In my years traveling and writing as Libidot, Josephine Ho is one of the friendliest and most articulate people to come across my path. She is a woman-warrior who works as full professor in the English department of Taiwan's National Central University, where she founded the Center for the Study of Sexualities in 1995. Ho's Sex Center is a vibrant academic and activist institute that archives information, assists sexual minorities, invites scholars, and organizes conferences on all things sexual, including gay/lesbian and transgender. In Taiwan, everybody knows Josephine Ho and everybody has an opinion about her. From the first day of my arrival in Taipei, several academics tell me how Ho messes with the 'superior status' of the academic professor in Taiwanese society. My meetings with Ho tells me that she leads a very important fight against oppressive sexual values and a present pervasive assault on academic freedom. This is not a Taiwanese story but one about the damaging side-effects globalization, as cultures globally are fed by mass hysterias about sex and universities decide to silence their freethinkers.

Ho answers my question with a fiery soul. She is a positive and friendly presence. A warm person with a good sense of humor, she shares enticing stories about Taiwan's sex history, offering lunch, lengthy discussions and a pragmatic attitude about her own plight. Ho is a sensitive woman with balls. Her statements about globalization and the future of sexual politics are often pessimistic yet elucidating -- straight to the point. One can find a breather from the discreet bourgeoisie in her Sex Center, a nice and cozy room painted purple and pink, with a heater and coffee, sexy visuals on the walls and tables. The Sex Center is also huge collection of binders with newspaper clippings, a collection of publications on new sex issues, and colorful educational bulletin boards with pictures and stories. Finally, The Sex Center is a progressive web site with plenty of information about sexuality, including the fatal hyperlink to images of 'animal love' (bestiality).

After Ho got sued over these images, she was asked by the university to remove all the information about 'sexual emancipation' from her site and keep it within the boundaries of 'strictly academic.' This is a particularly grim situation for academic work and the future of the Internet, as university administrations will likely submit to the pressure of aggressive moral crusaders. In June 2003, Ho was accused by an alliance of fourteen organization of distributing obscene images through the Sex Center web site. Even though the bestiality images were only available by means of an hyperlink, and were but a small detail in this large academic archive about sexuality, they were sufficient reason for Ho's enemies to start an ugly fight and try to remove her from her position. It is really unclear how she is going to survive these attacks in court and at which point academic free speech will be part of the discussion. The interview below explains Ho's case in closer detail and contextualizes the case in reference to current censorship debates and the current workings of the Sex Center.

Libidot:

I think I first heard about you and your work through the online mailing list 'Whorenet,' an international network organized by activist sex workers. Are you a member of Whorenet?

Ho:

Yes I am. It just so happens that I am about to write an entry to Whorenet about our Taipei contribution to the December 17th International Day to End Violence Against Sexworkers, an action to commemorate the victims of the Green River serial killer, a ' respectable, normal-looking, middle-class' man who had killed at least forty-eight prostitutes or women who looked like prostitutes. For a long time, the police refused to believe that he had committed those crimes, but they finally nailed him down as he recently confessed where he had discarded the bodies of those women that he raped and choked to death. Whorenet has been organizing an international day of action in quite a few cities in the US and Europe too. The Sexworker's Rights Group in Taipei and other marginal groups organized a direct-action event on December 17 at the exact hour when many other groups all the world were also remembering that incident. We gathered about thirty people in a small temple in Guang-Zhou Street, an area of Taipei where a lot of street sexworkers are located. We gathered there and we told the story of the Green River serial killer and explained the international nature of the event. Then one of the Taipei ex-licensed prostitutes sang a song to tell of the lives of prostitutes in Taiwan. A daughter of a prostitute spoke about her discovery of her mother's career and how she felt that there was nothing to be ashamed of. Then there was a neighbor who lived in that area who came forth and talked about sex workers in her neighborhood and how she thinks it is alright, as it is their way of making a living and she doesn't find fault with that. Then I read a poem written by US sexworker Daisy Anarchy about sexworkers' need of respect and safety and dignity. Then we held candles and walked toward the local police precinct, demanding that they take better care of the street prostitutes. The police was quite angry at the presence of the crowd for if a crowd gathers in front of a police station, that usually means a challenge to state power and they don't like that. There was a brief confrontation and they were trying to disperse us. They brought out a sign that said: 'This is an illegal gathering. If you don't disperse, we will take the leader into custody.' We then moved to another street corner to continue our vigil and talk about how important it is to maintain safety for prostitutes.

