Ex-Scoutmaster Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Homosexual Child Abuse

Source

An ex-scoutmaster has been sentenced to 30 years behind bars after pleading guilty to sexually abusing three boys while serving as a Keswick Boy Scout troop leader.

David Brian Watkins, 50, accepted a plea deal earlier this year after originally being indicted on 70 charges surrounding inappropriate contact with scouts. He plead guilty to 36 counts in January, avoiding a jury trial, which could have resulted in multiple life sentences.

Watkins, who led Keswick Troop 1028 from 2002 to 2008, admitted to abusing male scouts from 2006-2009. He was arrested in November 2012 after a scout, who was 13 at the time of the incident and is now an adult, reported him to the police.

On Thursday, Judge Cheryl Higgins sentenced Watkins to ten years in prison for each of three counts of carnal knowledge of a child between the ages of 13 and 15. She suspended the remaining 33 charges, which would have placed him behind bars for another 165 years.

Prior to his sentencing, Watkins asked the court for mercy, but prosecutor Darby Lowe read segments of a report to the court where Watkins had told police that it was instead the boy who initiated the sexual contact. According to the Charlottesville Daily Progress, Watkins stated that it was he who felt that he had been raped.

Watkins’ defense attorney Andre Hakes also told that court that the boys involved consented to having sexual activity with the Scoutmaster.

“These were continuing sexual relationships, and though they were with children under 18, they were consensual,” she stated. “David Watkins is not just these crimes. He is responsible for them, but they are not all of who he was.”

Before issuing her sentence, Higgins expressed a concern that Watkins and his defense failed to have contrition over his behavior.

“What is especially concerning to the court in this case is the lack of acknowledgement by the defendant,”she stated.

Following his arrest two years ago, a Portland attorney who won a lawsuit in 2010 lodged by a former Boy Scout who claimed that he was molested by an assistant scout leader told reporters that Watkin’s case reinforces her concerns about the organization.

“This says two things about Boy Scouts,” attorney Kelly Clark said. “First, there is a serious problem with child abuse in Scouting. Second, a lot of organizations [like Boy Scouts] put their own interests ahead of the interests of the kids.”

As previously reported, thousands of documents were released in October 2012 outlining evidence of longstanding and widespread sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America. The documents, which the Boy Scouts had fought to keep secret, contained information collected since shortly after its inception in 1910, including letters from victims and their parents, as well as memos and handwritten notes. Some allegations had been substantiated, while others were yet undetermined.

In all, there were 14,500 pages of evidence released.

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Homosexual Hijackers: The Hypersexualization of Cultural Hostages

When the celebration of a godly Catholic Saint becomes a flashpoint for the homosexual agenda, it’s just another sure sign that things have really spiraled out of control in America. How is it that the St. Patrick’s Day parades in Boston and New York have become the latest pawn in the homosexual hijacking of this country?

In the current cultural clash between morality and decadence, apparently nothing is considered sacred or beyond the tainting touch of the “gay lobby.”

As the militant homosexual activists aggressively sweep through our society in their hostage-taking enterprise, they trample on religious rights — and numerous other freedoms — leaving only debauchery in their wake. Through their shameless “gay” gangland style thuggery, they defile and hypersexualize everything that they come into contact with. And the “Big Beer” brouhaha is just their latest attempt to distort a holiday observance, which is supposed to be about commemorating a heroic, holy man, into more perversity on parade. The homosexual wrecking ball has “come out” in full vengeance mode with corporate sponsors, professional sports organizations, elected officials, mainstream media outlets, Hollywood celebrities, and universities all drooling and panting to be the first to ride the “gay” bandwagon on its path to perdition.  

Is it any wonder that the Catholic Church doesn’t want to sully their Saint with the raunchy displays that are typically seen in the annual “gay pride” parades held across America? Why would the organizers want to see homosexuals prancing around in drag, genitalia-revealing clothing, or nearly naked?

And what’s the likelihood that “gay pride” organizers would ever allow Christians to march in their parades and pass out biblical literature about the sinfulness of homosexuality? Or what’s the chance that they would welcome groups such as NOM (National Organization for Marriage), NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) or JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality) to march right alongside the transvestites? Or what about an ex-gay marching band or Mark Regnerus as the grand marshal? Not on your life! The simple fact is that homosexual events are not “open” to everyone. Certain individuals and organizations, that don’t conform to their ideology, are absolutely barred from participating in their parades. Of course, they wouldn’t want any religious or moral principles “raining on their parade.” Homosexual extremists march along a one-way street when it comes to so-called “tolerance.”

At “gay pride” events and parades in places such as San Francisco, Atlanta, Charlotte, and New Orleans, it is not uncommon to see drag queens, phalluses, public nudity, actual and simulated sex acts, offensive signs/music, pornographic images, NAMBLA (pedophilia) representatives, S&M paraphernalia, and public spankings to raise money for AIDS efforts. So, why would the Catholic Church – and any morally sane individual – want to associate St. Patrick with those kinds of debauched displays?

In some places, the homosexual hijackers’ reign of terror is basically complete. For instance, in San Francisco, public decency ordinances are consistently and systematically overlooked during their homosexual, perversity-promoting events. Nudity and public sex acts are the norm during the annual Folsom Street Fair and other “gay pride” parades and festivals held in the city. Police officers, on foot and bicycle, congregate nearby and observe, making no attempt to enforce the law for fear of being labeled homophobic or worse.

And where is the mainstream media while all of this crude and vulgar behavior is so blatantly on display? They’re engaged in a homosexual-friendly, collaborative cover-up via a media blackout because they know that these sex-crazed, pornified sin-fests don’t fit the nice, neat little narrative of the happy, “normal gay family” that’s just minding their own business in relative suburban obscurity. Although not all homosexuals are militantly involved in the hostile takeover of the American culture, we can’t ignore the intimidating and morally corrosive efforts of the aggressive “gay” activists.

In advance of the September 15, 2013 “gay pride” parade in Dallas, Texas, the city officials made it clear that they had had enough of this type of outrageous behavior. They pledged to crack down on the lewdness and nudity that had become widespread at their annual gay pride parade. While past marches had featured bare-breasted women and men in tight, wet underwear with visible genitalia, Dallas law enforcement said the city would no longer turn a blind eye to such violations of city and state law. The rules now state: “In accordance with the city of Dallas public nudity ordinance, parade participants must not expose genitalia, buttocks, or female breasts.” Additionally, the new parade restrictions prohibit other vile exhibitions: “In accordance with state of Texas obscenity law, sexual paraphernalia, real or simulated sex acts and genital or phallic representations are prohibited from the parade.” City officials, along with the event’s organizers, said they wanted the pride event to be more “family friendly.”

The reaction, however, from the “gay” community and activists to this policy change was quite eye-opening. It shockingly revealed the true darkness that lurks at the heart of America’s homosexual movement. They expressed great outraged at the newly-implemented common sense changes. On the social media website Twitter, incensed homosexuals vowed to wear  – or not wear – whatever they wanted to the pride parade. Activist Daniel Cates wrote on his Facebook page, “The ‘queer’ is effectively being erased from our Pride celebration in favor of the most polished, heteronormative representation of our community as possible. It should be noted that the rioters at the Stonewall Inn fought to break OUT of the d*mn closet! Our movement was built of sex positivity and our desire to BE WHO WE ARE! I urge you ALL to openly DEFY the Tavern Guild!” (Evidently, the word “restraint” is nowhere to be found in the homosexual dictionary.)

Based on Mr. Cates’ own words, here are a just a few thoughts:

If they “can’t be themselves” without being mostly naked, raunchy, and highly sexualized, doesn’t that contradict the whole “It’s not about sex, it’s about love” mantra? It sounds much more to me like a crotch-centric fixation than anything to do with love. 

