Sexual Freedom Summit

What was the first law about sex? And what’s going to be the last one?

(También en español) “The ‘raging frenzy’ of the sex drive, to use Plato’s phrase, has always defied control. However, that’s not to say that the Sumerians, Victorians, and every civilization in between and beyond have not tried, wielding their most formidable weapon: the law.” From Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire by Eric Berkowitz)

In 2007, while Eric Berkowitz was writing about legal history as a journalist, a friend posed the question, “What was the first law about sex?  Curious as always, Eric found that the first known laws, from Ancient Mesopotamia, were highly preoccupied with sex. He followed the trail and unearthed a bounty of details spanning millennia. He was intrigued, challenged, and entertained and now we all can be too with the 2012 much-lauded publication of Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire. Check out the book’s cool website.

Eric discovered that many early sex laws sprung from the belief that the sex lives of individuals could bring risk to everyone — one person’s pleasure could be society’s destruction. And this tradition of insinuating the government into our sex lives “for the good of all” carries forth to the present day, as any glance at a newspaper shows.

After more than a year of research in Los Angeles and three years  in Paris writing the book, Eric’s joyful fascination with the subject matter permeates every page-turning chapter. We are drawn into this fascination through his scholarly but entertaining and often heart-rending analysis of  the flashpoints of sex, law, and politics throughout history. Eric fills the void between dry legal academic offerings, which no one reads, and the generally research-free books in the open market.

This book is also a roadmap of how sex laws provide a window into how societies define themselves. It’s a fresh and completely different point of view that will stoke your own desire for sexual freedom, renewing your drive to eradicate bullied and needless laws about sex, particularly the more modern regressive laws against women and other sexual minorities.

Talking recently, Eric said he’s not against laws about sex. Rather, laws should concern restricting violence and intimidation. He advocates for a world where all other laws about sex, particularly punitive sex registries marking people for life, have become part of our own ancient history.

Eric will be participating in this weekend’s Sexual Freedom Summit (September 21-23, Silver Spring, MD, produced by  Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance), and is slated to be a part of the much anticipated Author’s Roundtable on Sunday. Look for more about Eric and his book here next week.

“Keep pushing, and push harder,” is how Eric summarizes his call to action aimed at committed sexual freedom advocates. “Keep the pressure up [to end these laws], and especially consider that those living in poverty are always the last to derive benefits from society’s advances in terms of access to healthcare and freedom from police bias.”

If you want to find out more about the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance and their views on sexual health education and other key issues of sexual freedom, such as sex work and reproductive justice, you can attend Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit in September.  Also, you can attend Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit (September 21-23), where Alison Gardner and Dan Massey, VenusPlusX’s founders who work closely throughout the year with Woodhull as members of its Advisory Council, will be presenting their workshop session, “Sacred Sexuality and Erotic Communion, the Human Experience.”

 

 

 

The Way We “Talk the Talk” Controls the Way We “Walk the Walk” PART 2

(También en español) In Part 1, I highlighted the first three of six sex narratives developed by Marty Klein, Ph.D., in his book, America’s War on Sex, and outlined in last year’s  State of Sexual Freedom Report, produced by the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance (Woodhull). Dr. Klein posits, “Sexual freedom expands or contracts within political, social, economic, cultural, and psychological contexts–some of them contradictory, some of them mutually reinforcing.”

A quick recap: a “narrative” is a coherent storyline that contains a set of assumptions that enables people to make meaning out of raw fact. So the way we talk and tell stories about sexual facts influences our perceptions about sex and the meaning we give to facts. The first three narratives discussed earlier are that “sex is dangerous,” “government should protect us from sexual danger,” and “certain people aren’t sexually normal, and certain kinds of sex aren’t normal; society needs to be protected from both.”

Now, for the fourth narrative, “morality can be measured by sexual criteria–the less sex, the less evident the sex, and the less adventurous the sex, the more ‘moral’ the person.” This type of judgment is superficial because it bases a person’s morality on perceived sexual practices, on their decision-making, willingness to take responsibility for their actions, honesty in dealing with others, or willingness to sacrifice for the common good, which are key concerns when dealing with morality. This narrative also fuels people’s anathema to sex workers, which lead to the development of “Prostitution-Free Zones” (PFZs) laws in D.C., which legalized sex discrimination and allowed cops to profile people as sex workers based on appearance and perceived sexuality and sexual activity in public areas. Not only were these zones a threat to civil rights, but also human rights, something Woodhull actively advocates and defends. (Through the work of Woodhull, VenusPlusX, and a dozen other advocacy organizations, city officials now conclude that PFZs are indeed unconstitutional, and trashed a bill that would have made them permanent and police are no longer enforcing them.)

