I remember being once being told by a woman friend that she had discovered some male stranger sniffing her underwear, which had been freshly washed and was hanging out to dry in her yard. Although the behavior of the sniffer may seem strange enough itself, what was even more interesting to me was the way my friend felt threatened by the incident. It wasn't so much that she was afraid the guy might later come back and approach her in some less benign manner. She felt violated by what he had done. Although she could appreciate all the jokes being made by the group of friends she was telling about it, she was clearly outraged. She had decided to throw the underwear in question away. Apparently just rewashing it would not have been adequate. (The joking from her friends seemed to be a form of avoidance. In my experience, this use of joking to avoid serious discussion of sex is much more common from men than from women.)

This mixture of embarrassment and strong discomfort is very typical of our attitudes toward sex. In large part, the reason many of us want to keep our sexual activities and especially fetishes private is not so much because they are frightening and disgusting as just because they are so embarrassing, downright silly. Why would a grown man, for instance, be interested in something so childish as crawling around naked on the floor and barking like a dog?

But for that matter, why would two mature professional people sometimes talk baby talk to each other over the phone? Why are our sexual interests and behavior often so totally out of tune with the totality of who we are?

When the sexual part of the brain first becomes strongly activated by the hormones generated during puberty, this can be very disturbing, sometimes even frightening. It can be almost like being possessed by a powerful alien spirit, and furthermore a spirit that is in contradiction to those parts of oneself that one has worked the hardest to develop and that one values the most highly. I believe that this is in large part because of the failure, in our culture, of the sexual part of the brain to go through the proper developmental stages during the latency period to prepare it for puberty.

Many people go through life unwilling to accept this powerful and disturbing part of themselves. They want to pretend the erotic force doesn't exist. They want it to go away or at least only come out by appointment in private when one is with one's chosen mate. They are disturbed when they see it manifested by others and treat this as an indication of immaturity, lack of character, and even depravity.

Societal responses to inappropriate manifestations of sexuality are far more drastic than the responses to other, comparable violations of good taste or abuse of power. If I were to call my dean an asshole and spit in his face, if I were to bring a ghetto blaster to a faculty meeting and play rap music, if I were to light up a joint while teaching one of my classes, all of this would be regarded as extremely reprehensible and probably evidence of some kind of mental instability, but it would not evoke the sort of contempt that many people had for Peewee Herman after he was found masturbating in a porno theatre, an activity that was far from uncommon in that setting.

If a boss repeatedly keeps an employee late without paying him overtime, calls him a stupid motherfucker, or even punches him in the stomach, all this would be considered intolerable abuse but it would not evoke the same sort of censure that many had for Clarence Thomas after Anita Hill's testimony. It seems to me that there is a common attitude that people who have erotic urges, even without acting on them, are unfit to be Supreme Court justices, or be President, or even be teachers or doctors or .... In fact, what sort of job would people subject to erotic urges be fit for? Maybe it would be okay for them to be coal miners. Or lighthouse keepers.

People who manifest their erotic side seem a threat because we all have that part in us (some more strongly than others). We all sometimes have urges like those of Peewee Herman or (allegedly) Clarence Thomas, and we've had no education in dealing with them.

My erotic center knows nothing about the distinction between work hours and social hours. It doesn't know that it's supposed to play dead when a sexually attractive woman student comes into my office for help with her calculus. No, the urge is there. And nothing in a professor's training addresses the question of how to maintain proper behavior in spite of that urge. I'm self-taught in that respect and I think I've done a pretty good job in learning the necessary skills, but it can still be frightening to realize how easy it would be in just one moment of inattention to act according to impulse rather than self-control.

For a teacher to abuse his power by making sexual advances towards a student is reprehensible because it confronts her with a part of herself that she is not very comfortable with, a part that is not supposed to be present in an academic interaction. This makes it much more difficult for her to cope than if the teacher had abused his power in some other way -- for instance by asking her to pay $50 in order to take a make-up exam. In that case, she would probably have little fear and little trouble in complaining to the proper authority.

I believe that it is only by fully accepting that our sexuality is indeed an important part of who we are and integrating it into our total being that we can make sure that it is expressed appropriately and be comfortable in coping with the inappropriate behavior of others.