Eric Rofes
Posted on 12/09/2006 9:17:32 PM PST by Joseph DeMaistre
We want to provoke discussion and encourage fresh thinking among activists about the relationship of our movement to sex. We believe recent sex-based attacks on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities have often been successful and we have spent a great deal of time studying their tactics and looking at the ways in which our communities have responded. The strategic use of sensationalistic accounts of sex seems to initiate a cycle of panic and controversy, call up communal embarrassment and shame, and initiate or deepen internal community divisions.
This position paper was drafted with input from many colleagues. Much of it emerged from discussions in 1995 and 1996 within San Francisco's Sex/Politics Study Group, a group engaged in ongoing analysis/activism focused on the Right's strategic use of sex and sexual identity to undermine full participation by LGBT communities in American democracy.
While this paper focuses on attacks on sex spearheaded by the Religious Right, we are aware that there are additional forces which use sex to attack LGBT communities, and that the Left has often held a problematic relationship to matters of sex, sexual minorities, and sexual subcultures within LGBT communities. Likewise, we want to acknowledge three particular areas of special concern within any discussion of sex in our communities:
(1) There are historical differences in the ways in which gay male communities and lesbian communities have addressed questions of sex and sexuality related, in part, to the different ways in which men and women are socialized and the long history of sexual violence against girls and women. While neither gay men or lesbians are of one mind on sexual matters, at times sex controversies have divided our movement pretty much along gender lines. At the same time, both lesbian and gay male communities have sustained long term internal battles about the position of sex in the movement. These matters have often involved specific gay male subcultures and sexual spaces such as debates over sex in parks, bathhouses and sex clubs, and leather bars. Some lesbian leaders have decried the lack of support gay men have provided to efforts to stop violence against women and limited awareness by gay men concerning ways in which sexual freedom efforts might relate to lesbians and bisexual women. More recently, attempts to ignite lesbian outrage about continuing incidents of unprotected sex among gay men, have brought to the public eye the broad diversity of perspectives held by lesbians.
(2) Discussions of sex-based attacks on LGBT communities frequently occur without any acknowledgement that parallel attacks are made on communities of color and that people of color in the United States are sexualized (and occasionally de-sexualized) as part of a broad racist strategy. This means that LGBT people of color may occupy a particularly complicated position in sex debates within our communities. LGBT people of color whose lives are based in communities of color have often challenged white lesbians and gay men's articulation of sexual issues as culturally biased and of limited value outside white gay communities. The failure of gay male communities to address issues of race-based objectification, racist practices among specific sexual subcultures, and ways in which HIV has impacted gay men of color disproportionately, creates conditions that make unified response to sex-based attacks on gay communities problematic. Any discussion of sex-based attacks on LGBT communities must consider the centrality of race and racism to the position of sex in America.
(3) The HIV/AIDS epidemic has introduced a range of complicated and highly-charged issues into discussions of sex in LGBT communities and the linkage of gay sexuality to disease and death has been a primary tactic utilized by the Right in their efforts to demonize LGBT people. Within gay male communities, issues related to the sex lives of HIV+ people, safe sex, and new HIV infections continue to cause debate and divisions related to distinct perspectives on issues of sexual freedom, communal responsibility, and the health of the community. At the same time, forces outside our communities continue to demonize HIV+ people, particularly African-American and Latino men and women, injection drug users, youth of color, and gay and bisexual men, and project a range of social ills onto them.
What Does the Right's Attack on Sex Look Like?
Sex and sexual identity have been used repeatedly as part of a broad, multi-pronged strategy of the Right involving state and city initiatives, the national debate on full inclusion in the military, discussions of school curricula and library censorship, campaigns for public office of closeted and openly LGBT candidates, policy initiatives focused on HIV/AIDS, and debates focused on multiculturalism in a variety of American institutions.
Activists may confront sex issues in a wide variety of circumstances:
· During a public debate on an anti-gay state ballot measure, a pro-initiative spokesperson begins citing gay men's "promiscuity," and lists statistics on the number of sex partners attributed to gay and bisexual men in specific surveys.
