Small signs of a big change.

I went out for some salad for lunch today and passed the corner gas station. It is a rather busy intersection of two well-traveled streets and some of the young people from the local high school were doing a fund-raising car wash there.

What made me think was how it was being promoted. Three high school boys in very skimpy Speedo-style swim suits, and nothing else, were waving signs at passing cars. This is actually the second time I've seen that taking place here.

Consider some other facts, this is a very conservative area. There are a huge number of Mormons in the area and most the non-Mormon churches are made up of evangelicals and fundamentalists. The elected officials are all pretty much Republicans. But there, on the street corner was the prime of their young males flashing bulging and brief swimsuits at passing drivers to entice them to get their car washed. It isn't like there is even much of a gay presence here. The city has one of the highest percentages in the country of households made up of male-female couples with children/

And I doubt the young men were consciously flouting their family jewels in order to attract gay drivers. They were just doing for the attention and really thought nothing of the display of flesh—which, perhaps, is how it should be.

I believe that we are in the midst of a new sexual revolution, one that is almost as radical as what we witnessed in the 60s and one I suspect will be more permanent. To a degree this is exhibited by body image.

Let me describe the 60s, at least in regards to body image. Jeans were tight, very tight, displaying every curve and bulge. Shirts were tight. Come summer there were cut-off jeans, cut off only centimeters below illegality, meaning that even a slight breeze could set things a swinging. Skirts were short as well, very short.

Women starting wearing bikinis that were barely sufficient to keep them from being arrested. Of course, as topless sunbathing became somewhat popular many of them were arrested. For the men Speedos became popular—just remember the famous Mark Spitz photo from the Olympics, gold medals dangling on a bare chested Spitz clad only in a Speedo. At my single-sex school they didn't even bother with swimsuits at all. There was a more relaxed attitude toward sexuality and nudity across the board.


Then came the backlash, the return to conservatism. Those scanty cut-off jeans disappeared and shorts barely qualified as shorts at all, often going from the waist to a a few inches above the ankle. And the fashion became loose, baggy clothes that destroyed any view of bodily shapes. Swim suits went from Speedos to something more akin to what Buster Keaton wore in the silent films. And I dare say that if a school had nude swimming the officials would have been arrested as sex offenders and a lynch mob would have been awaiting them at the trial.

While there were aspects of the sexual revolution of the 60s that were wrong much of it was actually good, in my opinion. My complaint wasn't the change in attitudes but the almost recklessness that seemed to accompany it. Had all the basic values changed, but individuals had a more realistic attitude toward risks and responsibility and it would clearly have entirely postive.


Interestingly these fashion indicators of inner sexual values seemed worldwide. The shift took place everywhere though not to the same degree as in the US. I was reading reports that indicated kids in school gym classes refused to disrobe at all to change into gym gear. They would wear it under their street clothes and then put their clothes on over the sweaty gear at the end. The few who did shower tended to do so with the gym gear still on. In some ways the 50s were more sexually liberated. Oddly there was a certain hypocrisy. Attitudes about the body became negative but teen pregnancy, VD rates, etc., were up. The conservative backlash was only in appearance and not so much in behaviour.


Then the new sexual revolution comes along. Values start to shift back toward a positive body image while behaviour became more conservative—or to be precise, more risk aversive.

I first started wondering if this was happening on a visit to Zagreb. For the first time, in a very long time, I saw young people in tight jeans and tight shirts, proud to show off their bodies. I wondered if this was some time-wrap anomoly with Croatia just leaping into the 60s before joing the rest of the world. But apparently it was the first crest of a series of waves that changed fashion.

So-called skinny jeans made a come back. Now I regularly see teens in tight jeans and tight shirts once again. Teenage fashion became rather explicitly sexual. The more adrogenous look of the 60s also reappeared with the rise of "emo" youth culture.

Sex positive attitudes were rampant but not flaunted. It was a quiet revolution, one barely noticed by the conservatie older generations. These were kids who saw nothing wrong with nudity, nothing wrong with sex, were perfectly fine with gay friends. Even as the number of teenage pregnancies declined, usually an indication of conservative trends, attitudes toward premarital sex and homosexuality liberalized considerably.

Then we started learning about teen sexual subcultures. Raised in the era of the internet many teens were postponing sexual intimacy but not sexuality. Social networking sites became sexual meeting places where young people would show their budding sexuality to one another in very explicit ways without ever meeting. Sexting suddenly was in the news and what was horrifying to conservatives was that sexting was relatively common among the young. CBS said it "is not unusual" for teens to sext and that "20 percent admit to participating in sexting." One report I read said that among younger teens 30 percent did this and close to 40 percent of all teens say they posted sexually explicit messages.

Apparently the shift in teen sexual values was toward liberal attitudes but risk-aversive behaviour. The paranoid conservative backlash of the 80s, however, created a minefield for these young people. Much of their sexual activity has been criminalized and most young people don't know it. So teens are now routinely caught up in the inconsistent, often irrational web of sex offender laws. It isn't quite right to say teens were acting conservative. While they would avoid risky sex they many were putting sex shows on over the internet for other teens to watch and enjoy.


So what happened? I can only give a theory: the internet happened. And I'm not at all convinced that what happened wasn't mostly good. Previous generations attempted to control teenage sexuality by denying them access to information and to one another. But the internet gives access to anything anyone wants at the push of a button.

Teens today consume sexual explicit material at higher rates than anytime in history and mostly without spending a dime on it. They don't even have economic restraints. As the Trekkie Monster puppet in the hit show Avenue Q sings: the internet is for porn. And many young people think so.

The easy of on-line sexuality is precisely one reason so many teens feel comfortable sexting. Many know that these images are not easily constrained once set free in the winds of the world wide web—but they don't parrticularly care either. For them the main negative results are those inflicted on them by horrified adults not by the actions themselves.

So we have young people performing masturbatory shows, for free or for pay, on the internet who are bragging about being virgins. It all seems so normal for them, rampant sexual liberalization mixed with certain rather conservative values: relishing their new found sexuality while admiting they are virgins. None of this seems out of place to young people today.

They have come to enjoy their own sexuality, whatever it is. We are witnessing gay teens coming out of the closet at increasingly younger ages. It is not even unheard of for grade school students to be dating students of the same sex. In the high schools there are thousands of gay/straight culbs for students. And numerous reports have been published of the higher percentage of young straight men who see nothing wrong with having gay sex on film to earn cash. One woman went to an adult video award show for gay erotica where she found herself being hit on by one performer from gay porn. She lamented:

I found myself shocked at a gay-porn event—no minor thing, that—by being on the receiving end of classic, aggressive, straight-male predatory behavior. "A womanizer at the GayVN's!" I thought. How crass, how inappropriate—how interesting for my first encounter with a gay-for-pay performer.

The performer not only had a girlfriend who was perfectly fine with his occupation but was a father as well. This is not considered uncommon these days. It may be only my imagination but more and more I see teens describing themselves as bisexual than gay or straight.

Teens today are sexualy liberal and sexually conservative all at the same time—that is the sort of supposed paradox that sets my heart atwitter. One study found that today's teens are quite casual about oral sex, while older generations thought it more intimate. So for many teens there is a technical virginity. They have not had vaginal sex, they may have oral sex, they may have sex with both genders, they may masturbate over the internet for public viewing and send sexual photos of themselves around but they are holding off on vaginal sex, avoiding the risk of pregnancy. One-fourth of teens, who have not had intercourse, have had oral sex. And they consider themselves virgins. They are saving intercourse for serious relationships but they are far from abstaining along the way.

