Category: Sex and Politics

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Can there ever really be sex without politics?

— When elections impact your relationship

By Sera Bozza

We’ve all heard the saying, ‘opposites attract’, but that’s becoming less and less true when it comes to love and politics. Here’s how to navigate a conversation with a date who sits on the opposite side of the political spectrum. 

In Season two of Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw couldn’t help but wonder: “Can there be sex without politics?” In 2024, that question feels almost laughably rhetorical.

The short answer? No.

In today’s dating world, especially in the countdown to the next U.S. presidential election, politics are more entangled with sex, love, and relationships than ever. According to research in the US, political alignment is now a non-negotiable for many singles.

Political dealbreakers are on the rise

Results from the 2024 survey show 28 per cent of Gen Z and millennials have ended relationships due to differing political beliefs. Even more eye-opening? Nearly half of people on both sides of the political spectrum are reluctant to date across party lines. Political beliefs are no longer just opinions; they’re core values. And when values clash, it’s not something you can just “agree to disagree” about.

Dating apps are adapting to this shift, too. Tinder US partnered with Vote.org, enabling voter registration resources in-app and “I Voted” stickers for users to slap on their profiles. But more than getting people to the polls, these features serve a bigger purpose: offering a shortcut to signal, “Here’s where I stand,” without having to grill someone on their political leanings before the first date is up (if you even make it on the date..)

Navigating the politics of dating: when the stakes are high

Based on the same US research, heterosexual women often avoid asking men directly about their politics, afraid of getting vague or non-committal answers. Instead, they drop “proximity questions” about current events or pop culture to gauge where someone stands. It’s a strategic move but points to a more significant issue: people are protecting themselves from potential dealbreakers by skirting around it.

But is sidestepping really a solution? Not if you’re after a real connection.

How to ask the right questions

When it comes to politics, it’s easy to reduce someone to their stance on one hot-button issue and dismiss them. We’ve all been there: rolling our eyes at that cousin’s rant or cringing at a date’s “crazy” take in the girl’s group chat. But if your goal is a meaningful relationship, contempt will get you nowhere.

The first step is checking your own biases. Ask yourself: are you seeing the person before you or just the political caricature you expect? Relationships are more nuanced than a few talking points.

So before you write someone off, ask genuine questions – not the “gotcha” kind, but those fueled by curiosity. A simple “Where are you coming from with that?” can invite a deeper conversation.

You don’t have to agree, but you do need to listen.

Depolarise your dating experience

Navigating politics in dating doesn’t mean abandoning your values, but it does mean lowering the temperature. Politics shouldn’t feel like a battlefield, it should be an opportunity to understand someone’s life experiences.

Here’s a quick reality check: Are you spending your days doom-scrolling through a political echo chamber? Liking or sharing hate posts that slam the other side without offering any real insight? When social media becomes your rage room, it inevitably seeps into your dating life.

So, take a breath. Set time limits on how much news you consume, curate your feed, and remember: your date isn’t your debate partner. By stepping out of your bubble, you can clear up some mental space to get to know the person in front of you without letting politics hijack the connection before it starts.

How to have a productive conversation about politics

When it’s time to talk politics (and it will come up), here are a few ways to keep things productive:

Don’t rush in with labels

The person across from you is more than their political stance. Reducing them to one label narrows the conversation and limits your ability to see the bigger picture.

Lead with curiosity

Instead of, “How can you even believe that?” try, “What led you to that perspective?” It’s not about proving them wrong but understanding the origin point.

Acknowledge, don’t agree

You don’t have to nod to everything they say, but acknowledging their perspective with “I hear you” helps make the conversation less combative.

Check-in

Ask if they feel truly heard before ending the conversation. It hopefully trains them to reciprocate when it’s your turn to share.

The parting line

In 2024, politics is on our apps, at our dinner tables, and, sometimes, in our bedrooms. We’re not going to agree on everything but we should approach these conversations with curiosity and respect. It’s the only chance we have at building connections that can weather our increasingly divided world.

So, can there be sex without politics? Probably not. But with the right approach, you can have sex despite politics.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How Project 2025 Seeks to Obliterate Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

— The far-right blueprint would severely limit reproductive autonomy and access to reproductive healthcare, while turning back the clock on hard-won gains, both domestically and globally.

People attend the Our Bodies Our Lives Rally for Reproductive Freedom at the Bayfront Amphitheater on Sept. 14, 2024, in Miami. The rally was held to advocate for the passage of Amendment 4, which will be on Florida’s ballot, which would protect the right to abortion in the state.

By , and

Project 2025 promotes a presidential agenda that rolls back civil and human rights and implements extremist conservative policies across every federal department and agency. Its sweeping far-right policy framework, by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, includes numerous attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The plan’s far-reaching recommendations would severely limit reproductive autonomy and access to reproductive healthcare, while turning back the clock on hard-won gains, both domestically and globally. This fact sheet enumerates some of the agenda’s most serious threats to sexual and reproductive health and describes potential effects.

1. Threats to Medication Abortion

Project 2025 proposes several strategies for restricting—and ultimately eliminating—access to mifepristone, an extremely safe and effective medication used in the most common regimen for medication abortion in the United States.

  • The plan proposes reinstating medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone that require in-person dispensing and limit who can prescribe and receive the medication. By effectively ending telehealth provision of the method, these restrictions would limit access to the method for anyone who faces barriers to reaching a brick-and-mortar clinic, including individuals receiving telehealth care (under the protection of shield laws) in states where abortion is banned.
  • It also recommends revoking mifepristone’s U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, which would remove the drug from the market entirely. Nearly two-thirds of all abortions provided by clinicians are medication abortions, and the vast majority of them use the combined regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol. Although use of misoprostol alone is also safe and effective, it is unclear how widely this regimen would be offered by providers, or taken up by patients, if mifepristone were no longer available.
  • Decreasing access to medication abortion by either mechanism could in turn increase demand for procedural care, placing additional strain on clinics and increasing wait time for patients.
  • Project 2025 suggests that a hostile administration could bypass the FDA and effectively ban medication abortion—and potentially all abortions—through enforcement of the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-obscenity law that prohibits mailing anything “intended for producing abortion.” The law could be used to prevent the distribution of medication and supplies needed for abortion care and if applied broadly, it could result in a nationwide total abortion ban.

2. Broader Attacks on Abortion Access

Project 2025 also seeks to dismantle U.S. abortion access in a number of other ways.

  • The plan calls on Congress to codify into law the Hyde and Weldon Amendments, harmful policies that limit access to abortion care in the United States by restricting the use of federal funds for abortion care and coverage.
  • It also proposes a full audit of Hyde compliance, including reviewing Biden administration executive actions and Medicaid-managed care in “pro-abortion states.” These investigations may suggest an intention to retaliate against states where state Medicaid funds are used—entirely legally—to provide abortion care. In reality, the documented violations of the Hyde Amendment involve the opposite: states refusing to cover abortion care under circumstances where Medicaid coverage is mandated.

3. Denying Access to Abortion Care in Emergency Situations

Project 2025 calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to dismantle the abortion protections provided under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal policy that outlines requirements for emergency departments that receive Medicare funds.

  • The plan recommends rescinding Biden administration guidance from 2022 stating that people needing abortion care as part of emergency treatment are entitled to that care under federal law, even in states where abortion is banned. It would also end investigations into cases where patients’ rights were violated by denial of necessary emergency abortion care.
  • Further, it seeks to eliminate injunctions against states that have violated EMTALA and recommends that the Department of Justice withdraw from all ongoing litigation where it is currently defending the right to emergency abortion care.
  • Refusal to enforce EMTALA’s protections for abortion care puts pregnant people’s lives in jeopardy, by forcing providers to risk criminal charges if they perform potentially lifesaving abortion care.

4. Increasing Misinformation, Disinformation and Stigma

Project 2025 aims to implement a broad anti-sexual and reproductive health and rights agenda across the government—including by changing the mandate of key agencies and rewording policies to stigmatize and delegitimize sexual and reproductive health terms and concepts.

