Dialectics of Sexual McCarthyism

LeoCasey at aol.com LeoCasey at aol.com
Tue Jun 5 17:08:39 PDT 2001


I have been home for five days with a mean flu, and I can't get the stupid Eudora-Enetbot operation to work from here, so I guess AOL will have to do.

A little late, but...

Lord, what a predictable script.

It starts with castigating someone [Sullivan] for his private, consensual sexual activities, made public through a malicious violation of his privacy. It involves condemnations of him as a member of a cult which glorifies politically incorrect ways of having sex.

Some folks, myself included, take objection to such practices. We note that it has all the classic features of McCarthyism.

The response?

Well, in classical McCarthyist fashion, we are told that one would object to the public exposure of such a person if one were not a party to such politically incorrect behavior oneself. To wit, Kelley, << i would suggest that it is your own uptight repressed feelings about gay sexuality... >>

Of course, it matters naught that Kelley knows not a thing about my personality or my sexuality; it is sufficient that I object to the self-appointed policing of private, consensual "politically incorrect" sexual activity for the topic to turn to my sexuality.

I am not about to discuss my sexuality on this or any other listserv. It needs no defense, and I find quite distasteful the exhibitionist pose of discussing one's intimate affairs, in salacious detail, in public forums. It is precisely the right of people to have a private, intimate life without such crass violations that I wrote to defend from the very beginning, before we even saw the Sullivan response. ["Do We Really Need To Know The Details Of Sullivan's Sexual Predilections?"] Public discussions of personal matters must be based on the willing consent of the discussed.

Can there really be any question but that this is, indeed, sexual McCarthyism?

Leo Casey

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