The Right has successfully politicized our private lives. Questions such as who you have sex with, what you do with them, where you do it, and how you deal with the consequences are now considered of legitimate public interest. Our private sexuality has been “public-ized.”
At the same time, the Right has successfully demonized sexuality, transforming the cultural narrative about sex into one of danger and fear. America may have plenty of cheap sexually-oriented entertainment everywhere, but when America talks sex, it’s almost exclusively about how dangerous it is: unwanted pregnancy, the “homosexual agenda,” infidelity, kiddie porn, date rape, STDs, “porn addiction,” fetal pain, broadcast “indecency,” pedophilia, and neighborhoods ruined by strip clubs.
The subject of sexuality may seem trivial, but we must not take the current political dynamic lightly. The government and Religious Right are using sexuality as the vehicle for transforming America’s secular democracy. “Faith-based programming” is funneling hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to religious organizations to provide sex-related services. Sexual crime and “indecency” are the pretext for dramatically truncating our right to see, hear, and write what we wish. “Harmful to minors” legislation threatens to reduce what adults are allowed to see on the internet to only websites that are fit for children.
The War on Sex is not just about eliminating abortion, sex education, HBO, and strip clubs—although those are some of its goals. Those who War on Sex have been perfectly clear: they want to transform our secular democracy. And they’re succeeding.
As in my book America’s War on Sex, this talk will explore:
- Why the Right is obsessed with sexuality, and with expanding the boundaries of “public-ized” sex;
- Why science and facts alone can’t defeat this political movement;
- How healthcare, psychotherapy, marriage counseling, sex research, and academia are being vandalized by the War on Sex;
- How women and sexual minorities are particularly vulnerable to being hurt by the War on Sex—which many of them are supporting;
- Why the democratic process in the arena of sexual rights does not and cannot work in today’s socio-political climate;
- How the sexual expression and sexual rights of college students have been successfully targeted;
- How progressive activists and groups (anti-sexual violence, anti-trafficking, anti-molestation, etc.) are unwittingly being coopted by the War on Sex to undermine their agendas;
- How today’s War on Sex represents a fundamental challenge to secular American governance; and how the democratic process itself is being systematically attacked by religious and political leaders, which could change America forever.