Readers of our November issue will recall that we provided a preview of two “academic” conferences that took place recently at the State University of New York at New Paltz, “Revolting Behavior: The Challenges of Women’s Sexual Freedom” on November 1 and “Subject to Desire: Refiguring the Body” the following weekend. In the event, both conferences generated enormous public outcry, and with good reason. Masquerading as exercises in innovative scholarship, they were really celebrations of sexual perversity laced with antinomian politics. “Revolting Behavior” included sessions devoted to subjects like “Sex Toys for Women,” “How to Get What You Want in Bed” (an “interactive workshop”), “Queer Sexuality: A Spectrum of Women’s Experience,” and “Safe, Sane & Consensual S/M: An Alternate Way of Loving.” “Subject to Desire” offered similar fare, includin ...

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