“In this video, Shahid Bolsen speaks about the ongoing protests against the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on university campuses, both in the United States and around the world. Since the 7th of October, these protests have gained momentum, leading to the arrest of over 550 students who are passionately advocating for change. He explains in-depth the role of American imperialism and its impact on perpetuating the tragic situation in Gaza. Furthermore, the he sheds light on the repressive and tyrannical governments in countries like the UK, Germany, and France, and their influence on the conflict.
“Scott Ritter, former US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer and UN Weapons Inspector, analyzes the latest developments relating to Israel’s brutal war which are changing the calculus not just for Gaza but worldwide. This vide breaks down how Iran, Russia, and China create the architecture for a new Middle East free of US and Israeli dominance.”
Excerpts from Paidika: Dr. John P. DeCecco interview (Part 1)
Dr. John P. DeCecco is a Professor of Psychology and Human Sexuality at San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, and Director of Human Sexuality Studies for the University. He is also Director of the Center for Research and Education in Sexuality (CERES), and Editor of the Journal of Homosexuality. The interview took place in December 1987 in Amsterdam, where Dr. DeCecco is currently a visiting professor.
Sexual Identity
Paidika (Pdk): Let us begin with some issues raised in your article in the book The Origin of Sexuality and Homosexuality. In it you question the validity of “sexual identity” as a scientific concept and suggest the substitution of “sexual relationships”. Could you begin by briefly summarizing the background of this critique to our readers?
John DeCecco (JDC): It came out of a historical survey of the development of the idea of homosexual identity, the different formulations it took, in anthropology, sociology, and within psychiatry, especially in the psychoanalytic movement in America. That survey was designed to document Michel Foucault’s notion that the gay identity was really a reverse discourse of the notion of homosexuality as a pathology, that it was an effort to show that homosexuals, later called “lesbians” and gay men”, could fulfil the same roles in society that heterosexuals did, that they could have long lasting relationships, that their sexuality didn’t deflect them from the more serious pursuits such as work and community devotion and so on. We showed that the “gay identity” emerged as a way of “detoxifying” the pathological model of homosexuality that had arisen in the 19th century, and was propagated throughout much of the twentieth century by European and American psychiatry. As such it was a categorization of individuals rather than any general acceptance of homosexuality.
(Pdk) You saw several advantages arising from a shift to the study of sexual relationships, one of those being that it would make research more value-free.
(JDC) I think the idea of the gay identity limits the study of homosexuality. Until fairly recently, many of the articles that were submitted for publication in the Journal of Homosexuality fitted this model of detoxification, such as ‘Lesbian mothers should be entrusted with their children because the children will grow up in the appropriate gender roles, to be heterosexual’. Much research that came to me – it’s now beginning to change – was an effort to prove that homosexuals were “normal”, but by criteria applied to heterosexual society and there was nothing unique to homosexuality itself. I’d be interested to see an article in which we’d find out how lesbian mothers and gay fathers allow children a kind of freedom that is not present in traditional families, allow the children to develop bisexuality and androgyny and so on. That’s one big limitation of the “gay identity” – there are others besides.
(Pdk) You speak about that as a limitation, and yet at a certain point in history, that was perhaps absolutely necessary as a political strategy.
(JDC) Yes, that detoxification literature is obviously a political ploy. It is not descriptive of the wide range of homosexual desires and acts – it shuns being “gay”. So much of what Foucault calls the reverse discourse has been a political discourse. Simply, it says that all these terrible things that are claimed about homosexuals are not true, that indeed homosexuals can be very much like heterosexuals except for the fact that they are homosexuals. If inquiry into homosexuality is to be open, we must resist ideology, we must resist the normalization as well as the pathologization. Academicians should not make their first priority political whitewash; it should be the illumination of the phenomena that they turn their attention to. It would be much better, and maybe ultimately better serve political purposes, if we tried to render reliable accounts of what is going on in people’s sexual lives, without yielding to the pressure of saying: ‘What is it that we should be telling the public that will make them more sympathetic?’ I think that is where truth and politics part company.
Pdk: If you abandon the language of identity, which has been so prevalent in discussions of homosexuality, and to some degree in paedophilia, what are you replacing it with, what kind of language?
JDC: To me, it is the individual and his or her desires and actions that are primary. There are such things as individual character and individual personality. They are disordered and opaque, but they are what distinguishes a single person from anybody else. The study of sexuality ought to be pursued within the context of a person’s life, and that life in its social context. The sexual identity categories are very crude, and tend to veer more and more away from sexual feelings and acts, and become entities in themselves. If ultimately what we want in society is to arrive at some consensus of what sexuality is, and the ethical constraints within which it should be expressed, subsuming people under these categories works against that objective. So what do you replace sexual identity with? You don’t have to replace it with anything. You replace it with people’s lives, and the part that sexuality plays in those lives.
