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Laws Equate Sex to Love

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Editor
– September 1, 2010Posted in: Advice & Editorials, Cover Stories, Daily, Gay FAQ, Health & Fitness, Politics

What do banning sex toys, being fired for an off-hours affair, or losing custody of a child because of sexual orientation have in common?

They’re all the result of legal rulings, thanks in part to narrow interpretations of a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that eliminated criminal prohibitions against sodomy according to Laura Rosenbury, JD, professor of law, at Washington University in St. Louis.

In the landmark case Lawrence v. Texas, the high court ruled 6-3 that Texas’ criminal ban on sodomy between consenting adults was unconstitutional. The decision, which overturned similar laws in other states, was expected to broaden, not restrict, sexual rights.

The petitioners in Lawrence, two men who had been arrested for engaging in sodomy in a private home, were not in a committed, romantic relationship with each other. (It was a jealous partner who called police.) But since the ruling was handed down, scores of lower court cases have held that the case applies only to sexual activity involving emotional intimacy.

These subsequent rulings stem from Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s wording of the decision, according to Rosenbury, who co-authored “Sex In and Out of Intimacy,” published in July in the Emory Law Journal.

“Justice Kennedy actually overlooked the actual facts of the case and instead reasoned that consensual sexual activity should be constitutionally protected because it’s an important part of relationships,” Rosenbury says. “And the lower courts have used that language, not the facts of the case, to protect sex only when it’s in this relationship context.”

LONG HISTORY OF CORRALLING SEX, RELATIONSHIPS

States have long protected sexual activity only when it serves the states’ own interests, typically marriage and procreation. While Lawrence has reined in that effort in some cases, the ruling has reinforced the link between sex and relationships in others by suggesting the protection of sexual activity should occur only in long-lasting, intimate associations.

“States used to be much more coercive, punishing sex outside of marriage, and have gradually become less coercive but they still maintain this idea that sex is only valuable in relationships,” Rosenbury says. “We’re trying to highlight how such practices remain to this day, and to provide arguments for really letting go of the channeling of sex into marriage or other relationships that have the potential of long-term intimacy.”

States’ constant linking of sex and intimacy diminishes not only sex outside of relationships but also intimate relationships that are not sexual. Rosenbury’s article asks: Why shouldn’t states allow people to divide the rights and obligations currently attached to marriage among a variety of others: spouses, friends, siblings and sexual partners.

The sex-intimacy connection also reinforces gender stereotypes, assuming that that men achieve intimacy primarily through sex and that women desire intimacy over sex, according to Rosenbury.

“There have long been sexual double standards, and protecting sex only when it is in the service of intimacy does nothing to change those standards,” Rosenbury says. “Although Lawrence acknowledged that emotional intimacy need not involve women, it did nothing to disrupt the idea that sexual pleasure is a male domain.”

Rosenbury, whose research and teaching focuses on sex, family, work and other everyday issues, is committed to examining ways that the law influences seemingly private relationships and conduct. “Sex In and Out of Intimacy” is her most recent examination of that phenomenon.

Popularity: 18% [?]

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Book Explores Two-Spirit Literature

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Editor
– August 28, 2010Posted in: Cover Stories, Daily, Features, Homosexual History

Western culture’s grappling with homosexuality and alternate genders isn’t strictly limited to the United States, but is also prevalent in many Native American and native Alaskan groups — or native nations. That issue is the focus of work by one Kansas State University researcher.

Lisa Tatonetti, associate professor of English and American ethnic studies, received a fellowship to “Native Cultures of Western Alaska and the Pacific Northwest Coast,” a National Endowment for the Humanities’ summer institute. She used the opportunity to meet with various native groups to learn about their policies and cultures, including those on alternative sexualities and genders.

Her findings will contribute to her upcoming book, “Queering American Indian Literature: The Rise of Contemporary Two-Spirit Texts and Criticism.” It will be the first literary exploration into recorded Two-Spirit literature, mapping its inception in the early 1970s to its rise in present day and its criticism.

“Two-Spirit is a term coined in the ’90s that refers to people of native cultures who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender/transsexual or queer,” said Tatonetti, who is a foremost scholar in this field. “There’s been this explosion of Two-Spirit literature since the ’70s.”

A native nation refers to a collective body of Native American people who are citizens in an indigenous nation existing within the U.S. or Canada, Tatonetti said. In Alaska alone, more than 300 native cultures exist.

“Traditionally in native cultures, many native nations have alternate genders and different sexuality spaces,” she said.

But when Spanish and French missionaries and settlers first encountered these beliefs and practices in native cultures, they deemed them barbaric, often resulting in the practitioners’ deaths because they did not adhere to beliefs of Judeo-Christian origin. Consequently, this forced the Two-Spirit movement underground, Tatonetti said.

