Published, January 2005

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.  World War II focused national attention on a global threat to mankind.  Meanwhile, unobtrusively, in the heartland of America, the seed of a quieter, but equally profound attack on America was taking root.

On the quiet campus of Indiana University, a group of researchers was busy interviewing men and women, collecting data on their intimate sex lives.  Alfred Kinsey seemed to be the perfect man to direct this project:  married, a father of three children, a zoologist well-respected for his work with gall wasps, and known around campus for his open and comfortable approach to talking about sex.

Kinsey’s move from gall wasps to humans began even before 1938 when popular lore has it that “the Association of Women Students petitioned Indiana University for a course for students who were married or contemplating marriage.”  On the side, outside of his regular teaching duties in the zoology department, he began to collect sexual histories, developing an extensive list of over 350 interview questions which he committed to memory.

When soldiers returned home in 1945, Kinsey was on the home stretch of preparing his findings for the American public.  On January 5, 1948, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was published.  While it had only one week as #1, it spent 43 weeks, just short of one year, on The New York Times bestseller’s list.  A second volume, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, followed in 1953.

Kinsey’s authority on sexual behavior went virtually unchallenged for thirty years.  Then on July 23, 1981, at the Fifth World Congress of Sexology in Jerusalem, a diminutive American psychologist stepped to the podium to present her research findings to a standing-room only session.

I was confident my sexology colleagues would be as outraged as was I by these tables [Tables 30-34 from Male] and the child data describing Kinsey’s reliance on pedophiles as his child sex experimenters.  Perhaps worst of all for me, as a scholar and a mother were pages 160 and 161 where Kinsey claimed his data came from ‘interviews.’  How could he say 196 little children—some as young as two months of age—enjoyed ‘fainting,’ ‘screaming,’ ‘weeping,’ and ‘convulsing’?  How could he call these children’s responses evidence of their sexual pleasure and ‘climax’?  I called it evidence of terror, of pain, as well as criminal.  One of us was very, very sexually mixed up.

Dr. Reisman laid out her charges methodically, presenting slides of Tables 30-34 and analyzing the specific entries which calculated the rates and timed the speeds of orgasms in at least 317 infants and children.  How, she challenged the audience, did rape and molestation of children ever make the transition from criminal activity to research?  And she rested her case.

“The reaction in the room was heavy:  it was numbing for some, discomforting for others.”  A Kinsey Institute representative present for her presentation predictably “protested that none of this was true.”  Yet, Dr. Reisman felt certain her documentation would be a call to action, stimulating an immediate and thorough scientific review of Kinsey’s research.

She recalls what actually happened. “Late that afternoon my young assistant from Haifa University returned from lunch visibly shaken.  She had dined at a private table with the international executives of the conference.  My paper was hotly contested and largely condemned, since everyone at her table of about twelve men and women wholeheartedly agreed that children could, indeed, have ‘loving’ sex with adults.”

This potential “loving sex” is best described by Kinsey’s coauthor Dr. Paul Gebhard in a letter to Dr. Reisman, where he explained the source of data on the tables in question.  The data, Gebhard explained, “were obtained from parents, teachers and male homosexuals, and …some of Kinsey’s men used ‘manual and oral techniques’ to catalog how many ‘orgasms’ infants and children could produce in a given amount of time.”

Further research by Reisman linked “some of Kinsey’s men” to one man in particular, Mr. Rex King.  Biographer James Jones fleshes out the details in an interview for a Yorkshire documentary, Secret History: Kinsey’s Paedophiles.  “Kinsey relied upon [King] for the chapter on childhood sexuality in the male volume….I think that he was in the presence of pathology at large and…Kinsey…elevated to, you know, the realm of scientific information…what should have been dismissed as unreliable, self serving data provided by a predatory pedophile.”

While trained sexologists easily dismissed this sexual abuse of children as “loving sex with adults,” persistent inquiries from concerned lay people finally prompted The Kinsey Institute to post responses to these charges on its web site.  These statements, drafted by Director John Bancroft, M.D., are carefully worded denials that proceed to confirm the truth of the charges but “explain” them in “harmless” terms.  In other words, “It depends on what the meaning of is is.”