If they’re so adamantly against “heteronormative” behavior, then why are homosexual activists also fighting so hard to get “married?” Marriage, after all, is the most heteronormative institution there is! There is obviously no method to their madness.

And homosexuals claim that they want equal treatment under the law, but as soon as they are told that they will be treated like any other citizen who breaks public decency laws, they throw a hissy fit. Apparently, they don’t really want equal treatment; what they demand is special treatment. They think that they are entitled to some sort of “protected class,” above-the-law status that allows them to brazenly break the law with impunity, and sadly, in most places and in many ways, that’s exactly what were witnessing as public officials cower in fear and cave to their every terrorist-like tactic!

Therefore, the “coexist” meme is a falsehood of epic proportions; it’s really “Leftist code” for the legal authorization of the anti-Christian forces – of which the virulent homosexual hijackers have become the worst offenders – to run roughshod over anyone with whom they disagree. In their twisted idea of coexistence, Christians and conservatives must live under the heel of the homofascists.

What the St. Patrick’s Day Parade organizers and every other religious group, cultural edifice or icon of morality need to do is implement a “we don’t negotiate with ‘queer’ terrorists” policy. Or else all will be lost to the homosexual hijackers.

Source:  http://bit.ly/1ozcBWe

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Love Isn’t Enough: 5 Reasons Why Same-Sex Marriage Will Harm Children

By Trayce Hansen, Ph.D.

Proponents of same-sex marriage believe the only thing children really need is love. Based on that supposition, they conclude it’s just as good for children to be raised by loving parents of the same sex, as it is to be raised by loving parents of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, that basic assumption—and all that flows from it—is false. Because love isn’t enough!

All else being equal, children do best when raised by a married mother and father. It’s within this environment that children are most likely to be exposed to the emotional and psychological experiences they need in order to thrive.

Men and women bring diversity to parenting; each makes unique contributions to the rearing of children that can’t be replicated by the other. Mothers and fathers simply are not interchangeable. Two women can both be good mothers, but neither can be a good father.

So here are five reasons why it’s in the best interest of children to be raised by both a mother and a father:

First, mother-love and father-love—though equally important—are qualitatively different and produce distinct parent-child attachments. Specifically, it’s the combination of the unconditional-leaning love of a mother and the conditional-leaning love of a father that’s essential to a child’s development. Either of these forms of love without the other can be problematic. Because what a child needs is the complementary balance the two types of parental love and attachment provide.

Only heterosexual parents offer children the opportunity to develop relationships with a parent of the same, as well as the opposite sex. Relationships with both sexes early in life make it easier for a child to relate to both sexes later in life. For a girl, that means she’ll better understand and appropriately interact with the world of men and be more comfortable in the world of women. And for a boy, the converse will hold true. Having a relationship with “the other”—an opposite sexed parent—also increases the likelihood that a child will be more empathetic and less narcissistic.

Secondly, children progress through predictable and necessary developmental stages. Some stages require more from a mother, while others require more from a father. For example, during infancy, babies of both sexes tend to do better in the care of their mother. Mothers are more attuned to the subtle needs of their infants and thus are more appropriately responsive. However, at some point, if a young boy is to become a competent man, he must detach from his mother and instead identify with his father. A fatherless boy doesn’t have a man with whom to identify and is more likely to have trouble forming a healthy masculine identity.

A father teaches a boy how to properly channel his aggressive and sexual drives. A mother can’t show a son how to control his impulses because she’s not a man and doesn’t have the same urges as one. A father also commands a form of respect from a boy that a mother doesn’t––a respect more likely to keep the boy in line. And those are the two primary reasons why boys without fathers are more likely to become delinquent and end up incarcerated.

Father-need is also built into the psyche of girls. There are times in a girl’s life when only a father will do. For instance, a father offers a daughter a safe, non-sexual place to experience her first male-female relationship and have her femininity affirmed. When a girl doesn’t have a father to fill that role she’s more likely to become promiscuous in a misguided attempt to satisfy her inborn hunger for male attention and validation.

Overall, fathers play a restraining role in the lives of their children. They restrain sons from acting out antisocially, and daughters from acting out sexually. When there’s no father to perform this function, dire consequences often result both for the fatherless children and for the society in which these children act out their losses.

Third, boys and girls need an opposite-sexed parent to help them moderate their own gender-linked inclinations. As example, boys generally embrace reason over emotion, rules over relationships, risk-taking over caution, and standards over compassion, while girls generally embrace the reverse. An opposite-sexed parent helps a child keep his or her own natural proclivities in check by teaching—verbally and nonverbally—the worth of the opposing tendencies. That teaching not only facilitates moderation, but it also expands the child’s world—helping the child see beyond his or her own limited vantage point.

Fourth, same-sex marriage will increase sexual confusion and sexual experimentation by young people. The implicit and explicit message of same-sex marriage is that all choices are equally acceptable and desirable. So, even children from traditional homes—influenced by the all-sexual-options-are-equal message—will grow up thinking it doesn’t matter whom one relates to sexually or marries. Holding such a belief will lead some—if not many—impressionable young people to consider sexual and marital arrangements they never would have contemplated previously. And children from homosexual families, who are already more likely to experiment sexually, would do so to an even greater extent, because not only was non-traditional sexuality role-modeled by their parents, it was also approved by their society.

There is no question that human sexuality is pliant. Think of ancient Greece or Rome—among many other early civilizations—where male homosexuality and bisexuality were nearly ubiquitous. This was not so because most of those men were born with a “gay gene,” rather it was because homosexuality was condoned by those societies. That which a society sanctions, it gets more of.

And fifth, if society permits same-sex marriage, it also will have to allow other types of marriage. The legal logic is simple: If prohibiting same-sex marriage is discriminatory, then disallowing polygamous marriage, polyamorous marriage, or any other marital grouping will also be deemed discriminatory. The emotional and psychological ramifications of these assorted arrangements on the developing psyches and sexuality of children would be disastrous. And what happens to the children of these alternative marriages if the union dissolves and each parent then “remarries”? Those children could end up with four fathers, or two fathers and four mothers, or, you fill in the blank.

Certainly homosexual couples can be just as loving as heterosexual couples, but children require more than love. They need the distinctive qualities and the complementary natures of a male and female parent.

The accumulated wisdom of over 5,000 years has concluded that the ideal marital and parental configuration is composed of one man and one woman. Arrogantly disregarding such time-tested wisdom, and using children as guinea pigs in a radical experiment, is risky at best, and cataclysmic at worst.

Same-sex marriage definitely isn’t in the best interest of children. And although we empathize with those homosexuals who long to be married and parent children, we mustn’t allow our compassion for them to trump our compassion for children. In a contest between the desires of some homosexuals and the needs of all children, we can’t allow the children to lose.

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©2009 Dr. Trayce Hansen. All rights reserved.

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Drag Queens in the Military

Since the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, U.S. military bases have hosted a gay marriage ceremonies and a potluck gatherings. But on Saturday, servicemembers here may have been the first to take to the stage and perform as drag queens on a military installation in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender troops.

Drag queens and drag kings, to be precise.

Six servicemembers — gay, lesbian and straight — donned heavy makeup to dance and lip sync songs such as “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” for a raucous capacity crowd at the Rocker NCO Club at Kadena Air Base. The event was a fundraiser for the recently formed Okinawa chapter of OutServe-SLDN, which is the largest nonprofit advocate for the military’s LGBT community.

“We didn’t think there was much of a desire for an event like this on the island but it has actually blown up,” said Navy Lt. Marissa Greene, co-chapter leader of OutServe Okinawa.

