Emergency Contraception—Good Preparation for New Year’s Eve

Perhaps your checklist for New Year’s Eve includes:

* sexy clothes: to get yourself or a partner in the mood
* mood-altering beverage: see above
* money: for meals, gifts, fun
* extra money: to make sure you get home from all that fun
* clean the house or apartment—at least the bedroom (or at least the bed!): just in case
* clean and strategically place the sex toys: optional

What’s missing from this picture?

If you and your colleague are of different genders, birth control.

And in case that fails—or, more likely, you do—Emergency Contraception.

This is a reminder that Emergency Contraception (EC) is completely legal in the U.S., and is available without a prescription for anyone 17 and older. Those under 17 in California, Alaska (no excuses, Bristol!) and 7 other states can also get it without a prescription.

Like a data backup, extra eyeglasses, and earthquake insurance, EC is best acquired before you need it. Everything we said when you still needed a prescription to get it is still relevant: Get it now. Keep it somewhere easily accessible—not in your gym locker or sister’s house. Read the directions now, while you’re perfectly calm and it seems like a waste of time—because if you do use it, you won’t be calm enough to read your own name.

From 2000-2008 our federal government was an anti-science propaganda arm of the Religious Right, so in case their disinformation campaign has confused the issue, EC is NOT the abortion pill. It can’t cause an abortion because it is used before a woman is pregnant. That’s why it’s called emergency contraception.

Click here for more information on EC. For a quick laugh on the subject, click here.

A lot of people busted butt for years to make EC available to Americans without a prescription. Don’t waste the amazing opportunity they created.

And gentlemen, remember that you can get and keep EC, too. Talk about feeling safe…

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Mexico City Invites Us: Observe Our “Experiment”

With a population of 9 million, Mexico City has more people than 40 of America’s 50 states. It also has more Catholics than any American state except California. In fact, Mexico City is the 2nd largest Catholic city in the world (after Sao Paulo, Brazil).

And it just legalized same-gender marriage.

Mexico, of course, is a conservative, highly traditional country—far more so than the U.S.. And yet, they’re doing something that 100 million Americans find terrifying. Shame on us.

Much of the opposition to same-gender marriage in America is explained by “it will destroy traditional marriage.”

So let’s consider Mexico City yet another opportunity to observe an experiment—let’s see what happens in Mexico City during the next few years. Will their divorce rate increase faster than comparable countries without same-gender marriage? Will more heterosexual spouses have affairs, abandon their families, gamble away the rent money, hit each other?

If not, how can our policy-makers give in to “the gays are coming!” paranoia of some Americans?

Of course, Americans have had this opportunity before—and not just about same-gender marriage (which is already legal in Spain and Canada, with no ill effects observed).

Those Americans panicked about children seeing adult breasts or genitalia can check the results of the European “experiment” with nudity at beaches and on TV (no increase in child molestation or sexual dysfunction). Those Americans panicked about pornography can check the results of Japan’s, Germany’s, and Sweden’s “experiment” with liberalizing restrictions on its availability (no increase in sexual violence).

And those Americans panicked about using science as the basis of public policy rather than religion, superstition, or prejudice can check the results of the “experiment” in Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea.

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Fantasy On Trial (Again)

I’m on my way home from Denver, where I testified as an expert witness at a deeply troubling trial—a trial that’s become way too common in America.

Here’s the situation: The defendant “Mr. Jones” goes into a Yahoo adult chat-room, and makes it clear he wants to have conversations about sexually dominating a young person. A person responds—let’s call her “Missy”—who says she’s a teen who would gladly chat with a wiser, older man about the ins and outs of sexual things.

“Missy” says she’s 14, and she and “Mr. Jones” proceed to exchange hundreds and hundreds of emails, IMs, and phone calls, which range from the incredibly boring to the graphically sexual. He discusses how one day she’s going to be sexual with men, and therefore he helpfully instructs “Missy” to put her fingers in her vagina, practice sucking them, etc.. On the other hand, he never invites his correspondent to meet him, never sends “Missy” money or gifts, never sends her pictures of adults having sex with minors.

