Week of 11/27/2000

Target: Sex In Society - Part 4
Sex and Kids
- by David Matthews 2

Not too long ago, both the Atlanta-Journal Constitution and USA Today ran articles that showed today’s kids in a light that would make any parent cringe.

USA Today talked about a report due this December that showed how teenagers engaged in oral sex more commonly than generations past, and how the numbers of sexually-transmitted diseases involving the mouth and throat are on the increase. The report showed that most teenagers considered oral sex to be not as serious as actual intercourse, and in some cases the kids who engage in oral sex consider it to be more of a social advancement.

They even pulled out the old line used by such people like President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to say that oral sex wasn’t really sex. I’m sure that all of those parents who were quick to exonerate Big Bubba Spin for fooling around with Monica Lewinsky were slapping their foreheads when they heard that same line being used by their children.

The AJC article was even more chilling for parents. Instances where children as young as ten years old were engaging in prostitution, and teenagers who were getting fake identification just to dance in strip clubs. The article talked about how the men who pimp these young streetwalkers would only be charged with misdemeanors and not serve any actual jail time, and how experts feared kids lives were being harmed irrevocably because of their expose to sex at so young an age.

Now if I were some bible-thumping moralist, I would probably be railing on about how our society is heading straight to the deepest lowest bowls of Hell. I would point out that these articles are merely examples of how we’ve allowed the "evil" of sex to enter our precious society and into the minds of our children. I would rail on about how these instances are the direct result of our allowing everything from Playboy magazines to professional wrestling to even exist. I would be wanting to gather an ugly mob of upset parents, complete with torches, and burn down every nightclub, every strip club, every newsstand.

And if I were some bible-thumping moralist who was outraged by these articles, I would be storming down the halls of government and asking.. no, DEMANDING.. that our elected officials do my bidding and pass new laws that outlaw anything sexual in nature. I would want the Internet shut down, and cable television censored so the only channels people would see would be the local church broadcasts. I would treat those articles to be nothing less than a declaration of an all-out, DefCon 1, global thermonuclear societal war.

That is.. if I were some dysfunctional bible-thumping moralist with delusions of grandeur. Of course I would use these articles as justification of some crusade to punish society for their evils! What member of the dysfunctional elite wouldn’t do that? In fact, I have no doubt that was the purpose at least one of those two articles.. to get the moralists enraged and mobilized.

Fortunately for us, this commentator tends to see things a bit differently. Yes, these articles are examples, but not from our lust, but rather from our inability to handle that part of our lives.

Like any other human action and interaction, there is some element of responsibility connected to sex. And that responsibility doesn’t just involve our active participation in sex, but also with our passive participation.. from our desire to simply stick our heads in the sand and ignore sex.

Let’s get brutally honest here… sex is a part of our lives. The genie was let loose long before the Sexual Revolution, but only now are we beginning to realize that the effects extend beyond just adult actions. They extend into how our children see things as well.

The problems shown in the two newspaper articles are not the result of sex in our society, but rather from our inability to deal with it.

Some parents don’t want to realize that their kids are getting curious about sex at some point in their lives. They still think their kids are precious innocent creatures, even when their kids are the most precocious little devils. It is that ignorance that serves to harm both themselves and their children.

Are there practical solutions to the problems those two newspapers pointed out? You bet there are! But not from trying to suppress sex once again. The Victorian Age was an age of ignorance and fear. An age that made people so paranoid that they were putting covers on top of piano legs for fear that someone might be aroused by them! Resurrecting that paranoid time, as many moralists have been desperate in doing, is not only wrong, but would lead to even more problems down the road.

We need to embrace that part of our lives, to accept the fact that we ARE sexual beings, whether or not we decide to become sexually active. We need to accept the fact that sex is a part of our lives. Only then can we then decide how to deal with it.

First of all there should be no doubt that people who actively prey on children for adult gratification are the worst of the worst. Pedophilia is wrong. Period. There should be laws that prosecute and convict such people. I think even liberals would have to agree with that.

Teenagers, however, are a little more different. The words "raging hormones" may seem a bit overused, but that is precisely what is going on for these would-be adults. They are beginning to look and feel like adults, and because of that, they often try to get people to treat and even think of them as adults. Unlike children who are often tricked and forced into sex, teenagers sometimes need very little coaxing. All they sometimes need is a little makeup, and some not-so-youthful clothes.

