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‘sexual censorship’

Singer Stefani Censored In [where?]

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

Quiz: Where did this happen? You may know Gwen Stefani’s music. Formerly with the group No Doubt, she’s now a huge pop star. Incredible voice. Powerful stage presence. Movie-star face. Gorgeous body. An altogether thrilling artist. Quiz: Where did this happen? Stefani’s local stadium concert is announced. A religious student group demonstrates, demanding that the sexy star dress more modestly and turn down the heat on her stage show. Conservative critics chime in, claiming that her typically revealing costumes corrupt the country’s youth. Stefani agrees to make changes. In a magazine interview, she says she’s making a “major sacrifice,” mourning…

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Americans Search for a Sexual Center

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

People in the media ask me all the time—sexually, is the country getting more liberal or more conservative? This is similar to the question George Lakoff discusses about politics, most recently in his article in Truthout. In it, he says there are no “centrists,” because “There is no left-to-right linear spectrum in American political life.” Instead, Lakoff talks about “biconceptuals”—“progressive on certain issue areas and conservative on others.” The importance of this, says Lakoff, is that progressive values—“protection and empowerment”—are simply American values. The idea that there is a ‘center,’ he says, “marginalizes progressives and sees them as extremists, when…

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I ♥ First Amendment Lawyers

by on ·Sex & Politics, Sexual Intelligence Blog

I’m in Chicago this week, speaking again at the semi-annual meeting of the First Amendment Lawyers Association. I love going to their meetings. They’re an inspirational, funny bunch of men and women. When the ACLU takes a case, or an individual or group fights for its most basic rights, it’s a First Amendment Lawyer who typically challenges the government. Various attorneys outlined their current work: * The continuing fallout from the Janet Jackson Superbowl nipplegate; * An Ohio “decency” group’s attempt to eliminate strip clubs from the state; * A Kansas county’s effort to zone adult bookstores out of existence;…

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Ex-Surgeon General Should Apologize, Not Complain

by on ·Sexual Health, Sexual Intelligence Blog

Richard Carmona was America’s Surgeon General from 2002-2006. Last week he revealed that for four years, the White House told him what to say and what not to say, regardless of science or public health. In the safety of a Democratic Congressional Committee hearing, a full year after his last Washington paycheck, Carmona complained that information that doesn’t fit President Bush’s “ideological, theological, or political agenda is often ignored, marginalized, or simply buried.” This is consistent with the current Republican theocracy’s dismantling of science as a respectable, objective pursuit. For six years we’ve heard about this regularly, from world-class NASA…

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Happy Birthday, Meese Commission

by on ·Pornography & Porn Addiction, Sexual Intelligence Blog

Twenty-one years ago today, the “Meese Commission”—the U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography—released its 2,000-page report. President Reagan set up the Commission to reverse the findings of the 1970 report on pornography released under Richard Nixon, which recommended that legislation “should not seek to interfere with the right of adults to read, obtain or view explicit sexual materials.” Although it was supposed to document the damage caused by using pornography, the Commission could find no such thing. It admitted that “The contribution of pornography to sexual deviance remains an open question.” It noted their data “do not support any causal…

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California Senate Actually Protects Our Sexuality—Twice

by on ·Pornography & Porn Addiction, Sexual Intelligence Blog

A little-known government body—the California Senate Committee on Public Safety— got it right twice last week. They actually enhanced the safety of Californians by defeating two bills that had sailed through the state Assembly without a single dissent. The first, AB1067, required “blinders” on store displays featuring magazines with “harmful matter” on the cover. The second, AB1475, mandated computer repair technicians to report “pornographic images of children” they find while fixing a machine. Both are examples of good intentions (protecting young people from inappropriate sexual experiences) mixed with hysteria (the belief that those potential experiences are terribly common, and always…

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