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The REAL Belle de Jour has always been passionate, and the woman behind the famous moniker maintains that tradition, this time penning an important research paper on rape.
Last year, Belle step out from behind her famous pen name and revealed her identity. She is Dr. Brooke L. Magnanti, formerly of Bristol, England, a noted scientist whose specialist areas are developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology. She has a PhD in informatics, epidemiology and forensic science and has worked at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health as part of a team that researched the potential effects on babies of their mothers' exposure to toxic chemicals.
But, from 2003 to late 2004, Brooke worked as a high-class call girl for a London escort service. She has written an award-winning blog and several bestselling books based on her experiences as a high-end call-girl in the sex industry. Her writing also formed the basis of the TV series Secret Diary of a Call Girl on Showtime, starring Billie Piper in the title role of "Belle."
Recently, Brooke moved to Scotland, taking a hiatus from penning new entries for her award-winning blog (where she says simply, "Belle de Jour is the pen name of Brooke Magnanti, a UK-based writer and science researcher. Interests: whiskey, taphonomy, PGP encryption), in favor of concentrating on writing a new book, and a variety of articles.
The latest, presented below in its entirety (or read it directly at the article's website) is an important analysis, called a 'Green Paper,' of the correlation between the impact of public adult entertainment, specifically lap-dancing clubs, in the U.K. and rape statistics, which also has clear implications for the U.S., too.
No stranger to controversy, Brooke's conclusions are sure to raise eyebrows across the pond, as her careful research refutes the so-called "Lilith" study from 2003 that garnered widespread media attention in the U.K., which found a direct cause and effect relationship between the two in Camden Town, London.
"In spite of mathematical corrections to the statistics in the report, its original conclusions are still widely reported in both academic and mass media," Brooke writes.
In fact, Brooke proves in her meticulous analysis that the 2003 conclusions are wrong, writing, "...the original claim made in the Lilith report, that the number of reported rapes is rising due to lap dancing clubs, is not true."
Brooke says much more research into the true causes of rape are needed.
"The causes of rape and violent crime are not well understood, and there is much research and discussion devoted to understanding the causes of this crime so that it may be better controlled. It is possible that repeating limited and erroneous numbers can derail efforts to control violence and deflect attention and funding from alternative causal theories. It is because rape is such a serious crime that researchers must be at least as rigorous in their analysis as they would with other serious life events, and apply the same careful methodology as would be used in other areas of research," she writes.
Whatever Brooke decides to write, her voice is powerful and important, and should be carefully considered.
Without further ado, here is Brooke's research paper (including the British spellings):
The impact of adult entertainment on rape statistics in Camden: a reanalysis.
19 January 2011 http://belledejour‐uk.blogspot.com © Brooke Magnanti
The impact of adult entertainment on rape statistics in Camden: a re-analysis.
Brooke L Magnanti, PhD.
Abstract
A 2003 report on the impact of lap-dancing clubs on sexual assault in Camden, London had significant influence on the perception of the contribution of adult entertainment to crime statistics. In spite of mathematical corrections to the statistics in the report, its original conclusions are still widely reported in both academic and mass media. This paper presents a broader analysis of the impact of lap-dancing clubs by calculating accurate rates of incidence, analysing statistics from a longer time period, and comparing the results with crime rates in neighbouring boroughs of London. The rate of rape in Camden is lower than that in comparable boroughs, including ones with no such clubs. The overall trend for London boroughs, while higher than the national average, shows a decrease where national statistics are on the increase.
Introduction
The question of whether, and to what extent, the presence of adult entertainment businesses affects crime in the surrounding area is a topic of debate in many disciplines, including sexuality studies, urban planning, and criminology. It is also an issue that attracts considerable mass media attention, which in turn can frame the debate as considered by media and government.
In 2003, a report was released by Lilith Research and Development, a subsidiary project of Eaves Women’s Aid, a London women’s housing agency. The report examined the phenomenon of lap-dancing clubs in the north London borough of Camden and its effects on crime rates from the late 1990s onward. One conclusion that received considerable attention was the statement that following the introduction of lap-dancing clubs, rape in Camden rose by 50%. (Eden 2003).
In 2009, corrections to the statistics were reported in the Guardian stating that
the change between 1999 and 2002 was a somewhat lower increase of 33%
(Bell 2008). It still however implies evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship
between lap dancing clubs and rape. The uncorrected claims that rapes rose by 50% after lap dancing clubs opened and that Camden’s incidence of rape is three time the national average are still reported in national and international media (Hunt 2009, Guest 2010).
However, the original paper on which these claims are based suffers from numerous statistical problems in its analysis. The first is that the use of raw numbers rather than rate of occurrence does not accurately reflect the risk per
head of population in Camden. The second is that the paper failed to show a
trend long enough from which to draw meaningful conclusions. The third is that the study did not accurately put the results in context with trends elsewhere in London and in the UK as a whole, in order to test the theory that any change in crime rates was an effect specifically of the existence of lap dancing clubs.
This reanalysis seeks to correct those problems so a more accurate picture of
the effect of lap dancing on Camden may be discussed, and the new figures
enter into the public debate on adult entertainment and urban spaces.
