Written and published by Marty Klein, Ph.D.
Issue #17 -- July 2001 Contents
1. Run; Strip; Get Busted; Sue; Run
2. NY Mayoral Race--Ich Bin Ein Gay
3. Net Porn Finances Elections
4. Correspondence
5. AIDS Hypocrisy
6. Hetero Pride? Pan-sexual Pride?
7. Technical Problem
8. Calendar--Marty Klein's Speaking Schedule1. Run; Strip; Get Busted; Sue; Run
Here's a followup to our story (issue #14) on CSU Fullerton student Leilani Rios, who was told she couldn't stay on the school's track team unless she quit stripping at an off-campus club.
After being threatened with a lawsuit, school officials decided that her employment was legal, and offered to reinstate her on the team regardless of her job choice (without the apology Rios had requested).
Rios is really just a bit player in a much larger drama. It is interesting that Rios' rights were only discovered when she hired an attorney; to paraphrase, a pending lawsuit concentrates the mind wonderfully.
Universities--the very institution charged with preserving our basic civic traditions and transmitting the tools of rigorous thought--are now on a collision course with several critical American values and freedoms. Obsessed with regulating personal behavior (like so-called "hate speech" and commercial sex), and constrained by campus interest groups to be politically correct, the Academy routinely violates student and faculty rights of self-expression. Meanwhile, apparently frightened by the rough and tumble interplay of ideas, students and staff are retreating from the untidy mess of exploring and defending the West's intellectual heritage. The only value uniting campuses these days is fear of lawyers: the university fears being sued for somehow not protecting students and staff from getting their feelings hurt (not to be confused with violating their rights), and the faculty is afraid of being sued by students who feel uncomfortable. When a university community is motivated by fear more than excitement, it's in big trouble. And that means the rest of us are, too.
Talk of "diversity" is fashionable these days, and in many enlightened places even includes tolerance of various sexual orientations. But real "diversity" requires the active defense of fundamental values that continue to matter--such as the right to self-expression, the Constitution, and respect for privacy--even when people make choices that discomfit those in authority.
We'll see if CSU has learned anything, or if their position on Rios' nude dancing is merely a deathbed conversion. They'll have another chance to get it right when they see Rios naked in the October issue of Playboy.
2. NY Mayoral Race--Ich Bin Ein Gay
According to the New York Times, the six people vying to become New York's next mayor each embrace gay rights. Republican and Democrat alike, on issues such as domestic partner benefits, non-discrimination laws, and gay marriage, they range from tolerant to extremely supportive. Gay rights groups like the Empire State Pride Agenda are ecstatic.
There's a lot of good news here: Non-heterosexuals have developed into an effective voting bloc. Even more impressively, New York's community values have apparently shifted so much that politicians expect to gain more than they will lose by supporting rights for gays. And any New York election in which Rudy Giuliani won't run can't be entirely bad.
I'm concerned that the candidates' positions are primarily about courting the gay vote, however, rather than reflecting an understanding of why people should be allowed to control their own erotic lives. I long for the feeling that a candidate takes progressive positions because s/he really believes them, rather than because s/he wants more votes.
Still, we should be heartened by the creation and acknowledgement of the "gay vote" in America's largest city. Now we need to go beyond that, to creating the "erotophilia" voting bloc. That would happen when people who unapologetically enjoy sex--regardless of orientation or preference--become a constituency worth courting, with its own policy positions, interview and debate formats, etc. Show me a serious politician who says, "I support sexual rights for all responsible people--now who will stand up and support me?" S/he will be the 21st century Eugene McCarthy, the contemporary Mother Jones for whom I'll stuff envelopes and walk precincts.
3. Net Porn Finances Elections
Virginia gubernatorial hopefuls Mark Warner and Mark Earley each recently criticized the other for accepting campaign contributions from companies with ties to online pornography. Warner accepted $75,000 from the founder of CyberCash, which processes credit card transactions on many adult sites. Earley took a $40,000 donation from Thruport Technologies, which sold software to Sex.com.
One is reminded of the faux astonishment with which Claude Rains' Captain Renault referred to Humphrey Bogart's saloon in Casablanca: "I am absolutely shocked. I had no idea political activity was going on here."
Like most mainstream businesspeople, these disingenuous two candidates feign ignorance of the simple fact that if you deal with the Internet, you're dealing with sex. Almost half the Net's bandwidth involves adult sites; on-line porn alone generates a billion dollars a year in revenue.
Ironically, commercial sex may keep the Net alive, ultimately making it feasible the same way porn videos made home VCRs viable. "Without sex, AOL would have died an early death," says journalist Lewis Perdue. "The entire Internet payment system would not have survived without sex. There's no major hoster in the country that doesn't host adult content."
There's something deliciously ironic in politicians, especially pro-censorship ones, getting money from companies involved in commercial eroticism. In fact, as long as the financial interests of big donors drive public policy in this country, I say the porn industry should create a PAC. Let's all contribute to it. And after election day, let the porn industry go to winning congressmembers it supported and ask for payback: more freedom for personal expression, more tolerance for a wide range of entertainment, expanded health coverage for sex workers, and an end to discriminatory zoning and emotion-driven local ordinances.
Policies like these would be good for America.
4. Correspondence
"In Issue #16 you made a fairly common error. It was the American Psychological Association (APA), not the American Psychiatric Association, which was the villain both times. The APA bowed to political pressure on the Rind article [peer-reviewed scientific research showing that some adult-child erotic interaction was less damaging than previously assumed]; they are also the publisher of American Psychologist, to which Scott Lilienfeld (an undergraduate research assistant of mine a few years ago) had submitted his article" [about the dishonorable way the APA handled the Rind article].
