Book Review: One Nation Under Sex

NOTE:  This book review was published in the June 2011 Blade.

Sex and McCarthyism: America’s GLBT Witch-Hunt

Book Review: One Nation Under Sex by Larry Flynt and David Eisenbach

by Lyn Jensen

Republicans have been using homosexuality as a political football only since the McCarthy era, so argue Larry Flynt and David Eisenbach in their recent book, One Nation Under Sex.

“We really do believe there is an all-powerful force which shaped our nation. That force is sex,” the authors declare in their introduction, and proceed to lead readers through a history of America as viewed through its major sex scandals.

In the nineteenth century the possibility of a politician being anything other than heterosexual was not a bar to obtaining high office, demonstrated by several examples of early presidents and vice-presidents. Flynt and Eisenbach carefully document their assertion that “James Buchanan, the only bachelor president, fell in love with Alabama politician William Rufus King, the only bachelor vice-president” (although they did not serve at the same time).

Andrew Jackson called them “Aunt Fancy” and “Miss Nancy,” common nineteenth-century terms indicating gay men. Aaron Brown, a governor of Tennessee, referred to them as “Buchanan and his wife.”

After Buchanan became president, his niece and King’s niece tried to cover the relationship by burning the men’s letters but, as the authors point out, “fortunately they missed a couple, and they are very revealing.”

As to why the relationship was never exposed for others’ political gain, the writers suggest that in the nineteenth century such relationships were “unspeakable” and “unprintable.” This must be only part of it, however, for obviously many powerful men were aware of Buchanan’s private life but allowed him to become president. Lincoln also showed evidence of being what the authors describe as “sexually complicated.”

Only during the Red Scare of the 1950’s did Joseph McCarthy and the Republican party turn gays into as much of a perceived “national security threat” as Communists. J. Edgar Hoover, with his secret FBI files, also did his part to make homosexuality the wedge issue in American politics that it remains to this day. The irony and tragedy is that McCarthy and Hoover were most likely closet cases, politicizing the issue to turn attention away from themselves.

Nation describes how Eisenhower, a Republican, signed a law that made “sexual perversion” a bar to federal service, and how, during the Cold War, the State Department fired many more homosexuals than Communists. Well into the 1960’s the department made yearly appearances before Congress to reveal how many homosexuals it fired, somehow using it to justify appropriations.

“After all, there were few Communists in government but there were plenty of homosexuals,” the authors note. The McCarthy era may be over, but Republican extremists are still inflicting a McCarthy-like witch-hunt upon the GLBT community.

Vintage Manga Review: Death Note

This review is updated and revised from one that originally appeared May 12, 2006, in LA Alternative.

What would you do if you held the power of life and death over every person in the entire world?  What if you could knock someone off just by adding a name to a death list?  According to Japanese folklore, such power resides in a list held by a shinigami, a death spirit.  A human who holds such a list holds a death spirit's power, but must pay a price.

Such is the premise of Death Note, one of the most popular of 21st-century Japanese media franchises.  It began as a Shonen Jump series in 2003 and after jumping across novels, anime, movies, video games, collectables, and even yaoi knock-off's, remains a best-selling manga.  A too-smart-for-his-own-good student (Light Yagami--his first name is often pronounced "Raito") and a rebellious shinigami team up to rid the world of evil criminals.  Soon international law enforcement catches on that a telekinetic murderer is loose, so a boy-genius detective known only as "L" is put on the case.  (He guards his real name to keep from falling into the killer's clutches.)

While the media closely watches the "Kira" case ("kira" is a Japanese variant of "killer") the two boy geniuses engage in a fatal war of wits and wills over whose brand of justice will prevail.  Repeatedly over 12 volumes, human logic clashes with supernatural intrigue.  In the manga series, Yagami outwits L and his own father but not the shinigami.  In the movie he outwits none of them.  This is one heavy mind-blowing Goth-flavored manga series targeted to older teens and adults (making it something of a departure from the standard Shonen Jump fare aimed at young teens).

As manga, Death Note is a collaboration between Takeshi Obata, whose artwork takes on a darker and more Gothic look than his previous hit Hikaru No Go, and Tsugumi Ohba, who wrote the story as a suspense thriller.  Ohba includes a cryptic line in one biographical note about "holding knees in a chair," perhaps indicating the eccentric "L" character, who famously sits that way, is intended as a self-portrait. 

Nine years after the first publication, the Death Note franchise remains very much alive.  The English-language manga published by VIZ for the American market remains a steady seller, comparable to Yu-Gi-Oh.  With such an enormous and long-lasting international hit, it's possible some American producer or publisher may find a market for an orginal English-language production.  Even the Japanese movie's score indicates the extent of international appeal--the Red Hot Chili Peppers offered to do the music and got the job.