1. Rate calculations
In reporting outcomes in a population over time, it is important to calculate in
incidence rate of outcomes in order to account for changes in the size of the
population and thereby produce statistics that can be sensibly compared. The
original paper, and subsequent corrections, did not do this.
The numbers on reported rapes were obtained directly from the Metropolitan
Police, though at least some of the numbers are freely available on the web. The numbers reported in the original paper have been checked against the
Metropolitan Police numbers to confirm they are correct.
Both the original numbers of rapes in the Lilith report, and the note in the
Guardian correcting an arithmetic error from the paper and subsequent reporting, did not calculate the incidence rate of reported rapes per head of population.
However, London is a rapidly growing city. Without the context of population
change, this renders fluctuations in the results impossible to interpret meaningfully.
The Lilith report focuses on the difference in rapes between 1999 and 2002.
However, in its first paragraph, the report states that lap dancing ‘arrived in
Britain in 1997 with the opening of Secrets in Hammersmith’. The reasoning why the statistics used in that report start 2 years later is unclear. In order to facilitate comparison with the original report, statistics calculated in this paper will also start from 1999.
The number of reported rapes as given by the Metropolitan Police includes rapes against both men and women, and this is the number reported in the original paper. Therefore for the purposes of calculating the rate of reported rapes per 100,000 population, the total male and female population of Camden has been used. The population count is as reported in the National Statistics adjusted midyear estimates. The rates are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Rates of rapes per 100,000 population, Camden, London, 1999-2002
Year Reported-Rapes/Population Rate per 100,000/Percentage
1999-72/195,700/36.8
2000-88/202,800/43.4
2001-91/202,600/44.9
2002-96/205,700/46.7
Using the rate of rapes per 100,000 population, the change from 1999 to 2002 is an increase not of 50% (as originally reported and still repeated) or 33% (as in the later correction) but of 26.9%, or about half of what was in the original paper.
2. Longer-term trend analysis
Unfortunately because of the limited time period covered in the original report,
even with accurately calculated rates it is difficult to tell whether the increase was sustained, and therefore indicative of a trend. We know that between 1999 and 2000 the rate of reported rapes in Camden rose but because it is a relatively rare event, it can be expected that there will be high volatility in the number of reported rapes and that this will affect the rates. Therefore with numbers now available to represent the last decade, a more complete picture can be constructed. The results over a decade show a markedly different trend to what was originally reported – the rate does rise, but then subsequently falls again.
The results are shown in Table 2, and a graph of the rates in Figure 1.
Table 2: Rates of rapes per 100,000 and percentage annual change, Camden, 1999-2008
Year Reported rapes
Population Rate per 100,000
% change
1999-72/195,700 36.8 n/a
2000-88/202,800 43.4 + 17.9%
2001-91/202,600 44.9 + 3.5%
2002-96/205,700 46.7 + 3.9%
2003-71/207,700 34.2 - 26.8%
2004-52/212,800 24.4 - 28.5%
2005-68/218,400 31.1 + 27.4%
2006-67/221,500 30.2 - 2.8%
2007-70/223,900 31.3 + 3.4%
2008-41/226,500 18.1 - 42.1%
Figure 1: Trend of rape rates in Camden, London, 1999-2008
3. Local and national trend comparison
The original report compares Camden’s rape reports to the numbers from the
boroughs of Westminster and Islington. All of these boroughs contain lap dancing clubs. However it does not contain a comparison with a comparable borough with no such clubs.
In order to improve the assessment between boroughs we have retained a
comparison with Islington, but also added a non-lap dancing borough with a
similar demographic profile in order to minimise socioeconomic confounders.
Lambeth has a somewhat larger population than Camden and similar makeup in terms of ethnic origin. It contains no lap dancing clubs at all. Islington has a
somewhat smaller population than the other two boroughs and has two venues
licensed for fully nude lap dancing. Rape reporting statistics are also available for England and Wales as a whole, so these have been included for reference in Table 3, with the rates graphed in Figure 2.
Table 3: Rates of rape in Camden, Lambeth, Islington, and England & Wales (comb), 1999-2008
Year Rapes in Camden
Rate in Camden
Rapes in Lambeth
Rate in Lambeth
Rapes in Islington
Rate in Islington
Rapes England & Wales
Rate England & Wales
1999-72/36.8 128 48.0 75 42.7 7636 14.7
2000-88/43.4 156 57.8 94 52.8 8409 16.1
2001-91/44.9 163 59.6 72 40.1 8593 16.4
2002-96/46.7 172 63.2 109 60.5 9734 18.5
2003-71/34.2 166 61.3 135 74.4 12295 23.3
2004-52/24.4 126 46.3 97 53.4 13272 25.0
2005-68/31.1 146 53.2 93 50.4 14013 26.2
2006-67/30.2 139 50.2 76 41.0 14343 26.7
2007-70/31.3 127 45.5 89 47.6 13774 25.5
2008-41/18.1 99 35.2 68 36.1 12637 23.2
Figure 2: Trend of rape rates in Camden, Lambeth, Islington, and England & Wales (comb), 1999-2008
If a cause-and-effect relationship between the number of lap dancing clubs and the occurrence of rape existed, we would expect Lambeth to be lowest of the three because it has no clubs. By the same assumption we would expect
Islington to be higher because it has a couple, and Camden highest because it
has more than those other boroughs. The analysis however shows that Camden is consistently the lowest of the three. The results do not support a causal link between the number of lap dancing clubs in a borough and the risk of rape.
