Like all movements for social change, the gay and lesbian struggle for equality has spawned radical offshoots. These can sometimes supply energy and verve, as with the early incarnations of ACT UP. But they can also fall prey to a nihilistic impulse and a counterproductive collectivistic ideology.
A recent example of the latter is a group calling itself Sex Panic, which dominated the annual conclave of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force this November in San Diego. Sex Panic was formed earlier this year in New York City by a group of "queer theorists" - primarily from New York and San Francisco academic and activist circles - who oppose the trend of gay "assimilation," which they see as nullifying the sexual outlawry they believe is central to gay culture. They also argue that efforts to curb expressions of outlaw sexuality - from closing sex clubs to crackdowns on "public sex" - demand a militant response.
On the opening day of the NGLTF conference, Sex Panic held a "national summit" that created and endorsed a Declaration of Sexual Rights, which included "an end to the prohibition and stigmatization of public sex."
Lest anyone dismiss Sex Panic as just another insular grouping, the media they're receiving has been extensive. Anti-gay activists are beginning to use the group's rhetorical claim that lots of anonymous gay sex is the answer to "the tyranny of the normal" to buttress anti-gay arguments that homosexuals are out to subvert the moral order.
But it's not just conservatives who are making hay out of the quotability of Sex Panic. A November 11 story in the New York Times focused on the group. The newspaper of record told America, in the lead paragraph no less, how Sex Panic bemoans the backlash against "the sexual practices of homosexuals," such as "police crackdowns on sex in public restrooms" as well as moves against "sex clubs, bathhouses and weekend-long drug parties where men have intercourse with a dozen partners a night." The Times quoted Sex Panic founders who argue that "anonymous sex with multiple partners" and "having as much sex as possible, as publicly as possible" is the cornerstone of gay liberation. The Times also noted that "the debate occurs against a backdrop of evidence that homosexuals are returning to what they call 'bareback sex,' anal intercourse without condoms," a practice that's been defended by some Sex Panic activists.
If the anti-gay right and not the gay left were promoting this image of gay life, our media watchdogs would be up in arms.
So, what can we make of a group that is in open revolt over efforts to gain "mainstream acceptance"? In fact, there are aspects of Sex Panic's agenda that have merit. The harassment and forced closure of private sex clubs which do not otherwise disturb community peace, and police entrapment in gay cruising areas, are indeed abuses of state power.
But just as the infamous North American Man-Boy Love Association holds fast against any and all age of consent laws and thus mixes together decisions by sexually mature teenage boys to engage in consensual sex and the supposed "right" of men to seduce toddlers, so Sex Panic is guilty of a failure to distinguish between association in private clubs and the "right" to have sex in public. And this, I believe, derives from their overall left-wing ideological core. Since socialism posits that there should be no private sphere, only public, it's easy to see why Sex Panic's queer theorists - who are steeped in a neo-Marxist tradition - refuse to see why the private should be held distinct from the public.
Of course, it's not very clear just what Sex Panic means by "public sex." Sometimes they seem to mean sex capable of being seen, or outside your bedrooom. But there's a great difference between "public" group sex in a private club, and sex in a public park - and even there a contrast needs to be made between sex out in the open, and sex obscured from public view. But Sex Panic isn't keen on defining these distinctions.
To get a sense of their confusion, consider the points made by Sex Panic's Eric Rofes at the NGLTF conference. Rofes mingled together "police entrapments, closures of commercial sex establishments [and] encroachments on public sex areas." As the underlying force behind this, he described (in good Marxist fashion) "class-based battles over massive corporate land-grabs" and the "concentration of wealth creating vast economic disparities." So-called "progressives" still insist that capitalism - which values protecting private property and defending personal liberty - is the enemy, while empowering the state to confiscate and redistribute wealth and control economic decisions will somehow lead to "liberation."
As I've hinted, a better strategy is to recognize the clear distinction between the privately owned and public (that is, government owned) arenas. Since sex clubs are privately owned, the state has no business interferring in consensual activities that happen there, even if the patrons choose to foolishly engage in unsafe sex. Using this public/private distinction, a legitimate argument could be made in support of Sex Panic's demands for decriminalizing consensual sex practices and ending harassment of "sex workers." But these activists should be called on to clarify what, exactly, they mean by ending the prohibition and stigmatization of "public sex." That police should not set out to entrap gay men or beat the bushes in the hope of capturing men in the act, is one thing. But to argue that men should be able to have open sex in public restrooms, or in public parks in view of passersby, just won't fly - especially when many "tea room" and park crackdowns follow complaints to the police that public space is being misappropriated.
Maybe progressive theorists should change their tune and start defending the capitalist principles of private property rights and the freedom to engage in business without odious regulatory burdens so long as the rights of others aren't infringed upon. Maybe if gay men want to engage in outdoor sex, they should fund private sex parks. And maybe the idea of further extending the public, government-controlled sphere at the expense of the private and corporate should be seen as fundamentally at odds with the protection of individual rights.