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John
Ince
Sex:
what’s love got to do with it? What have politics, culture and
social conditioning? Not many in Vancouver have given as much
thought to such questions – nor done as much about them – as John
Ince, the lawyer, author, educator, entrepreneur and leader of the
Sex Party. He tells John MacLachlan Gray: ‘In my world, the sight
of a woman’s ankle can still be a sexual event.’
with
JOHN MACLACHLAN GRAY
There
is something peculiarly unsexy about Valentine’s Day – quite apart
from the fact that it commemorates a Christian martyr who was torn
apart with red-hot tongs. I know of no sexy Valentine’s Day songs,
whereas Christmas songs abound with double-entendre (Eartha Kitt’s
Santa Baby, for example).
I
suspect this is also because the Valentine greeting card was a
Victorian Invention; at no time did human beings make a greater
effort to separate sex and “love” as human concepts.
In an
effort to restore some balance, I decided to speak to John Ince,
the Vancouver lawyer, author (The Politics of Lust),
educator (The Erosha School of Erotic Massage), politician (as
leader of the Sex Party he ran for office in Vancouver-Burrard a
few years back), and as entrepreneur (a Vancouver shop and
potential franchise called The Art of Loving).
As a
lawyer, for years he has waged a war against Canada’s censorship
laws, and managed to defeat a 117-year-old law that prohibited
sexual material from entering Canada. As an entrepreneur/activist,
in 2003 he staged a show called Public Sex, Art and
Democracy that featured live sexual acts; despite threats from
Vancouver Police, no raid occurred and no charges were
laid.
The
Art of Loving greets you with that New Age aroma peculiar to human
potential bookstores, head shops and hippie crafts stores. To your
left, a reading area with a sofa, next to shelves of books covering
such topics as masturbation, fetishism and erotica and instruction
books on the female orgasm and oral sex.
Up a
couple of steps and you’re greeted by two emphatically wholesome
young women who make small talk about the weather but tastefully
refrain from asking you what you’re after. One of them is tinkering
with an electronic dildo called the Rabbit, evidently a big seller
after an appearance in Sex and the City. To your right, lacy
feminine attire, instructional videos, a selection of massage oils
and what might be termed novelty condoms. To your left, products
that remind you of a joke shop.
The
area in the centre seems almost entirely devoted to dildos of
various sizes, shapes and, to judge by the attachments, functions:
plastic dildos, electronic dildos, stainless steel dildos and a
crystal dildo costing several hundred dollars. Simulated female
parts, however, seemed in short supply, other than a couple of
flashlight-shaped contraptions designed to simulate feminine
openings, back and front.
Perhaps because I
couldn’t get those flashlights out of my mind, while speaking with
Mr. Ince I was surprised to encounter a complex, well-read man with
a deeply serious take on sex and its place in society – more
serious than anything in his shop.
John MacLachlan
Gray Most Canadian
public institutions were formed during the Victorian Era – and a
lot of our attitudes came with them – attitudes to crime and
punishment, the family, poverty, prostitution and especially sexual
mores. Is your erotic crusade really a crusade against Victorianism
in society today?
John
Ince No, Victorianism is
only a specific example of sex negativity. Hostility to erotic
expression is prominent in the Bible.
JMG Unlike
Canada, the USA seems to have formed its attitudes to sex in the
Puritan era – they not only disapprove of people who commit sexual
indiscretions, they have a need to publicly shame them, put them in
the stocks.
JI My key
argument is that erotophobia is a product of social hierarchy. The
more unequal the society, the more sexual fear exists within it.
That’s why the Catholic Church is more frightened of sex than the
Unitarians; why Saudi Arabia is more sex-negative than Sweden.
America is far more hierarchic than Canada; think big military, big
business, big fundamentalism. So America is a lot more erotophobic
than we are.
JMG You coined
the term erotophobia – what, exactly does it mean? What are
we afraid of? Intimacy? Shame? Loss of control? The
unknown?
JI I did not
coin the term. Social scientists did in the mid-1980s. It’s not
well-understood in the way that the gay movement gave homophobia
currency. Erotophobia is a lot like racism. A racist reacts to the
sight of a person’s skin colour. We know that is disordered because
there is nothing inherently threatening about skin colour.
Erotophobia is similar – a person reacts with alarm at the sight of
genitals. They see, say, a couple sunbathing nude in Stanley Park,
and they call the police. Then armed men force the sunbathers to
cover their genitals or be hauled off to jail. Just covering these
harmless body parts calms everyone down. That is phobic.
JMG What is your
view of the sexual mores of Asian and South-Asian Canadians? Do
many South Asians show up at your classes on Tantric
massage?
JI People from
patriarchal family structures tend to be more sex-negative than
those from more egalitarian families. Asian families can have rigid
roles for men, women and children and hence tend to be more fearful
and less adventurous about sex.
JMG So
you’re talking about some sort of power relationship that has been
internalized.
JI It’s
complicated. If you tell people there is this huge sexual fear
about, they’re like: “Excuse me, but we love sex. How could that
be?”
JMG For a
Victorian male, the sight of a woman’s ankle was a sexual
event.
JI In my world,
the sight of a woman’s ankle can still be a sexual
event.
JMG But you
don’t see many porn sites devoted to ankles. What I’m wondering is
if seeing a leg became an event because of the proscription against
it.
JI What happens
is that we eroticize the anxiety itself, so that it becomes a
trigger for sexual feelings.
JMG A survey by
The Georgia Straight indicated that 40 per cent of married
people (Georgia Straight readers at any rate) had been
unfaithful to their partners. To which you responded: “I think
there is a ton of evidence that human beings are genetically
non-monogamous.” Is there really?
JI Yes, lots
and lots of evidence of genetic non-monogamy. Biologists have found
almost no species that is truly monogamous. An illusion persisted
for years that certain species, like eagles, mate with one partner
for life. Now with DNA sampling, scientists know better. Extra-pair
couplings are almost universal across species.
JMG Are men
wired differently from women in this respect, or do they have
different tastes, or what? For example, we don’t see carloads of
female johns cruising the Downtown Eastside.
JI Most women
have 10 per cent of the testosterone of men. Testosterone
powerfully affects sexual drive. Just ask women who take high doses
of it for medical reasons. They often report a sudden desire to
shag the postman. The gender difference in our hormonal structure
alone ensures a significant difference in sexual
behaviour.
JMG When did you
first become immersed in sexual politics?
JI I first got
into sex-positive activism in 1982, fighting Canadian Customs
authorities in court. We won that case and the sex-repressive laws
were set aside as contrary to the Charter. I got involved in the
Little Sisters case, briefly, shortly after that.
JMG You
graduated law school in 1977. Had you already made a connection
between sex and the law?
JI Not really.
It was only after running into the bizarre incoherence of judges
and legislators about sex in actual cases that I made that
connection.
JMG Canada’s sex
laws are notable for their vagueness. Is this because the framers
wanted to hand maximum power to police, customs and postal
inspectors, or because they couldn’t bring themselves to be
specific?
JI Mostly the
latter. Erotophobia corrupts the ability to think clearly about sex
– the way that racism prevents clear thinking about race. It was my
discovery of that vagueness in the laws and the reasoning of judges
that started my career. I learned in law school that top legal
thinkers were incredibly precise, articulate and rational about
most legal issues. They had crafted an elegant body of law spanning
generations that was one of the great achievements of Western
democracy. I was amazed to discover that they lost this
intelligence when sex was the subject.
JMG Are you ever
confused with the John Ince who co-writes books on sea-kayaking?
Have you been in touch with him at all?
JI He is such a
hippie. Raving about the wondrous beauty of our coastline and how
it is best explored in the “people’s yacht.” I am jealous that he
got way more attention and sales writing about padding than I ever
did about sex. But I do see him frequently. In fact he inhabits my
body.
JMG Do you
consciously make a separation between the two John
Inces?
JI No, it’s
just that I wrote the book 20-some years ago. I had hair then.
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