Sex & Politics

What could unite the PTA, Christian Coalition and American Library Association? The goal of protecting kids–from a law that supposedly protects them.

Just weeks ago, former President Bill Clinton signed the Child Internet Protection Act into law, requiring any library receiving federal funds to install filtering software on its Internet-access computers. Ostensibly to make computers “safe” for young children, the federal government has just fired the latest shot in the nation’s culture wars.

The Phoenix, AZ City Council recently decided to eliminate sex clubs for adults. Do you feel safer now?

The Council says that government has a right to protect public morals, and that having sex in front of (consenting) others is by definition immoral. They don’t need proof that nude dancing leads to harm, they said; it’s enough that the majority of its citizens allegedly “knows” it’s wrong. They also claim that sex clubs spread “disease,” although no legislator, public safety officer, or public health professional could produce any evidence to support this.

Most Americans do not want to discuss sexual issues rationally. Their sexuality poisoned by the culture, they just want their emotional pain taken away. To people afraid of sexuality, censorship looks attractive. It appears to be a solution to the pain. This pain, this fear of sexuality, leads people to support censorship.

I’m very much against people being mean or violent to each other. But although I’ve spent my entire career promoting gender equality, current efforts designed to protect people from others’ sexual energy feels misplaced, even dangerous to me.
These days it seems that people are looking at gender relationships, being reminded of sex, and reacting as if all unwanted attention men give women is best understood as sexual–and therefore damaging.