Before you buy a ticket to the new movie Kinsey, consider this.  Papers promote the film with an endorsement from Paul Gebhard, the man who catalogued orgasms of infants and children and used this to demonstrate the benefits of incest.  He likes the film.  He gives Kinsey a thumbs-up.

What could this film do to offend Mr. Gebhard?  He gives a thumbs-up to Kinsey, but consider who is behind the thumb.  Endorsing fame and adulation for one of the greatest child abusers of the modern world is child’s play for a man unmoved by the ‘screaming,’ ‘weeping,’ and ‘convulsing’ of innocent children.

Considering seeing Kinsey?  Don’t.

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First published as an expose revealing unknown truths about Kinsey at From the Home Front:  “Kinsey: Brave New World?” on November 19, 2004.

Published January 1, 2005

Is there anything we haven’t eaten in the past week: ham, tamales, potatoes, chocolate, brandy, wine…and…

On the way to eating, there is tasting, munching, nibbling and sipping.  Whatever you call it, the food goes in…and settles in for a long winter’s nap…right around the waist.

One week later, stuffed to the gills, we must face the truth.  A diet is in order.  The belt is tight, and we are too bottom-heavy to lift out of the recliner.  Eating may be natural, but it certainly has its limits.

Guided by New Year’s Resolutions, millions of Americans begin to set boundaries on what we put in our mouth.  We post calorie counts on the refrigerator door, we empty the kitchen of temptation and we carry boxed chocolates to the office.

Indulging at the banquet table comes at a cost.  Anyone laboring to shed a few “holiday pounds” knows the painful and difficult process of “paying for our pleasure.”  Food is only one item on a long list of indulgences…each with a cost.

For the past thirty years, we have winked at sexual indulgences, and our children are paying the price.  An epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases and thousands of children raised by single moms are testimony to the need for a diet of a different kind.

Abstinence education is about more than sex.  It is a diet for the soul.  It is about making the connections for our children between the indulgence and the consequence.  It offers children hope because it tells them they don’t have to pay a price if they can learn restraint.

Abstinence education is about the dreams of our children, about the quality of their lives both now and forever.  It works to give young people the imagination, confidence and tools to fulfill their dreams.  Sex is a part of the dream.  And so is restraint.

Debates over sex education continue to rage.  Millions of dollars are being poured into campaigns to paint abstinence educators as fear-filled, shame-based fools.  After all, one condom-friendly sexpert lectured her audience…sex is natural…like eating.

This was the major point she wanted to make?  A woman with over twenty years experience in teaching our children about sex?

She turned to face an abstinence teacher and lashed out in her most indignant voice.  “We want our children to celebrate sex.  We don’t need them to be fearful and filled with shame.  We want them to feel at home with their sexuality.  After all, sex is perfectly natural.”

She smiled…smugly.  She had trumped any challenge to acting on a sexual urge.  Well…after thirty years of reassuring our children that sex is natural, these sexperts have achieved their goal…and more.

No fear and no shame…this goes a long way to explain Superbowl XXXVIII and its international show of bumping and grinding center stage…pelvic thrusts set to music…complete with one naked breast.  Not to mention MTV.  And this sexpert wants us to believe the most pressing thing to teach our children is that sex is natural?

Eating is natural.  But it is only healthy when it is managed, limited, and held inside the bounds of medical realities by exercising self control.  Eating is not to be feared.  But it is to be restrained.  If not, why bother with New Year’s Resolutions?

Sex, just like dining at a banquet table filled with delectable dishes, is a passion best enjoyed when boundaries are observed.  Natural desires have natural consequences.  This is the truth from which we build New Year’s Resolutions…both for the kitchen and for the bedroom.

No fear.  No shame.  Teaching our children restraint is not about teaching shame.  Restraint is their ultimate liberation from the very real fear of paying a consequence more severe than a few extra holiday pounds around the waist.

Our children need more than the simplistic reassurance that sex is natural.  They need the perfection of nature’s ultimate truth:  Our greatest hopes and dreams are more often than not fulfilled with a simple resolution of self control made…and kept.

Happy New Year.

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First published at From the Home Front as “New Year’s Resolution: Another Kind of Diet,” on December 27, 2004.