Greene said she had hoped to sell about 75 tickets to fund some future support activities for the group, which was formed last summer and still “starting from scratch.” The event was approved as a “variety show” by Kadena’s 18th Wing through the same process as other on-base fundraisers.

But an initial 200 tickets were plucked up almost immediately, so they issued another 200.

“We ended up selling 400 tickets in 10 days,” she said.

Amid the unexpected success, OutServe carefully avoided any mention of politics, but its variety show comes at a pivotal time for gay civil rights in the United States, with many states passing laws dealing with marriage or debating individual liberties.

It is also a sign of the times within the military; just a few years ago, gay and lesbian drag performances on a military base would have been unthinkable and potentially a cause for dismissal from the service.

The repeals of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, as well as the Defense of Marriage Act — the law barring the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages — have allowed gays and lesbians in the military to be open with their sexuality for the first time.

The historic shift appears to be mostly accepted and embraced throughout the ranks despite warnings the DADT repeal could harm order and good discipline.

On Saturday night, the Rocker club was packed for performances by servicemembers using stage names such as Chocolate Sunrise – a crowd favorite — and Artemis Faux. The event’s sole lesbian performer took the drag king name Manny Nuff.

The advocacy group agreed to avoid using the term “drag show” as part of its on-base fundraiser effort.

Tech. Sgt. Kristen Baker, who was among the crowd, said the show got a warm reception and would leave a mark for civil rights.

“Everything is just accepted. It makes me really proud to watch it,” Baker said. In the military, “we are all brothers and sisters no matter what.”

Fonte

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The Dirty Little Secret: Most Gay Couples Aren't Monogamous

The dirty little secret about gay marriage: Most gay couples are not monogamous. We have come to accept lately, partly thanks to Liza Mundy’s excellent recent cover story in the Atlantic and partly because we desperately need something to make the drooping institution of heterosexual marriage seem vibrant again, that gay marriage has something to teach us, that gay couples provide a model for marriages that are more egalitarian and less burdened by the old gender roles that are weighing marriage down these days. 

But the thorny part of the gay marriage experiment is sex, and more precisely, monogamous sex. Mundy writes about an old study from the '80s that found that gay couples were extremely likely to have had sex outside their relationship—82 percent did. That was before AIDS and the great matrimony craze in the gay community. She also tells the story of Dan Savage, who started out wanting to be monogamous until he and his partner had kids, and then they loosened up on that in order to make their union last. “Monogamish” is what he calls his new model. But as Mundy asks, can anyone out there imagine a husband proposing that same deal to his pregnant wife?

A long Gawker story last week explored this problem in greater detail. In the fight for marriage equality, the gay rights movement has put forth couples that look like straight ones, together forever, loyal, sharing assets. But what no one wants to talk about is that they don’t necessarily represent the norm:

The Gay Couples Study out of San Francisco State University—which, in following over 500 gay couples over many years is the largest on-going study of its kind—has found that about half of all couples have sex with someone other than their partner, with their partner knowing.

In writing about the subject, gay people emphasize the aspects of their relationships that sound most wholesome and straight-like, Steven Thrasher writes. They neglect to mention that, say, in Thrasher’s case, he met his partner for sex only once, and they ended up falling in love. The larger point being that gay couples are very different when it comes to sex, even if this is not the convenient moment to discuss that. And in legalizing gay marriage, we are accepting a form of sanctioned marriage that is not by habit monogamous and that is inventing all kinds of new models of how to accommodate lust and desire in long-term relationships.

In his interviews with married gay couples, Thrasher gets them to open up about the arrangements they invent. Most are some version of Dan Savage's “monogamish.” They are monogamous when they are in the same city, they can have sex with other people but not fall in love, or they can have sex with other people for some period of time. In some far-off, ideal world, this kind of openness may infect the straight world, and heterosexual couples may actually start to tackle the age-old problem of boring monogamous sex. But do any of us really believe that?

Source: http://ow.ly/sS2rk

* * * * * *

So, if they don't want to stay faithful to one single person for the resto of their earthly existence, why do they want to "marry"?

Answer: They don't. Most homosexuals frown at the ideia of monogamy (sex with only one person for life) and marriage is *all* about monogamy.

Gay "marriage" is about redefining marriage and not about helping gays. Like I said before, if you resist gay "marriage", you will have some gays helping you out because they - like you - know that marriage is an heterosexual institution.

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Feminists fume about euphoric properties of semen

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I was originally intrigued by this story as just another confirmation of God’s good, all natural plan for human sexuality and procreation. That liberal feminists were angry about the study’s findings came as no surprise.

 

But then I stepped back. Really? Can nothing good come from a man, literally?

This debacle, which involves attempting to destroy a brilliant surgeon’s career without blinking, further exposes the incestuous and harmful relationship between the homosexual and population control ideologies.

The other side is all green, natural, organic, and environmentally friendly until it comes to sex. Then, they censor information if it elevates natural heterosexual sexual relations over homosexual and unnatural (contracepted) sexual relations.

The story goes that renowned surgeon Dr. Lazar Greenfield, inventor of the Greenfield Filter (which traps blood clots), wrote a piece in the February issue of Surgery News touting the positive properties of semen. According to the Huffington Post on April 25:

Dr. Greenfield noted the therapeutic effects of semen, citing research from the Archives of Sexual Behavior which found that female college students practicing unprotected sex were less likely to suffer from depression than those whose partners used condoms (as well as those who remained abstinent).

Presumably it was the closing line that caused the controversy: “So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates.”

The attempt at Jackie Mason-humor apparently didn’t sit well in certain quarters. Dr. Greenfield resigned as editor of the Surgery News and gave up his stewardship of ACS after learning that his article had spurred threats of protests from outside women’s groups….
Dr. Greenfield explained

The editorial was a review of what I thought was some fascinating new findings related to semen, and the way in which nature is trying to promote a stronger bond between men and women. It impressed me. It seemed as though it was a gift from nature. And so that was the reason for my lighthearted comments.

Greenfield’s column has been retracted and scrubbed but can still be read here. I’m guessing his comparison of menstrual synchronization between lesbian and heterero cohabitators, in which he found the former wanting, also hurt him.

The study Greenfield cited found, according to Scientific American:

In fact, semen has a very complicated chemical profile, containing over 50 different compounds (including hormones, neurotransmitters, endorphins and immunosupressants) each with a special function and occurring in different concentrations within the seminal plasma.

Perhaps the most striking of these compounds is the bundle of mood-enhancing chemicals in semen. There is good in this goo. Such anxiolytic chemicals include, but are by no means limited to, cortisol (known to increase affection), estrone (which elevates mood), prolactin (a natural antidepressant), oxytocin (also elevates mood), thyrotropin-releasing hormone (another antidepressant), melatonin (a sleep-inducing agent) and even serotonin (perhaps the most well-known antidepressant neurotransmitter)….

The most significant findings from this 2002 study… were these: even after adjusting for frequency of sexual intercourse, women who engaged in sex and “never” used condoms showed significantly fewer depressive symptoms than did those who “usually” or “always” used condoms.

Add to that, according to the same article:

Now, medical professionals have known for a very long time that the vagina is an ideal route for drug delivery. The reason for this is that the vagina is surrounded by an impressive vascular network. Arteries, blood vessels, and lymphatic vessels abound, and – unlike some other routes of drug administration – chemicals that are absorbed through the vaginal walls have an almost direct line to the body’s peripheral circulation system.