The trend for the three London boroughs shows that Lambeth (with no lap
dancing) and Islington (with only 2 clubs) both have rates that are higher than
Camden’s. It also demonstrates that all three have decreased over time, while
the trend in England and Wales over the same time period has been for a rise.
Apart from the early 2000s peak, Camden’s numbers are similar to the overall
rate for England and Wales, and are sometimes below it. In the original report it was claimed that Camden’s rapes were “three times the national average,” and this has been reported elsewhere. This new analysis shows that statement is not true at any point within the studied time period.
Discussion
Rape is widely accepted to be a vastly under-reported crime. The calculations do not reveal whether rapes were under-reported for the area in any particular year, nor what the causes of that might be. What it does demonstrate is that the original claim made in the Lilith report, that the number of reported rapes is rising due to lap dancing clubs, is not true.
The causes of rape and violent crime are not well understood, and there is much research and discussion devoted to understanding the causes of this crime so that it may be better controlled. It is possible that repeating limited and erroneous numbers can derail efforts to control violence and deflect attention and funding from alternative causal theories. It is because rape is such a serious crime that researchers must be at least as rigorous in their analysis as they would with other serious life events, and apply the same careful methodology as would be used in other areas of research.
Other research supports the conclusion of no demonstrable causal link between adult entertainment and rape. A meta-analysis of 110 studies looking at the impact of strip clubs and other adult businesses found that the studies in favour of abolishing exotic dancing suffer from flaws in research methodology. Of the papers that did not contain fatal flaws, there was no correlation between any adult-oriented business and any negative effect (Bryant, Linz and Shafer 2001).
Ethnographic work also supports the conclusion that there is no direct
relationship between adult entertainment and crime (Hanna 2005).
Nevertheless it is a widely held assumption that endemic exposure to adult
images and entertainment makes rape more likely to occur. Even if there was
conclusive evidence for this, why would the rapes necessarily occur in Camden?
The area containing the clubs is a small corner of a much larger borough
bordering other parts of London. It is well-connected with public transport going in and out of the area. In addition, one might expect such a well-known
entertainment venue has customers travelling from elsewhere in the country to
see it. There is no evidence, even if literature supported an exposure aetiology of rape, that the crimes would necessarily be committed in Camden. Such possible confounding factors are not addressed in the original study.
The paper also strongly implies that the rapes are stranger rapes. A Home Office report analysing relationships between victims and offenders notes that for rapes, strangers are the perpetrators in only 17% of UK cases (Walby and Allen 2004). 75% of reported rapes occur either in the victim’s home or in the perpetrator’s (Myhill and Allen 2002). Even if lap dancing businesses were shown to contribute to stranger rape, this alone could not explain large changes in the statistics of reported rapes overall.
In much writing on sexual assault there seems to be a belief that rape stems from an inability of men to understand communication that is indirect; that they are unable to parse any rejection other than a firmly stated 'no'. Not only has this idea led to defendants in rape cases claiming they didn’t know someone said no, it is also not supported by research.
Men and women may weigh the value of verbal and nonverbal cues differently, but show little difference in the end when categorising situations as rape (Lim and Roloff 1999). For all the firmly held stereotypes, men know that no means no. Men who rape don’t do so by accident; ordinary men without tendencies to rape do not do so inadvertently or because they went to a lap dancing club.
Brooke Magnanti is the author of several memoirs, including The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl. She has worked extensively in research of forensic science, population trends and biostatistics.
The impact of adult entertainment on rape statistics in Camden: a reanalysis.
19 January 2011 http://belledejour‐uk.blogspot.com © Brooke Magnanti
Works Cited
Bell, R, 2008. I was seen as an object, not a person. The Guardian. 19 March p18.
Bryant, P Linz, D and Shafer, B, 2001. Government regulation of adult
businesses through zoning and anti-nudity ordinances: Debunking the legal myth of negative secondary effects. Communication Law and Policy 6(2): pp 355-91.
Eden, I, 2003. Lilith Report Lap dancing and strip-tease in the borough of
Camden. [online] Available at: http://www.childtrafficking.com/Docs/poppy_03_lap_dancing_0109.pdf [Accessed 28 December 2010].
Guest, K. Lap dancing is seedy – but it's hard to say why. The Independent,
[online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/katyguest-lap-dancing-is-seedy-ndash-but-its-hard-to-say-why-2064794.html [Accessed 28 December 2010].
Hanna, J L, 2005. Exotic Dance Adult Entertainment: A Guide for Planners and Policy Makers. Journal of Planning Literature 20(2): pp 116-134.
Hunt, T, 2009. Betting shops and strip clubs stand as monuments to New Labour morality. The Guardian, [online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/06/labour-moral-marketgambling-society [Accessed 28 December 2010].
Lim, G Y and Roloff, M E, 1999. Attributing sexual consent. Journal of Applied Communication Research 27(1): pp 1-13.
