Article #13 -- posted December 22, 1999

Quickies

Marty Klein, Ph.D.

"I hasten to laugh at such things, or else I fear to cry," said the philosopher. Here are a handful of sexuality-related issues bouncing around the news--with what I modestly believe are sensible responses.

* Banned in Arkansas

An educational researcher recently wrote asking for the specific location of my article "Why There's No Such Thing as Sex Addiction--and Why It Really Matters" (#8 in the Article Archive). Why couldn't he simply search for it? Because the Arkansas State Department has, in his words, "recently implemented a filtering device which covers all "inappropriate" websites, including some things on your website (and every other sexology website I've been able to locate)." It's one thing to be thrown out of the fanciest hotel in town, but being thrown out of Arkansas, well, that's another story. It reminds me of Dennis Miller's joke about someone being busted for trying to smuggle a book into West Virginia. Arkansas, apparently, has not learned the lesson of the Cold War--that governments might be able to slow down the flow of information, but they cannot prevent it. The government of Arkansas also apparently believes that information is dangerous, that it gives people bad ideas and encouragement to act out those bad ideas. This belief has been tested repeatedly since the invention of movable type, and the overwhelming evidence is that it is simply not true. What is true is that people who are not trusted by their own government come to mistrust that government--and with good reason. By definition, we need to be protected from any government that wants to protect us from ourselves.

* Reinstated in Michigan

On the other hand, I'm now legal in Michigan--and how many people have that in writing? Several months ago I was part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the governor of Michigan. The state had tried to pass a law forbidding anyone to send sexually explicit material via the Internet into Michigan, thus criminalizing my website. Apparently, Michigan legislators have as little understanding of the Internet as they do of the Bill of Rights. Although the forces of literacy won the day, the state of Michigan has appealed. In the meantime, someone in the statehouse has undoubtedly recommended building a wall around the state from the ground up to the sky to keep out those dangerous electrons.

* Computer earmuffs

I was lecturing at a community fair a few months ago when I saw a demonstration of a new device that promised "curse-free TV." It's a small computer that attaches to a television set and monitors the closed captioning embedded in both TV shows and videos. It then compares each word against an internal dictionary of "over 100 offensive words and phrases." If a word in the dictionary is detected, the audio is muted and the "offensive" word or phrase is replaced with a "profanity-free" version. For example, "son of a bitch" is replaced by "clown" and "ass" is replaced by "foot." So "that son of a bitch has an incredible ass" would be replaced by "that clown has an incredible foot." The company's motto is "take your fear out of what your kids hear." While I'm sympathetic to parents who feel a decreasing sense of control over the environment in which their children live, I can't be sympathetic about the mindless fantasy that this is a valuable tool. When are people going to learn that words are not harmful? Calling certain combinations of sounds "bad" makes a kid's world more dangerous, not less. And trying to police a set of criminalized diphthongs--which kids are committed to repeating as long as parents hate them--only widens the gap between parents and children. I asked the salespeople for a list of the "offensive" words the machine screens out. They were speechless--no one had ever asked for such a list before. "Well, I want to know what I'm buying," I said, posing as a purchaser. "Don't worry," they said, "just trust the system. It will take care of you." Better to trust the devil you don't know than the devil you do know, is that it?

* Earmuffs, part 2

In an all-day training I gave to 100 social workers last fall, I used the word "nigger" along with "fag," "frigid," and a few others in a sentence. I was discussing how some people use language to express fear in an indirect way, and I talked about listening "between the lines" to better understand how people feel--the better to influence their thinking and behavior. Well, here's a new one on me: on one of the evaluations, a participant wrote "it is politically incorrect to use the N-word. Dr. Klein should know better--he should have said 'N-word' instead of nigger." Social workers deal with violence, poverty, disease, and the most brutal parts of our political and economic system. Is it too much to ask their ears to live in the real world, too? Since we hear "nigger" when someone says "N-word" the same way that we hear "fuck" when someone says "F-word," what exactly do we gain by this prissy convention? Expressions like "kike," "Yid," and "Jew bastard" offend me, but not nearly as much as "the K-word," "the Y-word," and "the JB-expression" would, because they insult my adulthood along with my Jewishness.

* Science = child molestation?

