I have stayed out of the Duke Lacrosse rape story. I have no capacity for journalistic dispassion on this issue for reasons that should become clear as of this writing. My associate the Blogging Curmudgeon emailed me this CNN story this morning and I found myself staring at the smug visage of Reade Seligmann for several uncomfortable moments: handsome, entitled, determined, all-American, boy-next-door. Suddenly, I was hurled back in time to my own high school days; days I prefer to think of as long ago and far away.

Just give 'em a hummer. Thus spake Sharon Stone.

Young people talk to me about what to do if they're being pressed for sex. I tell them (what I believe): Oral sex is a hundred times safer than vaginal or anal sex. 'If you're in a situation where you cannot get out of sex, offer a blow job.' I'm not embarrassed to tell them.

Well I'm mortified to read it.

My contempt for Sharon Stone was well established with the first "Basic Instinct" movie. Her gleeful participation in a depiction of lesbian and bisexual women that was at equal turns derivative and demonizing; her endless revelry in the tasteless beaver shot that made her career... Must she enjoy turning female sexuality into a cheap sideshow so very much?