Saturday, December 04, 2004
Re-emergence of the Sex Police, Grundyism Ascendent ?
"Kinsey", Dr. Jocelyn Elder, etc.
I have not seen "Kinsey" (the new movie about the late Dr. Alfred Kinsey) yet. I intend to. So
I was taken aback when a friend said "see it before it is banned". Banned....in America! Can't happen. Then I read an article in the December 6th issue of The New Yorker and her comments didn't seem so preposterous. Two women, Judith Reisman and Eunice Van Winkle Ray, are on the war path in a campaign to discredit Dr. Kinsey.
The New Yorker article mentioned that a recent newsletter of the abstinence-education group Why kNOw, compared the damage from publication in 1948 of "The Kinsey Report" on the same level as the attacks on 9/11! Wow. Isn't that stretching it ? Not according to the group. The members are dead serious. The bearded one would be most unhappy; he has probably never heard of Dr. Kinsey. No question that these people don't believe in enjoying sex. Perhaps they have holy congress or union at certain times only to procreate.
The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. Here we have a generation of Americans, most of who never said "No" to an opportunity to fuck (have intercourse, if you will) when they were growing up, telling the youth to abstain. Guess it makes sense with Commandante, El Jefe in the White House who admitted to "youthful indiscretions" but then saw the light as a Born Again Christian. Comprehensive sex education---teaching of pleasures as well as the pitfalls, respect for the opposite sex, and use of protective measures against diseases and unwanted pregnancies----is being completely re-written to emphasize abstinence. As the Iraqi blogger says: "Ya Habeebi" (not a dirty word).
Those who are interested can access Ceci Connolly's well-researched report "Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens" in The Washington Post 12/2/04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26623-2004Dec1.html?sub=AR
Remember what happened to Dr. Jocelyn Elder, President Clinton's Surgeon General? She was guilty of breaking a taboo---publicly stating that masturbation "is something that is part of human sexuality and it is part of something that perhaps should be taught." Medical opinion is
quite clear about the beneficial effects of masturbation. But the puritans were up in arms. Poor Dr. Elder didn't know what hit her. Bill Clinton cravenly accepted her resignation.
The History of Prudery
I came across Peter Fryer's "Mrs.Grundy: Studies in English Prudery" while living in Calcutta. A delightful book. Mr. Fryer dealt with the subject thoroughly but with humor.
Mrs. Grundy was not a real person but appeared in 1798 as a character in a play "Speed the Plough" by Peter Morton, and "Grundyism" became a part of English vocabulary. I learned from Mr. Fryer's book that the so called "dirty words" (four-letter words) were in common usage until they were attacked as being vulgar. Why? There is no hard fact available. Perhaps they didn't sound right to some ears.
But it was Wesleyans,not the Orthodox Church in England,that lead the movement for reform which included behaviour, marriage, and prostitution. Attack against prostitution was later enlarged to cover extra-marital sex. The Evangelists were against all activities that gave pleasure.
Don't let the prissy prudes teach you morality.
The Catholic Church
In other news today, the Catholic Church in Southern California settled 87 claims exceeding $100 million for charges of child sexual abuse. The Catholic Church was pro-active in the 2004 presidential election, exhorting the faithful not to vote for any candidate who supported the right of choice for women. And so it goes.
************************************
Prude. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. ...concerned with being or appearing to be proper, modest, or righteous.
************************************
"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."
----Jane Austen (1775-1817)
I have not seen "Kinsey" (the new movie about the late Dr. Alfred Kinsey) yet. I intend to. So
I was taken aback when a friend said "see it before it is banned". Banned....in America! Can't happen. Then I read an article in the December 6th issue of The New Yorker and her comments didn't seem so preposterous. Two women, Judith Reisman and Eunice Van Winkle Ray, are on the war path in a campaign to discredit Dr. Kinsey.
The New Yorker article mentioned that a recent newsletter of the abstinence-education group Why kNOw, compared the damage from publication in 1948 of "The Kinsey Report" on the same level as the attacks on 9/11! Wow. Isn't that stretching it ? Not according to the group. The members are dead serious. The bearded one would be most unhappy; he has probably never heard of Dr. Kinsey. No question that these people don't believe in enjoying sex. Perhaps they have holy congress or union at certain times only to procreate.
The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. Here we have a generation of Americans, most of who never said "No" to an opportunity to fuck (have intercourse, if you will) when they were growing up, telling the youth to abstain. Guess it makes sense with Commandante, El Jefe in the White House who admitted to "youthful indiscretions" but then saw the light as a Born Again Christian. Comprehensive sex education---teaching of pleasures as well as the pitfalls, respect for the opposite sex, and use of protective measures against diseases and unwanted pregnancies----is being completely re-written to emphasize abstinence. As the Iraqi blogger says: "Ya Habeebi" (not a dirty word).
Those who are interested can access Ceci Connolly's well-researched report "Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens" in The Washington Post 12/2/04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26623-2004Dec1.html?sub=AR
Remember what happened to Dr. Jocelyn Elder, President Clinton's Surgeon General? She was guilty of breaking a taboo---publicly stating that masturbation "is something that is part of human sexuality and it is part of something that perhaps should be taught." Medical opinion is
quite clear about the beneficial effects of masturbation. But the puritans were up in arms. Poor Dr. Elder didn't know what hit her. Bill Clinton cravenly accepted her resignation.
The History of Prudery
I came across Peter Fryer's "Mrs.Grundy: Studies in English Prudery" while living in Calcutta. A delightful book. Mr. Fryer dealt with the subject thoroughly but with humor.
Mrs. Grundy was not a real person but appeared in 1798 as a character in a play "Speed the Plough" by Peter Morton, and "Grundyism" became a part of English vocabulary. I learned from Mr. Fryer's book that the so called "dirty words" (four-letter words) were in common usage until they were attacked as being vulgar. Why? There is no hard fact available. Perhaps they didn't sound right to some ears.
But it was Wesleyans,not the Orthodox Church in England,that lead the movement for reform which included behaviour, marriage, and prostitution. Attack against prostitution was later enlarged to cover extra-marital sex. The Evangelists were against all activities that gave pleasure.
Don't let the prissy prudes teach you morality.
The Catholic Church
In other news today, the Catholic Church in Southern California settled 87 claims exceeding $100 million for charges of child sexual abuse. The Catholic Church was pro-active in the 2004 presidential election, exhorting the faithful not to vote for any candidate who supported the right of choice for women. And so it goes.
************************************
Prude. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. ...concerned with being or appearing to be proper, modest, or righteous.
************************************
"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."
----Jane Austen (1775-1817)
