SEXIS WRONG

explicit texts and images.
In both the 1950s and today, moral crusaders think they defend
an otherwise virile, clean‐minded nation against an alien
infection which coarsens and debilitates by unleashing “the
virulence of sex.” In the 1920s, that phrase was a shibboleth
of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. It remains
to be seen whether Michael Powell’s successor at the
FCC, Kevin J. Martin, will resurrect it. Maybe he’ll prefer the
connotations of “coarseness.” He undoubtedly will not allude
to two examples of sanctioned sexual humiliations: those
routinely inflicted on fraternity pledges and on Guantanamo
and Baghdad prisoners of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the
“War on Terror.”
There are other possible, but highly improbable, targets. Frank
Rich offers wonderfully infuriating examples of how sex’s most
successful purveyors make financial and moral capital simultaneously.
At the same time as Fox “News” plumps for decency,
its sports division replays the one titillating ad in the 2005
Super Bowl broadcast, as well as gyrating Playboy bunnies,
on its “Funhouse Fox of the Week” website.
Adelphia Communications, ardent supporter of
homophobic, pro‐life Senator Rick Santorum,
offers XXX cable porn, as does Comcast, prime
contributor to George W. Bush. 24 As of March
2005, five of the Senate’s most indignant critics
of “the coarseness of our culture” had accepted
campaign contributions from the Marriott and
Holiday Inn hotel chains, which realize enormous
profits from hardcore movies offered in their
rooms. 25 Contributions from Comcast, Time
Warner Cable, Charter Communications, Cablevision, EchoStar
(parent company of the DISH Network), and DIRECTV, all of
which draw enormous profits from adult programming, regularly
are gratefully accepted by members of Congress.
This kind of hypocrisy is common because of the prurient
curiosity with which sex, the ultimate and universal form of
human intimacy, is bonded. As long as this is so, sex will
be integral with money and power in America. If “sex is like
money” is a stupefyingly twisted maxim, money does flow
from the deep mine of profit yielded from the bonding of sex
with prurience. Just follow the career of any twentieth-century
bookseller who supplemented general literature and magazines
with erotica and thenceforward flourished: Eddie Mishkin,
Irving Klaw, and Bob Brown (New York), James Delacey
(Boston), Horace Townsend (Philadelphia), Lou Saxton (Pittsburgh),
Reuben Sturman (Cleveland), Mike Thevis (Atlanta),
Harry Schwartz (Milwaukee), Stanley Rose (Los Angeles), N.
M. Gordon (Hollywood).
Almost any event in which the subject becomes notorious
conceals a kaleidoscope of motives. Those ran close to the
surface in the Clinton impeachment scandal, in which the
President was shamed with oral sex, former judge Kenneth
Starr’s report became a pornographic milestone, William Bennett
despaired that Americans could not share his moral indignation,
and the sanctimonious Newt Gingrich’s and Henry
Hyde’s affairs were exposed by Larry Flynt. 26
As of March 2005, five of the
Senate’s most indignant critics of
“the coarseness of our culture” had
accepted campaign contributions
from the Marriott and Holiday Inn
hotel chains, which realize enormous
profits from hardcore movies offered
in their rooms.
For perspective, let’s take a look at a major celebrity event of
1953: the headline‐grabbing vice trial of one Mickey Jelke, a
wealthy young playboy who, awaiting his large inheritance to
come due, had been for several months pimping café-society
showgirls. No one revealed the concealed motives governing
the way Jelke’s trial was conducted, but at least some of
them can be surmised. The presiding judge refused to allow
the press to cover testimony of the District Attorney’s glamorous
star witness. He said that the sexually explicit details
would debauch the impressionable young people of Manhattan.
Regardless of First Amendment principles, it was wrong,
he opined, to allow sensational tabloid coverage of “proceedings...permeated
with crimes and acts of a salacious or sexual
nature.” The ruling was patently absurd, given what was
available in theaters, on newsstands, and on TV screens. It
earned Judge Valente shouts of derision from the New York
dailies. With it, however, several famous actors and performers
on both coasts (Mickey Rooney, Bob Hope, George Raft,
Joey Adams, and Martha Ray were some of those who might
have been involved), and especially their agents (whose way
of doing business was a template for the accused), breathed
easier, as did the owners of midtown nightclubs and Hollywood
studios. 27
Protecting Jelke’s more seasoned associates in “vice” was
especially incongruous in light of the presiding judge’s decision
that the convicted Jelke couldn’t be released on bail
pending his sentencing. His Honor singled out the hapless
playboy as in need of an immediate start on rehabilitation, for
he had been “flagrantly oblivious to the barest standards of
decency in his personal relationships.” Apparently, the distinction
between Jelke and the more veteran and well-connected
members of the café-society crowd was the flagrancy angle,
THERE HAS BEEN NO SEXUAL REVOLUTION 313