Training Professionals Here In Azerbaijan

This is my 6th day of a two-week trip in Azerbaijan, a country bordered by Turkey, Iran, and Russia. To follow my exploits, see www.MartyInAz.com.

I gave several lectures in Baku this week: to psychologists, and to public health professionals at the Ministry of Health.

I did them all in English, working with a translator. I say something, wait, she says something; I say something, wait, she says something. I’ve done this before in other countries, and never like it; it’s hard to get a rhythm going, but more importantly, it cuts down the amount of material I can present by almost 50%. And dealing with people’s questions—which I encourage and they typically desire—is especially clumsy. I clearly have an amazingly gifted translator here (who blushes at nothing), but it is a personal challenge trusting my precious (and admittedly idiosyncratic) ideas in someone else’s mouth.

In typical Azerbaijani fashion (as I’ve learned, to my dismay), the start and end times of my lectures were unclear, and I wasn’t sure exactly to whom I was speaking. That, of course, makes preparation difficult. I invariably get to do these talks in stiflingly hot and ugly rooms. And then comes the Eastern norm of the stone-faced audience, which I’ve also encountered before. The grim affects, the folded arms, lack of eye contact—it’s like talking with depressed people who have a touch of Asperger’s syndrome. Come to think of it, that defines Soviet (and therefore ex-Soviet) civic life.

But my talks must have gone well, because no one left early—in fact people invariably stayed until they were told to leave. I’ve been asked to return, and will actually squeeze in another lecture the day before leaving for home.

It’s been a challenge talking about empowering people around sexuality—when they’re stuck in an era of virginity before marriage (and really follow it, even most males); it’s a wife’s duty to have sex when her husband wants it; there is no sex education; and public agencies are still trying to reduce the practice of forced marriage at girls at puberty.

So I talked about simple things like changing the wedding night to include talking, touching, and having sex with the lights on; contraception as a means of improving sexual enjoyment; and using lubricants to make sex more comfortable for both partners. I also reminded people that the virginity/enforced ignorance system places a crushing sense of responsibility on men. Men themselves don’t talk about this, women can’t really help unless they’re willing to challenge the entire gender system, and as a result most “normal” people feel alienated around sex. I believe that some of the male violence and coercion around sex is an expression of anxiety and resentment about the pressure to perform in really awful circumstances.

Since there is no distinction in my mind between sexuality and politics (reminiscent of that line that ‘those who make a distinction between education and entertainment don’t understand either one’), I talked about the American experience of sexual health promotion—and aggressive failure. I spoke about the U.S. debacle with Gardisil—how a small number of religious politicians were able to undermine the distribution of a miraculous drug that could cut the rate of HPV and cervical cancer for millions of American women, all in the name of preventing girls from becoming sexual before marriage. I said that in the U.S., sexual health had to be marketed as a health issue instead of a sexual issue. Public health officials, take note.

In all, my week in Baku has been interesting, aggravating, and a challenge to my concepts regarding politics, sociology, economics, nationalism, and psychology. Are there ideas that we can use to understand all people, or are cultures so fundamentally idiosyncratic that they can only be understood on their own local terms?

Some people assume that sex is a universal language, a longing (or an anxiety) shared by almost everyone. In my travels around the world, I’ve never found that “sex” had a meaning or value on which everyone agreed. Azerbaijan is one more country that confirms my experience.

Tomorrow morning I head out to “the regions,” the ancient, rural lands in the mountains and valleys. If I have internet access, you’ll hear about it before I return to Baku on Friday night. Inshallah.

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When Adults Fail Children—For Life

The Iowa Supreme Court has affirmed the conviction of 18-year-old Jorge Canal, who complied with a 14-year-old friend’s request for a photo of his penis. The young man is now forced to register as a sex offender, meaning his chances of getting a college degree, job, or livable apartment are pretty much ended.

According to the court, the girl “generally hung out with teenagers older than herself;” was “only friends” with Canal; thought the picture was sent “only as a joke;” and was not “a means to excite any feelings.” Nevertheless, Canal was convicted of “knowingly disseminating obscene material to a minor.”

Canal was a foolish kid. But there are many ugly, stupid, irresponsible adults in this story. The girl’s mother, who checked her daughter’s e-mail and internet use, found the photo and forwarded it to her husband. The father then showed the photo to his friend, a police officer. The cop arranged to have Canal arrested. A prosecutor pursued the case, a judge tried it, a jury convicted. These adults failed Canal and his friend miserably. His ruined life will be a testament to their fear, insecurity, and hatred.

All these adults were supposedly attempting to protect Iowa’s young people–by punishing this kid who was fooling around with a pal.