Myhill, A and J Allen, 2002. Rape and sexual assault of women: findings from the British Crime Survey. London: Home Office Research Study 159.
Walby, S and J Allen, 2004. Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking:
Findings from the British Crime Survey. London: Home Office Research Study 276."
Brooke's books include: Belle de Jour’s Guide to Men, 2009; Belle’s Best Bits, 2009; The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, September 2005; The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl, May 2007; and Playing the Game, June 2009.
Each one is well-worth reading – trust me! You can find all of her books at the U.K.’s largest independent bookseller, Waterstones.
Also check out Brooke's op-ed articles on a variety of topics including reforming libel law in Britain.
— The Curator
MTV is back in the controversy business.
The show is called “Skins,” an adaptation of the original UK show. It almost comes across as a slick and surreal 'reality series,' but with fast-paced scenes, quick camera cuts and unusually dismal colors.
OK, it has actors, cameras and a script — but make no mistake: This is an abstraction of real life, a complete and utter fantasy — the kind of fantasy that used to be grist for a psychiatrist’s mill, and has already caused controversy for pushing the sexual envelope, some say, waaaay too far.
While the religious right, predictably, shouts that it should be censored, my concern is the message it sends teens about sex, drugs and women in particular. I watched a sampling of the first episode and here's what I thought:
— Boys aged 14 and up were generally only thinking about sex, or thinking about any way possible to have sex, were having sex, then were thinking about how to have more sex, etc.
— Teen girls were one-dimensional, apparently there merely to service the boys [see above.]
— There is NO genuine sex education here.
— Teens were often happily drugged out of their minds, while having sex, etc.
— Teen years here are reduced to sex, drugs, without any attempt to provide the characters with motivation to discover who they are.
— This is an utterly bleak world, devoid of real emotions and actual 'life.'
In an era when the media continues to report kids are having sex at younger and younger ages, it appears this show reinforces that message. It also is very, very close to being misogynistic, without any concern — or perhaps even more troubling — any realization by its producer's of this glaring flaw.
Look, I'm very progressive for my age (54) and hold a very sex-positive philosophy about life. But, I think teens having sex at young ages should not be portrayed in a cavalier fashion, or accepted as the new norm. Kids need to have significant, non-judgmental guidance (gasp!) before they take this big step. If they can't get it from their parents, then they need to talk to a trained sex educator.
In addition, boys should not be pressured to have sex as young teens, or applauded in seeing teen girls as only and totally as their next lay!
I also remain quite horrified at how girls, young women and women are depicted in TV and films. The intense focus on surface beauty, and overt, increasing pressure for women to be thinner and thinner (or get costmetic surgery — even when they're teens!) for the sole purpose that they can be sexually appealing to males is disgusting. Teen girls should be encouraged to explore who they are and what they want out of life, as should boys.
Sex is one of the best gifts of being alive. Every person, of either gender, should make the most of it provided they are emotionally and physically prepared, and both parties consent in expressing themselves in this way. No person, of any age, should be pressured or judged by their choice to have, or to not have sex.
Teen years are about a lot more than just having sex and fitting into skinny jeans. Sadly for me, this show is shallow, as it trivializes and demeans teens of both genders and generally cheapens life's potential.
Without apology, “Skins” presents an alternate world where oversexed kids get high and get laid, where school is an accessory to their fabulous nightlife, and all the grown-ups are blathering idiots who have no idea.
The ringleader of this small circle of hormone-infused yoots is Tony (James Newman), a callow and handsome stud in the tradition of Chuck Bass on “Gossip Girl” and Sebastian in “Cruel Intentions.” His main squeeze, Michelle (Rachel Thevenard), is brilliant and desirable and well aware that she’s both.
They keep company with an ethnically diverse crowd of party hounds, including a crazy girl who takes pills so often she can sleep off a hangover, a mouth-breathing porn addict who is the show’s token virgin, and a Muslim boy who is a very, very bad Muslim.
The first episode is spent, perhaps inevitably, trying to get the virgin laid. Also, Tony auditions for the choir at the Edith Damp all-girls school (and there are more double entendres where that came from). There he is ogled by about 400 sets of eyes.
Bryan Elsley, who created “Skins” with his son Jamie Brittain, is writing the American version with help from “real teens” (so says MTV), and these moments of authenticity are all that separate the unreal teens of this show from the adults, who are mostly caricatures of adults.
Because I have never seen the original UK show, I am reprinting a great column by Latoya Peterson from today's UK Guardian. Read it below, or directly at the newspaper's website.
MTV's US remake lobotomised Skins
Themes of class politics and societal status that set Skins apart are sadly – but not surprisingly – lacking in MTV's US remake
MTV Skins premiered this week in the US. [Note: Above photograph courtesy of MTV]
By Latoya Peterson
Drugs, drinking and debauchery are receiving a new spin, thanks to MTV's remake of the popular British teen drama Skins. While MTV's reboot feels like a paint-by-numbers remake, there is one key element missing: the honest discussion of class and societal status.
MTV is known for highlighting teen extremes – shows like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom brush shoulders with explorations of wealthier lives, like The Hills, My Super Sweet 16 and Cribs. The super-rich are considered a breed apart – but everyone else falls into the "middle class".
