Letters to the Editor	Letters Archive

Defending Mayor Giuliani Against Sex Panic

Your interview with Wayne Hoffman ["Policing Public Sex," November 1997] would have readers believing New York City's gay community is under siege. Let me share a few facts.

The health code that is used to close businesses that allow unsafe sex was created in 1985. Exactly 28 businesses have been closed permanently by our health department, not the police department, using that code. Eight were closed between 1985 and 1989. The remainder were shuttered since Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani took office in 1994. Most of the 20 were closed in 1995, a smaller number were closed in 1996 and, in 1997, one business was closed temporarily.

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Hoffman implies that this was some secret effort. That is nonsense. Every single business owner had the opportunity to contest the city's closure efforts in court and some have exercised that right quite aggressively. All of the records related to these closures are public and available to any person who hikes down to the appropriate New York City courthouse.

This health code bans oral, anal, and vaginal sex in businesses. While it is possible to close a business for allowing sex with condoms, that has never happened. In every case, health department inspectors say, in sworn affidavits, that they looked for condoms and did not see them in use. In a number of cases, the business owners did not even supply condoms to their customers.

Hoffman asserts that once the zoning ordinance that restricts where porn businesses may operate in New York City is upheld, similar ordinances will sweep across America. Bill Andriette asserts in his introduction that the New York City ordinance will result in "gay bookstores with an erotica section, and bars that show porn on video monitors or that have go-go boys with hard-ons under their briefs" being closed. Dozens of American cities already have such ordinances. Boston has a "combat zone" because of such an ordinance. What is notable is that no queer community centers, bars, or bookstores have been closed under these ordinances.

I am partly responsible for forcing the Giuliani administration to inspect and close these businesses. I acted after I toured nearly sixty porn shops and sex clubs. The sex I saw was consistently unsafe. Someday Hoffman and his Sex Panic colleagues may produce something useful, but, to date, they have given us only shrill rhetoric, bad ideology, and now, outright lies.

Duncan Osborne

New York, New York

Giuliani's crusade against gay and adult businesses is certainly not a secret effort, nor does Hoffman suggest so. Giuliani made his war on such establishments the subject of his very first media advertising campaign for re-election last year. Many of the closures obtained were not under the health code, but under cabaret code violations, liquor code violations, zoning violations, or anonymous threats of impending closure due to any number of reasons. (Read about it in the book Policing Public Sex.) Most of these closures cannot be challenged in courts citing the health code, since the health code was never invoked.

New York City health code bars all sexual activity-- condoms or no condoms. It thus seems odd to have those who profess being motivated by HIV-transmission concerns to endorse a health code wherein the presence of condoms is deemed evidence of illegal activity (and thus actually discourages businesses from making them available). In fact, while unprotected anal sex is the alleged primary concern of gay men crusading with Giuliani, court records demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of closures have been based on incidents of oral sex, a form of safer sex that a rational civic policy would encourage, not criminalize.

It also seems curious to cite the existence of anti-gay, anti-sex ordinances in other cities as justification for such reactionary legislation in New York. Precisely because supposedly more cosmopolitan New York has adopted such a course is what makes the effect so chilling.

To suggest that "no queer community centers, bars or bookstores" have been closed by Giuliani is elitist. Sex clubs, peeps, and arcades are in fact vital "community centers," even if the mayor doesn't attend their openings with cameras and big donors in tow. And to think that somehow reputable queers (an oxymoron) will determine where the appropriate ghetto lines are drawn and what businesses are respectable enough to be tolerated is naive.

Giuliani would have us believe that his crusade against gay businesses distinguishes itself from homophobic and Puritanical antecedents by its motivation out of concern for gay men's lives. We believe this is a politically convenient lie designed to silence dissent, seduce approval-seeking collaborationists, and confuse the well-intentioned un-informed. We invite readers to consider both history and present-day events in making up their own minds.

