Hull started the talk by presenting two views of sex: the Biblical view, which states that sex is sinful; and the view of the "neopuritans" (feminists, environmentalists, etc.), which states that sex is degrading and oppressive. These views, according to Hull, are essentially the same, and the latter is a logical continuation of the former. Political correctness, he said, is currently attacking all forms of pleasure, whatever they may be: coffee (it's carcinogenic), children's toys (they're made of synthetic products), sports cars (they're antisocial gasÐguzzlers which damage the environment), and even laughing (it offends people). Fashion and makeup are especially under attack because they are often made from synthetic products and "objectify women."
Hull continued by saying, "If the Ô60s were the sexual revolution, then today can be viewed as the ÔantiÐsexual revolution.'" Writer Andrea Dworkin has referred to women who have had sex with men as "genitally enslaved." Politically correct feminists lionized Lorena Bobbitt, who, acording to Hull, attacked a defenseless man while he slept. The same way that Catholicism has stressed celibacy for centuries, so, too, does political correctness, which urges the government to regulate sex just as the Catholic Church has done throughout history. Both religious and neopuritan views hold that the human mind is inherently evil and that some degree of government (or church) control is necessary to keep that evil nature in check.
Hull then elaborated further on philosophical and historic views of sex. Plato, he said, considered sexual urges base and low, and "called for sexual appetites to be checked by fear, law, and true discourse" (i.e. regulation of sexual behavior by the state). According to Plato, "sex is not essential to man; since it is of the flesh, it is not necessary for philosophical discussion. It is just an afterthought of procreation." The need to explain mankind's Platonic existence (one without sex), said Hull, is what led to the idea of a virgin birth - i.e. the propagation of the human race without sex. Many interpreted Plato's asertion that the body becomes pure only after death by saying, "Well, I'll enjoy myself now, and worry about being pure in the afterlife"; this, said Hull, is where Christianity came in, which is a philosophy built on guilt and fear of lapsing into sin.
At least the early Christians had some sort of an ideal, claimed Hull. They had the notion that there is something in the individual worth saving - that you must kill one part (body) to save another (soul). The neopuritans, however, take Christianity (and Plato) to its final conclusion. They might not be organized like the Vatican, but are equally dedicated in their cause of wiping out sex.
Hull proceeded by elaborating on three of the neopuritans' tactics: sexual harassment lawsuits, rape charges, and dating codes. "Charges of sexual harassment," he said, "create a chill in the air." According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, harassment is defined as any action or speech (italics mine) that creates a hostile or offensive environment. It must be judged on a caseÐbyÐcase basis, as it is impossible to know in advance if something constitutes harassment. According to our own Catharine MacKinnon, any expression of a sexual or dehumanizing nature should be made illegal. The Canadadian government, Hull said, took her words seriously in order to justify police raids on certain book and video stores. Actions which have led to charges of sexual harassment have included hanging mistletoe, having a picture of a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader's picture on one's desk (the cheerleader being the cousin of the one accused), reading Playboy, and other everyday examples - all of which, Hull stated, show that this is not a remote issue.
Rape (defined as physical coersion into having sex), of course, is a hideous crime, and Hull said that there is indeed legitimate concern about this issue. However, the neopuritans are also trying to pass off verbal coersion as rape. This idea is omnipresent on college campuses, where the idea that one out of every three women (according to the FBI) will be sexually assaulted sometime during their stay on campus. The problem is, according to Hull, that the FBI has no such statistics. Hull went into the story of a Pomona College student whose degree was almost rescinded because of a rape charge filed against him two and a half years after the rape allegedly took place.
Also present on some college campuses are dating codes - the most famous being the "ask first" policy at Antioch College in Ohio. The man needs to give verbal consent for every new part to be touched, and the female must give verbal consent (and verbal only: a nod or moan or grunt is not good enough) as well for the contact to not be considered as rape. Such policies take all the romance out of sex and dating, said Hull, and make students feel uneasy and confused about sex.
According to Plato and Christianity, sex is bad and causes suffering and therefore you should not do it. Neopuritanism is worse, according to Hull, because it states that you should have sex precisely because it causes suffering. Nowhere in feminist writing is there a specific prohibition of sex, which is all the more insidious because feminists and other neopuritans attempt in any way possible to give sex an aura of frustration and misery. The neopuritan movement is based on subjectivism (the notion of the mind shaping reality) and altruism (the notion that doing good for others is an end in itself and that anything done for the self is evil). The cure for all of this, according to Hull? We should read the Objectivist writings of Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, and other Objectivist authors; bear in mind the virtues of selfishness; and believe in the individual's right to happiness.