Libidot:

What is the status of sexworkers in Taiwan? Do they have licenses to do their work or are there any organizations to protect them?

Ho:

Sex work is now almost totally illegal here. There are only a few very small pockets of prostitutes who still hold their licenses in the not-so-metropolitan cities in Taiwan, and even they are under pressure to lose their licenses. Everybody else is working illegally and if they get caught, they can be put away for three day's detention under the present law. Because of the illegal status of sex work, prostitutes are subjected to a lot of violence, extortion, harassment, and even rape.
We do have a small sexworkers' organization that grew out of the 1997 prostitutes' uprising, which took place when the mayor of Taipei, Chen Shui-Bian who is now our current president and represents the ruling DPP (Democratic Progressive Party), decided to revoke their legal licenses. The DPP had been known as a traditionally male-oriented party, and Chen was trying to appeal to the women's groups and women voters by promoting middle-class values such as 'rescuing' women from the sex industry and putting them into other 'respectable' businesses so that they would not disturb family values. That was his ploy to get the approval of the middle-classes and it really worked. The religious women's groups, specifically christian and catholics groups, have been promoting the same conservative middle-class values and they strongly supported the city government in the abolition of sex workers' licenses in 1997. By the way, they are also the same groups that are prosecuting me right now.
To go back to 1997, one hundred and twenty-eight licensed prostitutes took action by going to the city Hall in Taipei demanding their right to work. This was the first time that they came out in the open as a collective force. They petitioned on a daily basis for almost a year and the city council finally decided that they could continue working for two more years. After that, their licenses would be revoked and they would have to terminate their work. The sex workers have been working underground for three years now, which makes their profession much more difficult. For instance, they cannot go to the police if a client refuses to pay or when a client applies force to them during transaction. The DPP is a so-called progressive political party and they promote freedom of 'political' speech, but they have been making a lot of backward moves when it comes to the freedom of 'sexual speech.' They are prohibiting any speech that affirms sex work, claiming that it would confuse the values of teenagers and children. And there is a rigidifying tendency in monitoring sex-related information, i.e., sexual information is allowable only when it adheres to middle class marriage-oriented values. Actually they would prefer that teenagers do not come into contact with sexual information or sexual behavior at all--such is the discreet charm of our bourgeoisie.

Libidot:

Do you believe that this a development that is taking place in other cultures besides Taiwan?

Ho:

Yes, we are living in quite conservative times. But I think Taiwan is much more vulnerable to the sway of conservative politics right now, because Taiwan is dying to achieve world recognition of its nation-state status. In other words, Taiwan is trying to achieve morally what it cannot achieve politically. The desperate need for nation-state status is now pushing this country to reach for a higher moral ground, I would say, probably higher than any other nation. We have very rigid laws regarding sex-related representation, discourse, and behavior and with quite severe punishments. So we are living in a strange atmosphere. Whereas some rights in relation to politics are becoming more accessible, other rights in relation to sex rights have suffered oppressive measures. The government has recently instituted a law for referendums so that one day, if needed, it could hold a referendum about the issue of obtaining nation-state status. We are hoping that while the government is intent on using the referendum for nation-state status issues, we could also use it to open the door to decisions on a whole range of other issues. So we are hoping to include other questions and debates into the referendum, including the question of whether or not we should decriminalize or legalize sex work. If we could have a referendum about that question, it would dilute the strictly nation-oriented nature of the upcoming referendum. After all, politics should include sex politics.

The conservative tendency in regard to sexual matters in Taiwan also involves other larger forces at work. Within the general trend of globalization, the Unites Nations and many international NGO' s have been trying to establish new strategies for global governance on issues such as children' s rights, women's rights, sex work, pornography, and sex trafficking. They are hoping that the whole world would abide by their set of rules and moral values. These international NGOs work with local NGOs to push for legal reforms that would promote their conservative moral-sexual values through instituting new standards into the legal system. For instance, right now in Taiwan it is prohibited by law to say anything positive in the public about the merits of sex work and sex workers. The law says that such statements would mislead children and teenagers into practicing sex work itself, which is a felony punishable with up to five years imprisonment! In that sense, the law practically rules out any positive statements about sex work or sex workers.
A second trend that contributes to a rigidifying sex atmosphere is a new kind of subjectivity that is being created around parental power, as parents try to compensate for whatever power and control they have lost in the process of modernization. There is an abstract notion of omnipotent parental power that says: 'We need to watch whatever is happening in society in order to protect our children.' A purity campaign is now underway to clean up TV programs, getting rid of any liberal sounding talk shows. Another one is cleaning up the internet, getting rid of any licentious graphic representations. And when parents speak on behalf of their children, there seems to be a certain moral righteousness that is hard to resist.

