There's a touching scene in "The Dildo Diaries," a sweet 'n' slippery little documentary released way back in 2002, in the very beginnings of the Dark Days of Bush, in which we as viewers are privy to a truly hellish hallucination, a series of images that, should you ever choose to bear witness, will haunt you for the rest of your days.

Even now, I believe it is one of the most frightening scenes ever put to film. Far more repellant, in its way, than images of thousands of dead birds in the Gulf, than KFC meat-like garbage food, than the slasher porn of "Saw IV."

We are shown, via actual footage, a typical workday inside the Texas state legislature.

Oh my sweet Jesus with stockroom.com gift card, you have never seen such discomfort, such moral claustrophobia, such unchecked legislative dorkage. The setting is exactly as you might expect: An ungainly, horribly dressed room somewhere in Austin, packed like chunky beef tallow with good ol' boy Texas manhood, a veritable cattle call of mostly older, largely clammy males and a scattershot assortment of nonplussed females, all ambling about with very few qualities resembling intellectual acumen, subtlety, grace.

Does that sound harsh? Unsympathetic? I don't mind.

The scene in question focuses on a very weird, amusing little debate on the House floor. The combatants are trying to decide, awkwardly, laughably, horrifyingly, the issue of whether heterosexual sodomy -- good ol' anal sex -- should be banned outright, right along with then-illegal homosexual sodomy, which in turn was a fine adjunct to the state's classic chestnut-of-a-law declaring that it was completely illegal to be gay in Texas.

The scene has become rather justifiably famous for its comedy -- and for the play-by-play commentary supplied by the late, great Molly Ivins -- as we get to watch these Texas lawmakin' menclods chortle and guffaw, blush and howl, shuffle their feet and punch themselves in the face in confusion as words about anal sex and "even if it slips" fly about the room like exotic birds they all claim to fear but which secretly fantasize about capturing, taking home and cuddling with for as long as possible.

That scene gave me nightmares. Still does.

Fast forward nearly a decade. I am right now imagining no less a lurid, brutal scenario taking place over in the Oklahoma state legislature, equally surreal and lacking in grace, but unfortunately not the slightest bit absurd or funny, insofar as it is far more threatening to -- and threatened by -- sex and female power.

To this particular scene, to this roomful of angry, sad, Bible-thumping women and men, I am adding in a large farm animal, various pitchforks, some violent self-flagellation, a burning witch or two, assorted spitting, and a great deal of hatred and pain.

And why shouldn't I? Why not allow such cliché and violent stereotyping? For this drama is about nothing as benign as watching Texas dolts blunder on about where man should or should not be allowed to insert a penis. This is something far uglier.

This is about how the Oklahoma state legislature, as previously mentioned but not nearly sufficiently disgraced in this very column, has forced through three of the most appalling anti-choice, anti-woman, anti-motherhood laws in modern history.

One would require women seeking an abortion to fill out an exhaustive, 20-page questionnaire about all aspects of her personal life, which would be then given to a government agency for "analysis" and posted online. Another would force them to get an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before getting the procedure. Another would encourage doctors to lie to expecting mothers. Still another would tie women to a pickup truck and drag them screaming through the streets for ever daring to have a vagina in the first place. I might be exaggerating that last one. But not by much.

It is not for this space to delineate all the ways these laws are an obvious abomination. (There were actually eight abortion-related laws slithering through OK's legislature. The state's Democratic governor, Brad Henry, has only vetoed three of them. Each time, the Oklahoma legislature overrode his vetoes).

Here is where we all offer up a collective cringe and recoil. Here is where we suggest, only barely jokingly, that if you live in Oklahoma, if you have a vagina and like to use it, if you are at any point hoping to expand your horizons and enjoy your body and celebrate feminine godhood in any way whatsoever, you should be packing your bags as soon as possible. Get the hell out. Now. Simple, really.

The question thusly hovers: Should you even care about these laws? Do they matter? Perhaps not. Perhaps it really makes no difference. For one thing, in every civilized, educated city and state in the land, a woman's right to choose is ironclad and permanent, obvious and guaranteed.

It's true. Despite all the hue and cry, the pule and desperation of the fundamentalist right, the hard truth remains: If Bush and his army of misogynistic darkness couldn't destroy Roe when the ultraconservative right was at its most dominant, it will never happen. What's more, Oklahoma's new laws are already moot: it's considered a foregone conclusion that they'll be deemed hotly unconstitutional by the courts, and summarily tossed (it's happened before).

So why bother? What to make of it? Perhaps just this: I think Oklahoma is notable mostly in relief, in contrast, as a reminder of how far the rest of the nation -- and much of the developed world -- has come, and just how backwards and archaic are a few lingering hunks of these inelegant Disunited States.

As gay marriage stumbles toward widespread acceptance, as the U.S. military will soon allow gays to openly serve, as women continue to achieve position and respect once only dreamed of, as we just recently came within inches of America's first female president, so we must acknowledge the weakest links, the dank underbelly, the Jungian dark side with which we all must contend. We must never forget.

There is no light without dark. There is no understanding the beauty and inherent divinity of the human animal without understanding its more shameful, malnourished cretins. And there is no appreciating progress without appreciating the stagnation and spiritual ignorance from whence it escaped.

So I suggest we offer up a moment of gratitude to Oklahoma (and Arizona, and Kansas, and Nebraska, et al) for reminding us of exactly that fact: that the grand dance, the eternal struggle of enlightenment over ignorance never really ends. The Great Work is never finished. Spiritually incompetent or no, their cries echo even now, and will continue to do so into the future.

But with any luck, as generations fall and new understanding emerges, the wails of ignorance and misogyny will slowly get fainter, until one day they simply fade away completely.

Mark Morford's latest book is 'The Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism'. Join Mark on Facebook and Twitter, or email him. His website is markmorford.com. For his yoga classes, workshops and retreats, click markmorfordyoga.com.

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