Does Pubic Hair Removal Increase the Risk of Herpes?

Could this excruciating process be increasing your risk for herpes?

In this fall's issue of the Journal of American College Health researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst published research further raising the bar of the number of college student genital herpes infections caused by HSV-1, heretofore thought to be "oral herpes." (1) What the hell is going on? Are college students having drunken oral sex rainbow parties? Is this what all those Silly Bandz are for? Are kids who take abstinence pledges engaging in oral sex because they think it's "not sex" and/or "safe"? (It is, by the way) Or is the prevalence of shaved and waxed pubes putting these kids uniquely at risk for getting herpes if they come into contact with it?

Bob Horowitz and his coauthors did a chart review of students diagnosed with genital herpes at a campus health center. Of the 215 patient records reviewed, a whopping 78% of female and 85% of male genital herpes cases were caused by HSV-1. The standard suggestion for this finding is an alleged increase in oral sex. While I know that much of the 2000's has been spent panicking over the increase in oral sex among young people, I don't believe that sexual behavior changes significantly at the population level over time, so I don't believe that oral sex has really increased--we just ask about it specifically in surveys now, so we can measure something we couldn't measure before.

Case in point, the NHANES* didn't define sex as "oral, vaginal or anal" until the 1999 version; prior to that the term "sexual intercourse" was used. (2) But unless the questions are independent from each other, asking about each behavior individually, you are still fucking up your data collection because when you expand your definition of sex a greater proportion of people will report having had sex and with a greater number of partners without shedding any light on which type of sex might be presenting the greatest risk.

But here's my problem. According to the article referenced above, oral HSV-1 prevalence has been on the decline since the 1970s. Among 14-19 year olds (the age group of greatest interest to those of us who work in college health) HSV-1 seroprevalence declined from 45% in the 1988-1994 set to 39% in the 1999-2004 cohort. Among males, the prevalence declined from 43% to 36%, and among females 48% to 41%. (p 970) Between 36 and 41% of the population infected is nothing to sneeze at, but why would a decline in seroprevalence of both HSV-1 and HSV-2 make everyone freak out and conclude that oral sex is on the rise? If genital herpes infections in general were on the increase and HSV-2 was on the decline and HSV-1 on the rise then that idea would make sense. Are those people disproportionately having more oral sex than the rest of the population?

Horowitz suggests the following:

"Orogenital contact [oral sex] is a major factor in the transmission of genital HSV-1. Oral sex is commonly thought to be "safer" for prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV disease, compared to vaginal or anal intercourse." (p 72)

Actually, there is no evidence that college students engage in oral sex because it is "safer" or because it presents no pregnancy risk. In fact, a breaking article by another college sex researcher, Sara Oswalt from the University of Texas - San Antonio, found that college students didn't report considering risk in making the decision to have oral sex at all. (3) Most people who engage in oral sex do so because they want someone's mouth on their junk or vice versa.

I have personally implemented the National College Health Assessment and am pretty damn familiar with the literature on college student sexual behavior, and I've never come across any data showing that oral sex is chosen based on a calculated risk assessment that ultimately favors oral instead of vaginal. I have also never, in my hundreds of conversations with students as a campus sexual health educator, heard a student say that they had oral sex for this reason. Most people are ready for oral--both in the macro [in their sexual development] and the micro [a specific relationship]--before vaginal or anal. Sexual behavior is a cumulative developmental process, like math. Horowitz doesn't include actual statistics from this data of what number of subjects have engaged in oral, vaginal or anal sex: he just notes oral sex as a "pattern." (p 72)

Horowitz mentions a few other "patterns" in those diagnosed with genital HSV-1: "a negative personal history of cold sores [i.e., no history of cold sores], having a sexual partner with a recent cold sore, orogenital contact, being an athlete, and cosmetic body shaving." (p 72) I have heard other college health providers suggest that women removing their pubic hair is associated with herpes risk.

I asked Horowitz for an interview and he declined. But hair removal is a risk for herpes and other skin-to-skin STI transmission in two ways. First, removing the hair eliminates a natural physical barrier between the genitals that could increase the amount of exposure a person would have to another person's junk during sex. Second, shaving and particularly, waxing, can compromise the integrity of the skin itself, leaving hair follicles open, exposed and susceptible to infection. Anyone who's had a bikini wax will remember those pin-prick sized dots of blood you get on your underwear and how your labia get all puffy--ladies, those are holes in your skin and the puffiness is a white blood cell response to skin trauma. Considering also that many people get waxed in anticipation of, uh, a "good time," those who wax could be particularly at risk because they may be more likely to go out and have a bunch of sex after getting waxed without allowing sufficient time to heal.