There’s much more information on semen than I have no time for here. But sticking to the topic of its properties, which include female hormones that may stimulate ovulation, here is fascinating information from the study’s authors:

The primary putative mind-altering ingredients in semen:
Luteinizing hormone: astounding concentration in semen; linked to high sperm count and motility. Absorption into female bloodstream may facilitate or even induce ovulation.

Prolactin: influences maternal behavior, oxytocin secretion; mediates bonding

Estrone and estradiol: assists in recipient’s absorption of other compounds such as progesterone; may boost woman’s sexual motivation and mood

Testosterone: may increase sex drive and motivation; the more intercourse, the higher the testosterone levels in women, and the stronger the sexual desire. More than half the amount of testosterone in sperm has been found to be absorbed by the vagina.

Cytokines: these are the “warriors,” they suppress immune reaction to semen invading the vagina and cervix and therefore increase likelihood of pregnancy

Enkephalins: these opioids may contribute to orgasmic experience. They may decrease anxiety and cause drowsiness after sex. There’s also speculation that they assist in immune function and “reinforcing effects” — making a woman come back for more, i.e. addiction (although the absorption rate in female bloodstream is unknown)

Oxytocin: assists in stimulation of ovulation, increases production of other hormones, initiates bonding, facilitates orgasmic contractions; may strengthen bonding and make sexual activity more rewarding

Placental proteins, including human chorionic gonadotrophin (hcg) and human placental lactogen: associated with sperm motility; may increase chances of pregnancy

Relaxin: made in the prostate, this hormone may facilitate fertilization, implantation, and uterine growth. The role of relaxin suggests that women should keep having a lot of sex during pregnancy because sperm has pregnancy-maintaining properties. Relaxin also facilitates implantation and prevents preterm labor.

Thyrotropin-releasing hormones: potential anti-depressive; works by stimulating the release of thyroid-stimulating hormone, which in turn triggers hormone production in the mood-mediating thyroid gland. In pill form, it’s used to treat PMS and depression.

Serotonin: increases sperm motility. It also mediates mood, although not much known yet about vaginal absorption. Even if it doesn’t make it to the brain, it may indirectly alter behavior and emotions by contributing the building blocks of serotonin

Melatonin: increases effects of steroid hormones; induces sleepiness and fatigue, which may help the woman relax after sex; may stimulate reproductive function, also mood mediator; low melatonin levels are associated with depression and “reality disturbance”

Tyrosine: a precursor of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, the hormone of reward and addiction, and norepinephrine, involved in attention and arousal
Oh, and there’s also sperm in there, the DNA-bearing courier. Sperm is less than 3% the total volume of semen. But as it turns out, the bath water is nearly as important as the baby.

This is all such interesting, helpful information, right? No. Greenfield’s playful Valentine’s Day column spotlighting the study’s findings was greeted by such outrage from feminist groups that, along with his other punishments, Greenfield was forced to resign as president of the American College of Surgeons on the day he was to assume the position, which they threatened to protest.

You see, lesbians hate the thought of better sex between heteros. Gays hate the thought of natural unnatural sex (condomless anal sex) spreading HIV. Obviously, population control pushers stand to lose ground if couples switch to natural family planning, as does the contraceptive industry.

In fact, the only industry standing to gain ground from this information is the abortion industry.

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Why marriage matters

Por Jonathan V. Last

While everyone else has spent the last few days obsessing about Gravity, the government shutdown, and the real possibility that the NFC East division champ will have six wins, it’s quietly been an interesting week for sociology nerds who think about marriage.

The first came in a post from Richard Reeves and Joanna Venator (reacting to a Derek Thompson essay at the Atlantic) over at Brookings. The three researchers all look at marriage and social mobility. and make a pretty convincing case that the obvious is probably true: The decline in marriage—especially among the non-elites—has contributed to the decline in social mobility we’ve seen in recent years.

As Reeves and Venator explain:

The rise in single mothers matters for income inequality. But it’s a concern for social mobility too. On this blog, we have highlighted the rising number of single mothers among twenty-somethings—and what it means for the future prospects and mobility of children. Children of married parents have better life outcomes, in terms of education, health, and income—in large part because they have more resources available to them.

Thompson focuses briefly on what he calls the “marriage gap,” or what academics inelegantly call “assortative mating.” This signals the tendency of like to marry like: those who are college educated and high-earning marry each other; and those with less education and less income marry each other (if they marry at all).

Brookings has examined the role of assortative mating in the context of economic mobility and gender. One reason women stay in the income brackets of their parents is that they marry someone from a similar background: the earnings of a married woman’s husband bear as much resemblance to her parents’ income as her own earnings.

Marriage, then, becomes another mechanism through which advantage is protected and passed on. Affluent, committed parents tend to get married, stay married, and raise their children together. Indeed, this is arguably now the main social purpose of marriage. As women have advanced in the workplace, the rationale for marriage has become about child-rearing, not income-sharing.

So, marriage is important for the social mobility of adults and their children. Good to know.

But it turns out that not all marriages are created equal. You can forgive Mark Regnerus for his nearly gleeful tone in the other big piece, a dissection of the study by Douglas Allen in the new Review of Economics of the Household. (You can read Regnerus’s Public Discourse piece here; the actual journal article will run you $40, but it’s worth it, here.)

Allen’s study is pretty powerful because he uses a giant sample-set: the 20 percent sample from the 2006 Canadian census, which looks at the educational outcomes for children raised by gay couples, versus single parents, versus heterosexual couples.

This is the most significant study done by a large margin. In previous studies looking at outcomes, the number of gay couples examined has typically been in the double digits. Since 1995, only ten attempts to study these outcomes have had a sample bigger than 100, the biggest of these being a 2010 study with 3,502 gay couples. Allen’s sample winds up much more than twice as big.

What Allen examined was high school graduation rates for children living in a household with same-sex parents versus married, opposite sex parents. (In Canada, same-sex couples have had all the benefits of marriage since 1997 and actual gay marriage since 2005.) As Regnerus summarizes, “the study is able to compare—side by side—the young-adult children of same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples, as well as children growing up in single-parent homes and other types of households.”

So what did Allen find? Three big effects:

* children of married opposite-sex families have a high graduation rate compared to the others;

* children of lesbian families have a very low graduation rate compared to the others;

* the other four types [common law, gay, single mother, single father] are similar to each other and lie in between the married/lesbian extremes

How much worse off were children of same-sex parents? Quite a bit. Here’s Regnerus again:

[T]he children of gay and lesbian couples are only about 65 percent as likely to have graduated from high school as the children of married, opposite-sex couples. And gender matters, too: girls are more apt to struggle than boys, with daughters of gay parents displaying dramatically low graduation rates. . . .

Employing regression models and series of control variables, Allen concludes that the substandard performance cannot be attributed to lower school attendance or the more modest education of gay or lesbian parents. Indeed, same-sex parents were characterized by higher levels of education, and their children were more likely to be enrolled in school than even those of married, opposite-sex couples. And yet their children are notably more likely to lag in finishing their own schooling.

The same is true of the young-adult children of common law parents, as well as single mothers and single fathers, highlighting how little—when you lean on large, high-quality samples—the data have actually changed over the past few decades. The intact, married mother-and-father household remains the gold standard for children’s progress through school.

It will be interesting to see if anyone cares about Allen’s findings. In America, I suspect they won’t. For better or worse, the fight over same-sex marriage in the states has turned on questions of fairness, federalism, natural law, and religious freedom. If our elites do bother to engage with Allen’s research, it will probably be only to tag him as History’s Greatest Monster for a day or so.

But I’m particularly interested in what they might do with this data in France. In France, same-sex marriage has been principally opposed by arguments in favor of the rights of children. Douglas Allen’s inconvenient study should give a great deal of support to the opposition movement.