So let’s spend a moment in the real world (which none of these adults seem to inhabit). Which is likely to hurt this 14-year-old girl more—seeing a 2-square-inch photo of a friend’s erect penis, or being the reason that this friend will spend time in jail and decades as a registered sex offender? Her life is now ruined (in addition, of course, to his), because of her criminally negligent parents, criminally ambitious prosecutor, and 12 jury members who failed to protect people who needed justice but received only wrath.

Americans should understand the horrors of our obscenity laws: a picture or word or object is obscene only after a jury decides that it is. And a jury can decide that ANY picture, word, or object is obscene. So no one can know for sure what’s obscene until it’s too late. This is exactly like laws against “hooliganism” in places like Russia that we rightly deride.

The judge in Canal’s case had rightly told the jury that “a depiction of a person’s genitals was not in and of itself obscene. In order for the depiction of a person’s genitals to be obscene, an average person applying contemporary community standards with respect to what is suitable material for minors must find the material is patently offensive, appeals to the prurient interest, and lacks serious literary, scientific, political, or artistic value.” At that point, the picture becomes illegal, and sharing it with someone else becomes a crime.

A jury of twelve Americans destroyed Jorge Canal’s life because they believed that a picture of his erect penis is “patently offensive.” I hope each of them never gets a good night’s sleep for the rest of their lives.

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What Do We Actually Know About Sex?

I’m returning from New York, where I keynoted a big Planned Parenthood event.

It’s wonderful to speak to groups of people who support sexual rights. It always feels like visiting family. (The family that makes you feel welcome, not the family that wonders if you were switched with their “real” child at birth.)

After I spoke, I saw an old friend, and the subject of pornography came up (I hardly go anywhere anymore that it doesn’t). An influential sex-positive researcher, she told me she favored full access to sexually explicit materials—“except, of course, snuff films,” she said.

That brought me up short. Here’s a world-class sociologist, a tremendous force for good in the world, and she’s talking about snuff films—movies where actual people actually die while making the film, which very sick viewers then watch for sexual pleasure.

I told her there’s no such thing.

“Of course there is,” she said.

I asked if she’d ever seen one. She hadn’t.
I asked if she knew anyone who’d ever seen one. She hadn’t.
I asked if she knew anyone who knew anyone who’d ever seen one. She hadn’t.

“But various law enforcement people talk about it, and they say they exist,” she said. I totally believe that they say that. But I asked her if any of these prosecutors, detectives, or cops had ever seized one, shown her one, or even seen one. She said no.

She and I travel in very different professional circles which only overlap slightly. So between the two of us, we’ve got most of the sex profession covered. And together we’ve been at it over half a century. To top it off, she’s one of the world’s experts on sexual violence.

So if neither of us has seen a snuff film, or knows someone who has, I’m certain they don’t exist.

What’s interesting, though, is the enduring power of this myth. Like Bigfoot, delicious fat-free lasagna, or moderate Republicans, people insist there is such a thing. Nobody’s seen one, but the myth is so persistent that somehow it’s up to the non-believers to prove the thing doesn’t exist—which, of course, can’t be done.

People are especially prone to believing myths about sex. Part of my job is to challenge such beliefs: That the internet is full of pedophiles waiting to kidnap our kids. That porn is a gateway drug that leads to watching kiddie porn. That masturbation within marriage is a form of infidelity. That love always leads to desire, and that lack of desire reflects a lack of love. That condoms don’t work. That abstinence does.

What’s even more interesting than challenging these myths, though, is asking why these ideas persist in the face of people’s actual, contrary experience. In most marriages, at least one partner masturbates. Most Americans who pledge abstinence until marriage have sex before marriage. At some point most people love someone and yet have insufficient desire. And so on.

Everyone agrees that we desperately need more communication about sex—between partners, between parents and children, among physicians, psychologists, and sex therapists. But communication with inaccurate information is worse than no communication at all.

That’s a main disadvantage of do-it-yourself sex education websites and blogs—where people write in with their problems, and others offer their “opinion” and “experience.” This advice is often gender-biased (“most women are selfish in bed”), fear-and-danger oriented (“never let your daughter go to frat parties”) moralistic (“porn is an evil intrusion into the sanctity of your relationship”), or just plain wrong (“sooner or later, menopause kills everyone’s sex life”).

The internet is the sex educator’s worst nightmare—a chance for everyone to reinforce everyone else’s ignorance. So this week, do yourself a favor—just ask yourself, “When it comes to sex, how do I know what I know? Why do I believe what I believe, anyway?”

