E-Day Minus One...From Last Month's ERWA

ALL WORKED UP ABOUT NOVEMBER 7TH
By J.T. Benjamin
Copr. 2006

When I first set out to write about sex, I’d planned to only write about…well…sex. I’d have been perfectly happy to limit the discussions to such things as contrasting the acting abilities of Jenna Jameson and Nina Hartley. The benefits of doing it with voluptuous women as opposed to stick insects. How Anais Nin was just a better writer than Henry Miller. Intermingling sexual discussions with political topics just seemed so….dirty.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a political junkie of the first order. I’m perfectly willing to wax rhapsodic about political topics as is any man. In my youth, I’d just believed that political issues should be reserved for one end of the writing spectrum, and sexually oriented topics were of a more private nature, and that it was best not to attempt to intermingle the two; sex and politics just didn’t naturally mix.

Oh, was I ever really so young and naïve?

It's been a particularly pungent election year, hasn't it? You can smell it in the air. Some blend of old sweat-socks, the floor of a bus station men’s room, and a decomposing rodent underneath the patio deck, I should say. Yes, indeed. It is an especially pungent lection year.

And that means that it’s time to talk about sex, sex, sex!

Now, when it comes to the intermingling of sex and politics, I’d be perfectly willing to fall back on my standard mantra on the subject: Mind Your Own Business. Don’t go busting into my bedroom passing judgment and casting stones, and I’ll likewise be perfectly happy to let you indulge in your own twisted perversions in peace.

Unfortunately, ‘twas not meant to be. Sex and politics are intermingled like peanut butter and jelly, like beer and baseball, like Lennon and McCartney. And I’m not just talking about sordid scandals meant to defame candidates for public office. This isn’t about stains on blue dresses and secret trysts with one’s mistress and rumors about being secretly gay. Sex is a legitimate political issue, one that must be considered when members of the electorate step into their voting booths tomorrow.

And I have to point out that it wasn’t Yours Truly who decided to inject sex into the current political debate. Like I said before, I’m a believer in the M.Y.O.B. plank in the political platform. The decision to make sex a political issue rests exclusively with the Powers That Be.

It’s a well-known belief that one of the reasons President Bush won re-election in 2004 was that he was able to put the sex-and-politics issue to good use. Apparently, Bush’s uber-advisor Karl Rove was the architect behind putting anti-gay initiatives on the ballots in several strategic states that year. Homophobes, frantic to prevent the government from treating homosexuals like real human beings, headed to the polls in a frenzy and, while they were busy casting their votes in favor of bigotry and discrimination, they also took the opportunity to vote Dubya to a second term in office.

This year, it appears to be more of the same. However, since Dubya can’t run for another term (Thank GOD!!) the sex-and-politics angle is tied into the mid-term elections, where the U.S. will elect county and state officers, the entire U.S. House of Representatives, and a third of the U.S. Senate.

As an example, let’s discuss my own home state of Colorado. Following Karl Rove’s playbook, the Colorado Family Action Issue Committee put an anti-gay measure on the fall ballot to get homophobes to the polls, where they would presumably also vote to put homophobic candidates into office as well. The measure, called Amendment 43, would specify that matrimony can only be a “one-man/one-woman” arrangement, banning gay marriage and embedding discrimination into the Colorado Constitution. Seven other U.S. states have similar initiatives on the ballot, as well.

However, if you use a tactic too often, your opponents start using it as well. Coloradoans for Fairness And Equality got their own measure on the November ballot, called Referendum I. This initiative would grant gay couples the right to qualify for “domestic partnership” status, giving them legal, insurance, and medical decision-making rights, similar to those available to heterosexual marriage.

Get all that? Colorado voters have the chance to pass a pro-gay initiative and an anti-gay initiative on the same ballot. And, according to the latest poll, both measures are winning. In other words, if the election were held today, Colorado voters would happily say to gay couples, “Benefits? Sure! Marriage? No way!”

And don’t think it’s just about gay marriage, either. Politicians have the power to affect sexual liberty in a wide variety of ways. State governments have been legislating against making contraceptives available to poor people in Missouri. They’ve been trying to ban the sale of sex toys in South Carolina. They’ve been prosecuting sex toy salespeople in Texas and Alabama. They’ve been trying to push abstinence-only (a.k.a. “ignorance-only”) sex education in states across the Union. The Federal government, through Congress, the Bush Administration, and a conservative-packed judiciary, is prosecuting the adult film industry with more vigor than they’re pursuing suspected terrorists.

And yet, despite the current government’s efforts to stifle freedom of speech, of the press, and of sexual identity, the puppetmasters in charge are actually upset that the Powers That Be aren’t doing enough.

Dr. James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family and one of the grand exalted mucky-muck pooh-bah Dragons of the right-wing fascist-religious movement I’ve dubbed the Holy Terrors, said last September 18th that he was “flat-out ticked” at the Republican leadership’s failure to adequately advance his anti-gay, anti-freedom, anti-whoopie agenda. However, Dr. Dobson also said that if his minions didn’t continue supporting the G.O.P., the alternatives were “downright frightening.” So, if Dr. Dobson gets his way, can we count on the government acting with more restraint and tolerance, or will they “kick it up a notch?”

Back in college, one of my professors told me it’s an easy trick to predict the future. Simply observe a trend, and then decide whether or not the trend will continue. The way things are going, will we Americans see more of the same from our leadership, or will things be different? More obscenity prosecutions or fewer? More attempts to stifle sexual expression and identity, or fewer? More attempts to legislate homophobia and prosecute sexually “deviant” practices, or fewer? More attempts to batter down our bedroom doors, or fewer?

I won’t push for particular candidates or for particular issues. But I can only assume that people who read this column and visit this website are creative, rational, open-minded, intelligent people, especially when it comes to sex. So please, please, please, fellow ERWA readers, use all that creative, rational, open-minded intelligence when you step into the voting booth.

Vote with your hearts, vote with your minds, vote with your sense of common decency, vote with your knowledge of what is right and wrong.

Hell, vote with your loins.

But vote.