I am fairly confident that the Internet caused this trend. Teens simply could find information about sex quite easily and they went looking for it. I am sure the number of teens who look for porn online is much greater than the percentage who admit it. Many will pretend they accidentally stumbled on it. But in truth, many axiously looked for it and were thrilled to find.

They have fewer questions about their sexual orientation because they know precisely what turns them on, even if they are still virgins. Boys who regularly masturbate to all-male erotica may not be sexual experienced but they know their own orientation fairly well. And many teens, who are predominantly straight still find gay porn erotic enough to call themselves "bicurious." At one time you could ask: How do you know you are gay if you never had sex? Today the kids can answer. No, they never had actual sex, but they have beein in video chats exploring their bodies with other males. Similarly many straight teens are doing the same, having plenty of sexual experience yet never actually losing their virginity. And many of the straight boys doing this announce they don't mind if other males watch, but they only want to verbally interact with females. Surely these are attitudes that would baffle most their elders.

And, since they have seen all of this online, fairly regularly, for just about as long as they can remember, none of it particuarly bothers them. The result is a sexually liberal attitude. Yet, they have also learned about risk and the result is a more sexual conservative behaviour when it comes to high risk intercourse. But lower risk oral sex and online sex is perfectly fine with them. If you think about it dispassionately you will see it is really a rather sensible position. I suspect there is a lot of sexual laissez faire among teens but with an emphasis on responsibility and risk aversion.

A partial listing of our material on teens, sex offending, and the infamous registries.

The recent post on teen sex offenders riled up a lot of people. Most people were horrified at what is going on. A substantial minority, however, were trying hard to justify these bad laws. Many simply claim that there is no evidence that kids are being penalized for natural, sexual activity between teens.

Their argument, limited as it was, claimed that I didn’t offer proof. That they were reading what I call my “summation to the jury” made no difference to them. They ignored reams of evidence posted on this blog merely because it wasn’t handed to them on a silver platter with the summation. But that summation of the situation, was long enough. Trying to make it a definitive discussion of the issue simply makes no sense. And readers, who were too lazy to check what else was published on the matter, really shouldn’t condemn an author because of their own failure to research the matter more thoroughly.

The purpose of this posting is merely to list the dozens of articles that tackled this topic in various ways. I will list them in categories with links. Those people who pretend that every kid on the sex offender’s registries deserves his fate are not just ignorant of the facts, but intentionally ignorant. The facts are readily available and documentation exists showing this to be a widespread problem. I can understand some of this willful blindness. If you can convince yourself that the vast majority of kids on these registries is guilty of some horrific crime, it makes life easier. You can sleep better pretending things are fine. The alternative is too upsetting for some people so they pretend.

Here are the numerous articles that make up my “evidence to the jury.” The “summation” ought to be read in light of the evidence to be properly assessed.

False Accusations

Teenage boy false accused of sexual molestation spends, is raped in prison, attacked and abused. After spending 21 years in prison he is released as innocent. Yep, they are all guilty, aren’t they


Kids and Porn

Two 11-year-old boys face felony charges for using a school computer to find porn and showing their friends. Conviction could mean sex offender list.


Teacher investigates teens for “sexting.” He confiscates one image, that showed nothing actually, and is then arrested and prosecuted as a child pornographer.

General Discussion

A look at the trend in criminalizing teenage sexuality.


Sex Offender List

How the lists are used to force “offenders” into being homeless and how that lead to one man freezing to death because he was banned from having a house.

A man steals a credit card and ends up on the sex offender registry as a result.

A high school girl gives a classmate a blow job. Years later she is still on the sex offender’s registry.

A woman is groped by a man. She tells him off. He gets worried she will report him so he reports her saying she groped him. She ends up on sex offender’s list.

Indiana considers law that makes selling “obscene” material an reason for being put on the sex offender’s list. Two more cases of voluntary teen sexuality leads to life on the sex offender’s list.

Girls who whistled at some men face potential criminal action. England considers laws that would qualify said whistlers for the sex offender’s registry.

A extremely mature looking, underage girl, lies about her age. Claims to be a divorced adult tricks two men into having sex with her as an adult. Her family reports the men who are now registered sex offenders even though the girl clearly appeared to be in her 20s and admits lying about her age.

Teen boy ends up on sex offender list for consensual sex with date. Female youth worker hugs boy. Because the hug meant her breasts touch him she is arrested and put on the sex offender’s list.

A young mother breast feeds her baby. A photo of this is taken by her husband. They are arrested for child pornography and forced into sex offender therapy.

Boys play “slapping” game at school, arrested for sexual harassment and jailed. The kids all thought it was a game but the State thought otherwise. More here.

Racy photos from an Abercrombie & Fitch ad campaign gets store raided for child pornography.

Sex offender registries make reoffending more likely, thus leading to more crimes, not less. Individuals on said list include people arrested for gay sex (before it was legal), and a prisoner who masturbated in his own cell. Numerous cases itemized here.

Sex Offender Registries used by vigilantes to find victims to murder.

Teens go on sex offender list for consenting sex. One young man, added to the list for sex with his girlfriend, is murdered by a vigilante who used the sex offender’s list to find his victim.

Teenage boys finds computer controlled by malware, faces prosecution as a sex offender. The Matt Bandy case. More here, here, here, here and here.

Teenage boy faces sex offender list for streaking a school event.

Priest jogs around track in the nude, in the middle of the night, by himself. Police drive by, notice him, arrest him and he’s now a sex offender.

Man in jail cell masturbates and charged as a sex offender for doing so.

Two kids have consensual sex with each other. Both are arrested for "molesting" the other.

Two girls arrested for molesting themselves.

Four-year-old's hug deemed sexual harassment.

Sexting

Six teens are arrested in Pennsylvania as “child pornographers” for images of themselves. One school based police officer claims half to 2/3rds of teens have such images. These teens, when convicted end up on the sex offender registries.

A survey of American teens shows that about one in five are legally guilty of violating child porn laws because of sexting. All these kids qualify as sex offenders no matter where they live.

Teens have sex in a car and use cell phone to record it for 30 seconds (not much was actual shown). The police get wind of it and the teens are arrested and charged with child pornography. That would make them sex offenders.

A teenage girl photographs herself nude and sends the photo to a teenage boy. The boy is arrested on child porn charges.

A 15-year-old girl in Ohio takes a photo of herself nude. She is arrested as a child pornographer for “illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material”. She faces the sex registry as a result.

Police imply that all students at one local high school are guilty of sex offenses for sexting or possessing said images.

Sex Panics and Kids

Study shows that few kids receive sexual solicitations on-line and most who do are older teens who used the Internet to look for sexual partners.

Even looking in the direction of children is deemed by some to be a perversion requiring regulation and police intervention.

Two elderly women want to take photos of children playing and are harassed by the police as potential pedophiles.

Sarah Palin’s daughter was pregnant and her boyfriend was the father. No charges in Alaska, but he would have faced sex charges in numerous other states and been subjected to the sex registry for it.