Published November, 2005

The day after the election, the calm after the storm, talking heads on every channel are asking how the red and blue zones on the map can come together in the next four years.  How can we heal the wounds, how can we bridge the divide?

I am tired.  Americans are tired.  We have had contentious nastiness play itself out in a four-year filibuster preventing the constitutional process of judicial appointments, and we have endured two years of electioneering where the “best” of political debate was handled by Bruce, Barbra, and the D. Chicks.  And then there is Michael Moore.  Yep, Monsieur Moore.

We’re more than tired.  We’re exhausted.  We want civility.  We want progress.  Unity.  Peace.  Quiet.  The talking heads ask what we all want to know.  After the election, how can we come together as a nation?

In this bruised state, we cling to the words offered by John Kerry in his concession speech.  “[W]e all wake up as Americans….There is a desperate need for unity, for finding a common ground, and for coming together. Today I hope we can begin the healing.”  Call me cynical, but I hold out, waiting for the flip to flop.

Only one paragraph later, the white flag comes down.  “I believe,” Kerry says, “that what we started in this campaign will not end here….Our fight goes on….Our fight goes on….Our fight goes on.”  Now if that isn’t a red flag in front of the bull, I don’t know what is.

Edwards is there for the fight, too.  “We will continue to fight for every vote….We didn’t start fighting for you when this campaign began, and we won’t stop fighting for you when this camp ends….You cannot walk away.  This fight has just begun.”

And their army of rebellion needs little encouragement.  Fresh off the e-mail, the same day Kerry and Edwards say goodbye, I receive a Planned Parenthood letter.  “Don’t Agonize, Organize.  Just Say NO To Bush Agenda.”

In a democracy where majority counts, it is not just the “Bush Agenda” that wants to ban partial birth abortion.  At least two-thirds of the people in America think that crushing a baby’s skull after the brains have been suctioned is a horrific “procedure,” no matter what you call it.  Now that these Americans have voted their agenda, are those in the minority at Planned Parenthood willing to accept any curb on the unrestricted right to abortion?

This is only one of issue after issue where Americans have voted our agenda.  In spite of the political rhetoric, we are not a nation divided.   A map of the over 3,000 counties in America is a wash of red, a unified sign that Americans all across the nation share common dreams and have voted with one voice.

Bush is not in charge of creating peace on his own.  It takes two.  Lincoln offered a political path to end slavery.  But this meant nothing to people with war in their hearts.

Yes, Bush and the Republicans can reach across the aisle.  They can take the first step.  They can offer the first olive branch.  But this will mean nothing if those on the other side of the aisle want the whole tree and are willing to chop it down just to get their way.

Here’s the olive branch.  Now put down the axe.

Published June 14, 2004

Stephen Langa knows about AIDS and failure firsthand.  And that’s why he also knows about success.

Stephen is from Uganda.  The devastation of the African continent by AIDS is personal: his own younger brother died.  Stephen works in the schools where hundreds of thousands of children experience the loneliness of life without parents.  To date, nearly two million Uganda children are orphans because of AIDS.

It takes looking failure full in the face to be able to appreciate success.  And that’s why Stephen came from Uganda to visit the United States.  He brings us a story of success:  Uganda alone in the world is turning the tide in the battle against AIDS.

“I come from Uganda,” Stephen tells his audience, “and HIV has devastated our continent and our country.  In Uganda, especially in the early 90s we had whole villages wiped out, where the entire adult population was wiped out….Everyone of us in Uganda has either been infected or affected by HIV.”

Responding to the magnitude of the AIDS epidemic, Stephen left his career in electrical engineering and founded Family Life Network, an organization that sends teachers into the high schools to teach young people one simple message.

All over Uganda, teachers are working to prevent HIV infection “by teaching what we call value-based sex education in secondary school,” Stephen says.  “Now, by value-based we mean sex education that has morals in it.  That’s what we teach.”

The message is as simple as ABC.  “A” stands for a personal commitment to abstain from sexual relationships until a person is ready for marriage.  “B” stands for fidelity inside of marriage…”B” faithful.  Finally, “C” refers to condom use.

But Stephen warns us about America’s reliance on the condom.  “Condoms are not 100% safe.  You see, human life is precious….Now if there’s a chance of failure, it means we are risking precious life.  A life is priceless. So we want to have something that can actually protect our people.”