Source:  http://ow.ly/pLbVP

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Study: Same-Sex Households Endanger Kids

http://www.charismanews.com/us/33615-study-same-sex-households-endanger-kids

A new study, authored by Associate Professor Mark Regnerus from the University of Texas, shows alarming child endangerment in same-sex households:

• Parental pedophilia is widespread: 23 percent of children with a lesbian mother reported having been touched sexually by a parent or adult, compared to 2 percent of those raised by biological parents.

 • Rape is rampant: 31 percent of children raised by a lesbian mother and 25 percent raised by a homosexual man report that they were forced to have sex against their will, compared to 8 percent from intact families.

 • Sexually transmitted disease (STD) is epidemic: over 20 percent of those brought up by two women and 25 percent raised by two men reported having contracted an STD, compared to 8 percent from natural families.

• Suicidal tendencies are startling: 24 percent of children raised by homosexual men and 12% of children raised by lesbian mothers admitted to having recently contemplated suicide, compared to 5 percent of those raised by biological parents or even a single parent.

 Published in the journal Social Science Research, the study of nearly 3,000 young adults is perhaps the most scientifically credible study on the topic ever conducted. Regnerus collected his data from a random sample of young adults. Other studies have based their findings on nonrandom, nonrepresentative data from small samples recruited at lesbian events, bookstores, or in lesbian newspapers. In addition, Regnerus surveyed children of homosexuals, rather than the homosexual parent.

“The study proves what we have known all along--that children fare better when raised by their biological mom and dad,” says Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “We should be passing laws that strengthen the family, not tear it down. Children raised in homes where homosexuality or other same-sex behaviors are present face increased risks. The policy of same-sex unions says that moms and dads are irrelevant to the well-being of children. The social experiment of same-sex unions will prove disastrous for children,” Staver concluded.

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Gay Activists Threaten Violence

Is the culture war going to turn into a shooting war?

No one knows. But in light of what some pro-family advocates have experienced lately, the question cannot be dismissed.

A gay activist recently used the Internet to suggest that a sniper target Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth (AFT), Illinois. LaBarbera’s home address was published on a lesbian blog, Pam’s House Blend, in January. A homosexual militant in South Dakota posted this message with it:

“It’s [LaBarbera’s home] across from a park in an area with cul de sacs … Snipers take note.”

“Hyperbolic Language”?

“A lot of pro-family leaders have received death threats,” LaBarbera told Chalcedon. “The gays are the most intolerant special interest group in the nation.

“I trust in God to protect us. But we are taking precautions, and an example should be made of this guy. There are probably many others like him out there.”

LaBarbera has reported the incident to law enforcement, and a police investigation is in progress. He called the FBI first, “who directed me to call the Durham, North Carolina, police.” (The owner of the lesbian blog lives in Durham.) He has consulted an attorney who, he said, has advised him that the sniper threat made against him may have constituted a criminal offense.

The threat badly frightened his wife, LaBarbera told police.

The blogger, Pam Spaulding, said the threat was posted on her blog without her knowledge or consent. The message remained posted for almost a month, and was removed after LaBarbera made it public.

Spaulding has apologized to LaBarbera and his family.

“Probably she removed it after the police called her,” LaBarbera said. “I don’t know how you can run a blog and not know what’s being posted on it.”

The militant in South Dakota, Barry Wick, also apologized. Wick denied that he meant to make a real threat, saying he was only using “hyperbolic language … As a new member of Ms. Spaulding’s blog community, I got carried away with the atmosphere … I humbly ask your forgiveness.” AFT has published both apologies.

“While of course I’ll accept his apology,” LaBarbera said, “I believe that if he engaged in criminal acts, he should be prosecuted.”

The whole incident, he said, reveals “abject hatred and anti-Christian bigotry. I don’t know how seriously the police are taking it. But if I put something like that on my blog, threatening a gay activist, I’ll bet there would be an FBI agent on my doorstep in an hour.”

An Intimidation Campaign

LaBarbera’s experience is only one of many instances of militant homosexuals using the Internet to intimidate or threaten pro-family advocates and ordinary citizens.

“They’re very nasty,” said Evelyn Reilly, with the Massachusetts Family Institute. “We have one threat here that I’m going to talk to the FBI about.”

Reilly said she was not at liberty to reveal the particulars of the threat — which, she added, was not made against her personally. “But if our side did anything like this,” she said, “somebody would be in the can.”

The threats aren’t always physical, or specific. Sometimes the tactic of choice is general intimidation.

In 2005 a pair of militant homosexuals in Massachusetts vowed to publish on the Internet the names and addresses of everyone who signed a petition to ban court-ordered “gay marriage” in their state. They kept that promise, “outing” the signers on a website called knowthyneighbor.org.

“Many people were called and harassed about signing the petition,” Reilly said. “The gays used the threat of exposure to dissuade people from signing. They used automated phone calls, making people think their signatures had been stolen.

“I think some people were intimidated. Others got mad and went out of their way to sign. At the end, we broke all records in state history for signatures.”

At the end of 2006, the state legislature voted to put the ban on the ballot for a statewide referendum.

“Legislators who voted for the amendment got hateful and threatening emails,” Reilly said. “We also get plenty of hateful emails here at our office.”

Although the tactic failed in Massachusetts, Know Thy Neighbor tried it again in Florida last year, publishing the names and addresses of some 455,000 citizens who signed a defense-of-marriage petition.

A comment on the organization’s Massachusetts website reads, “[A]nyone who signs this awful petition has the right to receive such intimidation” (see http://knowthyneighbor.blogs.com/home/2005/09/test.html).

Know Thy Neighbor plans to “out” petition signers in Illinois this year (http://emllinoisreview.typepad.com/emllinoisreview/2006/06/how_well_do_you.html). Apparently the fact that tens of thousands of citizens have signed these petitions in spite of the intimidation campaign has not discouraged activists.

Packing Heat

“I’m not afraid of these people,” Reilly said, “although I don’t know why. They just don’t scare me.”

“It’s not so much that I’m worried about myself,” LaBarbera said. “But the effect this could have on my wife and children — that has me extremely upset.”

Americans for Truth has posted a statement by a pro-family blogger, Clayton Cramer, who says:

“There is one, and only one, group of political activists that have ever made harassing phone calls to me (repeated calls at 6 a.m. with silence at the other end), made lewd phone calls to my children (who fortunately were small enough to be confused rather than shocked), tried to get me fired from a job, or threatened my safety with threats of violence” (http://americansfortruth.com/news/conservative-blogger-says-homosexual-activists-are-most-extreme.html). Since “the unrelenting campaign of harassment started in the early 1990s,” the blogger writes, “I started to regularly carry a gun because of it.”

A History of Hatred

Homosexual rage against Christians is nothing new. Writing in 1982, in his preface to The Institutes of Biblical Law, Vol. II, R. J. Rushdoony says, “[T]he comments on homosexuality [made in Vol. I, 1973] outraged many. No other aspect led to more intense (if covert) opposition, slander, and sheer venom … The homosexual clergy are sometimes great champions of love from the pulpit and savage practitioners of hatred on the sly.”^[1]

And introducing Volume III in 1999, “Writing The Institutes of Biblical Law, volumes I and II, certainly brought on me savage hostilities.”^[2]

Why should this be? Rushdoony explains: “The homosexual is marked by a deep hatred of God and man, which, while often concealed, comes readily to expressions.”^[3]

What has changed is that now these expressions of hate can be instantly made public over the Internet, reaching a much wider audience than ever before. What has not changed, Rushdoony says, is that homosexuality “is a central offense against God, and the essential burning out of man in his hatred of and war against God. (In Romans 1:27, ‘burned’ should be translated as ‘burned out.’)”^[4]

The homosexual has always played for very high stakes, and never more so than now, when he has a powerful political lobby. “The goal of ungodly sexuality is chaos,” Rushdoony writes. “Homosexuality, bestiality, and every other violation of God’s law have as their purpose the destruction of order, God’s order.”^[5]

The Gay Agenda

We should expect gay activists to react furiously when pro-family advocates work to deny them their dearest dream, the destruction of God’s order. The cause of homosexual behavior is sin. Why should we be surprised when an evil tree bears evil fruit? It would be surprising, even astounding, if gay activists pursued their quest to dominate society by being reasonable, charitable, and civil. It would be amazing if they “fought fair.” Lesbian Rosie O’Donnell’s anti-Christian tirades on television typify their usual approach.

