The Element of Space

In Jennings book, Tomboys and Bachelor Girls, a large aspect in the development of the lesbian community was the element of space. Space was also a factor in the homosexual identity after World War I, as seen in A History of Homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris 1919-1939. In both cases, the homosexual community was forced to create its culture and identity in certain spaces that were alloted to it; For example, gay bars and pubs were centralized to a certain district in both London and Paris, and lesbian clubs were forced to locations where they were discreet and camouflaged.

Coincidentally, the homosexual community today in the United States - at least Chicago - sees the same sort of "herding" of gays into a certain section of the city. Boystown, located on the north side of Chicago, is known for two things: 1) Its proximity to Wrigley Field and 2) The abundance of rainbow flags that encompass its 15 block radius. Boystown is, as the saying goes, where the gays go to play, and not so ironically where much of the homosexual community makes up its permanent residence.

So why is it that 2010 in the north side of Chicago is no different than the 1930's or 1950's in London? I'm not entirely sure of the history of Boystown, but I believe I can safely assume this isn't a random parallel. Did society believe that by containing the gay population in a certain area that they would be able to remove them from their city, and culture, all together? It may seem like a pretty silly notion, but maybe if the gays didn't have to be seen by the more superior heterosexual population, then maybe homosexuals didn't really exist.

Chicago today is a pretty gay-friendly city. It proudly boasts one of the most lively and large gay-pride parades in the nation, and the gay bars that I have been to in the city have still been some of the best times I have had. So why, then, is Boystown still known as the "gay" part of the city? And does this go to prove that no matter how accepting and gay-friendly a city is, does it still give the city some sort of "relief" that the gay community is centralized to a certain area?

Should Gay TSA Agents Be Barred from Giving "Same-Gender Pat-Downs"?

http://americansfortruth.com/news/should-gay-tsa-agents-be-barred-from-giving-%E2%80%98 same-gender-pat-downs%E2%80%99.html

Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, an anti-gay hate group, called for the banning of “self-acknowledged homosexuals” from the security screening position. Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, states that same-gender pat-downs are meant to reassure travelers and make them feel more comfortable. But Americans for Truth about Homosexuality raises the question, “isn’t it just as inappropriate for a ‘gay’ male TSA agent to pat down male travelers as it is for a normal, heterosexual male TSA agent to pat down female travelers?”

I think this concern stems from the belief that homosexuals are less likely to be able to control their sexual urges, that they won’t be able to avoid getting turned on by performing the pat-down, and that they are less likely to behave professionally. It is also interesting to note that Napolitano says that same-sex pat-downs are meant to protect women from being groped by men, while the AFTAH is mostly concerned with “normal” men being groped by homosexual men; so that it appears that people need to be protected mostly from the male TSA agents. Additionally, Napolitano’s statement has to do with how the person being patted-down feels, while the AFTAH worries more about how the person doing the patting-down will behave, both assuming heterosexuality. The AFTAH’s assumption of heterosexuality as the norm positions homosexuality as a threat.

Responses to the AFTAH article pose the question: What is it about same-gender pat-downs that is supposed to make us more comfortable? Perhaps it is because we assume that this reduces the likelihood of feeling violated or that someone with the “same parts” is touching us. But really same-gender pat-downs are an imperfect solution or create a false sense of guaranteed safety. Also, it seems clear that the AFTAH has not considered gay and lesbian travelers – would they also like to ban them from being patted-down in the off-chance they will enjoy it? So while the group acknowledges the illegality of discriminating against people based on their “sexual orientation,” they argue that self-identified homosexuals should not be placed in positions that perform pat-downs so they will not be put in “sexually compromising situations,” even arguing that it is somewhat irresponsible for the TSA to not know which of its employees identify as homosexuals. And I think they’re being serious.

Humanizing Sexuality with Condoms?

Pope's comments on condoms

This article caught my attention last week and I have been waiting eagerly to blog about it! Having grown up in a devout Catholic family and attended Catholic school for 12 years, I am very aware of Catholic views toward contraceptives. During high school sex education (called “human morality” class) contraceptives were never discussed. What’s the point of discussing contraceptives when one is not supposed to be having sex in the first place? The Church’s teachings were always presented in stark black and white terms. The use of contraceptives was “immoral” in all cases.

