"A Breast That Changed the World"

Barbara Sumner Burstyn, dissidentvoice.org

In my living room in New Zealand, 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
legalize 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.
While ACLU reports the pro-marriage 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."

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 increasingly sex
hating.

[Barbara Sumner Burstyn is a freelance writer who
commutes between Montreal, Quebec and The Hawkes Bay in
New Zealand. She writes a weekly column for the New
Zealand Herald (www.nzherald.co.nz), and has
contributed to a wide range of media. She can be
reached at: barb@sumnerburstyn.com. Visit her website to read
more of her work: www.sumnerburstyn.com.
© 2004 Barbara Sumner Burstyn]