long bombastic build-up, so we antiwar activists had time to roll out the biggest pre-war international peace protest ever. Like most rational humans at the time, we knew Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and figured he didn’t have any Weapons of Mass Destruction either. After all, the Braggart of Baghdad was as dishonest as Rummy, the kind of dude who crows he has 10 inches, when he only has two. Besides, various inspectors had concluded that Saddam’s much ballyhooed WMD just didn’t exist.

But Donald Rumsfeld insisted they did. On March 30th, 2003, the wily Secretary famously assured the American people, “We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”

Turns out he was “somewhat” full of shit.

Rumsfeld’s Theater of Cruelty at Abu Ghraib. Collage by the author

He always was. As a U.S. special envoy sent to Baghdad by Ronald Reagan during the Iraq/Iran conflict, a middle-aged Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam Hussein to reassure him that America was his ally. Then America bombed him and his country. A decade of crippling sanctions later, we bombed them again and again.

You don’t have to have liked Saddam—and no, although the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto nicknamed me “Saddam’s Sex Therapist” for daring to call the invasion “The Rape of Iraq,” I never *liked* Saddam—to see that the U.S. dramatically betrayed him and the people of Iraq.

Of course, the U.S. often betrays our allies; just ask the Kurds, the Chinese, the Russians, all the Native American tribes whose treaties we broke, and the list goes on. However, our betrayal of Iraq was remarkably blatant, and Chummy Rummy was at the center of it, the glad-handing symbol of America’s shameless mendacity, square-jawed stupidity and massively destructive betrayal.

Rumsfeld was also the Torture King of the “Theater of Cruelty” (with a beret tip to Antonin Artaud) playing daily and nightly at the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prison multiplexes, among other lesser known venues.

I don’t know if Rumsfeld was into consensual BDSM in his personal life. Somehow I doubt it as he didn’t seem to have had the patience to negotiate consent. Besides, he was too busy fulfilling his prodigious, nonconsensual, sadistic desires via his very own government-sponsored torture program.

Sure, Bush and Dick also endorsed and seemed to relish the sadistic (and largely ineffective) torture techniques supervised by the American Psychological Association (APA), including the notorious POW Porn. As Delta Kappa Epsilon President at Yale, Bush presided over hazing new pledges with red-hot coat hanger brandings that would make NXIVM hold his beer.

However, Rummy loved torture as much as any in the Frat House White House. Always the attentive apparatchik, he took charge of the tiniest details, obviously savoring this part of his job. He even signed a torture memo approving four-hour stress positions, boastfully scrawling, “However, I stand for 8-12 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”

I’m sure Mr. Torture King’s “8-12” would have included plenty of “known” and “unknown” breaks never granted to those hapless detainees. Nevertheless, for the slippery Secretary, lying came as easily as breathing. Maybe that’s why he thought waterboarding might work (it didn’t).

The ease with which the dashing Don Juan of the Pentagon lied about the wars, the terror(!) and the torture laid the groundwork for Don the Con of the Trump Crime Family to ascend to the top spot of U.S. Liar-in-Chief.

What is it about these arrogant, dishonest, narcissistic, sadistic creeps named “Donald”? Of course, Donald Trumpty Dumpty isn’t smooth like the debonair Donald Rumsfeld. That was the problem. While the mainstream media (MSM) does pump up the tRump, it can also be fairly critical of him. But rakish Rummy wrapped those so-called journalists around his lying little pinkie.

That was his all-important unassigned task in Dubya and Dick’s Frat House White House. While the Prez was a faith-based C-student and the Veep was a snarling misanthrope, the suave Secretary of Defense could schmooze the MSM like Casanova seducing a panting novice.

Poised between one humongous military flop in Afghanistan and another about to happen in Iraq, that rascal Rummy spouted distracting ditties about “known knowns… known unknowns [and] unknown unknowns,” and the besotted MSM slurped it all up like the spunk-swallowing hookers-for-the-rich that they are.

They just couldn’t get enough of their honey Rummy; they bought his deadly bullshit and then force-fed it to us, the American people…  similar to the way Rummy’s merry band of torturers subjected (and are still subjecting) detainees to anal food rape. Though on the MSM menu were Rumsfeld’s half-baked lies, mixed with Dubya’s privileged malapropisms and Cheney’s icy evil, pureed into strained toxic baloney and force-fed to the American people directly through our war-traumatized ears and eyeballs.