The “gay rights” movement demands the radical redefinition of marriage and the family, the adoption of children by pairs of homosexuals, and the rewriting of the criminal code to make offenses against homosexuals — both real crimes, and offenses that exist primarily in the mind of the offended — subject to more serious penalties than offenses against non-homosexuals. It also demands the restriction of free speech and, finally, government interference in the free exercise of religion: especially Biblical Christian religion.

“Look at what these guys are saying,” LaBarbera said. “They don’t believe this is a free society.”

“Gay rights” is not compatible with our basic civil liberties. The gay agenda cannot be made to stick without abridging free speech or stifling the open profession of Christian religious principles. It’s no wonder at all that gay activists have tried, on their own, to impose these restrictions: they are impatient for the government to get around to it. The sin that drives their private behavior drives their political behavior, too.

We are waiting to see how seriously law enforcement takes these latest threats. Are they, in the language of the law, “real” or “sincere” threats, or simply an indulgence in intemperate language?

We cannot know for sure until one of the threats is actually carried out. For the victim, of course, that will be too late.

For now, it’s against the law to make terrorist threats, and we ought to insist that law enforcement officials take them seriously and act appropriately.

The one thing we cannot do is to surrender our families, our churches, and our public institutions to gay activists. But political activism by Christians can only be a stopgap measure. As we have seen in Massachusetts, this ceases to be productive as soon as the “gays” have more political muscle than the Christians — for instance, control of the teachers’ unions that fund and staff political campaigns. If we cannot ignore politics, neither can we allow ourselves to be sucked into and absorbed by politics.

Strong Christian faith, strong Christian families, strong Biblically faithful churches, and strong Christian communities will always be the best defense against the gays’ ambitions.

As this went to press, police in Rapid City, South Dakota, decided not to prosecute Barry Wick for his “Snipers, take note” reference to Peter LaBarbera’s home. Police told LaBarbera that the comment was “too vague” to constitute a credible threat of violence.

“We are still considering our options,” LaBarbera said. “We want to send a message to radical homosexual activists that there is zero tolerance for threats of violence or physical intimidation against people of faith (or anybody) who stands against the radical homosexual movement. We want the next pro-homosexual zealot to think long and hard before making a violent threat against a Christian.”

---

^[1] R. J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, Vol. II: Law and Society (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1982), ix.

^[2] R. J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law, Vol. III: The Intent of the Law (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1999), ix.

^[3] Vol. II, 636.

^[4] Vol. III, 79.

^[5] R. J. Rushdoony, Revolt Against Maturity, 1987 edition, 66.

Lee Duigon is a Christian free-lance writer and contributing editor for Faith for All of Life. He has been a newspaper editor and reporter and is the author of the Bell Mountain Series of novels.

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Medical consequences of homosexualism

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The Bug Chasers - Men Who Seek To Acquire AIDS For 'Status'

By Daniel Hill 

When people are labeled 'abnormal' simply because of their differences, and discriminated against because of those differences, their entire being can become paralyzed. The voice of the mind is stifled, the voice of the heart is oppressed, and the voice of action becomes disabled. For many decades in America, homosexuals have suffered in this way. Homosexuality was not only discriminated against, it was made illegal and labeled a mental disorder.

With the multicultural revolution of the '60s and '70s, we witnessed the beginnings of the arduous task of affirming the rights of oppressed people in our society, including homosexuals. For gay people, a benchmark of success in this movement occurred in 1973, when the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM) removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. At last, as gay people, our differences were no longer pathologized and society began to not hold these differences against us, at least institutionally. This was one of the many markers in gay history that enabled us to rediscover our long impotent voices. Even so, there are still those who attempt to pathologize our expressions of love, to minimize who we are as human beings, and who look upon our community only in the context of our 'behavior,' rather than embracing each individual as a member of the human family.

As a gay man living with HIV, I have found it difficult to hold the DSM in my hands, difficult to gaze upon its pages, and difficult to let go of the rage that I felt inside towards a book that was often referenced in the persecution of so many of my gay relations. But in my anger I came face to face with my own resistance-resistance to let go of the past, to look upon the pages of the DSM with a fresh mind, and to acknowledge the wisdom that this book holds. I recognized that my inability to rise above such a mindset mirrored that of the earlier authors of the DSM. This was a source of tremendous suffering for me.

I often refer to the DSM in this article. I do so not to hold individuals in a pathological 'freeze-frame,' but rather as a tool to recognize particular paths, to understand the complex story of people. I am trying to explore my own resistance to the lives that we bear witness to here. Ultimately, I believe that we are all bound by love and the human covenant to deeply understand such lives.

I must also begin with this disclaimer. The men I refer to as "Bug Chasers" are a very small fraction of the gay community. This article is not meant to sensationalize nor bring harm to my gay brothers. It is only my attempt to understand, embrace and ultimately love them-without want, resistance, or ignorance.

Asking For Help I can remember the demonstrations in San Francisco, I can still feel the heavy sadness, still hear the chanting of the crowds, I can see the placards demanding assistance from the federal government, and I can still smell the burning of thousands of candles in memory of our dead. I can taste the salt of my tears. Our pain, our anger, our isolation, our grief, our hopelessness, and our helplessness brought us together. Help was all we were asking for.

Gay had become the acronym for "Got AIDS Yet?" Out on a date I confided "I am HIV positive." His reply was "Who isn't?" Was it 1983? '84? '85? Was it Castro Street, Market Street, or Civic Center? Was it 10,000, 20,000, or 30,000 marching? This was the dawning of the AIDS community and help was all we were asking for.

Year 2000. In Gay nightclubs across the U.S. men wear sleeveless shirts in hopes that someone will notice the tattoo "HIV-" blazoned across their deltoid. What is not so obvious is that the intention of such a tattoo is to attract someone who is HIV+. It is an invitation to infect through a practice known as "barebacking," having unprotected anal sex. In other words, the tattooed man is intentionally seeking an HIV+ partner to infect him with the virus. All that is left is a trip back to the tattoo artist to have that tattoo adjusted from negative to positive. Simple.

Is help all these men are asking for?

In private sex clubs across the U.S. men gather for a chance to participate in what is called Russian Roulette. Ten men are invited, nine are HIV-, one is HIV+. The men have agreed to not speak of AIDS, nor HIV. They participate in as many unsafe sexual encounters with each other as possible, thus increasing their chances to receive "the bug." These are the men known as 'Bug Chasers.'

Is help all they are asking for?

Suicide or Informed Consent? For most of us, our initial reaction to such behavior is shock. We could assume that men who do this are trying to commit suicide, consciously or unconsciously. We might demonize such behavior by blaming these men for the further spread of AIDS. My own initial reaction was a mix of deep sadness and concern, harsh and bitter judgment, accompanied by a dark fascination and an echo of familiarity. I wanted to see into and label such behavior, perhaps even to pathologize. I wanted to understand what was the fire of my judgment and the coolness of something so familiar. As I began to research, I turned first to the wisdom of psychology to try to understand.