And this is where Uganda has set the standard for the world, becoming a beacon light of hope against the rising tide of AIDS infection.  Uganda is committed to A and B.  Totally committed.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his wife Janet provide the national leadership and tone for their country by emphasizing the value of time-honored Uganda cultural practices.  They inspire the Ugandan people to return to abstinence and marital fidelity.

Under their leadership, the commitment of a child toward abstinence until marriage is given dignity and support.  Students sign commitment cards, and their name on the line is more than a momentary gesture to please a teacher.  It is a personal promise they are willing to keep.

Why do students in Uganda honor their pledge to remain sexually abstinent outside of marriage?  Stephen tells us it’s more than their fear of becoming infected with HIV.  “We go out there and we teach these young people about sexuality.  And we found out that if you teach sexuality and teach young people about sexuality in relationship to all of life, then they understand it.  They see the big picture.  When you see it from the big picture point of view, they understand it and they behave.”

The results are in.  Uganda has demonstrated a cure for the AIDS epidemic.  In the early 1990s Uganda had one of the worst African AIDS infection rates, but by 2001 Uganda had reduced HIV by 70 percent.

Cambridge researchers confirm that Uganda’s success is “linked to a 60% reduction in casual sex.”  And they confirm Stephen’s warnings about condoms.  “Despite substantial condom use and promotion of biomedical approaches, other African countries have shown neither similar behavioral responses nor HIV prevalence declines of the same scale.  The Ugandan success is equivalent to a vaccine of 80% effectiveness.”

Americans, take note.  While our companies are loading crates filled with condoms onto ships bound for Africa, Stephen makes us realize that America is exporting failure.  It’s time to make a change.

Is there a cure for AIDS?  Yes!  And Americans have the answer within reach, imported straight from Uganda.

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Originally Published at From the Home Front as “AIDS: Importing the Cure,” on June 4, 2004.

Published January 20, 1999

I’m a voter with a checkered past.  I’ve voted an equal number of times for Republican and Democrat presidential candidates.  I’ve voted for an Independent.  I voted once for President Clinton.

I’m having trouble finding a label that fits me.  Left Wing Liberal or Right Wing Radical, the label I most remember is the 60’s epithet, Bleeding Heart Liberal.  It hints at why I find the Democratic party often appealing and why some of my best friends are still Democrats.

I admire Democrats for taking up the cause of the down-trodden.  I admire them for looking at the good qualities of all people.  I cheer when they uphold the rights of the minorities, women, and the unfortunate.

It’s wonderful to watch the debates during the impeachment process and see so many women and minority members of Congress now participating in national politics.  Bill Clinton and the Democratic party have done much to make this possible.  That’s why the current party divisions over impeachment make me wish I could agree with Democrats.

            If only the Democratic party could look to the cause of the under-dog for a sense of why I can’t abide the damage President Clinton has done to our justice system.

History is filled with examples of blacks, Mexicans, Indians, and women who suffered injustice.  The darkest marks against American justice are those times when power, money, and white supremacy kept a white American out of jail or put a minority person into jail.  No minority has escaped prejudice.

Democrats, among others, fought entrenched prejudice.  Better yet, they have opened their arms, encouraging full political participation for women and minorities.  They have fought hard to uphold a justice system that treats all Americans equally and fairly.

I am truly saddened today to see how fiercely Democrats, to the man or woman, will fight to provide preferential legal treatment to a powerful, rich, white leader in a legal system that would not hesitate one minute to convict a poor, common, minority citizen.

Is there any Indian, black, or Mexican citizen who doubts they would suffer the severest legal penalties for perjury?  In years past, most of my best friends would have demanded equal treatment under the law.  What has changed?

Published February 10, 1999

I am struck by awe as I watch lawyers and politicians carry on the impeachment proceedings in the same buildings where our ancestors outlawed slavery, gave the vote to women, and entered World War II.

Unfortunately, after years of teaching elementary school, it’s nearly impossible to avoid a special type of teacher translation where adult business can be viewed in terms of little people on the playground.

Every teacher spends part of her life on the playground, whistle and clipboard handy.  Inevitably, at least once during the year, there is a “major” feud.  The teacher’s eye is caught by a clump of wrangling students in the distance, and unmistakable shouts and threats are punctuated with red faces and pounding fists.