It was then that it dawned on me: the MSM really loves war.  Oh, I’d heard that old maxim, “if it bleeds, it leads,” but I couldn’t imagine how readily the venerable fourth estate would parrot proven falsehoods to sell papers—until Dubya, Dick and Rummy’s Wild Afghan and Iraqi Adventures.

It was often the Defense Secretary’s catchy, convoluted quotes making those headlines, stoking two awful wars and keeping them going for the great financial benefit of the MSM and the MIC, and to hell with those fake WMD. Who cared about them anyway? It wasn’t about truth or even winning those wars. All that mattered was that all the piggies were feeding at the war trough… except the American people.

Not to mention the Iraqi people whose hundreds of thousands (at least) of needless casualties, aka “collateral damage,” often go unmentioned in counting the dead for this monstrous war crime.

One of Rumsfeld’s malevolent skills was in making the abject horrors of imperialist invasion, occupation and torture “sexy,” as Tony Blair might say. As a bonoboësque, make-love–not-war sexologist, I see all of that as the opposite of sexy. But for sadists, military romance buffs or reactionaries longing for a lost swashbuckling white supremacist patriarchy, it’s the stuff of wet dreams, a hot wartime fling featuring raffish Rummy as the gracefully aging leading man. Indeed, People Magazine named this foul war criminal the “Sexiest Man Alive.” Fox dubbed him a “Beltway Babe Magnet.” But the most lovestruck loo-loo was CNN’s Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr, breathlessly calling Yummy Rummy Honey a “big flirty pussycat… who exercises absolutely raw ruthless power and enjoys it.”

Thanks in part to his talent for flirting with sexually repressed Pentagon correspondents, the big flirty pussycat’s war crimes wasted billions of dollars and crushed millions of lives.

In 2006, after Rummy the Dummy was finally hounded out of office, the disgraced but unindicted former Secretary acquired a vacation home on Maryland’s Eastern shore called Mount Misery. How could anyone call their home “Misery,” much less purchase a property with that name? Apparently, Mount Misery was the plantation of notorious “slave breaker,” Edward Covey, who took on the most rebellious slaves from other plantations and then “broke” them (or tried to) by inflicting the worst possible tortures. One of those slaves happened to be a strong-willed young man that even Covey couldn’t break. His name was Frederick Douglass and, after surviving Mount Misery, he escaped to freedom and became one of America’s greatest abolitionists, orators and statesmen, pretty much the opposite of the miserable creature that died on June 29^th.

It’s just a tiny thread in the sticky web of twisted evil that was Donald Rumsfield. Nevertheless, it’s notable that one of the masterminds of the U.S. War on Terror torture program bought himself a vacation house—a place where he could feel at home—so identified with torture, it has pain in its name.

Rot in Piss, Rummy.

Read It on Counterpunch

For more about Rummy, Dick and that Chickenhawk Pussy named Bush, Read My Terror Journals.

Bill Cosby: Justice Gets Roofied

Bill Cosby is not a war criminal or even a killer. However, he is a self-confessed rapist (his preferred form of rape is to drug women before having nonconsensual sex with them), so it’s very disturbing to see the convicted Cosby suddenly released from prison after only serving a little over two years, not to mention expressing zero remorse for his (essentially admitted) actions.

Back when the accusations first became public, with people throwing around the term “sleep fetish” with little or incorrect explanations, I felt, as a sexologist, I ought to clarify the meaning of Bill Cosby’s Sleep Fetish. Another name for it is Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, though it’s not very beautiful when it’s nonconsensual, except to certain sleep fetishists.  

I also felt it was important to note that a “sleep fetish” is not “bad” in and of itself, and most sleep fetishists would never rape anyone. Though it’s not easy to enjoy consensually (once you get going, the person wakes up!), the sleep fetish can be played out between consenting adult lovers, or just in the erotic theater of the mind, aka fantasy. For more about Sleeping Beauty Syndrome and how to indulge it safely, read the articles or watch me explain it on Youtube.

Of course, Cosby was convicted for drugging women nonconsensually, aka raping them with the assistance of Quaaludes, Benedryl or roofies instead of a knife to the neck. Though the case involves just one woman, former Temple University employee Andrea Constand, at least 60 women came forward to accuse the former entertainer of sexual assault.