A 4-year-old boy hugged a teacher and is thrown out of school for sexual harassment. Another school disciplines two girls who hugged each other, calling it “inappropriate” touch.

Police officer humiliates teen girls in front of school to prove the internet is a dangerous place for kids. Proves cops are dangerous to kids as well.

Man is prosecuted for taking photos of a cheerleaders at a public exhibition. Police claim it is child pornography even if the girls are dressed. Man stupidly accepts plea bargain.

A small boy is listed for sexual harassment because he slapped another student’s butt. The police were called by the school for the offense. Hundreds of kids are so accused each year.

School covers faces of all students in on-line photos to “protect” them from imagined predators.

Ten-year-0ld suspended for asking for hug.

Kids and internet porn, are they accidentally viewing it, or looking for it.

Teacher loses control of classroom computer and arrested as sex offender. More here and here.

Five-year-old suspended for sexual harassment.

Erotophobia

How our culture cultivates an anti-sexual attitude.

Politicians want to add "elderly" to laws on child pornography making photos of old people a sex crime.

Selling dildos a sex offense. And here, here and here.

Male dancers (clothed) arrested for pelvic thrust.

The legal assault on teens today.

One of the consequences of infantilizing teenagers is the current craziness of police arresting them as “sex offenders” because they are sexually active, in spite of moralistic legislation to the contrary. I’m not talking about rapists or teens attacking small children; I’m talking about teens doing what teens have done for generations.

Early in the last century an idea was popularized: teens were classified as “adolescents,” not as adults, as had previously been the case. As Dr. Robert Epstein has shown, in his convincing book, The Case Against Adolescence, the result of this infantilization has been almost wholly negative. We segmented teens away from adults, meaning their socialization into the adult world is delayed by years. This age compartmentalization continues until they graduate college, or graduate school. Often this results in physically mature adults acting emotionally like children much of the time. Since their socialization was continually in the hands of their peers they didn’t experience anything else.

In the past, many teens entered the workforce and quickly interacted with adults of all ages and ranks. Instead of being surrounded by their peers they were surrounded by experienced adults who were capable, through instruction and example, to show them how responsible, mature adults behave. It doesn’t take much reading of history to discover that teens of previous centuries, who accomplished great things, never realized they were supposed to act just like “big children.”

Consider the case of the great Revolutionary War hero and classical liberal, the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette, at 14, was engaged to his future wife, then 12. Two years later they married. As a wedding gift the 16-year-old was made a captain, and given command of a company in the Nailles Dragoons when he turned eighteen, a command he accepted. At about this time Lafayette also became a father. Instilled with a belief in radical liberalism, Lafayette recruited some friends and the band headed to the American colonies to help end the rule of the British monarchy. At 19 he was made a Major General by the American forces. Under today’s laws General Lafayette would have been arrested after his engagement as a sex offender, given the age of his wife.

For the record, Lafayette’s wife, Adrienne, was also a liberal and once wrote that she considered the term “fanatic for liberty” to be a compliment. When, some years later, her husband was captured in battle by the Austrians she travelled to Austria so she could be imprisoned with him, that lasted two years until his release. She remained with her husband until her death in 1807. Apparently she never realized she was a “victim” and her husband a “perpetrator.”

Certainly it was widely expected for millenniums, that teens would act like adults, not like children and most certainly, not like some half-adult, half-child. And, for the most part, they did. But American culture began changing that, and from America the new theory spread. Two forces, I believe, were responsible for the shift. First, trade unions were seeking excuses to limit the supply of workers to artificially drive up wages. Teens, who often worked for lower wages because they were initially less productive, were a prime target for exclusion.

Secondly, the government education system continued to expand. The increase in the number of teachers created a special interest group that had strong incentives to expand schooling as much as possible. Mandatory attendance laws were passed and applied to older and older children as time went by. Each expansion of the state education system only increased the lobby that was financially rewarded for expanding the system even further.

A third force also existed, but was mainly psychological. As the birth rate declined the numbers of children per family also declined. Parents became more reluctant to “let go” of the older child, especially if he/she were the only child. Previously, with large families, when the older child left to find his fortune, or to start his own family, his parents still had children at home to care for. The emotional stress of his departure was made easier because of this. But as the numbers of children declined the parental level of emotional investment in each remaining child escalated, making parents more and more reluctant to admit their children into adulthood. Today, with birth rates quite low, by historical levels, we now witness children continuing to remain with their parents, thus never quite achieving full adulthood themselves, into their twenties and thirties.

To complicate matters even further the physical age of sexual maturation has been declining. Puberty today, arrives earlier. As humans have become wealthier and healthier the body has responded by entering puberty earlier. What is physically normal for a 14-year-old today might well be normal for a 16-year-old a century or two ago.

Today, we have millions of sexually mature teens that are told that they must continue to behave as if they are prepubescent. In addition, our culture now delays their marriages as long as possible ,while our education system indoctrinates them with the idea that they must be sexually abstinent until they marry. Precisely at the time where their hormonal urges are highest, our culture is telling them to delay sexual activity for another decade or more! It is no surprise that a high percentage of teens simply aren’t going along with that idea.

At least in previous centuries sexually active teens could confine their activities to marriage, but that option is increasingly being denied them. Age of consent for marriage has escalated in the States, as the age of sexual maturity has declined. Socially sanctioned “sexual outlets” were increasingly closed to teens. At the same time adults “liberated” themselves from many of the sexual rules of the past. Few people today would condemn single adults for being sexually active. The teen of a century ago entered puberty later and married earlier. The period to which he was assigned to chastity was relatively short. Today the years of sexual frustration are maximized.

Even worse is what we did to teens in the legislative realm. A teen of a century ago would not be arrested as a sex offender for having consenting relations. While one was expected to be sexually chaste those who were not, while frowned upon, or perhaps even ostracized, were not incarcerated and punished for the rest of their natural life by a web of “sex offender” laws. The young couple caught in throes of passion might be pressured into marriage but not sent to prison. Even the shame of “pregnancy” brought on a period of exile after which the girl would return sans child, usually due to adoption.

Consider the reasons that teens have sex, something that most policy makers avoid doing. Most teens have sex for precisely the same reasons that all legal adults have sex. First, teens are sexually mature and get horny—just like adults. Adults, however, want to cling to the image of their “innocent baby” and often block out the realities that come with sexual maturity.

Studies of teens show that the reasons they give for being sexual are: sexual pleasure, intimacy, and social status. The social status issue caught my attention because of something Dr. Epstein said in his book.

Epstein noted that as our culture started treating teens like large children that teenage “angst” suddenly became a problem. It was pretty much unknown in previous generations. He argues that frustration over being treated like children is behind much of the “acting out” that we see. Teens want to be respected as their own persons, with their own minds, and their own ability to make decisions about their lives. Adults want them to act like adults but simultaneously want to treat them like children.

This reminds me of an incident that happened with a friend who was an unofficial Big Brother to a young teen. One Sunday they had lunch and went to film. They didn’t notice the time. That afternoon the teen wanted to leave a bit early to meet up with his father, who he rarely saw. To do that he had to catch a specific bus. But as they were heading for the bus stop the boy (around 14 at the time) realized he was an hour late and would now miss seeing his father. He was disappointed and angry about it and yelled at my friend: “You forgot to get me to the bus so I could see my father.”

My friend replied: “Yes, that is true. I did forgot. But so did you.”