But this is a question that likely won't be answered soon, because of the Julie Sunday "What About the Fucking?!?" axiom. When researchers fail to actually consider the sexual implications of behaviors and diseases that are dependent on, you know, fucking, we fail to collect the right data or come to the right conclusions. If a healthcare provider notes a "pattern" of pubic hair removal occurring again and again in patients and fails to begin to keep track of who is doing what to their junk, we can't answer the question that might be the reason for the increase in genital HSV-1 diagnoses.

The answer probably isn't more oral sex but a change in the genital environment at the population level--i.e., less pubic hair--which makes oral sex a more efficient transmitter of HSV-1 from one partner's mouth to another's genitals.

Happy Friday.

----------

*National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted by the CDC

(1) Horowitz et al. "Herpes Simplex Virus Infection in a University Health Population: Clinical Manifestations, Epidemiology, and Implications." Journal of American College Health. Vol 59, No 2. Pgs. 69-74.
(2) Xu et al. "Trends in Herpes Simplex virus type 1 and type 2 seroprevalence in the United States." Journal of the American Medical Association. 2006: 296: 964-973.
(3) Oswalt, Sara. "Beyond Risk: Examining College Students' Sexual Decision Making." American Journal of Sexuality Education. 2010.

Silsbee, Texas High School Takes Rape Culture Acceptance to a New Low

Via Ms. Blog.

Texas has been wrestling for some time now with the contradiction of having sexy young cheerleaders being sexy and stuff in an official school capacity when the state attempts to punish teen girls who, you know, have teh sexxx. In an unfortunate turn of events in the far East Texas town of Silsbee, a cheerleader was raped by a football player from her school. The dude pled guilty to lesser charges, but admitted guilt, and was given a slap on the wrist. The cheerleader was advised by her school to "avoid the cafeteria" and "keep a low profile."

She refused, and refused to say her rapist's name during a cheer--and was kicked off the squad.

This isn't the first time Texas cheerleaders have got what was coming to them. In 2005 Texas Representative Al Edwards (D-Houston) proposed a bill, which passed the Texas House 65-56, which the Houston Chronicle described thusly:

The bill seeks to punish risque cheerleader routines allowing the Texas Education Agency to cut off state funds and ban performances by the offending group for the remainder of the school year.

Why, you ask? From Mr. Edwards' mouth to God's ears:

"It's just too sexually oriented, you know, the way they're shaking their behinds and going on."

If that's not "she was asking for it" I don't know what is. Just a reminder: rapists are responsible for rape. Even if a cheerleader is "shaking her behind and going on" at an officially sanctioned school event wearing the required uniform she is still not at fault for being raped.

No Seriously, I Really Don't Understand Handjobs

I'm sad to report Garfunkel & Oates, awesome though they are, clearly haven't read my blog post from two years ago about handjobs. I'm reposting it here for those of you who have laughed uproariously at their recent video "Handjob, Blandjob, I Don't Understand Job" but at the end thought to yourself, "No, seriously, how do you give a good handjob?"

(Originally published on This is Go-To Girl September 15th, 2008)



dear go-to-girl,
how do I give a good hand job?
thanks!
(anonymous)

Dear (anonymous),

I've written about handjobs before, so presumably you have a question that goes beyond my last article on the HJ. So I asked your boyfriend and here's what he told me: hand jobs, when done well, are a totally hot addition to your repetoire. But you've gotta figure out how to do them right. That means knowing the when, where, and how of HJs.

When: Handjobs are best implemented, in my opinion, away from home. There's something really hot about handjobs when they're given in circumstances that just wouldn't allow for sex, like on a bus or train or underneath a table or counter when there are other people around who don't know what's going on.

Where: In his pants, obviously. I'm not in favor of the in-the-bedroom handjob, because if you're in bed, you might as well have sex. But as to where specifically your hands should be, according to The Handjob Handbook (which I have been dying to purchase and, thanks to this question, could do so and write it off on my taxes), your hands should be both on his penis and his balls (and taint, if he's down with that).

