The Wisconsin Badger-Herald reports that a group of law students at the University of Wisconsin Law School tried to bring a sex-positive sex toy party to campus. From what I understand, not only were they going to talk about sex toys and sexual health and pleasure but they were also going to talk about state laws concerning sex toys. You know, law student stuff.

It turns out that Wisconsin Law School has a policy against student groups “selling, promoting or endorsing commercial products”. Using this policy as justification, the dean of the school, Dean Walter Dickey (yes, Dickey, really) canceled the event just hours beforehand. When informed by the students that their event contained no selling, promoting or endorsing of commercial products, just talking generally about sex toys, he refused to let it continue saying, according to students, that there would be no sex toys on the law school campus. In a particularly Dick(ey)’ish move, the dean informed the students about the cancelation by posting a note on the door of the room where the event was supposed to be that said “The event that was scheduled in this room at 3 p.m. is canceled. — Walter Dickey.” It is just me or is that just about as awful as breaking up with someone via text message?

A First Amendment attorney and a professor at Barry University School of Law thinks using this policy was a cover up and that the real problem was the posters. Whether it was Dean Dickey who was offended by the very cute posters (pictured) or even just one other student, it’s ironic that a law school would be prohibiting free speech in such a way - you’d think they would know their first amendment law better than anyone.

What it really all seems to boil down to is a fear of talking about sex or even being part of an institution that supports others talking about sex. This isn’t the first time students have had trouble bringing sex positive educators to campus. The administrators always use policies and other excuses but really, they’re uncomfortable and they won’t (or can’t) see the importance of these topics in people’s lives and so they assume that it must be an extravagance that students don’t really need. Considering the fact that they’re in an academic environment where most students could benefit from a few more orgasms to relieve stress and get through finals, I think it should be part of the student wellness programs. Maybe one day we’ll get there but until people can learn to be more comfortable talking about sex openly (or even seeing a poster with a dildo on it), we’ll never get there. I hope the students at Wisconsin eventually get to hold their event but I can promise Dean Dickey that it won’t be as bad as he thinks it will be. Maybe he should attend - he might learn something new.

As Wired so eloquently points out, we just hit five years of war in Iraq, Hillary and Barack are still battling it out, we don’t have universal health care, we’re already in a recession and no one will admit it and the planet is getting warmer. In the midst of all of this, the government has decided to focus on…. pornography. They’ve charged John “Buttman” Stagliano with seven (that’s 7) felonies for selling porn over the internet to adults (consenting, legal adults) in Washington DC. Shouldn’t we really be focusing on other, more important things? Plus, maybe recently John has made movies like Milk Nymphos (thanks Fleshbot) but he also directed Fashionistas - one of the best porn films of all time.

Here’s the real kicker about obscenity laws (for a full tutorial, check out Harmful to Minors): whether or not something is considered obscene depends on the community. For something to be obscene it has to be depicting “patently offensive sexual conduct” appealing “to a prurient interest” and lacking “serious artistic, literary, political, or scientific value.” If we’re going to use those standards then I would judge Temptation Island as being obscene. What we’re really talking about here is that a Judge views a film, is disgusted by it because it depicts things that he would never do (or admit to doing) and declares it obscene. Imagine the case of a jury; do you want to be the one person who thinks that female ejaculation is cool instead of gross?

Basically, obscenity (like promiscuity) is personal: it’s anything that depicts people doing sex acts that you don’t do. Therefore, it’s a pretty crappy basis on which to judge. What should standards of obscenity be? How about anything involving no consent (kids, animals)? That’s where I would start. Except I wouldn’t call it obscene.

What would be in your definition of obscenity? Or what word would you pick?

This is making the rounds on some of the LGBT/Feminist blogs out there but I felt like I had to post about it as well. Recently, an Oklahoma State legislator made some remarks to a small gathering of her supporters. Someone recorded it and now it’s everywhere. In this speech, she states that homosexuality is more of a threat to America than terrorism or Islam. Also, she states that schools are indoctrinating children as young as two to think that it’s ok to be gay.

I have to say that I’m not shocked at all by her comments because I have family members who believe these things. However, what’s interesting to me is that she will only say these things behind closed doors. She even admits that to this audience. There’s an underground hatred here that gets hidden for the sake of political correctness. There may be people out there who are voting for her because they know she thinks this way and they love it. But my guess is that there are also a lot of people who identify as conservative who would never, ever say that homosexuality is more of a threat to this country than terrorism and who would never want their elected officials worrying more about gay people than terrorism. That’s why these things can’t get out too far - it could lose you some of those independent votes.

If you want to write Sally Kern a letter telling her how you feel about her words, you can go to The Victory Fund.

Here’s the recording!