  • The plan proposes changing the Department of Health and Human Services into the Department of Life, complete with an anti-abortion task force to replace the existing Reproductive Healthcare Task Force and a newly created position of “Special Representative for Domestic Women’s Health” to lead anti-abortion policy efforts across agencies.
  • It recommends deleting all terms related to gender, gender equality, reproductive health, reproductive rights, abortion, sexual orientation and gender identity from all legislation, federal rules, agency regulations, contracts, agency websites and grants. Likewise, it encourages the use of U.S. influence at the United Nations to remove language “promoting abortion” from U.N. documents, policy statements and technical literature.
  • Project 2025 uses charged, medically inaccurate anti-abortion rhetoric—including language falsely portraying abortion as unsafe—to break down support for abortion rights and bolster efforts to criminalize providers, misuse laws and regulations meant to protect against discrimination, and ultimately cut off access to abortion care.
  • The agenda also uses the false implication that abortion is unsafe to justify proposals to increase pregnancy and abortion surveillance at the federal level. The plan suggests mandated reporting of abortions—as well as of miscarriages and stillbirths—by all states (using denial of federal funding streams as means of enforcement). The potential weaponization of this data collection by a hostile administration poses an immediate threat to abortion providers and patients, and it paves the way for increased criminalization of pregnancy outcomes other than abortion.
  • Project 2025 seeks to redefine basic sexual health education as “pornography”—and then to make pornography illegal—and also recommends replacing comprehensive sex education with abstinence-only curricula.

5. Weaponization of Federal Medicaid Dollars

Project 2025 calls for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to encourage states to eliminate all Planned Parenthood facilities from their state Medicaid programs, as some states have attempted in the past. It also suggests that CMS create a new regulation that would disqualify abortion providers nationwide.

  • This would have disastrous effects on access to basic health care services, particularly family planning, with other safety-net providers unable to increase their capacity to fill the gap that would be left if federal funding were pulled from Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health providers.
  • The agenda also makes baseless claims that some states are violating the Weldon Amendment by requiring coverage of abortion care in private insurance plans. Project 2025 calls for withdrawing partial Medicaid funds from these states in retaliation—a weaponization of funding that provides crucial health insurance for people with low incomes.

6. Attacks on Contraception

Project 2025 seeks to severely undermine two cornerstones of U.S. contraceptive provision: Title X, the national publicly funded family planning program, and the federal contraceptive coverage guarantee of the Affordable Care Act.

  • The plan proposes reinstating the harmful “domestic gag rule,” which would prohibit health care providers who receive Title X funding from providing abortion referrals and would require them to be physically and financially separated from any abortion-related activities, including counseling. Within about a year of this policy going into effect in 2019 (before it was rescinded in 2021), hundreds of clinics left the program and the number of patients served dropped by 2.4 million.
  • Project 2025 goes further and recommends legislation that would prohibit Title X funding from going to entities that perform or help fund abortion care. Legislating such a policy makes it harder to reverse in the future (compared with administrative rulemaking); it would also disqualify providers who meet the gag rule’s already stringent requirements.
  • In addition, the plan calls for broadening the contraceptive coverage guarantee’s existing religious and moral exemptions to make it easier for any employer—including large, for-profit corporations—to exclude contraceptive coverage from their employees’ health plan. Such exemptions deny people reproductive autonomy and access to needed health care, while over a decade of evidence show that the coverage guarantee reduced patients’ costs and helped them to use the birth control method of their choice and to use it effectively.

7. Impact on Reproductive Health Worldwide

Project 2025 also seeks to leverage U.S. influence to undermine sexual and reproductive health and rights globally, including by cutting U.S. financial support to countries and initiatives.

  • It proposes immediately reinstating the global gag rule, which would prevent non-U.S. NGOs from receiving U.S. government global health assistance if they used their own, non-U.S. funds to provide abortion services, information, counseling, referrals or advocacy. Past iterations of the rule have detrimentally impacted reproductive health outcomes, systems and services by decreasing access to contraceptive services and leading to clinic closures.
  • Project 2025 wants to take the policy further and have it apply to all U.S. foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid.
  • The plan also proposes blocking funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) which provides a wide range of critical sexual and reproductive health services to women and girls globally. When funding to UNFPA was withheld by the Trump-Pence administration, it caused a significant disruption to service delivery.
  • Project 2025 wants to impose its anti-rights ideology at the United Nations, too. It suggests expanding on the Trump-Pence administration’s Geneva Consensus Declaration on Women’s Health and Protection of the Family, an anti-rights, anti-abortion, anti-gender joint statement that undermines human rights (although that declaration was nonbinding and was never adopted by the U.N.).

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What is Plato’s Symposium, the classic book drawn into the Gender Queer culture wars?

Plato’s Symposium, Anselm Feuerbach, 1869

By

It was probably inevitable, but is deeply sad, that Plato’s Symposium (circa 380 BCE), has been drawn into the culture wars. A dialogue of great complexity and elegance, the book is one of the principal sources of the Greek philosopher’s views on love and beauty.

There are also darker political undertones of the decline of Athenian democracy, surrounding the character of Alcibiades who crashes the drinking party the book depicts. There is a lot going on in The Symposium, and a lot we can learn from.

An illustration of a sexual fantasy inspired by The Symposium features in Maia Kobabe’s graphic-novel memoir Gender Queer. This week, the federal court ordered the Australian classification review board to review its assessment of Gender Queer, finding it had ignored, overlooked or misunderstood public submissions for the book to be censored.

Rightwing activist Bernard Gaynor had applied to the board to review the classification of the book. Gaynor’s barrister, Bret Walker SC, argued in court there had been a “broadbrush dismissal” of submissions the board claimed were anti-LGBTQ+ when many submissions objected to what they saw as “paedophilic” depictions of a man having sex with a minor – an image portraying Plato’s Symposium.

Plato’s work comes from a different culture to our own. This was a culture in which, at least among aristocratic males, there were norms around sexual morality that are not our own.

In this context, as Michel Foucault has shown in The History of Sexuality, there were norms surrounding same-sex relationships between elder and younger men that many contemporaries will find deeply morally problematic. But this does not detract from the book’s importance, nor does it exhaust the work’s content.

Far from it.

Love, beauty, and Plato

The Symposium, as its title reflects, is a dialogue between seven leading figures in Athens, set in the controversial year 416 BCE. This was the year in which Athens, spurred on by the charismatic, hawkish demagogue, Alcibiades, sent its navy fatefully to invade the Italian city of Syracuse.

Cover of The Symposium

Alcibiades was, around this time, withdrawn from his command of the fleet: accused of desecrating sacred statues on the night before the fleet’s departure, and of impiously staging religious mysteries.

The party in The Symposium soon becomes a setting for the leading participants to each give speeches on the nature of love. Probably the most famous is that of the comic playwright, Aristophanes.

He argues human beings were, initially, unlikely round figures who developed the hubris to challenge the Gods. As a result, we were chopped in half and became sexed beings. Each of us was thus condemned to seeking our lost “other half” through sexual love.

The hero-philosopher Socrates’s speech is similarly colourful. It features him reminiscing on a youthful visit to an exotic priestess, Diotima, who taught him everything he knows about love.

Love, suggests Socrates, (rather wonderfully), is the longing to give birth to beauty. It is tied to the human longing for immortality. We are drawn by the beauty of others to try to unite with them, physically and spiritually. At first, the beautiful form of the body attracts us. But then it becomes the beauty of their souls, if love is more than lust or illusion.

Love inspires us, Plato is stressing, to give birth to new things. For most of us, this means physical offspring, who will perpetuate our name and memory.

But love can move people to beautiful speeches, beautiful works of art, even beautiful laws to govern cities. The philosopher, we are told, ultimately seeks Beauty itself, an unchanging eternal reality in which all earthly, beautiful things only imperfectly participate.

Sexual desire

This is hardly highly erotic material, in any ordinary sense. And yet, when the drunken Alcibiades comes bursting in to interrupt Socrates, accompanied by flute girls and a band of revellers, sexual desire is brought back into the frame.

A bust of a bearded man.
Plato, copy of a portrait made by Silanion circa 370 BC.

Alcibiades, who has lived a life of popular adulation and sexual promiscuity, launches into a speech describing his attempts to seduce Socrates, the ugly, old philosopher. For Socrates is the only man or woman who has ever said “no” to his advances, even, once, when Alcibiades was sleeping right beside him.

This knock back drives Alcibiades crazy. And yet, it impresses him. Socrates is ugly on the outside, he says. Yet, inside his soul, for those who love him, there are secret treasures, (agalmata in the Greek). And he would do anything to possess such hidden beauties.

This is a text rich in images, comedy, and deep insights into the human experience. Yes, Plato’s characters accept the norms of that time surrounding homosexual love. The opening speech, by Phaedrus (a character who comes up in another dialogue on love), celebrates the power of such love, for instance in armies, wherein men will fight more vigorously to protect their beloved. (In Greek culture, the manly Achilles’ love for Patrocles, which is such a theme in Homer’s Iliad, was considered exemplary.)

