HOME
DV NEWS
SERVICE ARCHIVE LETTERS SUBMISSIONS/CONTACT ABOUT DV
Abstinence,
Aggression and the Bush White House
by
Heather Wokusch
Dissident
Voice
October 27, 2003
The
Bush Administration's sexual prudishness is no secret - and neither is its love
of war. Could the two be connected?
The
freewheeling "Oral Office" Clinton years came to an abrupt halt when
Bush took over. Suddenly, abstinence became the White House mantra, and men
whose religiosity seemed to preclude doing the nasty occupied the highest
offices in the land.
There's
Attorney General John Ashcroft, who opposes drinking, smoking - even dancing -
on moral grounds, and who ordered the "Spirit of Justice" statue
covered up because he couldn't handle the sight of her naked marble breasts.
There's David Hager, an OB/GYN who refuses to
prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women (and believes the Bible is an
antidote for premenstrual syndrome), as one of three religious conservatives
Bush appointed to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Advisory Committee
for Reproductive Health Drugs.
Then
there's the "no sex is safe sex" youth campaign,
backed up by "virgin pledge" programs for high schools. Reminiscent
of Nancy Reagan's "just say no" approach to drug education,
abstinence-only programs have seen their budgets explode in recent years, as
Bush keeps an election promise to his conservative Christian backers.
Similarly, funding for sex education courses has been cut, along with medical
services providing contraceptives to teenagers.
Not
everyone is pleased with this new push to stifle open discussion about sex. The
Institute of Medicine has called abstinence-only programs "poor fiscal and
health policy," and former US Surgeon General David Satcher has argued
that teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) cannot be
fought without sex education classes which openly discuss contraceptives and
other forms of self-protection.
The Bush
Administration's emphasis on abstinence has also made it something of a sexual
pariah abroad. Citing objections about health workers being allowed to discuss
condom use, last year the US voted against a United Nations resolution to fund global
AIDS education and prevention. Intriguingly, the only others voting
with the States against the UN resolution were Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Syria
and the Vatican.
Numerous
studies have documented that "no sex" societies are often plagued by
acts of rage. A cross-cultural investigation by American psychologist J.M.
Prescott, for example, found that societies which punished premarital sex
tended to have higher rates of crime and violence. Prescott also linked sexual
repression to aggression, insensitivity, criminal behavior, and a greater
likelihood of killing and torturing enemies.
Of
course, just as sexual repression can lead to aggression, a culture of war can
equate intimacy with violence. So these days, it comes as no surprise that
lethal weapons are often described in loving, phallic terms.
Case
in point: a recent exhibition in San Francisco, entitled "The Gun Show
(Girls + Guns = Sex)," celebrated weapons as erotic art; a review of the
exhibition said, "... as a nation, we have fulfilled the very definition
of fetishism: we have transposed genital sexuality onto a non-sexual object-the
gun. Obviously, there's a phallic element here somewhere, it's not exactly a
giant leap for mankind to figure out what that shiny, steel shaft is supposed
to be."
When
a macho view of weaponry and war becomes the norm, however, women often become
"the enemy," with dehumanization and sexual abuse following close
behind.
The
chilling recollection of a US service member who witnessed a gang rape during
the Vietnam War is indicative. Marine sergeant Michael McCusker described what
happened after a squad of nine Americans entered a small village:
"They
were supposed to go after what they called a Viet Cong whore. They went into
her village and instead of capturing her, they raped her -- every man raped
her. As a matter of fact, one man said to me later that it was the first time
he had ever made love to a woman with his boots on. The man who led the
platoon, or the squad, was actually a private. The squad leader was a sergeant
but he was a useless person and he let the private take over his squad. Later
he said he took no part in the raid. It was against his morals. So instead of
telling his squad not to do it, because they wouldn't listen to him anyway, the
sergeant went into another side of the village and just sat and stared bleakly
at the ground, feeling sorry for himself. But at any rate, they raped the girl,
and then, the last man to make love to her, shot her in the head."
A
brutal gang rape ending with murder is described as making "love."
The line between sex and rage is blurred until it disappears entirely.
In
today's White House, that same line is being tested. Top administration
strategist Karl Rove was caught at his ballistic best awhile back, making plans
for a minor political operative who had displeased him: "We will fuck him.
Do you hear me? We will
fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!"
Apparently
for Rove "fuck" and "ruin" are synonymous; the implications
speak for themselves.
How does
all of this bode for our future?
When Bush
was running for president, he promised to "build a culture that respects
life." Of course, he was referring to fighting abortion rather than ending
capital punishment or stopping war. Similarly, while the Bush White House has
delivered impassioned speeches on the need to combat sexually transmitted
diseases such as HIV/AIDS, it has also deleted information regarding condoms
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site. More worryingly,
AIDS programs supported by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
have been singled out for funding review, and criticized if their content is
too sexually explicit. No wonder Secretary of Health Tommy Thompson was booed
and heckled when he spoke at the World AIDS Conference in South Africa last
year.
Unfortunately
for Ashcroft and the rest, sexuality today is not as easy to cover up and deny
as the "Spirit of Justice" statue's breasts. Not everyone who has sex
is straight and/or married. STDs are rampant; AIDS has ravaged entire nations.
Young and old alike are numbed 24/7 by images of gratuitous sex and violence.
What's
needed is a good long look at sexuality today - with all of its pleasures,
diversities and dangers. Young people must receive information about
self-protection in addition to abstinence. Contraceptives must be freely
available. The societal line between sex and rage must be drawn firm and clear.
Maybe then
weapons wouldn't be idolized and women dehumanized. Maybe then governmental
funding for creative, life-affirming programs would outpace that for weaponry
and war.
Heather
Wokusch is a free-lance writer with a background in clinical
psychology. Her work as been featured in publications and websites
internationally. She can be reached via her website: www.heatherwokusch.com.
*
China
Upstages US at Nuclear Non-Proliferation Conference
*
Lawsuit
for Gulf War Veterans Targets WMD Businesses
*
Trading
on Terror: Linking Financial Markets and War
*
Deceit,
Danger Mark US Pursuit of New WMD
*
America's
Shameful Legacy of Radioactive Weaponry