In his new book, Light of the World, Pope Benedict says that when used to control disease, condoms "can be a first step in the direction of moralisation, a first assumption of responsibility….a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality." Although Pope Benedict didn’t lift the Church’s ban on condoms, his statement acknowledged the existence of a gray area in what was once a nonnegotiable matter.

In Lost Intimacies: Rethinking Homosexuality under National Socialism, William Spurlin connects the Nazis’ racialization, gendering, and politicizing of the Holocaust to current governments’ (lack of) response to the AIDS pandemic. AIDS activists have accused governments of antigay and racial motivations (framing AIDS as simply a “gay” or “black” problem) for ignoring the crisis.

Activists have leveled the same criticisms against the Catholic Church. Because of the Church’s strong stance against homosexuality, many Church leaders have feared that taking proactive steps toward combating the spread AIDS would be considered an endorsement of (or a softening of the stance against) homosexuality. The Pope’s recent statement on condoms comes as the Vatican also addresses renewed criticism directed toward it’s inaction during the Holocaust. Does the Church want to avoid another such holocaust?

And what does the Pope mean by “moralizing” and finding “a more human (way) of living sexuality?” The Church is not new to “moralizing” sexuality, but how does one find a more “human” sexuality? The Pope mentions condom use as a “first assumption of responsibility.” Does a more “moral” more “human” sexuality mean a more responsible sexuality? I believe most AIDS activists and sex educators would not argue against an increased emphasis on “responsibility” in sexual practices.

While Church’s acknowledgement of the utility of condoms is a positive step toward combating AIDS, if the Church continues to define a moral sexuality solely by its own strict moral standards (and shaping its response according those who adhere to these strict morals), it turns it back on millions who die from a disease that could have easily been prevented.

Preferences

Under National Socialism in Germany, Nazis constructed a severely exclusive national identity. For Aryan men and women considered "healthy," the Nazis encouraged sex – even outside of marriage – to promote the race. Their propaganda pushed the idea that everyone else's sexuality was disgusting and dangerous. William J. Spurlin's book Lost Intimacies connects queer theory with Holocaust studies to theorize the role of sexuality under Nazis, and he questions how this attitude has manifested itself in contemporary societies. He notes the U.S. government's lackluster response to the AIDS epidemic, and how eugenic ideas influenced the public image of AIDS victims as racially and sexually other and inferior.

How else have racially restrictive ideals of sexuality influenced our current world? And how much responsibility do we take for ridding ourselves of this kind of sexual imperialism? John Mayer's controversial and very personal interview with Playboy included some inflammatory comments on race. Throughout the interview he insisted that he is "not a bad boy," and that he wants to show girls how much he loves and respects them.. But only white girls. "My dick is sort of like a white supremacist," he says. "I've got a Benetton heart," he insists, "and a fuckin' David Duke cock." It sounds like he finds it unfortunate but utterly unchangeable that his body reacts this way. Is his - or his dick's - prejudice that fixed, or does he have the responsibility to work through his prejudices?

Several months later a new meme came out called Privilege Denying Dude: a well-dressed young white man with short quips showing his (maybe well-intentioned) ignorance. "I'm gay," says one. "I know what racism feels like." Another: "Those Halloween Costumes aren't offensive," he says. "I lived in Japan for three years." Here's another:

I think we all have preferences when it comes to dating and attraction. But these are influenced by strong cultural messages saying that light white girls are more pure and beautiful, that people with health disabilities are asexual, and so on. We can't talk ourselves into being attracted to someone we're not attracted to, but we can become aware of destructive prejudices we internalize, so that we can begin to map a way out of them.

John Mayer's comment was hurtful to many readers, and offensive for its reference to the KKK, meaning that he was not only talking about his preferences, but invoking violence against those beyond his sexual attraction. And as a famous person, his words contribute more substantially to influencing American culture - and conceptions of who belongs - than for the rest of us.

But at what point are preferences just preferences, and when are they a product of the racism/sexism/heterosexism/ableism/ageism/antisemitism/ism/ism/ism that we haven't yet shed? Nazis didn't exclude only Jews or homosexuals from their race-building, but also those with physical handicaps. If a preference for blond hair and blue-eyes is dangerously influenced by eugenics, what about attraction to people with perfect skin or physically fit bodies? Is it always wrong to exclude a group of people as undesirable?