One day, out of the clear blue sky, police arrest the real Mr. Jones: it turns out that “Missy” is actually a police detective who was hanging out in the chat-room, and Mr. Jones has broken the law against adults discussing sex with minors over the internet.

But wait, says Mr. Jones—he wasn’t discussing sex with a minor, he was discussing sex with an adult pretending to be a minor. He didn’t realize the adult was a detective—he didn’t even know what gender the adult was, much less their occupation—but he was playing a character version of himself, confident he was talking and corresponding with an adult playing the character called “Missy.”

He didn’t want to talk about sex with a kid, he says, much less have sex with a kid.

But the great state of Colorado put Mr. Jones on trial, accusing him of grooming a would-be minor for illegal sexual contact—which, although he hadn’t arranged, nor attempted to arrange, they claim he wanted to arrange. Sometime. Probably.

His lawyer hired me as an expert in erotic fantasy roleplay. And so I read transcripts of the phone calls and emails which had led to the arrest. I did not meet, much less evaluate, Mr. Jones.

Months later—yesterday—I was in court. As an expert witness, I was asked dozens of questions about fantasy role-playing—which of course many adults do in various ways. Some do it through Second Life, some through Civil War reenactments, some through World of Warcraft—and some through chat-rooms.

Some adults play with fantasy roles in their bedrooms. Maybe she wears a little plaid skirt and lace socks (made in adult sizes for just this purpose), and coos at her partner “the principal.” Maybe she pretends to be a high-priced hooker and he pretends to be a customer. More politically-minded people enjoying playing the Madelaine Albright-Henry Kissinger erotic (?!) fantasy game.

The prosecution tried to get me to say that most people who fantasize are sick, which I wouldn’t. They tried to get me to say that people’s fantasies indicate what they want to do in real life, which I wouldn’t. They tried to get me to say that Mr. Jones’ calls and emails were typical grooming behavior. I pointed out the fundamental flaws in their reasoning: he had met “Missy” in a chatroom for adults, not for fans of Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers. And after a thousand emails and phone calls, he never said anything like, “Let’s meet. We’ll have a great time. When are you free? I’ll send you money for a bus ticket.”

There were plenty of questions about me: my campaign against the concept of “sex addiction”; my observations that America is panicked over highly distorted estimates of how many predators troll for kids online (I quoted scientific studies, including the latest one from Harvard); whether or not I believed it was OK for adults and 14-year-olds to have sex (which I wouldn’t answer, not wanting to obscure the fact that there was no 14-year-old in this case), and many, many more. That’s how I spent yesterday afternoon.

This morning, the jury gave their verdict. Afterwards, in private conversations, they told Mr. Jones’ lawyer that I was clearly an expert, warm and persuasive, and that they had learned a great deal from me about psychology and sexuality. They said they were troubled by the flaws I had pointed out in the prosecution’s case, and they laughed at the D.A.’s inability to rattle or insult me. Several said if they were ever in trouble, they hoped they’d be represented in court as well as Mr. Jones had been.

But they found him guilty. They were afraid to believe him.

Was he really trolling for a kid to have sex with? I don’t know—I never spoke to the guy, certainly never evaluated him clinically. But the burden was not on him to prove he wasn’t. Since the State had taken the trouble to arrest him, humiliate him, accuse him, and destroy his life, the burden was on the State to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that his behavior was calculated and dangerous.

A juror’s fear wasn’t supposed to play any role in their decision. They were supposed to rely on the facts to decide whether the State had proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there was no “Mr. Jones”—that Mr. Jones believed he was talking to a kid, and that he was talking to her about sex so he could ultimately arrange to have sex with her.

In the end, fear was primarily what the 12 jurors relied upon.

And so, regardless of what Mr. Jones actually had in mind, justice was not done. As a result, our country—and you, personally—are less safe.

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Florida Criminalizes Arts & Crafts

Remember playing with photos and scissors as a young teen? You’d make collages: your scrawny face on a caveman’s body, your friend’s body with the head of a dog, you and a movie star on a beach in Hawaii. Silly adolescent stuff, harmless.

Now what about putting your head on a movie star’s nude body? Or your neighbor kid’s face on your body? Still harmless, right?