The problem of teenagers who get fake identification just to work in strip clubs can be easily solved with the help of the people who work at those clubs. Does anyone really think that strip club owners want to get caught with some sixteen year-old girl dancing there? Of course not! The same applies to the other dancers, bouncers, and bartenders. For many of them, this is their bread and butter, not just some way to get quick mall money. If they like working at that club, they would want to make sure that the club doesn’t get shut down just because some young girl wanted to buy the latest Backstreet Boys CD.

Local communities could very easily set up an amnesty program whereby club owners and the people who work there would not be punished if they find out that someone who works there is underage so long as they notify either law enforcement or social services. Such a program would help allay the adversarial relationship that currently exists between local government and adult entertainment.

Unfortunately, it would be extremely unlikely that such an idea would ever be implemented. Doing so would mean that local governments would have to accept and work with such places, and they absolutely, positively DO NOT want to do that! That would fly in the face of everything the moralists want to do. They don’t want to work with strip clubs.. they want to shut them down! And they don’t care how they do that!

Do you think, for instance, that Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell would want to work with the very strip clubs he’s been so desperate to shut down all these years? OF COURSE NOT! Then he wouldn’t be able to go to the churches and tell all of those ministers and all of those bible-thumping moralists that he’s been doing everything in his power to shut those clubs down! So what if it means a few more underage girls manage to strut their stuff on stage? People like Mayor Campbell don’t care! All they care about is appeasing the bible-thumpers, and making themselves look good for the next election.

Since it’s become painfully obvious that those in government don’t care about the issue, those people who operate and work in strip clubs will have to care… lest they find those self-serving moralists at their front door.

As for those teenagers and oral sex… Once again, parents are finding out the hard way that the things that they excuse do come back to haunt them. I don’t care if people consider it to be foreplay, after-play, appetizer, dessert, main course, a light snack, or finger food... oral sex may not get a girl pregnant, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t get a sexually transmitted disease either.

Never mind what Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich tell people. When they said that oral sex is not sex, they said it in order to keep their jobs. Oral sex IS sex. It involves sexual gratification with another person, therefore it does qualify as sex.

Those little nuggets of information need to be incorporated into the rest of our teaching our young and not-quite adult population about the birds and the bees. Oral sex is still just as risky as any other traditional (and not-so traditional) forms of sexual intercourse, only without pregnancy. Those risks can be cut down by the use of protection. Make use of it.

You know, all of these problems we have with sex are the result of our own dysfunction over the issue. American culture is obsessed with sex only because we’ve been lied to and told by moralists and religious figures that it is wrong. Those bible-thumpers and moralists are the true source of our dysfunction.. and until we shake their influence off of society, we will never be free of those problems.

The young generation takes their lead from their predecessors and from the generations before them. Our dysfunction become their dysfunction. Our hypocrisy becomes their hypocrisy. If we want the next generation to learn from the lessons of our mistakes concerning sex, then we have to get rid of our social and sexual hang-ups first.

Let’s stop sticking our head in the sand.. or in this case in the laps of our partners.. and deal with ourselves AS sexual creatures. That is the only way we can move on from there to being RESPONSIBLE sexual creatures, and showing the next generation by example how to behave.

Week of 09/14/1998

Target: Sex In Society - Part 3
Sex, Politics, and Hypocrisy
- by David Matthews 2

There it is, boys and girls, live and on the Internet!

You too can hear the tawdry details of Bill Clinton’s sex life, complete with detailed descriptions of where and what he did with former intern Monica Lewinsky, in the privacy of your own home computer!

No 900 number to call!

No credit card information to give out!

No adult verification passwords needed.

No, this one is FREE, FREE, FREE!

And you won’t have to worry a thing about the government trying to shut this one down, because this is coming from the Republican members of the House of Representatives! Yes, the Conservative Backlash Coalition, inheritors of the Salem Witch Hunts, the McCarthy Red Hunts, and the original anti-sex crusades, has gone hardcore!

Okay, enough hype. The Kenneth Starr report on President Clinton is out, and this is apparently now time for confessions from both sides of the dysfunctionally elite. As Bill Clinton tries to find another million ways to say he’s sorry to as many people as possible, conservative Republicans are now airing their own dirty laundry.

