Award-winning journalist talks Sex and Sexuality in a 21st Century America

Benoit Denizet-Lewis, the youngest contributing writer in New York Times Magazine history, began the 2006 Johnston Lecture by accusing the media of bad reporting on sex and sexuality in America. He attributes the poor coverage due to the nature and pressure imposed on journalists, especially newspaper writers, frequently results in articles that are shallow and poorly researched. A journalist working on a piece on escort service or sex addicts deems reading three or four articles on the subject as sufficient background research. One would then spend a couple of hours with the subjects before writing the article.

He raised America’s current hysteria with sexual predators. Before, the editors believed that what bleeds leads. Now, the lead story should be about the latest sex predator, such as the testimony of 19 year old Justin Berry before a committee of the US House of Representatives on his five years on the Internet in the child pornography business. In fact, he believes the impact of the Internet has been detrimental to sex and sexuality in America due to the proliferation and ready availability of pornography.

Denizet-Lewis said that he is thinking of writing a story on children as young as 10 who have told their parents about their homosexuality.

“The parents are horrified. Some kids feel they can come out at 10, 11 or 12 and be honest” he said. “Most people do have a sense of what they are before they have sex.”

He said that gay children have the confidence to out earlier now because of the constant talk of gay marriage. He is really excited that this will be the first generation to experience something that resembles a normal adolescence.

“They will date, get dumped and do all these sort of things in a healthy way where they are not like sneaking out in the middle of the night to get onto the Internet,” he said.

The Internet was the preferred medium of communications between gay children. First gay children used the Internet to find other gay children to talk to. He also points to the existence of gay children having chat rooms explicitly for such purposes in order for them not to be ashamed of their sexual orientation.

Denizet-Lewis, a San Francisco native, is the youngest person to speak at the Johnston Lecture, a Richard W. Johnston Project event, hosted by the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. Denizet-Lewis worked as a writer at Boston Magazine and as a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle after graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. He has won the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association Annual Excellence in Journalism Award and the New York Maggie Award for Best News Story.

Articles by Benoit Denizet-Lewis