John Mayer also said that he loves fantasizing - when he masturbates, and even when he's having sex with someone else. So he should know that his penis doesn't operate entirely separately from his mind. We may have preferences, but the more we decolonize our minds, the more our preferences will be idiosyncratic, rather than sweeping and dangerous exclusions of a whole class of people.

House Proud: The troubling rise of stay-at-home daughters

http://bitchmagazine.org/article/house-proud

So I think this article on stay-at-home daughters is really interesting. Fast synopsis: this particular religious movements such as the Christian Patriarchy Movement tru to go back to the “traditional” gender relationships in the family, where daughters are put in a position of wifes-in-training, and the males in the family have absolute power. Fathers give their authority to husbands, and women’s ultimate goal is to marry and to become the keeper of the home.

Although marriage life and being a stay-at-home mom is a legitimate choice for many women, these movement takes it a step further by regarding women, if not explicitly, the property of the men in their life, first their father and then their husband. It think that this is really interesting in context of the readings of this past week, when we discuss the idea of the construction of a nation as heterosexual. I think that this movement, in a different way, also wants to promote create a society based on hyperheterosexual ideals. By giving men the ultimate power in the formulation of the family, this movement is feeding on a type of cult of masculinity. The growing level of women’s independence can be seen as emasculating, and therefore as a threat to the stability of the society’s structure. The “prime purposes of feminism are to establish a lesbian-socialist republic and to dismantle the family unit,” echoing Pat Robertson’s notorious statement that feminism is a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.” Independent women are therefore a revolutionary tool that will destroy everything we love and cherish. Women keep their status as atavistic, and giving them greater power is dangerous: again, masculinity equals stability, femininity equals hysteria. Interesting when we think about revolutionary Russia and the way emancipated women and greater gender equality were seen as a symbol of the success of the revolution.

This article also reminds me of the trend of virginity balls, similar to debutant balls, but with the difference that the girls swear to their virginity and to their relationship with their father. Same idea, different presentation.

I think that the promoting of the idea of women’s ultimate goal as marriage links back to our discussion on the persecution of lesbianism. Lesbians were prosecuted less than male homosexuals, first because they are less visual as a subculture, and then because of the idea that lesbians would come to their senses, and go back to their heterosexual roles; their sexuality being defined by men.

Can Heterosexuality support Homosexuality?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/11/hetrick-martin-institute-emery-awards_n_782112.html?ir=Entertainment#s179047

As a sometimes reader of the Huffington Post, I came across the article (linked to above) about the Emery Awards at the Hetrick-Martin institute. I was first fascinated by the legacy of the institute, not having heard of it before. The gay couple Dr. Emery Hetrick and Dr. Damien Martin were lifelong educators on gay and lesbian issues, with Dr. Hetrick being a psychiatrist, and Dr. Martin a professor at New York University. In 1979 they heard the story of a 15-year-old gay boy who had been beaten severely and thrown out of his emergency shelter because he was gay. After hearing this story, the Drs. Created the Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth in cooperation with many other concerned individuals in 1979. The Institute was dedicated to supporting this young portion of the population that desperately needed support and protection. Later, in 1988, the Institute was renamed after its founders and their commitment, and is today known as the Hetrick-Martin Institute. Today, the institute also houses a school for gay youth.

This year marked the 24^th annual Emery Awards, which honor individuals who support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. Several celebrities were honored, and many more attended, ostensibly showing their support for the LGBT community by proxy of their presence. As I read about the founding of this institute, I was astounded and impressed that two Doctors and life partners in the late 1970s in New York were able to found an institute expressly dedicated to gay and lesbian youth, and keep it open despite stigma and opposition that I am sure existed. Now, I do not know the entire history of this institute, but it seems to be a very progressive institution that realized the need for itself as soon as the Doctors knew of the problem of informal anti-gay persecution. It is possible that the United State’s allowance of free speech helped the Doctors in their quest to help the young LGBT community, as I am certain that there was not complete acceptance of homosexuality in the 1979, as there still is not today, over 30 years later.