Class is a difficult topic to bridge, particularly in a nation like the US – a country built on promise, mobility and the American Dream, attainable through hard work and struggle. The idea that one's social status may be determined not by hard work but by circumstances of birth and a few lucky breaks is almost untenable to American viewers. To this end, it is remarkable that Skins was imported over from England at all: class issues inform a lot of the characters' background and perception, which is difficult to translate for American audiences.
The excessive use of profanity, often coded as lower-class speech is highly present in the pilot, when Tony's father goes off at him about the stereo. The US version is censored, and his father is remarkably cooler, channelling anger at the action, but not the child (at least, until Tony locks him out of the bathroom).
"Common" is used as an insult, clearly understood in the context of south England – in the US version, the characters have to make a comment about "their kind of people" to distinguish class differences and provide a reason for them to feel uncomfortable at rich-girl Tabitha's party. Back in the UK, the focus is on showing, not telling: Sid hesitates at the door after he is admonished to take off his shoes – the camera reveals mismatched socks with a gaping hole in the toe. The teen's obvious discomfort belies a discomfort familiar to anyone attempting to mute their class background – but the American version doesn't bother with this.
Noting that American society has barely even developed the language to discuss class, the Media Education Foundation's illuminating 2005 documentary, Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class, focused on three main ways to measure class in an increasingly fluid society:
— Economic class: income and accumulated wealth
— Political class: the power to influence the public and political process
— Cultural class: education, taste, lifestyle
Stateside, any conversations about class focus specifically on income, and occasionally into wealth. The idea of cultural class, while mined often for jokes at the expense of those who do not conform, is not often bridged. But the devil is in the details in Skins: while Tony gets a tongue-lashing from the French teacher at a posh girl's school for being crass, it's the smaller moments of interaction that count. The teens' quiet imitation of their wealthier peers, and their somewhat panicky state about doing or saying the wrong thing, set a different tone to the British party crash. While much of the behaviour in the US version can be considered run-of-the-mill rudeness, the infusion of class-based discomfort offers the UK version a surprising amount of depth.
The MTV remake flirted with greatness: originally, Skins was supposed to be set and shot in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. A hotbed of post-industrial decline, the city would have been a heady choice – the city boasts white working-class enclaves as well as black working-class neighbourhoods and hundreds of different ethnic and racial territories bracketed by the wealthier Baltimore County. Originally, producers eyed Baltimore's diversity as a reason to shoot the series; the gritty urban landscape would have allowed Skins' treatment of class issues to shine.
Alas, the show is set an unnamed Eastern seaboard town; after the producers pulled out of Baltimore, they elected to film in Toronto, which stands in for all types of cities in television. If Skins had been set in Baltimore, it would have inherited a long tradition of quirky snapshots of American life. It would have had the space to grow into a series that wasn't afraid to tangle with the bleakness of life of those with more experience scoring drugs than competing for test scores. But instead, Skins was completely lobotomised: Tony lost his trademark bedspread, his father lost his profanity, American viewers lost Maxxie, and teenagers found their shot at a realistic view of class politics left on the cutting room floor.
Viewer's shouldn't be surprised: while Skins is supposed to present a raw view of the teen experience, class, like nudity, is considered too risqué for MTV.
[Note: Latoya Peterson is the editrix of Racialicious.com, a site that explores the intersection of race and pop culture. She writes for Bitch Magazine, The American Prospect, and Cerise when she isn't trying to make the most of her Gamefly membership.]
— The Curator
A videotape that had been on display at the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. for a gay portraiture exhibit by the Smithsonian but had been removed after protests from the religious right, has resurfaced in another gallery — in a trailer right next door.
The film was part of the 105-piece "Hide/Seek" exhibit that opened at the Gallery in October showing a century of art exploring gay portraiture. The 4-minute film contains 11 seconds of video of ants crawling on a crucifix. That imagery incensed some conservative politicians and the Catholic League.
The art video continues to be a point of controversy. After pressure from outside groups, the Smithsonian had pulled a video from the exhibit, outraging members of the art community. But now, that video is back on public display, literally steps away from the gallery.
The Museum of Censored Art — a mobile office trailer bearing the sign “Showing the art the Smithsonian won't” — is situated just outside the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.
"The film is here," said Mike Blasenstein, one of the protesters behind the museum. "People might have to walk a few more feet to see it, but they can see the original exhibit as it played for a month in the National Portrait Gallery with zero complaints from the public."
The film is an excerpt from David Wojnarowicz's “Fire in My Belly." It's the centerpiece of the Museum of Censored Art and the reason the temporary museum exists.
“We're making him and his work visible again as close to the original site as possible,” Blasenstein said.
The film had been part of the 105-piece "Hide/Seek" exhibit that opened at the Gallery in October showing a century of art exploring gay portraiture.
Within 24-hours of their protest, the secretary of the Smithsonian had the video removed, calling it a distraction from the larger exhibit.
Some in the art community, including me, call it censorship.
"I believe that this sends ripples through the entire art world and that we're going to be sent right back to 1980s conservative realm where things like this happened all the time,” said Mike Iacovone, one of the protesters behind the Museum of Censored Art.
