Massholes say: “Old people don’t have sex. Ew!”

I’ve always been a bit leery using the term Masshole; I have relatives that live in Massachusetts as well as a few friends in neighboring states. Yes, the people up there tend to be political insane (The Kennedy politicians are some of the worst offenders when it comes to paving the way for the Creeping Socialist Nightmare, and then there’s Mitt Romney, the disarmingly nice Republican) but they were the first state to grant equal marriage rights to people of all sexual orientations. Yes, they were founded by religious nutjobs sent here by England because, God only knows, the British didn’t want to put up with that Puritanical shit anymore, but they were also the people who gave us the Boston Tea Party — a brilliant act of sabotage, civil unrest, and general “fuck you!” ness that hasn’t been replicated in two hundred and fifty years.

So, it is with mixed emotions that I say this: Kathi-Anne Reinstein, you are a Masshole.

What is Ms. Reinstein’s great offense that has caused me to label her a Masshole you ask? The fact that the woman seems in complete denial about a simple fact of life and geriatric psychology: seniors (I’m talking pensioners, not the high school variety) and the mentally handicapped have sex. Often. Consensually.

Massachusetts House Bill 1668 [is] a proposed amendment to the state’s child pornography law that would make it a serious crime to photograph with “lascivious intent” a person over the age of 60 or a person with a disability who has been declared mentally incompetent.

State Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein says the bill she sponsored was intended to protect vulnerable populations from sexual predators, but some disability advocates and law buffs have criticized the amendments as restricting the sexual freedom of seniors and people with disabilities.

I don’t know if any of you remember a show in the 80s called Life Goes On, which featured a family whose oldest son, Corky, had Down’s syndrome. At some point in the show, Corky got married — to a young woman with Down’s syndrome as well — and they wanted to start a family of their own. They wanted to have sex, but LOL! (in the days before we were completely sensitive to the feelings of the disabled) they didn’t know how! Ha ha ha! How funny!

Apparently, this is the kind of understanding of the mentally disabled that Ms. Reinstein (who has never seen an episode of The Golden Girls) has of the disabled and elderly — they’re so childlike, so infantalized in her Masshole mind, that they have no idea of the concept of sex. Ergo, if someone takes a sexual photo of them, it’s clearly exploitative.

Quick, someone call Farrah Fawcet! She was horribly exploited by Playboy when she posed for the cover at the age of 50! And they might want her to do it again! And she’s only ONE of several women over the age of fifty who’ve posed for the lad’s mag!

But enough about those horny seniors (and, if you’ve studied geriatric psychology, you know that they are, in fact, quite randy in their old age). Let’s talk about the handicapped.

Some observers have noted that the specification “declared mentally incompetent” appears only in one portion of the proposal. Says law professor Eugene Volokh, “The law is not limited to people who are mentally handicapped and thus unable to consent, or who are photographed against their will by their caretakers (the justification discussed in this story). The operative provisions cover people over 60 and the disabled whether or not they are incompetent.* One provision, relating to people’s being “deemed incapable of consenting,” would cover only “an elder or a person with a disability adjudicated as incompetent by a court of the commonwealth,” but I don’t see how this would stop liability under the other provisions, since consent is no defense under the other provisions in any event.”

* – emphasis my own

So, if you’re handicapped, elderly, or otherwise not a young person between the ages of 18-59, you’d better get out the chastity belt — or at the very least, don’t take pictures doing your dirty, horrid deeds. Because no civilized person wants to see that unless their exploitative monsters who are taking advantage of you! And if you’re doing this yourself — “sexting” at sixty! — you’d better get your ass in jail with the 16 year olds. It’s for your own good, you sick pervert!