One last thing that struck me the most about this article was its short discussion of some of the events, who the MC was, who hosted the live auction, etc. in that reality star Bethenny Frankel was the host of the auction, and was “promising high bidders oral sex with her husband. The audience roared with laughter”. What struck me about this was the use of heterosexual language or acts to support the inclusion of homosexuality into our society. I thought it was just such an interesting interplay between homosexuality and heterosexuality that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to comment on the acceptability of this kind of open (hetero)sexual talk, and wonder if there were the same sorts of comments about homosexuality as well.

Can heterosexuality be used to support homosexuality? Is talking about sexuality becoming more accepted on the whole, or are we just becoming more comfortable with our “norm” of heterosexuality? And lastly, what does joking about heterosexual acts in the context of awards for supporting LGBT rights mean?

When boys dress like girls for Halloween

On November 2, a mother from Kansas wrote a post on her blog that has "gone viral," with over a million views, 26,000 comments and a segment on CNN's American Morning. Her five year old son had dressed up as Daphne from Scooby-Doo for Halloween, and some of the other mothers disapproved. On her blog, she responded to this scorn by defending her son's costume (he just loves Scooby-Doo) and stating that "[my job] is not to dictate what is 'normal' and what is not, but to help him become a good person." While I feel bad for this child whose photograph is now all over the internet and on TV, this blog post has sparked some interesting conversations - the comments on her blog and the New York Times article about it are extremely varied.

The mother states: "If my daughter had dressed up as Batman, no one would have thought twice about it. It seems there are much greater implications for boys who stray from their expected gender role than for girls. And this theme has recurred throughout our readings. When Healey discusses this in his book Homosexual Desire in Revolution Russia, he mentions several times that "feminine" lesbians and "masculine" homosexual men were considered less "sick" than "masculine" lesbians and "effeminate" homosexual men. However, between the latter two, the "manly" woman was much more likely to be tolerated, or even respected, by society. Masculinity in women endowed them with productivity, authority, and loyalty, while male femininity was considered entirely negative and often associated with backwardness and weakness. Clearly, even now it seems, it is is considered much more serious for a man to forsake his prescribed gender role.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/when-boys-dress-like-girls-for-halloween/
(There are links to the blog and the CNN video at the bottom)

No Gays in Croatian Football??

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jcR8mRFiGF6BRfWxnCA77eu5BBGg?docId=3c491f28fbc24f7889f8b18b909bbf4f

I’m so lucky to have stumbled across this article, not only because our dear Professor D. hails from Croatia, but also because it touches on the issues of homosexuality and masculinity that have featured so prominently in the texts we have read. Armed with the information and critical eye I have acquired in class, I am ready to tackle this article. But before I launch into my analysis, I’ll share some background.

The AP reports that this week the head of the Croatian Football Federation, Vlatko Markovic, stated that, for the duration of this tenure, there will “certainly” be no gays on the Croatian Football team. When questioned if he had ever met a gay football player, Markovic responded "No. Fortunately, only healthy people play football." He has since apologized for what he calls “a clumsy interpretation.”

This article opened two trains of thought for me. The first regarded Markovic’s statement that “only healthy people play football.” As we have read in class, the “health” of homosexuals is not a new topic. Prominent figures such Freud, Hirschfield, Kraft-Ebings and others have studied the psychological, medical, and biological nature of homosexuality. Doctors and scientists have cast homosexuals as perverts and inverts since the coining of the term “homosexual” in the late 19th century. While mainstream psychology no longer considers homosexuality a mental illness (the APA removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses in 1973), Markovic’s statement proves that some like Markovic still see homosexuals as diseased and mentally unstable. Perhaps Markovic is afraid (a la Stalinist Russia 1933) that homosexual players will “infect” the other “healthy” players (except Stalin was more concerned with his soldiers and not so much for his football players).

My second train of thought concerned concepts of masculinity. Although my knowledge of football (soccer in America) is limited, I have always associated it (as well other contact-sports) with images of masculinity. I am sure football players want to maintain this masculine image to keep a competitive edge. Perhaps Markovic fears that homosexual football players will tarnish the masculine image of football teams. However, as we read in Halperin’s "How to Do the History of Male Homosexuality," in antiquity (especially ancient Greece and Rome), “pederasty/sodomy and friendship/love (were) constant with masculine gender norms.” In fact, ancient Greeks and Romans considered same-sex sexual acts (at least for those doing the penetrating) and friendship as “masculinizing” because they epitomized a “rejection of everything that is feminine (102).”