When does this kind of stuff become illegal?

John Stelmack of Lakeland, FL found out the hard way. He allegedly cut out a Xerox copy of a girl’s head, taped it to a printout of an adult female’s body, and Xeroxed it again. According to one of his attorneys, “It was a very poor job, and anyone could tell this was not really a picture of the minor.” When this was accidentally discovered, he was arrested and convicted for creating and possessing child pornography. Remember, these are cut-and-paste productions, not actual photos, and not even computer morphs—of a couple of girls’ heads, and a few nude women’s bodies. His case is now being appealed.

OK, full disclosure: the guy is (or rather, was) an elementary school principle. Yes, this increases the yuck factor, but legally, it shouldn’t matter. He hasn’t been accused of inappropriate touching, suggesting, or even looking. He doesn’t have any history of creating problems or being a problem.

The problem with witches (17th century), Jews (18th & 19th century), and Communists (20th century) was, according to those who claimed to know, that they 1) were everywhere and 2) looked like “normal” people so they couldn’t be easily spotted. Thus the strategies, historically: drown a bunch of women and see if any non-witches survive; burn down Jews’ homes and force them to convert; defame and destroy a bunch of people and see who admits they’re a Red.

Today’s witches, Jews, and Communists are those a little too interested in childhood sexuality. Since it’s hard to tell the dangerous from the curious (or pathetic) in a single glance, many Americans say it’s safer to just arrest everyone who’s questionable. What’s John Stelmack’s life worth, if by sacrificing it we can save even one child from being molested?

According to Stelmack and his family, plenty. It should be worth its weight in gold to anyone concerned about matters such as freedom of speech, the presumption of innocence, and the influence of moral panics on the integrity of the judicial system.

If Stelmack’s conviction is affirmed, some logical questions follow:

* What if the person doing the cutting and pasting were the girl herself? Would she be busted the way teens who “sext” are being busted?
* What if the person doing the cutting and pasting was one of her parents?
* What if the body being morphed with the girl’s face was a nude adult man? Or a clothed but really sexy woman?
* Now that lewd cartoon characters of minors can be criminalized as child porn, what about morphing a girl’s face onto a sexy or nude cartoon body—illegal?

Photoshop is the new arts and crafts. Any adult interacting with kids is the new witch, Jew, Communist. Imprisoning those who play with digital scissors and glue doesn’t make any of us safer. It just pads the resume of some D.A. who doesn’t even consider Stelmack a human being, or our Constitutional system precious.

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International Human Rights Day MUST Include Sexual Rights

Yesterday was International Human Rights Day.

On such a day, we think of journalists and political activists who are jailed, tortured or killed; people so poor they have no toilets or clean water; people forced to live under brutal religious or political regimes; and children deprived of school, sold into heavy labor, or forced into rebel militias.

That’s all so far away, though, isn’t it? So let’s talk about America. Let’s discuss the systematic government oppression of our human rights—our sexual human rights.

EVERY human being has the fundamental right to:

* accurate information about sexuality
* local access to qualified sexual health care
* local access to modern reproductive and contraceptive technologies and advice
* a medical system with professionals trained in sexual health
* a legal system with professionals trained in sexual behavior

EVERY human being has the right to live in a society that has:

* decriminalized consensual adult commercial sex
* decriminalized consensual adult sexual activities
* decriminalized “sexting” and other consenting adolescent sexual behavior
* ended government prosecution of adult “obscenity” & adult entertainment
* ended prosecutions of nudity in recreational spaces
* redefined child pornography to include only actual children in actual sexual situations
* ended public, open-ended sex offender registries
* ended punishment of practitioners of alternative sexual lifestyles in child custody disputes

To celebrate International Human Rights Day, and to become a model of human decency for the rest of the world, I call upon America’s Congress to affirm and guarantee these rights, making all necessary legislative changes.

Until then, hundreds of millions of Americans will continue to be vulnerable to legal harassment, financial damage, and the special, horrifying kind of emotional torment inevitably created by years in prison.

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Tiger’s Sex “Scandal” is About…Sex

OK, it turns out the guy slept with a few other women besides his wife.