Libidot:

That definitely comes out in recent child porn debates globally, which dictates that any discussion of porn and sex should be framed around the position of children as potential victims or consumers. Do you also feel the influence of 'superpowers' such as the United States whose government is pushing porn markets and conservatives sex politics at the same time?

Ho:

Yes. I believe that the concepts of 'pornography' and 'children' need to be thoroughly reexamined when people resort to these new conservative values. In the past, nation-state governments have been primarily formulating rules around values in regard to national security. Now that we live in a 'democracy' and are part of international political debates, a different card is being played by politicians, that of children and generational politics. In Taiwan, generational politics has risen to the very top and become even more important than gender politics. With raging feminist debates over sexuality and sex work, the differences among women have become well-known and gender can no longer be considered a problem-free concept. But what is left mostly unexamined is the concept of children. In Taiwan today, when you talk about the protection of children, nobody will dare to say anything critical about it, perhaps except a handful of us.

Libidot:

Is that also one of the problems in your approaching court case? Could you explain your case to me?

Ho:

Well, in June of 2003, fourteen (!) so-called NGO organizations in Taiwan jointly filed a legal complaint against me for disseminating obscenities. Half of those groups are christian and catholic religious women's groups that have been working to 'protect children' and have been debating me on issues in relation to sex work since 1997. The religious women's groups had previously gathered in November 2001 to complain to the Ministry of Education about the 'Enjo-Kosai' (Japanese for compensated companionship) page on our website that posted many articles criticizing and ridiculing their condemnation of such casual and part-time sex work popular among the young. But we believe instead of the police entrapping those who seek sexual contact through the internet, people should be left alone unless they were really caught with their pants down. Negotiations on the internet themselves, or posting such messages, should not be considered a crime. Yet between 1999 and 2001, over a thousand such cases were convicted. As we criticized such a law and such expanded execution of the law, the groups proclaimed that I was ruining the work they have been doing with teenage girls. That incident made my university require that our website be removed from the university network, forcing us to pay for commercial space in order to put up our academic website.

Then in April 2003, the catholic Good Shepherds Sisters were tipped off by a dirt-seeking journalist that she had found some graphic pictures of bestiality on the 'animal love' webpage on the academic website for sexuality studies that I had built for our Center for the Study of Sexualities. The journalist had wanted to hear what the sisters had to say so that she could make a sensational report on it. As expected, the sisters were furious and quickly called together the other religious women's groups and claimed that I was circulating obscenities and pornography through my website, that these can hurt children as anybody can have access to those pictures. In June 2003, the religious women's groups rallied parental groups and censorship groups into filing the formal legal case. The prosecutor held two investigative hearings in September and, despite the evidence and arguments that I presented, decided that there was enough evidence for prosecuting me for the dissemination of obscenities. The first court date has been set to be Jan. 16, 2004.

As to the graphic pictures in question, they belong to a US bestiality website for which we had made a hyperlink to one of its posting pages so as to demonstrate the anatomical possibility and variety of bestiality. Our academic website was very well developed and was accumulating information to build webpages for about fifty varieties of sexualities, including sexwork, pornography, surrogate motherhood, fetishism, necrophilia, incest, pedophile and bestiality. We were developing this archive because I think that people in Taiwan are generally quite naive about sexuality, thinking that it is merely the missionary-style of bodily act between a man and a women (his wife mostly). So the pages would present serious articles as well as news stories about each variety of sexuality. Some of the topics were more developed than others, depending on the information that was available to us. The webpage on bestiality, or what we call 'animal love,' contained a dozen or so articles detailing philosophical debates or literary/cultural texts of bestiality. On the bottom of the page, in order to demonstrate the possibility of bestiality, we included a hyperlink to a photo-album on a US bestiality site, when clicked would show the discouraging words alternative pictures of animal love, those who do not favor it need not enter. Only when further clicked would the viewer reach the other end of the hyperlink.
Interestingly, at the hearing, the staff of the Good Shepherds Sisters said that she found the pictures by following the journalist's instructions to click on certain choices on the many pages she encountered. In fact, she did not even bother to look at anything other than the instructed choices, not even all the articles on the bestiality page, not even all those website choices that bear titles such as pornography and pedophile. They just one-track-mindedly followed the journalist's instructions. That is why I felt totally absurd when I heard them say that they were worried that since the webpage material is so 'readily available' to all, that kids would come into contact with these graphic pictures and would be misled into bestiality.

