Emma and les chatouiller américain

 I think I first came across Emma Goodman from a friend of mine who tended a bar in Austin Texas called Emma's.  It was kind of a purist bar devoted to earnest lefty folksongs, and they didn't much care for none of that dancing frivolity so they banned dancing.  What was ironic was that Emma Goodman is often quoted as saying "If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution."  Actually she never said that in so many words, but she was the kind of girl who liked to dance.

Make love not war was a big hippie slogan of the day, but later the Weathermen would change that to make love and war, and that is sort of girl Emma was.  I am halfway through her biography now and she has had many lovers, all ardent anarchists or socialists.  She did abet a boyfriend in his attempted murder of an industrialist.  And though she had no part in the assassination of McKinley she was accused of it and had more sympathy for the assassin than the prez.

In my reading she has not yet had anything to do with birth control though she often speaks of the plight of poor women having to have baby after baby to the detriment of their health and getting anywhere in life.

There is also In days of old when knights were bold and toilets weren't invented they did their load upon the road and walked away contented.  I think it is a franchise.

I searched the blog for condom and I found several mentions of condoms but only by Beagles and with the erroneous assertion that the word dated only from the sixties.  A short google search reveals that the first condoms were made of sheep gut I think and preceded the latex prophylactics which are commonly referred to as rubbers by a good number of years. 

During the first (Good) gulf war the French refused to allow us to fly our warplanes over their territory.  Thomas Jefferson aside Americans have always disliked the French, so it was no surprise to me entering one of those interstate convenience stores to find the wall of the men's room festooned with latex devices and that familiar kin of the rubber now labeled an American Tickler.  Actually I think it was with tongue in cheek, but still quite amusing.