Dear Editor,

Thank you for your feature on “Love on the Line” [Gay and Lesbian Times issue #811, 7/10/03] concerning compulsive online sexual behavior. The article quotes a therapist in our community who questions whether compulsive sexual behavior should be considered a true addiction, or whether it is actually some other kind of problem. This distinction may be important for professionals and researchers, but it has little to do with the practical work that is being done in 12-step programs by people recovering from compulsive sexual behavior. The important issue is that some of us are unable to control our sexual behavior by ourselves, despite repeated harmful consequences and despite repeated attempts to moderate our behavior.

Many of us with compulsive sexual behavior problems are successfully recovering in 12-step programs. Your article mentioned Sexaholics Anonymous but did not mention Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA), a group where GLBT people may feel more comfortable. Anyone who believes that he or she may have a problem with his or her sexual behavior, whether related to the Internet or not, may call (619) 685-8540 to hear a recorded list of local SCA meetings. Information about SCA is also available at http://www.sca-recovery.org.

Name withheld by request

[Editor’s note: the following letter was received in response to a letter appearing in Gay and Lesbian Times issue #811, in which community member Robert Oaks informed The Center’s director of development that he was discontinuing his monthly contribution to the organization in response to The Center’s decision to require background checks or affidavit statements for its current and prospective board members.]

Dear Editor,

I completely agree with Robert Oaks’ comments about the inappropriateness of The Center’s requirement of a criminal background check and of the inherent homophobic message in such a request. I have spent many hours volunteering in every town and city where I have lived, but The Center really put me off. (I already have a criminal background clearance for my job, so there is nothing factual here at stake — The Center is simply being too intrusive and insulting.)

He chose to stop his regular contribution, and I chose to throw away the overly long and intrusive, as well as insulting, volunteer application they gave me. The policy needs to be re-thought, away from the present big-brother (or big-sister, or whatever) position.

My overall impression is “Just who do these people think they are?”

S. Johnson

San Diego

Dear editor:

I am writing this letter but am sure that you will not print it because you are a soul [sic] believer in Nicole, but I do want to express my opinion regarding his column in the GLT [issue #811, 07/10/03], where he states that he will not shop at Blair House because the owner had problems as executive director of one of our local AIDS agencies. I guess that if Rick Ford didn’t give him money he could not shop there. And does he forget all the years that he took money to support himself from all the benefits that he produced/emceed and kept? And all the money he took from our government as the WIFE of a service man, when it was not a real marriage? Come on GLT, Nicole does not sell your papers, and does not get you advertisers, she just intimidates the bar owners and tells them what to do. Please PRINT THE TRUTH.

John Murphy

Dear editor:

I want to strongly support Maria Plasencia’s letter [Gay and Lesbian Times issue #812, 7/17/03] detailing Wal-Mart’s abysmal corporate record, including “actively discriminating against all types of people.”

The issue for the LGBT community goes far beyond the necessity for coalition building, for LGBT people are in fact “all types of people.”

Plasencia points to the huge sex discrimination lawsuit currently facing Wal-Mart, where two-thirds of the hourly employees are female, only one-third of the store managers and less than 10 percent of store managers [sic].

Let’s never forget that lesbians are women — who face daily discrimination on both those counts. Of special interest to lesbians might be the sworn declaration showing that Wal-Mart managers have repeatedly told women employees that men “need to be paid more than women because they have families to support.” Or that women have been consistently discouraged from applying for jobs in sporting departments, meat departments and other areas dominated by men.

Whenever LGBT spokespersons hail the ending of some form of discrimination against us as gays (and, as Plasencia points out, that’s scarcely a slam dunk coming from Wal-Mart), we need at the same time to make emphatically clear — to our own communities, to the press, to everybody — that LGBT people are also women, people of color, disabled, low income people, and so we have a powerful stake in those forms of discrimination as well.

Cynthia Rich

San Diego