Representative Dan Burton, the first one to publicly call Clinton a "scumbag," had to publicly admit he isn’t the pillar of morality he claims to be. Yes, Burton had his own affair in the 1980’s, and has a child to back it up. Yes Dan, Clinton is a "scumbag," but at least he didn’t burden that other woman with an illegitimate child.

And hidden amidst the release of the Starr Report was the admittance that another conservative member of Congress by the name of Helen Chenoweth had a skeleton of her own in the form of a brief dalliance with an unnamed married man, who was also a conservative member of Congress. Chenoweth’s campaign for re-election has been to bash her Democratic opponent through his party’s connection to Clinton. Miss Pot, meet Mister Kettle!

What’s going on, you ask?

In short, a political purging of the worst kind.

In previous discussions on this topic, we’ve seen how our dysfunctional view of sex in society has been not only rewarded, but has also led to even greater societal problems. Now we will start to see how this dysfunction escalates even further.

In many ways, our dysfunctional perspectives of sex in society has led us to this scandal. Remember that our intellectual minds have long since forged ideals that are incompatible with the real world we all have to live in. That combined with our intellectual disdain for all things primal has forged unrealistic expectations in other people, including and especially the people we elect to public office.

Jimmy Carter’s pre-presidential interview for Playboy Magazine in 1976 struck a cord with many of the dysfunctionally elite, not just because of the publication, but also because what was being said. Here was an affirmed Baptists who would inhabit the White House in less than a year admitting he was a human being with - *GASP* - very human feelings and desires! Oh the humanity!

This ran contrary to any other president in recent history. President Nixon did everything in his power to suppress and otherwise outlaw any reference to sex, even though his own Presidential Committee on Pornography said that that kind of action from government was CAUSING the ills of society, not the curing them. President Reagan had his own committee stacked to the hilt with the most pious of anti-sex crusaders who gave his administration the green light to do what Nixon’s refused to.

Because of this intellectual purging of all things primal, we have led ourselves to envision our politicians as these perfect icons of humanity. You hear the moralists amongst us railing on and on about electing men and women with higher standards than the average citizen. You hear about words like "moral authority" and "moral leadership" being bandied about like they were the lifeblood of our elected officials.

The belief that our elected officials are somehow more than human goes back to the old days when nobility was considered the providence granted personally by God. Indeed, in the case of Great Britain, the crown was not only the government leader, but the leader of the Church of England as well. This was called the "Divine Right of Kings."

We have, in effect, deified our politicians. We have placed them on pedestals and treated them as gods.

So horrible it is, then, to see a politician knocked off that pedestal. To be revealed that indeed they are not gods, but mortal men and women. No better than the rest of us.

But believe it or not, that IS the way it must be. We don’t need politicians claiming themselves to be leaders by God. A government forged from the people cannot make the claim that all men are created equal when they believe that they themselves are somehow better than anyone else.

And that brings us back to Clinton. One of the key elements that got him elected back in 1992 was that he appeared to be just as human as anyone else. He didn’t appear to be your average politically-correct Stepford Pod Person. He showed up at talk shows playing the saxophone with the band. He admitted he had some troubles in his marriage, even though he never publicly admitted to having an affair with Gennifer Flowers. And even though this author had his suspicions of the dubiousness of the governor of Arkansas, Clinton certainly convinced enough people to put him in the Oval Office.

In many ways, this sad situation of questioning the sexual peccadilloes of our politicians could have been a non-issue. If we didn’t give credence to our dysfunctional elite, letting them set the standards for the rest of us, our elected officials could admit to being human beings instead of pseudo-gods. If Clinton defied the will of the moralists and admitted he had affairs, the whole issue of catching him in a lie would be moot.

Unfortunately, our intellectually-dominant members of society refuse to admit their dysfunction, and like alcoholics in denial, they’ll continue to tighten the noose even further until something breaks. Instead of making sexuality a non-issue, it will be an ever-present issue both in the November election, and almost certainly into the 2000 campaign.

If we as a society are to ever purge ourselves of this dysfunction, we need to fight back against the moralists and the dysfunctionally elite. Stop letting other people tell you how to live your life. Recognize that your life is governed by both your intellectual aspirations and primal needs and deal with them.