How: As I wrote the last time, you need lube. You also need to create a consistent rhythm, which might make your arm tired. Keep working on it. Beyond that, borrowed from The Handjob Handbook, here is "The OK," a basic HJ:

• Make an OK sign with your thumb and foreinger.
• Place the O that you've formed around the penis.
• Move your hand up and down the shaft.
• Now angle the O diagonally so the tips of your fingers point downward.
• As the O slides over the ridge of the head, put a little elbow grease into it and shift your forearm downward.
• Twist your hand back and forth, but just a little bit in each direction.
  

Best of luck!

Jonas Brother Selling "Texas Sex Castle" Which Exists, Apparently

via Gawker:

Kevin Jonas, the freakiest member of funk-metal band The Jonas Brothers, is selling his Westlake, Texas home for $2.2 million. Imagine the insane sexual craziness that went down between those walls. I'll bet you can almost smell the debauchery.

Fortunately this is Dallas's Westlake, so we in Austin are safe from the Jonases and their dirty, ungodly sexytimes.

Penthouse Founder Bob Guccione Dies in Plano

image via the Guardian

Add this to the list of things that suck about Plano: it will now be known as the place that second rate pornographers go to die. Seriously though, Bob Guccione, founder of Penthouse and ever in the shadow of the more classy (Hugh Hefner) or more edgy/trashy (Larry Flynt), died yesterday in Plano, Texas at the age of 79.

After filing for bankruptcy in 2003, Penthouse was acquired by FriendFinder.

My favorite memory of Guccione's handiwork is the classic 1970s horror-sex movie Caligula, for which Gore Vidal was the screenwriter. Guccione insisted on adding soft-core scenes featuring Penthouse Pets to the movie after the fact (if you watch the 'director's cut' of the film it will be obvious which scenes have been added) and Vidal sued unsuccessfully to have his name removed from the film entirely. The movie was a colossal joke but a cult classic in my book and well worth watching for those with a strong constitution.
But Guccione first brought pubic hair and full frontal nudity into mainstream magazine porn, and for that, I suppose, we should thank him. And for Penthouse Forum.

UT on Bryant: We Don't Know Nothin', We Won't Say Nothin' So Don't Ask Us Nothin'

This is gonna be huge. A little-known figure who has been in Mack Brown's shadow since his time at the University of North Carolina, Cleve Bryant, and his wife have "voluntarily" taken "administrative leaves of absence" due to a potential tinderbox of a story out of UT's football operations office.

In yesterday's Daily Texan, a letter from Bryant's attorney denied all:

“He was not involuntarily placed on leave,” [attorney] Nesbitt wrote. “After Mr. Bryant was instructed not to discuss the investigation with several co-workers with whom he works closely on a daily basis, he requested a leave of absence to avoid even the perception that he was talking with potential witnesses or interfering in the University’s investigation.”

Bryant's wife Jean also requested a leave so that she, too, could avoid talking to her co-workers about the unspecified allegations, which are definitely not true.

But according to UT's Sex Discrimination and Sexual Harassment Policy, a formal investigation is initiated only when:

a complaint is complete, timely, within the scope of this policy and articulates sufficient specific facts, which, if determined to be true, would support a finding that this policy was violated.

Nowhere in the policy does it suggest that persons against whom complaints have been made could choose--or have imposed upon them--a leave of absence during an investigation, nor does it suggest that they cannot talk about such allegations with coworkers.

Leaves of Absence, according to UT's policies, can be granted for "personal reasons." The term "administrative leave of absence," used in the Daily Texan article, does not appear anywhere in UT's Human Resources Handbook of Operating Procedures. Leaves of Absence are also clearly designated as "leave without pay." If Bryant and his wife are collecting paychecks during their leave, they--and UT football--are in violation of UT's human resources policy.

Any Longhorn fan with a pulse knows that Gloria Allred, celebrity attorney, has been hired by a former employee at football operations and when the big GA is involved, something truly terrible is afoot. Her past clients include Nicole Brown Simpson's family, a witness against Scott Peterson, the woman who sued Schwarzenegger for sexual harassment when he ran for governor, a girl who was denied entry into the Boy Scouts, and so on.

So either something really bad happened or Allred is eagerly taking the opportunity to go up against one of the strongest college football teams in the nation as a feminist statement. Or both. Either way, I can't wait to find out.

Does Pubic Hair Removal Increase the Risk of Herpes?

