Do We Really Need To Know The Details Of Sullivan's Sexual Predilections?

[LeoCasey at aol.com]

I am not afraid to admit that I find the revelations of the intimate details 
of Sullivan's sexual habits distasteful. It strikes me as pornographic in the 
classic sense of the term, that is, as making public an intimate activity 
which is private through a process which degrades the people at its center. 
Why do we need such spectacles of degradation for our consumption? What 
pleasure does that give us?

Yes, I know all of the theory, and have even written about it myself for 
publication, but I have become more and more convinced that there is 
something perverse -- not the sexual part of it, but the degradation part of 
it -- going on here. It is like talk show pornography, where people subject 
themselves to the most humiliating sorts of ritual disclosure for 15 seconds 
of fame. I cringe everytime I see one of these episodes, wondering what type 
of inner pain would make someone submit themselves to such public 
humiliation, and what type of gang rape voyeur mentality makes so many enjoy 
watching it. 

Sullivan may indeed be a morally reprehensible man, if he is having high risk 
sex with partners who are not aware that he is HIV+. But it would be hard to 
come up with very many people whose HIV positivity is more a matter of public 
knowledge [Magic Johnson and who else?], so it would have to be purely 
anonymous sexual encounters with individuals who did not know who he was for 
that to be the case.  Given that set of facts, making his behavior a matter 
of public discussion would do nothing to protect anyone, and, to the con 
trary, it feeds all of the negative stereotypes of gay male sexuality. 
Conversely, if his partners are fully aware of the risks, you have some 
behavior which is certainly self-destructive, but I don't see where that is 
any of our business. All manner of self-destructiveness goes on all the time.

It is not surprising, to me at least, that the person to put this all into 
print is Signorile, who pioneered the rather dubious practice of 'outing' 
people. 

Leo Casey
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never has, and it never will.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who 
want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and 
lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
-- Frederick Douglass --

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