The fifth narrative is “sexual expression is appropriate only for some people, only under certain conditions. Anything else is unauthorized and bad for society.” This is evident in the fact that Americans are still uncomfortable with the idea of teens, the elderly, the non-heterosexual, the physically or mentally handicapped, the incarcerated, and the unmarried being sexual. Moreover, some forms of sexual expression, such as BDSM, are often considered unauthorized for anyone, regardless of consent.

Last, “when it comes to civil rights, sexuality is different.” However, this notion is false because our sexual rights are part of our civil rights (as mentioned previously) and a part of our basic human rights.

All in all, these six narratives play a key component to our perceptions of teen sexuality and sex education. With regards to teens, American society generates narratives about teen sexuality being “dangerous,” in need of governmental control through abstinence-only education, and only normal if it is heteronormative — but teen sexuality still immoral by nature and in premarital sexual expression. These are extremely harmful narratives for American youth, and the effects play out in the high rates of unwanted teen pregnancy, STD/STI transmission, and HIV.

Therefore, everyone must recognize these narratives for what they are: stories, and not scientific fact. Once we understand that, we can start disavowing these narratives of sexuality that negatively influence our perceptions of sex, teen sexuality, and sexual rights and freedoms.

Marty Klein’s six narratives of sexuality have profound impact on American youth, impacting our attitudes about teen sexuality and sex education.

If you want to find out more about the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance and their views on sexual health education and other key issues of sexual freedom, such as sex work and reproductive justice, you can attend Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit in September.  Also, you can attend Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit (September 21-23), where Alison Gardner and Dan Massey, VenusPlusX’s founders who work closely throughout the year with Woodhull as members of its Advisory Council, will be presenting their workshop session, “Sacred Sexuality and Erotic Communion, the Human Experience.”

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The Way We “Talk the Talk” Controls the Way We “Walk the Walk” Part 1

(También en español)

“Sexual freedom expands or contracts within political, social, economic, cultural, and psychological contexts–some of them contradictory, some of them mutually reinforcing.” Marty Klein, Ph.D.

This is where the narratives of sexuality come into play: a “narrative” is a coherent storyline that contains a set of assumptions that enables people to make meaning out of raw fact.

For example, take the fact that there are 1 million abortions in American every year. Now, some people will argue that this fact as evidence of moral weakness and sexual promiscuity, while others interpret this fact as reflecting poor contraception use and a culture that discourages sexual planning. So basically, the way we talk and tell stories about sexual facts influences our perceptions about sex and the meaning we give to facts.

Marty Klein, psychologist and author of “America’s War on Sex,” which is outlined in the State of Sexual Freedom Report, produced by the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance (Woodhull). Klein states that there are six key narratives of sexuality that support the restriction of sexual rights and freedom by controlling the way we “walk the walk” when it comes to sex.

It is important to remember that the societal narratives and stories we tell about sexuality are not facts, but only meanings attached to the facts. It is our duty to decipher these negative narratives as to combat their control over sexual rights and freedoms.

First is the narrative “sex is dangerous.” When sex is discussed in American society, it is typically through negative topics such as unwanted pregnancy, sexual violence, sexual dysfunction, and STDs/HIV. This focus on the risks of sexual activity leaves little room for discussions about its benefits, advantages, or pleasures: a practice that is also pervasive in abstinence-only education.

However, when people only focus on the negatives of sex, they either become sex-phobic or are ill-prepared when they find themselves in a sexual situation.

A second  narrative is the “government should protect us from sexual danger,” including sexual violence, perceived sexual abnormality, and the evidence of others’ sexuality. This narrative puts demands on the government to criminalize various sexual behaviors, restrict sexual commerce, and control sexual expression in mass media. Building off of this is the third narrative, “certain people aren’t sexually normal, and certain kinds of sex aren’t normal; society needs to be protected from both.” Examples of both these narratives are evident in the debate about marriage equality, the fight for LGBTQ rights, and in the SlutWalk movement.

To read about three more narratives of sexuality and their impact on teen sexuality and sex education in America, please read Part 2.

If you want to find out more about the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance and their views on sexual rights/freedom and other key issues of sexual freedom, such as sex work and reproductive justice, you can attend Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit in September.  Also, you can attend Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit (September 21-23), where Alison Gardner and Dan Massey, VenusPlusX’s founders who work closely throughout the year with Woodhull as members of its Advisory Council, will be presenting their workshop session, “Sacred Sexuality and Erotic Communion, the Human Experience.”

“If there were only 11 people in the world”: Narratives of sexuality reveals that, even with the progressive movement for LGBTQ rights, Americans at large still see certain sexualities as “normal” (heterosexuality) while all others are “abnormal” (homosexuality).

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