Although the summer institute wasn’t focused on Two-Spirit work, Tatonetti said it allowed her insight into the Yup’ik, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Haida and Kwakwaka’wakw nations, whose cultures differ greatly from those of native nations in the lower 48 states.

For her research she met with internationally known scholars and native artists every day for month.

“When I learned about a particular culture, I asked if their nation had these Two-Spirit traditions. It was amazing because everywhere I went these traditions existed,” Tatonetti said.

Even though a part of many cultures’ histories, she found that acceptance of Two-Spirit practices varied, and contemporary Two-Spirit people often faced the same tribulations as those with alternative sexuality and gender roles in the U.S.

“There are Two-Spirit societies all over the northwest area I visited and also throughout the U.S.,” Tatonetti said. “It’s funny, because while nations like the Navajo and Cherokee have multiple gender traditions, they also have passed their own defense of marriage acts.

“It’s been a back-and-forth in many nations for a long time. I think this literature is blossoming right now because of shifts in the larger conversations in academia and queer studies, and because of the changes in understanding happening in the U.S.,” Tatonetti said. “Historically these native nations are ahead of where American culture currently is in terms of their understanding of the complexity of gender and sex roles, but today they face similar debates and challenges.”

Tatonetti recently co-edited and contributed to “Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Contemporary Two-Spirit Literature,” which is slated for release with the University of Arizona Press in spring 2011. Her work on Two-Spirit literature has appeared in various journals, edited collections and contemporary magazines.

Tatonetti began studying Two-Spirit literature soon after earning her doctorate from Ohio State University in 2001.

Popularity: 24% [?]

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Web Access Improves Chances at Relationships

By
Editor
– August 25, 2010Posted in: Cover Stories, Culture, Daily, Features, Gay Marriage, The Whole Man

Adults who have Internet access at home are much more likely to be in romantic relationships than adults without Internet access, according to research to be presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

“Although prior research on the social impacts of Internet use has been rather ambiguous about the social cost of time spent online, our research suggests that Internet access has an important role to play in helping Americans find mates,” said Michael J. Rosenfeld, an associate professor of sociology at Stanford University and the lead author of the study, “Meeting Online: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary.”

According to the study, 82.2 percent of participants who had Internet access at home also had a spouse or romantic partner, compared to a 62.8-percent partnership rate for adults who did not have Internet access. The paper uses data from Wave I of the How Couples Meet and Stay Together (HCMST) survey, a nationally representative survey of 4,002 adults, of whom 3,009 had a spouse or romantic partner.

In addition to finding that people are more likely to be in romantic relationships if they have Internet access in their homes, Rosenfeld and study co-author Reuben J. Thomas, an assistant professor of sociology at the City University of New York, found that the Internet is the one social arena that is unambiguously gaining importance over time as a place where couples meet.

“With the meteoric rise of the Internet as a way couples have met in the past few years, and the concomitant recent decline in the central role of friends, it is possible that in the next several years the Internet could eclipse friends as the most influential way Americans meet their romantic partners, displacing friends out of the top position for the first time since the early 1940s,” Rosenfeld said.

The study also found that the Internet is especially important for finding potential partners in groups where the supply is small or difficult to identify such as in the gay, lesbian, and middle-aged heterosexual communities.

Among couples who met within two years of the HCMST Wave I survey in the winter of 2009, 61 percent of same-sex couples and 21.5 percent of heterosexual couples met online.

“Couples who meet online are much more likely to be same-sex couples, and somewhat more likely to be from different religious backgrounds,” Rosenfeld said. “The Internet is not simply a new and more efficient way to keep in touch with our existing networks; rather the Internet is a new kind of social intermediary that may reshape the kinds of partners and relationships we have.”

The paper, “Meeting Online: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary,” will be presented on Monday, Aug. 16, at 8:30 a.m. EST in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis at the American Sociological Association’s 105th Annual Meeting.

About the American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (www.asanet.org), founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.

Popularity: 15% [?]

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Vesuvian Graffiti

By
Editor
– August 24, 2010Posted in: Cover Stories, Daily, Features, Homosexual History, Let's Be Adult

On August 24, 79 AD Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiea under cinders and ashes, preserving the ruins with magnificent completeness – down to the fresh colors of the wall paintings.  Much of what we know about ancient Romans has been learned from excavating the ruins of Pompeii

Among the treasures preserved are aspects of the civilization that would surely have been destroyed by the followers of St. Paul had not the lava of Vesuvius preserved them. These are the famous homosexual graffiti scrawled on walls around the town.  Some of the more choice examples are (in Latin, naturally) “On this spot Actus fucked Quintius” and “Phoebus the perfume maker fucks real good.”  There are no phone numbers of course.

