Image of Mestra Jussara “The Sting” by Tommy Cuellar.
It’s really hard to write about the murder of Dr. Tiller and *not* call it the killing of a sex educator — he was an abortion doctor in Kansas, which meant he did a lot of educational work around sexuality through the course of his practice. I can say this unflinchingly because I work with people who work in women’s community health clinics here in our San Francisco sex-positive bubble. They end up doing what many consider the most basic sex ed — such that, when you find out what the face-to-face exchanges are like in healthcare settings around sexuality, it become awareness-raising even in the bubble. As in, you’re reminded there’s a bubble *in* the bubble here. It’s the same bubble that had Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly naming us with our San Francisco Values.
For this week’s column I wrote Killing A Doctor: The Sex Positive Bubble – Violet Blue: Why SF’s little sex positive salad bowl needs a good toss. It got slightly gutted for being too controversial. I wish SF Gate was a little less allergic to controversy, especially considering what other print counterparts are doing to survive. Here are the salient bits, for me, at least:
* Sex positivity needs a reality check, and this should be it. It’s grown arrogant.
* Most people who watch Fox News think it is actually news, fact, and truth. They could be educated otherwise if the media outlets behaved responsibly. This arrogance and irresponsibility in media outlets and the recklessness of journalists who will do anything to get — or CREATE — a story has real-world ramifications that are horrifying.
* The part that was cut from my column was a reminder of the recent writings of SF Weekly’s Matt Smith and his arrogant, reckless and harmful actions to get — or create — his similarly fuzzy news/opinion pieces about Kink.com (and myself, and the sex worker whose real name he published despite her express request for him not to do so). Incidentally, Smith, between his hit pieces on Kink and myself, attempted to contact former Kink.com employees asking to verify wild rumors (which were not true and rather funny), trying to dig up dirt about Kink operations, and even personal information about someone at Kink. I have copies of these emails. I have been informed by a source that Smith has recently requested more legal records on other porn companies in San Francisco. What’s up, Mr. Smith? In the background here, because the information that Smith wrote about me being a porn star was untrue — the Weekly itself had reported the true fact that I am *not* a porn performer long ago and he attributed a quote to me that I did not in fact say, what Smith wrote was not, in fact, protected speech. And SF Weekly / Village Voice Media got a letter from my lawyers. They had printed a correction prior to my letter but did not change or correct the online version of what Smith wrote. They did correct it *only* after getting the letter. Because they are douchebags. Meanwhile, think about the fact that a sex worker was outed, who likely has family and stalkers and might very well have had her life ruined.
Question: How far will someone like Smith or O’Reilly go — how far are they allowed to go, or be sloppy and harmfully reckless, because the topic is dirty nasty (read: sensationalized) sex — to get, or fabricate, their work?
* They cut one line, but it was important. In my original column, I linked to my SF Appeal story (and would have been happy to link to a more neutral third party reporting source had I been given the option). I also linked to the Wired piece pointing to the astounding increase in sex worker ads in the SF Weekly since Craigslist closed it’s “Erotic Services” as a point of hypocrisy. “And SF Weekly in San Francisco had 160 adult ads the week before Craigslist’s policy went into affect but clocked in with 910 ads last week.”
* SF Gate pulled my point about SF Weekly and Matt Smith, and the links to Wired and the Appeal to avoid controversy at the 10th hour. At the 11th hour, I sighed.
People who preach sex positivity get blinders when they think that if everyone was just sex-positive everything would be solvable. People who allow journalists or pundits to be inaccurate and willing to do anything to get a story (especially when it’s not clearly framed as opinion, like my column is) are wearing worse blinders. We end up on opposite sides of the issues, and neither side is safe, accurate or harmless.
Here’s a snip from the open-handed slap, Killing A Doctor:
(…) It’s those San Francisco Values I keep gyrating in your face that are supposed to include everyone; it’s fun until the rubbing gets raw one short minute after the next abortion doctor gets shot and we’re forced to acknowledge, the sex bubble. We’re floating in it.
San Francisco is a target for others’ sex-negativity because we deserve it for letting sex-positivity become a judgment — but also because we’ve earned it the hard way through the AIDS crisis, and because we’re tough enough to take it. I just wonder, are we tough enough to take a little self-criticism, too?
Good question. We have columnists notorious for challenging everything red-state flavored while bragging about their anal sex adventures and cockring exploits, all while waving Hitachi Magic Wands like the red seas are just gonna part and the sex-positive promised land will be waiting for everyone. They wager if everyone could just be as tolerant and sex positive as thou, all women would have orgasms with no problems whatsoever. Couples would never have mismatched sexual desires because everything would be all gushy and communicative and parity would be perfect.
In this land, teen pregnancy would always be a choice and never a tragedy because access to information and health services would make the confusing hell of hormones and teenagerdom a solvable problem; the great sex-positive Band-Aid. Sexuality, sexual science, and sex culture wouldn’t be pathologized. Everyone would be okay and happy to be “outed” for their private sexual practices! And no one would get an STD or STI or HIV because they’d just f-ing know better and everyone would make the right choices all the time.
Sometimes I just want to pop the bubble, and slap someone. Usually some sex writer or sex-positive activist sitting right next to me. Or Melissa Gira. That’s always a tough call.
How intolerant of me.
We’re a big target nationwide and worldwide for sexual permissiveness, but also inclined toward sexual smugness. San Francisco has the luxury of being the equivalent of a sexually sophisticated Snuggie, or a set of reverse-intolerant blinders. If you think I’ve been writing this column the whole time not thinking about those blinders and our little bubble with every keystroke, you can just leave another comment about my grammar or how I’m a “wanna-be whore” (a comment from my gay marriage column, thanks.) Because while you’re busy unleashing your demons in the comments you’re clearly not paying attention — and by doing so, you help create the sex-positive bubble you attack.
There’s a big difference between talking about something and normalizing uncomfortable subjects — and becoming unaware of what the rest of the world is experiencing. But in the past decade, perhaps as a reflex toward the last American administration’s war on accurate sex education, the notion of sex positivity dug so deep with its “do not judge” attitudes that it actually became incredibly judgmental toward — judgment. In the world of sexuality and human sexual coping skills that is nature’s way of saying: Boundaries. I have them. (…read more, sfgate.com)
Much appreciated, Violet. Unique communities of special virtue, whatever that virtue, which focus on heightening the experience and neglect to remain aware of and in touch with the rest of the world seem to me to be looking for abrupt wakeup calls, as discovered by the CheneyBush & the neocons gang and the Southern Strategy Republican party.
The same thing could happen to sex positive communities, as represented by those in SF and NYC, I suspect.
Take a drive across the country listening to AM (& FM to, these days) talk radio. It’s a window onto a very dark world, trying hard to extend its reach and influence. Eucators of all kinds should be aware of that world, and the need to work with those who live in daily contact with, but are not yet trapped in it.
Glad to read this, Violet. It resonates with something I wrote about 3 months ago:
“My own thinking about sex, both in my personal life, and as a filmmaker is tremendously influenced by my experiences as a surfer, rock climber, skier, and various other pleasures that reward responsible risk taking. Some of the most interesting literature in the mountaineering world is devoted to forensic examination of tragedies, which necessarily invite the reader/climber to reflect on their own values and form judgments.
“Judgment” is fairly nearly a dirty word in the sex-positive community, but it need not be. Good judgment is at least as fruitful a route to joy as anything else.
The rest here:
http://www.comstockfilms.com/blog/tony/2009/03/06/accentuate-the-positive-eliminate-the-negative/