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PEACE ON EARTH HAPPY HOLIDAYS JUSTICE FOR ALL
Issue 2 - December 2003
Welcome to "Growing Diversity," IPG Counseling/Institute for Personal Growth newsletter for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, BDSM, and polyamory communities. We hope you enjoy it! We'd love to get your comments, feedback, or articles for submission to our next issue at: ipgcounseling@ipgcounseling.com. And, we're starting an "Advice" column, so feel free to ask for an 'expert' opinion about an issue or problem in your life - just make it clear that your question is for newsletter publication, we'll keep your identity confidential.
Peace and love,
Margie Nichols Ph.D., Editor
Click here for Growing, our general interest newsletter.
IN THIS ISSUE:
IPG LAUNCHES STUDY OF FEMALE SEXUALITY: IPG female staff collaborate on an anonymous survey study of woman-on-woman sex compared to woman-on-man sex
GAY MARRIAGE: THE NEXT NEW THING? Victories and backlash in the gay marriage movement – and a dissenting point of view
NEW HIV INFECTIONS RISE IN YOUNG GAY MEN a generation who does not know anyone personally who died of AIDS grows complacent
FIFTH ANNUAL TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE in Princeton, a local vigil and ceremony
GAY SANTA CAUSES PUBLIC CONSTERNATION Harvey Fierstein in drag at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
IS BISEXUALITY MORE 'A GAL THING?' what turns on women doesn’t turn on men
KINKPHOBIA – PART OF THE BACKLASH? Two national BDSM conferences cancelled because of local anti-kink hostility
IPG LAUNCHES STUDY OF FEMALE SEXUALITY IN NEW JERSEY AND ONLINE
Several of the staff of IPG Counseling, the Institute for Personal Growth, have undertaken a survey study of female sexual practices – behaviors and attitudes surrounding sex between two women compared to sex between a woman and a man.
The seeds of the research were planted when Dr. Margie Nichols, IPG founder and director, was invited to contribute a chapter to the first textbook on female sexual function and dysfunction. Dr. Nichols was asked to write about woman to woman sex – lesbian and bisexual women.
Margie's invitation was based on her sizeable clinical work and publications on topics involving sexual minorities, especially lesbian and bisexual women, and on the fact that she is a sex therapist as well as psychologist. To prepare for writing the chapter she planned to gather some information from women in non-clinical as well as clinical settings. She invited Susan Menahem, M.S.W. to collaborate on the research and writing. Later, Debbie Williamson and Cheryl Langfeld joined the team and Margie consulted with outside experts such as Dr.
Sandra Leiblum of the UMDNJ Department of Psychiatry.The result is an anonymous survey that can be filled out in ten to fifteen minutes and includes questions on sexual orientation, very explicit sexual behaviors, and emotional and sexual satisfaction with partners. It is unique in that it has been designed by a team of heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian women and includes questions specific to women's sexual experience (example: "how often do you have sex just because your partner wants to?")
As of the end of December, 2003 we have collected nearly one hundred of these surveys and we are poised to go online. Be sure to check our homepage for news of the online launch – and, if you are a woman, please fill out our survey – it's your chance to have a woman's voice heard by female researchers representing a broad range of sexuality.
GAY MARRIAGE: THE NEXT NEW THING?
It's been a banner year for gay and lesbian rights. In June, the Supreme Court struck down an anti-sodomy law in Texas, effectively ending – at long last – the criminalization of homosexual sexual activity. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent predicting that this decision opened the door to legalization of gay marriage – and he seems to have been right.
This November the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cleared the way for gay and lesbian marriage by ruling that it was unconstitutional to ban such unions. The Court gave the Massachusetts state Legislature six months to rewrite the state's marriage laws to include same-sex couples.
The Massachusetts ruling in particular seems to have set off a massive backlash, prompting scores of editorials on the subject, criticism from President Bush, and threats by Republicans in Congress to pass a federal constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage.
A Pew Research Center poll published July 24 of 2003 emphasized the fact that 53% of the American public polled in their current survey opposed gay marriage, as opposed to 65% in 1996. Over the last seven years attitudes towards same sex marriage had softened.
But by December 21 of 2003 opposition to gay marriage had grown: 61% of the public were against same sex marriages and the percent in favor had declined from 40% in July to 34% in December. Even more alarming is the fact that the portion of the public that thinks homosexual sex should be criminalized is 40% -the highest ever recorded since the Times and CBS first started asking these questions in 1992.
As the Village Voice pointed out in a December 10, 2003 article on straight protests supporting gay marriage: "marriage has been back-burnered in civil rights struggles before." Miscegenation laws – laws prohibiting marriage between blacks and whites – were not overturned until 1967, long after legal battles over other civil liberties for blacks had been won. (In fact, Strom Thurmond broke the miscegenation laws when he fathered a biracial daughter by a fifteen year old young black girl: Essie Mae Washington-Williams 'came out' as Thurmond's child in early December, 2003)
Marriage is a touchy subject for heterosexual Americans – it seems to symbolize a way of life straight people feel is being threatened. But not all straight people agree; some in fact are doing serious pro-gay marriage activism. The Voice article described a small but growing movement of 'hetero holdouts' – people who refuse to marry until gays have the right as well. If the backlash figures described earlier hold or increase – these couples might have to wait a long time.
