Jack McGeorge, Hans Blix, & Kofi Annan: U.N.
officials
In November 2002, The Washington Post reported that
Jack McGeorge, one of the U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, was a
national leader of America’s growing S/M community. ‘I have been
very upfront with people in the past about what I do,’ he told the
Post, ‘and it has never prevented me from getting a job. I
am not ashamed of who I am — not one bit.’ Nevertheless, to
protect the work of the U.N. weapons inspection program in Iraq,
McGeorge offered his resignation to chief inspector Hans Blix, who
rejected McGeorge’s offer, pointing out that his sexual activities
have nothing to do with his competence.
When U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was asked whether
McGeorge’s S/M involvement might be offensive to Iraqi Muslims, his
office noted that all weapons inspectors are required to be
sensitive to local cultures. And that was that.
Jesse McClure: Teen Defendant
Jesse McClure and his girlfriend were both 16 (over the age of
consent) when her mother found them having sex in the girlfriend’s
bedroom at 3 a.m. Charged under Georgia’s fornication law — which
criminalized consensual sex between unmarried people — McClure was
ordered to pay a fine and write an essay on why he should not have
engaged in sex. In response, he wrote that it wasn’t any of the
court’s business. With the help of the ACLU, he challenged the law,
which was overturned. ‘Invading personal privacy just isn’t right,’
he said after the decision — which made Georgia the 40th state in
which unmarried adults can legally have sex.
Renee Walker: Sex Ed Policy Challenger
Renee Walker is fighting to end CryBabies, an abstinence-only
program in her local school district in northern California that
features biased information about abortion and maintains abstinence
is the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and STDs. During the
program, her son learned that one disadvantage of abortion is
‘killing a baby.’ And, at the end of the eight sessions, the
seventh-graders can volunteer to sign a pledge to remain abstinent
until marriage — as if 12-year-olds are in any position to
understand the full implications of making such a decision.
The Mt. Diablo school district has responded by assembling a
task force to review the health curriculum, including the CryBabies
program.
Velmanette Montgomery and Carl Andrews: New York State
Senators
In February, State Senators Montgomery and Andrews introduced SB
1634, requiring all New York hotels to have condoms available for
sale on the premises as part of the larger fight against AIDS and
other sexually transmitted infections.
Amelia and Ashley Massey: Anti-Discrimination
Activists
It started when someone in Ashley Massey’s gym class revealed
that 15-year-old Ashley was a lesbian. It ended with Ashley’s
mother, Amelia, suing the Banning (California) Unified School
District for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Ashley was excluded from gym class for over a week, until Amelia
confronted school officials and demanded to know why. The gym
teacher and the principal said they were concerned about other
girls being uncomfortable — the definition of discrimination. The
Masseys’ suit will be the first of its kind since California passed
the Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000, extending
civil rights protection to gays and lesbians in public schools.
Ashley acknowledges that the experience has turned her into a
more political person: ‘There’s a lot of gay and lesbian teen
suicide because kids are afraid to come out. I hope other kids see
me, and maybe they’ll take a stand too. Nobody should have to hide
who they are.’
Esera Tuaolo: Former Football Player
Esera Tuaolo recently became the third former football player to
announce that he’s gay. The one-time Green Bay Packer and Atlanta
Falcon did it in both ESPN Magazine and The
Advocate, finally integrating his sports life and gay life
into a unified personal world. No active athlete in any
professional team sport has ever come out. The locker room culture
that Tuaolo describes is so hostile to homosexuality that it seems
clear that anyone’s career would be over the minute he came out.
Ex-teammate Sean Salisbury agrees: ‘There is a big problem with
ignorance in the NFL, and I’m not sure the league has any idea how
to deal with it.’ Maybe now, he says, ‘at their rookie orientations
and symposiums, this might be a topic they’ll have to cover.’
An honorary award goes to Dave Kopay, the first former NFL
player to come out. Tuaolo notes that Kopay’s 1975 book changed his
life when he read it in 1996: ‘Dave played in the NFL for nine
seasons and hid being gay. This was me! His book helped me quit
hating myself.’
Sex Ed
Increase your erotic intelligence (by three inches!!)
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the
U.S. (SIECUS)
A national nonprofit organization that answers questions and
starts conversations about sex. If you want to start a
sex-education program in your school, to talk with your children
about sex, or simply to learn more about sexual issues, SIECUS will
show you how.
www.siecus.org
Scarleteen
Teens looking for honest, frank information and advice about
an-atomy, the basics of reproduction, homosexuality, and safe sex
have found their oracle. Founded by the makers of Scarlet Letters
(a publisher of sex-positive, original, visionary creative and
artistic work of all kinds at www.scarletletters.com), Scarleteen
gives kids answers to all those questions they were afraid to ask.
www.scarleteen.com
Society for Human Sexuality
Want to learn how to flirt? Or talk dirty? Or go Tantric? The
Society for Human Sexuality includes exercises to teach you how, as
well as a concise guide to safer sex, a comprehensive and fully
up-to-date annotated bibliography of books relevant to sexuality
and/or sex-positive culture, and a guide to finding local
sex-positive community resources.
www.sexuality.org
Pursuing the goal of a sexually enlightened world, Marty
Klein has been a licensed marriage and family counselor and sex
therapist for 24 years. He is the author of several books,
including Beyond Orgasm: Dare to Be Honest About the Sex You
Really Want (Celestial Arts, 2002) and Sexual
Intelligence: Politics, Culture, the Media, and Sex (SexEd, 2002).
This article is from Klein’s online newsletter, Sexual
Intelligence
(www.sexed.org, March
2003), which features up-to-date news about sex. Copyright © Marty
Klein.