The boy yelled, “Yea, but you’re the adult, not me.”

My friend said: “Have I ever treated you like a child?”

The boy thought about it for a second and sheepishly said, “No.”

“Do you want me to start?” asked my friend.

The boy’s response was instantly, “No” and his anger disappeared and he took responsibility for missing the bus himself. That was his first and only temper tantrum expressed toward my friend.

Consider the teen, with most the mental faculties of an adult (see Epstein’s research on the matter), who has the desires of an adult, but who is told that he/she is a child. Epstein says that there are two ways that “adolescents” in modern America can get treated like adults. One is to commit a crime; the other is to become sexually active.

Teens who want to be treated like adults are now “sheltered” from the job market, at least any full time job, by laws that create employment apartheid based on age. They can’t satisfy their yearning to adulthood through employment since our politicians closed that option to them. They have other ways of “being adults” and a lot of “social pressure” is actually pressure on the teens to act in ways that adults act. But the most responsible means of acting like an adult are closed to them. What they have left are crime, sex, smoking, drugs, and drinking.

If the “social status” that these teens are seeking, when they become sexually active, is being perceived as more adult-like by their peers, then we have an interesting conundrum for the moralists who have passed these laws. With teens unable to express their maturity in significant legal ways they seek less-than-legal means to do so. They are already sexually mature and have all the same sexual desires of an adult—scary as that may be to their parents. And they deeply desire to be seen as adults by their peers, even if they can’t get such recognition at home. One amazingly easy way to achieve that status with their peers is to become sexual active (this is more a male trait than a female one) and then brag about it. Other methods to show their maturity, such as finding a good job, are simply denied them.

With the hormones, the desires for sex, the desires for romantic intimacy, and the desire to be seen as adult, all in place at the same time, the impulse to become sexually active is enhanced. The very restrictions we put on teens, in order to force them to remain legal children, may play a significant factor in causing them to act like adults when it comes to their sex lives. Perhaps the best means of preventing teens from becoming sexually active too early is to treat them less like children and more like adults.

However, whether that is the case or not, one thing does remain clear. Whatever problems teens have because of being sexually active, criminalizing teen sexuality does not help. Turning teens in “sex offenders” for making out, having sex, photographing themselves, “sexting” and so forth, does not prevent teens from becoming sexually active. Nor does it make the lives of those who did become sexual, any easier. These laws only compound the problems that might be associated with teen sexuality. Turning these young adults into life-long criminals, with the albatross of “sex offender” around their neck, will not help anyone.

Such laws cannot be inspired by any concern or care for teens. These laws do not add one measure of protection to teens from unwanted sexual interactions. What these laws do is turn the backseat fumblings of teens on a date into a felony with a punishment that is cruel, unjust and unrelenting, punishment which will follow them until the day they die. In the name of morality and “protecting the children” we are cruelly and viciously destroying the lives of teenagers who acted no different than we did at their age, and no different than generations before us. Teenage sex may well be unwise but does it deserve the full wrath of the law?

Stating the sexually obvious is not allowed...

Some time ago we reported how the panic about teens and kids being molested due to using the internet was much to do about almost nothing. It was one of these panics that politicians and special interest groups push to stampede the public into supporting ill considered legislation which rightfully ought to be rejected.

I just received a new report from the Internet Safety Technical Task Force which was set up with the help of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. In a nutshell, the report said the fear of kids being seduced through on-line interaction by adults is grossly overestimated.

Blumenthal was not happy with that. Blumenthal uses the panic he tries to create about on-line “predators” to make a career for himself. His own web site, paid for by the taxpayers, praises Blumenthal as as leader in the fight against “Big Tobacco”, an advocate of “forced reforms in health insurance” and someone who “personally argued major cases, as he did the successful effort to uphold the sex offender registry in the U.S. Supreme Court.” In other words, if there is a campaign based on exaggerate or imaginary fears, pushing a series of bad legislation, Mr Blumenthal is there. When the voters retire him the world will be a safer place, not because of the bogus legislation he pushes, but because he will be out of office.

If there is one thing a politician hates it is a problem that isn’t a problem. Problems are the means by which politicians secure power and make a name for themselves. To tell a politician that things are just fine is to challenge their entire reason for existing. They are our saviours, at least in their own eyes. So they must always justify their existence by saving us from ourselves or saving us from one of the multiple imaginary hobgoblins that they hype up as a threat.

And if you really want to stampede the species Boobus Americanus then shriek loudly about a threat to “the children.” “The children” and imaginary monsters imperilling them have been responsible for more bad legislation than anything else.

What they found was that a small percentage of children (defined as under the age of 18), just 13% “receive sexual solicitations online”. They also found that of those who did received online advances over 90% of them came from other “children”. (I put children in quotes because it is absurd to call a 17-year-old a child, making no distinction between them and a five-year-old. )

Approximately 90% of all “children” on the web don’t receive “solicitations”. Of those who do over 90% receive them from other “children”. The percentage of children who do receive some sort of solicitation from an adult is well somewhere in the range of one-half a percent. But what about the 0.005% who do receive such solicitations. According to the report (p. 4) these “cases typically involved post-pubescent youths who were aware that they were meeting an adult male for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity.”

Only a tiny percentage of net users under the age of 18 are solicited by adults and those who do get involved with adults are not small children but randy adolescents who are intentionally seeking out a sexual liaison. The report noted (p. 16):

Interviews with police indicate that most victims are underage adolescents who know they are going to meet adults for sexual encounters and the offences tended to fit a model of statutory rape involving a post-pubescent minor having nonforcible sexual relations with an adult, most frequently adults in their twenties.

So the teens meeting as “adult male” actually turn out to be only a few younger than the adults they are meeting. This would be the case if the adults were “most frequently adults in their twenties.” In other words we are talking about age differences, in most the cases, of between two and ten years. The image of lurking dirty old men preying on young kiddies on the internet is a lurid fantasy which says nothing about reality but a lot about those who conjure up such images to stamped the public. The report even says this (p. 16): ...the image presented by the media of an older male deceiving and preying on a young child does not paint an accurate picture of the nature of the majority of sexual solicitations and Internet-initiated offline encounters...”

Another factor that the public doesn’t realize is that of these “solicitations” most are not solicitations at all. The report notes (pp 13,14):

These reports are frequently referenced to highlight that one in five or one in seven minors are sexually solicited online. Without context, this citation implies massive solicitation of minors by older adults. As discussed below, other peers and young adults account for 90%-94% of solicitations in which approximate age is known (Finkelhor et al. 2000; Wolak et al. 2006). Also, many acts of solicitation online are harassing or teasing communications that are not designed to seduce youth into offline sexual encounters; 69% of solicitations involve no attempt at offline contact (Wolak et al. 2006). Misperception of these findings perpetuates myths that distract the public from solving the actual problems youth face.

Combine these facts together. About 13% of “children” receive a “solicitation”. Of those somewhere between 93% and 97% are from other “children”. And most of these solicitations “are harassing or teasing communications” with no attempt to meet offline. And 14% of these “solicitations” came from “offline friends and acquaintances” (p. 15). And how did the young people respond to these solicitations that have politicians so worried? “Youth typically ignore or deflect solicitations without experiencing distress.”