· Videotapes of footage of Pride festivities and marches on Washington are circulated widely among members of a PTA when the school district is discussing a new multicultural family curriculum including gay/lesbian families. The film includes extensive visuals of sadomasochists, transgender people, and topless lesbians.
· On a national radio show, a noted anti-gay minister begins discussing what he claims are "common" gay male sexual practices: bestiality, bondage, whipping, fisting, urination, and scat. He provides "statistical information" citing these activities' popularity among gay men.
It is possible to identify several common features of these attacks on sex by the Right:
· Sensationalized language and politicized rhetoric displace thoughtful and balanced articulation of sex. Essentially, sex is demonized for political purposes.
· Flashpoints and buzzwords are thrown about strategically and accrue tremendous moral power: words such as "promiscuity," "sexual predators," "bizarre sexual practices," and "brazenly flouting community norms."
Explicit sexual language is used for its shock value.
· So-called "facts" are taken out of context and marshaled to support narrow arguments. Surveys which make no claim to being representative are cited as representative of entire populations.
· Sex acts are removed from any larger cultural and social context and stripped of significance and meaning. Sex becomes a "thing" that is considered repulsive and revolting.
Why Have These Attacks on Sex Been Successful?
When any form of non-hegemonic erotic activity enters the public arena, a vast, unaddressed volume of cultural anxiety about sex floods into the discussion. Because many Americans neither engage in thoughtful discussion of sex, nor probe the meaning of sexual desire with others, when anything resembling sex appears in the mass media or popular culture, it becomes a screen onto which a wide range of issues are projected. Homosexuality itself serves this function for many Americans.
LGBT communities are among several marginalized groups which are demonized as sexually insatiable, bizarre, and costly to society due to its sexual excesses. By engaging in sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage, procreative needs, and white, middle-class cultures, a variety of groups become a magnet attracting intense, obsessive fear about the entire range of sexual possibilities. Because LGBT communities acknowledge sex as part of our lives and identities--and because the nation's power bases do not--we become seen entirely as creatures of sex.
What Has Typical LGBT Response Been to Sex-Baiting?
Community organizers and activists, with the best of intents, usually have responded to sex-based attracts with the following tactics:
· We lie. "That's not true. Gay men are no more promiscuous than heterosexual men."
· We avoid. We change the subject. "That's not the point. We aren't talking about sex here. We are talking about people's civil rights."
· We de-sex gay issues. "We are talking here about sexual orientation, not sex. We believe in the right to privacy, too!"
· We distance ourselves personally. "Our community allows for a great deal of diversity. Though I personally would never participate in SM, and don't agree with it, I support the rights of consenting adults to SM."
· We create parallels with hetero-cultures. "You complain about nudity at Gay Pride parades, but just look at Mardi Gras in New Orleans and all those straight men yanking out their genitals!"
· We expunge groups from our concept of community. "Those people aren't a part of the gay community in this city. They aren't considered part of the mainstream of community life."
The result of most of our responses to sex-baiting is that thoughtful, probing community discussion of sex issues is muzzled or relegated to the fringes. We allow ourselves to be put on the defensive and experience a welling-up of sexual shame that serves to paralyze, divide, and shut down dialogue.
Most of our responses double-back against us because they accept the coded language of the Right, integrate it into our own articulation of sex, and spit it back at them. We allow them to set the terms of the debate. The problem with this is their coded language encapsulates specific values and beliefs about sex. When we accept and use their language, we simultaneously accept the values. Hence the assumptions of the Right not only go unchallenged, but the debate process reifies anti-sex values. Some examples:
· During the military inclusion debates, activists were put in the position of responding to the assertion that employees of the Navy--many of them young men and women--were being talked with about homosexual sex as part of diversity training sessions. Our response was often:
(a) "That's not true. They are being talked with about sexual orientation, not about sex. We wouldn't talk about sex. We believe in privacy too."