Libidot:

Is that the main counter-argument that you are using in your defense, i.e. that web users cannot approach these pictures out of context?

Ho:

Absolutely! They paid no attention to the context in which the issue of bestiality is discussed and presented. To them, anything graphic that has to do with sex is considered 'pornography'; in other words, sex should not have any representation. And if that were true, then the whole academic fields of sexology, urology, gynecology, obstetrics, or sexuality studies would be pornography. The second thing is that we were not 'displaying' those pictures; we were merely providing a hyperlink to a webpage in the US. A viewer will have to make the decision to click on it to see the link. We are not 'disseminating' the link either; we had never advertised the link nor sent the link to anyone. As an academic site, only those who are interested in research would seek us out. And thirdly, our Constitution says that there is freedom of research, freedom of teaching and freedom of education. That freedom must be respected. I am very well-established academically in this country in the field of sexuality studies. These images constitute just one element of my work and are part of my huge databank. If they think certain sexualities are off limits for academic studies, I would like the court to rule on that and see how that stands up against the constitution.

Libidot:

So what do you think is going to happen in court?

Ho:

According to Taiwanese legal statistics, if you are prosecuted, there is a 90% chance that you will get convicted. This is because our legal system is built in order to protect itself. I have a good lawyer who can help me but I am actually waging the war myself, because I know the most about my web site and about sexuality studies. I will try to prepare statements whenever I go to court so that I can turn this case into an opportunity for social education. And if I lose on the district court level, I will certainly appeal. If I lose again, I will file a case with the supreme court, demanding that the judges of the supreme court explain the constitution decree of freedom of research and speech. This does not just concern me, but concerns the future of the Internet, the future of sex research, the future of freedom of speech. If my case goes down, that means sexual issues on the Internet will enter a deep dark winter period. It is indeed a historical case and I will have my arguments ready. I will fight. But the judges do not really understand the Internet and see it as a real world. They think that anybody who turns on a computer immediately sees those images.

Libidot:

Just like John Ashcroft in the USA wants to uphold COPA (Child Online Protection Act) arguing that all minors and children automatically get exposed to pornography on the Internet. Do you feel that there is at least a healthy discussion going on of all these Internet-related issues?

Ho:

No, people are actually not discussing it much. Sex-related issues and controversies carry the weight of a huge stigma that makes it difficult for people to speak up. That's why obscenity sweeps can be waged by the most despicable politicians, because most people would not dare stand up for the stigmatized people and businesses. The moral halo on the heads of the religious women's groups in this case has already helped them get a lot of laws passed that infringe on people' s freedom. The censorship and parent organizations, on the other hand, are actually the same bunch of people who have been very eager to control print material, in particular romance novels and comic books. When the news broke around my case, you can just feel the atmosphere around you freezing up, as if you have suddenly become a disease-carrier. And I think that's part of the goal of the religious women's groups. They have a common interest in keeping sex-relation information out of this world, but I have been the most outspoken critic of their obscurantism and sex-negativism. So they wanted to damage my credibility and social influence and the hyperlink is also just a triggering point. It is most heart-warming that at these difficult times, it is the sexually marginal groups, the gays and lesbians and sex workers and HIV,groups and many other nameless individuals, that have stood up to support me.

Libidot:

Are your colleagues and the president of National Central University reacting to international pressure, e.g. the petition that has been going around at www.gsrat.org?

Ho:

International response has been overwhelming and I am deeply grateful for the support that has come from academics and activists alike. I don't know how much impact it would have on the university, but having such support has helped affirm the importance of this issue and hopefully it will do some good for the case too. Fortunately, my own academic record is immaculate, as I am one of the best teachers around and I have one of the longest lists of researches and grants. I am elected to numerous committees on different levels of the university structure as I am quite active and responsible in university affairs. Ironically, even someone as academically accomplished as I am could still suffer such defamation; it only goes to show how tremendous the power of sexual stigma is! This case will be a test of how people see this situation. If people feel strongly enough about it, they will come forth and fight for this case because it concerns them as much as it concerns me. I am more interested in seeing how people are changed by this fight. I would like to see more people, esp. internet users, rise to the task and defend their freedom.

Center for the Study of Sexualities http://sex.nc.edu.tw

Katrien_Jacobs@emewrsPetition in support of Josephine Ho http://www.gsrat.org/eng/eindex.html

Libidot's travels can found at http://www.libidot.org