My first question about revelations like this (other than the way they frequently undo hypocritical conservative lawmakers) is always “who cares?”

My second question is, “with non-politicians, why does the public feel it has a right to know?” I’ve never heard a good answer to this, but today, my local sports columnist Mark Purdy gave the silliest, most disingenuous answer I’ve ever heard: because it possibly affected Tiger’s game.

Yeah, right—it has nothing to do with America’s insatiable appetite for excuses to leer about sex. C’mon, everything in an athlete’s life potentially affects their performance: their kids’ school problems, their husband’s temper, their bad investments, the barking dog that keeps them awake, their maid’s hysterectomy.

But who cares about those things? Virtually no one.

People love revelations about celebrities’ sex lives because:
1) People love the excuse to talk about sex; and
2) People love when the rich and famous are taken down a notch, especially if it’s by their own er, hand.

But it takes the American media to sanctimoniously pretend that the public isn’t just frothing about the sex. Right—we’re just calmly interested in our athletes’ performance, and so we care, really care, about the vicissitudes of Tiger’s or Kobe’s or Tonya’s life.

Americans are so uptight we can’t even admit we enjoy drooling about other people’s sex lives. In addition to demanding our celebrities be sexually pure—and claiming outrage when they aren’t—we feel the need to pretend we are, too. Yeah, unlike people around the globe, we never look down a woman’s blouse or notice when a guy’s pants are too tight.

Another common narrative invariably hauled out at times like this is ‘rich and famous men cheat with beautiful young women.’

Oh, please. Let’s say there are 1 million extra-marital affairs in America per year (1% of today’s 100,000,000 marriages, a pretty conservative estimate). Most of these are not between rich, famous men and drop-dead gorgeous young women. They involve people at all income levels, at every level of attractiveness. The idea that affairs are the playground of greedy rich men who feel too entitled is a way of justifying moral outrage or personal envy or simply resentment that someone somewhere is having better sex than you are. Get over it.

Tiger’s an entertainer, and entertainers are people. They sell us their performance—if we buy. It’s the same with our doctor and our dry cleaner. They owe us nothing else—not even an honest public persona.

Americans maintain a cult of celebrity, then complain when celebrities play us. The game involves creating a public persona (innocent virgin, bad boy, mad genius), which the public accepts. Once we’ve bought the persona, we don’t want to see who the person really is if it conflicts with their image. We feel foolish, and then we feel angry.

Well, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. If the way Tiger or Kobe play ball gives you value for your time, money, and allegiance, watch and enjoy. If their performance isn’t entertaining enough—whether because they’ve gotten fat, or old, or distracted by a lawsuit or a son’s kidney transplant, change the channel. There are plenty other celebrities to put on a pedestal—from which to eventually knock them down.

And if you enjoy the opportunity Tiger’s given you to talk about sex at work for the next few days, grow up and admit it—instead of criticizing him.

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End Rape & Incest Exceptions to Stupak Abortion Ban

You know what the Stupak–Pitts Amendment does to the healthcare reform bill, right? It prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for:

* any abortion, or
* any part of the costs of any health plan that covers abortion,
* except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life.

This amendment is designed to eliminate the possibility of abortion for millions of poor women.

But if you already have health insurance, this amendment will actually take something away from you.

Because insurance plans that cover abortion—even if a consumer never has an abortion—will be disqualified from any federal plan. If you were a reasonable insurance executive, how would you respond? By deleting your plan’s abortion coverage, of course. Once this health reform bill with its evil amendment is passed, insurance companies will rush like a herd of wildebeests to rewrite their policies. Overnight, abortion coverage for tens of millions of people will vanish.

But that’s not what I’m writing about today.

I write against the abortion-ban exception for rape, incest, and maternal injury. How can this exception be justified?

If you’re against reproductive choice for so-called “moral reasons” (as if anyone getting an abortion or supporting its legality isn’t “moral”), be consistent. If killing a fetus or even a fertilized egg wandering around a woman’s body is the same as killing a person (the position of every anti-choice activist), why should it matter how the fetus or fertilized egg got there? Why is a fetus’ right to live diminished because its father was a rapist or a sadist? After all, we don’t say the children of such men have fewer rights than other children.

