CYBERSPACE—Dr. Marty Klein, author of America's War on Sex, the recently-updated single best reference work for those concerned about the religio-political attempts to suppress humans' most basic instinct, has given Huffington Post readers a little taste of the ocean of horseshit that passes for "facts" about sex, and knocks down some of the most pervasive myths to which even intelligent people are prey.
In the article titled, "Want to Undermine Science in Public Policy? Start With Sex," Klein begins by noting, "The media, cynical politicians, and various pressure groups get tremendous benefits from misinforming—and frightening—the American public" about just about anything to do with sex.
Klein then proceeds to catalog various memes of misinformation with which average Americans are well familiar, following each with the often-peer-reviewed scientific reality that contradicts the claims of what he refers to as the "Sexual Disaster Industry."
For example, it's "common knowledge" in some circles that "Consuming pornography leads men to be more sexually violent," but in reality, FBI statistics gathered during the 11 years that porn has been widely and freely available on the internet, "the rates of sexual violence have decreased"—and that's even taking into account the claim that such crimes are being underreported, another myth Klein debunks by noting that with mainstream media frequently urging victims to come forward and make official reports of their attacks, if anything, sexual violence is better reported now than it was a decade ago.
One myth that arrived by email from Morality in Media just today claims that, "Sound scientific evidence demonstrates that, in an attempt to satiate their desires, most porn consumers move from soft-core porn to harder and more deviant material. ... Sadly, a growing number of pornography users deviate down to child pornography over time for their sexual thrills." Certainly Klein would blast those myths in a longer article, but the one he tackles here is the claim that, "Children are in danger from strangers lurking around playgrounds, parks, and similar places." In fact, he notes a U.S. Department of Justice report that states, "the overwhelming majority of kids who go missing are taken temporarily by a family member, typically as part of a custody dispute," and that when kids are sexually exploited, it's usually by someone the child already knows.
After detailing a few other myths, Klein goes on to opine, correctly, "Irrational fear about the amount of stranger kidnappings, for example, has led to an enormous, nationwide apparatus (including Megan's Law, Adam Walsh Act, and Amber Alert) that is inefficiently sucking up taxpayer dollars intended to protect children," that society as a whole is so afraid of sex that it won't even allow such simple steps as protecting youngsters against the human papillomavirus with Gardasil or similar vaccines out of fear that it will make the kids more promiscuous, and that abstinence-only sex "education" (Klein's quote marks) merely serves to make sex less safe for the minors who will eventually engage in it.
And guess what he thinks about so-called "secondary effects" of adult businesses?
All in all, Klein's article is a must-read for anyone concerned about the sexual state of the U.S.—and look for AVN's upcoming review of the revised America's War on Sex, which features roughly 20 percent new material.