Eileen McClatchy said she stopped yesterday to see what she wasn't supposed to see.
"I don't know what the powers that pushed them to take it out were, but obviously some people don't want to see that truth or touch that pain," she said.
Protesters raised $6,000 and got permits to put their makeshift museum next to the gallery because, they say, it's paramount that people be able to make their own decision.
"Their purpose is to kind of facilitate that kind of learning and understanding, and if you're drawing people in for whatever reason, I don't see why that would be a bad thing,” museum visitor Carrie Garman said.
"Hide/Seek” will be at the National Portrait Gallery until Feb. 13. So will the Museum of Censored Art.
The Portrait Gallery supports the protesters' freedom of expression and hopes people who see the video will come in to see the entire exhibit.
The video also was shown at Transformer Gallery after being pulled from the Portrait Gallery.
— The Curator
A thorough and excellent analysis of hate crimes has shown that gays remain the most targeted minority group suffering these atrocious attacks.
The thought-provoking report, compiled and written by Mark Potok, appears in the SPLC Intelligence Report. The results were startling to me, considering the apparent improved societal stance regarding the LGBT community, including the resent lifting of the military's overtly discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and some legalization of same-sex marriages.
Potok suggests, quite logically, that the deep seated anger barely held in check within some hard-core anti-gays has bubbled over into sudden violence partly because of these general improvements in LBGT rights.
The column appears below in its entirety, or read it directly at the website.
Gays Remain the Minority Most Targeted by Hate Crimes
By Mark Potok, SPLC Intelligence Report
Posted on Dec. 31, 2010, Printed on Jan. 4, 2011
The religious anti-gay right has been knocked back on its heels by gay rights advances. But its hardest core angrily presses on.
Four teenagers commit suicide in a three-week span after being bullied, taunted or outed as homosexuals. Seven students — at least four of whom had endured anti-gay bullying — kill themselves over the course of a year in a single Minnesota school district. In New York, 10 suspects are arrested for torturing three gay victims. In Covington, Ky., a series of violent anti-gay attacks shock a trendy neighborhood. In Vonore, Tenn., a lesbian couple’s home, its garage spray-painted with “Queers,” is burned to the ground. A rash of attacks hits Washington, D.C. And in Michigan, a prosecutor harasses a local gay rights student leader for months.
All of this is only a sampling of the anti-gay attacks occurring around the nation, most of it drawn from just the last few months. Although the rash of student suicides drew major media attention for a few days, the reality, gay rights advocates say, is that the LGBT world has been plagued by hate violence for years.
But that’s not the way a hard core of the anti-gay religious right sees it.
Responding to the wave of teen suicides — including, most dramatically, that of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University student who leaped off the George Washington Bridge in New York City in September — anti-gay leaders instead blamed those who sought to protect students from bullying.
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association said gay rights activists “pressure these students to declare a disordered sexual preference when they’re too young to know better, [so] they share some culpability.” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a key critic of anti-bullying programs, said gay activists were “exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda.” He said that gay kids may know “intuitively” that their desires are “abnormal” and that the claim, pushed by gay activists, that they can’t change “may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide.” Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel said those activists want “to use the tragedies to increase pressure on the real victims: Christians.”
In fact, the chief target of these anti-gay ideologues — the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) — has been working to get protection from school bullying for a wide range of racial, religious and sexual minorities, not only LGBT students. It’s extremely hard to see how their efforts are exploitative, or how the “real” victims of bullying are Christians. GLSEN’s mission statement says that it “strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued.”
What’s more, bullying is only the beginning of the violence experienced by gays in American society. The reality is that homosexuals or perceived homosexuals are by far the group most targeted in America for violent hate crimes, according to an Intelligence Report analysis of 14 years of federal hate crime data. The bottom line: Gay people are more than twice as likely to be attacked in a violent hate crime as Jews or blacks; more than four times as likely as Muslims; and 14 times as likely as Latinos.
A Changing Landscape
Remarkably, most Americans today seem to have a sense of the violence that the LGBT community is regularly subjected to, or in any event are increasingly rejecting extreme religious-right narratives about the alleged evils of homosexuality. An October poll by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found that 65% of Americans believe “places of worship contribute to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth” (33% said “a lot” and 32% said “a little”). Seventy-two percent said places of worship “contribute to negative views of gay and lesbian people” (40% said “a lot” and 32% said “a little”). (At the same time, the survey found that 44% of Americans still view same-sex relations as a sin.)
This was not always so. In 2003, the legalization of same-sex marriage in most of Canada, plus the U.S. Supreme Court’s striking down of anti-gay sodomy laws in 13 states and a court decision in Massachusetts against gay marriage bans, produced a major backlash. By 2008, fueled by the anti-gay rhetoric and political organizing of religious-right groups, at least 40 states and the federal government had adopted constitutional bans or laws against same-sex marriages.
Since then, the record has been mixed. But it’s clear that public support for same-sex marriage — and opposition to its religious opponents — is on the rise.