And if some fetuses have fewer rights than others, what about fetuses whose fathers were drunk, or delusional, or suffering from major depression? What about fetuses whose fathers are incredibly stupid?

No, opposing other people’s rights to abortion for “moral” reasons demands that you make no exceptions.

But some of those “moral” anti-choice people are compassionate: They don’t want to require women to bear children forced upon them by ugly violence. But why privilege certain kinds of suffering over others? Where’s the morality there? What about pregnancies from men who batter their partners? What about poverty-stricken prostitutes impregnated while bribed to not use a condom? What about dependent women who are forced to have unprotected sex by husbands who say God condemns contraception?

If “compassion” is what generates abortion-ban exceptions, how about an exception for anyone under the age of 18?

Yes, compassion is a slippery slope. Because if you allow abortion for any woman who would suffer terribly with an unwanted child, you must allow all abortions. No one can say which category of suffering deserves more compassion than another. Besides, how can “compassion” compromise “morality”? How can “compassion” allow the murder of an “unborn child?”

It can’t.

The truth is, exceptions to abortion bans are hypocritical political expedience. They allow those who wish to control their fellow citizens to look more reasonable. They apply to a tiny fraction of the 1,000,000 women who need an abortion each year (yes, need—ask any of them). These clever, immoral exceptions allow a handful of “murders” in exchange for the political support of people who are willing to criminalize most abortions.

Anyone who believes that abortion is murder should say so in a meaningful way: by demanding that it be banned 100%, under all circumstances, like the profoundly anti-American American Life League. If you waffle on which “murders” are acceptable, if you say morality is conditional, then you’re just another citizen lobbying your government for the right to control other people’s sexuality.

In which case, quit insulting God by claiming divine direction, and mind your own damn business.

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Giving Thanks For Sex

While always accurate, Sexual Intelligence is nevertheless often critical, snide, and cranky. In a world full of sexual ignorance, bizarre impulses, and fear-based, wacky public policy, we roll our digital eyes here a lot.

This Thanksgiving holiday let’s take a break. Today let’s give thanks for some of what’s wonderful in the world of sex.

* Sex toys

Sex toys are humanity’s answer to the question “just how long can someone move their hand in the same direction at the same speed without getting bored or injured?”

Marshall McLuhan would be proud: just as the telephone is an extension of the voice, and the car an extension of the foot, sex toys are an extension of the hand. And of the penis, vulva, and mouth, as the case may be.

There’s little recession in this industry; even if your 401k is now a 201k, you can still buzz or probe yourself happy.

Toys are mainstream now, as even Amazon.com carries dozens of them—from the “Pink Fantasy G-Spot Magic Wand Vibrator Dildo” to the “Smartballs Kegel Exerciser” to the “Horny Girl Next Door Realistic Pussy Male Masturbator.” Every person and couple should have a bunch.

* Contraception

Most adults love little [choose one or more:] (munchkins) (rugrats) (screaming bundles of scary impulses). But there’s a limit to how many of these weapons of mass destruction one wants to love. I suggest the number of hands a person has is a good clue to the number of children one should parent in a lifetime.

Enter Captain Contracept! There are styles for everyone: hormonal, mechanical, vegetarian, you name it. And for gentlemen who have finished the quest for biological immortality, science has a special gift for you: vasectomy. It only takes an hour, then you get the weekend off, then back to work. You’re wise to hold off ejaculating for a week, and then you’re shooting blanks for the next half-century. Yes cowboy, you still shoot—wet, warm, voluminous loads of blanks.

The only people who can honestly condemn birth control as “unnatural interference in God’s order” are those who shun other modern comforts like electricity and gossip. But even the Amish have begun taking advantage of contraceptive wisdom.

* Pornography

I’ve been in countries where pornography is simply illegal. You don’t want to live there.

Trust me, you’d rather live in a country where people are free to make their own entertainment choices, even if you find them baffling or repulsive (American Idol, anyone?).