The second speaker, the rather sleazy Pausanius, makes a case more directly for the nobility of sexual love affairs between older men and young, beautiful adolescent males. In what is arguably special pleading, Pausanius tells the group that

the older man brings to the match his wisdom and his virtue, while the younger nobly seeks to acquire these with a view to his better education.

We don’t need to be convinced. But this is the second speech of seven, and hardly Plato’s final word on love. As shown by the dialogue of Phaedrus, Plato is clearly interested in the elevating capacities of romantic love: the ways that, whether same-sex or heterosexual, it can inspire and elevate people.

In such a view, notably, he is something of an exception among the ancient philosophers, most of whom are decidedly more suspicious about the tendency of romantic love to get people to lose their heads.

For Plato, when human beings fall in love, they can be moved outside of their own egoism, if only to serve their beloved, and then the children the union can bring.

The connection of even sexual love with our responsiveness to beauty shows for Platonists that we are not just animals, without a spiritual dimension. Even the lowliest person is still moved by beauty, and can be inspired by its pursuit to improve themselves.

A different moral message

The big message of the dialogue then is not lasciviousness. When Socrates knocks back Alcibiades’ attempt to seduce him physically, he tells him he would nevertheless be happy to meet with him, to continue discussing virtue and how he can become a better person.

Alcibiades has no interest in this, instead turning from trying to conquer Socrates to trying to conquer the known world. As some readers will know, he soon enough defects to Sparta, seduces its queen and betrays his home city, before defecting to Persia, as related by Thucydides and Xenophon.

If moralists want to find a message in The Symposium, it might be this. The person who can conceive no greater love than them self and their own beauty, is no friend to ordinary standards of civics, or, indeed, good and evil.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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My Body Doesn’t Belong to You

— In this essay from 2017, a young woman offers powerful testimony about the damaging effects of men’s possessiveness over women’s bodies.

By Heather Burtman

When the stranger yelled at me from his car window, I was carrying my Zamioculcas zamiifolia, a large tropical plant I had just bought at a greenhouse. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I don’t think he was complimenting my plant.

His words, whatever they were, brought to mind all of the derogatory comments and crude propositions I had heard before, from different car windows and different men: all of the comments about my body and suggestions for what I could do with it. It was as if, once I turned 16, my body no longer belonged to me but to the world at large and to certain men who drove their cars past it.

When I was a little girl, playing shirtless in my family’s garden, my body felt as if it belonged only to me. We had a rectangle-shaped yard out of which we would dig a smaller rectangle, and this dark patch of soil would become our garden. At 5, 6 and 7 years old, my siblings and I laughed as we shook out fat chunks of grass and produced a shower of dirt that went up our noses and down our chests.

I liked the way the dirt felt, all freshly dug, against my skin, and I asked my mother to bury me in it the way she sometimes did at the beach. She buried me halfway, and I smiled and posed for a picture. I liked being that way: a bare, muddy torso with a handful of seeds that I thought might grow carrots and yield a future in which my body was my body. And your body was your body.

Nakedness was swimming in the bay as the sunlight dimmed behind the apple trees, and when we walked down the street and men smiled at us, they didn’t mean it like that.

During my senior year of high school, I went in for my second bra-fitting at J.C. Penney, where the fitter sniffed a little in disapproval when telling me my cup size, as if she were thinking, “How dare you grow those.”

I was now the keeper of this secret: There are sizes beyond DD. You can be an H, for example. That is British sizing. Or a K. That is American sizing. The British make better bras. I was the girl with the big breasts. There were jokes, compliments from female friends, promises that my future boyfriend or husband or lover would have plenty to be happy about.

There were men who ogled. Men who asked, “Are those real?”

I had no answer. I didn’t remember consciously deciding about their size or doing anything about it.

Around then I realized that, in this world, there would be many instances when my body would not feel like my body. When I was in a club and a man grabbed my buttocks and then my hands, trying to pull me in to dance. You can say no 100 times, and he will still pull.

There is the knot of your hands and his, and the harder you pull away, the harder he pulls closer. It is like a game to him, like one of those colorful woven tubes that trap your fingers when you exert opposing forces.

If you are lucky, your friends will yell at him until he lets go. You will stand there stunned, suddenly realizing how sticky the dance floor is, also wondering if they have nice-smelling hand soap in the bathroom, hand soap that smells like summer air, being young, outside. But that is the smell of another world entirely, one that no longer seems to exist.

When I walk to work, and men smile at me along the way, they don’t have nice smiles anymore. “What’s your name?” they say. “Come on, sweetheart, tell me your name.”

They follow me, their footsteps like trees falling. I can feel it in the air, their need to take something from me. It has nothing to do with me in particular, with me as an individual. It has nothing to do with how I was once a fearless, naked gardener with a blue plastic teapot and a collection of Ravensburger puzzles.

If I were to tell them my name, would they remember it? Would they invite me out to a nice dinner and listen as I told them stories about my childhood? Would this be true love?

I can picture the scene now. I’m at brunch with my girlfriends at a place that serves bottomless Bloody Marys and slightly overcooked eggs. After Round 3, we find ourselves on the usual subject: how we met our significant others.

My girlfriends lean in a little closer and say: “Oh Heather, please tell the story again. Tell us how you and Lyle met.”

“Well,” I begin, taking one last sip of Bloody Mary. “I was walking down the street when Lyle drove by and yelled, ‘Hey, baby!’ and asked me to have sex with him. And I thought, ‘This one’s a keeper.’”

Such behavior is not about me. It’s not about love. It’s not even about sex. It is about fear and power. What certain men gain from feeding on such things, I do not know, and I do not want to know.

While traveling in France one year, I held onto my friend’s arm as a man followed us for maybe half a mile, yelling I know not what. There was the glittering river, the stone bridge, the creperie closed for the night. Only the fear really existed.

“We can take him,” I whispered to her. “I mean, if anything happens.”

We marched forward, eyeing the distance between the hunted and the hunter. I was too scared to think and uncertain of how one even got a hold of the police out there.

In Connecticut one day, a man drove past me only to turn around and come back.

“Oh, my God,” I thought. “He came back.” I felt the fear descending upon me the way a colorful parachute does in a childhood game of cat and mouse. He talked, he laughed, he watched me try not to blink. I always blinked. What is the verb? To savor. To luxuriate in torturing another. Sadism.

If someone does this to you, do not give in to the temptation to smile. I tell myself to be the strong woman my mother taught me to be and not smile, but I almost always do.

One man said to me: “Do you know who I am? I am Don Juan, and I am the best lover in the world. See for yourself.”

And I thought: Good for you, sir. Good for you. I smiled at him, laughed even.

Another man on another day stood on the sidewalk in front of me as dusk was falling. He was with his friends, and he reached out his arms and pulled me toward him. And what did I do? “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’ve got to go.” Sweet smile. Walk, don’t run. They smell fear. They chase.

I will never be 6 again. I no longer remember what it is like to bask shirtless with a garden against my skin, or for someone to take a picture of my naked torso that they will actually develop at Walgreens. I am 24, and my body makes life dangerous for me. My breasts, my hips, the way I walk. Any woman’s breasts, any woman’s hips, the way any woman walks.

It’s all somehow too tempting. Our full lips or thin lips. Our necks exposed beneath cropped hair, or our long hair, or the split ends we pick at while sitting on the bus. Our pierced or unpierced ears. The infinite circle of belly button winking beneath our shirts. We look too good in our T-shirts and jeans. We look too good bundled up in our coats, carrying houseplants down the street.

When we walk home to our apartments late at night, we carry our keys spread out between our fingers, and we jump at the shadows of shadows. In the daylight, we pretend we were never afraid.

A couple of years ago, in the warmth of summer, I stood naked on a dock, and my body was my body. My two girlfriends were standing naked beside me, and their bodies were their bodies. Our breasts were our breasts. Our clothes were our clothes that we had chosen to wear and chosen to take off, leaving them in warm heaps on the chilled wood next to the damp footprints, which were also ours.

When we jumped into the water, we chose to jump in. The weeds brushed against our bodies obliviously, encircling our fingers and toes and hips with no knowledge of or care about which was which.