Five states now allow same-sex marriage, and another three recognize such unions from other states. California allowed them for some months in 2008, but the Proposition 8 referendum ended that — until a federal judge this fall overturned the proposition, saying it discriminated unconstitutionally against homosexuals. A 2006 federal bill that would have prohibited states from recognizing same-sex marriage failed. By this August, according to a Roper poll, a majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage for the first time. The poll found that 52% said the federal government should recognize such marriages (up from 46% in 2009), and 58% said same-sex couples should be entitled to the same benefits as other couples.
An earlier Gallup poll, released in May 2010, had similar results. It found that Americans now see gay relationships as “morally acceptable” by a 52% to 43% margin — compared to a 55% to 38% unfavorable view just eight years earlier. Every demographic group within the data set grew more accepting — Catholics, for instance, polled as 62% favorable, compared to 46% four years ago.
This fall’s mid-term elections were the first since the 1990s with no measures to ban gay marriage on any state ballot, according to The Associated Press. And although same-sex marriage was an issue at press time in four gubernatorial races, the AP reported, Democratic candidates in Rhode Island and California were vying to become the fourth and fifth openly gay members of Congress.
“We’ve reached a tipping point this year,” said Wayne Besen, founder of TruthWinsOut.com, which monitors the anti-gay right. “The religious right is losing some of its steam. We’re going to win this issue quicker than people think.”
It may not be only gay rights advocates who think so. Last February, after founder James Dobson retired and pastor Jim Daly took over, Focus on the Family — for years, the powerhouse organization of the anti-gay religious right — markedly softened its anti-gay rhetoric. Daly began meeting with gay rights activists, ended the ministry’s controversial “reparative therapy” for gays and lesbians, and even suggested that legalized same-sex marriage might not be a disaster.
“I will continue to defend traditional marriage, but I’m not going to demean human beings for the process,” Daly told an interviewer. “I want to express respect for everyone, all human beings. It’s not about being highly confrontational.”
Digging In
It is in just such situations — when long-held societal notions about blacks, Latinos, Catholics, homosexuals or other minorities are shifting — that violent backlashes often set in. As groups like Focus on the Family have moderated their positions on homosexuality, a hard core of anti-gay groups, sensing they are being politically marginalized, seem to be growing angrier and more radical still.
The reaction of Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute, may be illustrative. Upon hearing of Daly’s moves, she said the Focus on the Family leader was showing “surprising naïveté,” adding that he instead “better figure out how to stop the pro-homosexual juggernaut.” As to his comments about refusing to “demean human beings,” Higgins said, “The language employed by Mr. Daly here is the kind of language commonly employed by … homosexualists.”
“True conservatives,” Higgins added tartly elsewhere, “need to rethink their cowardly refusal to address the inherent immorality of homosexual practice and their deeply flawed strategy of calling for a moratorium on ‘social issues.’”
A leading criminologist and sociologist of hate crimes, Jack Levin of Northeastern University, sees evidence of the growing radicalization of the fringe in other ways. He says perpetrators of anti-gay hate crimes appear to be getting older. No longer are they dominated by teens engaging in thrill-seeking with predatory gangs of their peers. More and more, he says, lone adults are committing what Levin calls “defensive hate crimes” — crimes carried out in reaction to sweeping social changes that they see as threats to their home, family, religion, culture or country.
The shrinking size of the most virulent parts of the anti-gay religious right was much in evidence at the August “Truth Academy” staged outside Chicago by Peter LaBarbera and his Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. The three-day gathering immediately followed what to many anti-gay activists was a kind of nuclear disaster — the overturning by a federal appeals court judge of Proposition 8, which had temporarily ended gay marriage in California.
And what better motivator than a “homosexual judge” canceling out some 7 million votes against same-sex marriage? But that turned out not to be the case. Subtracting speakers, family members, volunteers and at least four interlopers who attended only to monitor events, the tally of those who paid to hear LaBarbera and the others speak during the first day was almost certainly fewer than 15.
Nevertheless, for many hard-liners, fighting homosexuality is a biblical imperative. They regard being forced to accept uncloseted gays as tantamount to being persecuted as Christians. If same-sex marriage becomes universally legal, the Family Research Council’s Perkins told the “Call to Conscience” rally held in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 4, “In one generation, we will have gone from banning the Bible in public schools to banning religious beliefs in society.”
As a result, the hard core of the anti-gay religious right is digging in. They have gravitated toward three particular tactics: “love the sinner” rhetoric; secular validation; and depicting gays as a global threat.
The Hard-Liners’ New Lines
Not long ago, anti-gay propaganda was remarkable for its vulgar and wild-eyed tone — depicting homosexuals as immoral, feces-eating, disease-ridden pedophiles. And some of that tone, particularly the idea that gays seek to “recruit” children in school, remains in certain quarters. But that kind of approach doesn’t resonate much with younger audiences, who grew up with positive images of openly gay actors, musicians, artists, politicians and business leaders. As gays came out of the closet, others increasingly found they had gay friends and relatives.
Now, more and more groups on the religious right are framing their arguments with words that are meant to show respect for gays and lesbians. There is no better example of that than the Manhattan Declaration, drafted in 2009 by Watergate conspirator-turned-evangelist Charles Colson, Princeton University professor Robert P. George and Beeson Divinity School Dean Rev. Timothy George.