Pornography paid to build the internet. Pornography made The Sopranos, David Mamet, and The Daily Show possible. Pornography is the sexual outlet for a lot of lonely people who are not going to meet Mr. Good Enough or Ms. Right for a long time. Or ever.

Pornography has many, many, many, many faults (is that enough acknowledgment?). It is also one of the few places you can get an honest look at America’s subconscious. And what you find there is simply human: childish curiosity, adolescent yearning, adult confusion, an overwhelming interest in sexual body parts, fluids, power dynamics, and yes, feelings. Healthy human sexuality has a noble, wholesome, loving side.

That same healthy human sexuality has a dark, aggressive side. Pornography shows it all, complete with big smiles, happy orgasms, pretend coercion, lame music, and stupid dialogue (“ooh, is that for me?!). But pornography doesn’t show anything that isn’t common human fantasy.

I’ve counseled patients who felt deep, deep shame for watching pornography. I’ve also counseled terrified or enraged patients who believe that their partner’s watching porn is infidelity, rejection, or perversion. You don’t want to live like that.

* Lubricants

Spit will only get you so far.

So a special salute here to lube—the magic stuff that makes sex more comfortable for people of all ages and persuasions.

I still have patients who resist using it, saying they don’t “need” it, as if it’s some medicine for losers. No. To the extent that sex is about friction, lube helps you custom-design the friction. The slippery stuff in lube helps turn the geekiest guy into Fred Astaire, the clumsiest woman into Ginger Rogers.

If you don’t know who they are, the second thing you should do is sign up for Netflix. The first thing you should do is get some lube.

* Female Sexual Desire

Plenty of Americans remember the days when Good Girls Didn’t Say Yes.

Unfortunately, even today, many women across the globe can’t say yes even if they want to. Single women in Muslim countries; patriotic women in war-time Vietnam; African women struggling with clitoridectomy—these women have learned bitter lessons about an enthusiastic yes.

The great uber-gift of legitimizing female sexual desire is the way it allows sexuality to be a form of intimacy between two people. When female sexual desire is considered abnormal or slutty or threatening to her partner, she has to hide it or her (male) partner needs to control it. This is the case around the world, where men pursue and women submit or dissemble.

When two people can acknowledge and celebrate a woman’s sexual interest, they can be themselves and connect physically. She doesn’t have to manipulate her partner or spend her life unable to speak for herself.

A great accomplishment of modern America is that we have established a moral code that isn’t based primarily on the number of sex partners a woman has, or when she has them. Women are now free to be unethical independent of their sexuality—by bribery, say, or theft or child neglect. Yes, judging women on their public behavior rather than their private sexual choices is a big advance in civilization.

* * *

Finally, let’s enjoy today by taking the perspective that all those erotophobic activities we hate—laws and customs limiting sexual expression, narratives of sexual danger, efforts to trivialize sexual knowledge—are essentially compliments to those working for a world of sexual justice and responsible erotic expression.

If those forces of fear, hatred, and sexual denial weren’t afraid of the continuing and inevitable success of our work creating a sexually progressive world, they wouldn’t be fighting us so hard.

Oh, I give thanks for one more thing: for all my readers, who encourage me with email, suggestions for articles, financial contributions and book purchases. Your affection and support are very, very important to me. On more nights than you might imagine, you make the difference between me working and me…well, me not working.

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Gay Priests? No, Confused Priests

Social scientists at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice have been researching the causes of the Catholic Church’s modern tradition of priests sexualizing boys. In releasing their initial findings, researchers said they can not attribute it to gay priests or seminaries for teenagers.

“We do not have data to support those assertions,” said Karen Terry, lead researcher for the $2 million study commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She believes that the priests had sex primarily with boys mainly because they had access to boys. “Even though there was sexual abuse of many boys, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the [priest] had a homosexual identity,” she said.

Correct.

After all, male soccer coaches who have sex with teen girls, and step-fathers who have sex with their step-daughters don’t do it because of “heterosexuality.” Such adult sexual behavior is caused by internal torment about sexuality, a collapse of boundaries, lack of empathy, a breakdown of ethics, and confusion about power…just like priests sexually exploiting boys.

