Dr. Jill McDevitt, a local sexologist, was invited to Yale to speak to students about sexuality, but was met with an attack from every media available–newspapers, blogs, broadcasts, radios–and not for the first time.
McDevitt presented Yale students her seminar titled “Sex: Am I Normal?” at Yale University and was met with positive feedback from students and faculty. Her focus was differentiating between what is normal and what is normative. “As usual, my program was written about in the student newspaper and well taken,” said McDevitt. The student writer of the Yale Daily News chose to focus on McDevitt’s questionnaires that were part of the program, highlighting three particular questions about beastiality, incest, and accepting money for sex. The purpose of the questionnaire, said McDevitt, was not to label anybody, but to shed judgements and to participate in an anonymous environment. These three questions were a part of over fifty questions making up the whole of her seminar.
Unfortunately McDevitt’s purpose and words were skewed by a conservative blogger who called McDevitt up for an interview. “She called under false pretenses, stating that she was a reporter,” said McDevitt. The blogger, Katherine Timpf refused to hold back on writing her blog. The title of her blog was “Yale hosts workshop teaching sensitivity to beastiality.” Her lead informs readers that Yale held a “sensitivity training for beastiality, incest, and accepting money for sex.” Throughout the piece, Timpf slanders McDevitt and continuously puts her title as a sexologist in quotations–making it clear she doubted McDevitt’s credentials.
Timpf’s blog began a snowball effect, and soon major newspapers were writing their own stories on McDevitt. “No one called me for an interview. No one. The words in the papers were not mine. The only person who did call was Alan Colmes from Fox News Talk Radio.” And unfortunately, he also met McDevitt under false pretenses. On the phone he told her that they would interview her to get her side of the story, and allow her to speak. However, once she was in the radio station she received the same treatment as the news stations before from Fox’s talk show host, Sean Hannity. “He was bullying me. I attempted to stay positive and speak on what I was working on, but it was not working. He kept saying ‘come on, come on’ like a bully in the schoolyard. Eventually, I just hung up the phone,” said McDevitt.
There has been no positive news coverage on her seminar at Yale, except by Yale where the event took place–revealing that the outside news companies have chosen to deviate their sources from where the event took place in lieu of publishing opinions and reports from outside sources, reminding readers of their worst fear: propoganda disguised as news.
Yale has refused to comment. Consequently, McDevitt and Yale are facing headlines such as “What the Yale? Ivy league students admit to bestiality, desires about incest, during ‘Sex Weekend’ workshop” (NY Daily News), and “Yale students admit prostitution” (UPI.com) without any of the persons involved being quoted.
McDevitt stated that she has lost all trust to news organizations at this point. “Unless you are Oprah, I don’t want to hear from you,” she said jokingly. But on a more serious note, “After my experience in news, I do not believe a word in the papers. If a paper is claiming that someone famous said something, they didn’t. They make up whatever they want.”
When she first began her career as a sexologist, she met similar reactions. McDevitt graduated from college at age 21 ready to take on a mission that operates under “the premise that sex is fun, pleasure is good, and sexual violence must end” said McDevitt. She began by offering small seminars, using her home as an office. She discovered that “people want to pay for something tangible,” and McDevitt opened up her own business in West Chester. “I needed a town that had a walking community to earn my customers, so I chose West Chester.”
However, she was met with controversy. The borough council declined her a permit, stating that they had an “adult zoning ordinance” where nudity is prohibited. This infuriated McDevitt, who had no nudity in her shop. “Has Hooters ever run into an ‘adult zoning’ issue? No.” Quickly, the nearby Catholic Church, St. Agnes, caught wind of McDevitt’s plans and began a petition against her. They stormed into a council meeting to discuss the permit of McDevitt, 150 members of the church in total. “They weren’t calling for my death, but they pretty much did everything else,” recalled McDevitt.
The local media picked up the story, and very soon McDevitt had her own petition going. She had 400 people sign her petition, including people who didn’t desire to shop in her store. “What does it say about our town if she can’t keep this store?” said one resident, according to McDevitt. This news experience proved positive “West Chester, while a thorn in my side, has given me the gift of the microphone–sometimes on a national level,” said McDevitt. The council had created a new ordinance that will never allow another shop like hers to exist in the township. While the township may have successfully grandfathered McDevitt in, McDevitt states “Borough council has handed me a monopoly!”
Colleen Cummings is a second-year student majoring in English writings with minors in graphic design and journalism. She can be reached at CC763510@wcupa.edu.