What could cause men to tempt fate so? There are many apparent reasons. Some men report that the element of danger in sexual encounters of this kind adds to the "rush" of arousal. There are men who, once infected, feel like they finally "belong," they are now part of the Gay community. Some find relief in knowing that now they don't have to worry about getting infected any more, the deed is done. Some believe the myth that HIV is a chronic manageable disease and that the new drugs promise them a long and healthy life. Some couples see infection as the deepest level of intimacy.

No doubt any of the above explanations can be put forth as probable cause for such seemingly reckless self-destructive behavior. Yet I find myself stepping back from easy explanations. Generalizations such as these don't speak to me as truth, they merely touch the surface. The truth is that each individual has a different story that leads him to participate in this way. Each story has many layers, and these layers fall somewhere on a continuum between what is deemed 'abnormal' and 'normal' behavior. Although it is convenient to maintain a narrow reactive focus, the fact is that if we truly want to shed light on this subject and to understand, we must use our insight and our knowledge. "Bug Chasers" are members of the human family and it's important to embrace them as such.

Conscious and Unconscious Intentions In reflecting on the stories of people I know and have read and heard about, it seems to me that Bug Chasing can be both conscious and unconscious. Such intentions seem to manifest differently in two distinct generations of gay men. The older generation are those who have lived through nearly two decades of loss and grief due to the ravages of HIV. The younger generation of Gay men have not been as affected by the multiple losses which have occurred in our community.

In pointing out this difference, I do not mean to minimize the impact of emotions felt by the younger generation of Gay men about such losses. Rather, I choose these two generations as a marker of differentiation because there seems to be two very different themes that play out in participating in unsafe sexual behavior.

The clinical disorders discussed in this article should not be considered absolute-some characteristics overlap into both generations while some disorders are more clearly present in one than the other. And by the way, and perhaps this will be a surprise to some, research reveals that most of these men, regardless of generation, are well informed and educated.

The Unconscious Intention I believe that the "Bug Chasers" of the older generation of Gay men may possibly be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The diagnostic criteria in the DSM for PTSD is that the individual "has experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury... and that the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror." The DSM also states, "Individuals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may describe painful guilt feelings about surviving when others did not survive or about the things they had to do to survive."

Psychologist Walt Odets, in reference to the complex varieties of survivor guilt seen in HIV men, says, "HIV- men tend to be profoundly clinically depressed, anxious, disoriented, hypochondriachal, uncertain about the future, sexually dysfunctional, deeply demoralized and physically numb." He goes on to say that many HIV men "abuse alcohol or drugs, and their physicians prescribe them millions of dollars worth of tranquilizers, sleeping pills, anti-depressants and sedatives every year." Finally, Odets finds that more and more uninfected men now "live in nearly every detail like a dying man - disoriented, piecemeal, and with no assumption of the future."

My own experience bears this out. In the larger Gay ghettos of San Francisco and elsewhere, I have met older Gay men who have lost all of their friends and avoid developing new relationships. Such men live in a world often characterized by increasing isolation, unresolved anger, substance abuse, and a lack of desire to participate in activities they once enjoyed. I recall some men who were HIV- in the late eighties attending support groups where they openly expressed their hopelessness and alienation as they witnessed their friends, their peers, and their generation die. I have witnessed many such individuals express disappointment and despair that they were still alive. I have heard men say it would have been easier to die with the complications of AIDS because living meant having to learn to cope with multiple loss. Add to all of this the terribly revealing fact that, as Michaelangelo Signorile recently wrote, "far too many gay men say they actually fear growing old in a gay world that puts the young and buffed on a pedestal while treating the over-35 crowd like lepers."

The Intimacy of Bug Chasing For some men, the desire and quest for intimacy is also bundled into this equation of bug chasing. Some men may fetishize the HIV virus, and act in intimate ways to relate to it, while others may feel so 'below' another that they risk their own well being for a fleeting moment of intimacy. In an article in POZ Magazine, Michael Scarce challenges our ideas of what might be considered intimacy when he writes: "Charged Loads...offer a kind of permanent partnership, a connection out-side of time." He quotes an HIV+ man as saying, "It turns me on knowing how much he wants my come and how much he's willing to deal with to get it." Scarce goes on to state that "the sharing of semen and reclaiming its rich symbolic meanings," reflects the desire for intimacy.

Sadly, I am skeptical that sharing of this kind can ultimately bring about the level of ongoing intimacy that these men are searching for.

I do not, however, believe that Scarce is advocating bug chasing, per sé, but is wisely presenting us with an opportunity to examine intimacy beyond our narrow understanding of it. We might think that these men are out of their minds, but that judgement is the measure of our own resistance. We need to explore this resistance if we are to understand more completely these men who are undeniably our own. Confronting my own negative judgement, I ask myself, "How dare I project my ideas of intimacy onto another." After all, isn't that the same root of oppression towards homosexuality that has occurred throughout this past century?

The Positives of Being HIV Positive Ian Young, in his article The AIDS Cult and Its Seroconverts, says that many HIV- men think "HIV positives live richer, more complex, more 'authentic' lives, get more attention, are better able to take risks including, significantly, the 'risk of intimacy' and with such risk-taking, life can be meaningful and full."

I must confess that my own seroconversion (i.e. becoming HIV+) brought about tremendous grief coupled with a wonderful euphoric sense of liberation, of letting go-a liberation that taught me to love again. I know of many men, including myself, who, when they seroconverted, felt as though they were now encouraged to take better care of themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Coupled with such feelings, many of these same men also felt as though they were finally supported by the community that they once felt so alienated from. Confirming this, Young writes "An HIV+ test result, or even an AIDS diagnosis, frequently results in a decrease in anxiety!"

Reacting with such positive emotions about such a devastating diagnosis seems quite strange at first, like a reversal in the logic stream. But this isn't about logic, it's about very complex psychological and emotional territory. It might be that such positive acceptance of finding oneself HIV positive arises developmentally from previous abnormal conditions. Such conditions might include chronic depression rooted in childhood unhappiness, socially induced guilt, and internalized homophobia. As these conditions develop, the opportunity to fully act out is then presented through barebacking and bug chasing. Seroconversion, in this case, may or may not be the goal.

But it might also be argued that there is a conditioning factor inherent in Gay culture that rewards men for becoming HIV positive, as though it were a rite of passage. If so, this would be a relatively new (within the last 20 years) cultural development, and something that we would do well to bring into the light of consciousness and intention. Is such a self-injurious rite of passage what we want for ourselves? Is it not possible to love and accept one another without having to seroconvert? Without having to die to feel loved?

A More Conscious Intention It is difficult for me to imagine being young and coming into my sexuality after two decades of AIDS, be it gay, straight, or otherwise. My own sexual liberation twenty years ago held no such fears or threats. I did not have to confront the choice of whether or not to adhere to the "do's" and "don't's" of my sexual expression. Such expression was not desensitized by latex, interrupted with "informed" negotiation, nor stalled by the doubt or mistrust of my partner's sexual history. Such expression flowed with the rhythms of the heart and the body, not the ticking of an apprehensive mind.

But young people are coming into their sexuality, every day. HIV and AIDS are not new news. Their consciousness and choices are a world apart from what I and my generation experienced. And, given the world of choices and consequences they face, some choose barebacking and even bug chasing.