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Indianapolis: Constitutionally, Three Strikes and They’re Out

America has triumphed over Indianapolis for the third time.

In 1984, religious fundamentalists on the Indianapolis City Council teamed up with phony “feminist” Catharine MacKinnon to outlaw adult entertainment in the city. It was bad enough that the law criminalized making or selling pornography (yes, it criminalized certain kinds of expression); even worse, if a woman felt emotionally or physically injured and believed that the offending man had seen porn, she could sue the porn’s maker or seller for damages.

It was a bizarre new way to think about human beings: if a man reads or views porn and then won’t hire a woman, or forces a woman into sex, the porn did it.

The law was repealed by a federal appeals court, which sung a beautiful Constitutional song:

“…No official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. Under the First Amendment the government must leave to the people the evaluation of ideas. A belief may be pernicious…and may [even] prevail. One of the things that separates our society from [totalitarianism] is our absolute right to propagate opinions that the government finds wrong or even hateful.”

A decade later, Indianapolis decided to squelch adults’ rights again, by banning swing clubs. Yes, it went after private citizens getting together in each others’ homes to have sex with each other. Two clubs folded; the third fought the ordinance, which the city defended. Many years and a million dollars in legal costs later, the law was overturned.

But the city of Indianapolis wasn’t finished trying to control adult sexuality. In 2005 it passed an ordinance creating the category of “adult entertainment business”—and created special rules they had to follow. First, they needed a special license (just to sell books, magazines, films, or vibrators). Second, they were prohibited from operating on Sundays, or after midnight.

If this doesn’t sound so terribly wrong, imagine if these restrictions were placed on any store selling books or magazines about racial equality, or about vaccination, or about home-schooling. Unthinkable, right?

Of course, government in America is prohibited from controlling how people express themselves—you know, freedom of the press, of assembly, of speech. So a city can’t legally say “we’re against dirty books” (or any other kind of books). Instead, like most cities ignoring the Constitution to regulate adult sexuality, Indianapolis claimed that it wasn’t trying to control certain kinds of books or ideas, but the “adverse secondary effects” supposedly occurring wherever these materials were sold (crime, littering, drug use, blight).

U.S. courts have been mixed in how much they required cities to prove that these “adverse secondary effects” really exist. For example, Phoenix was able to claim that swing clubs caused littering and public urination without discussing how much this occurred at local bars or 7-Elevens.

So it was a great day last week when the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Indianapolis was more interested in suppressing the expression of ideas it didn’t like than it was in the problems that such expression supposedly attracted.

Judge Easterbrook—the same poet who had educated MacKinnon and her small-town cult following 25 years previously—quoted American Bookseller Ass’n. v Hudnut:

“Above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message [or] its ideas…”

When this country stands by its radical rules of free expression and secular pluralism, you gotta love America. Happy Labor Day to gutsy attorneys Steven Shafron & Michael Murray.

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Ice Cream and Civil Rights

Both sides agree—the whole fight over same-gender marriage and other civil rights for gays is about the right to decide what’s normal.

Now there’s nothing more normal than ice cream, and there’s no ice cream more delicious than Ben & Jerry’s. The brand is playful, too, with flavors like Berried Treasure, Economic Crunch, and my favorite, Cherry Garcia.

Combining the two, the Vermont-based company is celebrating the legalization of same-gender marriage in Vermont by renaming their “Chubby Hubby” flavor “Hubby Hubby.”

The move is both subtle and direct. Subtle insofar as nobody’s yelling about anything. Direct in that when a kid reaches for a container of it, or a parent pays for it, “Hubby Hubby” is what it is. Two grooms, right there on the label.

That’s partly how this social justice issue is going to be resolved, once and for all. By people having everyday contact with gay doctors, gay swim coaches, gay neighbors. Gay relatives who are as boring as most relatives. And yes, gay-themed ice cream.

People who think of gay people as a separate species, as a group of sick or damned creatures who must be kept from infecting the rest of us, are fighting a losing battle. And they know it—they’re watching their straights-only world crumble piece by piece. On a good day I can really sympathize with their anxiety and sense of impending loss.

On other days I want to remind straight people that this is our fight, too. As long as anyone can be demonized or deprived of simple civil rights (the right to be a foster parent, the right to sit at a dying companion’s hospital bed) because of their sexuality, none of us is safe—no one who’s into bondage, or non-monogamy, or sex toys, or cybersex, to name a few. In other words, all of us.

Not every hubby—gay or straight—is yummy, but Ben & Jerry’s blend of peanut butter, pretzels, chocolate, and vanilla malt ice cream sure is. It’s double good—Hubby Hubby.

Ice cream. What could be more normal?

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