We splashed water with our fists and yelled, but if we were afraid, it was only of fish. That thought made us laugh. We saluted the dark, starry, silent sky, and it did not so much as whistle or wink back.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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An important piece is missing from the reproductive freedom debate

— Comprehensive sex education

By Meg Bartlett-Chase

During the recent debate with Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance alluded once again to the myth of “post-birth abortions” when he referenced his (mis)understanding of Minnesota’s reproductive health care laws. He claimed that Walz signed a bill that allows “a doctor who presides over an abortion, where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late term abortion.”

Vance seemingly referred to the 2023 Legislature’s repeal of the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act.” The new law now allows parents to hold and show love to their infants born with fetal abnormalities often incompatible with life, while no longer mandating doctors perform medical interventions that have no chance of success.

This follows the presidential debate during which Donald Trump repeated his claim that abortions are being performed post-birth. While moderator Linsey Davis quickly fact-checked, “There is no state in the country where it is legal to kill a baby after it was born,” there remain voters who believe these harmful myths about abortion care. While fear and misplaced trust play a role, insufficient sex education policies lay the foundation that allows such persistent misunderstanding of pregnancy and abortion.

Thirty states require sex education, but 17 of them mandate an abstinence-only approach. Just three states both require sex education and establish that the education must be comprehensive (e.g., curriculum inclusive of a wide range of sexual, gender and relationship heath topics not limited to abstinence).

Unfortunately, Minnesota is not one of them — our state laws currently require only that schools teach sex education; that it is “technically accurate”; and that it covers abstinence.

Across the country, the state of sex education is not an accident.

Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, opposition to abortion rights has gone hand in hand with dismantling sex education in public schools. It began with the 1970’s emergence of the Christian right in backlash to the era’s sexual revolution, and it’s continued to current day Project 2025. In each case, anti-abortion sentiments have accompanied restrictions on sex education under the umbrella of “family values.” These values often resulted in support for abstinence-only sex education, which prevents youth from accessing information about sexuality and pregnancy that does not involve waiting to have sex until marriage.

Anti-abortion advocates know that increased understanding of sex, reproduction and pregnancy encourages support for reproductive freedoms. Twenty-five states have either banned abortion or restricted it beyond what Roe v. Wade allowed before its fall in 2022. Meanwhile, in 2024, over 450 bills have been introduced around the country intending to restrict or remove sex education content or instruction from schools. Many of the states where the most restrictive sex education bills have been introduced — and passed — are states with abortion bans and restrictions.

The purposeful attacks on sex education in schools is exceptionally upsetting considering the consistent findings that high quality sex education reduces rates of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, while also improving social/emotional learning, increasing media literacy, and developing skills for preventing partner violence and fostering healthy relationships.

But anti-abortion politicians aren’t the only ones who realize this connection. Researchers presenting at the 2024 Southern Political Science Association Conference shared that knowledge about pregnancy “is significantly associated with more (pro-abortion rights) attitudes.” That relationship proved strong across study participants’ political beliefs and religious identities — both of which are often presented as main sources of abortion rights opinions.

Lack of pregnancy knowledge allows space for anti-abortion activists to frame abortion as a moral issue instead of a health care necessity. Take Ed Martin, a Republican Party platform leader at the 2024 RNC, who previously claimed on his podcast, Pro America, that “No abortion is ever performed to save the life of the mother — none, zero, zilch.” This rhetoric negates all the health complications of pregnancy, as well as the life-saving care required to treat them. The complexity and risks of pregnancy — like ectopic pregnancies that cannot be safely carried to term or preexisting health issues made more deadly by the bodily changes of growing a fetus — are too great to legislate in a way that allows true care for any and all who need, and yes choose, to access it.

Despite its widespread support, sex education is rarely included in the advocacy of reproductive rights organizations. Abortion rights are popular in this country, but not as popular as school-based sex education. While 67% of Americans support legal abortion in most or all cases, nearly 89% of Americans — and 90% of parents — believe sexual health education should be in schools. Notably, when Black women lead on abortion rights, they more often advocate for reproductive as well as parenting justice that includes sex education advocacy. The rest of us should take note.

This means taking a broader view of what advocating for reproductive rights looks like. Our methods for supporting pro-abortion rights candidates and organizations appear clear, but supporting sex education in our communities, states, and country requires a slightly different approach.

Education policies come from federal funding and standards, state laws, educational department standards, and local school districts. As the election looms and the school year has begun, consider the candidates at every level — especially the school board — on your ballot. While candidates and advocates are much more openly discussing abortion, sex education remains laden with the perception of controversy and stigma.

We can advance access to sexual health information that students need and deserve by talking about sex education and pushing candidates to do the same. This could be at school board meetings, town halls, caucuses, or by contacting candidates directly. Organizations like Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, or SIECUS, and state-based nonprofits provide opportunities to use your voice for true reproductive freedom that can only come from informed and sexually literate communities.

Ensuring reproductive rights for future generations requires more than fighting for abortion access today. It means advocating for sex education policies that will prevent us from falling into traps of disinformation for decades to come.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Your pride, your power

— The essential LGBTQ voter guide for 2024

Your pride, your power: The essential LGBTQ voter guide for 2024 Navigate the complex landscape of LGBTQ politics with Reckon’s roadmap to what’s really at stake for queer and trans Americans in this election.

Navigate the complex landscape of LGBTQ politics with Reckon’s roadmap to what’s really at stake for queer and trans Americans in this election.

By Denny

What’s the issue? Break it down.

In recent years, we have seen the rights of LGBTQ Americans nationwide used as political pawns. During the presidential election year in 2020, anti-trans legislation reached an all-time high with 118 anti-trans bills. In 2024, the number of bills introduced has skyrocketed more than five-fold, with 658 bills aiming to restrict bodily autonomy, healthcare access, sports participation, and attempts to erase the public existence of the LGBTQ community. Trans youth are the primary target.

Simultaneously, persistent misinformation about gender-affirming care from anti-trans conservatives has emboldened hostile rhetoric surrounding the community. As a result, 45 anti-trans bills across the country have passed into law, affecting 16 states. As we approach the 2024 election, the fight for LGBTQ liberation remains crucial—perhaps more urgent than ever before.

Why does it matter? What’s at stake?

As a direct result of rising anti-trans rhetoric, major cities have seen a record high in hate crimes, according to the 2023 “Report to the Nation” by Brian Levin, who found that three of the five demographics experiencing increased hate violence were from the LGBTQ community. This underscores the widespread impact of anti-LGBTQ sentiment, affecting all communities regardless of political affiliation.

Although trans youth are targeted in legislation, this year alone has seen violent incidents that resulted in trans and nonbinary teens dying, including Nex Benedict from Oklahoma and Pauly A. Likens from Pennsylvania. Additionally, mental health issues for young LGBTQ people continue to worsen as anti-LGBTQ laws increase. Voting in favor of pro-LGBTQ policies and ensuring pro-LGBTQ politicians win their seats then can mitigate the rampant attack on trans youth, and potentially proactively turn the tides for the better.

Current status

The numerous anti-trans bills and laws across various states have caught the attention of many in the community. In anticipation of the 2024 election, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case brought on by the ACLU, challenging Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1, enacted in July 2023 under Gov. Bill Lee. This law bans gender-affirming care for trans minors in Tennessee. Government officials defending the law argue that gender-affirming care is not only harmful and unnecessary, but also that trans people are not protected under the Constitution.

This case is significant because how the Court interprets transgender rights under the Constitution can set a major precedent for LGBTQ protections moving forward.

Where do the presidential candidates stand on this issue?

Democratic Party:

  • Kamala Harris: Harris, who currently serves as Vice President, supported gay marriage over a decade before it was federally legalized. She also helped her home state of California become the first state to ban the “gay and trans panic” defense law in 2014, and introduced a bill to prohibit the practice at the national level. Her policies on sex work and incarceration as attorney general have been criticized by the trans community, particularly an instance when she was against allowing incarcerated trans people to transition.
  • As Vice President, she has shown increased support for LGBTQ rights, hosting Pride events at the White House. Her running mate Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, shows a history of pro-LGBTQ advocacy spanning over two decades.

Republican Party:

  • Donald J. Trump: As the 45th president, Trump initiated a concerted effort to remove protections for LGBTQ people. In 2018, his administration attempted to define “sex” in federal civil rights laws to eliminate non-discrimination protections for trans people. Trump sought to “define ‘transgender’ out of existence,” erode protections for transgender students and workers, and weaken access to gender-affirming health care—which we now see as a prominent debate topic amongst nominees.
  • In his current campaign, Trump has announced plans to severely restrict queer, trans and nonbinary rights if he wins a second term. His plan “Agenda 47” aligns closely to anti-trans bills becoming law this year. His running mate J.D. Vance has actively spread misinformation about gender-affirming care.