Meanwhile, there is a minority within the g/l/b/t/q community that has a different view of the marriage rights movement that has dominated gay politics for a number of years. An August 2003 NY Times article titled "Now Free to Marry, Canada’s Gays Say, 'Do I?'" reported on heated debate within the Canadian gay community about the merits of marriage. After the June 10 ruling legalizing gay marriage by the highest Ontario court, only modest numbers of couples actually turned out to take advantage of the privilege. While the majority of gay Canadians – particularly lesbians and couples with children – favor marriage, a vocal minority feels it is an attempt to co-opt the uniqueness of gay culture in order to blend in with the mainstream.
And some gays and lesbians, in Canada and in the U.S., wonder whether those fervently advocating for marriage have taken into account the costs of divorce when legal marriages dissolve: alimony, child support, division of assets, and exorbitant legal fees.
To read about services for the G/L/B/T/Q community, click here.
NEW HIV INFECTIONS RISE IN YOUNG GAY MEN
Last June, San Francisco health authorities reported a sharp jump in new HIV infections: new HIV infections in San Francisco doubled in the past year. The rates of new infections for women and for intravenous drug users have stayed relatively low, so the rise is attributed almost entirely to young gay men. San Francisco doctors say the soaring rates follow several years of seeing other alarming figures. For example, the proportion of men who always use a condom has fallen from 70 % in 1994 to 54 % in 1999, and those who report unprotected anal sex with more than one partner have gone from 23% in 1994 to 43% in 1999.Then in November 2003 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported national figures that mirrored the San Francisco data. From 1999 through 2002 rates of new infections did not rise for I.V. drug users, women, or blacks. The rates did rise for men having sex with other men and for Hispanics, with the Hispanic increase due almost entirely to Hispanic men whose risk factor was homosexual sex.
CDC spokesperson Dr. Robert Janssen said: "Because more effective treatments are available, there seems to be a perception particularly in the gay community that H.I.V. is a manageable disease... the disease just doesn't have the fear that it once carried."
FIFTH ANNUAL TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
November 20,2003 marked the Transgender Day of Remembrance with vigils and ceremonies held worldwide. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the "Remembering Our Dead" web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999.
Here in New Jersey, there was a Day of Remembrance Observance held at the University Chapel of Princeton University. Supportive proclamations were read by staff of Governor McGreevey and Senators Lautenberg and Corzine. The ceremony included the readings of names of people who were killed in transgender bias crimes and candle snuffing, a moment of silence, and relighting of candles, singing, and prayer. In addition, a poem called "How Old" by Callen Williams, was read. Williams' poem starts with the words: "How old were you/when you found out/you had to die?/was it the moment they caught you/dressed in your sister's clothes/ or the moment they bought you/your first bra" and ends "how old were you/ when you found out/ you had to die/ for other people’s comfort."
To read more about our transgender group, click here.
GAY SANTA CAUSES PUBLIC CONSTERNATION
You can always count on Harvey Fierstein to lighten up the news. On November 26, the NY Times published an op-ed
piece by Fierstein in which he announced
that he was appearing in the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in drag – as Mrs. Santa Claus. Fierstein joked that this meant that Santa himself is gay, and used this as a springboard to promote gay rights.The uproar these comments provoked was so disturbing that by that afternoon Macy's issued a statement assuring the public that Fierstein was not appearing as Mrs. Claus, but rather as Mrs. Edna Tumblad of the Broadway hit Hairspray.
And what finally happened? Fierstein did indeed appear dressed as Mrs. Claus – but on a separate float from Santa.
IS BISEXUALITY MORE 'A GAL THING?'
A Northwestern University study reported by the NY Times in June 2003 says that women tend to have more of a 'bisexual arousal pattern' than men. The researchers measured psychological and physiological sexual arousal in gay and straight men and women. All women, regardless of sexual orientation, were equally aroused by lesbian and heterosexual erotica. Men, on the other hand, tended to show arousal patterns specific to their sexual orientation – straight men were turned on by heterosexual erotica, gay men by gay male porn.
If these findings are replicated, they imply that sexual orientation may be fundamentally different in men and in women – and they may prove that there is a grain of truth to the stereotype that bisexuality is more common in women than in men.
KINKPHOBIA – PART OF THE BACKLASH?
The backlash against the gay marriage movement has its counterpart in the BDSM world – and actually may be a general symptom of growing American sexual conservatism.
This Fall two BDSM events fell victim to kinkphobia. Black Rose, a Washington, D.C. organization which holds an annual national conference billed as 'the world's largest BDSM event,' had to cancel this year’s conference, planned for October. Black Rose had changed the venue this year to a large hotel in Ocean City, Maryland. A few weeks before the conference news leaked to the local media, provoking an outcry that resulted in the liquor commission threatening to trot out a never-used law to arrest Black Rose participants. This forced the cancellation of the event.Then, in November, Fetish in the Fall, an annual event held in Kenner, Louisianna, was forced to cancel. This year, the Chief of Police who had in previous years authorized the conference is running for Mayor, and he effectively blocked Fetish in the Fall by sending out letters to all local hotels urging them to refuse to host the event.
Susan Wright, founder of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, puts a positive spin on these events. "The backlash speaks to the progress of the movement. The fact is, our community is larger and more 'out' than ever." We sure hope you're right, Susan.
To read about IPG and sexual minorities, click here.
Click HERE to read previous issues of Growing Diversity