The declaration framed opposition to same-sex marriage as part of seeking an end to the “glamorizing” of promiscuity and infidelity generally. It emphasized that “our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners.” It conceded that “there are sincere people who disagree with us … on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage.” “And so,” it concluded, “it is out of love (not ‘animus’) and prudent concern for the common good (not ‘prejudice’), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage.”
That kinder, gentler language drew the support of many, but not as many as the religious right was used to getting. After setting a goal of obtaining 1 million signatures within 10 days of its Nov. 20, 2009, release, organizers said this Aug. 3 — almost nine months later — that they had amassed 463,000 signatures.
Another emphasis has been in seeking secular validation for anti-gay arguments — scientific evidence of the alleged pitfalls of homosexuality. Many on the religious anti-gay right now frame their arguments almost entirely around the idea that homosexuals present various dangers to children, that they will live short and unhappy lives, that they are more vulnerable to disease, and so on.
The clearest statement of this may have come in late 2008 from Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute: “We can no longer rely — as almost all pro-family organizations do today — on gleaning scientific ‘bits’ from those in liberal academia… . [W]e must subvert the academy by doing original, honest research ourselves and use this to advance the historic Christian faith.”
There’s just one trouble with this approach. Almost all the “facts” trotted out by the religious right about gays turn out to be false or misleading. And no one does more to create these myths than Cameron, whose work has been repudiated by three scholarly associations. (Others who are commonly cited as “researchers” by the anti-gay right include Joe Dallas, John R. Diggs, Joseph Nicolosi and the late Charles Socarides.) In addition, many scholars who do serious work in the area of sexuality say their work is misused by anti-gay groups. In fact, at least 11 legitimate scientists have recorded video statements saying their work was being mischaracterized by the religious right.
Related to this effort has been the creation of “ex-gay” therapies — programs run by the religious right that claim, against the weight of scientific evidence, to be able to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals. The problem is that so few people seem to have made the change — and so many who supposedly did later repudiated it.
A final new emphasis being used by many of the hard-core anti-gay groups is the charge that homosexuals make up, in effect, an active conspiracy whose agenda includes the destruction of Christianity and, ultimately, Western civilization. Sometimes, their propaganda sounds noticeably like Nazi descriptions of Jewish plots.
In a Feb. 6 column headlined “The bitter fruit of decriminalizing homosexual behavior,” for example, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer paraphrased another writer, agreeing that decriminalizing homosexuality had left society facing “a powerful, vicious, and punitive homosexual cabal that is determined to overthrow completely what remains of Judeo-Christian standards of sexual morality in the West.” Fischer adds that, “as [the writer] points out,” gays have received “special protections … which come at the expense of religious liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and freedom of association and lead to the punishment, intimidation and harassment of any who oppose their agenda.”
For his part, reflecting on “the rise of gay power in the culture,” Americans for Truth About Homosexuality’s LaBarbera sounded a similar theme during a radio broadcast last summer, saying, “The homosexual activist movement has very strategically insinuated itself into every sphere of power in our society.”
And at the Chicago-area Truth Academy, Robert Knight of Coral Ridge Ministries cited a 2008 Time magazine article that he said “makes the case that the Democratic Party is a fully owned subsidiary of a group of homosexual billionaires.” (In fact, the article discussed a group of wealthy gay men and their effect on pro-gay politics.) Knight then went a few steps further, saying that homosexuals in the nation’s capital have “blackmail power.”
How is that? So many gays work in the hospitality industry, Knight claimed, that “they see congressmen dallying with their secretaries. They see them with their mistresses, and they let them know if they step out of line on the gay issue, it just might find its way into the wrong hands.” He offered no evidence.
“The gay Mafia in Washington,” he concluded. “It’s very real.”
Facing the Future
In the end, many legal observers have suggested, same-sex marriage — or “marriage equality,” in the words of its backers — may well be legalized across the United States, whether through the actions of the courts or the legislatures. But that doesn’t mean that the hard core of religious resistance is about to disappear.
Frederick Clarkson, an independent journalist who has written about the American religious right for a quarter of a century, notes that the social conflicts set off by Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education continued for decades after the Supreme Court ruled. Moderating public attitudes toward homosexuality, he says, are viewed by the religious right as “symptoms of a society that has fallen away from God’s laws, seriously enough that God is ready to smack the country down.”
After all, to the hard core of that anti-gay religious right, Clarkson says, “homosexuality is a profound capital offense against God’s order.”
The upshot, in all likelihood, is that violence, hatred and bullying of those perceived as homosexual will continue into the foreseeable future. Although leaders of the hard core of the religious right deny it, it seems clear that their demonizing propaganda plays a role in fomenting that violence — a proposition that has sparked a number of Christian leaders to speak out in the wake of the latest series of tragedies.
“The recent epidemic of bullying-related teen suicides is a wake-up call to us moderate Christians,” the Rev. Fritz Ritsch, pastor of St. Stephen Presbyterian Church, wrote in October in the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram. “To most unchurched Americans — meaning most Americans — the fruit of the church is bitter indeed. … [T]he bullying crisis has put a fine point on the need for moderates to challenge the theological bullies from our own bully pulpits. We cannot equivocate. Children are dying. We need to speak up. If not now, when?”
[Note: Mark Potok is the editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report.]
— The Curator