--Daryl J. Bem, Ph.D, Department of Psychology, Cornell University5. AIDS Hypocrisy
Last week, a special session of the U.N. General Assembly was convened to approve a declaration of war against AIDS. Mind-boggling numbers were cited: tens of millions infected worldwide, 1/4 of the adult population of several African nations infected, $9 billion a year needed to successfully fight it. Great--let's all get together and fight AIDS.
But on whose terms? Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, doubts that HIV causes AIDS. A bloc of Muslim nations successfully fought the Declaration's references to drug users, prostitutes, and men who have sex with men. This is like declaring war on lung cancer without discussing cigarettes and coal mining. And there, proudly, was U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, committing hundreds of millions of dollars to what he said was a worldwide crisis.
Unfortunately, Mr. Powell represents a government as ignorant as South Africa's and as timid as Saudia Arabia's. All three are too squeamish to construct health policy based on one simple scientific fact: Most AIDS transmission occurs through unprotected sex and unprotected needle sharing with infected partners.
To reduce the spread of AIDS, people must use condoms and fresh needles--which our rich government could give everyone on earth, even paying for local instructors to teach their use.
But this international convention on AIDS highlights the Tower of Babel that the world's health policies have become. Controlling AIDS can start without spending $9 billion--it just requires some political courage. President Mbeki, tell your people that sex with a virgin does not cure AIDS. Persian Gulf sheiks, tell your people that Allah loves all Arabs regardless of sexual behavior, and that the Prophet wants Muslims to protect themselves and their families with modern health technology--condoms. And Mr. Powell, tell your citizens that a country that loves its kids doesn't lie to them in public school, claiming that condoms don't work and that everyone can abstain until marriage if they "try." Every American should be ashamed of the deliberately inaccurate and biased AIDS education programs in this country.
Many countries can honestly say they have no bleach with which to wash needles, that new ones are scarce, that condoms are too expensive. America can't. Before we send $300 million to help heathens overseas fight the Plague, our government should declare war on ignorance and intolerance in America--and use accurate, realistic education to prevent new HIV infections right here.
6. Hetero Pride? Pan-sexual Pride?
Gay Pride Week was observed around the world this month with flamboyant parades, earnest workshops, and action, both personal and political.
This is good. We all benefit when people become more self-accepting, honest, and communicative.
In fact, there is room for all of us to grow in this direction. Rather than celebrating being gay, or bisexual, transexual, heterosexual, or trisexual (you know, someone who'll try anything), how about big bunches of us celebrating that we're sexual? Not sexy, sexual. Not necessarily erotic enthusiasts, or even sexually active at all. Humans should be proud of having erotic circuitry the way we're proud that we can think or feel. After all, you don't have to be a genius to be proud of having a brain.
We need to go beyond gay pride or hetero pride. We need a pan-sexual pride week, and a parade would be a great, er, climax to the week's activities. Everyone could march if they wanted to, feeling proud of their erotic potential in whatever form it took. Shoe fetishists from Buffalo. S/M'ers from Cincinnati. Masturbators from Tulsa. Even some vanilla, monogamous heteros from San Francisco. People would come together not to celebrate their own idiosyncratic erotic thing, but to celebrate that they have a thing, that everybody has a thing. We could all celebrate together, because the difference between gay, straight, and bi is much, much smaller than the difference between celebrating your eroticism and fearing your eroticism.
Let the gays lead the parade if they want. We all know they have rhythm.
7. Technical Problem
Sexual Intelligence is now big enough that we have the occasional technical problem. If you did not receive issue #16 and would like to read it (pub. date 6/1/01), please click here.
8. CALENDAR: Marty Klein's speaking schedule
June 15, 2001
Cultural Issues in Sex Therapy
Sexualities in Transition Conference
Dubrovnik, Croatia
<astulhof@ffzg.hr>June 29 & 30, 2001
Case Consultation In Sexuality & Intimacy
First monthly meetings of training seminars
Los Angeles
650/856-6533August 19, 2001
Sexuality & Religion--Friends or Enemies?
Center for Inquiry West
Los Angeles (repeated in Costa Mesa that afternoon)
310/306-2847September 20-21, 2001
Human Sexuality
(satisfies CA licensing requirement)
National Association of Social Workers
San Francisco
800/538-2565September 29, 2001
Start of next case consultation series for psychotherapists.
Los Angeles
For information, call 650/856-6533, or click here.October 25, 2001
Diagnosis & Treatment of Sexual Issues
Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality
San Diego
610/530-2483October 27, 2001
Sexuality in the Age of Technology: Has Anything Really Changed?
Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality
San Diego
610/530-2483November 15-16, 2001
Human Sexuality
(satisfies CA licensing requirements)
National Association of Social Workers
San Francisco
800/538-2565February 22-23, 2002
Human Sexuality
(satisfies CA licensing requirements)
National Association of Social Workers
Oakland, CA
800/538-2565March 15-16, 2002
Human Sexuality
(satisfies CA licensing requirements)
National Association of Social Workers
San Mateo, CA
800/538-2565April 27, 2002
Existential Issues in Psychotherapy & Couples Counseling
Family Service Agency
Santa Cruz, CA
831/459-9351
You may quote anything herein, with the following attribution:
"Reprinted from Sexual Intelligence, copyright © Marty Klein, Ph.D. (www.SexEd.org)."