Markovic should read up on his history of sexuality. Players who engage in same-sex sexual acts would actually fall more in line with classical ideals of masculinity than players who partake of the “party scene” and use their fame and status to “hook-up” with women all the time. If fact, according to Halperin, this type of womanizer which society now considers as “masculine” would have been considered “effeminate” in antiquity. How times have changed!

Voicing Views on Sexuality

At the Miss America pageant in 2009, the representative from Califronia, Carrie Prejean was asked to answer a question about same-sex marriage. She answered, "well I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And, you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that, I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman."

Was Prejean's answer wrong? No. Do I, or many other Americans, share her views? Absolutely not. But did she deserve the backlash that came afterwards, as well as losing the crown for it?

Freedom of speech is something that makes our country great. It allows all people, will all kinds of backgrounds, thoughts, and ideas to openly express themselves. Sure, there are always those types of people that try and push the limits within the boundaries of "freedom," and sometimes they can be downright rude and harmful. However, Prejean's answer was neither of those things. She answered the question in the best way she thought possible, while sticking to her faith and personal views. However, because of its level of sensitivity and the fact that so many people feel very strongly about it, speaking about sexuality and sexual orientation is a little more difficult.

Is it wrong to have different views on same-sex relations and marriage? Yes, I believe discriminating against a particular group is wrong, particularly same-sex rights, but if that's how you were brought up and raised, where is the issue? Prejean wasn't stating that she was a homophobe, or that those involved in same-sex relations should be persecuted, or harmed in anyway. She simply stated that she didn't believe in same-sex marriage. Furthermore, since our country (and the world, for that matter) has so many different religious beliefs, many different groups are going to have different perspectives on homosexuality and sexuality in general. Why is it wrong to lean one way or another when it comes to sexuality?

Reconstruction

In seventh grade a guidance counselor divided us into boys and girls to talk gender. What questions would you like to ask the other gender? A boy I liked asked, “Why do girls wear low-cut shirts if they don't want us to look at their boobs?”

“Hm…good question,” the counselor responded, and we girls were left to think about it.

A standard feminist answer might be that young women receive many oppressive and conflicting messages: display your bodies, because you have worth if boys pay attention to them, but then be coy, and retreat from that attention, because it’s harmful.

That’s part of the reason we wore those shirts and pushed boys away. But there is also this: we liked to take one piece of an identity, but not another. We always heard of this mythical kind of girl called the slut, who wears low-cut shirts, invites and loves the attention, and wants boys to talk about her and touch her (or at least doesn’t mind).

There were some parts of that identity we wanted. We found our bodies beautiful or interesting to display, we enjoyed the performance of girliness – the makeup and tight pants getting together to dress up – and some of the flirting. But there were times when boys took it too far, assumed that if we wanted on piece of that identity then we wanted it all; we wanted always to be touched and stared at. And we didn’t.

Ten years later, in our college class, we are all about deconstructing identities that may seem fixed. We humans have not always divided ourselves into heterosexual and homosexual, or even so neatly into male and female. If we accept, as Thomas Lacquer argues in Making Sex, that biological sex is a social construct, because historically we have not always agreed that men and women are especially different biologically, and that heterosexuality (and, by extension, homosexuality) is a recent “invention,” as Katz argues, then our present identities can blur into confusion. It’s all made up! We don’t have to fit our identities into categories like slut or not, because those labels are only a product of our local and temporary environment.

But what happens when we try putting things back together, reconstructing our identities the way we want them? Although Katz writes hopefully of Gayle Rubin’s view of a “androgynous and genderless” future, in my ideal world (which already exists), we play (like McClintock describes in her discussion of S&M in Imperial Leather) with the scraps of identity we like and the ones that are oppressive, to create our lives the way we want. We can’t just pretend that we didn’t grow up with gender roles, that there isn’t something about them that we love. We get to take what we want from these roles, and start our reconstruction.

A recent Senate candidate constructed her public image with gender roles from a variety of identities: the pretty girl, the public-woman politician, the anti-sex Christian.