What about exposing kids to pornography? The report says (p. 5) that “exposure to pornography does occur online, but those most likely to be exposed are those seeking it out, such as older male minors.” They also refer to “problematic content that youth themselves generate.” One has to understand that the bulk of what qualifies as “child pornography” today is not produced by pedophiles but by adolescents who engage in erotic behaviour that they record and share. One of the anomalies of the way adolescent sexuality has been criminalized and defined is that a child pornographer is today a CHILD pornographer.

The report actually gives away a great deal of information with one fact that site in regards to exposure to pornography. “males and older adolescent are more likely to be exposed to pornography.” Why is this? If the exposure to porn were involuntary that would mean it is imposed on the viewer by an outside source. That outside source is unable to peer through the computer and see that the viewer is a male in the later stages of puberty. They would have no way of knowing this. It could just as easily be a grandmother or a six-year-old girl. But these other groups are not the ones being “exposed”.

Since the pornography can not distinguish a viewer who is an adolescent male from these other age groups or from females the fact that those exposed tend to be male adolescents is a clear indication that the bulk of this “exposure” is voluntary. The boys are looking for it. In fact, the study found that younger viewers (p. 17) “report encountering pornographic content offline more frequently than online (10.8% versus 8.1%) (Ybarra and Mitchell 2005) and a study of seventh and eighth graders found that of those who are exposed to nudity (intentionally or not), more are exposed through TV (63%) and movies (46%) than on the Internet (35%) (Pardun et al. 2005).”

The reason for this disparity of exposure is because most pornography is seen willingly and voluntarily. Because of our anti-sexual attitudes, pushed by the Church for centuries, Americans don’t like to state the obvious and create monsters to explain what nature explains quite adequately. Teenage boys masturbate --- a lot. And they like to seek pornography to help them achieve the orgasm that they are seeking. No sex researcher disputes that well over 90% of adolescent boys masturbate, they need sexual release and they will seek it quite actively. They seek out erotic material to fuel their fantasies. Eventually they start seeking out other people, not just images, with whom they intend to seek sexual pleasure.

Once we realize this, and accept it as part of human sexual maturation, we will see that 90% of the hysteria over sexual predators and “children” is pure bullshit. We aren't protecting children from predators with this hysteria -- what we are trying to do is stop teenage boys from masturbating and eventually becoming sexually active. Those two activities are the bulk of the "predator" problem online. It isn't fueled by dirty old men raping children but by horny teens seeking release.

As long as we define child to include adolescents, as long as nature floods them with hormones making them obsessive about sex, and as long as technology exists which they can use to satisfy their sexual desires, this will remain the case. Whatever problems exist due to adolescents having adult-like sexual desires are not solved when we criminalize teen sexuality. Turning teens into criminals won’t change reality. Teens will continues to do what teens have always done -- seek out opportunities to have orgasms. Making them criminals for doing so will NOT stop teen sexuality. And I can’t believe that any sane person, anyone who actually cares about young people, would think that turning them into “sex offenders” is going to be a help to anyone.

Hypocrites, gay marriage and polygamy

There is a lot of disinformation being spread by the religious lobby that is promoting California’s Prop 8 to remove marriage rights of gay couples.

I’m of two mind as to why the falsehoods. I concede that some of these people are just deluded and actually believe the crap that is being spread. But others, particularly those who put together these propaganda pieces, must know better.

One television commercial, paid for by the out-of-state money poured into California by the Mormons and Catholics, is basically a string of lies from start to finish. For the most part the ad is actually focusing on laws totally unrelated to marriage -- anti-discrimination laws in particular. And these laws will remain in effect whether or not gay marriage is allowed. Yet they give the viewer the impression that gay marriage is causing these things.

Prof. Dale Carpenter has done a good analysis of the commercial and the lies that are told over at the conservative-libertarian legal site, Volokh Conspiracy. And I will synopsize what he said. If you find it interesting you should read his original report.

Lie #1

The Christians claimed that “People are being sued over personal beliefs.” That is not true. There is a case when a medical care group was sued because a physician refused to offer services to a woman who was a lesbian. But the suit had nothing to do with marriage and was based on the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which was passed long before gay marriage was an issue.

Normally I argue that any individual has the right to discriminate on any basis they wish. But there is one big exception and one likely exception. A public servant has no such right when acting in a governmental role. For instance, a fire fighter can’t stand aside and let a house burn just because he harbors prejudices against the inhabitants. Clerks in offices can’t refuse to serve people based on their religious beliefs. Government employees do not, and can not, have the rights of private employees in competitive markets because the public does not have other alternatives. If the employees don’t wish to serve all the public then they should find private employment.

There is a second category which is a difficult one because it is semiprivate and semi-public. These are the professions which are cartelized by government edict protecting the workers from a truly competitive market. This would include physicians for instance. Since the medical profession has worked heavily to regulate the free market out of existence they enjoy higher wages than they would in a truly competitive market. I am not unsympathetic to laws which treat such legal cartelized professions as if they were public enterprises similar to the state.

In some areas the market has a limited number of pharmacists or physicians who are legally allowed to offer services. If these individuals indulge every prejudice they have they can literally leave people without options except to travel long distances. In other areas, especially in some urban areas, their are numerous options for the same service. The limitation of options is something these professions and their professional organizations have lobbied for and work hard to maintain. Since they work to cartelize their profession I’m not adverse to laws forbidden them to indulge their own prejudices. I don’t think I’d introduce such a law if I were a legislator but I would hesitatingly vote for it. And there is enough ambiguity here that I would leave the matter to the individual states to regulate and wouldn’t get too upset regardless of which way the vote went.

But the claim that people are being sued for their personal beliefs is false. The law suit was over conduct not belief and it was in a cartelized profession with competition limited by law. But, most importantly, the issue of gay marriage had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. Abolish gay marriage and the same law suit could take place tomorrow. It is a lie to imply this situation is about gay marriage.

I noticed that some commentators on Volokh, who are anti equality, pointed to other cases in other states to prove the ad is correct. Yet, none of the cases, had anything to do with gay marriage. In fact, some of the states in question don’t allow gay marriage or civil unions.

Lie #2

The Christians claim that churches could lose their tax exemption.

Again this isn’t over gay marriage. The Christian television ad cites an article that mentions how churches using their tax-exempt status to promote legislation could lose their tax exemption. But this is true about any legislation. The position that government has long taken is that if one wants to act as a political lobbyist you are free to do so but not free to collect income on a tax-exempt basis. Churches pay for none of the services they receive from the state yet few of them eschew those services. They want garbage collection, sewers, water, police protection, fire protection and often want special services offered to them because they attract crowds. But they don’t want to pay for them.

There is a case to be made that they should pay full costs like everyone else instead of being government welfare cases. But they can avoid taxes all they want provided they aren’t using their religious status as a cover for political activity. This is true about any issue and not just gay marriage. Again the evidence they cite has nothing to do with gay marriage.

Lie #3

The Christians claimed that if gay are allowed to marry that gay marriage will be taught in the schools. They are a bit vague as to what this means. I doubt, for instance, that there will be classes on how to be gay or how to marry a gay person, etc. They point to a law, which I suspect they helped pass in the first place, requiring schools to teach respect for marriage. Try to repeal this requirement and the Christians will howl and argue that you are anti-marriage and anti-Christian. Keep the law and they will use it to beat gay marriage over the head. I don’t see how they can have it both ways. I’d repeal the law and leave views of marriage up to the parents not the schools. But I assure you that the Christians want it the other way.

