From the ‘Has-Alexander-The-Great-Heard-Of-This’ file: The Chicago Tribune (11/13) has a little item from Athens, Greece. Greek TV is quite tolerant of nudity and sexual content but a private TV station has been fined $116,000 for its ‘vulgar and unacceptable’ scene of two men kissing.
From the ‘Lets-See-What-They-Leave-Out’ file, USA Weekend, the Sunday magazine of the Chicago Sun-Times (11/19) reports a movie about the life of Alfred Kinsey, the University of Indiana sex researcher. Liam Neeson will star as Kinsey and the director, Bill Condon, says the film is ‘ … about sex, so it can’t help but be funny.’ Kinsey’s reports high-lighted premarital sex, masturbation, S&M, and homosexuality among other topics. And Kinsey himself, contrary to ‘proper’ social scientific research methods, was not loath to join in the observed behavior, including gay sex. How much of this will be in the final cut?
From the ‘If-They-Can’t-Get-Married-And-Have-Offspring-It-Ain’t-Adultery’ file: The Chicago Sun-Times (11/8) tells us the New Hampshire Supreme Court said that a married woman who has sex with another woman was not committing adultery because: A) Webster’s dictionary’s definition of the word mentions intercourse, and B) an 1878 case referred to adultery as intercourse from which spurious issue may arise.’
The New York Times (11/13) provides its own name for the file: ‘So-A-Guy-Walks-Into-A-School-In-A-Skirt.’ One Kevin Dougherty, 15, has been a legalistic thorn in his school’s side for some time: asked to do a political cartoon for a civics class, he captioned a picture of a Roman Catholic priest with ‘Reach out and touch someone.’ Zero on project. In Homecoming Week, asked to come as someone famous, he came as Hitler. Had to alter costume. On Halloween he came in a floral conservative skirt, matching scarf, pantyhose, and makeup a la a middle-class, middle-aged housewife. Sent home. At which point the Civil Liberties Union sent the school a letter saying Kevin’s ‘expressive conduct’ was ‘squarely, within the protection of the First Amendment.’ This is all headed to the courts and one anticipates a really spectacular graduation several years from now.
From the Chicago Sun-Times (11-9), the file name says it all: ‘The-Cretinous-British-Royal-Family-Especially-Prince-Charles-Denies-Closeted-Sex-With-Male-Servant-Because-Everyone-Knows-He-Has-A-Really-Ugly-Girlfriend-But-We-Can’t-Say-This-Because-Of-The-British-Libel-Laws-But-We’re-Denying-It-Anyway-Because-He’s-Not-Not-Not-Gay’ file.