Could this excruciating process be increasing your risk for herpes?

In this fall's issue of the Journal of American College Health researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst published research further raising the bar of the number of college student genital herpes infections caused by HSV-1, heretofore thought to be "oral herpes." (1) What the hell is going on? Are college students having drunken oral sex rainbow parties? Is this what all those Silly Bandz are for? Are kids who take abstinence pledges engaging in oral sex because they think it's "not sex" and/or "safe"? (It is, by the way) Or is the prevalence of shaved and waxed pubes putting these kids uniquely at risk for getting herpes if they come into contact with it?

Bob Horowitz and his coauthors did a chart review of students diagnosed with genital herpes at a campus health center. Of the 215 patient records reviewed, a whopping 78% of female and 85% of male genital herpes cases were caused by HSV-1. The standard suggestion for this finding is an alleged increase in oral sex. While I know that much of the 2000's has been spent panicking over the increase in oral sex among young people, I don't believe that sexual behavior changes significantly at the population level over time, so I don't believe that oral sex has really increased--we just ask about it specifically in surveys now, so we can measure something we couldn't measure before.

Case in point, the NHANES* didn't define sex as "oral, vaginal or anal" until the 1999 version; prior to that the term "sexual intercourse" was used. (2) But unless the questions are independent from each other, asking about each behavior individually, you are still fucking up your data collection because when you expand your definition of sex a greater proportion of people will report having had sex and with a greater number of partners without shedding any light on which type of sex might be presenting the greatest risk.

But here's my problem. According to the article referenced above, oral HSV-1 prevalence has been on the decline since the 1970s. Among 14-19 year olds (the age group of greatest interest to those of us who work in college health) HSV-1 seroprevalence declined from 45% in the 1988-1994 set to 39% in the 1999-2004 cohort. Among males, the prevalence declined from 43% to 36%, and among females 48% to 41%. (p 970) Between 36 and 41% of the population infected is nothing to sneeze at, but why would a decline in seroprevalence of both HSV-1 and HSV-2 make everyone freak out and conclude that oral sex is on the rise? If genital herpes infections in general were on the increase and HSV-2 was on the decline and HSV-1 on the rise then that idea would make sense. Are those people disproportionately having more oral sex than the rest of the population?

Horowitz suggests the following:

"Orogenital contact [oral sex] is a major factor in the transmission of genital HSV-1. Oral sex is commonly thought to be "safer" for prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV disease, compared to vaginal or anal intercourse." (p 72)

Actually, there is no evidence that college students engage in oral sex because it is "safer" or because it presents no pregnancy risk. In fact, a breaking article by another college sex researcher, Sara Oswalt from the University of Texas - San Antonio, found that college students didn't report considering risk in making the decision to have oral sex at all. (3) Most people who engage in oral sex do so because they want someone's mouth on their junk or vice versa.

I have personally implemented the National College Health Assessment and am pretty damn familiar with the literature on college student sexual behavior, and I've never come across any data showing that oral sex is chosen based on a calculated risk assessment that ultimately favors oral instead of vaginal. I have also never, in my hundreds of conversations with students as a campus sexual health educator, heard a student say that they had oral sex for this reason. Most people are ready for oral--both in the macro [in their sexual development] and the micro [a specific relationship]--before vaginal or anal. Sexual behavior is a cumulative developmental process, like math. Horowitz doesn't include actual statistics from this data of what number of subjects have engaged in oral, vaginal or anal sex: he just notes oral sex as a "pattern." (p 72)

Horowitz mentions a few other "patterns" in those diagnosed with genital HSV-1: "a negative personal history of cold sores [i.e., no history of cold sores], having a sexual partner with a recent cold sore, orogenital contact, being an athlete, and cosmetic body shaving." (p 72) I have heard other college health providers suggest that women removing their pubic hair is associated with herpes risk.

I asked Horowitz for an interview and he declined. But hair removal is a risk for herpes and other skin-to-skin STI transmission in two ways. First, removing the hair eliminates a natural physical barrier between the genitals that could increase the amount of exposure a person would have to another person's junk during sex. Second, shaving and particularly, waxing, can compromise the integrity of the skin itself, leaving hair follicles open, exposed and susceptible to infection. Anyone who's had a bikini wax will remember those pin-prick sized dots of blood you get on your underwear and how your labia get all puffy--ladies, those are holes in your skin and the puffiness is a white blood cell response to skin trauma. Considering also that many people get waxed in anticipation of, uh, a "good time," those who wax could be particularly at risk because they may be more likely to go out and have a bunch of sex after getting waxed without allowing sufficient time to heal.

