Activists from around the country met in San Diego to discuss the emerging culture war within the gay community. Sex Panic organizers are concerned about the "increased attack against marginalized sexualities including the harassment and closure of sex clubs, bathhouses and public sex spaces; racist selective enforcement and policing of lesbian/gay bars; anti-sex AIDS activism and education campaigns; increased policing of and attacks on sex workers; and the burgeoning demonizing of sex and party cultures appearing in current gay men's writings." According to historian Allan Berube, earlier sex/moral panics have been spearheaded by journalists and moralists from outside the target community. However, the most recent wave of anti-promiscuity writing has come from longtime AIDS activists and gay columnists, Larry Kramer, Gabriel Rotello, and Michelangelo Signorile. A key issue in the debate is the effect of the closure of public sex spaces on community-level organizing around HIV prevention. The conference provided an open forum to discuss these issues from a historical perspective and critique the relevance of the notion of "sex panic" to the current political situation. The organizers of the sex panic summit also hope the meeting will help to forge political alliances between gay men and other socially marginalized groups, such as lesbians, transgenders, sex workers, and people of color that have also been the targets of sex panics.
- Eric Rofes: The Emerging Sex Panic Targeting Gay Men
- A Declaration of Sexual Rights, adopted after considerable conflict by those attending the Sex Panic Summit.
- Other documents related to the Sex Panic Summit
Thursday, November 13, 1997
Eric
Rofes:
Welcome, Agenda & Goals
Allan
Berube:
History of Sex Panics
Eric
Rofes:
Response to Allan Berube
Judith
Halberstam: History of Sex Panics, II
*Note: Discussions from the Thursday summit were not audible on the tape and could not be reproduced in Real Audio.
Friday, November 14, 1997: Town Hall Meeting
Marj Plumb, Director of Public Policy, Gay
and Lesbian
Medical Assoc. (moderator)
Tony Valenzuela, activitst, writer, actor
Eric Rofes, writer activist: The
Emerging Sex Panic Targeting Gay Men
Margaret Cerullo, Author/Professor of Sociology
at
Hampshire College
Discussion
Saturday, November 15, 1997: Sex Panic Workshops from the NGLTF Creating Change Conference
"Sex Panic: Race/Class/Gender Analysis"
Ephen
Glenn Colter
(Sex Panic, New York)
Amber
Hollibaugh
(Women's Educational Services at Gay Mens Health Crisis in
New
York)
Alex
Garner (San
Diego Chicano writer/activist)
Joo-Hyun
Kang
(Executive Director, Audre Lorde Project, New York)
Discussion
"Combating the Sex Panic"
Michael
Warner
(writer/Professor of Literature at Rutgers University and co-
founder of
Sex Panic, NY)
Mickey
Wheatly
(former staff attorney of Lambda Legal Defense, currently private
attorney in DC)
Richard
Zaldivar (Latino activist in East LA and Executive Director of Las
Memorias
Project, a Latino cultural and AIDS project)
Race
Bannon
(long-time San Francisco activist/writer and co-found of Community
United
for Sexual Privacy)
Discussion&l
t;/
P>
"Pro-Sex HIV Prevention for Gay Men"
Scott Tucker (author, democratic socialist
from
Philadelphia
Hector Carillo (Director of Q Action for STOP
AIDS Project
in SF).
Javid Syed (Coordinator of the gay, bisexual
and
transgender project of the Asian and Paicific Islander Coalition on
HIV/AIDS in New York City)
Dan Savage (Seattle writer of nationally syndicated
column, Savage Love)
Discussion
"Generation X Gay Men Speak Out: Politics, Parties, Drugs, Sex and HIV"
Tony Valenzuela (San Diego writer/activist/organizer of
Sex Panic
Summit)
Wayne Hoffman (Co-editor of Policing
Public Sex: Queer Politics and the Future of AIDS
Activism)
Stephen Gendin (Executive Vice-President of
POZ magazine,
co-founder Sex Panic NY)
Stephen Ceplenski (publisher of Circuit Noize
magazine)
Alex Garner (Chicano writer/activist from
San Diego).
Discussion
Other Documents Related to the Sex Panic Summit
- Sex Panic Summit -- Some Final Thoughts, By Keith Griffith
- Sex Lib Activists to Stage National Confab in San Diego, By Alex Wockner for Gay Place News
- Protease Dis-Inhibitors? The Gay Bareback Phenomenon, by Nicolas Sheon and Aaron Plant
- Pleasure Principles: Queer Theorists and Gay Journalists wrestle over the politics of sex published by Lingua Franca
- Sex Panics Unplugged! by Grant Lukenbill, submitted 12/25/1997
- It's not the State - it's the culture, Stupid ! by Richard Cornwall, submitted 12/22/97
- An Open Letter To Sex Panic
- Queer Sex in the 90's: Signorile and Rotello reply to Charges of neo-conservatism by Sex Panic
- Tombstones & Gratitude: Exploring Negative Identity by Ken Salzer
- The Boys in the Bathhouses, By David Horowitz
- Rotello article exploring the impact of new therapies
- Michael Warner denounces gay 'neo-conservatives'
- Sex Panic's June 1997 flier
- Promiscuity = Death
Interviews with Gabriel Rotello and reviews of Sexual Ecology
- Extract from The Nation
- Edward King
- Dallas Voice
- Out NOW!
- Village Voice
- The Nation
- Los Angeles Times
- Positive Living
- Badpuppy Gay Today
- Washington Post
- Barnes & Noble discussion
- Interview with Oasis magazine
- Ecology or Psychology? RealAudio radio debate with Walt Odets
Audio from this conference requires the free Real Audio player. Visit the Real Audio web site to download the Real Audio player.
National Sex Panic Summit and Related
Panels from the
NGLTF
Creating
Change Conference
November 13-15, 1997
San Diego, CA
Recordings courtesy of HMR Duplications Click here for an order form for these and other tapes from the NGLTF Creating Change Conference.
SUBMIT YOUR OWN OPINIONS FUEL
|
SUBMIT YOUR
OWN OPINIONS FUEL
|
SUBMIT YOUR OWN OPINIONS FUEL
|