Issue #11 -- January 2001

This year-end issue is a little different than usual. You'll find Awards and the Calendar; the regular, longer format of news & commentary will resume next month.

I appreciate the overwhelmingly positive response of so many readers this year. Keep writing with your comments and praise (and yes, criticism, too), as well as with story ideas. Please give several subscriptions to friends and colleagues--the price is right, and surely you know people who will enjoy it. Remember, subscribers' names will never be traded or sold.

Here's hoping that America and the world will experience more Sexual Intelligence in 2001.

Contents

1. Awards
2. Calendar

* * * * * * * * * * * *

1. Sexual Intelligence Awards

As promised, here are the recipients of this year's Sexual Intelligence Awards. These awards honor individuals and organizations which challenge the sexual fear, unrealistic expectations, and government hypocrisy that undermine love, sex, and relationships--and political freedom--today.

Look for stories about the Awards in USA Today and other publications. In fact, please tell your local newspaper, radio, and TV station all about them.

Winners of the 2000 Awards are:

* NBC's Just Shoot Me

The NBC sitcom recently had Finch [David Spade]'s boyhood friend Bert visiting with surprising news--via surgery, he has become a sexy woman named Brandi. This causes problems for Finch when he becomes attracted to Brandi. "Am I a freak?" wails Finch. This comedy treated the issue of transsexualism with a human, non-condemning touch.

* Philip Roth

Mr. Roth has written dozens of novels portraying sexuality in all its confusing, contradictory, selfish, spiritual reality. "Portnoy's Complaint" scandalized some, but relieved far more people concerned about their sexual normality; subsequent works such as "The Breast," "Deception," "Counterlife," and "Sabbath's Theater" have held up an excruciatingly accurate, and often funny, mirror to our eroticism. Roth routinely describes the masturbation, fantasies, sadism, fetishes, and longings most of us think are unique to us--reducing our isolation and shame, and challenging our culture's deadly code of silence. 2000's "The Human Stain" continues Roth's fearless exploration.

* Philip Kaufman

Mr. Kaufman has written and directed films that have portrayed human sexuality as a potent political force throughout history, including "Henry & June" (depression-era France), "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (Eastern Europe under Communism), and the new "Quills" (Napoleonic Western Europe)--which questions whether sexual repression is far more sadistic than the Marquis de Sade ever was.

* Peacefire & Peacefire.org

www.Peacefire.org is the pre-eminent website devoted to exposing the myths surrounding Internet filtering software ("censorware," they call it). After documenting exactly which sites were blocked by popular censorware programs--including Breast Cancer Awareness, Focus on the Family, and N.O.W.--Peacefire itself was added to Cybersitter's list of "pornographic" websites. As the Bush administration attempts to control what we may see on the Internet, Peacefire will become a key resource for attorneys and citizens everywhere.

* Dr. Elizabeth Loftus

University of Washington Professor of Psychology Loftus is an expert on memory's unreliability. Her research has exposed the false assumptions and biased methodology that led to the extravaganza of fantastic child-abuse convictions in the 1980s. Her many books, including "The Myth of Repressed Memory," have led to the recent trend of overturning mass-abuse cases around the country: Five states including California now bar prosecution based on repressed memories.

* The Free Speech Coalition

FSC lobbyists throughout America protect the public's right to make sexual choices, as they track legislation and educate judges and legislators. FSC's legal team is a veritable who's who of First Amendment attorneys, whose most recent success helped overturn Attorney General Reno's interpretation of Internet pornography. FSC's weekly electronic newsletter, Free Speech X-press, provides weekly censorship updates from around the country.

* California & New York Departments of Health

New York and California are the first Medicaid programs to say they will cover RU-486 for poor women under all circumstances. California will cover the pill's use from state-only funds. New York officials note that all FDA-approved drugs must be covered by Medicaid, and they are interpreting RU-486 as one of these. In contrast, most states have not said to what extent they will cover RU-486 for poor women. Officials around the country are protecting their jobs while awaiting federal directive.

2. CALENDAR: Marty Klein's speaking schedule

January 13, 2001
The Social Construction of Sexuality & Gender
  Center for Inquiry, West
  Los Angeles, CA
  310/306-2847

March 3, 2001
Diagnosis & Treatment of Sexual Issues
  Long Beach/South Bay CAMFT
  Redondo Beach, CA
  310/375-8976

March 31, 2001
Diagnosis and Treatment of Sexual Issues in Couples:
Counter-Intuitive Approaches
  Phillips Graduate Institute
  Encino, CA
  818/386-5626

April 20, 2001
Why Sex Therapy Fails
  Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality
  Newport Beach, CA
  209/474-7421

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"Reprinted from Sexual Intelligence, copyright © Marty Klein, Ph.D. (www.SexEd.org)."