Sex & Love

Dear Assemblyman Jones:

I want you to know I’ve been admiring you from afar for some time now. You first caught my eye after you won the Assembly seat in my district in 2004. You introduced important legislation to address the affordable-housing shortage in California, reduce air pollution from trains and protect voters’ privacy. Clearly, you were a man of the people. But you really got my attention when you voted to define marriage here in California as a civil contract between two people, instead of between a man and a woman. That’s when I recognized you as not just another Harvard-educated bureaucrat, but also an elected official who is actually attuned to what many Californians are most concerned about: sex and love.

My heart skipped a beat when you said, “Allowing two people who love one another and wish to spend their lives together to marry is not a threat, but rather a positive, stabilizing force not only for them, but for society as a whole.” If only our governor and those nosy Christian conservatives recognized the brilliance of that statement the way I did!

You also co-authored, with Senator Deborah Ortiz, a bill to ensure that women have access to emergency contraceptives. (I must admit, if I were of a different sexual orientation, I might very well be writing this letter to her. But as it stands, you are the subject of my heterosexual affections.) When you championed this bill in the Assembly, I felt like you were asserting my personal belief that I alone have the right to decide what happens to my body. It’s like you knew me, even though I’m fairly certain you have no idea that I exist.

You continued to delight me by showing that even though you were concerned about important issues like reducing Sacramento’s flood risk and eliminating childhood poverty, you weren’t sweeping sex and love issues under a bearskin rug. While many have declared the AIDS crisis over, you welcomed a delegation of HIV/AIDS experts from Russia, hoping to help them combat their escalating epidemic. Then, earlier this year, you introduced Assembly Bill 2141, a bill that could have decreased teenage pregnancies by funding programs that encourage parents to talk to their kids about safe sex. You called it the Parent-Child Communication Assistance Program, but I called it pure genius. While the frenzy to either overturn or preserve Roe v. Wade has hijacked rational political discourse in this country, you are thinking about how we can put the debate to rest by preventing unintended pregnancies from happening in the first place.

You’re smart and sensitive. You’re even handsome in that boy-next-door kind of way. And we see eye to eye on important issues. Assemblyman, I know this is completely untoward coming from someone you are paid to represent, but I can’t hold back my feelings any longer. I know you are a public figure, a rising star in our state’s Legislature, but I need to meet you. We can disguise it as a political meeting. It needn’t be a complete ruse either, because I do have an idea for a bold new piece of legislation. Let’s call it the Sex and Love Personal Choice and Individual Accountability Act.

With utmost affection and respect
Your faithful constituent, Alexis Raymond

Sex & Love
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Sex & Love
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