(b) "What's the big deal? You talk about hetero-sex all the time? We've got to hear about your wives and husbands, marriages and divorces."
Response (a) supports the assumptions that talking about sex under these circumstances is bad and that sex should be kept private and out of public discussion. Response (b) accepts the code (talking about marriage, husbands, or gayness is the same as talking sex) and fails to challenge the values that underpin it: that there's something wrong or unpleasant about talking sex with military personnel.
· After LGBT pride marches, the Right goes on the attack, insisting that "Gays are allowed special rights: You parade around naked, perform lewd acts, and stop traffic." This occurred dramatically in Boston several years ago when the Lesbian Avengers' contingent included a bed on wheels and women playfully simulating sex. Our response is often:
(a) "I can't defend those people parading naked. I think they should be kicked out of the march!"
(b) "That's not true. No one was parading naked or performing sex acts. You are lying!"
(c) "Come on! Look at Mardi Gras! All those lewd straight guys. Give us a break!"
Response (a) divides the community and accepts the assumption that nudity is wrong and should be halted in all public venues. Response (b) is often an attempt to lie or stretch facts, but also fails to challenge the assumption that if anyone had been nude, that there is something terrible going on. And response (c) also fails to challenge this assumption.
· In a variety of settings, children are used strategically as a symbol of innocence violated. How often do we hear, "The gay agenda is out there to recruit children and to expose them to abusers, sex perverts, and homosexuals"? We may respond by saying:
(a) "That's not true! We believe children should be protected and would never condone anyone talking with children about sex."
(b) "We are neither abusers nor sex perverts and we don't support those kind of people. We are simply people who love people of the same sex."
(c) "Most child abuse goes on by heterosexual male relatives. If we want to protect children, we need to protect them from their fathers, brothers, and uncles."
Again, these responses accept the use of the child as a symbol in this political war and strengthen the symbolic use of the child as innocent, needing protection, and separate from anything which can be construed as sexuality. The discussion never includes ideas such as: (a) it may be good for children to talk about sex; (b) children might be sexual beings and experience authentic questions about sex issues at different developmental stages; (c) children may need information and support to be able to protect themselves from abuse or exploitation.
What Are Alternative Ways We Might Respond?
The Right's attack on sex should be expected to continue. It has succeeded in raising money, winning votes, and dividing communities. It has proved to be an easy wedge during high-tension campaigns that can be used to create major controversy and divide progressives, split campaigns into separate organizations, and deflect energy which would instead be focused on fighting the Right. By introducing sex into the debate, then sitting back and watching our response, the Right is able to reframe the central questions of the debate and substitute sensationalism, fear, and demonization for thoughtful discussion. They successfully rip apart queer communities by introducing sex into the debate.
We present a number of alternatives for consideration:
(1) The Right's sex-baiting has effectively shut down dialogue on sex issues within many communities. We need just the opposite: more authentic discussion about the diverse sexual experiences within our communities. A series of discussions might be initiated among organizers which speaks specifically to the reality of sex in individual lives and in the lives of various progressive communities. People with diverse experiences (monogamous and open relationships, interest in specific acts, understandings of sexual meanings) might dialogue with one another and focus on topics such as:
· What does sex mean to us and how do we experience it?
· What role do race, gender, sexual orientation, age, class, and ability play in our sex lives?
· How do we react to people who organize their sex and relationships differently than we do? What are the sources of these reactions?
· Do we believe all Americans need to experience sex in similar ways?
(2) Activists might participate in specific trainings designed to reframe sex issues and promote long-term discussion of sex within the community. These trainings might include:
· Media training to assist us with responses to anti-sex attacks during interviews, debates, and public hearings.
· An examination of democratic values and their relationship to sexual behavior and varying cultural expressions of sex and desire.
· Work that brings organizers to a certain comfort level concerning grappling with sexual diversity within campaigns.
(3) Allies must be sought from inside and outside LGBT communities.