However, Carpenter points out that gay marriage wouldn’t change this law in any way. The law also now includes a provision saying the schools should teach respect for “all committed relationships”. That would include non-married couples as well. He also points out that no school actually has to teach anything about marriage and can avoid the topic. And where it comes up in sex education classes California law allows any parent to remove their child from that class. As Prof. Carpenter notes: “whether or not gay marriage continues, and whether or not Prop 8 passes, individual school districts and parents will retain ultimate control over whether and what children are taught about gay relationships and marriages. If they fail to exercise that authority in conformity with their beliefs, that failure can hardly be blamed on gay couples who want to be married.”

Some thoughts:

The first thing that strikes me about the ad is that they entirely avoid their actual motivation for their crusade against equality for gay couples. They are motivated by religion not by the alleged secondary affects of gay marriage. But they know that the majority of Californians are not religious fanatics swayed by quotes out of the Bible or the Book of Mormon. So they invent claims that make them appear to be the victim while they push for legislation that gives their religious views a privileged status in the law.

Secondly, it is curious to see the Mormons and Catholics banning together for this. I can’t think of two Christian sects which have had more sexual pathology attached to them than these two. Mormonism has never been able to full shake off its polygamous nature and their prophet invented a divine revelation to justify his philandering behind his wife’s back.

Included in his repertoire of many wives were several teenaged girls. Considering we are talking about the mid 1800s we should recognize that girls entered puberty much later in life than today. Smith’s 14-year-old wife may have been the modern equivalent of a 12 year old or younger. Smith married eight teenage brides. Of course he kept the polygamy secret for many years after he started cheating on the side. Joe Smith had 33 wives including five sets of sisters. His successor, Brigham Young, had 55 wives, ten of whom divorced him. The third LDS leader, Wilford Woodruff had 15 wives, three of whom left him. The fourth church leader had 10 wives at a minimum. The fifth church leader had at lest six wives.

One could argue that the LDS church is making much to do about “one man, one woman, for life” marriage precisely because their history is so filled with the contrary. Many Utah Mormons practiced polygamy well into the 20th century. And even today it is well known that the practice has not died out completely among LDS faithful. Of course there are well known Mormon off-shoos which continue the practice to this day.

Historically Mormon leaders have had nothing but contempt for monogamy. Brigham Young preached:

Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman empire....Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a holy sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers.... Why do we believe in and practice polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord's servants have always practiced it.

Prophet John Taylor said the “one-wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation, and has always proved a curse to a people.”

Mormon leaders today promote the false claim that the Roman empire fell because of homosexuality. “Prophet” Spencer Kimball called homosexuality a “heinous” sin and claimed, “Many cities and civilizations have gone out of existence because of it.” Included in his alleged litany of civilizations destroyed by gay people was Rome. But earlier Mormon “Apostle” George Cannon claimed that Rome fell because it promoted monogamy. "It is a fact worthy of note that the shortest lived nations of which we have record have been monogamic. Rome...was a monogamic nation and the numerous evils attending that system early laid the foundation for that ruin which eventually overtook her."

Could this zealous crusade to protect the “one-man, one woman” marriage concept be over compensation for their own history of condemning the very practice they now seek to defend?

As for the Catholic Church their sexual pathologies are so well known that it is a waste of time to outline them here. But they ought to be the last in line when it comes to attacking the sexuality of others.

It is certainly a well-known phenomenon that religious leaders who are obsessed with the alleged “sexual sins” of others are very often guilty of similar activities themselves. If this is true it might go a long way to explain why two of the Christian sects, most riddled with sexual problems, are in the forefront of a campaign against gay people.

Photo: Mormon leader and prophet Brigham Young and some of his many wives.

What are we protecting them from?

We often hear that censorship is necessary to “protect the children”. There is a now a new law in Indiana which requires any bookstore, with any sort of material that the Puritans find sexual, to register with the state and pay a registration fee of $250. The idea of the registry is that the police can use the list to regularly monitor the stores.

This bipartisan legislation was justified as a means of regulating porn shops that have popped “up in rural areas along interstates”. The problem with that is that all existing porn shops are exempt from the legislation. Worse yet the legislation is so badly drafted that any book on sex qualifies a bookstore as an “adult” shop. Even sex education books or novels qualify.

Prof. Henry Karlson of Indiana University Law School says that the law defines something as sexually explicit if it is “harmful” to minors or “appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors.” He notes: “The problem is, minors have an interest in sex, prurient or otherwise and how do you distinguish what is normal and what is prurient?”

A typical bookstore is going to have material that has sexual content. If a minor finds it sexually enticing then the store has to register. But if they register they get lumped in with all the porn shops. If they don’t register they can fined for violating the law. Booksellers are now deciding on whether to take the law to court. Of course, another strategy would be for all bookstores to register as a precaution. If every bookstore were on the list it would make the list basically worthless.

As silly as this law is it raises a question that I will ask, and no doubt be condemned for asking. Why do minors need protection from sexual material?

Studies of individuals who were real sex offenders showed that they were exposed to less erotica than most people and saw it for the first time later in life. People who were NOT sexual predators tended to see such material earlier in life and saw it more often.

Freud came up with a psychosexual development theory that said that there were five stages of sexual development. And during the latency period, about ages 3 to 12, sexual feelings are repressed and sublimated. That idea was pretty much blown out of the water. From very early in childhood humans have a sexually curious nature and they express that curiosity frequently in sex play. The idea of latency inspired a lot of the logic behind “protect the children” theories. It was said that exposing children to sexual material would suddenly awaken them to their innate sexuality and the latency would end prematurely.

Of course, if there is no latency period, if Freud were wrong, then the matter has to be reappraised.

The big fallacy in this censorship campaign is that you don’t need sexual material to stimulate sexual feelings in human beings. The censors have it completely backwards. Erotic material is produced because people are sexually interested. People are not sexual because of erotica.

The source of sexual interest, prurient or natural, comes from within. Shocking as it might be, humans are hardwired for sex. They are given bodies that respond to sexual stimulation and touch. They are given minds and desires that cause them to seek it out. This interest does not begin at puberty. The deluge of hormones intensifies sexual interests that were always present. Long before puberty humans engage in sexual play with themselves and with others -- mostly their own age. The ability to experience orgasm exists long before puberty starts -- probably from birth.

In most of human history the young were regularly exposed to sexually explicit conduct. We evolved as an agricultural species with barnyards. At one time the Puritans referred to human sexual activity as “barnyard practices.” The reason for that is obvious. Animals copulate and do it right in front of God and the world. When our species was agricultural all children saw sexual conduct among animals on a regular basis.

But they were also exposed to human sexual activity. Separate bedrooms are a modern luxury. It was not present for most people throughout most of our species’ evolution. It was typical for children and parents to share one room which served as kitchen, living room and bedroom. In addition it was not uncommon for children to share the same bed as their parents. They were exposed to nudity on a regular basis and when their parents had intercourse it was usually done a few feet from the children. Kids didn’t accidentally walk in on their parents having sex. They were always there.

Until the mid to late 1800s it was not uncommon for youngsters to marry and have children of their own. Such marriages could take place before they entered their teens. But certainly marriage at 13 or 14 was not uncommon. What this means is that during most of human history the “kids” we are protecting from sexual material were allowed to be sexually active. and were. Only in our more recent history did this change. We are the exception.

