In yesterday's blog I mentioned that I was the subject of a documentary film. The film was about the history of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.
I was involved with the predecessor of the Institute while I was business manager of Glide Memorial Church. The predecessor was the National Sex and Drug Forum which became the National Sex for Forum.
The movie is about the founder and hero of American human sexual education: Ted McIlvenna and his wife Vinny. Ted is the man who really made gay sex publicly acceptable. You will learn this when you see the documentary. Ted brought the lawsuits that stopped the entrapment of gay male prostitutes. Most of all Ted and the many people he worked with taught tens of thousands of doctors and ministers what human sexuality is about.
Ted made the training films that allow the helping professions to talk to and listen to gays with problems. And to listen to people dealing with the whole range of human sexual behavior.
I am in several films and one photo book about masturbation.
Making the documentary reminded me that I played a constructive role in the history of opening American sexuality. I funded Coyote the prostitutes union and helped organize it. I funded the first sex information hotline and was actively involved in it. I sponsored work on transgender medical practices and did research in that field. I was on the credentials committee that authorized the first doctorate degrees from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.
I was the first paying member of and active supporter of the the Bisexual League.
I was the first person to sell cock rings in the United States. I read about their use in Mongolia in the quarterly tribal orgies. So I made some out of Velcro and sold them by mail. My main promotion was in the hippie newspaper where I asked Dr. Hip, the public sex authority of his era, Eugene Schoenfeld, to review them.
To me, there should be an extra-large palace in heaven for Ted McIlvenna and the people who worked at the Institute for the work they did in helping bring sexuality and explicit touching to open up the subject of sex for the disabled.