Going out on a limb
2002-05-10 @ 9:34 a.m.
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Going through my old books has been an interesting experience. I began collecting books of erotica and sexual theory because I was writing about sex. In fact it was my life's goal to continue writing about sex. I am particularly interested in issues of censorship and prudery. Looking through these books makes me miss taking part in that kind of dialogue.
For instance:
I read an article in a recent New Yorker about a professor at a midwestern university who wrote an essay on pedophilia for the Journal of Homosexuality. As a result of his essay the local state government was planning to withdraw $100,000 from its contribution to the university (the approximate amount of his salary). You see, the professor was defending pedophilia (specifically sex between men and boys) as a natural, healthy act and apparently presented research and historical perspective to back up his claim. The New Yorker article called his ideas silly, but defended his right to publish them. I whole-heartedly agree, though I would love to read the article before I decide that his ideas are silly. (I suspect I would agree with that also.)
But my point here is that reading that article energized me. Badsnake had the distinct pleasure of listening to me rant about it through a chunk of our evening.
It is a dialogue I have participated in before. I once had the noble idea that NAMBLA (National Association of Man/Boy Love) deserved a hearing. I wanted to interview someone with the organization and participate in an open discussion with them rather than dismissing them out of hand. The gay community as a whole is so gun-shy of being associated with pedophilia that NAMBLA is an international embarrassment to the GLBT civil rights movement.
But then I had the opportunity to sit in a seminar on children in gay literature where many NAMBLA members had gathered. When they spoke their ideas in relationship to the subject at hand, I looked around and realized that I could pick them out. I was sitting next to a clump of them. The panel members were respectful of the NAMBLA members participation and did not shut them up, which is actually unusual in the gay community. But this was a group of writers who were very sensitive to censorship issues.
As I listened and watched the behavior of these guys, I decided that I was not the one to conduct that interview. I still felt the interview should take place (if it hasn't already - I haven't been following the gay press for a couple of years), but I didn't feel like I could do it. I had a very strong ooky reaction to them. They made me feel like taking a shower, or maybe running my brain through a dishwasher. I wrote an article about that experience in the gay mag I was writing for at the time.
I'm still very interested in the subject of cross-generational sex. Some of my favorite fantasies are of that nature. I've also been a victim of criminal pedophilia. That may be an odd combination. But the issues I am most passionate about are freedom of speech and freedom of bedroom privacy (actually I have an interest in public sex, too - but I'm not going to fight to legalize it since the danger involved in sneaking around is part of the fun). I do believe that healthy cross-generational sex is possible. I also know that many (most?) acts of pedophilia are criminal attacks on the minds and bodies of children. I want to make it clear that I'm not suggesting any changes in the laws as they relate to pedophilia. Just musing over a concept.
So it's an issue that I continue to think about. And perhaps this above paragraph seems really weird coming beside the photo of a housewifey-looking lesbian on a pink page. And maybe I've lost a lot of you. But these are the kinds of things that I start thinking about when I drag out the books I've collected over the years to create a personal research library. You see, most public libraries don't keep copies of "The Marketplace" trilogy by Sara Adamson (the hottest set of sadomasochistic erotica I've ever read) or "Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex" by Pat Califia. (I'm keeping these.)
Okay, I promise to give you a recipe in the next entry.
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