In medieval England the age of consent for girls was 12. And in the United States, prior to the Progressive Era, many states had no legislation on the matter and the common law age of consent prevailed. That was 10. California had an age of consent of 10 until 1889 when it was increased to 14. In 1897 they raised it again, to 16 and then in 1913 they raised it again to 18.

The reality is that our sex laws have never been in tune with actual human sexual practices. We have laws which classify as “sexual offenders” teens caught having sex with other teens. Potentially a third to half of all teenagers in America are sex offenders. If the police ever prosecuted all the teens, who are legally defined as sex offenders, those laws would be repealed overnight.

By the time American young people reach 19 years of age about 70% of them have had sexual intercourse. One in seven have done so by age 15.

With the internet any teen who wants to view sexually explicit material can do so within seconds at little or no cost. Polls of young people show that large numbers admit to having watched porn on-line. These surveys were done with parental consent so the young people knew their parents were aware they were taking the poll. I wonder what would have happened to responses if the kids polled knew they parents wouldn’t know about the survey. I suspect the numbers admitting to viewing porn would have been substantially higher. Young people who want to view sexual material can easily do so.

What poses a puzzle for the erotiphobic crowd is that while young people today are more exposed to pornography than ever, they are actually acting more responsibly than previous generations. Sex researcher David Finkelhor says: “There have been drops in crime, drops in teen pregnancy, increases in the number of kids who say they’re virgins, declines in various kinds of victimization and less running away.”

So while availability of erotica has increased young people have become more sexually responsible in recent years.

What exactly is supposed to happen to young people, who view erotica, that requires all this protection? They don’t need porn to become sexually aroused. It doesn’t compel them to go out raping one another. The reality is that most sexual material is used to help reduce sexual feelings that already exist, not to create feelings where they do not exist. If anything, porn discourages sexual activity for young people because it is a low cost substitute for intercourse.

A teenage male who is feeling sexually needy could go out seeking a live partner to help satisfy those urges. Or, he can view some pornography and satisfy himself. The first activity is more labor intensive and costly in all ways. The second is relatively easy. Perhaps one reason for the decline in teenage sexual activity in recent years is the wider access to porn among teens. That access means the low cost substitute is more readily available discouraging them from going on the prowl.

It is claimed that erotica “objectifies” women. Apparently males can’t be sex objects in this thinking. But this theory is really an idea from the feminist movement and they tend to ignore males in their theories, except to describe them negatively. The fact is that men and women are “sex objects” to one another because that is how we are built. We are visual creatures. Evolution has instilled certain triggers to sexual desire which are largely visual in nature. Both men and women can become sexually stimulated by how another person looks and this true regardless of the prevalence of pornography. That men are more visually stimulated than women is true which is why men are the main consumers of pornography.

Human sexuality, out of necessity, existed before the human brain developed. If our ancestors didn’t see one another as sex objects we wouldn’t exist today. It is unlikely that “consciousness raising” is ever going to extinguish that trait. Yet humans did evolve into a higher species with a wider range of emotions and with values. That someone becomes aroused sexually by the body or looks of another person does not make them incapable of romantic love or all the other values that civilized people tend to support. Many successful relationships started out purely because one of the partners was sexually attracted to the other. That they saw the other as a “sex object” is what brought them close enough in order to develop these “higher” emotions which can only develop through intimacy (and I use intimacy in a non sexual way here). Sexual desire brought about the intimacy which helped create the romantic inclinations and the cherishing of one another.

Does porn treat the participants, both men and women, as sex objects? Yes. It does so because men and women are sex objects to other men and women.

Banish all porn and men will still look at women as sex objects. Men don’t look at women as sex objects because they have seen porn -- this trait is true even among men who rarely, or never, have viewed porn. It’s natural. And most of us, under the right circumstances, enjoy being seen as a sex object. We want others to desire us. We may not want it on a 24-hour-per-day basis but we do want it and when we receive it we feel good about it. That it is sometimes unwelcome doesn’t mean that sexual objectification isn’t natural, normal and beneficial.

The justifications for protecting the young from erotica are often vague and imprecise. I have only discussed a couple of them. What is often missing from the debate is the real reason that many want to “protect” young people. It is the idea that sexuality is sinful, dirty, disgusting, evil, or immoral. I suspect this is the motivation behind many a crusade to “protect” people from sex. Our Christian heritage has left the Western world with a schizophrenic view of sexuality. It can be encapsulated this way: many people view sex as sinful and disgusting and therefor it should be reserved for marriage.

You can see it in the campaigns to force pregnant girls to carry the fetus to term or in campaigns to deny teens the use of contraceptives. The idea is that sexuality must be risky and that individuals who have sex deserve to be punished by the act itself. This phobia is present in the idea that the only justification for sexual expression is reproduction. That is the Vatican’s view in a nutshell: there is no justification in the sheer pleasure of the sexual act. Even conservative Protestants have unwittingly bought into that doctrine with their antigay marriage campaigns. They deny the validity of gay marriage because it is not reproductive -- that is a basic acceptance of the Catholic view that all sex must have the potential of creating life or it is sinful.

I am not convinced that “protecting” young people from sexuality material is a good thing. That is, I’m not sure it actually protects them. The harm of such exposure seems extremely limited. That young people today have unprecedented access to pron, without it apparently creating a social crisis, seems to indicates that censorship campaigns, no matter how well intentioned, don’t actually produce any good. And when you think about the stupid Indiana law you realize how out of touch the politicians are. I suggest that few young people in Indiana who view porn are heading down to the bookstores to do it. They can find it much more easily at home or from their friends.

Republicans and sex: the lethal combination

Larry Craig is a top Right-wing, Theopublican Senator from Idaho. He is also one of those Theopublicans who happily joined the villagers with the pitchforks and torches who were out chasing the gay monster. Now, Mr. Craig has been arrested for soliciting an undercover police officer in a toilet at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Actually, I should say he was arrested in June and had managed, until now, to keep his arrest quiet. Craig says his actions were misconstrued and that police had misunderstood him. He did, however, plead guilty to the charges at the time but says he did this to keep things quiet, and to handle them as quickly as possible. He paid a fine and is on a suspended jail sentence.

This is not the first time that Senator Craig has had issues of this type. In 1982 a former Congressional page claimed that various member of Congress plied male pages with drugs and alcohol and solicited sex from them. Please note that while the news report below claims the pages are “under age” this is not necessarily true. The media stupidly and incorrectly uses “under age” to mean anyone under 18 years of age. While 18 is the age of majority, age of consent for sexual activity is 16 in Washington, D.C., as it is in many states.

It should be noted that today the minimum age to become a page is 16 which is why, despite the media hype, Republican Congressman Mark Foley was not involved in sexual misconduct with minors. Actually, one of the main incidents took place with a former page who was 18 years of age and the only sexual liaison that is known took place with an ex-page who was 21 years old at the time.

But this change was instituted in 1983, after the first scandal. In the following report you will see that, while no names were specifically mentioned, that Larry Craig held a press conference to deny it was him. So it is possible that in 1982 under aged pages were involved. However, given the media’s sloppy reporting it could mean either under 18 years of age, or under the age of consent, which is 16.

