SEXIS WRONG

Headquarters of the Archive is a nondescript building painted
blue, with only the words “Exodus Foundation” printed on the
door, and the copies of Newsweek and National Geographic
in the lobby do nothing to tell visitors that this is the Institute
for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. I’m met by
Howard Ruppel, Chancellor and Academic Dean, a chatty fellow
of about 60 who sports a graying ponytail, tie, and training
shoes. Howard has taught human sexuality at university
level and also worked as a sex therapist and counselor, which
means he’s very friendly and is the type of person that if you
ever happen to interrupt him, he immediately stops talking
and insists that you continue the point you wish to make.
Although he’s been on the Institute’s board of directors for
years, he had recently relocated to San Francisco to assume
his duties as the boss. Howard’s presence
gives the school a jolt of new energy, because
its founder and figurehead, former Methodist
minister Rev. Ted McIlvenna, is considering
retirement.
Applicants accepted to the Institute pay
$13,500 for three terms, studying under 30
full- and part-time faculty. Most students participate
through the mail from outside California
and are working towards doctorate degrees in social
sciences and helping professions. Among their requirements
is the viewing of 100 hours of videos, selected from the Archive.
Recent dissertation topics have included the external
penis pump device, sex counseling for the mentally retarded,
the interaction in gay baths, and the contributions to “sexology”
of soul singer James Brown.
I hear the word sexology constantly. It’s all over the school’s
brochures and mission statements. According to Howard, the
study of sexuality is composed of various sex fiefdoms—the
psychologists don’t deal with the psychiatrists, who ignore
the biologists, who dismiss the historians. Sexology, on the
other hand, is the multidisciplinary philosophy that looks at
all the disciplines and combines them. He compares it to the
ecology movement in the 1970s, when biologists, psychologists,
and geographers all came together to study the impact
of “green” issues like pollution and zero population growth.
The Institute’s goal is to promote sexology through education,
so as to have an impact on social issues. Howard says
they definitely have achieved these goals, particularly in certain
areas, including HIV, sexual counseling, and gender.
Erotology is another word peculiar to the Institute’s philosophy.
Howard explains it as “the scholarly study of erotic materials.”
They don’t use the word scientific, he says, because
it sounds too male-oriented, too patriarchal. Using scholarly
allows the feminists to become part of the discussion. So in
other words, students specializing in erotology look at an awful
lot of porn and analyze what it means—not an impulse that
enters the mind of your average pants-to-the-ankles viewer.
Outside of a sexology program at the University of Montreal
at Quebec, the Institute is the only school of its kind in the
world. And it’s also unique, of course, because of the Archive.
Now I really want to see the mountain of porn known as the
Exodus Trust Erotology Library, or at least speak to someone
who has. I track down a graduate of the school, Carol Queen,
an extremely bright and strong-willed bisexual woman who
has made a name for herself as a sex author and educator.
Recent dissertation topics have
included the external penis pump
device, sex counseling for the
mentally retarded, the interaction in
gay baths, and the contributions to
“sexology” of soul singer
James Brown.
She works days at the sex-toy retailer Good Vibrations, and
after our meeting she will lead a masturbation workshop.
Sociology graduate Carol first enrolled at the Institute in the
1980s, a time when it was nicknamed “Hot Tub U.”
Unfortunately, Carol has not seen the Archive firsthand. But
she’s well aware of it. “Most people don’t know that this exists,”
she says. “It doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t matter
if you took that same scene from Debbie Does Dallas that
you jerked off to for your entire adult life and looped it, and
you got an hour of that one scene. They’ll take anything. And
it’s all erotologically significant.”
Carol has visited the renowned Kinsey Institute in Indiana and
found that when she poked around their erotica collection,
it was nothing at all like the Archive: “They’re not proud of
the smut like the Institute is. Which is a very different way
of understanding things. Kinsey is like, ‘Well, we shouldn’t
throw this away because someday it’ll be important.’ But the
Institute is like, ‘Look what we got! We’ve got porno!’
“The Institute respects this material as the cultural output
of a society that’s whacked-out about sex,” she continues.
“And that’s worth studying. And what it produces is worth
studying. And how people use it is worth studying. All of it is
valuable. But good fucking luck if you’re an erotica researcher
and you want to go in and look around at that stuff!”
I’ve heard this from several people. I’ve even attempted to
THE ARCHIVE 85