Independent, Green, Libertarian or Third-Party:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Independent): Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump on Aug. 23.

  • Kennedy lacks concrete opinions regarding trans rights—at least not the ones that are often debated over. He faced criticism early on for accepting an invitation to speak at a summit hosted by Moms for Liberty—an anti-trans extremist group, according to civil rights watchdogs, rallying school curricula, sports participation and bathroom usage. Kennedy backed out of the event, while reaffirming his support for gay marriage.
  • He has also been wary of supporting hormone replacement therapies (HRT) for trans youth, questioning its practices and long term effects. Comparing it to driving, voting, joining the army, even getting a tattoo, Kennedy is hesitant to support underage access to gender-affirming care “because we know that children do not fully understand the consequences of decisions with life-long ramifications,” he said on X. He has stressed the importance of showing the trans community support as they “shouldn’t ever be shamed.”

Cornel West (Independent): Known for longstanding racial justice activism, West has spent his career advocating for marginalized people to have equitable access to democratic institutions and social spaces. But his looming uncertainty over trans athletes’ participation in sports casts a shadow in understanding just how pro-LGBTQ he is. During Pres. Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, West criticized Obama’s usage of gay marriage above other issues, though clarified his support for it two years later.

  • In an interview last year with Fox News, West expressed empathy for trans people and their vulnerability when asked about sports participation. The following month in an interview on “The Karen West Show,” West seemed to have backtracked, proposing a third gender category for trans athletes for “fairness.” Regarding bathroom usage, discrimination policies and anti-LGBTQ school curricula, West has no concrete proposed policies surrounding transgender rights.

Jill Stein (Green Party): Stein is known for protesting at coal plants and testifying before legislative bodies about environmental concerns. According to iSideWith, another voting guide system, voters of Stein would support gender-affirming care for minors under the condition that they are non-surgical—though she herself has not made any direct statements about her stance on trans healthcare.

  • It is worth nothing, however, that Stein has an up-to-date understanding of what is at stake for the trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming community given that this Trans Day of Visibility, she took it to X to express her awareness of the current climate, escalating political and physical violence surrounding trans issues. She mentioned having a “longstanding” record of affirming trans rights, and promises to implement federal protections for all LGBTQ people nationwide.

Chase Oliver (Libertarian): A former Democrat, Oliver is a 39-year-old gay candidate who is pro-gun, anti-cop, pro-choice. He self-describes himself as Georgia’s first LGBTQ candidate who is “armed and gay.” Oliver himself was the person behind his high school’s inaugural Gay Straight Alliance (GSA).

Key bills to know

CALIFORNIA

  • Assembly Constitutional Amendment (ACA) No. 5 (Proposition 3): Under Proposition 8, the California Constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman in the state, which eliminates the rights of same-sex couples to marry.
    • A yes vote = removes the ban on same-sex marriage from the California Constitution and declares the right to marry as a fundamental right for all couples, regardless of gender.
    • A no vote = keeps the current language defining marriage as between a man and a woman in the state constitution and maintains a constitutional conflict with federal law, which recognizes same-sex marriage

COLORADO

  • SCR24-003: The Colorado constitution states that a marriage is valid only if it is between one man and one woman. That provision has been unenforceable since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. The Constitutional Same-Sex Marriage Ban Amendment repeals the provision in Colorado.
    • A yes vote = Removes the phrase “only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state” from the Colorado Constitution. Aligns the state constitution with current federal law and practice.
    • A no vote = Keeps the outdated, unenforceable language in the state constitution and maintains a symbolic barrier to marriage equality in Colorado.

HAWAII

  • House Bill 2802: The Hawaii Remove Legislature Authority to Limit Marriage to Opposite-Sex Couples Amendment proposes a constitutional amendment to repeal the Legislature’s authority to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.
    • A yes vote = Removes the phrase “the legislature shall have the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples,” from Hawaii’s constitution.
    • A no vote = Keeps the current recognition that a marriage under the constitution is limited to straight couples.

NEW YORK

  • Proposal 1: This proposal amends Article 1, Section 11 of the Equal Rights Amendment. Section 11 now protects against unequal treatment based on race, color, creed, and religion. Proposal 1 seeks protection against unequal treatment based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes, abortion, as well as reproductive healthcare and autonomy.
    • A yes vote = protection against unequal treatment based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes.
    • A no vote = keeps the lack of protections in instances of discrimination based on identity in the state.

SOUTH DAKOTA

  • Senate Joint Resolution 505: This amendment was designed to remove gender-specific language in the state constitution and replace it with gender-neutral language. Specifically, the measure was designed to replace male pronouns with gender-neutral terms or the titles of offices referenced.
    • A yes vote = amending the text of the South Dakota Constitution to change male pronouns to gender-neutral terms or titles.
    • A no vote = keeps the state constitution pronouns to only “he/him,” when referring to the state constituents.

Notable races of LGBTQ candidates in swing states

ARIZONA

MICHIGAN

  • Kyle Wright is running for a House seat in one of the most competitive districts in the state, against James DeSana, a MAGA extremist with strong anti-trans stances. Wright would be the youngest state representative in Michigan.

NEVADA

  • In order to maintain a pro-equality supermajority in the Nevada Assembly, all eyes are on Assembly District 4 where gay candidate Ryan Hampton is working tirelessly to flip this open seat.
  • Assemblywoman Cecilia Gonzalez is running for reelection.

NORTH CAROLINA

  • Lisa Grafstein is the sole LGBTQ voice in the State Senate and in a newly drawn 50/50 seat. With the gubernatorial election likely favoring the Democratic Party, ensuring there is not a GOP supermajority would be key to preventing further anti-LGBTQ legislation.

PENNSYLVANIA

  • Notable statewide candidate:
    • Malcolm Kenyatta (Democrat) for Pennsylvania State Auditor. Kenyatta would be the first out LGBTQ+ statewide official in Pennsylvania.

WISCONSIN

  • Wisconsin State Assembly: Wisconsin might elect its largest-ever bloc of LGBTQ State Assembly members, who will be a crucial part of the state’s legislative branch in charge of making and passing laws.
    • Ryan Spaude is running in what is likely the most competitive district in Wisconsin, with the Democratic party leading by one point in the Partisan Voting Index (PVI), according to the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund.
  • Kristin Alfheim’s Senator campaign is a crucial win that Democrats need in order for control of the state Senate. She is facing an opponent in the general election who has strong anti-LGBTQ stances.
  • Notable statewide candidate:
    • Tammy Baldwin (Democrat) for Wisconsin U.S. Senator. Baldwin made history in 2012 as the first out LGBTQ member elected to the U.S. Senate, and was re-elected for her second term in 2018.

Key Points for Voters

  • What to Consider When Voting
    • Representation matters to an extent: LGBTQ representation matters, but it’s not everything. Research candidates thoroughly, regardless of their identity. Focus on track records, policies and visions that align with LGBTQ rights and your values.
    • Prioritize intersectionality: Consider how LGBTQ issues intersect with other social justice movements. Look for candidates who understand and advocate for reproductive rights, immigrants’ rights, racial equality, economic equity, environmental protection. Support candidates who recognize the interconnectedness of identity and systemic issues.
    • Keep your politicians accountable: Voting is just the beginning of political engagement. After elections, monitor your representatives’ actions and votes, communicate regularly with their offices, and collaborate with advocacy groups to ensure promises are kept. Remember: Your role as a constituent continues beyond Election Day.
    • Engage in local activism: Don’t wait for national elections to make a difference. You can create change in your community by joining or starting local LGBTQ organizations, attending city council meetings, volunteering for local causes and organizing community events to raise awareness. Stay informed and educate others and challenge misinformation about LGBTQ issues when you encounter it.

Resources and Further Reading

  • Where to Learn More
    • Equality PAC: The political arm of the Congressional Equality Caucus, Equality PAC is dedicated to the full legal and societal equality for LGBTQ Americans where all funds raised are spent supporting and electing openly LGBTQ individuals and strong LGBTQ allies to the United States Congress who are committed to full civil rights and protections for all LGBTQ Americans.
    • Gender Liberation Movement March: Washington, D.C. march, protest and festival for gender-affirming care, abortions rights and democracy on Sept. 14
    • LGBTQ+ Rights Voter Guide on Who to Vote For: Keep tabs of which LGBTQ or LGBTQ-ally candidates are running in your state for some of the crucial seats in this upcoming election, and what and who they are up against.
    • LGBTQ+ Victory Fund: The only national organization devoted to electing pro-equality, pro-choice LGBTQ+ leaders to public office at every level—from local school boards, to city council, and even a seat in Congress.
    • “Plugged In”: WABE, the NPR and PBS affiliate for the Metro Atlanta Area, their podcast “Plugged In” explores LGBTQ life in Georgia, wherein this episode dives into what is at stake for queer, trans and nonbinary Georgians, and how LGBTQ voters could shape the upcoming presidential election.
    • ACLU Tennessee: “U.S. Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge from United States, Families, and Doctors Against Transgender Health Care Ban”
    • GLAAD: “GLAAD’s Voter Poll Indicates Anti-Trans Campaigning is Failing.” 94% of LGBTQ Americans Are Motivated To Vote; 72% Report Negative Impact of Political Discourse on Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being

     

  • Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
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How sex cemented (and stigmatized) the gay community

— The history of discrimination and persecution against the LGBTQ+ community led many people to seek safe meeting spaces

A march for LGBTQ+ rights in New York City in 1994, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

By Álex Maroño Porto

Nico is a 30-year-old American who moved to Pamplona, in the north of Spain, to study. During his interview with EL PAÍS, he prefers that his real name not be revealed. For Nico, sex and romantic love don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. After coming out in 2019, he gradually adopted a prosexual vision that largely involves relationships between queer men — those whose gender identities or sexual orientation differ from the norm.

“Sex isn’t just what we’ve been protecting for centuries through religious and cultural norms, as something meant only for procreation,” he explains over the phone. “Sex isn’t something that should be set aside when we talk about queerness: it’s something central to us.”

Heterosexual culture has been marked by monogamy as almost the only acceptable relationship model. But LGBTQ+ peoples have had more freedom when it comes to exploring their emotional bonds. For queer men, sex has been able to serve as a catalyst for community formation. It’s a practice that — due to its visibility and its break with the established order — has been the object of intense social persecution, even today. In the United States, for example, four states prohibited sexual relations between people of the same sex until 2003, under the so-called “sodomy laws.” And, just two years ago, Iran publicly executed two men for engaging in a sexual relationship with each other.

Among queer men, the meaning of sex goes beyond the time spent with another person — or other people — in a bed. Or in the bathrooms of a nightclub. Or even outdoors. The importance of sex for the community has a clear historical trajectory. One of the reasons was the repression of homosexuality, says Gabriel J. Martín, a psychologist and author of several books on LGBTQ+ topics. When queer spaces didn’t exist due to institutional criminalization, sex with strangers became a safe way to satisfy desire.

“It was preferable that these were anonymous encounters, because — as it was prohibited — if the other person was arrested, at no time could they give you up [to the authorities], because they didn’t know who you were,” Martín writes to EL PAÍS via WhatsApp.

In the 1970s, with the emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement, sex laid the foundation for the nascent queer community. Men began to build what would become a social movement forged, in part, through sexual relations.

Philip Hammack is a professor of psychology at the University of California. During a phone conversation with EL PAÍS, he explains that the growing number of queer spaces — especially after the Stonewall riots in 1969, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City — was essential. “All that furtive sex that happened in bathrooms and in hidden spaces could be integrated into real institutions: gay bars, saunas and sex clubs,” Hammack notes. He’s the co-editor of The Story of Sexual Identity: Narrative Perspectives on the Gay and Lesbian Life Course (2009).

The HIV epidemic put an end to these prosexual attitudes. While the importance of sex between queer men never disappeared, the social openness of the 1970s was replaced by the rejection of the prosexual vision that characterized that era. “Sex became linked to disease,” says Michael Bronski, a professor at Harvard University and author of A Queer History of the United States (2011). “We spent years trying to figure out how to avoid that and how to separate it completely in our imagination.”

Hammock recalls how, in the 15 years from the first cases in 1981 to the approval of antiretroviral treatments, a positive diagnosis meant — in large part — a condemnation. Although condoms and non-penetrative sex greatly reduced the chances of infection, moralistic discourse prevailed: sex and promiscuity took on a sordid meaning. You could try to be gay, but only within the margins of heteronormative respectability.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis — known as PrEP — changed everything. The World Health Organization began recommending its use in mid-2014. This treatment, adopted in countries such as the United States and Spain in recent years, prevents HIV infection by 99%. This success has brought non-normative sexual relations back to the center of the LGBTQ+ conversation. Thanks to this extra barrier of protection, queer men “can finally fulfill their desires free from the anxiety of possible death,” Hammack concludes. Sex has recovered its historical place as a relational tool, causing a cultural revolution that has socially legitimized sexual practices beyond the traditional relational model of monogamy.

Gay liberation movement
Two members of the Gay Liberation Movement in New York in 1970.

Excluded from the institution of marriage until recently, LGBTQ+ people have explored sexual relationships more freely than their straight counterparts. This is especially the case with women, Bronski says. And these non-monogamous ways of relating are more present in mainstream conversation than ever before. A 2021 study by Chapman University and the Kinsey Institute found that people who identify as gay or bisexual have practiced consensual non-monogamy more frequently than heterosexuals.

According to Christopher Stults, a professor at Baruch College, open relationships are, in some cases, the metropolitan queer standard… at least in large American cities. Eric Anderson, a professor at the University of Winchester and author of The Monogamy Gap (2011), believes that the monogamous ideal still marks LGBTQ+ relationships, although it’s an unsustainable utopia in the long term. “Men have more sexual desire than women; they always want more sexual partners,” he explains over the phone. In a two-man couple, he emphasizes, time leads to non-monogamous patterns, even if “they never acknowledge that they’re in an open relationship because of the stigma.”

In any case, relationships between gay men don’t seem to be marked by the search for sex with others. According to a study published in 2018 in the scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45.3% of queer men who were in a relationship were in a monogamous relationship. Tyrel Starks, a professor of psychology at Hunter College and co-author of the study, says that replacing the monogamous sexual standard with a single alternative reduces the diversity of relational patterns among queer men.

“If we declare that monogamy belongs to heterosexuals, in a way, we’re accepting a rather homophobic narrative,” he tells EL PAÍS over the phone. For some queer men, the importance of sex lies in forging community with others or satisfying a sexual appetite, while for others, it’s a way to be intimate with a single partner. Any “rigid normative structure” regarding queer sex “is potentially problematic.”

The sexual openness that characterizes queer men implies accepting diversity in the multiple meanings of sex… so long as one’s own terms are clear. “We will continue to explore the possibilities that feelings and sexual desire offer us,” Martín adds. “We’re the advance guard; whatever is happening with [LGBTQ+ people] right now in relation to sexuality will happen with the heterosexual population in two decades.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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‘Gender Queer’

— Incident inspires film ‘A Book By Their Cover’

Scenes from the movie “A Book By Their Cover” which was filmed in Berkshire County.

“[Young people] need to have visibility, and they don’t need to learn about things covertly with shame,” said filmmaker John Tedeschi. “They should be given the same awkward chance of learning about sex, sexuality, sex education, and biology.”

By Shaw Israel Izikson

Inspired by controversial local events, Stockbridge filmmaker John Tedeschi has created the film “A Book By Their Cover.” In an interview with The Berkshire Edge, first-time screenwriter and movie director Tedeschi said that the movie is partially inspired by the controversy surrounding the Great Barrington Police Department’s investigation of a W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School teacher over the book “Gender Queer.”

As of late September, the now-former teacher’s lawsuit over the incident continues to go through the court system. Tedeschi said that while the movie was partially inspired by the incident, other events around the country also influenced the film, including book bans connected to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) community.

“When I was listening to the meeting at the middle school that was held regarding the book, I felt that there is a need for that book to be available to some people, as long as it is age appropriate,” Tedeschi said.

The movie centers around 12-year-old Samantha, played by actress Eva Ferreira, who discovers a book while staying at her grandparent’s house. “She discovers a book on the bookshelf of their house, and it sort of piqued her curiosity,” Tedeschi said. “It’s a medical book. From that book, she starts to realize and learn things about herself. She thinks that she needs to read the book privately or covertly. As everyone in the house goes to bed, in the middle of the night Smantha comes down the stairs and reads the book.”

Tedeschi said that the medical book she reads was written in 1962. “She goes to the pages that say ‘homosexual’ on them,” Tedeschi said. “She is a little bit dismayed, confused, and scared. Samantha goes to school the next day, and the stress is aggravating and upsetting her. We see her go into the school bathroom, and she’s very frustrated and alone.”