Grand Caymans Phone Zap

Many in the gay travel industry have called for a boycott of the Grand Cayman Islands following their government's decision to ban gay and lesbian tourists.

Please call the Grand Cayman Islands Tourist Office (on their dime) at 800-346-3313 and tell them what you think about their government turning away gay tourists. Even if you weren't planning on a Caribbean vacation, every call to the Grand Cayman's tourism board costs them money. Explain why you are calling, and be polite-- 800 number holders sometimes get your home address and phone number!

Remember that a boycott is not a vengeful act, but a tool. At the other end of the telephone will be employees and residents of the Grand Cayman Islands, but not the person(s) directly responsible for the ban on gay tourism.

Mark Halle

Los Angeles, California

Porn Maker Wants Help

Thanks a lot for your positive and insightful review of my video Capital Assets [September, 1997].

I was glad to see that you picked up on what I was trying to accomplish. Despite my directorial talents, however, I had no technical background to make this video. So, for example, the opening scene was the first that I shot with my new camera. Not having the technical know-how, I shot all my footage on VHS. A lot of editing had to be done to get the final product on Super-VHS, so the copies do come out with that awkward color balance.

I am asking for your help to see if you know anybody out there who has the high tech equipment, and x-rated-friendly attitude, to do color enhancement or digital copying so that I could make cleaner copies. Any help from someone in Washington, DC, California, New York, Boston-- or wherever-- would be greatly appreciated.

Kevin Hall

jrh@tidalwave.net

Loyal Reader Wants Cyber Personals

I have always been a loyal reader of The Guide and have used your travel articles on my trips-- glad now to have such info available at your Internet site [www.guidemag.com].

I would like to know when you might offer the MaleBox personals on-line?

Jorge

sw74nq@intercable.net

Check out MaleBox on the web at www.guidemag.com now!

Web Site Makes Peter 'Nice Hard'

You're web page is great. It's done very well by giving all of the travel summaries from all past editions and including new stories.

I lived in Boston for many years, and have been reading (and buying) your magazine from back when it was just a local Boston magazine with a newsprint cover. You've come a long way. I've also met Matt [Mathrani] at some travel expos, too, and always enjoy seeing him and reading his articles. (I've been in the travel industry, and have done some extensive gay traveling, and always look forward to your travel updates.)

Please tell me who the blonde hunk is on the Web page cover which I presume is this month's cover. I'm going to go out to try to find it to have the paper copy, but I already do have him as my current screen saver. Yum. Is he a celeb or a local boy? Would love to meet him some time!

Peter

NiceHard1@aol.com

Sorry not to be able to help you immediately-- updates to our Web site occur on a different cycle than the print magazine, so our Web note about "This Month's Cover" can be misleading. A description of the lust-inspiring model from you might help us help you track him down; meanwhile, we'll look for less confusing Web text.

Yesterday's Pharisees, Today's Preachers

In the 50s preachers thundered, "God hates communism, it is our duty to destroy them." But the true God had another plan-- to free Soviet countries so people could be free to live their own lives.

In the 60s preachers thundered, "God hates civil rights advocates, it is our duty to jail them." But the true God had another way-- to free the black race in America so people could be free to live their own lives.

In the 70s preachers thundered, "God hates anti-war activists, feminists, and ecologists; it is our duty to silence them." But the true God had another way which was to use them as a voice of conscience, fairness, and planetary stewardship.

In the 80s preachers thundered, "God hates Democrats and liberals, it is our duty to vote Republican and usher in a Holy Capitalist Kingdom." They "talked God" but "worshipped money." But the true God said "love not the things in this world."

In the 90s preachers thunder, "God hates gays, it is our duty to punish them and drive them out of our land." But the true God's son said he comes "not to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

Here we have the evil of religion-- preachers who turn from preaching salvation to judging and condemning, casting the first stones. In doing so, they discredit the true gospel and bring judgement only on themselves.

Johnny Edward Mofield

Melbourne, Florida