But this is a question that likely won't be answered soon, because of the Julie Sunday "What About the Fucking?!?" axiom. When researchers fail to actually consider the sexual implications of behaviors and diseases that are dependent on, you know, fucking, we fail to collect the right data or come to the right conclusions. If a healthcare provider notes a "pattern" of pubic hair removal occurring again and again in patients and fails to begin to keep track of who is doing what to their junk, we can't answer the question that might be the reason for the increase in genital HSV-1 diagnoses.

The answer probably isn't more oral sex but a change in the genital environment at the population level--i.e., less pubic hair--which makes oral sex a more efficient transmitter of HSV-1 from one partner's mouth to another's genitals.

Happy Friday.

----------

*National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted by the CDC

(1) Horowitz et al. "Herpes Simplex Virus Infection in a University Health Population: Clinical Manifestations, Epidemiology, and Implications." Journal of American College Health. Vol 59, No 2. Pgs. 69-74.
(2) Xu et al. "Trends in Herpes Simplex virus type 1 and type 2 seroprevalence in the United States." Journal of the American Medical Association. 2006: 296: 964-973.
(3) Oswalt, Sara. "Beyond Risk: Examining College Students' Sexual Decision Making." American Journal of Sexuality Education. 2010.

Texas Book Festival: "Pink Ribbon Blues"

As an acolyte of Dr. Devra Davis and a committed skeptic of corporate interests in health, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to hear Dr. Gayle Sulik speak at the Texas Book Festival yesterday about her new book, Pink Ribbon Blues.

Sulik spoke about "pink ribbon culture" defining the breast cancer experience based on an idealized woman (the "She-Ro") who does not exist. She spoke to survivor after survivor who did not identify with--and were insulted by--the assumption that having cancer was "life changing" and "eye opening" and "made me focus on what was really important."

Even though I have breast cancer in all the important places in my family, attended one of the very first Races for the Cure in Washington, DC when my mom had cancer in the early 1990s, went through counseling for the BRCA gene a few years ago, and care deeply about women's health, I am disgusted by the increasingly tacky and ubiquitous pink ribbon garbage that I see everywhere in October.


Ugh.

While I'm all about survivors (female and male) having an outlet to get support and find solidarity around their disease, when I see pink "awareness" nail polish, beer, NFL teams, wine, tacky grocery store baked goods, vacuum cleaners, rubber gloves, and so on, I want to punch someone in the face. And I love pink.

To me, this "pinkwashing" is a targeted distraction on two levels. First, products that are at best only moderately healthy (sugary yogurt) and at worst actually likely to increase your risk of breast cancer (alcohol and tacky baked goods) are made to seem beneficial because, oh can't you see how much they care about "the fight against breast cancer"? They cared enough to put hot pink frosting and ribbon-shaped confetti on their doughnut so surely they aren't actually trying to sell you something that could contribute to cancer.

The NFL cared enough to make all the players wear pink cleats so, no, honey, I can't turn off the game--they're supporting breast cancer awareness!

On a broader social level, government and corporate interests "supporting" breast cancer "awareness" demonstrate a nominal commitment to "women's health" (as though breasts are the only thing we need to keep healthy--and for whose benefit?) and distract from the continued reality that women earn less money, suffer in a patriarchal system, and face other emergent health threats--like environmental chemical exposures that we KNOW cause cancer--that are ignored. Breast cancer provides a convenient "women's issues" bona fide to politicians and companies who couldn't possibly care less about the real problems women face.

Now I've gotta buy the book.

This is Texas's Bravest Elected Official

via Gawker TV.

Fort Worth City Council Member Joel Burns tells kids "It Gets Better."

Wait a tick: this guy is a cowboy's son and proposed to his spouse at sunset on a west Texas ranch surrounded by black angus cattle? Write-in campaign for guvnuh, anyone?

UT Falls 11 Spots on Trojan's Sexual Health Report Card

Well, damn. After a metoric rise from 54 to 11 in the past two years, it looks like the Longhorns have fallen back down in the rankings to 22 in the 2010 Trojan College Sexual Health Report Card. At least we beat OU, though.