Christine O’Donnell, who just lost her campaign in Delaware, was most famous for her anti-masturbation Public Service Announcement, which ran on MTV in the early 90s. A pretty college student with big hair and red lipstick, she told MTV viewers, “The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. Well, you can’t masturbate without lust!”

Critics mocked O’Donnell for her views, which are anti-science and pro-creationism (“Call it ‘the theory of intelligent design,’ she urged her opponent, who refused), and her admission that she “dabbled” in witchcraft (and her subsequent everywoman response, “I’m not a witch – I’m you!”), but the anti-masturbation theme drew the most ridicule. Material circulated from her many appearances on the show Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher in the 90s. For a relaxed and attractive young woman to come out in public (on the not-so-chaste MTV or the ultra-liberal Politically Incorrect) and advocate a puritanical view of sex proved to be to many contradictions for many viewers, and for Maher himself, who treated her most harshly for her views on sex.

Reading Maher’s 2005 book New Rules, a collection of short, pithy rules for how things should be in culture and politics, Maher’s worldview becomes clear. He’s an unabashed liberal: anti-religion, anti-Iraq war (and excessive militarism), and pro-gay marriage – he even ends the book with a focus with a piece on gay marriage. But (maybe to compensate for being pro-gay anti-military?) he’s also rigid in his views of anti-feminine masculinity: men should not act like “chicks.” (“New Rule: No cuddling…The only time a man should say ‘I need a hug’ is if he’s choking.”) To further establish himself as a heterosexual man, Maher writes that he’s sick of studies linking homosexuality to genetics, because it’s so obvious. “And all this time I thought my aversion to fisting and rim-jobs came from a persuasive essay in The New Republic. Of course it’s genetic.”

Despite supporting the right to marry someone of the same sex, he views marriage as a useless trap, damaging to his one great love: sex. His pro-choice stance seems to arise at least as much from him being pro-sex-without-commitment as it does from a pro-women or pro-liberal ideology. He even views sex as the solution to terrorism: “If we really want to stop terrorism, we have to get Muslim men laid” to curb their anger. He is pro-sex not so much because he wants to allow people the freedom to enjoy sex, but because normal healthy men, which he insists he is, need sex, and deserve sex. (I don’t remember finding that he had anything to say on female desire.)

Ironically, the aggressively anti-religion Maher’s insistence that being gay is obviously biological leads him to a kind of pre-ordained determinism (to conservatives who say coastal elites “don’t get” them, Maher replies, “you guys don’t get us either: we need sex”), whereas O’Donnell challenges us humans to shape our sexual lives.

As O’Donnell rose to prominence, Maher released many clips of her statements on his show. He capped it off with a greatest-hits montage (which, maddeningly, HBO removed for copyright reasons) of the dumbest things O’Donnell said on the show. Eager to find more to ridicule – on The O’Reilly Factor, for example, O’Donnell said that scientists were splicing genes and creating “mice with fully-functioning human brains” – viewers instead found a video in which O’Donnell actually says very little, but Maher and other guests make fun of her, compliment her breasts, and try to sleep with her. For arguing that we can and should shape our sexual lives for ourselves, and we should do so by exercising extreme sexual restraint, invitations to sex became punishment for her opinions.

Some feminists have criticized the new crop of right-wing female politicians, O’Donnell included, for “appropriating” the feminist label, because they oppose abortion, comprehensive sex ed, and many social services for women. But maybe a feminist is someone who challenges and complicates the limited roles assigned to women, whether that role is a sexy but silent video ho, a bored stay-at-home mom, or a loudly pro-sex activist or leftist genderqueer.

Much of what O’Donnell has said is ridiculous – she’s wrong about the mice with human brains – or offensive – no one deserves AIDS for engaging in supposedly risky behavior. These dangerous and misleading ideas deserve to be challenged and marginalized, and characterize her as unfit for the Senate. But when a 20something Christine O’Donnell earnestly told young people not to have sex or masturbate, she challenged Americans to rethink our assumptions about young people and sex – could we begin to be more thoughtful about sex, just as we are growing more thoughtful about where our food comes from and our dollars go? – if only we would take the challenge, and if we disagree to articulate ourselves, rather than punishing her.