Some communities and groups have done a great deal of work discussing sex issues and they should be encouraged to participate in communal dialogues and share their experiences with dealing with sex issues in the political arena.
Additional ideas and new thinking are needed. What is the best way to respond to sex-based attacks that supports a long-term commitment to de-stigmatizing sex and promoting participatory democracy? Which responses serve short-term needs but violate our long-term vision?
At the most fundamental level, each of us needs to be aware of our emotional, intellectual, and political response to sex issues when they arise. Why do they become such a big deal in the political arena? What role do we want sex issues to play in the continuing life of our movements? Why are these issues able to push buttons that few other matters can touch? And what can we do to get to a place of greater comfort and sounder strategy?
Ultimately, do we maintain a vision for LGBT and other communities that demands people adhere to rigid norms of sexual behavior and a single model of relationships? Or do we believe our nation is a democracy and that people have the right to organize their sex and relationships in the ways they choose? Do we have a pluralistic "big tent" vision of LGBT communities that welcomes the monogamous and the polyamorous, the leather and vanilla folk, the coupled and those who are single, celibate, in triads, or create other meaningful models of organizing their relationships.
Please contact if you are interested in reprinting or distributing this position paper.
I love the candor in this line.
Thanks, now I know who was keeping me from it.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Liberals worship the phallus like the pagans of ol'.
I am a conservative, and I do not give a damn what people do in the privacy of their home.
I simply do not believe homosexual unions should be granted the same status in government and society as heterosexual unions.
How damned complicated is that?
How moronic. The left has done more to ruin sex (and every other good thing in life) than the right could ever dream of.
Is there anything more important to these people than what they stick wherever they stick it?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Know your enemy.
Yeah. Aren't there starving people out there, or whales in need of rescue? (sarcasm)
Know your enemy, and throw their garbage back in their faces.
Wait till they find out what Islam's take on their "sex vision" is...
Let me guess. Mitt Romney wrote this...
There is nothing wrong with being judgemental. A society that operates without social judgement has no moral compass.
When I say I don't care, it doesn't mean I don't pass judgement on it. I feel the same as you. But if I don't have to see it, hear about it and have it put forth as a valid "lifestyle" in my school or my kid's school or have it affect me in any way, I am not interested in how they want to spend their time.
Once they bring it into the public forum, that is where I take a stand.
The faculty and staff of the School of Education at Humboldt State University mourn the loss of our beloved friend and colleague, Dr. Eric Rofes, who died on June 26, 2006.
Eric Rofes, activist, educator and author of influential books on AIDS and gay culture "Dry Bones Breathe" and "Reviving the Tribe," died Monday in Provincetown, Mass., where he was working on a writing project.
Friends said the cause of death was an apparent heart attack; an autopsy is pending. Rofes, 51, lived in Arcata, Calif., and San Francisco. He is survived by his longtime partner, Crispin Hollings.
An educator by profession, Rofes was a sixth-grade teacher in the 1970s, before becoming editor of the Gay Community News in Boston, the only LGBT newsweekly at the time. He served as director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in the 1980s, then became executive director of the Shanti Project, San Francisco's pioneering housing organization for people with HIV/AIDS.
After receiving his Ph.D. in social and cultural studies from the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Education, Rofes became an associate professor of education at Humboldt State University in Arcata, where he served until his death. In the summer of 1999, he convened the Boulder Gay Men's Health Summit, the first gathering of its kind.
Of Rofes' 12 books, the two best-known were provocative looks at gay male culture in the face of the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic. "Reviving the Tribe" focused on the post-traumatic stress of gay men who suffered catastrophic losses from AIDS and the necessity of remembering and mourning those who died. "Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Subcultures" stated that, for most gay men in the United States, AIDS was no longer an emergency and that a "crisis mentality" was no longer useful. The books were hailed by critics for their sociopolitical analysis mixed with intensely personal ruminations on sex, loss and community.
More...
http://tinyurl.com/t37kt
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