Slate readers like the First Amendment and so do I

Wow. The readers of Slate totally do not agree with Robert Steinbuch. One, Merritt30, attacks the inanity of the whole "public disclosure of private facts" and one totally nails it on the head:

To my non-legal mind, at least, it seems like there is a crucial difference between Cutler describing something she may have heard about Steinbuch and something that she personally experienced with Steinbuch. She was not merely repeating gossip that she heard from a third party or describing something she had seen through a hidden camera; she was talking about her own experience.

It seems to me that one should be free to talk about one's own personal experiences pretty much without legal restriction (except perhaps if the event were specifically intended as a set-up to embarrass someone, e.g. a candid-camera type situation). Otherwise, say, it would be possible for an abuser to sue his victim if she were to publish an account of his "private" behavior. One's right to publish a memoir or autobiography of any sort would be in question.

And right below that someone basically asks why it's only political speech that gets the utmost protection. This is like with obscenity law where, in addition to meeting 2 other (also completely subjective - "community standards" and "patently offensive") tests, a work is obscene if it meets these criteria:

(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. If a state obscenity law is thus limited, First Amendment values are adequately protected by ultimate independent appellate review of constitutional claims when necessary. [Pp. 24-25.]

I know I was too stupid to make it through law school, but my book is still going to have a chapter called "In Defense of the Prurient Interest," because I have absolutely no idea, other than the total sex-phobia and sex-negativity and hypocrisy of our culture, why "sexual value" is not a value. Why we don't value arousal as much as we value literature, art, politics and science. Note I didn't say more than, but as much. But we don't, clearly, it's right there in the law and if you pay a scrap of attention to what's going on in the world, you'll see it there too.

And it reminds me of this case because talking about our lives, as people do every day, is not acceptable. Well, lock me right fucking up because I've disclosed private facts plenty of times. I've done it in the Voice and I've certainly told my friends intimate details about people I've fucked. Now, granted, telling my friends may not be private, but they could easily disseminate information to the effect of, "Hey, I know something about what this person does in bed." I talked about it at True Confessions Night. Yes, it's one thing for me to talk about my night of unprotected sex. Did I out the person? No. Would I by name? No. But as I polish that piece for publication, I have to give some details to make the story make sense, and someone might figure out who that person is and my response, ultimately, is what many Slate readers wrote: if you absolutley cannot stand the idea of people knowing about something you've done, don't do it.

That being said, I take my responsibility to the people I write about very, very seriously. I'm in the process of figuring out whether I'm even going to write about Friday night in my column. I want to, it's a great story and, paired with the porno cupcakes, would be really fun to tell, but if I have to leave out so many details I end up with just a very vague picture, I won't run it because it would be boring and pointless. So we'll see, and if I don't get to write about it, that's fine. I can always fictionalize it for an erotica story if I want to, or just not write about it. And believe me, the hottest sex, I either don't write about or use a pseudonym. Speaking of which, um, well, hot sex and cupcakes may be headed my way, and I'm both excited and utterly unprepared and overwhelmed, nervous and beyond excited. Pinching myself to make sure I'm still here kind of anticipation because surely afterwards I will just be able to die happy. And that really is all I can say on that note.

Back to the prurient interest question, I guess this actually is why I had to leave law school, even though that means I'll be bottoming to girlfriend Sallie Mae til I'm barren (well, hopefully actually just until 2008 or 2010 or something like that, but really, my best days are when I mail them huge checks, and will be until I see the number zero in my account). I just couldn't accept a lot of these totally ingrained biases in the law. I didn't like it and think that both Steinbuch's case and the whole three pronged test are utterly ludicrous. But I will write more about both of them in Sexual Freedom for All, don't you worry. For now, it's back to the ever-expanding to do list. Once I get through it, maybe I can kick my own ass and make my proposal into something an editor might want want to toss in the garbage can actually read.