In case you're wondering, here's the criteria they use:

Sexual Health Report Card Categories:

1. Health center hours of operation
   
2. Availability of patient drop-in vs. appointment only
   
3. Availability of separate sexual awareness program
   
4. Contraceptive availability and cost
   
5. Condom availability and cost
   
6. HIV testing, cost and locality (on- vs. off-campus)
   
7. Other STI testing, cost and locality (on- vs. off-campus)
   
8. Availability of anonymous advice via email / newspaper column
   
9. Existence of lecture / outreach programs
   
10. Existence of student peer groups
    
11. Availability of sexual assault programs
    
12. Website usability and functionality

What this really reveals, however, is how unbelievably flawed Sperling's Best Places research methods are, because UT not only has services but also kicks ass in every one of those categories.

Norman, Oklahoma Location of Latest LGBT Suicide, Inferior Academic Institution

After all the jokes swirling around OU's rousting of UT at the Texas State Fair earlier this month, it looks like there's another reason Austin is better than Norman: A teenager in Norman committed suicide after hearing obnoxiously homophobic comments at a City Council meeting about whether the city should designate October as LGBT History Month.

I know some of us may argue with whether OU is a reputable academic institution, but college towns in general tend to be more liberal (indeed, the Council voted in favor of the resolution), and who knows out of what backwater some of these meeting attenders waded to show up and claim that teh gayz were taking over their town and whatthefuckever.

Hopefully this will inspire OU's students to come out in support of their LGBT classmates today.

Shameless Repost: "Texas Tries to Cockblock Lawyers"

Sorry guys, I'm going on vacation so this is a repost from our pals at Above the Law. This is an interesting case because the lawyers who object are using the "False Rape Accusations" handbook to fight against this proposed rule. First they try to ban cowboy boots in the courtroom and now sex with clients? What the hell good is going to law school anymore? Read more below.

"Stud lawyers in Texas could have a more difficult time mating with their own clients.

Today many people made time to talk about Texas legal ethics — specifically, a proposal in front of the Texas bar that would prohibit lawyers from having sex with their clients. It’s a rule most jurisdictions have in one form or another. It’s not obvious that getting this rule enacted in Texas would be a huge problem.

But to paraphrase Louis Gossett Jr., “only two things come from Texas, steers and [a horribly anachronistic term that rhymes with 'steers'].”

Let’s deal with the steers first. It seems that the people against the new Texas Bar proposal are afraid that clients might just make up tales of affairs, and Texas lawyers — you know, people specially trained in methods of recognizing and producing evidence — will have no way to defend themselves…

The Dallas Morning News did a full report on the proposed rule, which prompted additional coverage from the ABA Journal and the WSJ Law Blog. The Dallas paper has this summary of the new rule:

As written, the rule states that lawyers (a) won’t condition representation on having a client engage in sexual relations, (b) won’t solicit sex as payment of fees and (c) won’t have sex with someone the lawyer is personally representing unless the sexual relationship is consensual and began before the attorney-client relationship began. It also excepts spouses.

Seem straightforward to you? Well, it seems like a straightforward invitation for more malpractice lawsuits, according to one Texas lawyer:" Read more by clicking here!

New Allegations That Texas Governor Rick Perry is Gay

Thanks to my student A for alerting me to this little item in this week's Chronicle (which has, in the past, looked into rumors around Perry's sexuality and declared them bunk) documenting a campaign expenditure made by Texas Governor (R) Rick Perry at LaTeDa in Key West. Now I wouldn't discount the possibility of Perry courting high profile closeted Republicans at this iconic gay hotel in one of the world's most notorious gay vacation spots but...aren't high profile people supposed to be taking you out when you're running so they can, you know, influence you?

Look, Perry, if you're going to be cruising gay bars in Key West using campaign funds you should NOT PAY WITH A CREDIT CARD FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I expect politicians to have exciting, secret sex lives. That's one of the perks of the job. But in my mind, if you can't even keep your affairs (gay or otherwise) a secret, then you're really not organized enough to be governor or president.

Ticket prices at the cabaret run $26, so it looks like Perry had at least two guests. $78.26 says neither one was his wife. Perhaps he brought along George Rekers and his "friend" to help with the bags?

It looks like the girls at LaTeDa have already posted a video tribute to their "sugar daddy" Rick Perry: