C. Kendall

Educating gay male youth: since when is pornography a path towards self-respect?

SUMMARY In 2000, in the case of Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium, the Canadian Supreme Court was asked to determine whether gay male pornography violated the sex equality protections guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Throughout this case, gay male activists and academics emphasised the risk posed by antipornography legal strategies to the dissemination of materials intended to promote safer sexual behaviour. Other arguments were advanced that gay male pornography should not be restricted because it serves as a learning tool for young men and, in so doing, does much to reduce the alarming incidence of gay youth suicide. The author examines these assumptions within the context of the gay male pornography defended in Little Sisters. His conclusion is that the present gay male obsession with hyper-masculinity, best evidenced in the pornography now widely touted by some gay men as a source of gay male identity and freedom, undermines safer sexual practices and the self-respect needed to combat youth suicide. The author concludes that gay men must commit to a sexuality built on mutuality, respect and caring (i.e., an identity politic built around sex equality).