I think, for most people, it is very easy to demonize these behaviors. I did. My initial thought was that such men suffer from Antisocial Personality Disorder which, according to the DSM, is characterized by a "lack of empathy and tendency to be callous, cynical, and contemptuous of the feelings, rights, and suffering of others." The DSM goes on to say, "These individuals may also be irresponsible and exploitive in their sexual relationships," and "are more likely than people in the general population to die prematurely by violent means, e.g. suicide, accidents, and homicides." I assumed that these men had no sense of remorse for the harm they commit, not only to others, but to themselves. I imagined an impulsive behavior and a failure to conform to reasonable social norms. I judged them negatively as being sexually irresponsible, exploitive, and cavalier.

Then I read the February '99 issue of POZ Magazine. It was dedicated to the subject of barebacking. POZ editor Walter Armstrong states, in reference to barebacking, "There has always been a strong outlaw element in gay sexuality, this is an extension."

This statement stopped me dead in my tracks. I began to recall the many friends, now dead, who might have been considered sexual outlaws, who might be considered deviant, callous, non-empathetic, or anti-social by those who did not really know them. But I did know them. And was I an "outlaw" as well? As I thought about it, I tried to look more deeply, to understand, and to cultivate the insight I might need to become more compassionate in regards to them, and to myself. As insight and compassion deepened, that negative judgement about barebacking and bug chasing had to be re-examined.

In light of this, I now view barebacking and bugchasing not as Antisocial Personality Disorder, but more as Self Inflicted Violence, or as I prefer to call it, Self Injurious Behavior. This realization turned the question from "how could someone do that?" to "how can I understand and help?"

Seroconversion as a Rite of Passage As I read through the articles published in POZ, I found the young Gay men who advocated barebacking and bug chasing to be somewhat cavalier. The glamorization, eroticization, and the claims of deeper levels of intimacy made by these men would lead one to believe that they are indeed making informed choices in their sexual behavior. Consider, for example, this plea by Tony Valenzuela. In speaking about the practice of barebacking, he states, "We need to trust that young gay men will be wise in their decisions. They're not passive victims .... It's a huge disrespect to do otherwise."

Can we trust that young gay men are "wise in their decisions" when they engage in barebacking? If so, are we able to extend such a trust to young gay men who are bug chasers?

I do want to extend the trust that Tony Valenzuela and others ask for. At the same time, I don't accept all of these claims entirely at face value. My fear is that, if I were to do so, I wouldn't be getting to the deeper truth of this issue.

To their credit, bareback advocates are at last speaking out about the behavior that has been quietly hidden away in the closet for the past two decades, and on the surface it is informed. But I believe there are others, not so outspoken, who may be equally informed, but whose intention and experience may be seen in the light of Self Injurious Behavior.

For example, in the summer of 1999 I attended the Gay Men's Health Summit in Boulder Colorado. I recall speaking to a twenty year old man who openly shared with me his feelings of wanting to seroconvert. "I don't know why, I honestly don't know why." Informed, educated, but where is the depth of insight to such desire? What's driving it?

Self Injurious Behavior may have several motivations. From the web site <www.palace.net I found several points to consider that shed light on bug chasing. Self injurers say that their behavior offers: "escape from emptiness, depression ... relief from intense feelings... an expression of emotional pain ... escaping numbness ... a feeling of euphoria... a relief of anger... a sense of control over one's body... expressing or coping with feeling of alienation."

We're right back to that self-injurious rite of passage. For many men, being gay in the 1990's is equated with being HIV+. Such thinking has divided our community, creating strong feelings of alienation and anger for many who are HIV- . How to heal this rift? By seroconverting, many men believe that they will finally be supported by the community they once felt alienated from.

Michael Scarce writes "barebacking is equated with 'breeding' and infection with 'impregnation.' Some HIV bug chasers have gone so far as to consciously choose the individual gift-giver who will 'father' their HIV infection." Such a rite of passage for some undoubtedly completes their identification with being gay and deepens their role as a member of the community.

I believe many Gay men experience a great deal of internalized shame and anger through awakening to, and acceptance of, their sexuality in a homophobic society. The resulting Self Injurious Behavior paradoxically provides an individual with an opportunity to nurture himself, "to make internal wounds external and to nurture and heal these wounds. . . it is much easier to take care of a visible, tangible wound than to care for internal or emotional damage," according to web site <www.cymax.com.

Living with the constant fear of becoming HIV+ or dying with complications of AIDS often manifests in internalized anger or feelings of numbness. But, paradoxically, a positive HIV test result can provide relief for the person who has seroconverted. I believe what is being relieved is internalized rage, anger, and the numbness produced by excessive fear. The article Protease Dis-inhibitors? quotes a young man as saying, "That awful waiting is gone ... Maybe now that I am HIV positive, I can finally have my life."

For me, it is not so hard to imagine living in such fear and numbness that one feels as though one doesn't even have a life. As I reflect on my own experience with sincere honesty, I must say that my life prior to HIV was very lonely and empty. It is as though HIV enabled me to discover the depths of myself and a new depth of connection with the greater human family through all of our suffering, not just my own.

Something Absolute I am the "Bug Chaser." I am every man spoken of in this article. I am the man who has witnessed so many die while wishing that I was dying, too. I was once the hopeless, the depressed, the alienated, the physically numb. I was the one who could care less about the future; the one who felt so below another that I would put my life in jeopardy for that fleeting moment of intimacy. I was the man who slept with infected men, who had unprotected sex with these men, through the haze of alcohol, drugs, desire, and anger. I was the man who demonized my own behavior and hated myself for such behavior. I was the man who was asking for help in so many conscious and unconscious ways. I am the man whose life became full, whose life became meaningful after my seroconversion. I am the man who finally got his life back through a glimpse of liberation when I realized the depths of impermanence. I am the man who wanted to share the intimacy of suffering together and of healing together, and I am the man who knows true intimacy now.

So often we grasp for absolutes, for that which is "right," that which is "wrong," that which is "normal," that which is "abnormal." But in our grasping, we set ourselves apart and bolster ourselves there with what appears to be "fact" or "truth," and our own personal experience. It's a thin security.

I began my research into the behavior of bug chasing by turning to the wisdom of psychology to try to understand. But I have learned that, to get to the whole truth, we must let go of the definitions and the story, let go of the "bug chasers," for ultimately their story is not qualitatively different from the story of smokers, drug addicts, alcoholics and the rest of "us." Their story is little different from those who drive their cars too fast, or choose not to wear a seat belt, or use cell phones that cause brain tumors. Everyone is in the closet about something. The only real difference is the demonization of their behavior-and that's not about "them," it's about us. It is easy to condemn others for what they do, but are we able to own our own self-destructive tendencies, conscious or unconscious? Bug chasers are members of the human race, like everyone else.

I once was taught that when we ask for help, we create the opportunity for love to be expressed in the world. I think back to the eighties and how we continually asked for help then. It is true that we were often ignored, but it is equally true that we were often heard. I have witnessed a great deal of love manifested in the world in this way. I know how difficult it is for me to ask for help. More often than not, the difficulty is identifying what I need help with and learning to articulate it.

That which is absolute is the truth of our own hearts. That which is absolute is our willingness to look deeply into our own resistance and love what we discover there. In my journey, through researching and writing this article, I have had to come face to face with a tremendous amount of grief, a tremendous amount of self-demonization, a tremendous amount of truth that I had ignored for far too many years. It is difficult to love this part of myself but it becomes easier each time I re-read the words written here. It is through the cultivation of this love that I will be able to love my gay brothers who share this experience with me, and this I know as absolute.

Daniel Hill is a recent graduate of the Naropa University in Boulder Colorado earning a B.A. in Religious Studies and Contemplative Psychology. He currently attends Iliff School of Theology in Denver working towards a Masters in Divinity. He can be reached by eMail, or by snail mail at PO Box 300382, Denver CO. 80203. 

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