The less education, the better? Naw.

The conclusion of “The Trouble With Normal” highlights the negativity of seeing societal normalcy is troubling in all aspects of education, safety, and self-perception. Using HIV/AIDS as a prime example of sexual epidemics, diseases have spread like wildfire due to the shame and guilt presented from negative stigmas concerning sex and sexuality. Heteronormative behavior has shaped how sex is perceived, and in turn is devastating the masses. Particularly speaking, the “hush hush” of sex and gender identity has greatly influenced youth education toward this “abstinence only, sex is wrong, the less you know- the better” connotation, and it has really become prevalent in how harmful that is to society and the role of sex in humanity. Sex is a natural instinct, and policing the way it is perceived has been a disaster in terms of safety and identity.

Gay Male Social Experiment

So I had to do this ridiculous assignment for one of my classes, I thought I would share it with you all since this is a LGBTQ Theory course. Offensive or appropriate? Here were my results...

 http://vegansteven.blogspot.com/2012/04/gay-male-social-experiment.html

That's right! I'm talkin' about porn....again...

So while I was reading Warner chapter 4 and they were talking about the whole redefining of what an adult business is and singling out porn shops, I kept thinking to myself.....I am someone who is pretty much against pornography. I wouldn't mind to see pornography disappear off the face of the planet. I must be a bad guy.... HA HA HA just kidding folks, I am the best guy ever!

Obviously what's being done by good old Rudy, is not even attack on the porn industry but the singling out of gay and lesbian related adult oriented things. Probably the only reason sex toys fell into a gray area is because they are possibly being used by heteros. Those silly heteros and their homophobia. But we can't blame it all on Rudy even though he is a gigantic McDouche, because what he did unfortunately reflects the wants of the majority homophobic population. Yeah I know, it's a sad world we live in.....Anyway back to the porn!

So I don't that the solution to any problem is banning anything, I just want that to be known. It really bothers me that this happened, they launch an attack against the LGBTQ Community by attempting to displace and destroy their "adult entertainment" of sorts. What a douche move! I mean think about it, they force the people to have to defend pornography and other sexual related things, making it look like to the idiot general public that LGBTQ peoples are SEX CRAZED. When in reality I am sure the LGBTQ people are not any more sex crazed than any normal person is. I'm not sure where I'm going with this because I don't really have a good question this time around. I guess I just wanted to put down some thoughts I had during this reading.

“Without pornography, there could be no manhood—and humans would desire to embrace sexual selfhood instead” -J. Stoltenberg


What do you think about this quote when applied to gay pornogrpahy?

Public Sex, Public Knowledge

As I was reading the chapter from Warner, I was really just kind of amazed at the arguments presented (in a good way). I think the part that stood out to me the most was the following: "Autonomy requires more than civil liberty; it requires the circulation and accessibility of sexual knowledge, along with the public elaboration of a social world that can make less alienated relations possible." My research deals somewhat with the alienation that occurs in modern society, so this definition hit something very interesting for me. I think there is something undeniably true about needing more than just liberty to be truly autonomous. Liberty without open access to knowledge is useless; that includes sexual knowledge. This ties into the thoughts Warner presents about the exchange of sexual knowledge within queer circles as well as the governmental and societal crackdown on both what can be known and what can be said. If you think about all the times we edit ourselves in "public" I think you can see what I mean.

Therefore, instead of a question, I propose a challenge. I propose that we all stop editing ourselves in public. I know that's not as easy as it sounds, so maybe we can just all start with saying one thing that we want or need to say that we would usually refrain from saying. What might be accomplished by simply refusing to censor ourselves?

Who are the tourists?

When I think of New York City, one of the first attractions that comes to mind is the night life. Reading Chapter 4 of Warner and Giuliani's crack down on publicized sex, clubs, gay bars, and even gay book stores, I couldn't help but wonder why he would want to eliminate this association of New York with sexual freedom. Warner says it is supposedly to create an environment more clean and appealing to tourists, but I feel like many tourists would be disappointed in finding a tame, boring, familiar state because it is so far from the image people have in their heads of New York.

Aside from the monetary benefits, in privatizing sexual identities and openness they are eliminating any emphasis on safe sexual practices and accessible resources/places to meet without having to fear their safety. It also adds to the shame people experience in exploring their sexuality.

Zoning out Sex

Okay, my first question is: Wrestling videos? Really?

My second, more legitimate question is this: This chapter mentions how often laws like Giuliani's "quality of life" rezoning and real estate interests override what the public actually wants or cares about. For example, Disney's control over Times Square made it impossible for adult stores and the like to remain open while many viewed these places of business as harmless or even, if I may be so bold, as a daily hangout. Because these places were, and are, some of the only vestiges of open sexuality in the modern world, they remain important to safe and free sexuality. What happens when all these businesses are closed because of these kinds of ordinances? What will the repercussions be?

I believe that if all adult businesses were to close it would be a grave miscarriage of the constitution as well as a form of denial.  People want to go around and pretend that sex and all its variances don't exist, (or that missionary is the only position,) and, while it is their right to think however they please, if I want to go to an adult store and buy some fuzzy handcuffs I am perfectly within my rights as an American to do so. Getting rid of adult stores won't get rid of deviant sex, or any kind of sex for that matter, so to ban them is really a moot point. Getting rid of adult stores, while not the end of the world, shows a bias towards any kind of sex that is considered to be abnormal. If it is possible to ban adult stores, what else could be banned?

Zoning out Sex

Ethics, politics and sex.  Is the 'neighborhood' dangerous to city planning? Only if, as the author points out on page 189, that the fantasy is that sexuality only happens in the home.  Zoning helps to keep the heirarchy as it exists today, alive and well.  We all visit communities that don't share our mailing address, some of us have made regular visits to neighborhoods we don't call home in order to express or share our sexuality.  I feel sometimes, that I simply find new ways to devise an old sentence in order to rephrase a similar question.  Here it is:   In order to enable or allow those whose sexuality does not always conform to the top of the food chain, queer politics must have public representation  on City Planning Commissions that establish these zoning laws-right?