Stop Apologizing for Liking Sex

November 1998

Ken Starr's prosecution of President Clinton for adultery has generated interminable media chatter billed as "debate." Talk show panels and op-ed pages have Clinton attackers routinely paired with presidential defenders. In addition to a civics lesson in constitutional law, we are also– supposedly– getting a robust discussion about heretofore taboo topics. Self-congratulatory media folk tout the "new openness" in discussing oral and extramarital sex. Clinton's Oval Office philandering has, we are led to believe, elicited the full gamut of possible responses. Turn on any television, open any newspaper, browse any search engine and you'll be told we are in the midst of a "great national debate" about sexual ethics.

But it's not true.

Pundits and spokespeople do argue about what constitutes an impeachable offense. They disagree about the seriousness of lying in civil depositions. And they fight over what actions should be considered private and not for public scrutiny or judgment. But they all fall into lockstep condemning "illicit" sex.

Clinton himself calls his actions wrong and inappropriate. And every one of his apologists prefaces their "defense" with some version of "of-course-what-he-did-was-inexcusable." All hands are wrung in concern for the "pain" suffered by Hillary, Chelsea, and Monica. Constitutional and legal issues may be debated, but there is unanimity that extramarital, intra-office sex is bad– the only "debate" is how bad.

It's a shame we're not having a real debate about sexual ethics, because there is a different way to look at sex. Instead of seeing sex as dangerous and destructive unless strictly channeled into appropriate outlets, we can start with the presumption that consensual sex is good: pleasure-giving, stress-releasing, and life-affirming. And we can evaluate sex by the same rules we use to judge other human interactions. Additionally, we can understand that coercing people to publicly profess sexual ethics wildly out of sync with what they actually do is itself what engenders the offensive hypocrisy we currently endure.

The proper people to evaluate Clinton's sexual doings are those directly involved. Maybe Hillary is content to have her hubbie blow off sexual steam with others. Maybe Monica adores being a star-fucker. Maybe Bill is nothing but a considerate, attentive, and responsible sex partner. Though all this may be true, to assert that such sex– enjoyed by everyone involved– is okay would be political suicide. The prevailing and still-unchallenged sexual ethic says that no matter the facts, "illicit" sex must be condemned as morally wrong and personally damaging.

Lamentably, almost no one is willing to consider the obvious way out of the current mess: stop treating sex like something awful, dangerous, and dirty. Learning that certain people had sex tells us nothing about its morality. Their gender or age or marital status or preferred toys reveals nothing of the interaction's quality. As gay people, we understand that public judgment based on such arbitrary criteria breeds closets and hypocrisy.

There are some hopeful signs, though. Clinton's resiliently high approval ratings result, in part, from people's (perhaps unconscious) recognition that he likes sex. And, undoubtedly, Ken Starr's abysmal public image stems largely from his dour, prudish, sex-hating persona. Let us, as gay people, have the courage to give voice to what most people realize, but are too scared to say: sex is good, and we'd be better off if all of us– especially politicians– were getting more of it.

Pasted from <http://guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=064C6308-125A-11D4-A7AB00A0C9D84F02>