America's War on Sex 

America’s war on sex is no abstract political idea.

Week after week, your colleagues and neighbors are being fired, censored, and arrested for their sexual expression—in their work, their entertainment, and their imagination.

As I describe in my new book, America’s War On Sex, there are nine primary battlegrounds in this war:

•Sex education
•Reproductive rights
•Broadcast “indecency”
•Adult entertainment
•“Pornography”
•The Internet
•Sexual minorities
•Sex research
•Criminal justice system

Those who war on sex explain their efforts in various ways, saying they’re concerned about:

•Children
•Marriage
•Public safety
•Public health
•Protecting women
•Cultural coarseness
•States’ rights
•Parents’ rights
•Christians’ rights
•Pharmacists’ rights
•Original intent
•National security

But we should not be distracted or misled. The efforts of a broad range of people to limit Americans’ sexual expression really are about sex.

And who is behind this war on sex? An array of people and groups with compatible agendas. Some of these players actively cooperate with each other, some simply appreciate each other, while some have no knowledge of each other. Together, I call them the Sexual Disaster Industry (“SDI”). The components of this social movement include:

•Federal government
•Local government
•Law enforcement
•“Morality” organizations
•Antiporn groups
•Antisex crime groups
•Conservative Christian groups
•Right-wing think tanks
•Right-wing legal firms
•Mainstream news media
•Adrenalin-rush crime shows
•Victim-parade talk shows
•Therapy profession
•Addiction profession

The SDI overstates the amount of sexual violence and sexual danger in America. It creates the illusion and promotes the myth of a threatening sexual “other” in our midst. This may be done for purposes of entertainment (nighttime crime shows, daytime talk shows), misguided consumer assistance (therapy and addiction professions), ideology (“morality” and antiporn groups), or cynical self-promotion and pandering (government and law enforcement). Regardless, the result is the same: a society-wide sex panic.

In response, understandably, Americans demand action. They want their anxiety about sexuality reduced. The SDI has plenty of ideas about how to reduce that anxiety—anxiety which they have aggressively promoted—all revolving around sexually repressive public policy.

Agenda of Fear, Narrative of Danger

The SDI promotes their agenda of fear in many ways. The fundamental strategy, whether intentional or not, is the creation and maintenance of a sexual narrative of Danger. And so in America, sexuality is discussed primarily in terms of problems: teen pregnancy, STDs, rape, “sex addiction”, prostitution, fetal pain, kiddie porn, extramarital affairs, the “gay agenda”, neighborhoods allegedly blighted by strip clubs.

Some of the common messages composing this narrative are:

•Sexuality is a powerful, irrational force
•It can harm participants and others, so it must be tightly controlled
•It leads people to make bad choices
•Its bad consequences far outweigh the good
•Overwhelming shame, guilt, and anxiety are inevitable and “normal”
• “Morality” is about limiting sexual expression—one’s own and others’

With this narrative as the context for news, entertainment, political posturing, and moralism, it’s easy to frighten people. And the Religious Right powerfully addresses that fear. While progressives and sexuality professionals deal with facts and logic, the SDI is appealing to people’s emotions, with statements like “The average age now of exposure to pornography is 5" (Nicholas Jackson, The Conservative Voice).

The predictable response has been a growing consensus (or the appearance of one) that private sexuality is of public concern. It isn’t enough to say “I don’t want to go to a nude beach or strip club.” Frightened people add “…and I don’t want you to go either, because it makes our world more dangerous.” Public-izing private sexuality is a way of addressing one’s fear of others’ sexuality. It’s the prime accomplishment of America’s antisex groups.

Let’s look at a few stories from the front lines of the war on sex:

1. The Right to Swing

There are now at least five million swingers in the United States. Many belong to local clubs and national organizations, such as the Lifestyles Organization (LSO), founded in 1975 by Robert McGinley. By 1980, LSO was hosting weekend conventions of five hundred or more couples, and hotels throughout Southern California were bidding for their business. But in 1996 some California state officials decided to discourage swinging and to “run LSO out of the state.” Since swingers weren’t doing anything illegal, how could this be arranged? By declaring that their sexual behavior was dangerous: that it was immoral, which led to the breakdown of family values, and therefore bred crime. The police couldn’t stop this legal behavior, but the state did have an agency—the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC)—mandated to protect the “public morals” in places it licensed.

And so in October 1996, the ABC told the Seaport Marina Hotel in Long Beach that their liquor license could be revoked if they hosted the Lifestyles Halloween Ball. Six weeks later, the ABC suspended the liquor license of the Town & Country Hotel in San Diego, which had hosted the lifestyles convention that August.

The ABC then warned that any hotel hosting the 1997 LSO convention (of four thousand swingers) could lose its license. ABC District Supervisor Dave Gill declared that their morality rules applied even at events at which no alcohol was served. More astonishingly, he added that the ABC rules applied even to hotel sleeping rooms, since they were on the premises of license holders. The ABC was declaring what kind of sex adults couldn’t have in their own locked hotel rooms.

“From 1996-99, there were over 30,000 swing club gatherings in North America,” reported multiple-award-winning investigative journalist Terry Gould. “They were verifiably peaceful … I couldn’t document a single 911 call placed from a club. But local police nationwide persisted in raiding these private clubs, arresting and humiliating couples inside,” he revealed in his landmark study, The Lifestyle.

But the nationwide crackdown was just getting rolling.

In 1998 the Phoenix, Arizona City Council adopted the Live Sex Act Business ordinance. Drafted primarily by the Christian-based National Family Legal Foundation (which later became the Community Defense Council), it declared that sex at a private swing club was a “live sex act,” and that clubs are “detrimental to the health, safety and morals” of residents. It was adopted as an emergency ordinance, so the city could declare a problem rather than having to prove it.

Ordinance in place, the Phoenix police hounded swing clubs. At a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars, they sent in undercover officers week after week (hazardous duty, to be sure—“honey, it was all in the line of duty. I swear I didn’t enjoy it.”). When the busts came, it was by cops in riot gear, with guns drawn. Did they imagine the swingers had concealed weapons? It’s hard to imagine a bunch of naked forty-year-olds becoming a dangerous mob.

In 2002, a federal court ruled “there is no First Amendment protection for physical sexual conduct.” By 2005 the owners and staffs of six different clubs had been arrested and told to expect serious jail time and enormous fines, and that they would have to register as sex offenders for life. Sooner or later, owners agreed to close their clubs (forfeiting their right to make a living). The sophisticated, nonviolent, non-problematic Phoenix swing scene and bathhouse scene was ended.

And now, eight years after the ordinance’s enactment? Phoenix didn’t wipe out swinging. It just made swinging less safe, less predictable, less sober, less contained. All the things those in city government and the Community Defense Council sanctimoniously claimed they were worried about.

The Phoenix ordinance was the first of its kind in this country. Cities that have criminalized swing clubs for consenting adults since 2004 include Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and St. Paul. The Community Defense Counsel predicts many more cities will be cleansed.

2. The Right to Sell Sex Toys

In 1998 the State of Alabama made it unlawful for anyone to sell “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.” The penalty for violating this law is one year in prison at hard labor and a $10,000 fine.

This law forced Sherri Williams to close her then five-year-old business. She sued the state. And in 1999 she won. But the State of Alabama appealed, and Williams lost in District Appeals Court. A Federal Court then overturned Alabama’s ban, but the state again appealed and won. Williams then lost a federal appeal (based on the court’s bizarre reading of Lawrence v. Texas, a case which actually struck down laws designed to regulate morality). The Supreme Court has denied her request for a hearing.

Six states currently ban the sale of gadgets for sexual stimulation. What kind of mind would deny someone’s right to buy and use a vibrator?

3. The Right to Sexual Health Care

The mission of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is “protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security” of drugs, devices, cosmetics, and food, and “helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to improve their health.”

Despite this, the agency’s boards and committees have been stacked with nonscientists and those whose ideology is more important than science. President Bush actually appointed a veterinarian as Director of Women’s Health, and Dr. David Hager to the Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee—who opposes contraception for unmarried women and prescribes prayer to relieve the symptoms of PMS.

Two recent issues tell the whole story.

Emergency Contraception (EC) has been available in Europe and the United States for years. Essentially a heavy dose of birth control pills, it can prevent pregnancy for seventy-two hours after unprotected intercourse or contraceptive failure. What an amazing technology for preventing tragedies from broken condoms, coerced sex, just plain carelessness, or fear of being called a slut.

The FDA started evaluating EC for over-the-counter use in 2001. This simple evaluation languished within the agency, blocked by conservatives’ fears that it would lead to “promiscuity”—as if this is a valid policy concern.

A typical hesitation was voiced by FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodstock, who was concerned that the drug could lead to “extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.” The antisex (and antiscience) hysteria was so bad that the head of Women’s Affairs, Dr. Susan Wood, resigned in 2005. Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray called for hearings. It took more than a year after that to finally get the drug approved, and then with severe restrictions—excluding teens, for example, one of the groups that need it the most.

A related story recently unfolded regarding Gardisil, the vaccine that can prevent HPV, which causes cervical cancer. The Religious Right and so-called decency groups flooded politicians and the media to defeat availability of this medical miracle. More concerned with chastity than with health, more interested in ideology than the young people they purport to protect, here’s what they said:

“I personally object to vaccinating children against a disease that is 100% preventable with proper sexual behavior.” —Leslie Unruh, Director, National Abstinence Clearinghouse, 2005

“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.” —Bridget Maher, Family Research Council

4. The Right to Child Custody

Some 12 percent of American adults have engaged in consensual sadomasochism, erotic powerplay, or bondage-and-discipline games. These sexual activities are defined as consensual, negotiated ahead of time, and are typically accompanied by good communication skills and the ability to change or stop what’s happening whenever desired.

Practitioners of alternative sexual lifestyles have suffered terribly in child custody hearings. Parental fitness is often questioned, for example, because one spouse has committed adultery, been “promiscuous,” is gay, or participates in “unusual” sexual activity. Courts often agree—typically without evidence—that a child would be endangered because a parent engages in “alternative” sexual behavior.

I have been professionally involved in many custody proceedings involving sexual issues. In a recent article in the Journal of Homosexuality, coauthor Dr. Charles Moser and I describe how family courts can be prejudiced against sexual variations. Here’s a summary of an actual case that took place in so-called liberal California.

When Mr. Smith and Ms. Smith divorced in the late ’90s, they shared custody of their son Ed. The boy lived with his father; his mother had liberal visitation rights and alimony. Mr. Jones eventually became the mother’s live-in boyfriend, whom everyone agreed soon had an excellent step-parenting relationship with Ed.

During an investigation about the boy’s health when he was eleven, Ms. Smith volunteered that she and Mr. Jones had an intense S/M relationship. This triggered an investigation about the fitness of the mother and the possible danger posed by the live-in boyfriend. The investigation (by court-appointed Dr. Blair) confirmed that:

•no child abuse had occurred
•the child was doing well emotionally and in school
•the child was unaware of the mother’s sexual interests
•the child never saw any suggestions of inappropriate sexual activity

Nevertheless, Dr. Blair was concerned that the couple’s interest in S/M would lead to dangerous or illegal activities. He attempted to show that Mr. Jones had a sexual interest in children, but acknowledged that there was no evidence to support this belief. Despite this, he said Mr. Jones could pose a risk to Ed in the future. Dr. Blair admitted there was no evidence that the couple was ignorant or careless, but he worried about “the effects on the child if Ms. Smith were to die or become impaired during sexual activity.”

Worse still, Dr. Blair decided that the couple’s consensual sexual activities constituted domestic violence. And while noting that “the child has not observed it,” Dr. Blair wildly speculated that “he is exposed to the after-effects,” even though “I don’t have enough information to understand what the effects on the child might be.”

As a result of Dr. Blair’s alarm and recommendations, the court severely limited the mother’s visitation and custody rights, ended her alimony, and required her to attend psychotherapy for almost a year—specifically focusing on domestic violence. The court ended Ed’s relationship with Mr. Jones, even though all parties agreed that Ed had a better relationship with him than with his biological father. All of this, despite Dr. Blair’s opinion that the boy was well-adjusted and healthy.

The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom documents hundreds of tragic cases like this every year. It is heartbreakingly ironic that although victims of domestic violence rarely have their children taken from them, the court’s insistence on treating Ms. Smith as a victim of domestic violence provided the rationale for limiting her contact with her own child.

Weapons in the War on Sex

Those who engage in the war on sex use an enormous arsenal of weapons. These include:

•Marginalizing moderate religious voices
•Establishing “morality” groups as legitimate spokespersons in public policy debate
•Drawing conclusions from anecdote
•Portraying everyone (both consumers and non-consumers) as victims of the sex industry
•Claiming expertise from personal victimization
•Government-NGO-Church financial nexus
•Dismissing the rights of industries and artists, and ignoring the rights of consumers

No weapon is more important than their consistent ability to define sex-related “problems” in the mass media and public discourse. They are quick to tell America about its problems:

• the gay problem
• anti-Christian bias
• the abortion problem
• the porn problem
• the indecency problem
• the adult business problem
• the promiscuity problem
• the immorality problem
• the sex-is-out-of-control problem

But these are not the real problems troubling America. The actual problems undermining our families and communities include:

•Intolerance
•Anti-secularism
•Anti-contraception
•Censorship
•Repression
•Erotophobia
•Moralism
•Religious extremism
•Irrational public policy

Reframing the problems we face makes a world of difference. When people address the wrong problems, they can’t accomplish anything positive.

Conservatives and the Religious Right say they feel assaulted by sexuality in their daily lives. They want their discomfort taken away, and they’ve turned this into a political cause. But there is no right to not be uncomfortable about sex. The radical American covenant is that we all tolerate our own discomfort about others doing what they want in private, which guarantees our own right to do what we want in private.

Sexuality is among the last human activities to enjoy the revolutionary promise of American pluralism. The war on sex intends to keep this promise unfulfilled regarding sexuality.

Early this year, in pandering to those uncomfortable about same-sex marriage, President George Bush actually said that “in our free society, people have the right to choose how they live their lives.” Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor—appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan—fills in a key Constitutional detail: “It is true that many Americans find the Ten Commandments in accord with their personal beliefs. But we do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment."

Dr. Marty Klein is a certified sex therapist and policy analyst in Palo Alto, California. For more of his work on sexuality, culture, and politics, read his blog Sexual Intelligence.