The question of what defines a person as gay is interesting, and relevant to people of every persuasion, including straights. Many male public figures who have been caught being interested in other men have loudly denied they’re gay. Some are (understandably) frightened liars, but many others, such as Senator Larry Craig, are clearly telling the truth.

As Alfred Kinsey first showed Americans a half-century ago, same-gender fantasies, curiosity, desire, and the occasional fling, do not alone define someone as gay. And if an adult has sex with children who happen to be the same gender, that doesn’t define him (or her) as gay, either. It defines him (or her) as interested in children, which is its own orientation (permanent or otherwise).

The Church has more than a bad-apple-gay-priest problem. It has a who-becomes-a-supposedly-celibate-priest-anyway problem. Like the French Foreign Legion, the job description itself cannot possibly attract enough psychologically healthy people. And given the Church’s tortured, inhumane attitude about sexuality, it’s hardly the institution to heal any sexual problems revealed or developed by its shepherds (much less its flock).

What Dr. Terry’s project is almost certain to find is that the priests who sexually exploited children are a heterogeneous lot—some of them gay, most of them straight, some of them angry (some surely angry at their god), many of them lonely, and some developmentally primitive. That last sub-group will have experienced their sex with kids as a peer activity. Psychologically (although not biologically, ethically, or legally), that would be accurate.

Astonishingly, many so-called morality groups used the revelations of 2002 and beyond as an opportunity to demonize homosexuality—blithely overlooking the Church setting that was the dominant feature of every one of these exploitative interactions. Talk about chutzpah. That’s like discussing car accidents without discussing cars, or alcoholism without discussing alcohol.

People don’t do bad things because they’re gay. People do bad things because of who they are. Some of those people are blond, some are left-handed, and some are gay. Many of them lack empathy—the ability to truly understand the experience (including the pain) of others. That’s the place to start cleaning up the Church.

At the top, by the way.

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Technorati :  Marty Klein, atheism, personal is political, sex and religion, sex offenders, sex therapy, sexual culture, sexual desire, sexual health, sexual intelligence, sexual justice, sexual predators, sexual repression, sexuality, teens

My New Digital Camera: Sexting in Middle Age?

After taking thousands of pictures around the globe with my trusty Pentax, I bought a digital camera last week.

If you already have one, this may sound pretty ho-hum. But to someone who spends hundreds of dollars on film every time he leaves the country, and who still thinks a “photo” is a picture of something as it actually was, a digital camera is a little miracle.

My wife and I spent a few hours learning how to use it yesterday. Sitting in the living room we took turns learning to use things like the “multi selector” and “shooting mode.” Soon we were practicing, taking pictures of everything in the room. Then we were zooming, cropping, light-compensating. We used the ‘record’ feature that lets you dictate “14th century late Gothic” when you take a picture you might later mistake for 15th century early Renaissance.

And then I realized: I could say “honey, lift your shirt” and take a picture. She could take a glorious shot of my bike-ridin’ butt—without shorts. We looked at each other with the same thought—theoretically, we could take pics of ourselves being sexual.

Since we’re not mad with hormones, and our friends don’t talk much about photographing their bedroom antics, and seeing each other nude isn’t exactly novel anymore, it had taken us a full 90 minutes to come up with the idea of using our digital camera in erotic ways.

And it hit me—that’s probably 89 minutes longer than it takes your average 16-year-old.

As we contemplated using the camera to post photos on our blogs, email photos to friends, and keep precious digital memories, I was reminded of the words I’ve been saying professionally about this for years.

The most important: Americans put the world’s most powerful communication tools into the hands of children, and expect children to use them thoughtfully, safely, wisely. Then parents are outraged when kids do with digital technology what they also do with magic markers, French fries, and rollerblades: use them carelessly, selfishly, casually, and stupidly. You expect your kid to be more thoughtful with her cellphone than with her sweater?

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Technorati :  Marty Klein, cybersex, internet, libertarian, online safety, personal is political, porn, pornography, sex and technology, sexual censorship, sexual culture, sexual freedom, sexual intelligence, sexual justice, sexual politics, sexual repression, sexual rights, sexuality, teens, war on sex