By now you've heard about the study analyzing the results of 59 earlier studies on adult-child sexual contact. The majority of these studies concluded that many children who participated in such sex did not suffer great psychological damage. The peer-reviewed study was denounced by Congress this past spring; by refusing to unequivocally stand by it, the American Psychological Association has damaged academic freedom and prestige in America. Outraged critics have said that the study supports child molestation, when, of course, it says no such thing. It simply reported the facts, assessed in a reassuringly wide range of environments and situations. Those in the Child Molestation Industry claim that the study trivializes the pain of those who are suffering. But I say just the opposite--this study is incredibly good news. If adult-child sexual contact is as common as some people claim, we should be thrilled to find out how many people go through it without serious damage. In fact, we might want to investigate how some people can go through these experiences psychologically unharmed, to learn how we can better help those people who do seem to be damaged by these experiences. I am deeply suspicious of anyone who rejects this study as good news. Are they trying to keep everyone frightened? Are they trying to maintain their position as essential guardians of the nation's health? Why is the Child Molestation Industry colluding with fear-mongering politicians (whose motivations we do understand) rather than seeing this study as a chance to reassure everyone that they are safer than once thought?

* Federal entrapment on the Internet

The federal government proudly admits it is scouring the Internet for adults interested in having sex with children. Unfortunately, the feds seem uninterested in distinguishing between adults trying to find children to have sex with, and adults who enjoy fantasizing about having sex with children. In fact, as you may or may not know, it is already illegal to enjoy sexy photos of adults dressed as children (yes, really) or to get turned on by nonsexual photos of children (ditto). How many borderline adults are actually being swayed to pursue children sexually by the FBI's aggressive entrapment campaign? We'll never know. This is reminiscent of the pre-Internet 1970s and 1980s. In the prestigious Yeshiva University Law School journal, Attorney Larry Stanley has documented how the FBI set up a network of fake photo labs, and aggressively advertised services for those interested in child pornography. The FBI spent millions to entice individuals--any individuals--to buy, sell, or discuss this material. In some cases, they sent dozens of letters to individuals who repeatedly rejected the offers. One can only imagine the FBI's R & D department spending millions of dollars developing better and better ways of getting adults interested in having or photographing sex with children. And when they don't reach their quota of perverts, they'll go after people with illegal fantasies. Perhaps we should be ready for a new version of Miranda--"anything you imagine can and will be held against you."

* Yes, Fremont has no bananas

The fear of sexuality is strong even in the supposedly liberal San Francisco Bay area. The school board in Fremont has forced the removal of an award-winning, nationally-popular sex education play because it mentions the dreaded C-word--condoms. A few frightened parents decided that watching a condom being put on a banana would entice 11-year-olds to start having sex. It is sad enough when public policy is based on emotion rather than scientific evidence--and sex education is one of the few areas in which the data are absolutely clear. It is even more pathetic to see how insecure these parents feel about their own ability to transmit values to their kids. Parents who believe that a boring and/or funny condom-and-banana demonstration can inflame a preadolescent are admitting that they have failed miserably to teach their child anything whatsoever. Ironically, that's why school sex education was developed in the first place, and why it remains so important.

* Gay marriage & the Knight Initiative

In March, 2000, Californians will supposedly have a chance to protect heterosexual marriage by voting for Proposition 22. The Initiative's author, State Sen. Pete Knight, has a gay son he refuses to speak with, and a gay brother who died of AIDS three years ago. Apparently, Sen. Knight is choosing to deal with his pain by projecting his fear onto all other heterosexuals, and directing his anger at all other homosexuals. This would be sad if State Sen. Knight had no power. But as a politician with power, the psychologically crippled State Senator has become a danger to the community. Exactly who does he and other pro-22 supporters want to protect marriage from? We all know that marriage is the leading cause of divorce--half of all married couples eventually destroy their marriages. As a licensed marriage counselor (and divorced person), I can tell you exactly who threatens and destroys marriages--husbands and wives. Sure, the pressures of amoral, post-industrial capitalism make marriage even more difficult than it used to be. But no one can imagine that gays are responsible for longer work weeks, the loss of millions of working-class jobs, the impoverishment of our inner cities, or the degradation of public education. Any fantasy that gays have that much power can only be labeled paranoia. "Ban gay marriage" is not simply a gay issue, just as abortion is not simply a woman's issue. This is my country we're talking about--my social institution (I've been married for 15 years) and my state government. I want gays to have rights because I believe in justice for people. But I also want gays to have the right to marry because that's the kind of world in which *I* want to live. What I want for me and my family is to live in a country that puts freedom ahead of superstition, science ahead of fear, liberty ahead of government intrusion. Defend marriage? Heterosexuals aren't doing a very good job of it. Gays seem to be the ones who really want to do it. I say let's give them a chance.

Note to Senator Knight: Some serious psychotherapy is in order. If it enables you to complete your grieving and process your fear, you'll be able to issue the apology you owe us.