Links that make me want to bitch-slap someone

I mentioned writer Mark Regnerus back when I started my Undead Sexist Cliché series. He’s the guy who argues that it’s a net loss for women when they can support themselves because now that they’re not trading sex for marriage and financial security, men won’t marry them.
The New York Post cites him as an expert in a column grumbling that women are now Giving It Away, and this is a terrible mistake: Instead of women controlling the sexual economy and demanding marriage or gifts, now men can get sex any time they like. And women who want to trade sex for marriage can’t win because the other women are Giving It Away and undercutting their price (“So, what can women do to return the balance of sexual power in their favor? Stop putting out, experts say. If women collectively decided to cross their legs, the price of sex would soar and women would regain control of the market.”).
The key to this argument is the whole “giving it away” part: Men get sex for next to nothing while women get … well, sex, right? So it’s a fair exchange? Nuh-uh: Women don’t want sex, or at least not as much as the men do (Pandagon dissects this here), so no woman having sex early in relationships or hooking up actually wants to do it. They’re just doing it in a sad, futile attempt to hang on to a man, which is pointless, because he can always shop somewhere else.
I’m sure some women are indeed having sex to try and hold a guy, but I also know a lot of women (though not in a Biblical sense) who actually do like sex. The assumption that sex is something women have and men should pay for (or trick them out of) is deeply woven into our society’s concept of how it works. And apparently the Post doesn’t think it’s a bad system.
•Echidne of the Snakes reviews a book on single-sex education. The idea boys and girls must have totally different education is one she’s ripped into in the past (one of my favorites: Girls should learn math by counting flower petals) on her own blog.
I’ve got to say, the kind of programs discussed here would have been hell for me back in high-school. Computer classes only for boys? Drama only for girls (HUH? When has theater ever been an all-female endeavor?)? Essays for boys on where they like to hunt? No thank you.
•If you hear that the EPA wants to triple its budget to fight global warning, it’s a lie.
•Speaking of lies, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA insists that even though Obama hasn’t taken away people’s guns and resisted renewing the Clinton-era assault-weapons ban, “it’s all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and destroy the 2nd Amendment in our country.” Evidence? LaPierre don’t need no stinking evidence!
•I’m used to Republicans justifying things by claiming they’re creating jobs (or opposing things as “job killers.”). Here, SC Governor Nikki Haley proposes (last year) wiping out her state’s sales-tax exemption on food because it doesn’t create jobs, while slashing corporate taxes (which I gather cutting the exemption will pay for) will.
If I’d paid sales tax on food when I lived in Florida, my annual payments would have equaled three weeks’ food budget. But hey, if people aren’t job-creating CEOs, what right have they to afford eating?