Senior Editor's Note

by Alex Marbury

February 28 2010

GOING SOUTH! ANYTHING SOUTH OF CANADA IS SOUTH

I started to write this month's editor's note about taboos around teaching children about sex (as in the quote of the month), but I am just not up to it. The topic of sex and kids is so fraught with prejudice and pitfalls, that I know I'm not ready to write about it yet - and RSOL is not ready for a full discussion of child sex education. That in itself is a major statement about the problem with sex and sex education in America.

Then I saw a review in the New York Times of a new film about the civil rights struggle in the U.S. - "Blood Done Sign My Name" based on a book by Timothy B. Tyson. The book and film show how messy and violent the civil rights struggle was - not, as Tyson said, "The sugar-coated confection ... popular in memory," or "the gauzy mythology of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King." In the film, Malcolm X is quoted as saying, "Anything south of the Canadian border in the U.S. is SOUTH." In other words, the supposed racism of the southern US states was endemic to the whole U.S.

This rings very true for sex offender laws and their horrors, like hideous residency requirements and posting email addresses, photos and job information on the internet to shame offenders - but it also holds true for the brave work of sex offender reform activists. RSOL has some great organizers and has made strides in 'northern' states, but it is especially noteworthy that the U.S. South has seen some of the most effective organizing. Texas, Georgia, Maryland, Florida, and Alabama are among some of the worst for sex offender laws, but also some of the best in terms of organizing and energy for reform. Reformers like Mary Sue in Texas, Kelly in Georgia, Anthony in Alabama, and Jody and Collette in Florida have brought together large groups of activists, campaigned at the state houses and before governors, and generally made news of the positive kind for sex offenders and their families.

As Malcolm said about racism, the fact is ALL of the United States south of Canada is awful when it comes to sex, and yet in the whole country, including the south, there are brave people fighting for change! Canadians, Europeans, and others abroad shake their heads in amazement at the idiocies and extremes of U.S. anti-sex-offender crusades. No-where in the world is the vitriol and hatred so intense as south of the US-Canadian border.

In American English, there is a colloquialism - "Going South," which has several meanings - one of which is a complete failure of a project (as in the sex offender registries themselves), and another is 'getting out of town," in this case going SOUTH of the U.S. border to Latin American countries. Oddly, even those that are dictatorships are less extreme in their sex offender laws.

We are left with this question: WHY is the United States so extreme about sex, against sex education for children, against consensual sex among teens, and about the pariah status of its so-called sex offenders?

Why is it that even in a forum like RSOL we find it difficult to talk about sex itself? The so-called "Land of the Free," is definitely NOT free with regard to sex - any more than it was on the topic of race in Malcolm's day. One has to go NORTH or SOUTH of the U.S. borders to escape the horror and the intolerance.

The struggle to end this mess and reform sex offender laws, like the civil rights struggle, will not be sugar-sweet confection. Our struggle to reform sex offender laws will be messy and must sometimes be quite uncivil and aggressive - because the evil we fight is very messy and very violent. Let's hope that RSOL in 2010 will resolve that the whole country, south of Canada and north of Mexico, will see major reform of these terrible laws, and can again be proud of its, for now undeserved, reputation as the land of the free.