In the end, this obsession with other people’s sexual escapades will hopefully prove to be the downfall of the moralists. Don’t get caught up in their witch hunt!

Week of 04/06/1998

Target: Sex in Society
Part 2 - When Sex Is Abused
- by David Matthews 2

"Screw or get screwed!"

Did I get your attention?

Usually, when you hear about sexual harassment, there’s usually an image of some leering, slimy boss pawing over some young nubile girl in a short skirt and tight blouse being asked for sexual favors if she wanted to continue working. No doubt there are some instances that meet the stereotype even today, but for the most part, what is perceived as sexual harassment is now becoming a question more of perception than a crime.

For instance, what constitutes sexual harassment? This is a question that I first raised two years ago with a story called "Is a kiss just a kiss anymore?" (available by request in the archive section). Clearly, the issue of what denotes sexual harassment has been muddied by knee-jerk reactionaries, limelight-addicted lawyers, and extremists who consider anything remotely sexual in nature to be sexual harassment. In some cases, even displaying the picture of one’s spouse could be considered "fostering a hostile environment" if the spouse in question is seen in a bikini.

At the core of sexual harassment is not sex, but power. The stereotypical lecherous boss does what he does not out of sexual gratification, but out of the abuse of power he has an employer. He knows that if he didn’t have that kind of power, beautiful women wouldn’t even give him the time of day. So he abuses his power and gives the ultimatum to the women who need their jobs: screw with me or get screwed by me!

But that little fact gets ignored by the more ambiguous facets like defining what is a "hostile environment." In reality, such a debate fosters more harm than good. In too many instances, normal relations between men and women are persecuted looking for those rare instances.

Case in point is the case of Paula Corbin Jones Vs. William Jefferson Clinton. On April 1^st, the presiding judge in Arkansas, Susan Webber Wright, dismissed the charges against the President of the United States on the grounds that there was no case of sexual harassment. While certainly not expected by either supporters or critics of Bill Clinton, the decision has been spun by Camp Clinton to suggest complete vindication.

Not so fast Hillary. The judge dismissed the case because the core of the allegation - sexual harassment - was missing. That does not mean it didn’t happen, only that what went on didn’t meet Judge Webber Wright’s definition of sexual harassment.

While the case is far from being closed, the allegations have certainly caused more than enough damage to a group of women involved in the allegations of sexual impropriety against the president. Kathy Willey, whose husband committed suicide on the same day she was propositioned and groped by Clinton, is now being branded as a liar. Monica Lewinsky is a virtual prisoner by the media and attorneys, including her own, until either she is asked to testify, or until any and all charges against Clinton are dropped (which is rather unlikely). Every aspect of her life, right down to and including what she purchased in a Washington bookstore, is right now under a microscope. Every boy she dated, every teacher she studied under, what she wore as an intern in the White House, is all under scrutiny by the media and special investigators. If the case did go forward, even Paula Jones’ life would have been placed under a microscope. A former boyfriend already sold topless pictures of her to Penthouse Magazine, which published them twice. And Clinton attorneys actually contemplated to expose every aspect of Jones’ sexual history, a despicable defense tactic that was used in old rape trials.

Recently, a new name has been added to the list of lives ruined by Clinton - Elizabeth Ward Gracen. Gracen, a former Miss America, is an actress on the syndicated series Highlander. Now, she has been put on the defensive on her former relationship to the once-and-former governor of Arkansas. She is currently out of the country, and plans to stay in self-imposed exile until the whole mess dies down to avoid being dragged down any further than need be. But the damage may already be done to her.

In the intellectual bastion of politics, having your primal side exposed almost seems to be the kiss of death. With some notable exceptions, namely Senator Ted Kennedy and Rep. Barney Frank (both of Massachusetts), the realization that a particular person doesn’t live in some Stepford Pod existence is the subject of scorn. Sex is supposed to be kept behind closed doors, unless, to appease the appetite of religious zealots and anti-sex crusaders, they must delve into the subject just long enough to outlaw it. James Petersen, the author of Playboy’s History of the Sexual Revolution, conducted a tour of Washington DC that pointed out all the various and sordid secrets of politicians gone by, including the histories of the FBI building and the new Ronald Reagan Building. The press made little notation of the tour, even though their attentions were on the Paula Jones case. (Remember, of course, that the media is also an intellectual institution, and as such find it difficult to deal with reality, even though it is their job to report on it.)

