Pictures Must Be Released

America has the strangest perspective on sex. On one hand, we're horrified by it, scandalized whenever anyone's good judgment is overcome by passion -- Clinton's sexual misadventure is seen by many Americans as worse than Bush's slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents. On the other hand, we're obsessed with it. "Sex sells," we know, and so it's everywhere, from the movies to billboards, to department stores, everywhere.

Some argue that the naughtiness is what makes it good. This is a kind of extension of the school of thought that what the stripper leaves on is more important than what she takes off, the "leave a little to the imagination" school of thought. I tend to think this is a cop-out. Oh, it may be correct that teasing has its own kind of arousing effect, but I don't think this is really what the American state of sexual denial is really about. Repression doesn't make it better.

To tell you the truth, I don't think it's healthy. It seems to me that someday we've got to get over it, recognize sex as the part of human nature that it is, and learn to behave decently -- in harmony with our nature, not in opposition to it. This idea that we will white-knuckle reality as tightly as possible for as long as we can, and maybe somehow get through life without sinning too badly, just doesn't hold water.

The result, it seems to me, is that America has a dark side that it's hard to admit. Secrets we can't face.

Here's one. From Editor and Publisher:

NEW YORK A federal judge ruled today that graphic pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America's image. Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of "rape and murder" and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were "blatantly sadistic." Judge Orders Release of Abu Ghraib Photos

Look, nobody wants to see these. Nobody wants to admit they exist. This will not get any media attention. We want to believe that these kinds of things just don't happen, that good Americans don't behave like depraved monsters.

What is shown on the photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon has blocked from release? One clue: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images, "I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe." They show acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he added.

A Republican Senator suggested the same day they contained scenes of "rape and murder." Rumsfeld then commented, "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse."

The photos were among thousands turned over by the key "whistleblower" in the scandal, Specialist Joseph M. Darby. Just a few that were released to the press sparked the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal last year, and the video images are said to be even more shocking.

Look, we really do have to ask ourselves, why has this happened? Rape, I'm sorry to say, has always been part of war. But this isn't even that. This isn't "just" rape. This is depravity that far transcends rape.

The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are our neighbors and relatives. They're regular guys and gals from homes like ours, serving our country. So why have they behaved like this?

Of course we condemn it, but how do we understand it?

In the same period [Spring, 2004], reporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: "Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men ... . The women were passing messages saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.'

"Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out."

Why has this happened?

We have a lightweight local controversy here in Montgomery County, some people are afraid about what will be taught in a sex-ed class. But it seems obvious that our society needs to heal itself, we need to find balance, we need good comprehensive, unbiased education, just so we can learn to deal with sexuality as a natural part of life, so our society doesn't feel the need to express itself in these kinds of acts. You know I'm right about this.