America's War On
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America’s War on Sex Recent Titles in Sex, Love, and Psychology Judy Kuriansky, Series Editor Relationship Sabotage: Unconscious Factors That Destroy Couples, Marriages, and Family William J. Matta The Praeger Handbook of Transsexuality: Changing Gender to Match Mindset Rachel Ann Heath America’s War on Sex The Attack on Law, Lust and Liberty Marty Klein, Ph.D Foreword by Nadine Strossen Sex, Love, and Psychology Judy Kuriansky, Series Editor Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Klein, Marty. America’s war on sex: the attack on lust, law and liberty. / Marty Klein ; foreword by Nadine Strossen. p. cm.—(Sex, love, and psychology, ISSN 1554–222X) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0–275–98785–X 1. Sex—United States—History—20th century. 2. Sexual ethics— United States—History—20th century. 3. Sex and law—United States— History—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. HQ18.U5K645 2006 306.70973—dc22 2006015708 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2006 by Marty Klein All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006015708 ISBN: 0–275–98785–X ISSN: 1554–222X First published in 2006 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America ∞ TM The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To the members of the First Amendment Lawyers Association: Who, to protect you and your family, have pledged their Lives, their Fortunes and their sacred Honor. Contents Acknowledgments ix Foreword by Nadine Strossen xi 1. You’r e the Target: Why a War on Sex? 1 2. Battleground: Sex Education—Where Children Come Second 5 3. The Most Powerful “Minority” in the United States 25 4. Battleground: Reproductive Rights 29 5. The Sexual Disaster Industry 47 6. Battleground: Broadcast “Indecency” 51 7. Yes, They Really Said That 73 8. Battleground: Adult Entertainment— Feverish Dreams, Real Estate Nightmares 79 9. How They Do It: Ammunition in the War on Sex 95 10. Battleground: The Internet 103 11. America Does Not Guarantee Your Right to Be Comfortable: The Lowest Common Erotic Denominator Project 121 12. Battleground: The War on “Pornography” 123 13. Extreme Religion and Public Policy 143 14. Battleground: Sexual Privacy and Sexual Minorities— Civil Rights or Immoral Privileges? 155 15. Revolutionizing American Government— Bad News for Democracy 173 Appendix: Declaration for Human Rights Day— How about Sex? 177 Afterword by Judy Kuriansky, Series Editor 179 Notes 181 Selected Bibliography 199 About the Author 201 Index 203 Acknowledgments I am a fortunate fellow. Standing at the nexus of several dynamic, creative professions, I have met many extraordinary people. I am privileged to present a work that is liberally seasoned with their ideas. It is a pleasure to publicly thank them. My sincere thanks go to Debra Haffner, Bennett Hasselton, Kat Sunlove, Bill Taverner and Larry Walters for reading and commenting on various chapters—frequently on airplanes or while writing their own books and col- umns, often on tight deadlines. Each of these incredibly accomplished people took the time to challenge me to write better, and to lavish praise on me when I did. Larry also gave me a crash course in First Amendment law, for which I will always be grateful. And I’ll never tell another lawyer joke again. Many others contributed comments and answered my endless questions. I am touched to have received wise and timely help from Barry Boss, Bob Corn-Revere, Clyde DeWitt, Milo Fencl, Nancy Fencl, Rebecca Fox, Judy Hanna, Phil Harvey, Marjorie Heins, Mitchell Katine, Mark Kerns, Doug Kirby, Raymond Lawrence, Judith Levine, Ricci Levy, Donell McDonell, Robert McGinley, James Morone, Candida Royalle, Bill Smith, and Jen Heitel Yakush, very busy people all. Without them this would have been a less compelling book. Nadine Strossen has honored me by taking this book seriously. Her energy, commitment, courage, and clarity have inspired me from the minute I discov- ered her many years ago. “Intellectual posse” may sound pretentious, but it captures the respect and affection I have for the world-class thinkers who supported me before and throughout this process: Stan Dale, Larry Hedges, Peter Lehman, Janet Lever, Jack Morin, Lillian Rubin, Michael Sand, and Pepper Schwartz. I am pleased to thank Michael Carrera, who defines the word “mensch;” Sandra Cole, whose affection is like a purifying flame; and Jim Petersen, whose lessons about combining social science, artistic writing, show business, and a wicked sense of humor I still value and turn to. x Acknowledgments I told Cynde Moya month after month that I would need her research skills “very soon.” When I finally gave her an entire manuscript to format, and asked for it back within a week, she dropped everything else in her life and prepared a handsome, very useful stack of pages. I do not toil alone. I am heartened by the powerful and important work of many colleagues in AASECT (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists), SSSS (Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality), and SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States). Without them I would have died a thousand deaths of scholarly loneliness. I proposed writing this book over a decade ago, but agents and publishers assured me there was no market for it. Over the years I burned to write it, but often became frustrated and considered giving up. My friends Michael Castleman and Vena Blanchard never let me forget how much I needed to complete this book, and urged me to persist. They were right. I am grateful to each of them. Thanks to Judy Kuriansky for bringing me to the attention of Debbie Carvalko at Praeger, and thanks to Debbie for recognizing the value of my work. My wise and dear friend Veronica Randall read every sentence of every chapter (except this one) at least once, alternately massaging and wrestling with many of them. As a result this book is easier to read, and so you and I are both very much in her debt. Finally, I thank my wife Randi—who, just by being herself, did everything a partner could possibly do to help me write this. I may be the one who writes about the human race, but she is the one who understands it. Like I said, I’m a fortunate fellow. Foreword I am honored to write a Foreword to this important book by my longtime colleague in the civil liberties movement, Dr. Marty Klein. The reasons why I consider this book so central to core civil liberties con- cerns can be graphically illustrated through my own family history. My beloved father was born a so-called “half-Jew” in Germany in 1922, and therefore suf- fered horrific human rights abuses under Hitler, including in the sexual realm. Until the day he died, my father was eternally grateful to the young woman who had been his first love, when he was a young man living in Berlin as the Nazis were rising to power. The Nazis had classified her as an “Aryan,” so she was risking her own safety when she defied Hitler’s strict anti-miscegenation laws and continued her relationship with my father. Meaningful as her love and loyalty were to my father, they couldn’t protect him from being deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Ultimately, though, my father was liberated from that death camp by the American troops who saved him— literally one day before he was slated to be sterilized. In short, I have the most profound personal stake in preserving individual freedom in the sexual realm. I owe my very existence to my father’s last-minute rescue from a regime that denied such freedom, as an essential element of its overall human rights abominations. To be sure, it has been a while since we have faced such extreme discrimina- tory, coercive measures in this country as those that my father faced in Nazi Germany. Nonetheless, anti-miscegenation and forced sterilization measures did constitute official U.S. policy until shockingly recently—1967, in the case 1 of miscegenation. Moreover, had it not been for constant advocacy efforts by organizations such as the ACLU, and by individuals such as Marty Klein, we might well still be subject to such repressive measures. We must have the historic humility to recognize that it is always far eas- ier, with twenty-twenty hindsight, to criticize past abuses—especially if they occurred elsewhere—than it is to recognize their current counterparts in our own backyards. Accordingly, Marty Klein’s book shines a welcome spotlight xii Foreword on the many public policies today that continue to stifle full and equal free- dom of choice for all mature individuals in the essential arena of sexuality. I hope that the next generation will look back on our laws that bar marriage between individuals of the same gender with the same incredulity and shame with which we now look back on the laws from two generations ago, barring marriage between individuals of different races. In short, in the words of the ACLU’s principal founder, Roger Baldwin, “No 2 fight for civil liberties ever stays won.” That in turn means, to quote a state- ment that has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, which is also an ACLU 3 motto: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Marty Klein’s book vigorously rises to the challenge posed by both of these rallying cries.