Pdk: What are the implications of this shift for the study of paedophilia?
JDC: One of the things that attracts me to the study of paedophilia is that it allows the possibility of an inquiry into childhood sexuality, free from non-native models that have occupied our attention in the past, particularly the psychoanalytic model of stages of heterosexual development. I see it as a chance to determine how children in their own ways, yet to be described, and in varied fashions, yet to be discovered, can be and are sexual … and how adults, as the mentors and teachers of children, unavoidably, will have some kind of role in that development, apart from just standing outside and observing it, which would be very unusual for anyone who really cared for a child. I don’t think we know much about the sexual development of children, apart from heterosexual models which say that a child at eight should be repressing sexuality and at puberty it suddenly floods forward, and ultimately leads to fatherhood and motherhood.
Pdk: For the study of homosexuality to reach the point where it was able to free itself from the limitations of sexual identity concepts, there had to be a political progress. Isn’t there value in a similar period of political organization for a paedophile identity? Given the current extraordinary oppression directed against paedophilia, is it possible to conduct a value-free scientific discourse on the subject?
JDC: No, but at least you can show how heterosexual values dominate. Before the gay liberation movement, it would have been impossible to do that, and it still is not easy to do today, but I think and am hoping, that we now have a choice that we did not have one hundred years ago when Ulrichs formulated his theories of the Urnings (a word Ulrich coined at the time to describe men who were attracted to other men). I think we now see that the identity route is another trap. You know, for a long time it left out paedophilia, homosexual paedophilia, and has never countenanced heterosexual paedophilia, which one would assume is even more prevalent, and has never acknowledged lesbian paedophilia. So I would say there wasn’t a choice before the creation of the “gay identity”. Maybe the inquiry should be framed differently, in other words it’s not going to be an inquiry into paedophilia per se, but an inquiry into childhood sexuality and the roles that adults play in that, including the sexual role. We’ve maintained the preposterous stance in Western society that the adult has no part in that, or that the part is simply that of an observer, and yet in almost every other aspect of children’s lives, the adults are participants as well as observers. We’ve put a fence around the sexual area, and said ‘This you must stand outside of’. So my feeling is, the better route to go is to say that paedophilia is part of the broad inquiry into sexuality, the meaning and the experience of sexuality in an individual’s life, including children, and not frame it too narrowly as paedophilia. If you narrow the inquiry to “paedophiles”, to the adults, you’re going to deflect it away from the children, and you’re going to deflect it away from the broader examination of the sources of heterosexual oppression and prejudice.
“The podcast is released alongside the acclaimed new docuseries ‘In The Eye Of The Storm — The Political Odyssey Of Yanis Varoufakis’. Watch it here: http://www.eyeofthestorm.info
‘Eye Of The Storm Podcast’ will release new episodes each week with renowned guests from the world of politics and the arts. Our first episode, however, kicks off with an in-depth interview with Yanis Varoufakis. Please like and subscribe.
Yanis Varoufakis is an economist, politician, author and the former finance minister of Greece. To find out more, go to: https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/
“There are no laws against kissing a frog! Here’s why:
Animals are protected from cruelty: Most countries have laws against animal cruelty. Kissing a frog wouldn’t normally be considered cruel, as long as you handle it gently and release it unharmed.
It’s a very specific act: Laws tend to be broader. Kissing a frog wouldn’t fall under any category typically regulated by law.
Of course, there are a few things to keep in mind:
Wildlife safety: Some wild animals can carry diseases or parasites. Be cautious about handling any wild creature, frogs included. Wash your hands thoroughly afterward.
Endangered species: Make sure the frog you encounter isn’t an endangered species. Disturbing or harming endangered animals is typically illegal.
So, as long as you’re respectful of the frog and the environment, you can pucker up without breaking any laws.
But just a heads up, that fairy tale ending of a prince charming might not be very likely!”
“Heather and I take a deep dive into why so many Americans are supporting a neofascist for president. Trump is the consequence rather than the cause of several major problems that have worsened over four decades — problems that have undermined the American middle class, and caused a substantial number of people to become angry, anxious, and cynical.
Please pull up a chair and grab a cub of coffee.”
I have a harder time dropping the sledgehammer on people who are at least authentic and sincere…even when I strongly believe they are saying something wrong…which is why I pinch my nose at the “Biden good” comments of Robert Reich, and still share his content [sometimes]…
Robert cares about people…His heart is in a good place…and he continues to participate in the broader conversation…I think that is overall constructive.
“We all knew it was coming. Conservative men are now saying you aren’t actually strong if you live your wife, care for your wife, and have a equal relationship with a women. Instead you should live in a house with loads of men… according to them.”
01) LINK
Our Love Frontier 