What was shocking in the 1982 case is that the hypocrites in Congress were using illegal drugs. Yet, none of these Senators or Congressman are willing to legalize the drugs they used. And many bash gays while secretly having gay sex -- or in some cases, not so secretly having gay sex.

Last year one blogger specifically named Larry Craig as a Senator who regularly sought out male companionship. This year old article from USA Today notes covers that. (This report also incorrectly claims that the two congressman who admitted having sex with pages in 1982 did so with under aged pages. That is false. Both pages were over the age of consent and one of them, the male page who had an affair with Congressman Gerry Studds, publicly defended Studds and stated that they were both consenting adults. But the media still prefers the sensationalism of exaggerating the facts. The media doesn’t mind a little gay bashing by distorting the facts to sell papers or up their ratings.)

USA Today noted that a “gay rights” blogger exposed Craig last year. The blogger, Michael Rogers, did so because Craig had an antigay agenda. However, Rogers uses the term very broadly to mean any view contrary to that of the Left agenda of some gay political pressure groups. In some cases the label applies, and in others it does not. Unfortunately the Left can’t distinguish between the two and conflates them into one category. Most Leftist, like most Rightists, have no coherent theory of rights. Rights are whatever they like. That said, Senator Craig did support legislation that denied equal citizenship to gay people.

Craig has bought into the Theopublican Religious-Right agenda and proclaimed himself a defender of “traditional family values”. The media reports he is married and has three children. It is usually left out that this marriage took place rather late in Craig’s life and that none of the children are his own but were born to his wife during her first marriage. Rumors regarding Craig’s sexual life were floating around long before the marriage. The film clips above make clear that Craig only married after he was publicly denying any involvement with male pages since he mentions that he came forward because he was single and suspected he would be implicated.

The question for the media is when does a private life become a matter of public interest. Bill Clinton’s sexual unfaithfulness to Hillary (which may have been mutual) was private except that Clinton was charged with sexual harassment. He was supporter of the very laws which netted him -- as was Foley, by the way. In both their cases they were harmed by legislation they endorsed.

Clinton, however, also lied while under oath. And it appeared that he was easily blackmailed by Monica Lewinsky, who was able to use her affair to pressure him into giving her positions apparently in exchange for the positions she gave him or, by implication, for her silence. Once Clinton lied in court, and was open to this sort of improper pressure, the matter took on a more ominous nature. At that point his private live became public concern. Unfortunately the Republicans were so horrified over sex that they never got to anything of substance.

Foley’s problem was that he was stupid and he proposed legislation that he was happily violating himself. In addition he was supporting political policies that denied equal rights to gay people. That doesn’t change the fact that Democrats used crude gay stereotypes to hype the Foley incident for their own benefit and that they falsely accused him of being a pedophile even though the rude messages he sent were to sexually mature individuals above the age of consent. I thought the Foley incident showed how seamy the Democrats could be and how they would use antigay stereotypes just as quickly as the Republicans, if they see a clear benefit in doing so.

My view is that a politician who doesn’t make himself out to be some defender of “traditional values” or isn’t legislating the sex lives of others, ought to have his private, sexual life respected and kept private. Larry Craig was willing to make the sex lives of others a matter of public concern. He was caught soliciting a male police officer in a toilet -- the cruising spot of the closeted, something which the Theopublican agenda of pushing gays into the closet encourages. Craig also denied gay people equality before the law. I would not have outed him myself, as did the one blogger, but I can’t be too upset he was caught either.

His actual arrest changed the facts sufficiently that it is worth reporting. And it should be noted that this is not the last Theopublican moralist who will be hoisted with their own petard. Their desire to regulate the sex lives of others means they are willing to turn the private affairs of people into public business. How they expect their own sexual lives to stay private I don’t know. If the sex lives of the citizenry are the affairs of legislators then the sex lives of legislators are the affair of the voters. But political officials who haven’t tried to make private sexual activity a focus of state intervention ought to have their privacy respected. Larry Craig was not that kind of elected official. And his party represents the organized forces of state control of sexuality.

According to the police report, which I have read, Craig appears to have attempted to use his political office to avoid arrest. After his arrest he was asked for his driver’s license. Craig, however, handed the officer his U.S. Senate business card instead. He said: “What do you think of that?”

I should also note that there is no clear indication that Craig was planning on engaging in sexual activity in a public location. He supposedly used gestures to indicate that he was willing to engage in sex. The location was never indicated or discussed. If indication of willingness to engage in voluntary sexual conduct is “lewd conduct” than 99% of the American people would have been arrested at some point in their life and the other 1% are lying about it.

If a man had indicated to a woman that he was interested in sexual activity, I suspect that it would not normally be considered a criminal matter unless he did so in an especially graphic, offensive, or aggressive manner. Craig seems to have been a victim of the double standard -- one standards for straight activity and another for gay activity. But then Craig has done a great deal to encourage that sort of standard of inequality before the law. Anti-gay fundamentalist minister Lonnie Latham had been arrested for exactly the same thing -- suggesting to a police officer they go to his hotel room for sex. The officer was hanging around a hotel where gay men sometimes meet other men. Latham didn't offer money nor did he suggest sex in public. But he was arrested anyway -- this is not an unusual way for police to harass gay people. Latham, was acquitted because the sex act itself was legal as was his suggestion to the officer. Chances are good that Sen. Craig would have been acquitted had he fought the charges. But he, like many gay men, copped a plea to try to avoid the trauma of being publicly outed in a culture where being gay is still a social handicap.

I should note that one way Senator Craig differs from many on the far Right of the Republican Party is that he doesn’t engage in the shameless, racist attacks on immigrants. His analysis of immigration has been sound. And his knowledge of the economic benefits of immigration can’t be disputed. So, at least, on that issue, Senator Craig is heads above the many fake “free market” advocates who want to restrict immigration and bash immigrants. On that front, at least, he was not a bigot though he did pander to the Religious Right on the antigay campaign.

Craig was a victim in some ways. The worst he did was indicated a willingness to engage in sex and that is not “lewd conduct” except to the homophobes who think anything that indicates sexuality, especially homosexual sexuality, is automatically lewd. Craig did not offer money so it wasn’t solicitation for prostitution. He merely indicated a willingness to engage in legal, sexual activity. And since the issue of where one would have sex was never raised it was not a matter of public lewdness either.

So Craig was arrested on charges that normally are not applied to people other than to gay men. He was the victim of the uneven view of rights that permeates the law when it comes to homosexuality. But he was also a victim of the Religious Right ideology that he willingly promoted -- one that required him to be closeted and seek out such activity in a manner that was meant to be furtive and secretive, one that relied on “cruising spots” with hand gestures or foot tapping to indicate willingness. His own ideology, and that of his political party, made it impossible for him to be open about who he was. And that sort of closeted attitude distorts one’s sexuality.

What happened to Senator Craig was, to a large extent, self inflicted. The fault lies in a legal system which Craig endorsed and promoted. It lies in a belief system that is based on mythology, lies and wishful thinking and opposed to the facts of reality. As long as the Republicans continue to embrace the destructive values of religious fundamentalism they will churn out the tortured examples of people like Ted Haggard, Senator Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Rev. Coy Privette, Rev. Lonnie Latham, State Rep. Bob Allen, Senator David Vitter, or Young Republicans leader Glenn Murphy.