From

Popularity: 8% [?]

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Book Explores Gay Dads’ Paths to Parenthood

By
Editor
– August 21, 2010Posted in: Arts, Books, Cover Stories, Culture, Features, Gay Marriage

As more and more gay men set out to become parents, a new book by University of Iowa Professor Ellen Lewin explores their desire to become parents, the challenges they face along the path to parenthood, and how fatherhood affects their identities as gay men.
“Gay Fatherhood,” an ethnography published by the University of Chicago Press, is the result of interviews with nearly 100 gay men who have or are trying to have children. The book chronicles the men’s lives, investigating how they cope with political attacks from the right and left, including criticism from peers in the gay community who view parenthood as a sign of conformity.
“Many people can understand lesbian’s desire to have a baby because they appreciate the idea of maternal instinct,” said Lewin, professor of anthropology and women’s studies in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “They’re much more suspicious about why gay men would want to be dads, and therefore gay men have to jump through a lot more hoops to be parents.”
Adoption through the foster system is the most affordable way for gay men to become fathers, but Lewin discovered they are typically last in line in the system, meaning they must consider whether they will accept an older child, a child with disabilities, or a child of a different race.
“Straight, middle-class married couples get first pick,” she said. “Heterosexual singles come next, and then gay people of various sorts. Some states prohibit gays from adopting, but a lot of individual social workers realize these guys can be good parents and want to get the kids into homes. There are 100,000 kids in the system, half of which are available for adoption. Most will never get adopted and will remain in the system until age 18, so there’s a sense of urgency.”
Domestic adoption through a private agency can run $20,000, and some mothers will not select gay men to raise their babies. Options for overseas adoptions, which can cost up to $40,000, are limited. Guatemala is one of the few countries with rules flexible enough to allow gay men to adopt, but one partner is invisible during the process – and the fact that the adoptive dad is gay is not advertised. Surrogacy allows a biological connection to one dad but costs upwards of $100,000.
“They have to make choices about what they want versus what they can afford,” Lewin said. “In some cases, gay couples have more financial resources because they’re men, and men make more money. But for a typical middle-class gay couple, some of these options are out of reach.”
Some dads described their urge to become parents as a natural impulse that crept up as they matured. They spoke disparagingly about stereotypical gay life, saying they wanted to do something significant in life – not just look back on fun parties and a well-decorated home.
A desire to pass on values and traditions was motivation for some of the men to become parents. Several expressed a desire to be considered a family, not just a couple.
“The definition of family in American culture is linked to having kids,” Lewin said. “When people ask whether you have a family, they don’t mean, ‘Do you have any relatives?’ or ‘Do you have a spouse or partner?’ They mean ‘Do you have children?’”
In some cases, moral or spiritual beliefs ignited a desire to have children. Men talked about how parenting inspired them to be better people, or about rescuing kids that “no one else wanted.”
One man adopted a homeless, transgender teen who was in trouble for petty theft and drugs and helped her turn her life around. Another man took in a child who was severely disabled by a stroke. The child was unable to walk, talk, make eye contact, speak or eat, and was believed to be deaf. As the dad “moved heaven and earth,” Lewin said, the child improved. He learned to walk and talk, graduated from high school, and now lives semi-independently in a group home.
“I interviewed several guys who adopted kids with disabilities or other challenges and basically gave their lives up for their child,” Lewin said. “But most weren’t out to be heroes or do something revolutionary by becoming gay fathers. Most were ordinary people who live in suburbs, go to Disney World for their vacations, and just want to have children like anyone else.”
When Lewin asked the dads about how parenthood affected their identities as gay men, responses were split. One dad felt “more gay” because he stood out from the straight parents with which he was surrounded; his partner felt “less gay” because they socialized mainly with straight parents from their kids’ school, and friendships with childless gay friends waned.
“Some dads were wistful about aspects of gay life before kids – maybe they missed going to the clubs, or the opera. But one of the findings was that once you’re a parent, you hang out with people you meet at your kid’s play group,” Lewin said. “One couple said, jokingly, ‘We aren’t really gay anymore. We pick our friends based on whose kids have the same nap time.’”
Fatherhood also had an impact on the dads’ relationships with their own families. Homophobia had driven a wedge between some men and their parents, but the grandchild provided a bond.
“I heard stories about gay men who were estranged from their families, but once they had a kid, the grandparents came over all the time,” Lewin said. “Their relatives may not have understood or supported them in the past, but having kids was something their family got and related to.”

Popularity: 10% [?]

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