Actress Eva Ferreira stars as 12-year-old Samantha.

Tedeschi explained that Samantha goes home to her parents and asks them questions. “Her parents don’t know all of the answers, but they are very supportive,” Tedeschi said. “They decide to get a book to help her.” Samantha’s parents give her the book “The Every Body Book: The LGBTQ+ Inclusive Guide for Kids about Sex, Gender, Bodies, and Families,” written in 2020 by Rachel Simon and illustrated by Noah Grigni.

Tedeschi said that trouble arises when Samantha takes the book to school. “During the school day, someone sees the book who doesn’t like it,” Tedeschi said. “That person [the school janitor] takes the book, confiscates it, and brings it to the principal. The principal brings the book to the superintendent, and in turn, the superintendent calls the police.”

Film director and writer John Tedeschi plays the character of “Carl Stallings,” a school janitor, who finds Samantha’s copy of “The Every Body Book” during a school day and confiscates it.

The movie then flashes forward to a town meeting during which various opinions are voiced about the book and the investigation.

The town meeting scene in “A Book By Their Cover.”

“But the book is eventually given back to Samantha,” Tedeschi said. “She is a bit shaken, but she feels that she can move forward, figure things out, and then start to feel better in time.”

When asked what he hopes audiences will get out of the film, Tedeschi said, “I hope people realize that resources are needed and are important for young people to feel that they are equal and visible.”

“[Young people] need to have visibility, and they don’t need to learn about things covertly with shame,” Tedeschi said. “They should be given the same awkward chance of learning about sex, sexuality, sex education, and biology. Children sometimes ask their parents how babies are made, and there’s this quick answer. But there’s not always the answer of adoption, or that there are other types of families out there. I feel like we need to be a little bit more updated and knowledgeable about the spectrum of various families and information.”

The film was filmed in Berkshire County. “We filmed a lot of it in Stockbridge,” Tedeschi said. “We were also able to use a middle school in Otis for some scenes.”

Tedeschi said that he is entering “A Book By Their Cover” in various festivals, and that the film will soon be available to watch on the Community Television of South Berkshires public access cable channel.

In an email to The Berkshire Edge after the interview, Tedeschi clarified:

… [T]he film is not a true story, it is not a film that uses the words ‘based on true or actual events’, and the characters are not intended to appear as any actual person. The film was inspired by many things, it is a mirror, as you said, of events but it is not the actual likeness.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Sexual Revolution Has Been Great

— For Men

By Charles Runels, MD

During the month of September, Sexual Health Awareness Month, it may help to notice something: Men and their doctors have significantly more options to help with sexual function than do women and their clinicians. Moreover, the education of physicians regarding the examination and treatment of women for sexual dysfunction has been and remains, even now in 2024, much less thorough than for men.

Not convinced? Let’s take a quick tour.

The New Sexual Revolution and the Growing Anger

photo of Newsweek 50 Shade edition

Around the time of the release of the book and movie 50 Shades of Grey, Newsweek put the cultural sensation on its cover.

I bought the magazine at the airport and, while waiting for my plane, showed the story to a woman sitting next to me. “What do you think — is this the new ‘sexual revolution’?” I asked her.

She glanced at the cover and answered as accurately as if she had written the article: “In the ’60s, it became okay for women to have sex; now, it’s okay for women to demand good sex.”

I would add to that: Women are demanding good sex, and they want to define for themselves what “good” means.

That social revolution rages, still.

You would think that the demand would bring a corresponding response in clinical medicine. You would be wrong. Although efforts in some sectors are heroic, overall, the results are lagging the forward movement of women wanting better sex.

The Lag in Sexual Education

To examine the progression of the education of physicians regarding the treatment of female sexual dysfunction (FSD), Codispoti and colleagues examined the curricula of seven medical schools in and around Chicago. They found the following: Only one institution identified all anatomic components of the clitoris — one! Four of the seven discussed the physiology of the female orgasm. Only three of the seven highlighted the prevalence and epidemiology of FSD or the treatments for FSD. Only one of the seven explained how to do a genitourinary physical exam specific to assessing FSD.

When assessing obstetrics and gynecology clinical materials, sexual pleasure, arousal, and libido were not included anywhere in the curricula.

I have been teaching physicians about the therapies I developed (over 5000 clinicians in 50-plus countries over the past 14 years). During those sessions, I often stop the class and ask, “Who in here was taught how to retract the foreskin and examine the penis for phimosis?”

All hands will go up.

Then I will ask, “Who in here was taught in medical school how to retract the clitoral hood and examine the clitoris for phimosis?”

Not once has anyone raised a hand.

The Sex Remedies Gap

When I first published research offering support for using platelet-rich plasma to improve sexual function in women, women had not one drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of sexual dysfunction — none. Men had over 20. Today, men have a growing number of FDA-approved drugs for erectile dysfunction, including the “fils“; women have three.

Women have access to only one FDA-approved medication that primarily affects the genitalia: prasterone. This drug is indicated only for the treatment of pain in postmenopausal women. It does not directly enhance desire or improve orgasms. Said another way, although the incidence of sexual dysfunction is higher in premenopausal women than in other groups, they do not have a single approved medication designed to improve the function of their genitalia.

The other two of the three available drugs — flibanserin and bremelanotide — primarily affect the brain and could accurately be called psychoactive agents. They are available only for premenopausal women to improve desire. Flibanserin resulted in one extra sexual encounter per month on average, and patients are advised to avoid alcohol while using the drug. The other can make you vomit.

I do think all three of these treatments can be of great help to some women. I am not advising their disappearance. But in contrast to what is available to men, they are woefully inadequate.

Historical Perspective

In 1980, the medical establishment believed “most instances of acquired impotence are psychogenic.” Then, with the accidental discovery of the benefits of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors , we realized that most cases of male sexual dysfunction involve the vasculature of the genitalia, not the neuroses of the brain. Yet, our two FDA-approved drugs for women with sexual dysfunction are designed to affect the brain. Women have nothing but off-label therapies to improve the function of the genitalia.

Despite the fact research supports the use of testosterone in women for both libido and orgasm, and despite the fact millions of women are treated with testosterone off-label for the benefit of sexual function, the only widely used FDA-approved class of drugs for women that affects testosterone — birth control pills, by blocking pituitary hormone production (the way they prevent pregnancy) — lowers the production of testosterone.

One might wonder, considering our expanded understanding of the endocrinology of both men and women, at the irony of why it is acceptable to lower the testosterone level of an adolescent girl knowingly, as if her development did not require the hormone (such would never be acceptable in an adolescent male unless sexual transitioning were the goal); yet, we are fearful of giving testosterone to grown women who can no longer make it.

Premenopausal Women: An Orphan Population

The concept of “orphan populations” can partially explain the gap in available therapies between men and women.

Women of childbearing age are risky to study; so, with testosterone, for example, it is safer and cheaper for pharmaceutical companies to prove the benefits for men and ride the profits from the off-label use for women. I don’t mean to condemn the manufacturers of testosterone, only to point out the phenomenon of why up to 30% of the prescriptions written by a primary care physician are off-label; off-label use is common among cardiologists (46%); up to 90% of children in the hospital receive at least one off-label drug; and approval of drugs for premenopausal women is more expensive than approval of drugs for men.

What Can Be Done?

The regrettable situation does not reflect evil intent on the part of regulators, educators, or physicians. But the gap between what women want and what medical education and the pharmaceutical-regulatory complex are providing is intolerably wide.

First, I would recommend a standard, required curriculum for the study of female sexual anatomy and function be established and widely adopted by medical schools. The reproductive system contains different components and a different purpose from the orgasm system, with modest overlap. Both systems should be taught in every medical school.

Second, physicians should be required to undergo a course in understanding their own sexuality. Research demonstrates doctors will avoid conversations about sex, and it seems to me this could be secondary to being uncomfortable with their own sexuality. After all, to talk with a patient about sex, you cannot be fearful of where the conversation may lead.

Third, the FDA might reconsider the requirements for the approval of drugs for FSD. Currently, to approve a drug for men, an objective finding — ie, an erection — can be sufficient. However, a higher bar, “satisfaction,” which is subjective, must be obtained with women.

Regenerative therapies have proved helpful but are not yet widely adopted; more grant money for the study of regenerative therapies would be a good start here.