Nevertheless, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who arrested Cosby in 2015, failed in his obligation to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby with any crimes when the comedian agreed to give potentially incriminating testimony in Constand’s civil case. In a painfully twisted irony, that predecessor happened to be tRump’s impeachment lawyer and (to my eternal embarrassment) my fellow Pennsylvanian Bruce Castor.

Maddeningly, this babbling moron was involved with America’s inability to bring to justice two obviously guilty men: tRump and Cosby.

Looking at it from Cosby’s point of view, I’d sue my lawyers for letting me go through an essentially illegal trial and spend three years serving a prison term that I didn’t have to serve.

Breaking news: a free Cosby soils himself and the internet.

The whole story makes me want to take a long nap. Don’t get any ideas though!

Pro-Bonobo Amy

Many listeners on our various platforms join in on the conversation, and a sweet-voiced lady named Amy calls in to share more detailed information about the Cosby debacle, as well as her opinions (she’s outraged, maybe more than me, but hopeful that this will educate people about the law).

Calling herself “RealOldLady” (though she’s *only* 52!), Amy is very inspired by young people’s openness and ability to communicate. But no, she’s not a Cougar; in fact, she claims to be “asexual.” I wouldn’t define her as “asexual,” since she admits to liking touch, sensuality, erotic art and even masturbating occasionally (got to have those sexual fireworks!). It’s disturbing to hear people define “asexual” as “not having a partner.” That would make all single people asexual!

We are all “Children of Sex” (hallelujah) and we are all sexual beings, but I suppose I could accept you as “asexual” if you didn’t ever think about sex and dislike any form of erotic touch (from yourself or someone else).

Amy also says she is “pro-bonobo”… like us! If a pro-bonobo person can be “asexual,” I’ll eat my vibrator.

Though in the daze of these QAnon-ish days, people make up words, definitions, facts, news, everything… with impunity.

Listen above or below to our awesome chat with Amy.

Smoking Olympics

We give a shoutout to U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson who cannot compete in the Olympic 100-meter race after testing positive for THC, a chemical in marijuana.

If marijuana made you run faster, I’d be Hermes, God of Speed and Weed

That’s just wrong. Weed is not a steroid!

If marijuana made you run faster, I’d be Hermes, God of Speed and Weed.

Although, she seems to have made a few nasty homophobic comments to Lil Nas X, I guess we can’t disqualify athletes for homophobia. Moreover, she’s bi.

The point is, Sha’Carri shouldn’t be disqualified for ingesting herb.

Sha’Carri Richardson

Most of the heavily stoned internet agrees.

Everyone also appears to agree that we need to Free Britney and FREE ASSANGE!  Pardon Snowden! With Cosby walking free and Rumsfeld never punished, it’s maddening to see these innocents imprisoned in various ways.

There’s lots of serious talk on this show, though while we’re discussing war crimes, a Redditor says he “wants to put his missile in my bunker.” That would be quite the bunker buster.

We also talk about climate change and the huge oil fire in the middle of the Gulf, as well as the condo collape in North Miami and crazy killer heat in the Pacific Northwest. We are rapidly burning, melting and demolishing our home on Earth.

Wills & Harry in matching caps check out their matronly Mom.

Moving onto English statuary… I realize it’s trivial, in the scheme of things, and I’m sorry if you love it, but the new Princess Diana statue is just not my cup of Twinings.

Everyone projects their own feelings onto celebrities, and I always saw Diana as a sexy, mischievous, glamorous adventuress.  This statue presents her as a stolid, somewhat frumpy matron. The “children” beside her look like miniature adults, with the girl rubbing her cheek and lips against the older woman’s left hand, giving Diana the air of a matronly predator “grooming” her young charges.

They should have shown Diana in a fancy frock, evening gown or naked like her namesake, the Goddess of the Hunt (check out Diane de Poitier‘s interpretation). But neither Prince Harry or William asked me before they went ahead and commissioned this artistic monstrosity.

Sighs. Sips Earl Grey.

Good news: Trump Crime Family CFO Allen Weisselberg has been indicted for tax fraud and Grand Larceny, among other white-collar crimes. Maybe this Donald won’t escape all accountability like that other Donald did.  One can hope.

Meanwhile, enjoy some sexual fireworks. They’re free!

July 3, 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.