Worse yet seems to be the only way to regain acceptance in this intellectual bastion - to join the ranks of the anti-sex crusaders. Donna Rice, the attractive model who was seen sitting on Gary Hart’s lap in 1988, is now Donna Rice-Hughes, a born-again anti-sex crusader.

Make no mistake, the denial of our primal side by intellectual institutions such as politics are no different in nature than the motivations behind sexual harassment. It is an abuse of power by those who can abuse it. In short, they tell us the same message - "screw with us or get screwed by us."

Week of 03/02/1998

Target: Sex in Society
Why liberals and conservatives just don’t get it
- by David Matthews 2

You know, the conservatives have got to be pulling hairs out of their collective scalps over this intern thing. Despite allegations, leaks, rumors of immunity deals, and supposed taped evidence, Bill Clinton is holding firm his denials of any impropriety happening between him and the former intern. And worse yet to the conservatives, the public opinion polls have the president’s acceptance level higher than at any time in the Administration’s history! If conservatism is in vogue like the moralists want us to believe, then the polls should be dropping, right? After all, extramarital affairs are wrong. Illegal in some states. And those same polls say the majority of people don’t believe Clinton’s denials.

So what’s the story here? Why is it that the people believe some kind of shenanigans happened between Monica Lewinsky and Clinton, but they still think he’s doing a good job?

Well, conservatives would grumble that somehow because the economy is good, that it absolves Clinton’s alleged wrongdoings. But is that really the case?

While the explanation would serve the Gods of Mount Morality and members of the beltway elite like conservative icon Bill Bennett, there’s something more complex lying underneath it all that needs to be examined.

As I have stated before, this society seems to suffer from the intellectual version of bulimia. Fiercely divided between the intellectual and primal needs, we are lulled into believing that the intellect is all that really matters in society. The primal needs? Well, maybe food and shelter.. but the rest, we’re told, we don’t really need. We’re told we can live without them. Matter of fact, we’re told it’s better if we don’t satisfy those needs.

Then, suddenly, those primal desires explode in various aspects, and those same intellectual voices just can’t explain why it happened except to say that maybe they weren’t as strict as they should have been. So they clamp down even tighter in an effort to purge society of all things primal.

We have long since faced this situation when it comes to sex in society. Sex is a primal need. Satisfying that need elicits both pleasure and possible procreation. We need the latter, but the intellectually-dominated have so deemed we have no possible need for the former. So sex for the sake of pleasure has been discouraged and even banned outside of the only "established" institution that requires sex for procreation, namely the family. Even the indicators of sexual pleasure, such as nudity or anything remotely erotic in nature, have been the scathing target of moralists since the beginning of civilization.

The crusaders are always considered champions of the intellectual realm. Men and women like Plato, Tsin Chi Hwangti, Saint Paul, Pope Alexander VI, King Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, Dr. Thomas Bowdler, Anthony Comstock, Dr. Frederik Wertham, Vice President Spiro Agnew, Rev. Donald Wildmon, Edwin Meese, Rev. Pat Robertson, Donna Rice, and others, all at one point moved - and continue to move in the latter regards - to suppress anything associated with sex. And while this list of chastity belt legends is not all-inclusive, they are and have been at the forefront in the struggle against anything sexual in nature.

And when intellectual idealism cannot sway the consenting adult from fulfilling their primal desires with other consenting adults, today’s crusaders pull out the atom bomb of intellectual reasons - to protect women and children. The excuse of protecting women and children has long since earned its place under the most nefarious excuses of despotism in between "We know what’s best for you," and "I was just following orders!"

But there is one little point that is missing with these anti-sex crusaders - they are champions of things that have little regard to reality! The intellect is, by design, not based in reality. This allows the thinking man to transcend reality and see possibilities and concepts that go beyond the here and now. This is the realm of fantasy, in which all intellectuals thrive in. In the fantasy world, all theories work. That’s why intellectual bastions like academia, politics, and religions thrive and are sought after by those wishing acceptance in society.