Finally, by the definition of FSD, a woman must be psychologically distressed. The idea of sex is not pleasure alone. Sexual function affects family relationships, emotional health, confidence, even sleep, as well as the emotional well-being of the children who live in the house. Saying women are wonderfully and mysteriously made may be poetic, but it is not an excuse for not learning more and closing the gaps.

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Let’s talk about sex — and repression — in America

— “Fierce Desires,” by Rebecca L. Davis, is a wide-ranging survey of how Americans have thought about and practiced and policed sex

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Clashes over sexual morality in America are, in large part, about what is new and what is old. Is premarital intrigue a timeless natural indulgence, or is it a byproduct of a newfangled venture called feminism? Is contraception an innocuous safeguard, or is it a contrivance of that devious plot against America, the sexual revolution?

Conservatives are nothing if not determined to confuse tradition with vindication, and it is no surprise that they are wont to appeal to history in hopes of endowing their bedroom hang-ups with the sort of gravitas that clings to musty antiques. One of their favorite relics is the fantasy of a golden age that might be recuperated, a period when pleasurable mischief was confined to marriage, babies resulted from every tryst and gender roles were strictly delineated. And what brought this utopian era to an end? “Feminism,” the conservative commentator Matt Walsh tweeted last year, is “perhaps the most destructive force in human history.” In a subsequent podcast episode, he clarified that “feminists have succeeded in destroying … the nuclear family,” a process that he alleged has “eaten away at the very fabric of civilization.”

Fierce Desires: A New History of Sex and Sexuality in America,” Rebecca L. Davis puts Walsh’s picture to the test. Her important, ambitious and entertaining study reminds us that many of the practices portrayed by reactionaries as radical and new, such as same-sex love, are in fact long-standing, whereas the sort of conjugal bliss lauded by the likes of Walsh as normal and normative is a relatively recent invention.

But Davis, a professor of history at the University of Delaware, demonstrates that Walsh and his ilk are true traditionalists in at least one sense: Americans have always displayed a special talent for prudery, sanctimony and moral panic. Any whiff of enjoyment or nonconformity that has ever materialized in the land of the strait-laced and the home of the stifled has attracted a scold, eager to wag a disapproving finger.

Davis divides American sexual history into three sometimes overlapping eras: 1600-1870, 1840-1938 and 1938-2024. It is not clear which of these strikes sexual reactionaries as an epoch of erotic virtue and sexual tranquility.

In some respects, the first of these eras was not as retrograde as some might wistfully imagine. The practice of “bundling,” whereby courting couples spent the night together before they wed, was so common that, “by the 1770s, between 30 and 40 percent of the brides in New Haven were already pregnant when they spoke their marriage vows.” Contraception and abortion were also widespread: Davis writes that many women “used pessaries, a substance or device placed in the vagina to block or neutralize sperm,” and pharmacists stocked herbal remedies that they euphemistically claimed could restore women’s periods (that is, terminate pregnancies).

But early America was also wretched in ways that even the most unapologetic chauvinist would be hard-pressed to defend. Marital rape and domestic abuse were rampant and largely unregulated. In one harrowing chapter, Davis details the plight of a 17th-century woman trapped in an abusive marriage to a man who beat her and regularly raped one of the couple’s daughters. This woman was nearly without recourse: Divorce was difficult (and in some states impossible) to obtain, and a wife was not legally entitled to live separately from her husband or even to enter into contracts on her own.

Sexual abuse was also one of the most pervasive and abominable features of slavery. Sexual propriety was heavily racialized from the country’s inception, and Davis writes that in the 17th century, “correct sexual behavior became an essential means of distinguishing Christian from heathen, civilized from savage.” Formerly, women as a whole were cast as lustful and licentious; now, White women were reimagined as fragile and infantile, and their alleged innocence served to distinguish them from Black women, who were derided as bestial and promiscuous, and Black men, who were stigmatized as predatory. These stereotypes were used to justify atrocities: For the next two centuries, Black men suspected of seducing White women were beaten or lynched, and enslaved Black women endured rape at the hands of their exploiters. There is little about the sexual politics of early America that anyone but the most depraved racist could find redeeming.

The second period considered in “Fierce Desires,” 1840-1938, is perhaps more promising from a conservative perspective. In the late 1800s, the anti-sex vigilante Anthony Comstock successfully campaigned for the passage of the Act for the Suppression of Trade in and Circulation of Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use, or, as it is more commonly known, the Comstock Act. The infamous policy outlawed interstate trade in erotica, a category that included contraception and abortifacients. As enforcement agencies and vice squads sprung up right and left, several prominent abortion providers found themselves at the receiving end of Comstock’s zealous harassment and ended up taking their own lives. Davis notes in an epilogue that certain contemporary conservatives are so unabashedly enthusiastic about this period of American sexual history, they are attempting to summon “the ghost of Anthony Comstock”: In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, many antiabortion activists hope to enforce a clause of the Comstock Act that was never formally repealed and that would proscribe the distribution of abortifacients by mail.

The movement to ban abortion has never been isolated from a broader agenda — one that strives to coerce women into motherhood and thereby reinforce a regressive gender hierarchy — and Comstock, the antiabortion poster child, had definite ideas about women’s place in society. The proper aim of sex, he emphasized, was not pleasure but reproduction in marriage; women belonged in the nursery, and their bodies belonged to their husbands. In a later chapter on the politicization of abortion in the 1990s, when religious extremists staged violent attacks on abortion clinics and even killed providers, Davis insightfully observes that members of the then-nascent antiabortion movement were not “single-issue voters” because “the abortion issue became a referendum on the sexual revolution, gay rights and feminism. Abortion opponents described the procedure as an assault on the ‘American family’ because, they argued, it untethered reproductive sex from marriage, women from men, and men from their responsibilities as family breadwinners. Abortion struck at their beliefs that the conventionally gendered, heterosexual family held the nation together.”

She could just as easily be describing contemporary Trump supporters, or Comstock and his followers. All of these antiabortion crusaders are united in understanding that women’s freedom depends upon reproductive autonomy — and united in opposing that freedom.

Despite his recent resurrection, however, Comstock was not altogether victorious, even in his own day. Nineteenth-century moralists “fought an uphill battle,” as Davis writes. Euphemisms abounded — in a particularly satisfying twist, “Comstock syringe” became slang for a certain contraceptive — and birth rates continued to plummet. Speakeasies thrived in the Gilded Age, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s, queer desire flourished behind the scenes in secret societies, at drag balls in Harlem and among female blues singers who performed in top hats and tails. In chapters that center on memorable characters, some of them famous and some of them simply private civilians, Davis digs up some truly novelistic — and often truly touching — details about queer life.

By reactionary lights, she concludes, the years from 1938 to the present have seen a procession of unmitigated disasters. First came the Kinsey reports, studies based on interviews with thousands of American men and women. Published in 1948 and 1953, these enormously influential documents showed that both same-sex dalliances and premarital sex were quite common: 50 percent of the women surveyed said they’d engaged in coitus before marriage, and, per Davis, “the researchers calculated that 37 percent of American men had at least one sexual contact with another man that resulted in an orgasm.” Then came feminism and, on its heels, the development of sex education curriculums, which conservative Christians argued were “Communist, taught their children to be gay, sexualized very young children, exposed youth to pornography, and contributed to rising teen pregnancy rates” (there’s something perversely impressive about the doggedness with which they’ve trotted out this playbook in the intervening decades, without even gesturing at updating or revising it).

Of course, progressive movements faced setbacks in this last period, too. Throughout the 19th century, Davis writes, “same-sex and otherwise queer expressions of desire were common and mostly unpunished.” Men and women discretely pursued same-sex relationships in single-sex spaces, such as the military and all-girls schools. It was not until the late 1800s that same-sex desires were named or studied, and it was not until the 20th century that the social-scientific mania for taxonomizing (and all too often pathologizing) homosexuality took off. Definition was a double-edged sword: With the recognition of queer identity came persecution at the hands of homophobic vice squads, religious fanatics and sinister physicians who devised cruel “treatments” for desires they regarded as deviant. But the era also heralded the advent of identity-based organizing that was ultimately, if tentatively, effective.

A case can be made that sexual conservatism is the linchpin of the contemporary MAGA movement. It is, Davis writes, “the bridge that linked evangelical Protestants and Catholics across deep waters of theological and cultural difference.” It is certainly the missing link between such otherwise disparate figures as Matt Walsh, JD Vance and Amy Coney Barrett. There is nothing more American than repression, prudishness and bigotry — except, perhaps, mustering the bravery to stand up against them and for the transports of individual pleasures, in all their untamable glory and variety.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!