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Point of View with Barb
Sumner Burstyn - February 23 2004
Outrage over Janet Jackson's breast just
one symptom
In my living room in Hawkes Bay, half-way through last week's episode
of the banal, overhyped The Osbournes, it dawned on me what was
so weird: you could hear every word. Watch the same show in the
US and you need to lip-read your way round the almost continuous
beeping-out of bad words.
The same day I read yet another attack on Janet Jackson. Across
America her supposedly sexually explicit breast baring has unleashed
a torrent of moral effluvia. Book-ended with the "outrage, anger,
embarrassment and serious injury" Super Bowl viewers were said to
have suffered was the so-called scandal being fanned round John
Kerry, the Democratic presidential hopeful with the allegedly sleazy
past.
It seems America just can't get enough of moral outrage. It's as
if a new spirit of moral conservatism is sweeping the country that
goes far beyond a few outraged citizens complaining away the rights
of others to listen to the Osbournes swear and curse.
Take the furore over the morning-after pill, for instance. In America
you need a prescription to get the medication that is 95 per cent
effective in preventing pregnancy and is available over the counter
in most Western countries, including New Zealand.
Opponents of the drug, including some members of Congress, objected
to last week's application to end selling restrictions, arguing
such freedoms would encourage promiscuity and risky sex among younger
people.
Meanwhile abortion is also under attack. The US Justice Department
is demanding that at least six hospitals turn over hundreds of patient
medical records on certain abortion procedures. Aside from the remarkable
intrusion into doctor-patient confidentiality, the request reignites
the fears expressed at the time of the passing of the emotively
misnamed "partial birth abortion law". At the time, opponents of
the law argued that banning the procedure, used in fewer than 1
per cent of abortions and exclusively because of medical complications,
would be exploited by lawmakers to broaden restrictions on abortion,
with the ultimate goal of dismantling a woman's right to chose.
The conservative religious influence in the United States is gradually
extending to all spheres of sexual life. Even condoms are under
scrutiny. In Maryland, it is illegal to sell condoms from vending
machines (except in bars), while all vending machine sales are banned
in Hawaii, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Nebraska, Pennsylvania,
Texas, Idaho and Wisconsin.
On the marriage front, with gay couples rushing to legalise their
unions before laws change, it is expected that President Bush will
soon formally announce support for a constitutional amendment to
deny marriage rights to same-sex and unmarried couples. The American
Civil liberties Union (ACLU) reports the amendment supported by
the White House is much broader than advertised, with hidden clauses
that will not only ban civil unions but completely deny all government
benefits to unmarried couples, gay or straight.
Backing all these fundamental alterations to the fabric of American
society is a change in the way scientific information surrounding
sexual activity is presented.
Valuable information in areas related to condoms, HIV and abortion
is being deleted from Government websites. Last year a group of
22 scientific societies publicly stated that, despite claims by
the Department of Health and Human Services that the sites were
simply being updated, the revised information did not reflect up-to-date
scientific findings. Their letter detailed practices they describe
as dangerous, such as the removal of information on the proper use
of condoms and the efficacy of various types of condoms.
More recently in Florida the Department of Health has gone further,
endorsing and distributing "A Christian Response to Aids".
Rather than focusing on preventive measures to help to stem the
spread of HIV/Aids, the booklet consists primarily of Bible verses
and Jesus Christ healing the sick and poses the rhetorical question:
"Why should I learn about Aids?" And the official, state-sponsored
answer? "Because Jesus calls on us to respond with love to everyone,
especially those who are suffering."
But perhaps the true heart of the Bush Administration can be summed
up by the comments of Senator Rick Santorum, the third-ranking Republican
in the Senate, last year, when he compared homosexuality to bigamy,
polygamy, incest and adultery.
Too much freedom - allowing gays and lesbians to live openly and
without fear of arrest, for example - is, he said, "antithetical
to strong, healthy families". He could just as easily have said
all sex outside of marriage is antithetical to the holy grail of
the family.
So if you think Janet Jackson's breast reveal was no big deal,
think again. Not about the breast itself or her silly, self-serving
performance, but about the wider implications of the nationwide
outrage and the Government's clearly successful efforts to shape
that outrage to meet its own conservative "abstinence only" agenda.
But the fallout goes further. MTV executives said last week the
stunt was forcing the television industry to change its live programming
procedures. The Academy Awards, to be televised later this month
will have a new, five-second delay built into its screening. Certainly
enough time to remove any show of flesh. But also enough time to
censor those unscripted, pesky, political outbursts too.
Perhaps in the future historians will look back on Janet Jackson's
breast as the moment America shed its pretensions of openness, of
equality for women, of being the land of the free and revealed itself
for what it is becoming under the Bush regime: narrow, moralistic,
censorial, prurient and profoundly sex hating.
ENDS
© Barbara Sumner Burstyn, 2004
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Barbara Sumner
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