As quickly as one can run to the scene and pull students apart, the unofficial legal wrangling of the combatants and witnesses begins.  It’s always the same jumble of overlapping cries:  He started it.  It’s not fair.  You’re just playing favorites.  You won’t even listen to me.  He’s lying.  He hit me first.  I only pushed him a little.  I’m going to tell my dad.  Ask them.  They saw it all.  I’m not going to let anyone call me that.  I had to.  I wasn’t the only one.

Twenty years ago, this feud might have been adjudicated right then and there by the duty teacher.  Students might have been set against the wall, punishments meted out, and subject closed.

But schools have learned, as has society at large, it no longer pays to be soft on crime.  Sheriff Joe in Arizona will find room for every offender, even if it’s a cot under a tent.  Voters have passed three-strikes-you’re-out laws.  Mandatory sentencing laws keep judges in line.

Schools have learned and changed with the times.  Every school fight today moves to the front office, with written reports, and an appearance before Her Honor, the Chief Justice of the Playground.  She may like your child, but fighting is fighting, and there are guidelines in place.

School districts have developed a “no sympathy” approach to discipline.  If you “hit,” you will be punished.  There are no “good” reasons.  There is a formal list of “crimes,” and a set list of punishments, all written as official policy in the school district’s manual.  Fights on the playground are at the top of the list for tough justice.

It doesn’t matter who started it, who’s the teacher’s favorite, or who your dad is.  Schools are hard-line districts anymore, having learned that soft hearts and soft discipline create war-zones in the schoolyard.

Politicians, take note.  The President may be your favorite kid in the Capital.  He may not be the only one to sin.  He may be sorry.  But be mindful of the lessons of the little guy.  Bending rules and going soft for the Big Guy, President Clinton,  wouldn’t even be considered if he had to appear before Her Honor the Chief Justice of the Playground.

Published January 17, 1999

If you ask Aurelia Davis[i], it’s all about sex.  She got her chance on Tuesday to meet with the Supreme Court of the United States and explain.  She and her attorneys told why her daughter LaShonda, a fifth grade student at the time, would feel degraded, abused, humiliated, and threatened by the physical and verbal sexual aggressions of a male student.  LaShonda had expected her teachers and principal to take action.  But, evidently, they thought her complaints were just about sex.

Ask other parents.  How many of us are worried about our children and the possibility of teen pregnancy, date rape, STD’s, unwed mothers, abortions and AIDS?

How many parents are worried about the role models available for their children?  We know Jerry Springer and MTV as examples of the sexual values transmitted on television.  Even national sports heroes give a bright spotlight to sexual abuse and exploitation that is minimized in the media as a “boys-will-be-boys, indiscretions” of manhood.  At least parents were able to point to the leaders of our country as examples of sexual integrity.

What about women in business?  If not for the President with the sexy blue eyes, sex in business is labeled abuse.  Women spent years legally gaining acknowledgement that “Sex is Power.”  Every major corporation posts notices to their employees warning that sexual harassment is punishable by law.  Sex between working associates is forbidden.  Consenting or not, it is forbidden.  Business leaders know that sex is more than pillow talk.  It’s access to power, to money, to status.  It is the ultimate manipulation.  It’s not just sex.

What about family values so important to politicians at election time?  Families are held together by the sacred marriage vow of loyalty and devotion given in front of  friends and family.  Simple words of “fidelity” are vowed in a human “oath.”  Sex is vowed as an act of love and commitment.  How do politicians expect to lead America back to “family values” if they can’t demonstrate the inviolability of a marriage oath?  Never mind an oath to a grand jury in a court of law.

What about today’s students?  Vast monies have been spent telling young people their best defense against drugs, sex, and violence is only three words:   Just Say No.  We moralize as adults, telling students they have the power to choose the right.  Schools are toughening their discipline codes, telling students they must pay the consequences of bad choices.  If we expect them to say “no,” and to accept consequences, how will we explain President Clinton to them?

On January 12, Aurleia Davis, her daughter LaShonda, and attorneys of the National Women’s Law Center were in court to remind the Supreme Court and the nation, it is about sex, no ‘just’ about it.