When Tennessee passed their new Gateway Sexual Activity law, I laughed out loud. Surely, this was a joke, right? The Onion had somehow gotten control of…. NO? They were serious! It is written right into their laws that hand-holding has to be taught as a “gateway sexual activity” in sex ed classes in public schools. Hand holding is now pre-sex, and banned in schools. Which is going to be regrettable when people start posting photos of all those GOP politicians holding their children’s hands. Or when all those sweet pre-schoolers with hands holding that big long rope get classified as pre-BDSM.

What the hell is a Gateway Sexual Activity? Something that will eventually lead to sex, maybe? Like adolescence? Eyesight? Birth?

Here’s the thing about sex: Everything about us is sexual. Our sexuality isn’t this little thing that is neatly partitioned in one little aspect of our beings that can be brought out just now and then like a holiday elf that you...