The problem, however, is when the intellectual crusaders try to apply their theories on reality. While all theories work in the intellectual fantasy world, applying those theories often means conflicting with laws and principles of reality. In the intellectual world, you can envision throwing a ball up in the air, and it will go clear into space. In the real world, however, that ball has to follow the law of gravity. So when you throw that ball in the air, it’ll fall back down.

Many intellectual concepts work in theory, but once applied to the real world they can become a disaster. Religious and political leaders have time and time again proven this. The "great experiment" called Prohibition was pushed by both groups to get people off alcohol. Instead, it created a greater demand for alcohol, turned ordinary citizens into criminals, and turned criminals into millionaires.

Likewise, the ongoing prohibitions against all things sexual by those same religious and political leaders have created many of the societal problems related to sex. Many of the dangers of prostitution, for instance, are not inherent of the profession. Streetwalkers face far more dangers from the customer on the corner than the prostitutes who work in legal brothels. The few legal brothels that operate in rural Nevada are proof of that. And yet whenever talk turns to trying to legalize brothels, the intellectual crusaders against sex argue that to do so would make crime skyrocket, and then point to the dangers of the streetwalking prostitutes.

The intellectual demonization of sex has also served to corrode personal responsibility. The notion that somehow your actions hold the key to someone else’s morality has long been the excuse for moralists in the name of protecting children. After all, children don’t know any better, right? Well the same notion has been used to include adults as well. Any activity or substance deemed offensive to someone now becomes a "corrupting influence" in and of itself. It’s not your fault, it’s the fault of the "evil, corrupting" substance for doing this to you. One only has to listen to today’s neo-Prohibitionists for proof.

But religious and political leaders aren’t the only ones who have a hard time dealing with sex in the real world. Administrators and faculty members in our colleges and universities are right now struggling to deal with the problem of young adults having sex. Complicating matters are factors like alcohol, growing up, and varying ideals about sex between both genders.

One prestigious university expelled a male student for having sex with a female student on the grounds of date rape, even though nobody questions or doubts his side of the story when he said both were drunk and she was the one who freely and willingly initiated the sexual contact. If intoxication is no excuse for the man, why is it an excuse for the woman who initiated the contact?

Intellectuals can’t handle such complications, because in their fantasy world, those complications don’t exist. Young men and women don’t have sex, period. And if they did, it’s the man’s fault, because young women don’t have sex willingly. No matter the reality of the situation, in the minds of these academic intellectuals, the young man was at fault.

Of course, it’s easy for people to make lofty ideals when their personal needs are able to be satisfied. A "let them eat cake" mentality of piousness and hypocrisy can easily occur then. A lot of conservatives can easily talk about the "sanctity of marriage" after they’ve already been married at least once. Too bad they didn’t feel the same way when they were married the first time. Then again, even King Henry VIII was a "family values" leader himself. After all, he didn’t divorce his wives, he just had each one of them executed. It’s good to be the king.

Fortunately, the dysfunctional idiosyncrasies of our intellectual elites don’t instantly translate into the sentiments of the general population. Most people are thankful when they can get the most vital of needs such as food and shelter taken care of, never mind afford to live in an intellectual fantasy world.

If we want to do something to stop the insanity that we have concerning sex in society, the first thing we must do is break ourselves from our dependence on the intellectual elite. We give them that power when we turn to them to make moral judgements for us.

Ask yourself why YOU think something is wrong. Forget what Reverend Blowhard thinks. Forget what Congress thinks. Forget what some intellectual think-tank in Washington DC thinks. Forget what some 2000 year-old document says. For that matter, forget what some 200 year-old document says. Those things can help you make up your mind, but in the end it’s up to you to decide how to live your life. If you’re wrong about the choices you make, Reverend Blowhard, the Washington elite, and certainly an ancient piece of paper won’t take the fall - you will.

The second thing we need to do is break ourselves from the self-centered notion that our beliefs are the exclusive and unquestionable universal beliefs. While we all consider ourselves the protagonist in our own life stories, that life story is still only an autobiography, not the definitive guide to all life on the planet.

Finally, we need to remember that we do live in the real world, bound by physical bodies with very physical needs. Men and women do not live on bread alone, not even if you include a glass of water. One of those very real and very physical needs happens to include sex. If those needs aren’t met, it comes back to haunt us when we least want them to. That is not speculation, that is reality.